October 1, 2010 
Like an eager explorer with a tattered map, I arrived at LavaCon hoping to find a fistful of gold. I can gleefully report that, after a single day, my mind is like a treasure chest of solid goodness. The opening day offered four powerful keynotes. For those following from afar, I wanted to share key thoughts from each:
From Natalie Malaszenko (@NatalieatPETCO), I learned that:
- Your customer is now your business partner.
- Companies that refuse to listen to social media will lose their relevance.
- To grow community, must give your customers something that is going to inspire them
- You need to take something that’s FUN and make it social.
From Ann Rockley (@arockley) I learned that:
- Content is a powerful asset: You must proactively engineer it to achieve business objectives.
- You must be intentional: Author with consistency, so you can deliver with exquisite focus.
- When you add structure to content, you can produce filtered, targeted output systematically.
- For maximum impact, make sure your techcomm content is available to support and service for customer distribution.
From Neal Schaffer (@NealSchaffer), I learned
- The social media surge has converged communication and information-gathering into one source.
- Social media groups are a new source of knowledge: They are siphoning share from search engines.
- Search engines LOVE social media: Search algorithms now use retweet counts to rank blog posts.
- If your customers are already on Twitter, you’re wasting money by not providing customer service there.
From Crosby Norris (@pr_couture), I learned:
- We are moving into an age of Social CRM: Pay attention or be left behind.
- You must discover which social channels YOUR customers use: THEN build your strategy.
- Don’t just sell, establish and grow a community: Then, use that to bolster your brand.
- To succeed on Twitter, focus on Committment, Content and Care.
For those of you here with me in San Diego, which Knowledge Nuggets from YOUR notes have made you laugh, cry or sing? Talk to me.
KnowledgeBishop 
Thanks, Tristan, for sharing these takeaways. Neal Schaffer’s point that the social media surge has converged communication and information-gathering into one source really resonates with my experience of Twitter.
It’s interesting how the new Twitter interface has separated out tweets that are more conversational, from tweets that contain links. The tools serves both functions. It seems inevitable that customer service will continue to move there, as well as on Facebook.
So true: Neal’s insight was something I never considered before.
Regarding customer service on Twitter, yes I believe it to be inevitable. I envision techcomm taking on an ever-increasing role shaping topics to solve common tweet complaints.
It’s an honor to have made your list Tristan, and a greater honor to have met you! It is interesting that as social media groups siphon attraction away from search engines, LinkedIn is making to move Groups public and Facebook obviously is opening up in the same direction. My point on the Google Page Rank Authority is that, although no one knows how they calculate it, there is no doubt that the metrics available from the Twitter (ReTweet, now even more trackable with the t.co “Tweet” button) and Facebook Likes can influence the rankings of page or blog post authority.
At the end of the day, I hope what you got out of my speech was that the power of social media as well as content cannot and should not be ignored. I talked about the ROI of social media in my speech to help those that are passionate about it and realize the advantages of it to foster internal communication to help convince the superiors that are often very frightened by it.
Good luck with your work at Symantec…and let me know if I can ever be of any help until we (hopefully) meet next year in Hawaii!!!
@NealSchaffer
Thanks for your great feedback, Neal! (I may RT some of it – I’ve not done THAT before with blog comments) And yes, the central theme was clearly the unmistakable power of social media.
The four nuggets I chose weren’t meant to summarize, but rather to share things that were new to me personally. You taught me a great deal this week and I look forward to learning even more in days ahead!
Great recap Tristan! Really good ‘nuggets’ from Lavacon! Was an absolute pleasure meeting you!
Thank YOU, Natalie! My brain is bursting with the possible after hearing your success stories. Whatever I do, we are gonna make it FUN!
Thanks for this Tristan – and for helping me get all set up! It was wonderful meeting you and chatting about shoes!
That was my all-time favorite podium shoe chat. Thank you for expanding my vision and my vocabulary (I’ve been using your enhanced expressions of goodness here on the East Coast – I’ll let you know if they catch on – when I hear “just caught me a radical-pants Large mouth Bass!” I’ll know we’re there!
You’re right, there’s gold here! Thanks for sharing it, Tristan. Wish I could have attended but though I could not, I am so glad you are able to share what you’re experiencing with us. The power of connectivity right there.
Yes, unlocking the hidden levels for one another! Hope to see you at TCchat. You are a chat superstar to me! So much goodness to add. 🙂