Social Media Boot Camp in Salt Lake City

For those of you on the United States’ west coast, or interested in being on the west coast (or at least the intermountain west) next Friday, October 23, 2009, the Social Media Club of Salt Lake City has arranged for a first-of-its-kind event to be held in Salt Lake City.

For the first time, Ragan Communications is bringing its world-class training operation to Salt Lake City to presents two seminars:

Advanced Writing & Editing
Social Media Boot Camp for Corporate Communicators

Both seminars are presented by the Social Media Club of Salt Lake City.

Participants who register using the SMC of SLC promotional code (SMCSL9) automatically receive $150 off the cost of registration AND support the Social Media Club of Salt Lake City because Ragan provides a co-branding fee for each registrant that uses our promotional code.

Details about both seminars are on SMCSLC.org.

We welcome your participation!

A new social media song and music video by Pete Codella

A couple months ago, as I was returning home after presenting at a social media conference in Las Vegas, I had an idea: what if I took a fun, popular song and changed the words to tell a story about social media?

My idea came to reality with the help of my wife and some great friends these past few weeks.

I debuted my new social media music video, Crazy Little Thing the Web, today at a presentation I gave in Denver for the America’s Blood Centers annual conference.

The reason I choose this outlet is because it brings some of my musical theater training into my practice as a digital public relations counselor and practitioner. It combines something fun and creative with the world of social media and communication.

Other Applications

Are there ways your company or organization can utilize multimedia sharing sites like YouTube to tell your message in a new, engaging and creative way?

If so, what will be the end result? In other words, why would you want to tell something in a different way?

Are you looking for greater awareness, for more members, to sell products?

Perhaps an indirect, creative message — one that demonstrates your expertise without a blatant sales pitch — will produce increased engagement and enhance your communication efforts. At least it’ll show you’re creative and willing to step out and do something different.

We all know the definition of insanity: repeating the same actions and expecting a different result.

Challenge

Social Media Club: what do you bring to the table? How have you engaged constituents in new and creative ways? What will you be known for? What makes you unique and different from everyone else?

Enjoy Crazy Little Thing the Web

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the fruits of my labor with this new entree into the world of songs about social media.

Please feel free to take this new social media song and share it, tweak it, edit it, revise it, improve upon it, etc.

It’s all about the creative process and collectively creating something better than the sum of its parts.

Published on the Codella Marketing YouTube channel on June 24, 2009.

A tale of two brands

Here’s an example of how two different brands are using and not using social media.

Tale One

A few weeks ago, some good friends of ours stayed several nights at the Peery Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City. They parked their car with the hotel’s valet service and found out the next night that their car was stolen from the valet lot.

From that unfortunate circumstance a series of poor customer service decisions forever turned our friends off to the Peery Hotel. And because of their experience, and what has been written about it (my blog post is only one example), now hundreds of people have a poor impression of how the Peery Hotel treated this unsuspecting car theft couple.

And still, weeks after the incident, after several emails and plenty of talk online about it, the hotel has yet to respond to any criticism or offer any kind of assistance to our friends.

Tale Two

After a blog post by Chris Brogan about Socialcast I decided to give it a test drive.

Someone from Socialcast responded to my tweet about trying their service within an hour or so, offering to help answer any questions and asking me to let them know what I think. I really like what I see, by the way.

Socialcast gets social media.

Of course, I’m comparing an historic hotel in downtown Salt Lake City to a new social media service company. Let’s hope the social media company gets social media.

But there remains a powerful opportunity for older, more established brands to utilize social media tools to at least monitor what’s being said online. If they don’t, they may find themselves in the middle of a reputation crisis among those who use social media (i.e., Amazon, Motrin, Domino’s) without even knowing the discussion is occurring.

What’s your take? Do you have examples of companies who have ignored social media to their peril? How about examples of companies that get it?

How The Melting Pot helped SMC in Salt Lake City

Last Thursday we held our fourth Social Media Club event in Salt Lake City. We broke from our established evening meeting timeslot to try doing something at lunchtime.

Our event committee reached out to The Melting Pot in downtown Salt Lake to see if they would be willing to host our event. We liked their Perfect Pairings Facebook application and they were willing to open for lunch exclusively for us (they’re usually only open for dinner; and this way we didn’t interfere with their evening guests).

The Melting Pot put together a special three-course salad, cheese and chocolate fondue menu, at a discounted price for the Social Media Club of Salt Lake City. One attendee posted on Twitter something to the effect of: “…you had me at fondue!” True enough!

As a leadership team, we were a bit apprehensive about trying out the new timeslot and actually charging money for the first time for people to attend an SMC of SLC event. But since we were getting a catered fondue experience, there was really no way around charging for attendance.

Combine the new timeslot and the cost to attend with today’s economy, and a keynote speaker — Jay Shaffer, vice president of marketing at Infopia — who was very accomplished but new to the Salt Lake scene, and we had reason to really publicize and work hard to get buzz about the exclusive opportunity.

Despite the frequent updates on our blog and other channels, SMC members and friends were a bit slow to purchase tickets. But true to the response we’ve received since our launch in January, our efforts really paid off.

Our event, at $30 a head, completely sold out the beginning of last week. We ended up with two groups being seated outside of the private dining room in an adjoining section of the restaurant. We were sold out and overflowing, and sadly had to turn a few walk-ins away.

So, here’s what we learned in Salt Lake City:

Although there’s something to be said for consistency — same bat time, same bat channel for meetings — there’s also an opportunity to mix things up every now and then.

Look for occasions to partner with restaurants and other venues that understand social media and the potential of reaching new customers through the Social Media Club.

Plan a program that’s topical — we focused on Facebook and Twitter, and either of them could have stood on their own as discussion topics.

Reach out to new presenters to bring fresh thoughts and secure new advocates for SMC.

This event, only our fourth one, has allowed our chapter to now have a positive bank account balance. We now have a little wiggle room for booking facilities and providing refreshments at events. And we can say that the Social Media Club of Salt Lake City is one of the hottest tickets in town!

In fact, we’ve decided to use some of our funds to purchase Pokens (they come from Switzerland, you know) and sell them to our members and friends, both online and at events, as a chapter fundraiser. The funds will be used to help us provide excellent programming and unique meeting experiences for our members.

So, the leadership team of the Social Media Club of Salt Lake City is officially and publicly thanking the staff at Salt Lake City’s The Melting Pot for being willing to partner with us and for doing a most excellent job with the food and service.

We’re also grateful to have reached out to Infopia and to now number the energetic and entertaining Jay Shaffer as one of our friends.

And finally, thanks to the Salt Lake Valley residents who believe in and support the Social Media Club.

Do you have examples of programs and approaches that have worked well for your Social Media Club chapter? We’d love to hear about them.

Social media is like building a bridge

A couple months ago I was emailed the following as an insight for the day:

The Thread of a Dream

When I was researching the history of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge as a major illustration for the ideas of success and motivation, I became engrossed with the story of how the first bridge was built over Niagara Falls. You see, to build a bridge over a giant gorge, first you have to get a line over the canyon, from one side to the other. Easier said than done at Niagara Falls.

The engineers couldn’t cross the falls in a boat to take the line from one side to the other because the boat would go over the falls. And the airplane hadn’t been invented yet. The distance was also way beyond the bow-and-arrow range, which had been a common method at the time of getting the first line across to build a bridge.

The designing engineer, Charles Ellet, pondered the question until he came up with a revolutionary idea. He decided that, while solving the problem, he would also have some fun and generate some publicity for the project. Ellet sponsored a kite flying contest and offered five dollars to the first person who could fly a kite across the gorge and let it go low enough to the ground for someone to be able to grab the string. In 1849, five dollars was a prize similar to a small lottery today. The boy who won the prize relished his accomplishment until his death, nearly 80 years later.

It all began with an idea and one thin kite string. The kite string was used to pull a cord across, then a line, then a rope. Next came an iron-wire cable and then steel cables, until a structure strong enough to build a suspension bridge was in place.

I’m struck by how that string is like a single thought. The more vivid and clear the thought, and the more you come back to it, the stronger it becomes — like the string to the rope to a cable. Each time you rethink it, dwell on it, or layer it with other thoughts, you are strengthening the structure on which to build your idea, like building a bridge over Niagara Falls.

But unlike a kite, there is no string attached to how high and how far your goals may take you. They are limited only by the power of your imagination and the strength of your desire.

— Denis Waitley

I share this story in its entirety because Denis does a better job of telling it than I could, and I wanted to give him credit.

But my take away from this, for whatever reason, was focused on social media (perhaps because it seems like I eat, sleep and breathe it).

This story exemplifies what I think is an appropriate approach to engaging through social media. It’s like taking baby steps. It’s like the string, then the rope, and finally a cable in this story.

You should engage first as an individual. Test the water. See what tools work best for certain activities.

Slowly you build a social network, a group of virtual friends.

As you give something of yourself and contribute to the conversation, everyone benefits.

Social media builds upon itself. A video posted on YouTube only goes ‘viral’ after enough people have seen and shared it.

After experiencing the benefits of social media as an individual, you’re in a better position to counsel your employer, client or colleague on what tools to use for which circumstances. You can help them build a virtual network and become part of a larger community.

Using the Internet as a tool, social media allows us to be more connected in faster, more efficient ways than ever before.

Just as our forbearers built the Niagara Falls Bridge with ingenuity, patience and hard work, we can build and contribute to online communities.

Your Turn

How do you think The Thread of a Dream story represents an effective approach to engagement through social media?

Could a newspaper go Twitter-only?

I was intrigued to read an article today titled UK’s Guardian to Go Twitter-Only.

The blog was posted on NewspaperDeathWatch.com, a site launched in March 2007 that bills itself as chronicling the decline of newspapers and the rebirth of journalism.

The idea seemed so off-the-wall and ridiculous — a 188 year-old publication moving completely to digital delivery — and yet so intriguingly interesting. Could reporters really report the news in only 140 characters? How would that effect in-depth reporting?

Newspaper Death Watch links to the Guardian’s own online publication and its story, Twitter switch for Guardian, after 188 years of ink.

And of course the more you read the article, the more you realize you’re being played on April Fools.

Good one!

But consider the ramifications of Twitter as media. I’ve heard large American newspaper editors say that Twitter is best utilized for reporting breaking news. And that reporting is usually coming from citizen journalists, not college graduated journalists.

It’s worth reading the Guardian’s post just to see the examples they give of how they could report the news in 140 characters.

Truth be told, our short attention spans are well suited for the 140 character rule. It’s no longer about an elevator speech. It’s about grabbing attention and telling your story in 140 characters or less.

Good luck!

Salt Lake City is a twitter with Social Media Club activity

More than 110 people crowded the downtown Salt Lake City loft-style office space of Neutron Interactive last night. They’re some of the valley’s most respected social media practitioners.

The Feb. 19 gathering was the second third Thursday meeting of the newly organized Social Media Club of Salt Lake City.

The social media panel discussion included four Utah residents, each well-known for their use of social media in various industries. At the last minute, the panel was supplemented by Philadelphia-based Frank Eliason, director of digital care for Comcast.

For an hour or so #smcslc was the number one trending topic on Twitter.

As the chapter’s program director and one of its original founders, I was once again overwhelmed by the amazing support from the community for the Social Media Club.

There appears to be a real need to speak out on social media best practices and serve as a resource in the community.

In fact, because of my involvement with Social Media Club I have been interviewed by a handful of traditional journalists in Salt Lake the past couple of months on stories that include Internet information. They approached me.

What has played out in Salt Lake City for the Social Media Club I’m sure has occurred in dozens and dozens of locales across the globe. Six chapter founders launched the local organization using only social media tools to spread the word. Instead of a few dozen participants in our first meeting we had more than 75. Now we’re planning our March meeting in a space that will accommodate 150.

With use of the Internet increasing at record pace and the desire for individuals to connect with each other and business to represent itself using social media tools, the future for Social Media Club is certainly bright.

We’re already discussing the launch later this year of the Utah Valley chapter of the Social Media Club, just 45 minutes to the south.

If you’re ever in Salt Lake City on the third Thursday, it’s Social Media Club Thursday in Utah and we’d love to have you join us at one of our events.

From Salt Lake City,
Pete Codella, APR
Program Director of the Social Media Club of Salt Lake City