Comedic Digital Savant, Ze Frank, opened The 2011 Active Enterprise Network Annual Conference with singing and laughter. Ze’s discussion centered on online engagement and overcoming the fear that can come with implementing new technology.

Creating a culture centered on technology can be difficult due to the varying degrees of skill levels when it comes to your agents and staff. One of Ze’s main points, however, focused on getting agents back to the basics of communication when it comes to social technology. Agents have built a career based on communication and relationships, but they need to do a better job taking their offline communication skills and making the transition online through blogging, Twitter, Facebook and so on. Having a network of followers and providing content is not enough, you need to have your audience actively engaged with your content as well.

Getting your audience engaged in your content can be an intimidating task. Ze Frank noted that the fear of doing this often stems from the lack of face-to-face communication and losing behavioral contexts online. For these reasons, it can be hard to find your voice online when using social media. (more…)