I have been blogging for over 5 years with 1,063 blog posts, there are 185 pages on my web site, I have posted 54 videos on YouTube, I have 1443 connections on Linked in, I have 246 friends on Face book, and 663 Followers on Twitter as of this morning. And still most days, I feel I know nothing about how to leverage this thing called social media to help my business.

That all changes today since we have some of the experts in the business with us on my radio show today. Our first guest was scheduled to be Chris Brogan but the airplane gods were not kind to us this morning. He is on his way to Toronto to speak at Podcamp….So my first guest, agreed to dial in early and expand our conversation.

Business blogging expert Denise Wakeman is an online marketing advisor and co-founder of The Blog Squad.  With nearly two decades of business and online marketing experience, she helps small business owners set up and optimize great blogs to gain visibility, build credibility and make more money sell their products and services. We discuss:

1.How has business communications rules changed in general with web tools like Twitter and Facebook?

2. Where and which tools should businesses spend their time with these tools? What’s a waste?

3. How has trust changed, now that many points of human contact are web-only for long periods of time?

4. Does every small business need a blog?  

Timothy Young is the founder and CEO of Social cast. He  brings nearly a decade of web development experience. His prior venture, Event Robot, developed online communities for consumer-facing brands like the Pussycat Dolls. We discussed:

1. How has the influx of Gen Y employees changing the way that companies do business. Why is this generation so different, and how can business owners and managers create a workplace that integrates all generations?
2. You say that small businesses can cut costs in marketing, PR and advertising by using social media tools like Twitter. How do you do that?

Social media has changed the way many of us find work. We are starting to use crowdsourcing sites where we post a job and people bid on it. My next two guests are the founders of a very popular site call Crowdspring that does a variation of that.  Mike Samson has over 20 years experience in the creative field, including as picture editor at New York Magazine and as a producer on films such as Wall Street and Bull Durham.

Ross Kimbarovsky is an experienced intellectual property lawyer. For over 13 years, he has represented internet startups and Fortune 100 companies in complex disputes, in state and federal courts and before the World Intellectual Property Organization.
1.  How do you use these tools to thrive in a down economy
2.  Using social media to find (the best) employees
3.  The creative (and ultra-competitive) hiring process of a startup

Listen now!