The original "social media"

Here Comes Everybody is among the handful of social media books that I'm currently reading to bring myself up to speed on what tools like Facebook, Twitter and others mean to the landscape today. While some still shun these technologies, the growing numbers who are using them are doing some very creative things to reach out to their "friends" and build connections and followers. Likewise, chambers of commerce everywhere are tussling with social media and know they can't afford to ignore these new ways for people to connect without a formal organization.

As we at the Greater Owensboro Chamber released our annual legislative and local issues survey this past Friday, I couldn't help but smile thinking at how online surveys could be considered "old school" these days. We've done our survey for the past six years to gather input from our members, and we've always had at least a 20% response rate, which is good. We consider the collective thoughts of our members to be very important leading into the Kentucky General Assembly and the myriad issues that inevitably pop up along the way.

Yes, the new social media tools offer the ability for anyone to provide input. Everybody can be a writer, a blogger, post their thoughts and feelings. We've been doing that via online surveys well before Facebook and Twitter were conceived. That makes me smile too.