Chris G Williams

Who are you, and who do you work for? Share a bit of your background.

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I'm Chris Williams and I'm a Technology Evangelist for Magenic Technologies. I love my job more than just about anyone else I know.

How did you get to where you are and with the company your with?

Mostly by sacrificing sleep in exchange for running on caffeine and adrenalin. I do a lot of traveling and public speaking at various community events and when I'm not doing that, I'm planning my own community events, blogging, writing articles, etc. I spent a few years in the Navy and then bounced around the south for a while as a consultant before finding Magenic and eventually moving up to Minnesota.

What is your favorite part about what you do?

All of the incredibly smart and cool people I get to meet.

Where or from whom do you pull inspiration?

There are so many people that have inspired me along the way, there's no way I can name them all, but I'd be negligent not to mention at least a couple… Rocky Lhotka and Ted Neward both represent a level I'd like to eventually attain in my career. My friends and colleagues Rachel Appel, D'Arcy Lussier and Amanda Laucher who are right in the trenches with me… speaking at events, writing and still working their butts off every day.

Who is someone in your profession that you've always looked up to or followed their progress? Why?

Hmm I guess I already answered this one above. I follow a LOT of people though. It's good to celebrate your friends successes and also learn from their experiences. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have so many friends to draw from.

What is new and exciting that your working on (can talk about) and want to plug?

Well I just finished a huge charity event for Children's Hospital and I'm about to hit the road again soon for more conferences and speaking. I'm also considering a book opportunity but dont want to jinx that just yet.

There is a NEW fad tool coming out every day, but reality is it's just building conversations with your customers. It's not a big new secret, remember 5 years ago email was scary. How do you see these tools transforming and helping you and your industry in the future?

I think adoption of these technologies will prove to be absolutely critical to the success of companies, eventually. But we're not quite there yet.

What mistakes should people avoid in social media?

Living too much in the public eye. Some stuff doesn't belong on the web. Twitter isn't the place for airing your grievances and drinking binges. I suppose I'm guilty of it to a degree… less than some, more than others, you know…

Define 'Social Media' in 500 words or less.

I can do it in one. Networking.

We know each other from twitter, so obviously you use social media, but does your company also use social media?

We use blogging pretty heavily, and while a lot of use Twitter & Facebook, I wouldn't say the company uses it.

How are you/they using it to connect to your customers and leverage social networks to expand your brand's recognition and build a positive reputation?

Most of our blogs are technical in nature and our customers like to see we know what we're doing. We tend to use blogs to "research outloud" it's a great insight into the technical process.

Do you track your name and your companies name? What are some of your favorite reputation management tools and why? If you do not track social media, why? (this includes search twitter-formerly Summize, radian6, etc.)

I mostly just use saved Google Searches, for my name, my companies name and a lot of my professional friends so I can see what they are up to.

What do you consider "must-have" sites/profiles to establish and why? (this includes micro-blogs, e-vite, schedule organizers, apis, build your own network)

Facebook, LinkedIn, any number of blogs, etc

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How much time do you think people should spend on social media?

That depends on their roles. A lot of people don't have much use for it and that's fine, although as SM evolves, it will have greater appeal to more people. Sites like Twitter and Flickr and Facebook already draw an insane amount of people that would not spend much time otherwise on a computer.

How has social media impacted you and your company?

Blogging has helped us I think. Twitter has probably affected overall productivity. ;)

What is your favorite networking event that you would recommend to others (either in your field, the field of marketing, or learning sessions for social media. Including sxsw, Podcamp, social media breakfast, MIMA, AdFed, AMA, Blog World, PRSA etc.)

Tech Ed, PDC and all the various smaller scale events that I travel too. I love them all.

What do you consider social media ROI? How do you recommend tracking it?

I have no idea.

What makes you and your company unique? What and why should people contact you for your services/products?

We're a Microsoft Gold Partner of the Year and home of 8 MVPs at last count. We're among the best in the industry.

How can people contact you or your company? (don't answer this if you don't want it included in the article)

My blog is a good place to start. http://www.blogusmaximus.net


Resources

oh yeah, links… Rocky Lhotka (http://www.lhotka.net), Rachel Appel (http://www.rachelappel.com), Amanda Laucher (http://www.pandamonial.com), Ted Neward (http://blogs.tedneward.com) and D'Arcy Lussier (http://geekswithblogs.net/dlussier/)
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