I went to the BlogWell conference last week, hosted by GasPedal. Interesting stuff. Five things stood out to me:

1. “Social media” is growing — and fast.

Most companies now “get it.” They understand the need to do more than just have a blog and a Facebook page. They have to actually get out there and interact with customers online, usually wherever the customer is. The forward-thinking businesses are all over this. The larger an organization is, the slower this kind of thinking seems to ripple through and become reality. But, it’s happening. Embracing social media is no longer an early adopter phenomenon. Social-media usage seems to be well into the “early majority” phase. Maybe further along, even.

2. There’s a fool-proof way to protect your brand online. It’s called honesty.

Companies who haven’t had an online PR branding nightmare (like the celebrated Dominos fiasco) need to learn from the mistakes of others and get some training and planning in place. There’s really no excuse here. Andy Sernovitz made a great point about how the people who are most engaged with social media (the kind of people who blog and attend events like BlogWell) are the ones who need to be driving ethics and transparency in their organization. So if that is you, you need to lead. Make everyone in your organization understand that it’s usually simply about disclosure. Another great point he made: If you have to ask if doing something might be unethical, it probably is. More on rules of disclosure here, if you’re interested.

3. Communities in general need better reputation systems.

SAP has a nifty-sounding reputation system in place (based simply on points) to encourage community activity, but I would like to know more. I will have to dig into the recesses of the Internet and find that, I suppose. Point me to it if you know where it is.

4. Social media consultants are this year’s life coach.

There sure are a whole lot of buzz-tracking tools, social-media-monitoring tools, and social-media consultants out there. Too many.

5. Social CRM has a big future.

Lots of folks tossed around the phrase “social CRM” at the event. More and more, I’ve been thinking of social CRM as an evolution — a next step in the integration of social media (including social networking, of course) into everyday business life. Not just *which systems* companies will choose to integrate as a bridge between customers/salespeople/service people, but also *where* companies will choose to present themselves to their customers. On their site? On every social network? In one place? Should they funnel everyone to one place, or do they try to track everything that’s going on with a CRM system that has been gussied up with a Twitter feed? What’s this new social CRM supposed to look like, anyway?

Let’s face it: CRM systems are boring. Social CRM systems don’t have to be. They can encourage your most reticent employee, who may not want to participate face-to-face, to be extremely outgoing and help customers they might otherwise ignore or take for granted. It can help spread a customer-service attitude through an organization, or at the very least help organizations spot the employees who are customer-service-oriented. For real. Not just as lip service. It can make an organization more vital and human — less corporate, if we want to think of it that way. Consumers like things less corporate — especially if they spend half of their waking hours in a corporate environment. I think they’d rather get authentic (and informal) help when it comes to getting support on their own time.

Needless to say, I think Get Satisfaction fits into this social CRM future as a way for companies to tie it all together. And with a friendly interface. I sometimes think of our system as a social CRM “lobby” where customers can find ways to get connected to the right person to help them. I think there may be a better metaphor than a lobby, but I’m going to have to think on that one a bit more. Feel free to offer up your own metaphorical musings if you can think of a better one.

Those are five things that grew in my mind after attending the event. If you haven’t gone to a BlogWell conference, think about attending the next one in Minneapolis. Stuff will grow in your mind, too. It’s bound to.

If you want to read more about the BlogWell conference, I recommend David Spark’s blog post about it.

Zendesk, our favorite trouble-ticket system, is having a meet-up on Wednesday, July 1, from 6-8 p.m. That’s in San Francisco, at Brick House, just around the corner from South Park. We’ll be there to welcome the Zendesk team from their travel from Boston to visit the Bay Area.

If you’re not aware yet, we’ve integrated Zendesk into Get Satisfaction. We haven’t been blabbing about it incessantly because we’re still trying it out as a beta release. We have a few companies set up using it as well, and it’s going great. The integration between Zendesk and Get Satisfaction works very well. It’s changing the way I work, and in a very good way. I can’t wait to roll it out for everyone who wants it. I’m a big fan of Zendesk, especially their design sense.

I bet the Zendesk people would love to hear what you think about their product. Anyone up for a drink?

You can RSVP to join us — and them — right here.

Also, if you’re interested in hearing more about integrating Zendesk into Get Satisfaction for your company, give me a shout at eric [at] getsatisfaction [dot] com, and I’ll connect you to the right people.

The first rule of Social Media Club is you must talk about Social Media Club. It’s kind of what it’s all about. So, let’s chat.

Social Media Club is a whole bunch of media-savvy types who gather together to talk about just about everything related to online media. If you’re into communicating and collaborating and shaping the conversations that happen online, you’d probably be into Social Media Club.

Our own Scott Hirsch will be attending the next event, which happens on Thursday at 6:30 p.m., at the SMC headquarters in Mountain View. He’ll be talking about peer influence, along with a bunch of other people who know a thing or two about online influencers. In fact, the subject of this round of Social Media Club is called The Influencers.

Join him. Register. They’ll also have pizza.

Mmmm. Pizza.

Tomorrow is the BlogWell conference. It’s in the afternoon, from 1-5 p.m. Looks like it’s tightly scheduled so no one will be stuck listening to stuff they aren’t interested in. I like that.

Interested in going? For free?

The fine folks at GasPedal gave me an extra registration code, and I would like to pass it on to someone with a Get Satisfaction account (user or employee — whatev). who is interested in attending the event. Boom. You just saved $250.

If you’ll be in San Francisco and want to hear how big brands use social media tools to make their organizations more customer-friendly, give me a shout at eric [at] getsatisfaction [dot] com with a link to your Get Satisfaction user dashboard. I’ll collect them this afternoon, choose one at random, and notify the winner this evening. I’ll tweet the winner if possible via @satisfaction.

If you don’t use Get Satisfaction but want to attend, there’s still a 20% discount code. The code is thanksgetsatisfaction and you can register right here.

One of my absolute favorite bloggers is Andy Sernovitz. His Damn! I Wish I’d Thought of That! blog is a gold mine of usable advice about customer service, word-of-mouth marketing, and how companies should act and participate online. His blog posts are short and to the point, and he’s not there to sell you something. He’s just there to share what he’s learned. Highly recommended.

Andy’s company, GasPedal, is hosting a seriously interesting one-day conference next week. I definitely plan on going. Been looking forward to this one for quite some time. If you’re at all interested in brand management, social media, and listening to big brand folks talk about how they use blogging and social media to connect with customers, then think about attending your own self. The event is called “How Big Brands Use Social Media.”

The GasPedal folks — true to their word-of-mouth marketing ways — have shared a 20% discount code with me. And, they’ve encouraged me to share that with you.

Here’s the code, if you’re interested in joining us: thanksgetsatisfaction

Here’s the place to register.

Interested in hearing how Dell, Intuit, SAP, Kaiser Permanente, Cisco, Wells Fargo, and Pepsi use social media? Um, yeah. No-brainer. Sign me up.

It’s next Tuesday, June 23rd, in San Francisco. Join us. Say hello if you see us there.

Amy and I will be attending the Online Community Unconference 2009 thingy at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View tomorrow.

If you’re not familiar with an “unconference,” maybe it’s time to get acquainted. The idea is to create a short, targeted event that cuts out all the superfluous — and expensive — parts of a typical three-day business convention. It’s all about crowdsourcing and brainstorming ideas on one specific subject with a group of motivated and smart people — and distilling it all into one day of intense conversation. Or to put it another way: It’s a really nerdy version of summer camp for tech-centric adults.

This particular unconference is all about online community. I’m looking forward to seeing who shows up, who has really interesting things to say, all of that. I think one thing I’m also interested in is polling people who show up and asking them what brought them to their job as community manager, or developer, or whatever it is they think they are doing as a proponent of “community” in their organization. I’ll try to spot some trends on that angle, I’ll take some notes, and I’ll share them with the members of my own community — that’d be anyone reading this blog.

If you’ll be attending the unconference tomorrow, please flag us down, say hello, and unload with feedback about Get Satisfaction, community, and social media.

Maintenance. It’s got to be done. Whether you’re like Thor, who seems to need a hair cut every two weeks, or like me, who isn’t OCD but who must stop the world to meticulously clean his desk every once in awhile, we all need to do maintenance.

The Get Satisfaction site is no different. Tonight, we’ll be doing some maintenance. The site will be down for 20-30 minutes late on Friday, near midnight PST. We’ll keep you updated and let you know when the site maintenance is done.

Follow us on Twitter to get updates.

I’m happy to report that we have a new feature. This is one that has been asked for by many people who use Get Satisfaction. It’s a big one: merging topics.

I came up with a little jingle to help you mnemonically remember it. Ready? Okay, here goes….

[Cue radio jingle music stolen from mattress commercial.]

“What do you do when you’ve got more than two? You merge it, dude. That’s what you do!”

Hard to believe I don’t have a job in advertising, huh?

Why merging is important

People sometimes ask the same question. Or report the same problem. Or share the same idea. Some people are very focused on quickly starting a topic before looking around to see if someone else might have already had the same experience. I’ve done it.

So what do you do in this situation? How do you reconcile these duplicate topics? You merge. If you use our moderation tools, you can pick a topic and merge it into an authoritative (a.k.a. canonical) topic. In this way, you can get rid of duplicates and funnel people to the “official” word on the subject.

The idea is simple, but I think the implementation is going to be a big leap forward for Get Satisfaction, especially on the community management side of things. I’ve already started going on a merging binge.

How does it work? We’ve got a topic that explains it right over here.

Of course, feel free to give us feedback about this new merging feature in that same topic.

We have a newsletter for employees now.

If you’re an employee in our system, you’ll soon start receiving a monthly newsletter that’s designed to give you some quick, useful information. We’ll point out new features, give you product updates, interview interesting people, and spotlight some of the things that are going on in the world of Get Satisfaction.

We’re partnering with Mad Mimi, a dead-simple newsletter creation Web app that helps us get the word out without getting stuck on the technology of delivering those words. My sincere thanks go out to the employees of MadMimi, who have given me some pretty stellar customer service whenever I have had questions. I know a few things about a few things, but I sure needed a few key pieces of knowledge to decide how I wanted to structure and send this newsletter, and the hands-on advice was a huge help.

If we can give you one useful thing each month that will help you use our site better, we’ll have succeeded. If you don’t have time for another newsletter in your life, you can, of course, unsubscribe. And, if you have any particular questions or want to make a suggestion about what you’d like to see from us, I’m always available at eric [at] getsatisfation [dot] com.

Amy’s too modest to advertise it, so I’m going to. She’s all over the place this week!

Today, it’s a Fast Company interview. In Part 3 of a series called “Pioneering Women Who Are Breaking Through the Digital Ceiling,” Amy talks to Allyson Kapin about the business of building a business in an industry that’s open to more women at the highest levels, but that still has a way to go percentage-wise. Check it out.

Tomorrow, Amy will be on a panel discussion. It’s called “Launching Your Own Startup,” and it’s part of the Women Who Tech TeleSummit. Ready to find out how to launch your own start-up? You can register to attend right here. It’s all virtual and easy to attend.

Goooooooooo, Amy!