Important SMC News: March 2010 (SxSW Edition)

In this issue:

• New Website, New Membership Drive To Launch on March 12th!
• Social Media Clubhouse: Your Virtual Home for SxSW
• Local Leadership BBQ at SxSW: Request Your Invite!
• It’s a Wrap: Social Media Week
• Social Media Club Census 2010
• Local Chapter News
• Welcome New Members!
• Conference Discounts Just For You

New Website, Membership Drive To Launch on March 12th!
We’ve been thinking about this since we first realized the traditional association model was broken in the era of do it yourself community and inexpensive global network organizing tools, and the day is nearly here! On Friday March 12, 2010 we will debut our new Social Media Club web site and kick off a new membership drive as we kick off SxSW at the Social Media Club House with a special BBQ for all our local leaders and members. (more details below on the BBQ

Many of you have asked how we sustained this organization, and the answer has long been the tiring refrain of ‘we built this on our credit cards and through the generosity of a few hundred folks who bought expensive t-shirts!’. Well that time has come and gone, and we are ushering in a new era. An era in which we give you several great reasons to actually join us as a paying professional member or business member. An era in which we can build our organizational infrastructure to more fully and forcefully deliver on our primary missions. An era where Social Media Club grows from its humble roots in the Chris & Kristie home office and goes out in the world as an adult.

While the site has been refined in our heads for a long time, it won’t be refined in the real world to the point that we are completely happy for a few months. We need to hear from you with your criticism and compliments. We want this to serve your needs, which we understand, but which we don’t yet see or appreciate fully enough. So at the very least, when the site launches, please go and sign up as a free member and give us your feedback so we can talk about the ‘overnight success’ that Social Media Club has become in the 4 years since first registering the URL and dreaming this big dream.

Stay tuned for details on the http://www.socialmediaclub.org/ website. Follow our updates on Twitter and check out the new site on Friday March 12, 2010. ::we are so excited::

Social Media Clubhouse: Your Virtual Home for SxSW
If you are unable to make it to Austin for SxSW this year, don’t fret, because the Social Media Club House will be your source for all things SxSW from March 12-21. We have big plans for “The Clubhouse” in 2010. First launched in 2007 as a place for members and supporters to stay together and make media during a double conference stint in Las Vegas, then reinvented for Le Web this past December, we are now evolving the concept even further as our home away from home where we can report on conferences that matter to you.

In addition to reporting on SxSW with blog posts from clubhouse residents each day and our daily recap show produced with TechZulu and Justin.tv every day at 6pm CST, we are doing some pretty special events. With our sponsors/partners we will be hosting several conversations that matter in addition to a musical showcase with local NPR affiliate KUT 90.5.

We invite you to tune in to our live streams on the Social Media Clubhouse blog of The Synaptic Web Summit (Saturday, March 13th @ 3pm CST) sponsored by Intel, Maximum Engagement: Understanding the Social Media Multiplier (Sunday, March 14th @ 3pm CST) sponsored by Awareness, Inc and the Co-Working Summit (Monday, March 15th @ 1pm CST) sponsored by Moonfruit. Each show will be followed by a special musical performance from a rising star in the music world and then later on by the daily recap show.

It’s going to be a great start for our new site and we hope that you not only tune in, but help us by embedding the live video feed in your local chapter’s site and/or your own blog. Please do help us spread the word on this so that we can knock this out of the park and ensure that we can do bigger and better clubhouse’s at the events that matter most to you.

Local Leadership BBQ at SxSW: Request Your Invite!
If you are a member of the leadership team of a local SMC chapter or a professional member attending SxSW, you are invited to request an invite to join us at the Social Media Clubhouse on Friday 3/12 from noon to 2pm. Here you will be able to meet other leaders from around the world to network, share success stories, discover the new members site and hear about our important plans for the future (including how we will be getting you more sponsor dollars and providing more operational support if you want it). Even better yet, the BBQ is being catered by the world famous Salt Lick BBQ, which has been featured all over television as the best BBQ in Texas.

The Club House is about 15 minutes from the Convention Center on Lake Austin, and we will be providing transportation to/from the event to make it easier for you to attend. This event is first and foremost for local leaders, but if we have room, we will be opening up the guest list to more members and supporters as space allows. If you are not a SMC organizer or you are, and have not received an invite yet, you can request an invite here. Well, since we haven’t gotten the invites sent to local leaders yet, consider this your invite and register your interest in attending and we will reply to you confirming attendance ASAP! If you know a local leader, please do forward this to them for us and make sure they can attend to bring you all the info you need to know about the future of Social Media Club International.

In addition to serving as the official Austin Ambassadors at the Social Media Clubhouse, the local host chapter in Austin is organizing two other events during SxSW which you can register to attend:

• The fine folks at Kickapps and Akami are hosting a party on Sunday, March 14th and you are invited! You must register to attend, so please do so sooner than later at http://www.kickapps.com/ barparty
• Then on Tuesday, March 16th join our hosts for their monthly meeting of SMC Austin at the Bazaarvoice offices. Registration page is opening up shortly, so its best to follow SMC Austin on Twitter accounts for details. Both Kristie Wells and Chris Heuer (thats me) will be attending and talking about the new site and the bigger plans for Social Media Club, Social Media Camp, SMCEDU and all the other initiatives you haven’t even heard about yet.

We look forward to seeing you in Austin very soon!

It’s a Wrap: Social Media Week San Francisco
One week. Six cities. 100’s of events. Learning. Teaching. Networking. Good times.

As the organizers of Social Media Week San Francisco we can tell you it was a real blast and really exhausting with all these events happening in such a short time frame. Since we jumped into SxSW mode before the week was even out, we haven’t had much chance to tell the bigger story, but we do want to thank everyone who came out to the events to make the week a big success. We learned a lot across the week, at our 2nd official Social Media Camp, at workshops, at panels and even yes, in bars and living rooms. As a bonus, we closed the week with a terrific closing party that also raised $1800 for NetSquared!

Please join us in saying a hearty ‘thank you’ to all the Social Media Week San Francisco sponsors without whose support we never would have been able to do it all: Biz360, IDEA, Bing, SAP, GoGrid, Justin.tv, LinkedIn, Tungle, and Visible Technologies.

We love you guys. Thanks for all you do and for supporting this week’s worth of events. It is much appreciated and it was key in laying the foundation for our future growth. We also want to thank Toby Daniels, the original organizer and inspiration behind Social Media Week for allowing us to participate and for putting up with our vocal opinions throughout the process.

Social Media Club Census 2010
If you or someone you know is part of a local organizational team, please take a moment and complete the Social Media Club Census. We need to collect the ‘Census’ information so that when reporters, sponsors, or members of our community ask us about the current state of the organization, we can give them an up to date and truthful answer instead of our best guess (as I have been doing over the last few months especially). This information, in conjunction with the new website, will provide powerful levers in furthering our primary missions to promote media literacy, share lessons learned, encourage ethical behavior and promote industry standards.

Also again, we need your help! Can you please check in with your local leadership to make sure they see this link and complete our census? It really is going to take the village in ensuring we get to everyone we need to make this effort a success. https://socialmediaclub.wufoo.com/forms/social-media-club-chapter-survey-the-basics/

Local Chapter News
Social Media Club has experienced a strong period of growth over the last six months – going from 91 chapters in July 2009 to over 160 chapters today (though I suspect there are still some more smaller ones hiding out there somewhere). In fact, we have confirmed sitings of chapters on six of the seven continents on this fine planet of ours (we are coming Antarctica, I promise!!).

Every local chapter is a little different from the next, just as every local neighborhood has its unique flavor. Some use Facebook. Others use Ning. A chapter might user Twitter just to promote their events. Another uses an email service, like iContact. Some love the wiki. Others don’t even know where to find it. This is good. This is a chance for us all to learn. The experiences of each of the chapters has informed our growth along the way and lead us to some important insights we have put to good use in the new site launching on Friday March 12, 2010 (see above).

We plan to focus on infrastructure in 2010, improving the ways we communicate with one another and helping local chapters find the right path to sustainability for their particular needs. We sincerely appreciate everyone who has taken a leadership role in Social Media Club. Your efforts are the reason we exist today and we love you for it. While the new site will bring some changes and a bit more structure to our operations, our principles of openness and inclusivity remains at the core of our being.

However, in order to support our global efforts we need to secure more funds to employ the staff required. It can no longer be Chris and Kristie working on Social Media Club as a secondary job without income from it if we are to succeed at our mission. That said, the way we are setting this up, as we will discuss with local leaders during the BBQ during SxSW, is a great turning point for taking SMC to the next level and we hope you not only join us, but help lead us to the next great milestone!

Welcome to our Corporate, SMB and Professional Members!
We’d like to acknowledge our new Corporate, Small and Medium Business and Professional Members here. Thank you ever so much for opening your heart, and your wallet, to support the mission of Social Media Club.

• Corporate: Lacy Kemp (RealNetworks)
• SMB Members: David Berkowitz (360i)
• Professional Members: Tammi Hitchcock, Guillaume Vermeulen, Kyung Han, Michael Kauffman, Charle-John Cafiero, Candice Strudel, David Vanderpoel, Tina Hui, Suzanne Reinfranck, Richard Reader, Suzanne Alderson, Kathlen D’Amato, Wing Lian, Michael Moloney, Debbie Pascoe, Stacy Van Meter, Michelle Krasniak, Sean McCandless, Sean Engmann, Shelly DeMotte, Derek Brookmeyer, C. Rachel Dunnavant, Deidra Bodkin, Bronwyn Saglimbeni, Adam Helweh, Michael Howard, Stephanie Sammons, Eric Weaver, Constance Marshall, Anne Bertelsen, Andrew Sternberg, and Kevin Urie.

We would be honored if you were able to join as a paid member so that we can continue sharing our knowledge and bringing people together to expand our collective abilities. We think that once you see the new site and hear our story, it will be very worth your while – so much so in fact, that for the first time we are not only comfortable asking you to consider joining as a paying member, we are actively encouraging it! But hey, don’t take my word for it, take a look at the new site that will launch on Friday March 12, 2010 and see for yourself.

If you are able to support Social Media Club so that we can continue to advance Social Media professionalism around the world, please register here today. We look forward to welcoming you officially to the SMC family very soon!

Conference Discounts Just For You
Below you will find several conferences that have offered special discounts to SMC members. In the future, the only way to find these benefits will be through the members site, but until then, these are for everyone on our mailing list and blog too.

• Social Media Club Local Leaders BBQ: March 12, 2010 in Austin, TX. We are hosting a special (free) BBQ featuring Salt Lick BBQ for our local chapter leaders who are in Austin during SxSW. Watch your email inbox as your invitation will be coming in the next 24 hours. Space is limited, and this will be on a first come, first served basis. If you are a new local leader or you dont think we have your proper email address, you can ensure we know about you and get you an invite by filling out a request to attend right now.
• Social Media Marketing: March 15-16, 2010 in Singapore. This conference is designed to facilitate organisations’ adoption to a customer centric approach to marketing by building a framework for social network marketing. It will help organisations recognise the value of using this platform and will reveal the latest trend in this field, current best practices and how marketers are employing it today and in the future.Mention “SMC” and receive a 10% discount!
• Social Media Strategies Conference: May 18 – 19, 2010 in Santa Clara, CA. The conference will focus on social media marketing, optimization, analytics, case studies, work shop & best practices and how executives, managers, and marketers can leverage it to meet their business goals. Social Media Club members receive $200 off registration when using ‘SMC2010′.
• NewComm Forum: April 20-23, 2010 in San Mateo, CA. This events feature five exciting keynotes, one full-day and four ½-day pre-conference workshops, post-conference strategy sessions and a one-day executive summit. Social Media Club members receive a $100 discount when using “smcCOMM”.

Worthy causes/initiatives for you to check out:

• Social Health 2010: March 11, 2010 in Austin, TX. SXSH is a day-long international social health un-conference encompassing all aspects of healthcare. The objectives of this unconference are threefold: To bring together an international group of stakeholders in pharma and healthcare (patients, providers, professionals, and industry) within an unconference format, To encourage the interaction and discussion among these stakeholders in this open forum. To expose this traditionally “insular” group of stakeholders to the true culture of social media (i.e. it’s not just about the tech) at SXSW.
• TWESTIVAL GLOBAL 2010: March 25, 2010 in various cities. We are rallying around Concern Worldwide to bring attention to the fact that 72 million children in the world don’t get the opportunity to go to school. One day, one cause and this year is gearing up to be unmissable. Twestival is focusing on global education through fundraising for Concern Worldwide (@concern), a phenomenal organization who have been working to support the world’s poorest people with their innovative and compassionate approach for over 40 years. Nelson Mandela is quoted as saying “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” This has never been more true than now; with Haiti losing over 4,000 schools in the earthquake and other regions of the world where children are forced to work on the streets or struggle with hunger and water issues which prevent them from attending. The Social Media Club members around the world have enthusiastically embraced Twestival and made an undeniable impact on their local communities along with other volunteers. We invite you to spread the word and join Moscow, Seoul, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Buenos Aires, London and Cape Town by hosting an event in your area on March 25th. The event can be as big or as small as you wish, the idea is to come together for a night of fun and fundraising to put your city or school on the map. So get out to a Twestival event near you http://twestival.com / and follow @twestival for updates. Better still, become an organizer of a local event and show the world the caliber of leadership within Social Media Club and prove to the world the power of social media for social good!

——————–

Well, it’s a slightly long newsletter a long time in the making, but well worth it. We are really looking forward to taking the wraps off the new site next week and ushering in the next phase of growth for Social Media Club. In the meantime, be well and make great media!

Cheers,
Chris Heuer & Kristie Wells
Founders, Social Media Club Global

Website – http://www.socialmediaclub.org
Twitter – http://twitter.com/SocialMediaClub
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/SocialMediaClub

SMCQ17 Doing Social Media differently

Is Social Media doomed to make the mistakes of traditional broadcast media, favoring popularity over quality and providing a platform for relatively few points of view? So wondered The Social Media Social Media Club Chris Heuer, Dave Peck and Deborah Crooks on Friday as they discussed how to keep Social Media as revolutionary as it already is. How can we ensure we stay open, flexible and willing hear new insights? What action would need to be taken to keep Social Media diverse and inclusive? We’d love to hear how you’re doing media differently in your social media reading and interacting.

#SMCQ17 What will keep Social Media from falling into the same traps as traditional broadcast media?

How to join the Social Media Clubs Question of the Week discussion: Our goal with the Question of the Week initiative is to create a truly collaborative conversation within and around the most up-to-the-minute issues affecting Social Media. Each week, the Social Media Club editorial board looks at trends, topics and news affecting social media during a Blogtalk Radio broadcast. During the call, the editorial board forms the question. This is where YOU come in: we’d love for you to post your thoughts on your blog, via Twitter or by commenting on the Social Media Club site. Please tag your blogs and posts with a hash tag, ‘#’, so we can track the conversation. For example, if you wrote a response to Social Media Club Question of the Week 13, please tag your post ‘#SMCQ13’ and we’ll be able to find it, track back, and link the post to the original post. Your answers will all be included in the weekly Conversation post & Blogtalk Radio broadcast review of the answers we received. We also invite you to call in to the shows to share your viewpoint. Instructions about how to call in will be given on this site by the end of each week. Thanks for joining the club!

Social Media Now 3.30.09

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.

• Jeremiah Owyang discusses the debut of ExecTweet as an example of sponsored aggregation might impact the community.
• Peter Kim shares some metrics on his wiki of social media marketing examples. The list is up to almost 1,000 entries.
• Adam Ostrow points out that social networking is becoming more popular than email as a means of communication.
• Renee Lemley is collecting local small business social media cases in the Baltimore area and shares some quick tips for small businesses to engage.
• KD Paine shares her thoughts on PR Newswire’s Visibility Reports as a step in the right direction.
• Chris Garrett shares results from a survey of 900 marketers on how they use social media.
• Scott Monty ponders how marketing can influence an entire generation.
• Adam Cohen boils down “the real purpose of SXSWi” and reminds us that relationships deepen when you connect face to face.
• Adam Metz shares the opening salvo for his book titled (at least for now), “The Brand Lies Down on Broadway.

Bright Shiny Objects

• retweet for the iPhone shows off the most popular retweets on Twitter. It’s an easy way to scan for emerging trends and get in on the conversation.
• Speaking of the iPhone, won’t it be cool when we can Skype from the iphone? Mashable’s got the skinny.
• Everybody’s been playing with Mailana, a new visualization tool for your Twitter network.
• Josh Peters shares 30+ apps for doing business on FaceBook
• Blellow is an emerging micro-blogging site for freelancers to collaborate, learn and find jobs.
• Need to make a tough decision? Hunch uses machine learning to help you get it right.

Social Media Now: 2.6.09

Research Papers: Newspapers and Online Communities

The Bivings Group just completed their annual study called The Use of the Internet by America’s Newspapers that evaluates how newspapers are dealing with the threat and opportunity presented by the rise of the Internet as a news source, and were kind enough to share it with the Social Media Club community. Shows many papers are trying to engage – but we wonder if they can catch up fast enough to stay relevant in these Social Media times? You may also read a summary of the 2008 report as well as obtain the 2006-2007 reports on the Bivings Group website.

Rubicon Consulting recently released Online Communities and Their Impact on Business: Ignore at Your Peril that shows online reviews and comments written by users are second only to word of mouth as a purchase influence for most Americans. Some great stats in this document for you all to chew on including items such as websites that Americans value most are (in order), Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Facebook.  Although Yahoo’s financial challenges have generated a lot of press attention, it continues to have a very large and loyal following.

Articles of Interest

We also came across these articles from fellow SMC Members and wanted to make sure they hit your radar screen too:

• Mike Manuel asks How To Create A Social Media Monitoring Strategy. Amazing with all this technology, there is still not one company owning the space.
• Todd Defren penned an Open Letter To A Would Be CEO that includes a e-book covering basic principles to advanced techniques. Nicely done.

Find articles like this, and more, by installing the Social Media Club Member widget on your site. To get your SMC Member Badge, go here where you will find both mobile versions as well as a code snippet for your favorite dashboard service (netvibes, iGoogle, etc), web site or blog.

Social Media Now 1.18.09

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!

One of the big news stories was the US Airways jet landing in the Hudson river. Once again Twitter was the first place many of us heard the news, complete with pictures via Twitpic. In a few hours the event was discussed in every imaginable media. With Twitter’s massive growth over the last year, it’s clear that the way we communicate has drastically changed.

Many of us wonder if Twitter is killing blogging, and Debbie Weil, one of Ad Age’s Twitter Power 150 shares her thoughts on the subject.

The Obama team’s use of social media has continued to be scrutinized, and Edelman’s DC Digital Public Affairs team put together a white-paper called “Inside Obama’s Social Media Toolkit” available for free download, and Jeremiah Owyang wrote about the “Citizen’s Briefing Book.

Dan Schawbel tells us how to build the ultimate social media resume. Just in time too with all these layoffs, and to help you find that job, the Purple People Collective launched to help ex-Yahoos find work. Oh and if the job market’s got you down, don’t forget that social media makes for a great support group.

Looking for more to read? Read Tamar Weinberg’s list of Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2008.

Bright Shiny Objects

Dandy iD Connect and manage all of your social media ID’s in one place, manage your social graph, and add a widget to your site that links displays all your social networks.

Yahoo started letting users add updates from their friends in their new Open Strategy. Rumor has it Yahoo mail users will have a lot more ability to filter their mail, view photos from non-Yahoo services etc without leaving their Yahoo Mail page, and see their friend’s updates in a FriendFeed like interface.

WordPress.TV launched with videos from the creators themselves to show you how to get the most out of the popular blogging app, and videos from WordCamp as well.

Speaking of WordPress, Dan Zarella just release TweetSuite which shows a nifty icon so users can post your title directly to Twitter as well as show off the trackbacks linking to your post.

Social Media Now 12.7.08

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!

• Jeremiah Owyang points out Five Ways Web Professionals Should Be Proactive In a Recession.
• Chris Brogan tells us why Twitter Needs Two Channels.
• Patricia Skinner wonders if social media is really right for everyone.
• Everybody’s talking about Facebook Connect, and Shiv Singh shares his thoughts.
• Pownce was Acquired by Six Apart, which prompted Doug Haslam to write this post: Social Media Top 5: Goodbye Pownce, PR Still Not Dead, Mapple
• Scoble wonders if paying the crowd will be the new business model, like Dave Ingram is doing with Brownbook.
• Lee Odden gives some excellent tips from his Twitter followers in his post, Get Social Media Smart with 26 Tips on the Social Web.
• Jason Falls points out 10 Promotional Mistakes of New Bloggers.
• Last but not least; Lidija Davis tells us what President-elect Obama has to say about the internet and economic recovery.

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

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.

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

Social Media Now 10.4.08

Social media sites are growing at lightning speed, partly because it’s now so easy to implement your own network. Dan Farber points out Ning is about to reach 500,000 communities soon, and Peter kim lists 234 Social Media Marketing examples.

A pretty amazing example of the power of social media showed up in the stock market this week when CNN’s citizen-journalism site iReport reported Steve Jobs had a heart attack. A flurry of Diggs, cross posts and retweets later, Apple stock took a serious header until the story was disproved. Read Henry Blodget’s post on why Silicon Valley Insider ran the story.

Shel Israel posts his thoughts on how Twitter is changing the way we sell things online.

The first and only VP debate was a much anticipated event and viewers had a number of Twitter enhanced options. My hands down favorite is Steve Nelson’s Twitter feed into Capitol Hill in Second Life.

Giving bloggers everywhere hope, ,Johns Wu sold his blog Bankaholic to the financial information portal BankRate for a whopping $15 Mil. Read the story on Mashable.

Bright Shiny objects

• Quite few Tweeple seem to just ♥ Twitterkeys which allows you to easily paste special characters into your Twitter posts.
• A new music network popped up called JamsBio where you can share and discuss your favorite music.
• The Obama campaign’s iPhone App is creating quite a buzz. poll your personal network and see who they are voting for.
• What does your blog look like on an iPhone? WPTOUCH is a WordPress plugin that can help it look good.

Social Media Now 09.22.08

Here are just a few of the interesting bits of social media goodness we read last week. Missing something? Add your own links in the comments, or email your favs for the next round of social media now.

Blog World 08 kept everybody hopping last week. See the Tweetstream at #BWE08 to see what people were/are tweeting.

Podcamp Montreal took place on the 20th and 21st in, you guessed it, Montreal. Dave Fleet posted a iGoogle dashboard of events here.

Technorati released their State of the Blogosphere / 2008 report with some fascinating info on blogs.

Adele McAlear wrtote about Yammer winning the TechCrunch 50.

Sarah Perez posted her thoughts on Socialmedian’s new “Replize” tab.

PodTech posted a video interview with Spencer Tall of Allegis Capital about what VC’s are investing in these days.

Bright Shiny Objects

• BudURL launched another link shortening service, but with a twist. This one can return “click stream” stats on your link.
• Dwigger launched a cross between Digg and Twitter. Post your links to Twitter from their site and get them “Dwigged”.
• Scribblar launched a new multi-user whiteboard and sharing service based in the UK.
• Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop got a spiffy new look and feel, making it even easier to find out what’s hot.

Social Media RoundUp

I put a request out on Twitter earlier today asking for recommendations of the ‘must read’ articles that have been penned over the last week that focused on the use of Social Media tools.

You fine folks answered with the following:

• 5 ways to use Social Media to reach people who don’t use Social Media: by Marshall Kirkpatrick at Read/Write Web 
• 50 ways to take your blog to the next level: by Chris Brogan
• Are you conversationally tone deaf: by Connie Reece
• Disruption of cascading conversation: by Jay Deragon
• Growing use of Social Media Technologies in Businesses: by peopleperhour.com
• How Barack Obama Is Using Web 2.0 to Run for President, by Daniel Nations at About.com
• How to Use Yahoo Answers for your Social Media Campaign, by Vine at primaryeffect.com
  
• IBM’s Beehive social networking community: by Toby at Communitelligence
• Limiting, and watching, what children watch: by Lisa Guernsey at New York Times
• Twits on Twitter: by Rob Sellen
• Using Twitter for business: by John Jantsch
  
• You can do your job without Twitter: by Chris Brogan
  

Interesting tool found: flibfarb

Other: Collection of live streams by loremcast

Thank you to everyone who submitted an article to share with the community. We greatly appreciate your input and will start collecting these regularly to help spread the word about interesting conversations happening around the world.

Social Media Now 09.06.08

Of course everybody has been talking about Hurricane Gustav, and a flurry of resources emerged to track the storm and communicate with friends and family. Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb created a fine collection of resources both for Hurricane Gustav and the next ones…

In a New York Times article, Clive Thompson
writes about “ambient awareness”, a term social scientists use to describe the effect that apps like Facebook, Tumblr, Doppler, Twitter and even Loopt on the iPhone have on society, helping us keep a a constant eye on our friends, where they are and what they are doing and how this is becoming a norm.

Jason Falls wrote a guest post on Conversation Agent about the future of social media and “the agency” (not the FBI).

The Forrester Groundswell Awards has a bunch of new entries. Every one is worth spending some time with and it’s not to late to add your own entry, the deadline is September 9.

Over at Mashable, Mark Hopkins just couldn’t resist pointing out that FriendFeed is suddenly showing some of the favorites you might not have wanted to share with the world. Apparently Vimeo changed the ID’s used in the feeds and refreshed their links, and all those savory tidbits you favorited years ago on YouTube  and forgot about are coming to the fore. Check your profiles folks.

Bright Shiny Objects
Status is a Microblogging app for the enterprise, allowing users to connect inside the enterprise just like Twitter, complete with archived messaging and can be accessed from a mobile, a desktop widget or online.

Several new monetization schemes popped up for Twitter.

Twittad replaces your background image with an ad.

Twittertise lets you schedule your tweets and then gives you back tracking and stats on who read it.

Adjix is a link shortener like TinyURL, but they insert a link that creates a small pop-up ad when your friends click on it.

Social Media Now 08.26.08

Here’s a bit of what’s going on in Social Media of late. Feel free to add your own links in the comments section, or send us you suggestions for the next issue of Social Media Now.

Jeremiah Owyang shares his thoughts on how a you should look at Twitter before deciding to promote your brand there. Web Strategy: The Evolution of Brands on Twitter.

Valeria Maltoni wonders Are You Measuring Media by the Pound? and lays out some basic strategies for scaleability in your PR campaign.

Chris Brogan gives us a step by step plan in How to Listen for Opportunities on Twitter.

Marshall Kirkpatrick REALLY didn’t like SocialU. Did you?

Matt Dickman points out the vicious circle politeness can create in Social Media. And I’d just like to say thank you Matt.

Bright Shiny Objects
Tweetrush, is yet another app that shows estimated stats on Twitter usage. Is it possible to have too many analytics tools?

FriendFeed is getting even better with the addition of Friend Lists, Feed Sharing and photo hosting. Check out the blog to learn more.

Travel a lot and need to get oriented? OnionMap may interest you.

Social Media Now 8.20.08

Here’s a bit of what’s going on in Social Media of late. Feel free to add your own links in the comments section, or send us you suggestions for the next issue of Social Media Now.

• Mike Sansone’s mantra is Reach with Intention, and he provides some great questions to ask yourself when considering the use of Social Media tools in your Marketing strategy. 
  
• Patrick Williams writes a nice article on How to write a Strategic Communications Plan. Having written a few of these in my lifetime, his 13-step  model feels pretty dead on.
• Mashable reports an interesting story this morning on a possible break in Gmail’s security if you use this service on a public hotspot. Thankfully, it is easily corrected by clicking on ‘Settings’, go to the ‘General’ tab and select ‘always use https‘ when accessing Gmail. Might run a wee bit slower for you then, but at least your data will be secure.
• Michelle Lamar just completed the White Trash Mom Handbook. Great use of her site to give me snippets of the content and dig into her blog to learn more. Thinking I know what to get my girlfriends for  Christmas now…
• Pandora is in trouble as the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) is looking to almost triple the licensing fees for web radio sites. Note that under the new plan Internet radio stations would jump to 2.91 cents per hour per listener, satellite radio stations would pay 1.6 cents per hour per listener and traditional radio stations would pay…nothing. Everyone agrees royalties are due, it just seems to me there should be a more fair and balanced fee structure. More info, and how you can help here.
• via @ciaoenrico, Arizona Highways is having a photo contest to capture images of their great state. Smart way to engage visitors and locals alike and keep them coming back for more.

Bright Shiny Objects
Ok, these are not really so bright and shiny, but they are three services I find I cannot live without.

• Dopplr -For the folks who travel a bit. Easy to use interface with a great social element to help you connect with your community while on the road.  Dopplr is a free service.
• iContact – If you send mass email communications (i.e. newsletters and such) this is a great service to help you manage your contact database. Disclosure: We were users, and believers, long before they became a Social Media Club Small Business Member. You can try them out with a 10-day free trial.
• Survey Monkey. There are a lot of polling systems out there, but I find Survey Monkey is the one I go back to time and time again. They do offer a free version that would work for many.

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