Newly-published author, digital media strategist and social media celeb Rohit Bhargava is our special guest at the BlogPotomac Speakers’ Dinner tomorrow, June 12, 2008. He kindly took time to answer a few questions about social media and, specifically, how he is using it to promote his new book.

Debbie: You’ve just published your first book, Personality Not Included. Huge congrats! I know what a huge undertaking it is. Tell us a little bit about how you’re using social media to promote it.

Rohit: Thanks! Though I didn’t write the book to be about social media (it’s actually more about a culture shift in business and organizations), using lots of social media tools to promote it has been a key part of my efforts.

Early on, I created a Facebook group where I released exclusive downloads and bonus content, as well as early invites to book launch events. That group is a core of just over 400 people who have been great word of mouth ambassadors for the book - and a group that I consistently try to give something back to in return.

On the day of launch, I also decided to launch a “virtual interview” project
by asking bloggers for 5 questions about the book. I promised to
respond to each interview without cutting and pasting responses. Over
three days, I got 55 requests and responded to each - creating a huge
archive of information and buzz about the book on the same day it
launched. The ensuing contest seeking votes for the best interview also got some great conversations happening.

Since then, I’ve been doing lots of other interviews, attending events, and steadily building buzz with bloggers. I also have a review program where I’m sending review copies to bloggers, and launched an interesting promotion to encourage reviews of the book (both good and bad) that you can see here: www.personalitynotincluded.com/backcover.

I also have a companion site to the book where I am inviting “100 visionary minds” to all answer the question of why personality matters. It’s called The Personality Project.

The theme throughout all these activities has been that I’m trying to offer something in return instead of just asking for favors. Every piece of my strategy is designed to offer a reason for people to participate, and then give them something real to talk about.

Debbie: Many, if not most, companies still seem slow to pick up on social media as a marketing and communications strategy. When will that change and why - or why not?

Rohit: I think part of it is because they are getting some bad advice from the “experts” in this space. Most people are realizing that there is a conversation going on, but if marketing pros who get social media are telling their clients to “give up control,” they are spreading a defeatist message.I have been pretty vocal about my point of view that the future is about sharing control, and the companies that get it are the ones that are finding smart ways to do that. Sharing is about dialogue, but it also means you do have some amount of control.

You can decide what to respond to and who to engage with. That’s an empowering message that I think we need to spread more freely. It’s also the type of message that will get more companies to engage with social media rather than shy away from it because of fear.

Debbie: If you had a crystal ball and could look ahead two years, what would the cool new thing be (aka Twitter, etc.)?

Rohit: Hmm, the crystal ball question … I always love to think about this one because it’s a tough one to answer without setting yourself up to look like an idiot six months from now when you end up completely wrong! But since I hate people who evade questions, I’ll take a stab at it anyway.

I think the greatest area where I see evolution will take us is in the promise of a single “dashboard” view of our digital lives that is portable. For many of us, Facebook comes close simply because we can aggregate our activities on many other sites in one place there - but the future is going to be about seeing our personal interactions side by side with the media (both new and traditional) that we consume.

I think an example from the future will be a dashboard where I can see live updates from my friends attending an event, alongside news reports from the event, alongside a list of friends of mine that are attending and others I may want to add to my network, alongside a stream of content from the event, alongside with the ability to interact and share my voice at the event virtually.

You can do all of that in pieces right now, but putting the pieces together is where I think the future will take us.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 5:41 pm and is filed under Q & A's. 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.