Conversation Agent: Small Business Owners, Meet Steve Gaines, Passionate Marketer

One of the reasons why I really like this series of conversation with professionals looking to network is that I get to hear their stories. It's also probably a way for those who step forward to clarify to themselves as much as to us, why they are using social media tools actively.

Take Steve Gaines, he's clearly quite an experienced professional. In his work he helps small business owners benefit from marketing. He's in great company as many passionate marketers have been stepping up to help small business owners and bloggers recently. Here's a collection of tips pulled together at OPEN forum. We wrote them because we thought you ought to know about them.

I would have probably taken more time to get to know Steve, had he not participated in the About You information and networking exchange. He did and here's a little more information about him.

Why are you online?

Steve: The reason I have been online for years is, and has been, to learn. Now more recently, I can add "connect" to that.

More than a decade ago when I was discovering the lightening speed at which information could move online (even when we thought 14.4 modem speed was fast) I dove in. The immediacy of the information is one thing, but the fluidity of it is what's truly scintillating. The ability to uncover seemingly limitless layers and tangents off a single story or idea is truly the juice that quenches.

Add to that connecting through social media, and the juicy layers are further enhanced by bringing actual people and conversations directly onto the layers.

What prompted to post in "About You" at Conversation Agent?

Steve : What prompted me to post in About You at Conversation Agent was an invitation so genuine that it almost struck me as audacious coming not from a new site looking to build an online presence, but rather from a place very well established and obviously well populated by regular visitors.

There is a sense generated that this is a place that takes connecting people seriously. So I wanted a chance to be a part of that. As I wrote I wondered, "What might come of this?"

What are you working on that you feel will connect ideas and people?

Steve : I am currently working on a couple of business models that reinvent what I have been doing for years in working through radio station groups with their smaller business advertisers.

One is streamlining a sales program to place far greater emphasis on respecting the time invested by both station personnel, as well as that of those small business customers - while still keeping intact the importance of teaching basic principles of effective advertising/marketing.

And then an extension of that will be to bring education, ideas, and help regarding social media marketing to those small business customers. And also to the radio stations serving them - who, to my incredulous amazement, are taking a mostly laissez-faire approach to social, which could otherwise really bring many stations back to much greater relevance!

Who would you like to connect with?

Steve: I don't have a specific list of people per se that I have a goal of connecting with. In broad terms I certainly want to connect with owners/managers of small business.

And, from a learning and growth standpoint, to connect with people who are actively sharing ideas on marketing and on general thoughts on life.

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The small business OPEN Forum I linked above sounds like a good place for you to explore. I open the floor to the community for more suggestions and ideas on who you should meet, as well as of course, the connection they can make with you directly.