SocialMedia.org Board Chair Karen Gutierrez from U.S. Bank

Speaker: Karen Gutierrez, U.S. Bank

Karen Gutierrez: I think my favorite thing about SocialMedia.org is the way that we can tap into each other's knowledge through the Fast Feedback forums. It's really great to be able to talk and be candid with colleagues at other companies about different issues in social media. It's been a tremendous help to my company and myself.

Karen Gutierrez: One of the times that the community helped me recently, had to do with a question I had on one of our phone calls as a group where the importance of engaging with your social media community came up, and I asked about how to make the business case for a community management role on your team. And somebody in the chat actually had a suggestion for me, and I thought it was great. The next day at the office, I started looking into it, and I think it's actually going to work as a solution to our issue. So I'm so pleased that I was able to get the quick help like that with such a meaningful suggestion. It just really makes my life easier in so many ways.

Karen Gutierrez: So one of the big things that sets SocialMedia.org apart is the fact that vendors are not involved in the organization, as far as participating in events or trying to get our business through their sponsorship of conferences, etcetera. We all know how that works with other organizations, and sometimes it's fine -- you want to be exposed to different vendors. But the beauty of SocialMedia.org is that it's really people at brands who are running social media, talking among themselves, and not having kind of undue influence going on from vendors. So I really appreciate that aspect of the organization. I feel like we can be very candid with each other, give honest opinions on everything related to social media, and we know that it's all going to remain confidential. So it's a wonderful organization.