Last night the Vitamin OC crew headed to Chapman Univ. to listen to Chris Brogan speak about social media! As you’ve heard us say before, the Vitamin OC staff is composed of social media enthusiasts and we were really excited to see Chris and get a chance to talk to him in person. Also, for all of those of you that missed the event (and shame on you!!) Michelle used her handy Flip Cam to bring you the lecture on VitaminOCtv.

In his lecture, Chris focused on the human and trust factors of social media. He spoke about about the increase in anonymous trust online and how it affects our individual decision making.  For example, when purchasing a product on Amazon, we read and trust the ratings from people that we don’t even know.  Listen to Chris and what he has to say about pattern recognition and pattern breaking.

He provided some key information for businesses emerging into social media and the opportunity of “putting a face to the brand.” He said that “businesses DO want to know what the consumer wants, just that in the past they never had the tools to do it”. Social media is changing the game on how businesses communicate with consumers and how we create relationships online.  “Get to know me before you sell to me” is Chris’ advice to businesses and people on social media.

We also had the opportunity to talk to Chris during his book signing, and to our surprise he knew about VitaminOC! Maybe it was because we posted about his visit to OC, but none the less it was awesome to be recognized by him. We admire Chris because many of the things that we do (or try to do) here with VitaminOC are what Chris teaches people about every day on his blog- Chrisbrogan.com.  We enjoy reaching out to you and being able to cluster information about the things that matter to us.

His book, “Trust Agents” goes more in depth about relationship building online. I am looking forward to reading it! Actually..would any OC people be interested in reading it with me and discussing it somewhere in OC? Maybe we can even uStream the discussion?  I am sure the book will give rise to some interesting conversations!

You can check out the rest of Chris Brogan’s lecture - here. We also have some photos of the event on our Flickr stream- here. If you want to see what other people thought about the event- check out #BroganOC on Twitter!

If you attended the event, let me know what you think! Also, leave a comment if you are interested in reading “Trust Agents” and discussing it with me!

And if you are wondering, ” Sawubona” means “I see you” in Zulu!  Watch our YouTube Chris Brogan videos to find out the significance.