I had the awesome opportunity to hear from two social media powerhouses at a recent Business Forward event hosted at the University Club atop Symphony Towers in Downtown San Diego. The speakers were Mari Smith, world's leading expert on Facebook marketing, and Michael Stelzner, CEO of Social Media Examiner.

What was awesome to hear is the highlights they give to their coaching clients are the same highlights that I have been speaking on and relaying to others, here's the top 4 ideas they reinforced:

1. Email Acquisition is Key

This is because the ultimate goal for Facebook and any other social platform is to keep people on their platform and share the revenue of the traffic with you. We do not want this! Social is our friend and very important but not the end all be all. Making a connection with our audience is the end all be all. Capturing emails ensures we will always have a path to getting our message heard and seen by the people that care about it most regardless of trends in social media.

2. Facebook Retargeting Pixel

This is a little known gem that surface level Facebook advertisers don't know about and it's causing them to lose money on ads that aren't working hard for them. The Facebook retargeting pixel is what let's your ads "stalk" the user around Facebook after they visit your site. Once you're aware of it, you'll see when you're being targeted. You can do the same thing for your site or product and make your ads more sticky.

3. Face to Face is the Still the Most Important

Social media and online marketing are not a replacement for making real world connections. It's a tool to make your real world connections more effective and allow you to have more of them. This is the number one myth I have to destroy every time I begin working with a new company or individual who is starting their online marketing journey.

4. Get a Social Amplification Process

All those real world people we talked about in point 3 should be online! Find them! And then make a team agreement to retweet and share each others posts. This is how books get on the New York Times bestseller with a group of people dedicated to the launch. Or how an artist gets bigger shows is with a dedicated street team promoting them. Get yourself a social amplification process and use it in your pitches when you're trying to attract media that you will help spread the fire.

Final Thought:

Don't get overwhelmed. Start somewhere. If you're already a good networker in person there is nothing stopping you from doing well online except starting a few easy habits so that your real world personality translates online.

Big thanks to Lauren Hong and Sherin Tebbi of Out and About Communications for inviting me to the event. Visit their site HERE