Smart marketers are plunging headlong into social media and extending their brands and ecosystems to boldly go where no brand has ever gone before. The digital landscape is exciting, it’s where the buzz seems to be, but the true catalyst of growth and change, I believe resides in the place where your digital and analog worlds collide.

In other words, when you can build a network by conversing with seemingly like minded individuals on your blog and then turn one or more of those individuals into strategic alliances built on a burgeoning relationship of truse, and finally, get a chance to introduce that person to a good customer over lunch, well that’s what I call the ultimate cross channel experience.

To me, twitter is not simply another extended world to manage, it’s an opportunity to initiate community based on ideas instead of geography or industry and then potentially explore ways to move members of that community into other exciting and profitable relationships.

I had a brief conversation on this subject over the weekend with David Armano, author of a great blog called Logic+Emotion. David creates incredibly effective illustrations of ideas and concepts. Visual thinkers will love his work. – Spend some time with this set of illustrations.

What I’m really talking about here of course is integration of marketing messages, campaigns, opportunities and channels, but I think the ability to do this in planned, impactful, and scalable ways has increased dramatically through the addition of social media. But, not to the total exclusion of the conference, chamber social or MeetUp.

Bottom line: we need to think intentionally about the ways to use online to create richer offline opportunities.

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