If you’ve ever gotten a wedding invitation on Facebook or kept up with your kids by reading tweets from their teachers, you’re part of the movement. And at SocialCamp Memphis Sept. 19 at the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering, we met the people leading it.

The second “un-conference” of its kind in Memphis, SocialCamp was an even mix of planned sessions and peoples’ choice, with topics ranging from SEO for Social Media, Facebook for Small Business and round-table discussions on topics like non-profit web strategies. Regardless of the specific topic, though, the overwhelming theme of the day was that social media is less about the internet and more about real life: the whole point is to connect. It’s not about being attached to your PDA or your iPhone (though we’ll admit that’s often a side effect); it’s about community. Whether it’s a business connecting to customers or a blogger connecting to an audience, there’s a community of real people behind those avatars.

The idea of connecting came up again and again: in the Grow and Foster Your Blog session, we learned about applications that can increase comments on blogs, allowing the blogger to return more comments, visit more blogs and create more conversation to yield repeat visitors. In The ‘Cheers’ Model of Marketing, we learned that, well, you want to go where every body knows your name. And in Don’t Be A Social Media Douche Bag, we learned that you’ve got to engage as a real person, or else you and social media have failed each other.

But really — in keeping with the theme of connecting — what gets us excited about SocialCamp is truly the social aspect: bloggers, marketing pros, SEO experts, web designers and avid tweeters meeting up and sharing ideas. Not only were some of Memphis’ best and brightest in attendance at SocialCamp 2, they fit into no one mold; the range of ages, professions and personalities represented inspires a lot of confidence in the future of the medium. We just hope we can have breakfast with some of them soon.

Tags | launch, LunaWeb, Memphis, Social Expedition, socialcamp, Twitter, unconference