Quick'n'Dirty podcast takes a ride with General Motors

It's springtime! The birds are chirping, the sun is shining and the Quick'n'Dirty podcast just had one of its best guests yet - Christopher Barger, director of social media for General Motors. One of the missions of this podcast -- one that co-host Aaron Strout and I are very serious about -- is bringing on guests who are "doers" from which other doers can learn best practices. Not only did Barger offer tremendous advice for building brand confidence via social media, but a unique perspective of instituting a social media practice during a tumultuous time. One of the key pieces of advice that Barger gave is, "Adversity breeds innovation." To hear him expand on that and discuss the incredibly interesting GM case study, listen to the replay of the show. Special bonus: Ford's Scott Monty joined us for the final five minutes of the show.

We didn't get to our usual point / counterpoint during the show because, well, we ran out of time. Running out of time is something that we're very happy to do if it means we can make way for more great commentary from guests like Barger and Monty. We did, however, get a chance to introduce our social network of the week, which was Chartbeat. Clearly Aaron and I have taken liberties since Chartbeat isn't a social network but provides real-time online presence monitoring. I didn't get a chance to take it for a spin prior to the show but I will say that in reviewing it since, I am going to start using it. It gives good analytical insight and it is competitively priced for individuals, small companies, or even larger companies with tight marketing budgets.

Finally, our favorite Twitter user of the week is none other than Valeria Maltoni (@ConversationAge), who writes the very popular ConversationAgent blog. Valeria, we love your tweets!

Join us next week as we welcome Mark Hendrickson, CEO of Plancast. In the meantime, catch our replays on Blog Talk Radio or find us on iTunes by searching “quickndirty.”

Quick reminder and help wanted: Beginning April 29 we will move the show to noon PT / 3 p.m. ET and will cut the show format from 45 minutes to 30 minutes to make it truly “quick and dirty.” Also, we're looking for a producer. We can only pay you in appreciation, adoration and promotion, but we need someone who can devote about one- to two-hours per week to helping us produce the podcast. If you're interested, please let me or Aaron know!