Last night?s MITX (Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange; www.mitx.org ) titled, The 2008 Digital State - Social Media: the Opportunities and Implications for Marketers, was packed. This is not surprising given the incredible buzz that surrounds ?social media?. The speaking panel included:

? Tom Arrix, Vice President of Sales, East, Facebook; www.facebook.com
? Pauline Ores, Senior Marketing Manager, Community & Collaboration, Global SMB Marketing, IBM Corporation; www.ibm.com
? Juan Fernando Santos, Chief Creative Officer, StudioCom;
Suzanne Skop, Director of Sales, MySpace;
? Jeffrey C. Taylor, Chief Executive Officer, Eons

I enjoyed the panel and it was great to hear the enthusiasm although some of it should be taken with a grain of salt. It is always great to hear people passionate about what they do and what they sell, but that is one of the tenets of a good sales person. It they told you the challenges and the road blocks they faced, you might not be quite as impressed.

The most poignant question was brought up by the moderator, Larry Webber (W2 Group Inc., www.w2groupinc.com ), ?What is the new ad model for these social networks?? I did not hear a straight answer. There were statistics on how many people are joining up, that they are connecting and creating content, and how display is the ?old? model. There was, however, no real discussion of how to use these new contributors as effective marketing tools. So the question remains, what is the ad model for these networks? How marketers are are going to purchase and assess effectiveness of this new consortium of content contributors is the question we all want to know?

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