The Social Media Club Member Badge++

I am very excited to publicly announce this great new member benefit, which we produced with Chris Carfi and his excellent team from Cerado.  Chris calls it a “Ventana” but I think of it as a “nano-site”, being about the size of an iPod Nano, but also being smaller then what you would call a “mico-site”.  Some other folks think of it as a “site in a widget”.  However you think of it, we think you will call it cool.

As a benefit for Professional Members and business members, we are able to use this new member badge to help promote you.  In particular, we go through all of the blog posts written by members each weekday to select the most relevant posts on social media related topics, which then get featured inside the badge.

We also have included a members directory of professional members and above with links to each members blog.  In essence, it is a blog roll of our members, helping drive traffic to those who are working to support our common missions. If you have been holding off on joining as a Professional member, now is a great time to join us and help Social Media Club become the foremost organization of Social Media professionals and those seeking to learn.

Perhaps of greatest interest is the addition of our Social Media Club Events Calendar in which members can feature any social media related event you want to promote by simply filling out the form offered on the bottom of the events calendar page.

Finally, we are also featuring books written by our members along with a few other very important social media books that we believe every social media professional should read.

This is just the first of many more member’s benefits to come, and we think it is a terrific one that is right in the spirit of what we have always tried to do, work together to promote the good works of each other.

So if you want to stay up on all the latest and greatest from Social Media Club and our members, simply check out their sites.  Or if you prefer, you can read the best blog posts from our member’s each day on your iPhone by visiting http://iphone.socialmediaclub.org/

Members, please note, if your name links to an incorrect blog, please send us an updated address to socialmediaclub [at] gmail.com so we can correct - simply reply to the email I sent you last week with the correct info, or leave it here in the comments - this is why I asked for your current address a short while ago.

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Five For Sharing: Social Media Case Studies in the Valley

We have some terrific case studies that were submitted for our event in SIlicon Valley tomorrow night, Five For Sharing.  It was hard to choose, and indeed we had to pass on a couple of really great one’s just due to time constraints.  In the end, we have a great balance that will be really informative and entertaining.

In addition to Shashi Bellamkonda who will be presenting an overview of the integrated social media programs being produced at Network Solutions, we will also be joined by:

• Mike McGrath of McGrath/Powers will be presenting on how his agency used social media as part of a product launch for Nero
• Dave Peck will be sharing how he promoted this video on YouTube, how he drove traffic there and how they engaged in the conversation that ensued.
• Cathryn Hrudicka will be talking about the new social media program underway at Sutter Health about building a new medical center.
• Cory O’Brien will be talking about how they used social media for a Dwell Magazine conference.
• We also may have one other remotely presented case study, which I will simply call our surprise guest for now….

In short, we have case studies on the use of social media for: an event, a product launch, promoting content, engaging with community and as part of a broader marketing initiative at a high tech company. Wow! You just gotta love how we can all do things like this together.  Thank you all for agreeing to participate and share what you have learned.  So now that you know what we are going to be discussing, go register today so we can have an accurate head count

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Social Media Now 11.15.08

Here’s what’s been going on in Social Media over the last week or so. Missing something? Email me or add your news in the comments section!

Louis Gray wonders Does Anybody Care About Non-Blog Commenting Anymore?

Francine Hardaway points out that Obama’s decision to put his weekly address out on YouTube might very well be a game changer, and of course everybody is talking about the website, Change.gov and how it will affect the way America reacts to politics. At the same time, Caroline McCarthy wonders if it’s time for a digital reality check.

Andy Sernovitz wrote about how to get bloggers to write about you, and Michael Martine tells PR people how to pitch to bloggers.

Jennifer Leggio contends social media will not kill PR, but it does expose industry weakness.

Media giant Gannet purchased social media development company Ripple6 for their social media technology and analytics. Ripple6 will continue to develop  communities, operating as an independent entity-according to VP of Marketing Rich Ullman.

The fires in California are still raging, and Paul Glazowski shows us how to get the latest news in real time or darn close, and many added their favorite resources to the comments.

Bright Shiny Objects:

• There was a lot of buzz when the rumor came out that TwitteRank was a hoax, set up to steal your login information for Twitter and do something dastardly with it. Although it turned out to not be true there may still be some security issues to think about with Twitter.
• CrowdStatus and Tweetworks offer ways to create smaller more focused groups of Twitter users to communicate with.
• Twitter/Readburner RSS -Tracks the most shared topics from RSS feeds and then posts them to Twitter.
• 12second.tv seems a like a Twitter version of YouTube, but there are people creating some pretty interesting channels already.
• Ever wonder what personality type is reflected in the voice of your blog? Typealyzer.com is your answer, just for fun.
• 29 Travels is a Google map generator that lets you color and highlight all the places you’ve traveled to. Go ahead, show your map off on Google Earth.

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• Cracking the Boys Club in Web 2.0: Ten Women Pioneers of Web 2.0

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Five for Sharing: Social Media Case Studies Event in SF/SV

It seems that the one thing we never have enough of are case studies about how companies have used Social Media effectively and how companies have failed spectacularly. So for this month’s Social Media Club event in San Francisco/Silicon Valley, we are going to start working to remedy this.

Join us on Tuesday November 18, 2008 in San Mateo for “Five for Sharing” a night of five 10 minute presentations of social media case studies. To kick the night off, we are very pleased to announce that we will be joined by Shashi Bellamkonda from Network Solutions to share their experiences with social media and what they have learned thus far.

Other than this great kick off case study though, we haven’t selected the other four.

At this time, we would like you to submit your ideas for a case study you would like to present (or perhaps one you want to see presented) in the comments on the blog post. The local leadership group will make the final selections at the end of next week and get in touch with everyone to make sure they can make it. We will then make the final announcement for the case studies we will be seeing here on the blog, through Twitter and Facebook and everywhere else appropriate.

The event will cost $5 in advance or $10 at the door and is free for Professional or Business members of Social Media Club. It will take place at the offices of Re/MAX in San Mateo, located at 1700 El Camino. Complete details are available on EventBrite, where you can register right now. Due to the venue this event is limited to 70 people this month, so please do register early if you are planning to join us.

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Austin Real Estate Company Uses Social Media

An article in today’s Austin American-Statesman relates how Benn Rosales and Lani Anglin-Rosales, members  of SMC Austin, use social media in their real estate company. Their Agent Genius blog-magazine, which features 37 contributors from across the nation, won an award from real estate news agency Inman News for most innovative blog.

SMC Austin co-founder Connie Reece and program chair, David Neff, were also interviewed for the article. David took the unusual step of making a Facebook page for his house, which Benn and Lani are helping him sell through social media efforts.

Read the complete story: Social media help Austin agents sell homes.

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Democracy at it’s finest - TwitterVoteReport.com

(Reposted from the Harbrooke Group Blog).

This post is party-neutral, but 100% American. Here is an example that DeTocqueville would have been happy to report on, had he lived several hundred years.

Twitter Vote Report has enabled people to directly report on their voting experience, including if they had issues with machines, polling places, how long the line is.

Look at the Americans, from all over the country, letting people know that they have voted, and more importantly, pointing out the flaws so they can be quickly fixed to ensure fair elections. I’ll be Twittering my vote report today.

Twitter Vote Report » Spread the word

On November 4th 2008, millions of Americans will go to over 200,000 distinct voting locations and using different systems and machinery to vote. Some voters will have a terrific experiences, and others will experience the same problems we have been hearing about for years - long lines, broken machines, inaccurate voting rolls, and others will experience problems that we haven’t heard about before. That’s why a new citizen-driven election monitoring system called Twitter Vote Report (www.twittervotereport.com) was just launched. Using either Twitter.com, iPhone, direct SMS, or our telephone hotlines, voters will have a new way to share their experiences with one another and ensure that the media and watchdog groups are aware of any problems.

And YOU can help! Be a citizen journalist! Submit a report about conditions at your polling place.

Clients sometimes ask what value Social Media brings to our society. This is a great example of collective, mostly de-centralized action for a cause. Imagine what your company could do for its customers if some percentage of them had a reason to care this much about something.

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Social Media Now 10.31.08

I’ve been doing these social media round-up posts every couple of weeks but there was so much good stuff this week I couldn’t wait. Did I miss something? Email me or add it to the comments!

• Jay Deragon wonders if social media ROI is really so important, read more posts on ROI from Jason Falls, Janet Fouts and Brad J. Ward, find some good tools and posts on the topic on Constructing Social.
• With all the focus on Social Media ROI, Amber Naslund wonders if every social media initiative has to succeed to be valuable.
• Pistachio gives her 2 cents on Magpie, a new scheme to monetise Twitter.
• Brian Solis discusses brand management and the social web..
• ReadWriteWeb added a jobs board to their site. In these times we all need a little extra info?
• Marc Meyer suggests we all quit talking to each other so much and talk to the clients instead.
• Beth Kanter writes about prioritizing your web marketing budget and social media’s slice of the pie.
• In typical Chris Brogan (and Bryan Eisenberg) style, a way to trick or treat on Twitter and raise $$ for a good cause. Go do this.

Bright Shiny Objects

• TweetGrid Create a Twitter search dashboard that updates in real time. It’s not sexy but if you’re a topic watcher it’s a wonder.
• Tweetburner Get reporting on the links you shorten and post to Twitter and Friendfeed.
• QikCom is another microsharing app for the enterprise.
• Docstoc Let’s you email a document to it for storage and sharing with your friends.
• What would Seth Godin do? is a new Wordpress plugin that helps you build your subscriber base.
• Firefox for Web Marketing Ninjas lists some ways to make your web marketing easier.
• Ever want to look fondly back on the early Twitter days? My First Tweet will show you the first Tweet of any user.

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Social Media Now 10.22.08

Here’s a quick round-up of some recent news in social media. Did we miss your favorite social media news story? Add it in the comments or email us to add it to the next post for social media now.

Shel Israel writes about not mistaking popularity for influence. There’s an interesting post on Mashable about top blunders from the social media gurus, with a little something we can all learn from. Chris Brogan reminds us that it’s not necessarily true the famous bloggers are the only ones with anything important to say, and to promote and encourage others to keep the conversations fresh. Blog Action Day showed how social media can help us raise our voices and awareness about critical issues and thousands of bloggers responded in their own ways. Nonprofit Bootcamp happened in San Mateo, and over 2000 people got the resources they needed to get down to business online. Nielsen online ratings showed huge traffic growth for several social media sites this year, especially Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin, while some other sites like Buzznet and imeem slipped a bit, and imeem may be doing some cutting back. FriendFeed announced their real-time API, so now you can keep up to date on your friends in real-time.

Bright Shiny Objects

• AppLoop is an iPhone friendly RSS reader that’s getting good reviews.
• Lijit search just added advertising to it’s bag of tricks.
• Twine can help you track your bookmarks and other content, and learns what you like the more you use it and then makes recommendations based on your usage.

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• FriendFeed Announces Another Update
• Followers, Friends, and Fans: Expanding Your Online Community - Emetrics Summit DC 2008 - Day 1

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Who Owns Social Media? SF/SV Panel

We had a great conversation tonight about the question, Who Owns Social Media? When I asked it originally, I had meant to ask it within the context of ‘within the enterprise’, but in twitterland, had to shorten it a bit - as we discussed, it was also the question I was being asked by many different clients.  We found some very interesting insights along the way.  I have much more to add, but not enough time to do so tonight.

Thankfully, these folks already did manage to write some more…

• Andrew Mager liveblogged the event over on ZDNet
• Kenneth Yeung posted a ‘rebuttal’
• Ashley Messick furthers the conversation
• Daniela Barbosa gets a chance to ask her question (panel was too short, yes, so we continue here)

Well, I have to do a little more work before getting to the airport in the morning (heading over to facilitate Social Media Workshop Hawaii and then speaking at PodCampHawaii), so will need to pick this up later THUR… will hopefully see your thoughts here.