The Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives hosted a very informative conference today on the Business Applications of Social Networking. FWE&E aligned the conference with the launch of their own online community, a great example of a real world implementation of a social network (I know, gasp!)

Other than that, there was a slew of pertinent information for businesses struggling to execute a useful and manageable social media strategy from a list of speakers that included Ross Mayfield of SocialText (Eastwick is a SocialText customer), Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester and Gina Bianchini of Ning. Here’s the gist:

• Social networking is still about people Realize the needs of your target audience then decide a strategy that makes sense for their needs
• Start small You may want to have four billion people in your network, but begin with a core group and build from there
• It takes work Social networks do grow organically, but you still need someone to push it along with stimulating conversation, compelling content, radical ideas, etc., etc.
  
• Be patient If you are implementing a useful network and have the motivation chances are it will succeed, just not overnight
• There is no one answer Use the other networks out there to your advantage, collaborate and “cross-pollinate”
• Sometimes, there is no answer As Gina Bianchini put it today “Social networking isn’t for everyone” and that’s OK. If it doesn’t make sense for your business, don’t push it.

Update: I just realized that my colleague Stuart Froman also blogged about this event earlier today (thanks for beating me to the punch Stu!) Check it out here, he’s a much better writer than I am.

Forrester, FWE&E, Gina Bianchini, Jeremiah Owyang, Ning, Ross Mayfield, social media, SocialText

Nearly a week after the enormously popular technology conference ended, people are still talking about SXSWi. Interestingly, not much of the conversation has anything to do with technology. The biggest news coming out of Austin, Texas last week was the ill-fated Mark Zuckerberg keynote that may or may not have been his fault. Other than that we know that Twitter is Robert Scoble’s favorite social network:

Where are the hot debates? Disruptive technologies? Worthless new upgrades?

Apparently everyone is hungover. Maybe that’s what is going on. Now I’m really jealous I didn’t get to go.

New Media, Robert Scoble, sxsw, twitter