The Social Media Masters series is hosted by Social Media Club and Sensei Marketing.

Other presenters include Patrick O’Keefe on building community, Candace Kemp McCaffery on measurement, Sam Fiorella on building corporate social infrastructure, and many more. Check out the entire lineup of speakers that will be presenting at one or more of the five events in the United States and Canada.

Register before tomorrow, 8/19, and you can save 30% off the regular price using the discount code SMMBE30. Come see me in Atlanta or New York and learn about mobile marketing!

Since I wasn’t able to attend the conference, I decided to just crash the after party which was held at Ten Pin Alley in Atlantic Station. I was originally planning on leaving the office around 4PM, since it takes me at least an hour to get to Atlanta with road construction and traffic.

Unfortunately, I left a little late and arrived at Atlantic Station around 6:30 PM. There were a lot of people there, so I got a drink and started mingling. I talked to a couple of the event staff, then said hello to Daniel Walters of Social Media Birmingham. I met Daniel at BarCamp Birmingham back in May. Unfortunately, he was on his way out to head back to Birmingham for WordCamp.I walked back up to the bowling lanes and said hello to Wayne Sutton. Wayne and I met back in March at SxSW but only briefly. We talked about social media, online marketing, and business in general. It was a great conversation, and I can’t wait to hang out with Wayne at IzeaFest this weekend.

When I walked down to the bar to get another drink, I noticed Jim Caruso who I’d met a few weeks ago at the Atlanta Web Design Group meeting. Jim owns MediaFirst, a tech-focused PR firm in Atlanta. We were both hungry and started trying to wrangle a group to go to dinner. As we were talking, Courtenay Bird walked up and said hello. Coincidentally, she and a couple friends had also been talking about grabbing a bite, so we left the after party (which was just about dead at this point anyway) in search of food.

I ended up at Rosa Mexicana with Jim, Courtenay, Allie Sullivan, and Scott Lockhart, founder & CEO of Regator. The food was great, we even had fresh guacamole made fresh right in front of us. After dinner, we talked for more than an hour before leaving.

I was planning to meet a friend who was on his way to Atlanta, so I departed Atlantic Station and called it a night with the New Media Atlanta folks. I had a great time meeting everyone and look forward to actually attending the next one!

The idea behind Trust Agents started with Trust Economies, a free ebook published by Chris and Julien Smith back in March of 2008. If you have not read Trust Economies yet, I highly recommend it as a precursor to Trust Agents. In it, they lay what would eventually become the foundation for Trust Agents… the philosophy that social media marketing is less about “marketing” and more about building real relationships (and the trust that comes with them).

Essentially, Trust Agents is about the rules of relationships (online or off). As Stephen Covey put it in the amazing 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, relationships are like bank accounts. You can make deposits and withdrawals. Deposits are selfless acts you do for others, such as helping a friend move or just complimenting someone on their new haircut. Withdrawals are selfish requests, such as asking for a favor. The consequence of breaking trust, such as missing an appointment without calling, is also a withdrawal (and a big one).

“Emotional bank accounts” might have come from Covey’s book, but the idea is as old as relationships themselves. You can only take out what you put into them.

Chris and Julien take this fundamental principle of relationships and expand on it in Trust Agents. They start the book with a discussion about trust and social capital. Essentially, a trust agent is a person who builds real relationships online, and then leverages them to help others. In return for this, there is a long-term value to the person (or their company). It’s a fundamentally different concept than traditional marketing (even online marketing). Instead of being all about you… your products, your services, your company… it’s all about them. I can see this being a tough concept for companies to understand and see the long-term value… but Chris and Julien do an excellent job at showing the benefits and convincing you that it’s the right way.

The rest of the book outlines a process for becoming a trust agent, and ends with how to manage if (or when) you actually become one. They describe six key principles, each broken into their own chapter:

• Make Your Own Game
• One of Us
• Archimedes Principle
• Agent Zero
• Human Artist
• Build an Army

Chris and Julien outline some tools and even go into a couple of services, but the book is not really about tools or techniques. It’s about principles and relationships.

I don’t see “Trust Agents” as a marketing book, or even a book about social media. It’s a book about relationships. Like Covey’s 7 Habits and other great business books, Trust Agents is a must read for anyone in business. Even if you have no interest in becoming a “trust agent” or Internet celebrity, the fundamental principles in this book will serve you well. It’s a timeless book that you will pull down from the bookshelf every year or two, re-read and remember why it was so important.

Yesterday I was in Mobile, AL speaking at the monthly Mobile Bay AAF chapter meeting about Social Media. Specifically, I was talking about using Social Media, namely Facebook and Twitter, for businesses.

I was expecting a crowd of about 35-40 people, typical of most monthly Ad Fed meetings. We had a great turnout, and approximately 80 people showed up! It was so packed, there wasn’t enough seating or food for everyone. I’ve since found out that it was the largest crowd for a monthly speaker in two years! (I’m honored)

Thank you to Laura Burton and Sarah Jones for being excellent hosts. I really enjoyed dinner and conversation at Felix’s Fish Camp. It was great meeting you both, and all the members and guests of the Mobile Bay AAF.

Below are the slides from my presentation.

• State of the Industry
• Online Advertising
• Email Marketing
• 21st Century PR
• Social Media
• Monitoring Your Brand

I indented to talk for 1 hour, then open up for questions/discussion. I ran a little over, and the Flip camcorder we used to record the presentation only recorded the first hour, so it cuts off about 10 minutes before I stop talking.

Below is a video of the presentation and the downloadable slides:

Online Marketing Presentation (long) from Brandon Eley on Vimeo.

I love going to conferences, but there are so many and with a busy schedule I can’t always make it halfway across the country. Either I can’t afford to take the time off because I’m swamped with projects, or I have conflicting plans. The Social Media Success Summit looks like an opportunity to learn from the experts without the expense or inconvenience of traveling to a conference.

Chris Garrett has posted a chance to win a free ticket to Social Media Success Summit on his blog. You can enter up to five times by posting the following tweet to your Twitter account:

Win a FREE ticket to Social Media Success Summit 2009: http://cli.gs/Grq8RX #smsuccess

You can also enter to win the grand prize (two tickets to SMSS, Darren’s book, Mike’s book, your site critiqued by Chris, and a social media marketing consultation with Michael) by writing a blog post detailing why you want to win the ticket… which reminds me!

Why Do I Want to Win?

I bought Michael Stelzner’s book Writing White Papers when it was first released back in 2007, in both hardcover and PDF versions. While I haven’t met him personally, I follow his blog and respect him immensely.

I met Darren Rowse at SxSW in March, 2008 and bought his (and Chris Garrett’s) book Problogger as soon as it was released (pre-ordered it actually). Darren is a role model for any aspiring blogger or online journalist, and is also a genuinely good person. I’ve been reading Copyblogger, Brian Clark’s blog, for as long as I’ve had an RSS feed reader. Darren, Chris and Brian are the definitive experts on blogging.

Gary Vaynerchuk just might be my biggest inspiration in business. I discovered Gary’s Wine Library TV several years ago, and have been following Gary’s show, blog and @garyvee Twitter account ever since. I’ve seen Gary keynote or speak half a dozen times and he knows his stuff. He just landed a 7-figure 10 book deal to write about succeeding in business and life, and his first book Crush It! is due out in October.

These are not a group of wannabe “social media consultants” who just appeared out of nowhere to sell something. These guys know their shit. They were in social media before there was an industry or name for it. Most of them were in marketing before there was even a Web 2.0, much less social networking websites. They’re thought leaders… they’re rock stars.

I want to win because I want to know everything these guys know. I want to soak up that knowledge like a sponge and apply it across my companies and those of our clients at Kelsey. I want to win because you can actually speak with these social media superstars. Yep, it’s a live event and you can interact, ask questions, discuss the materials. You can network with other attendees and with the presenters themselves. Who doesn’t want to rub elbows with the likes of these guys?