Lessons on Brand Monitoring and Article Titles Ivan Misner BNI

As most of you know that follow my blog, I am fairly active on Amplify.com. Periodically throughout my day I use Amplify to clip interesting news and articles that I come across, the tools are so effective I can maintain a presence and keep conversations going without investing a lot of time doing it. Yesterday I happened across a post entitled:

The headline pulled me in. The quote was attributed to Dr. Ivan Misner the Founder and Chairman of Business Networking International (BNI) and New York Times best-selling author.

In the “clip” of the businessweek article it included this:

Karen E. Klein: Most entrepreneurs know they should be using social media, but beyond establishing a Facebook page and a Twitter account, they’re kind of lost. What are they doing wrong?

Ivan Misner: There are three problems. They’re spending too much time on it, they don’t understand how to leverage their time, and they anticipate immediate results, which they’re not going to get.

I am familiar with BNI but not intimately so. I came to the conclusion between the article title (which was intended to pull me in, of course) and Dr. Misner’s position at the head of BNI that his stance was related to the threat that Social Media represents to this type of organization:

During my Blogtalk Program last night I noticed a message notice in my Outlook popup that Ivan Misner had posted a comment on the post at Amplify.com. I was pleased to see that he had found his way to the site and looked forward to reading his response. After my program had concluded I went to see what Dr. Misner had said:

Ivan Misner  Re: http://amplify.com/u/6t4l @ALTALOMAN Interesting Comments.

Joe, I do not see social media as a threat. I highly recommend social media. This article was about things to keep in mind to make the most of your social media efforts. To me, social media vs. face-to-face networking is not an “either/or” situation, it is a “both/and” scenario. Both types of activities can help businesses. The face to face networking organization I founded, BNI, has grown from 500 groups to over 5,700 groups since the inception of social media. It has not taken away from our efforts. <truncated>

I was pleased to see this posting for a couple of different reasons. First and foremost because I knew that Dr. Misner was truly monitoring his brand in Social Media. A lesson that anyone can learn from. There were also some side thoughts and benefits. I was glad that the conversation had brought him to Amplify.com a site that I consider to be extremely under-hyped. I was also reminded of the importance of article titles to draw people into a conversation. These are fundamentals in the world of Social Media and Blogging. So I responded back to Dr. Misner:

Joe Hackman   Ivan – I agree with your position of both/and completely. You also obviously monitor your brand very carefully which you should be commended for. I feel a blog post coming on this one. Thanks for joining the conversation and providing clarification.

I wanted to blog about this example because there are several great take aways from this experience. I have a story to share when I talk to any members of BNI and I know a bunch of them. These are also some great real world examples of both brand monitoring and using effective article titles.

Dr. Misner – I know there is a good chance you are reading this because of your incredible brand awareness, thanks for the interesting experience. I think BNI provides a valuable resource to many small businesses and entrepreneurs. I would suggest that you have if not the most recession proof businesses it is among the top five. Has your organization grown faster the last few years than it has in the past?