Lecturing at SCU: online social networking as a contemporary business practice

Name a company, professional person, business or brand that you follow on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest or get email newsletters from. How did you come to follow that source and what do you like about being in touch? How do you interact (customer service, community, feedback on product, promos, education, entertainment)? What brand or business are you aware of on social media not doing it well or otherwise making big mistakes? These are some of the questions I asked two business classes at Santa Clara recently.

Had a great time lecturing on #socialnetworking & #digitalmarketing to 2 biz classes at @santaclarauniv https://t.co/DuetiZyOji — Anastasia Ashman (@AnastasiaAshman) October 13, 2014

Great to have @AnastasiaAshman at SCU today in my business class as guest lecturer on #digitalmarketing -real world expertise #SiliconValley — Tanya Monsef Bunger (@TMonsefBunger) October 2, 2014

enterprising women surfers in the front row! MT @TMonsefBunger: Great to have @AnastasiaAshman at #SCU guest lecture on #digitalmarketing — Anastasia Ashman (@AnastasiaAshman) October 2, 2014

Looking forward to lecturing on #digitalmarketing & #socialnetworking to Contempo American Biz Issues classes at Santa Clara Univ this week! — Anastasia Ashman (@AnastasiaAshman) September 28, 2014

 In fun, interactive hour and a half sessions, I encouraged the students to become independent scholars on the topic of digital marketing and social networking since it's a topic moving at the speed of light and will never be able to be covered properly at the pace of traditional textbook publishing.

To supplement the student's rudimentary and out of date textbook chapter on this subject -- MySpace was listed first in section about social networks -- I shared my favorite cutting-edge sources for all things social networking and digital marketing:

• tools like Slideshare and Twitter chats like @MarketingNut Pam Moore's #mktgchat,
• relevant ters like content marketing, social curation, social discovery and double opt-in, and
• thought leaders in the space who produce free newsletters, webinars and other content that the students can subscribe to and learn as it happens: Brian Solis, Bryan Kramer,  Jay Baer's ConvinceandConvert, Chris Brogan, Derek Halpern's Social Triggers, Shelly Kramer, ConversationAgent, Chris Garrett, Sonia Simone, Olivier Blanchard, Tara Gentile, Meghan Biro and Brian Clark.

I suggested the students can also make a Twitter list of digital marketing leaders and easily dip into what these players are discussing and with whom.

Thanks for the invitation to lead the digital marketing discussion for two of your business classes, Tanya Monsef Bunger! Your students are inspiring. Several have fledgling businesses, and many are aware consumers watching closely which businesses engage them online in meaningful ways, and which companies are failing to use digital tools to foster closer connection with their market.

Was pleased to be able to award a very participatory student, John, with a signed copy of Porter Gale's Your Network is Your Net Worth. Enjoy it!

And extra thanks to all the students of Contemporary American Business Issues for your participation and feedback, including Cindy, Armand, Jerica, Liv, Anabel, Brynn, Mariam, Meaghan, Alex, Marc, Paulina, Alec, Nicholas, Josalvin, and Ashley.

Your Network Is Your Net Worth By Porter Gale

Fun morning at the Social Media Breakfast East Bay Meetup. My GlobalNiche team member Tanya Monsef Bunger and I were at the headquarters of Lithium to meet former Virgin America marketing head Porter Gale talk about her new book Your Network is Your Net Worth: Unlock the Hidden Power of Connections for Wealth, Success, and Happiness.

Porter gave us all free copies of her book because she knows influencers when she sees them.

Takeaways:

Smaller degrees of separation with social tech users (only 2 or 3 degrees separate us from each other now) + larger spheres of influence = accelerated networks.

That's only going to increase with upgrades in the technology, said Porter.

And, I would add -->  upgrades in how we're using the existing and coming technology. We the users are going to make the most difference in how accelerated our networks become. It's about that whole connected divide conundrum.

And, basically, since all good things come through our network (in a tough economy more jobs are landed through internal referrals) and we're now relating to people based on online personas, it's imperative to take online network building seriously --  and our online personal brand as the valuable evolving key that it is.

That's pretty much my mantra too, as you may have guessed. Porter's speaking my language.

I came to it very differently than she did in corporate marketing. I was using online presence, personal branding and global community building as a survival skill during my 14 years as an expatriate, and tapped my entertainment industry & media background to arrive at content marketing as a method. But here we are, on the same page.