Only the best of conferences start off with the Avengers trailer!

Chuck Hall’s introduction to the 2012 SoMeBizLife Conference compared social media use to finding our own superpowers. We weren’t trained for this type of economy, but the “war” has begun and social media can help us handle it. Chuck said that social media is the hidden power that we’ve had all along, and we can learn to master it for our benefit. Love this.

Amanda Walsh and Jim Donovan took the stage next to discuss changes from last year’s conference. As a new attendee, I thought this was a nice touch! They spoke about the rise of Pinterest and the popularity of groups on LinkedIn and Facebook, two things I’ve noticed myself this year. Last year, there were a few attendees wondering, “Why should I bother?” OMG. Luckily, this year’s audience knows a little more about the benefits of social media use in business! Finally, we learned that Jim lost some weight since last year. Woohoo! Congrats!

Next, Mike Maney spoke. He asked us to “think BEYOND Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram” and “go BEYOND social media marketing.” That’s a lot to ask of people attending a social media conference… But his intentions were great, bringing our focus away from the social media tools themselves and toward the human interactions behind them. I thought this was going to be the best gem from Mike’s speech, but then he hit us with this kicker: “The best marketing is no marketing.” Whaaaat? He described that if social media were meant for sales, salespeople would be handling them. If your company is embracing the community, getting involved, and being social, people will want to do business with you; no marketing necessary. Wow. Love this too. PS: His powerpoint presentation was awesome.