Brian Solis (born 1970) is a marketing executive, author and frequent speaker about the convergence between traditional media and social media. Solis coined the phrase "PR 2.0" in the late 1990s.
Solis is principal of FutureWorks, which he founded in 1999, specializing in new media marketing, branding, and business strategy for large companies, startups and celebrity clients. Solis was named to "40 Under 40” lists by the San Jose Business Journal in 2008 and PR Week in 2009. In 2010 he was named one of the top influential leaders of the CRM industry by CRM magazine. In 2008 Solis spoke at the O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 Expo on the rise of micro-blogging services, such as Twitter.
He is a co-founder of the Social Media Club, a national organization which convenes events for the purpose of sharing best practices, establishing standards and promoting social media literacy. He is an original member of the Media 2.0 Workgroup, and also contributes to the Social Media Collective.
Solis is co-creator of The Conversation Prism, a widely-distributed infographic depicting the different types of social media categories and the companies which represent them.
PR 2.0
Solis coined the phrase "PR 2.0", and is described in the 2008 book PR 2.0 as "a founding father of the PR 2.0 concept" who "realized early on how PR, multimedia and the Web would intersect and create a new breed of PR/Web marketers." He entered the technology public relations field in 1991, working for the Dodge and Mansfield agency, an advertising/ PR firm in Ventura, California. Solis also held the position of Director at The Benjamin Group, a Silicon Valley PR agency which was later acquired by Weber Shandwick.
In March 2010, John Wiley & Sons published Solis' latest book, Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web, with an introduction written by Ashton Kutcher.
Previously, Solis co-wrote Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR with Deirdre Breakenridge. Together with primary author Geoff Livingston, Solis was also a co-writer on the book Now is Gone, which won an Axiom Business Book Award.
Other writings
Solis' website, Brian Solis.com, was ranked ninth on Advertising Age's "Power 150" ranking of marketing blogs as of August 2010. He is the co-founder of social media blog Bub.blicio.us and has contributed to TechCrunch, Bloomberg Businessweek and Harvard Business Review. Solis is also an author, co-author and collaborator involved in several Twitter-related projects. With developer Christopher Peri he released the FriendFilter Twitter application in March 2009. Solis is also the co-founder of Web 2.0 firm BuzzGain.
In his essays, e-books and speaking engagements, Solis has made a project of defining social media as a definitive media category
Photography
Solis is known in the Silicon Valley for his photography of business events and figures, including the unveiling of the Dell Adamo and photographs of Michael Arrington and Mark Cuban for the Los Angeles Times.
