Yesterday, I had the pleasure of delivering a presentation to our company’s Business Development Directors on the benefits of considering certain social media tools to reach their goals.

Mixing sales (or marketing) and social media is, of course, done by companies and individuals all over the world every day.  But, if your social media approach is lead by what you’re going to get out of it (ulterior motives) as opposed to shining the spotlight on other people (altruistic motives), make no mistake that people will see right through it.

My main point then was two-fold.  If you’re not participating, that doesn’t mean the conversations aren’t happening, they simply go on without you.  And, once in the game, are you there for the right reasons?  If it’s primarily to add value to whatever community you’re in and to help whenever possible, then the answer is yes.

Thanks to Brian Solis, Olivier Blanchard, John Haydon, Chris Brogan and everyone else who inspires me every day to aide those around me in their quest to make sense of all this stuff.  By the way, I tried embe