Jason Falls

Today we talk with Jason Falls, who is the Vice-President, Director of Interactive & On-Line Communications at Doe Anderson Advertising, a brand-building agency in Louisville, KY.   Jason is also the president and co-founder of the Social Media Club Louisville.  If you are in anyway involved with social media, you should be very familiar with him.

Technihub: Jason, hello and thank you for talking with us today.

Jason Falls: Thank you, it’s my pleasure.

Technihub: First, i’d like to get your thoughts on what you are seeing for trends in social media this year?  What is the buzz about?

Jason Falls: Social media trends are hard to spot. It’s such a new field and people and companies are struggling to find their way and find the right way to utilize the medium to reach customers. But there are a couple of trends I think are happening.

First, Twitter is all the rage. The platform has now gone mainstream. More and more people are flocking there, which means more and more brands are as well. Social media advocates are telling brands how to use it “right.” But when something like that goes main stream, people will settle in and use it differently. Everyone will have their own right. So social media folks are lecturing on Twitter and the world is moving on despite them. Hopefully, they’ll get it at some point.

Social media is also moving away from the bright, shiny object syndrome and more to the utility stage. This means companies are starting to see the tools as useful elements in enterprise communications. Yammer and other social tools are starting to become adopted and useful to companies. This means companies will start to see social media as something more than just a marketing tool. It will gradually move to be considered a communications channel/platform/mechanism and will be embraced throughout the organizations, not just by PR to spew forth branded information.

And I don’t think the buzz has died down around OpenID and services like Facebook Connect. The ubiquitous social profile is going to change the way we all experience the web and that reality is not far off.

Technihub: You mention that social media is a new field and that “people and companies are struggling to find their way and find the right way to utilize the medium to reach customers.”  I believe that this brings up an dilemma for businesses.  Are businesses better served by relying on old world marketing firms for their social media needs where these firms may not be as experienced in the ways of social media?   Or do they look for marketing firms that specialize in social media that may not have a strong track record?

Jason Falls: I think the wise road is for brands to utilize social media agencies or consultants that clearly know the space and understand the medium and who are willing to work with your long-standing, traditional agencies. Todd Defren wrote a great post that explains the conundrum.  I agree with him. If you’re relying on old school marketers who don’t quite get it, you’re asking for trouble. Blending the new thinking with the old is a reasonable, smart apparoach.

Technihub: What do you see as challenges that businesses have with social media?

Jason Falls: The most important challenges that businesses have with social media are understanding that it’s not just a marketing tool, but a communications platform. They have to stop focusing on Twitter or Facebook or blogs and start focusing on communicating with their customers, their employees, their investors, etc. Very few are getting it.

Technihub: There are a lot of people who are in the social media field.  Who do you consider your peers or resources that you look to for inspiration and leadership?

Jason Falls: I’d have to say Valeria Maltoni, Chris Brogan, Todd Defren, Brian Solis, Geoff Livingston and Malcolm Gladwell.  Malcolm Gladwell, however is more about social trends and human behavior.

Technihub: There are a lot of tools that are necessary in this field.  What do you use?

Jason Falls: For RSS I use Google Reader. It’s not fancy, but delivers what I need.  I also use Evernote.  I use it to not have to hand write notes in meetings, even with clients. Plus it’s nice to have all my resources in the cloud, so I can access them anytime.  For social media tools I use Tweetdeck and Seesmic desktop.  The are almost must-haves if you have to monitor a lot of conversations about your brands.  I also have an iPhone and would probably break into an anxiety fit without it.

Technihub: What is your background and how did you get your start?

Jason Falls: My background is a little different than most. I’m a PR guy by trade and spent 11 years as a college athletics PR guy (they call them sports information directors). But I started blogging in 1998 when I found a way to publish a sports column I wrote for my hometown paper online. I would solicit feedback from the readers and publish it the following week. I was also an early adopter on MySpace and Classmates, so I’ve been playing in and around the social media space for about 10-11 years. When I left college athletics in 2006, I got on as a PR account manager at Doe and wondered why we weren’t recommending social media. I proposed a couple things to the CEO and they caught on. I became a full-time social media person in early 2007.

Technihub: We know that you speak quite a bit at conferences.  Do you have a list of ones at which you have spoken?

Jason Falls: I have spoken at quite a few conferences.  Here is my speaking resume:
* SOMESSO London – May 15, 2009
* Inbound Marketing Summit San Francisco – How To Build Content-Centric Websites – April 28-29, 2009
* AMIN National Conference – Social Media Panel – April 20, 2009
* National Conference on Family Literacy – Social Media for Family Literacy – March 1 & 2, 2009
* Society of Professional Journalists – Social Media & Journalism – Feb. 26, 2009
* Louisville AdFed – The Marketing of Un-Marketing – Feb. 25, 2009
* The Conference Board – Building Brand Enthusiasts – Jan. 27, 2009
* PRSA Louisville – Not All Blogs Are Created Equal – Jan. 2009
* PRSA Teleseminar – The Art of Listening – Dec. 11, 2008
* Social Media Club Chicago – The Future of Social Media – Dec. 2, 2008
* PRSA International – Not All Blogs Are Created Equal – Oct. 26, 2008
* Master’s Of Business Online – Social Media Strategies – Oct. 14, 2008
* Social Media Club Louisville – Social Media 101 – Sept. 26, 2008
* Blog World & New Media Expo – Putting Social Media In The Newsroom – Sept. 21, 2008
* Blog World & New Media Expo – Avoiding Disaster – Sept. 21, 2008
* Blog World & New Media Expo – Bloggers & Public Relations – Sept. 21, 2008
* Social Media Club Louisville – Putting Social Media In The Newsroom – Aug. 18, 2008
* Vocus Webinar – Bridging The Gap Between Media and PR – July 23, 2008
* PRSA Digital Impact – Not All Blogs Are Created Equal – June 10, 2008
* Social Media Club Louisville – Expert Blogging Panel – April 3, 2008
* Third Tuesday Social Media Meet-Up – You Are A Social Media Expert – Jan. 9, 2008