The conversation on marketer presence and behavior on social media sites continued with a couple of interesting posts. Tad of SEO2.0 had a direct response, and a post from Matt Bailey at Sitelogic spoke to the tendency of marketers to get a little too “friendly,” too fast on social sites.

I’ll leave it to you to catch up on the conversation and form your own opinions, but I am left with a few interesting questions, and my initial thoughts about those questions.

Do marketing and advertising folks belong on general-use social media sites? To me, this seems to be a no-brainer, rather like asking “Do brain surgeons belong on general-use social media sites?” (Aside: I’d personally love to hear some surgeon blog about fixing some guy’s aneurysm. Maybe that’s just me.) “General-use” pretty much implies that it’s a community that should be open to everyone.

While even “general interest” sites do, over time, develop unique personalities and topical focus popularity trends, excluding marketing and advertising people, who are some smart and interesting people, to “preserve the purity of the community” seems a bit draconian.

Do marketers belong on Mixx specifically? I think that Mixx has tremendous potential for marketers who are also avid social media users. Part of social media is sharing what you personally are passionate about. I can’t imagine that for marketers, that wouldn’t include your work and/or your clients. Not all of your work or clients, certainly, but if you’re not excited about some of them, then you’re possibly in the wrong industry, aren’t you?

While folks can quibble about the current marketing value of Mixx, I still think it does have long-term potential (particularly the Groups and they way they handle topics), and it’s probably my favorite tool of choice as a social media user. Ultimately, I think a sustainable social media presence is going to have to involve figuring out what sites have value to you as a consumer of social media first. Mixx fits that bill for me. Sustainable social media participation has to include figuring out which sites fit into your normal, natural workflow (and many thanks to Maki of DoshDosh for helping me figure out ways to expand that fit in a natural way on Twitter).

How can marketers participate in social media in a way that has professional value, yet doesn’t detract from the user experience for other users?

One reason that marketing and advertising professionals are so …focused, for lack of a better word… on social media sites, is that our workdays are often structured around billable hours. We have to justify and account for our time and activities in a way that people in other industries simply don’t have to worry about. However, we need to relax a little and drop that “billable hour” attitude while participating in social media. I’m not saying that tracking the amount of time you spend participating in social media is a bad thing. In fact, some folks who aren’t in marketing and advertising but care about personal productivity could probably stand to do a little of that.

But overall, professionals who work in the marketing, advertising and public relations fields need to become fluent in the language, attitude and etiquette of social media. Chris Brogan had a great post about the difference between the discipline of marketing and the tools of social media. We need to be humble enough to become immigrants, as Tamar Weinberg so aptly put it, and then work our way into resident status. We need to earn the influence we may so desperately crave.

When that happens, we can be both valued members of the social media community, and effective, positive ambassadors of the businesses and work we care deeply about.

image courtesy Marinela

So anyway, another reason I’ve been hesitant to go all full-on web geek, social media spastic here is that most of the people I’ve encountered who work in my industry who are blogging and participating in social media are either freelancers, consultants, entrepreneurs, or something similar; whilst I am excessively happily employed at LeapFrog Interactive, an interactive advertising agency. So a lot of the stuff that everybody else in that “problogger” group is blogging about pertains to succeeding in that type of environment. But ironically, agencies and in-house marketers for larger companies and brands really need to figure out this stuff, too.  The world is leaving old-school marketing and advertising tactics in the dust.

I was really fortunate that Jason Falls, the social media explorer at Doe Anderson, reached out to me with a phone call after we were both featured in a Business First article about social media and marketing. We met, talked, and I checked out his blog at www.socialmediaexplorer.com. He also appears on dailyidea.tv.

It turned out we had a lot in common: early vocational experiences in radio broadcasting, happy careers at Louisville advertising agencies, awesome families, and a passion for social media. Jason comes to social media from a public relations background, whereas I’m coming to it from web copywriting and search engine optimization (SEO).   In addition to meeting a really neat guy and getting an invite to the new Louisville chapter of the Social Media Club, reading Jason’s blog helped me wrap my head around writing about social media and the online marketing industry from the perspective of someone who isn’t an entrepreneur or looking to strike out on their own as a consultant.

I love writing advertising copy.  (Let’s be honest, I love writing. Period.  I would probably write greeting cards if it came right down to it.)  It’s like playwriting, but shorter.   There’s passion.  There’s drama.  There’s a certain “artist honing her craft” aspect to it that I love.  But two actors performing a scene isn’t a real conversation, and neither is advertising copy, online or off.   Smart agencies and companies need to learn how to have conversations with their customers.

I want to be involved with the people who are figuring out how to make that happen.  I think I’m in a good place to do that.