One of my pet peeves about conferences is that they’re so damn big that you can quickly lose people in the crowd. My favorite activity is to find friends and compare notes about sessions that we’ve attended and about ideas for the coming year.

None of this collaboration works well if you can’t find the people you want to compare notes with. Even entering the keynote sessions I’ve found it difficult to locate people in the sea of faces (over 2,000 people are expected at Insights).

This year I’ve started a test group to collaborate in real time using Google Wave to collaborate on Sage Insights sessions. So far we have 60 87 people who’ve joined our Insights Google Group.

Using Google Wave, anyone who is a member of the group can join, read, create and edit the notes that others take during the sessions. Have a question for another participant? Google Wave is a great place to ask other participants. Have an observation or question during the keynote? You’ll be able to share that with the group as everyone jointly creates notes and shares their thoughts on Wave.

This is strictly an unofficial group – Sage is not sponsoring it or endorsing it – though we invite them to steal the idea and improve upon it for next year’s conference.

You can take a quick peek at the main Insights 2010 Wave or join in the fun using these instructions to join the Sage Insights 2010 Google Wave. Or if you prefer you can follow the Twitter feeds (over 120 users) who will be at Insights and Twittering about the happenings by viewing our Sage Insights 2010 Twitter Feed Group.

I really enjoy reading your posts and observing how you are leveraging social media. You have presented yourself as an expert on many topics–good for you!

I am interested in learning more about how you are using social media in your business. Do you currently promote products through Facebook, twitter and other forums? If so, I would really like to talk with you about the metrics you watch and time you dedicate to contributing and responding in these forums.

Thanks again for sharing your articles.
While I don’t think I have any unique answers to this question — it is one that I get quite a bit and perhaps by sharing my response I’ll provide value to someone else who is wondering about the same thing. Namely – how does all this Social Media fit into business and can you make any money at it (and how??).

My Response:

Hi -

We’re lifestyle consultants over here — that means we earn more money than awards….;-)

Almost all of our marketing is to existing users and “our end” (aka – why we are doing this and how we monetize it) of the marketing is to offer both project work and ongoing support plans to existing “A list” users of MAS90 or MAS200. Selling our services is the most profitable business line for us to be in.

Another reason I use social media is that I’m a terrible salesman. If people didn’t come to me I would starve….

We probably turn away 6 to 10 people every month who want to ask a quick question or pay only for 15 minutes of our time.

In a good month we’ll bring on 3 or 4 MAS90 phone support clients at $2,800 each and usually a project to go along with it. This does not happen every month (certainly not in summer) but it isn’t out of the ordinary – especially during times when Sage issues upgrades, etc.

We don’t take on existing users who are looking for free quick questions or for pay per call type support. I don’t see any business model in that and have found those types of customers to be very disloyal and resource hogs (to put it candidly).

Social Media is one component (not the only) that helps to establish us as experts that a user should feel comfortable writing a check to without a lot of back and forth sales discussions. So far this works well.

Time estimates and measurement?

Really the only measurement I’m doing now is Google Analytics to measure page growth.

I also run an email newsletter that publishes twice per month and goes out to 2.200+ subscribers. This is VERY effective in obtaining new clients.

I can’t say whether Facebook or Twitter are going to attract any particular business. My gut feel is they are a part of a way that prospects expect you to communicate — and not an entire marketing program in themself.

I’m Senior Editor at Geardiary.com which I blog for from 4:30 to 8:00 7 days a week. This is where I learned WordPress and the art of generating and posting my own unique content.

Until recently the concept of blogging for VARS was unheard of. Now you see some big ones get involved and I think you’ll see a lot more. Most of them struggle mightily with the concept of finding something worthwhile to write regularly about.

The biggest issue with VAR bloggers is they think the same 15 articles about “why you should use ____ ” is a pretty good article inventory….and they write the same damn ones over and over. B-O-R-I-N-G…

With respect to time commitment it’s a matter of re-using content whenever possible and getting good at the tools needed to post. So much of what is available online will cross post to other blogs — and Twitter serves as a good source — that once you leverage these tools it make the time a little less.

I blog probably 4 to 5 hours per day — counting geardiary.com

Wayne