Social Media Camp #IWNY Wrap-Up

Social Media Club’s Social Media Camp was a great success thanks to the over 120 people who participated! Social media Camp was held in the Roger Smith hotel last Thursday, June 4 2009 during Internet Week New York. The camp had over two dozen sessions throughout an eight hour day, with well known social media professionals, small business folks, professionals and corporate communications teams learning from and teaching each other. There has been some great feedback from those who attended and a good amount of sharing from the people at the camp too.

Some of the comments on Twitter

• VegasBill @pepsico The info packed sessions @ #smcamp 4 #iwny look amazing. @ChrisHeuer is a dynamic social media role model. Have a great time:)
• stevecherches RT @MellieBe: Check out our top social media marketing tips from Social Media Camp#smcamp http://tinyurl.com/l7dqm3 (Great post)
• deanmeistr @danzarella bummed I couldn’t do graphic recording of your talk at #smcamp - I dig the concepts/content of your talk–maybe next time!
• LesBlatt Smart idea seen at #smcamp yesterday: some attendees put their Twitter names on their conf name badges. Made it easy to follow them.
• chttrbx99 please retweet - Thanks to @howardgr & @chrisheuer for a great day at #smcamp NYC yesterday some great conversations
• SocialSteve @chrisheurer and @howardgr did a great job on #smcamp (Social Media Camp) at #iwny. Check them out at socialmeadiacamp.org
• Amver @chrisheuer Not only did I find #smcamp valuable I would love to join SMC. Hopefully our paths will cross again.
• SocialSteve Last week’s participation in #smcamp (Social Media Camp) and #iwny (Internet Week NY) has spawned tons of activity.
• craige @chrisheuer et al: Thanks for a fabulous event! I feel so inspired after attending #smcamp.

Differing slightly from a typical BarCamp, Social Media Camp not only offered open space for participants to create their day together, but also a “Social Media 101″ series planned out in advance to allow for those who are new to Social Media to learn some of the basics. These sessions were all streamed live and are available as an on demand episode from Livestream, a partner for Social Media Camp. This 5 session series was lead by Howard Greenstein and myself, Chris Heuer.  The links below take you to the blog post about each session, along with the SlideShare presentations used during each session.

1. What is Social Media Session
   
2. Creating a Digital Identity
3. Social Media Tools, Services and Networks Session 
4. Using Social Media for Job Searches Session
5. Marketing Through Social Media Session

Dean Meyers did some great visual notes, capturing the concepts and resources from the Social Media 101 Sessions. It was a lot of fun. More importantly, it seems we help many and created more questions in a few, so overall a success, but definitely just the beginning of the conversation and the process of learning how to use social media. The complete schedule for the day from the Open Space sessions is available on the blog.

 

Some of the other topics that were discussed were power of suggestion on Twitter, basics of strategy in social media marketing for businesses, social media tools, measurability, and marketing through social media. One session in particular struck a lot of conversation. Social Media Marketing triggered thoughts upon building relationships with the market, the importance of trust in marketing/branding and how companies are using social media to market their businesses products and services. 

“Companies in general don’t value social media marketing as much as they should. They’re afraid of it; they don’t understand it; and therefore, they just don’t do it. Yet it’s the most cost-efficient way of marketing there is.” - Ayelet Noff, Blonde 2.0.

Many different tools and tactics were taught, then they were put into play. One of the most compelling part of the sessions was the group involvement and peer to peer knowledge exchange. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, and were not scared to interact with one another. Among the ideas and information exchanged, relationships were built.

“I just love social media and Web 2.0…. I really want to thank the Social Media Club folks for having such a great event: Howard Greenstein, Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells…. The last session was really interesting. The topic was retweets on Twitter. Dan Zarrella from Hubspot crunched some numbers that gave a bit of insight on how people are behaving on Twitter.” - Regina, Volunteer at SMCamp

Well, we love doing it too, and Howard and Kristie and I are blessed to be able to do this sort of work and so happy to help people.

Other blog posts and photos from the event are below, please share yours in the comments:

• PepsiCo Blog
• expatJane’s Blog (Volunteer)
• Les Blatt’s Rambles
• SMC New Haven Blog Post
• DMDInsight
• ReadWriteWeb

Social Media Camp Photos:

• SMCamp room kickoff
• Social Voice from Livewworld
• Flickr from Courtney Crosslin
• Flickr from Howard Greenstein
• Flickr from Chris Heuer

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SMCQ12 How are companies using social media to empower their workforce

Last week, the SMC Editorial board focused on how to best provide education toward preparing for the workplace of the future. This week, we realized, much of that future workplace is happening NOW. And many companies, comprised of employees representing several different generations of the education system, are slow to embrace (or are simply having a hard time getting their arms around) social media tools. At the same time some companies are stymied by fear of the new, weariness about getting too much information or concern that the use of social media at work will cut into productivity, others can’t imagine a desktop without several browser tabs opened displaying common social media URLs.  Is there a sweet spot for using social media at work?  If so, we’d love for you to share your tips. Which leads to our Social Media Question of the week #12:

#SMCQ12 Find examples of how organizations are empowering their workforce with [using] social media?

Please tag your posts, Tweets & comments #SMCQ12. On Friday, the board will reconvene to review your responses.

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How Can We Use Social Media To Foster Voter Education?

Educating yourself on the various initiatives hitting our ballots today can be a daunting task as you try and  cut through the emotion and muddied language around each issue. The standard voting guides do a decent job trying to share the pros/cons of each initiative, but more times than not, I find myself asking people around me - in my online and offline network - what their opinions are, to help bring more light to what that initiative actually means TO ME and to those I care about most.

It begs the question - what else we can do with the technology of today to capture those conversations and help inform others asking the same questions?

Join California Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, on Wednesday, May 27th at 7pm in San Francisco, CA for a brainstorming session where we dig into this topic in an effort to find new ways of engaging and informing voters using Social Media.

Contribute your thoughts ahead of time on socialvoter.org (use the form on the right sidebar to contribute), or you can tweet/blog your thoughts using the #socialvoter tag.

There is no fee to attend but they would like you to register so they know you are coming. Simply click ‘Attending‘ on the Facebook event. We plan to live stream the event for those who cannot participate in person. We will also be capturing some of the conversation on our SMC San Francisco Twitter account if you would like to follow along that way.

I am happy Social Media Club can play an active role in government 2.0 discussions. Earlier this month, our San Antonio chapter was asked to participate in covering the mayoral race using the Social Media tools at hand. There are several programs in the works, locally and nationally, where we will be extending this dialogue - so stay tuned!

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The Bigger Story: It’s Time to Get to Work

Editorial Board

As a result of our continuing growth and the respect being garnered by our members all around the globe, we are beginning a renewed push to provide more educational resources, news, information and insights through our new site.

Today we have begun to take applications for our new editorial team which consists of a handful of folks on an Editorial Board working through the big issues and charting a course for our ongoing editorial strategy.  Working with them, with a bit more hands on responsibility for getting content published on the site are the Editors themselves who will be collaborating with the contributing Editors who will be pitching ideas in, and also taking assignments.  If you are interested, or would just like to get updates from the team occasionally, please fill out this form and let us know a little more about yourself and your interests.

In addition to a global editorial initiative that will be kicking off just before SxSW (details to come shortly), we have also begun two very important projects that need your support, contributions and retweets.

Social Media Buyers Guide

SMC founder Chris Heuer along with e-Storm’s William Gaultier and key members of the Social Media Club Advisory Group are kicking off a project today to develop a Social Media Buyer’s Guide to help organizations make informed purchase decisions.  The scope is pretty wide on this right now, as you can see from the initial work outlined on the [Social Media Club Wiki] Social Media Buyers Guide page. Please jump in on this and contribute your additional questions, ideas, concerns, insights and opinions.  Also, please help by writing your own original blog posts that answer the question, “What are the questions we should ask when purchasing Social Media solutions?” or perhaps even “What are the solutions that work best in different situations?” 

The tag for this project is #SMCbuyersguide

Social Media Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

A related, but distinct project due to its broader scope was kicked off last week with a blog post entitled “Building out the Social Media FAQ“.  This project is also on the Social Media Club Wiki, on the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page.  While we are starting this on a wiki, we hope to move it to a more user friendly, searchable database platform, perhaps even integrated into our new member’s site down the line.  In the short term, we have created a simple form we put on the blog post that you may fill out to submit your questions and even your answers if you have some you would like to share. Same goes for this effort as mentioned above - please help get others engaged, and help us find and tag great blog posts that might be useful and ask some great questions yourself.

The tag for this project is #SMCfaq

Yes indeedy, it’s time to get to work…

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Building out the Social Media FAQ

In talking with Chris Brogan recently (during his WordCamp Las Vegas presentation actually) I pointed out the fact that our RSS Streams don’t do much to help build our collective memory. In some ways, a tweet is like a shooting star, if you happen to be looking at the right time in the right place, you can see something brilliant on occasion. They serve as sparks for our imagination, but as with our real world conversations, it’s presence is often more ephenneral then permanent. Chris rightfully pointed out this is why he focuses so much effort on his blog, that there is deeper conversation and permanence in blogging (which is one reason why I am going to try to do more of it in 2009 like this).

In our back and forth, we discussed the fact that the online conversation that occurred in ‘the early days of social computing’ on mailing lists and forums often had significant (and generally misplaced) energy directed at people who joined the community and did not first ‘read the FAQ’ to discover the historically important conversations they had before you showed up. It included some cultural nuances, pointers to reference data as well as answers to questions from people new to the field or the industry or the community of interest or whatever the central topic was for the group.

So in thinking about our mission to further media literacy, our efforts to promote the Social Media profession and the widespread use of Social Media by different people from around the world, we are going to start a new project to build out the Social Media FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). When launched during SxSW (good goal eh?) we hope that people will be able to send anyone interested in Social Media here as their starting point into the world of Social Media. If you have some ideas about what this site should look like or what it should do, please share them in the comments or write them up on your blog and send us a trackback.

In the meantime, please help us get started by submitting one or more of your frequently asked questions below. If you have an answer for the question, even better, but the value of powerful questions is what we are seeking here. Ultimately, the biggest questions will be explored as part of our new International Social Media Club program we are simply calling Question of the Week right now. So let’s get started and move to get all the information, knowledge and insights organized! Not only will it help people learn, it will enable practitioners and professionals to invest more time innovating and less time explaining the basics.

If you get it, share it.

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Feature your video or presentation on SocialMediaClub.org

Would you like to have your presentation featured on the home page of Social Media Club? We are looking for the best educational materials on all things related to Social Media (web 2.0, community, new marketing, pr 2.0 and other related materials). Please let us know it exists by adding a link to it in the comments below along with a short description.

When reviewing our media literacy program with Michael Brito the other day, we hit upon another potentially big idea for this important spot on the home page, a weekly course focused on a different strategy or tactic.  By this I mean that one week we could feature a new presentation/video each day on the same topic , such as Blogger Relations.  In this case, we would look for someone (hello members!) to put together an online ‘course’ on these topics that has five lessons in it.

What do you think? How might we do something like this best? Are there any pieces of free or SaaS software out there we could use in conjunction with this program? Please let us know!

PS - we are also starting to develop our webinar program and need help in selecting a vendor.  We will be posting separately on this program, but since it is related, thought I should mention that here as well.

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