Choice words from Chris Brogan

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I drove up to Orange County and attended my first meeting of the So Cal Action Sports Network tonight, having learned about it via Twitter from @kirstenwright (who referred me to @tawnypress who had an extra ticket). The organization is primarily San Diego-based and was started by Bryan Elliott after many years in the action sports industry.

Hosted at Oakley's formidable headquarters, the event featured a panel of experienced action sports and lifestyle brand marketers to talk about social media followed by blogger Chris Brogan who is social media lightning in a bottle.

The panelists shared a lot of industry wisdom. My favorite piece of advice was from one shoe and skateboard marketer who observed (and I can vouch for this) that parents won't skimp on their kids, though they might skimp on themselves. Therefore, as a mid-priced fashion shoe product, he targets a $45 to $75 retail price so that parents see it as the more affordable choice against other shoes priced at $100 and up.

Hansen's soda and Oakley representatives were both vocal about listening to their customers, being involved directly in the sports and activities their customers care about, and keeping the brand experience authentic despite the economy.

Chris Brogan batted clean up. His opening slide included a hashtag (Note to self: include your own hashtag on your intro slide) so attendees could 'live Tweet' the presentation and make sure all Tweets were aggregated into one feed. See it here.

Brogan queried his Twitter followers prior to his presentation, trying to get a handle on action sports from the 55K+ people who follow his Tweets. He said "I ask Twitter everything, because they're smarter than me and there's more of them." From a communications perspective, Brogan obeys the first commandment: know thy audience. And he makes an effort to speak directly to their interests and needs, despite being, he joked, more of an expert at wiping out and falling down than action sports awesomeness.

Whether it came from Twitter or his own personal insight (a little bit of both, I'm sure) he suggested to the audience that what all the action sports company execs had in common is that they all started out the same: finding something cool and wanting to share it with others.

Sharing, he noted, is at the heart of what social media is all about.

Don't focus on the tools of social media. Keep the focus on the story and enhancing its ability to be shared with others, he advised. An example he cited was touring Oakley and seeing a tester blast pellets into the lenses of a new pair of Oakleys. At first it looked fun, like playing at a shooting arcade for a living, but Brogan realized it would get monotonous fast, and he'd probably turn the pellets on himself. After Tweeting this, a response came from one of his followers: that person's son was wearing Oakleys on duty in Afghanistan and having glasses that could withstand pelting sand and protect him in a truly hostile environment was essential. That touched Brogan, and it became part of the Oakley story that was worth sharing.

On Facebook, "no one cares about your stupid product. Stop blurting it out," Brogan admonished. When brands handle their communications in this fashion, in social media circles, they are quickly unfollowed or unfriended. This is not broadcast media and people don't have to pay attention to unwanted messages. They just drop you from their network.

The metaphor Brogan applied was the difference between someone shaking your hand when you meet and someone sticking their tongue in your mouth. Some things that a company would never do in person they tend to feel they can do in a social network, apparently.

One of the common objections to participating in social media, Brogan observed, was the fear that negative feedback would be posted to a company's blog, but to Brogan, negative feedback is great when you treat it as a learning opportunity. And where better to have people bring their complaints but to your own doorstep where you can respond to them right away and directly.

All good points and choice words from one of the leading advocates and consultants in the social media space.