It’s not for the faint of heart.

Building, monitoring and managing your online reputation can be a bit complex – at the start. And even in the middle. It does get easier, but having someone point us in the right direction can really save us a bucket of frustration and wasted time. For sure, the deliberate use of social media to build business isn’t for slackers.

In our fourth and final conversation of this series on The Virtual Meeting Coach Show, Matt Sweet, Rene Fabre and I talk about dandelions and Malcolm Cecil – and what we’re really accomplishing with all our social media participation. Besides wasting time and scrambling our brains.

Dandelions? Who in the #$@% is Malcolm Cecil? And what  do things like that have to do with helping people find you and your professional services on the internet or put money in your pockets?

Masters of the Obvious

Matt and Rene, two wild and crazy internet marketers for the Pacific NW region of Ticor Title, call themselves “Masters of the Obvious.” But it’s not true. They’re musicians who see patterns where some of us can’t. And God knows, most of us could use some help making sense of how we might ever make a living out of our Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn interactions. Not to speak of all the rest…

Our conversation in this fourth and final segment is rich with metaphor – and some powerful visual analogues. We talk about StepRep and how you can use it to help Google track all your dandelion seeds back to their source – you.

We hope our dialogue inspires you to participate both more creatively and more sensibly in online communities where, as Matt is fond of saying, “Conversations are markets.”

“Like, love or hate this show? Can we improve? Tell us!”

Man, I just met a new Twitter follower, virtually. He made a nice offer to try out his product. I signed up to do so…and BAMMMMM!@ There he was in my email with a personal webcam message.

That was okay…sort of. But the webcam message included telling me how I should use his product and that he would be tracking when I read his messages and used his system… That was a little creepy. Especially at 7:30am in the morning…

A stream of tweets followed to push me forward to do what he wanted me to do… When I replied, to see if we could start up a little dialogue on Twitter, I got ANOTHER webcam message! BAMMMMM!@ This one giving me more unsolicited direction. Including how I should use his product instead of Twitter to communicate… along with another dump of advice about how I should use his product to do business.

Another middle-aged white American business guy who doesn’t get relationship. Especially virtual relationship. Sigh…

If you want some coaching to ensure you’re not making this kind of first – and last – impression marketing to women, I can help.

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Just watched a SelfGrowth.com live-streaming TV show and I have to say I’m impressed with the courage and creativity of David Riklan!

David is the CEO and rabid advocate for his website which aggregates the work of thousands of self-help teachers and authors. SelfGrowth.com has an enviable traffic flow and I’m predicting that David’s latest experiment using UStream’s live feed plus Twitter is going to ramp up his traffic even further!

The stage setup for the show had David behind his desk with a speaker-phone co-host whose presence was made “visible” by having the phone displayed prominently, upstage, on David’s desk. David introduced one of his staff members, the onsite “Twitter manager,” who mostly remained off-stage tracking participants’ live tweets, but made an appearance every so often behind the desk with David, too. Other staff members made personal appearances – sitting next to David behind the desk – throughout the show, as well. The team seemed to have someone juggling the IM/chat window on UStream, too, although I couldn’t get it to take my input.

David collected some questions ahead of the show, using an online form he circulated to his list. He answered some viewers’ questions live and punted some to his telephone co-host to answer throughout the show.

He used a very smart giveaway strategy, encouraging real-time Twitter participation (now incorporated into UStream as the “social stream”). Asking participants to tweet a “commercial” message for him made them eligible for a live drawing of a multi-piece CD/DVD set he showed. The commercial feel of that strategy felt more than a little tacky to me, but it certainly demonstrated an interesting way to incentivize others to broadcast your message  on Twitter if that’s something you want to do with Twitter.

The experience reminded me at lot of the early days of Access TV. And, of course, the value of Access TV shows always hinges on the creativity and mindfulness of the show host. David has been developing his community for quite awhile and he’s a pretty fair show host. I look forward to seeing where else he takes this approach…

Interesting experiment! Is this Access TV on the internet… or a new kind of Virtual Meeting?

Did you attend? If so, I’m curious to hear your thoughts about the experience. Did you feel like you were in a virtual meeting with David…or was this a second-tier version of the new ABC Nightline Format (that includes Twitter participation)? What do YOU think?

Last week, people started asking me for five-finger tips they could use to improve their virtual meetings. This is a tough one.

On the one hand, people want the same things from you in a virtual meeting that they want in a face-to-face meeting. On the other hand, they want some different stuff, too. That’s why I wrote “The Coach’s Short List.”

But, there are plenty of things beyond The Short List that you can do to make your virtual meetings and web conferencing more useful  – and you more popular.

Here are five-fingers worth:

1. Make your meeting guests the rock stars. Besides hearing what you have to say, your VM guests want and need to hear each others’ ideas, too. Make sure you do everything possible to “pass the microphone” and “pass the chalk” around during your meetings so your guests get to show off their chops, too.

2. Give your guests a real voice. Using polls and leaving time at the end of meetings for questions is good basic online meeting practice. But, if you really want people to remember your meetings – and keep coming back for more – be sure you give them other ways to make their wishes known and their voices heard. Ask them to help you generate the agenda at the start of the meeting. Keep checking in with them during the meeting to see if they’re getting what they came for. And, before you close, whenever it’s appropriate, ask them to tell you anything they might have wished you had covered or done that would have made the meeting even better for them.

3. Make it easy. Make everything easy. Desite the fact that more and more people are having virtual meetings every day, they’re still a very new way for people to meet. Most people still need help getting comfortable with web conferencing. Make it easy to sign in and join the meeting. Make it easy for people to introduce themselves. Make it easy for participants to add their two-cents’-worth. Make it easy for them to follow up with you – and each other – after the meeting. Make everything you can think of as easy as possible. If you can’t do this yourself, get someone like me to be your producer and get them to do it for you.

4. Make it easy to refer new participants. Once someone has located you and decided you’re a useful, credible source of expertise, they are going to want to share you with their friends. It makes them look good to have found you! Be sure you make it easy for them to tell other people about you and add them to your meetings – this one or the next one.

5. Merge online and offline communities. The best thing about virtual meetings is that you don’t have to be face-to-face to have one. The best thing about face-to-face meetings is that you don’t have to use a computer or any other electronic device to have one. Some people are more comfortable meeting one way – or the other. But, especially in this economy, all of us needto grow our social networks and build new opportunities every way we can

When you’re hosting virtual meetings, do everything you can to help your guests link their online and offline resources. When you can, record your meetings so guests can share the content with offline partners and friends. Post your presentation at an online slide sharing site like slideshare.net. And, whenever possible, help port face-to-face conversations online, too. You can Tweet Live to connect people who aren’t able to be with you at live meetings. You can scan and post your handwritten meeting notes or photos to your blog so you can share them with people who weren’t able to attend.  There are dozens of ways you can help people merge their online and offline resources. Do it. They’ll thank and remember you

What are some of the easy ways you like to help people connect their online and offline resources? Post them here as a comment and let’s share the wealth!