See you at Seattle’s Facebook Conference (How to develop a Strategy and is Facebook worth $100 Billion?)

See you in Seattle
I’ll be in Seattle at the Web Community Forum (a focus on Facebook) and will be delivering the opening keynote, Justin has the highlights. If you check out the schedule you’ll see there’s a really interesting mix of discussions, both pro and con. I’ll be pretty objective in my keynote, demonstrating the opportunities, but also highlighting the risks of brands doing it wrong.

Brands need a strategy
The crux of my presentation will advise that brands need to first develop a strategy: Identify who’s in Facebook (is that even your market?), figure out what is it that you’re trying to accomplish (to learn, to talk, viral spread, to build better products, etc) develop a plan, then lastly, figure out which of the different tools are available. So many brands have inverted this and are doing it completely backwards. This is the same methodology that Charlene and Josh perscribe at Forrester. You may have read my previous rants that brands first need a strategy.

Is Facebook really worth $100,000,000,000.00?
On the second day, I’m really curious to hear Lee Lorenzen’s opener, he thinks that Facebook is worth $100 Billion. I’ll be tweeting (from Twitter) that morning all the key nuggets on why he says that, so add me as friend to tune in, even if remote. If you’re going, I’m looking forward to seeing you, I think there’s a group of folks that are getting together for dinner on Tuesday night.

With social networks comes nearly unlimited business opportunities
I rarely request people to be my friend on Facebook, I have an open policy that if you add me, I’ll add you back. People often ask me are those your real friends? Some yes, but most are not. This has become a rolodex for me, and unlike some business social networks, I have a better understanding of who these people are, what they like, and their interests. In many ways, my network is nearly unlimited now, and with that comes nearly unlimited opportunities and possibilities.

From web to print to web
A few weeks ago, Leah Jones and myself (and the Blue Monster) were featured on the front page of the Business section of the Chicago Tribune, including a screenshot of my Facebook profile. It’s a bit sureal, as my real life pictures was put online on a social network, which was then put on print, which I now share online.

Thanks to Leah Jones, and Jay Rudman, for sending me the paper clippings.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 4:12 am and is filed under Conference, Facebook Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.