The Corporate Social Media Ecosystem

It’s an interactive evening at the Social Media Club, San Francisco / Silicon Valley, at Citizen Space. HP alum Ravit Lichtenberg of Ustrategy ignited the event presenting before dozens of the social media digerati on “The Corporate Social Media Ecosystem.”

“What are you?,” she asks. An expert, agency, first timer? Now, let’s get started. Companies have become collaborative with multiple customers, and those customers are interacting with other customers. One to one marketing from company to customer is a thing of the past.

The social media corporate ecosystem has also changed. What used to be a discrete relationship between companies and their customers; companies and their partners, has become a much more pliable system. Corporations now count on customers to inform other customers, and often partner with startups—not just established companies.  The corporation, customer and partner are all together having a ‘conversation.’ Corporations want to create relationships; customers want the interaction; and start-ups want the money. The “glue” between them all is marketing, business development, and capabilities.

Recap: What is social media again? The desktop solutions (and previous web apps) have changed the conversation – and people are overwhelmed. The focus used to be on the customers as eyeballs, but now those same customers have a face, an actual “voice that’s being heard.”

Over 60 percent of Americans regularly use social media (RWW/Cone research from Compete.com). Ninety-three percent of consumers believe a company should have a presence on social media sites. According to Forrester Research, people are open to most social tools from brand they like. Online discussion forums are on the rise, so are online videos while blogs and podcasts are coming down in popularity.

“Corporations care about social media!,” Ravit stresses. Cisco, Google, HP, Intel, Pepsico, Microsoft, eBay, and others are marking budget for social media, and making it part of their products, online and off-line.

The “gold standard” for social media use is marketing and collaboration – offline integration with online. And, brands are trying to get that right. HP spends 50 percent of its budget on marketing, and  brands who use social media spend 10-25 percent of their marketing dollars.

“Lots of money being spent on social media and some are getting it right…” Remember how Burger King asked you to sacrifice your friends? Burger King got 20,000 people to each sacrifice 10 of their friends for a total of 200,000 people engaging with the brand. Procter & Gamble’s “BeingGirl” is a location for what it’s like to be a young girl. And, then those girls go to the store for the first time and, it’s a Procter & Gamble product they’re looking at first, of course.

But, most brands don’t get it… More than 50 percent of brand campaigns fail. Worst ad campaigns were HP Pay Per Post, Subway, Walmart Across America, as outlined at SXSW this year (SXSW blog and Forrester Research). These brands were unable to articulate and show ROI.

Startups know there’s a need. Facebook created a global need. Yammer’s another good example. Some succeed and others don’t. Some are generic or too customized, can’t get a handle on the business model, don’t share consistency or dependability, need integration and a quality interaction, need to show better understanding of customer benefits, and have to reach the right decision makers.

“So now what?”

Each player in the ecosystem cares about different things. How to measure ROI, what tools are best, how to get IT’s buy in, are the old ways best? Customers want to know what they get out of all of this: What do I get, why should I spend time here, will I have control over privacy? Start-up / partners are asking will we get a deal, will we beat our competition, are we creating a need to fill?

To turn the corporation social…

They need to move from “selling to caring!” Focus on relationships, get to know the customers, go to where the customers are, develop meaningful communication, make it easy for them, give tools to the advocates, reward the enthusiasts, turn boring into excitement, enlist the right subject matter experts, and bring on board the right solutions.

And, of course, corporations must have a STRATEGY!

Agree on the business objectives, understand customers’ objectives, identify the relevant channels, establish relevant metrics, have right people on board, align with ongoing marketing strategy, prioritize, develop a plan, identify the right tools, then…IMPLEMENT!

AND NOW (DRUM ROLL)

Ravit mobilizes the audience with an exercise. We’ve got to develop a strategy that we can take to a corporation. We break into groups and start to work..

Here’s what Ravit’s tasked us to do…

1.    Choose a sector: technology, financial, or retail
2.    Identity a product you’re passionate about
3.    Identify a set of customer needs
a.    What’s important to these customers?
b.    Where do these customers spend time?
c.    How do they like to get information?
d.    What do they like to talk about? With whom?
4.    Identify corporate objectives
a.    What does the corporation want to achieve?
b.    Determine the decision maker in the organization
c.    They’re looking for a solution…what’s important to them?
5.    Envision a social media strategy
6.    Propose it to the organization

To see the rest of the photos from this event, please check our Flickr album.

Ravit’s perspective?

I wanted people to leave with two key takeaways. First, that Social Media is about much more than getting on facebook, twitter, or having a blog. Just like traditional marketing, for Social Media efforts to succeed, it needs to be treated as strategy with objectives, metrics, and implementation plan. Second, for a Social Media strategy to succeed, it needs to speak to the corporate ecosystem and to the needs of each of the ecosystem players.  Without this holistic perspective, any Social Media initiative will face significant barriers to success.

I greatly enjoyed seeing how people took to these concepts and worked together to create Social Media strategies. We went from a strategy for a local bank focused on small business lending, to a Social Media strategy for the Flip camera, to cloud storage, to turning the boring Dr. Scholl insoles to a sexy Executive-in-Hills campaign. It’s not hard…but it does require a shift in the way people think of Social Media. With sessions like the ones the Social Media Club organizes we are getting closer by the day.

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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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New Chapters Forming

We continue to see requests for SMC in cities around the world, and are happy to report the following ‘active’ and ‘in the works’ chapters. Please note the list below is subject to change, so it is best to check the SMC Event Calendar for real-time meetings:

MARCH

• Chapter Launches: Canberra (Australia) - Gold Coast (Australia) - Greenville, SC (USA) - Hamburg (Germany) – Honolulu, HI (USA) – Melbourne (Australia) - Salt Lake City, UT (USA) – Sacramento, CA (USA) - Seattle, WA (USA) - Victoria, BC (Canada)
• Planning Meetings (preparing for launch): None

APRIL

• Chapter Launches: Corpus Christi, TX (USA) - Indianapolis, IN (USA) - Spartanburg, SC (USA)
• Planning Meetings (preparing for launch): Nashville, TN (USA) - New Orleans, LA (USA) - Orlando, FL (USA) - Richmond, VA (USA) - Toronto, ON (Canada)

MAY

• Chapter Launches: Houston, TX (USA) - Nashville, TN (USA) - Östergötland (Sweden) - Richmond, VA (USA) - St. Louis, MO (USA)
• Planning Meetings (preparing for launch): Orange County, CA (USA) - Pasadena, CA (USA) - Rio Grande, TX (USA)- Wilmington, NC (USA)

To find out information on your city launch and/or planning meetings, please check out our Local Teams page and then click through to the SMC wiki. The great thing we have found is that you too can start an SMC chapter in your town – so just add your city on to the wiki if its not there and review the ideas and insights on the wiki about what you can do to be more successful with your efforts.

We are also hosting a weekly chapter call where we answer questions around what is needed to launch Social Media Club in your local city, how to develop awareness campaigns, discuss topics/conversations that have worked well in other chapters, securing sponsorships, and so much more. The calls take place every Wednesday, and alternate weekly – at either 8am PST or 5:30pm PST - an updated schedule is available online in the Social Media Club events calendar.

The conference call dial-in number is (269) 320-8400, and the access code is 509633#.

These calls are recorded and are available for listening up to one week follownig each call.

We do ask that you review the follwoing items before you jump on the call:

• SMC Chapter Guidelines
• 30-minute podcast SMC Founder, Chris Heuer, did with SMC Louisville Chapter Leader, Jason Falls, on organizing a Local Social Media Club. Take a listen.

We are still working to get some stronger organizational tools in place before launching more cities, but found…sometimes…you just need to let it happen and worry about the details later. If this has been frustrating for you, we would like to apologize, but we only have so much time in the day and have been doing this as a labor of love as opposed to doing it as a paying job.We appreciate your patience and your continued support of our growth, hopefully in a city near you soon!

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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.

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First Social Media Strategy Workshop in Birmingham Alabama

We are very excited to unveil some details of our upcoming Social Media Workshop which will be held on Tuesday April 27 in Birmingham Alabama. After taking the pulse of the market, reviewing the result of the Social Media Buyers Guide and discussing anecdotal evidence, we came to realize pretty quickly that almost everyone is in need of a clear strategy for integrating social media into their marketing and communications mix so companies can start to engage. It was also clear, that the biggest challenge social media champions face is selling it internally and educating coworkers, so our plan for this latest series of workshops pretty much wrote itself.

For only $295, you will benefit from the experience and creative insights from some of the leading practitioners in social media for business. Join Mack Collier, Scott Schablow, Ike Pigott and Chris Heuer for a full day workshop where you get to leave with the framework for your social media strategy and insights on how to sell the plan to management so you can begin to make it real.

So roll up your sleeves, this isn’t a bunch of pseudo-celebrities trying to show you how great they are while talking about how many followers they have on Twitter, this is about you making social media an integrated part of your business strategy. We are doing a WORKSHOP so that you can put social media to work for you. In fact, when you register, you can tell us what you are specifically trying to accomplish and we will work to tailor the final agenda and related discussions to your specific needs.

So what will the Social Media Strategy Workshop look like?

We will start the day discussing the impact Social Media has on your business and why so many people are turning to social media for an up turn in their business during the economic downturn. How does social media change things? What exactly is it? What is possible and what is not? How can it help your business? Why is everyone talking about it? What are the most important principles you need to understand? What’s the different between a status update, a Tweet, a poke, a nudge and all those other silly sounding terms?

After a brief introductory presentation addressing these key questions, each of our workshop leaders will host smaller conversations in breakout groups so we can more directly support your specific needs.  Each workshop leader will then host a conversation that includes some presentation materials as well as demonstrations of important services, software and web sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, YouTube and more.  We will also highlight important areas of focus which may be a part of your final strategy inlcuding:

• Review of current marketing plan (do you have your’s? bring it.)
• Building and maintaining relationships
• Looking, Listening and Responding
• Producing Media
• Engaging with the Market
• Managing Community
• Social Media Campaigns
• Metrics and ROI
• Becoming a Social Organization
• Social Media Campaigns
• Measuring Influence and Maximizing It

After lunch we will review case studies from leading companies such as Dell, H&R Block, GM and Zappos as well as from smaller everyday folks applying the same insights in distinct ways. While the cases are all unique to the specific situation at hand, they do offer incredible insight into the perspective required to be successful. Participants are encouraged to share their own case studies as part of this discussion too so that we may learn from each other throughout the day.

The remainder of the afternoon will focus on developing a social media strategy for you to take back to your business. In addition to discussing in-depth details behind key strategic decisions you need to make, we will also discuss how you can get support for these activities within your organization. So you will leave at the end of the day with a strategic plan and a plan for how to begin putting it to work within your organization.

Participation is limited, so if you live in or near Birmingham, we hope you will consider spending the day with us figuring out how to apply social media to your business.  It’s a transformational step for you and your career as well as your business. So, please register today and join us in Birmingham on Monday April 27.

We are also currently still seeking sponsors for the workshop. If you are interested in sponsoring the event, $5,000 will make you the title sponsor for the workshop.  If you are interested in supporting your local community and you are looking at buying 2 tickets, you might be interested in becoming a participating sponsor for $1,500 which includes 2 tickets for you and your company in addition to 2 tickets for a non-profit organization and traditional workshop sponsorship coverage.  Contact us for more details.

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San Antonio SMC Participates in Mayoral Race

San Antonio is proud to be the hotbed for so much activity. From the popular buzz at SXSW for the amazing start-ups locally to the involvement of local media experts in one of the hottest mayoral races to date. Coming off the heels of the recent presidential race, local candidates have not wasted time in incorporating social technologies as just one of many tools to reach out to prospective and current supporters. With so much buzz on networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and other chat forums, it is no surprise that San Antonio has been thrust into the spotlight of yet another ground breaking event, the SA4Mayor initiative.

Begun as a passion and labor for love, the project has catapulted into mainstream media by highlighting the mayoral leaders for this highly contested position. While each of the candidates has held their own townhall meetings, SA4Mayor plans on bringing the candidates into one room for what is sure to be an amazing night of discussion, debating, and progress. This ground breaking event will cover this race both live and online to ensure that all supporters have alternatives in experiencing this event.

“Our goal is to open the door to everyone. We want to go beyond traditional candidates forums, and complement the richest of local media,” says Patricio Espinoza, Emmy award winning journalist and Founder-Managing Editor of SA4Mayor.com. “We have built an online 24/7 stage, they - the people - are coming, and now it is up to the candidates to meet the challenge.”

Social Media Club San Antonio has been asked to participate in this event, and take lead in bringing together top caliber bloggers, tweeters, and other online community members who look to share their voice, opinions, and concerns with the direction of this amazingly progressive city. There is no doubt, that when the dust settles it will be the voice of the people that will come out on top, so the candidates must be at the top of their game.

Join us for this historic townhall event to be webCast LIVE Tuesday, April 14, 2009, 6:30-7:30pm CST. To reach the broadest audience possible, SA4Mayor.com has teamed up with the Current, San Antonio’s award-winning alternative news-weekly.

Kudos to everyone involved in proving that San Antonio, TX is more than just the Alamo!

SA4Mayor Press Release

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Social Media Club NYC - March 25th Meeting

For March, SMC NYC is being hosted at the Roger Smith Hotel (thanks to @RogerSmithHotel @BSimi @AdamJWallace) and will be sponsored by H&R Block!

THIS IS A 2 PART MEETING - Part meeting, part Tweetup/Party!

PART 1: SMC Regular Monthly Meeting

We’ve got a night full of interesting things that Social Media Practitioners need to know about:

* Chris Phenner will show some new “Mobile Virtual Goods” from NYC developer ThumbPlay.
* Tina Alexander, Product Manager, Wall St. Journal/DN will show some of their community projects (a response to the discussion from February about what main stream media is or isn’t doing)
* Laura Giaimo from Adaptive Blue will show Glue.
* A special guest from H&R Block will talk about how to save on your taxes, and relevant items to those in social media, especially sole practitioners and small businesses.

NOTE: This event will be recorded. By purchasing a ticket or attending, you agree to be captured via video, audio, and photo. All media will be released under a (CC)Attribute-Non-commercial-share-Alike license.

PART 2:

A Public Tweetup Sponsored by H&R Block - with Open Bar for as long as it lasts. Admission first to people who signed up to the Social Media Club Meeting, then guest list as long as there’s room. Walk ins only if the guest list is not finished, so please register.
Title: SMC NYC - March Meeting
Location: Roger Smith Hotel, 501 Lexington Ave. at 47/48th
Registration Link: http://smcnycmar.eventbrite.com
Start Time: 18:00
Date: 2009-03-25

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Social Media Club NYC meets Content Nation Author John Blossom

At last night’s Social Media Club meeting in New York, John Blossom, author of the book Content Nation joined more than 30 attendees to discuss his book and engage in a lively debate.

Topics ranged from the future of Twitter’s business model to the future of the Newspaper industry’s business model. There seems to be a common theme - in the words of the philosopher Snoop Dogg, people have “their mind on their money and their money on their mind.” (link to lyrics- not safe for work.)

Our initial discussion on Twitter’s future business model included conjecture about Zappos. If Twitter were to charge for commerical accounts (not yet a fact), how would the over 400 Zappos twitterers be handled? They’re using their accounts both for work and for personal use.  Many consultants in the room also noted they use their Twitter for both business and personal use, and were not sure how that would work either. Discussion was tabled until we know more.

Update: John published his slides and notes on “Content Nation Meets Silicon Alley, Madison Ave. and Wall Street.”

[Read more]

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Government 2.0: February 2009 SMC SFSV Meeting

Last Tuesday we gathered at the Loopt offices in Mountain View to discuss how can Social Media can transform government, and what roles it could play in achieving transparency with the agencies.

Our moderator, J.J. Toothman, put together a great panel together consisting of:

• Ariel Waldman - former Independent consultant for NASA
• David Canepa - City Councilman in Daly City
• Evan Ratliff - freelance journalist and writer for Wired, The New Yorker, Outside, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications.
• Veronica McGregor - Manages the news office at NASA-JPL; and the @MarsPhoenix, @MarsRovers, @MarsScienceLabMars/Rovers Twitter accounts

It was great to listen to the panel share their various case studies of Social Media usage in their respective agencies, and discussing the challenges and obstacles facing widespread adoption of Social Media.  While some departments are experimenting with blogging, Twitter accounts, Facebook profiles and live streaming events, it seems overall, most government agencies are not quite ready to jump in yet. And if they do…it seems to be so controlled that it doesn’t work as well and it could (and should).

We live streamed (had about 40 following online) and recorded (see below) the panel, and while the quality is not stellar, I am happy to have been able to capture this discussion and hope to use this as a educational piece with other government agencies to reduce the ’scariness’ factor that seems to permeate within agency walls.  Several folks live tweeted the event (thank you) and Russell Johnson did a nice recap capturing the conversations as well.

I would also like to thank our friends at Loopt once again for opening their doors and providing a great space to gather in, and to Lunchat for making sure we had snacks and drinks for the folks joining us live.

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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

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Local Chapter News

2009 kicked off as we expected and we have a budding list of 30+ cities looking to launch SMC by Summer. Here is what has been happening and what is being planned. Please note the list below is subject to change, so it is best to check the SMC Event Calendar for real-time  meetings:

JANUARY:

• Chapter Launches: Canberra (Australia) - Gold Coast (Australia) - Greenville, SC (USA) - Hamburg (Germany) - Salt Lake City, UT (USA) - Seattle, WA (USA)
• Planning Meetings (preparing for launch): Portland, OR (USA) - Sacramento, CA (USA)

FEBRUARY:

• Chapter Launches: Columbia, SC (USA) - Portland, OR (USA)
• Planning Meetings (preparing for launch): Adelaide (Australia) – Indianapolis, IN (USA) - Irvine, CA (USA) - Jacksonville, FL (USA) - Orlando, FL (USA) - Richmond, VA (USA) - Sacramento, CA (USA) - Spartanburg, SC (USA) - Tampa, FL (USA)

MARCH:

• Chapter Launches: Orlando, FL (USA) - Sacramento, CA (USA) - Tampa Bay, FL (USA)
• Planning Meetings (preparing for launch): Anderson, SC (USA) - Asheville, NC (USA) - Melbourne (Australia) - New Orleans, LA (USA) - Toronto, ON (Canada) - Tucson, AZ (USA) - Virginia Tech, VA (USA)

To find out information on your city launch and/or planning meetings, please check out our Local Teams page and then click through to the SMC wiki. The great thing we have found is that you too can start an SMC chapter in your town – so just add your city on to the wiki if its not there and review the ideas and insights on the wiki about what you can do to be more successful with your efforts.

We are also hosting a weekly chapter call where we answer questions around what is needed to launch Social Media Club in your local city, how to develop awareness campaigns, discuss topics/conversations that have worked well in other chapters, securing sponsorships, and so much more.

The calls take place every Wednesday, and alternate weekly – at either 8am PST or 5:30pm PST - an updated schedule is available online in the Social Media Club events calendar. The conference call dial-in number is (269) 320-8400, and the access code is 509633#. These calls are recorded and will be posted shortly on the SMC website.

We do ask that you review the SMC Chapter Guidelines before you jump on the call and if you have time, you might check out this 30-minute podcast SMC Founder, Chris Heuer, did with SMC Louisville Chapter Leader, Jason Falls, on organizing a Local Social Media Club. Take a listen.

We are still working to get some stronger organizational tools in place before launching more cities, but found…sometimes…you just need to let it happen and worry about the details later.  If this has been frustrating for you, we would like to apologize, but we only have so much time in the day and have been doing this as a labor of love as opposed to doing it as a paying job.  We appreciate your patience and your continued support of our growth, hopefully in a city near you soon!

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SMC NYC February Meeting

We’re looking forward to our February meeting at Business Wire NY where our guest will be John Blossom, President of Shore Communications Inc. and author of the book Content Nation: Surviving and Thriving as Social Media Changes Our Work, Our Lives and Our Future.
Date: 2009-02-24, Start Time: 18:00.

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Social Media and SEO: January 2009 SMC SF/SV Meeting

Last week in San Francisco we kicked off 2009 #SMCSFSV with an excellent gathering at the offices of Zannel where we discussed Social Media and SEO, with presentations from some great people who are deserving of the title ‘expert’. It was one of our biggest events in a while locally, reflecting the interest around the topic as well as the growth of Social Media Club, with about 90 people attending. As is usually the case with our events, there was a great mix of developers, pr folks, community managers, web 2.0 entrepreneurs, real estate agents, non-profits, social media consultants, media makers and others.

As promised, though a few days late, we wanted to share the knowledge and insights from our evening together here. In fact, Kristie Wells is a woman on a mission, focused on trying to find more ways that each local group can better share their conversations, insights and recommendations. She has been incessantly nagging me to get this post done since last Wednesday morning, so that we can serve as an example for others. So let’s all do our best to publish our lessons the next day after a meeting, but no more then a week later. In fact, we should have a dScribe (a digital scribe) responsible for capturing all the media from each event and getting it organized on the site.

In addition to the presentations below and the photos on Flickr (chrisheuer, ken yeung) you may also watch the raw/unedited ustream video from the SEO and Social Media presentations. This video still has about 30 minutes of pre-presentation noise in front of it (if anyone can edit the video and get us a better version, we would gladly replace this). Going forward I am thinking we might

The evening started off with an excellent overview of the interconnectedness of SEO and Social Media with a discussion of Rohit Bhargava’s 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization presented by Jose Nunez and Jacob Morgan from HiRank. The original 5 elements Rohit presented are:

1. Increase your linkability
2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy
3. Reward inbound links
4. Help your content travel
5. Encourage mashups

Jose’s presentation was very informative.

Next up was Daniel Riveong, from e-Storm who was sharing more tactically focused case studies.  Daniel was also sharing some examples of missed opportunities, where great social media marketing was missing the SEO elements that would have made it even more succesful on many different levels.  It’s a very compelling case as to why SEO should have a prominent seat at the social media strategy table.

It was clear from the quality of the content being presented that we needed to take less time for discussion and more time for presentation this night.  This was especially clear when Brent Csutoras started his presentation which really capped up a great series of lessons with the special insider insight that everyone needs to take their work to the next level.  You can download his presentation (and also access the video) from his blog post recapping the night.

It was a great way to kick off what is going to be an exciting, albeit difficult, 2009.  While there was plenty of food and beverages for all, the night was not without its glitches.  While Zanel has an incredible space, its clear that SMCSFSV needs to get some portable sound amplification and a better microphone setup for each event.  I also would have liked to have had more time for discussion, but I, as emcee, let each presenattion continue longer since it was valuable information and everyone was engaged.

So for next month’s event, we can really use your help.  Please contact us at smcsfsv —at— socialmediaclub —dot— org if you are interested in volunteering or have suggestions on how to make our time together more valuable. More information about upcoming events will be posted on our Facebook group soon, so stay tuned

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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 Club: Chapter Launches

Are you interested in launching Social Media Club in your local city?  Need a little help growing your existing chapter? On the hunt for interesting topics?

Join us on our weekly chapter call where we answer questions around what is needed to launch Social Media Club in your local city, how to develop awareness campaigns, discuss topics/conversations that have worked well in other chapters, securing sponsorships, and so much more. The calls take place every Wednesday, and alternate weekly - between 8am PST and 5:30pm PST. An updated schedule is available online in the Social Media Club events calendar. We know these times are not ideal for the International crowd, so feel free to email kristie [at] socialmediaclub.org to schedule an alternate time as needed.

The conference call info is as follows:

Conference Dial-in Number: (269) 320-8400
Access Code: 509633#

We will be recording each call, so if you are not able to join us live - feel free to take a listen when time allows:

Playback Number: (269) 320-8499
Access Code: 509633#

We recently launched an official chapter launch guide, and encourage everyone to review these BEFORE you join the call so we all have a baseline to work from:

• See if your city is already meeting
• SMC Chapter Guidelines
• SMC Founder, Chris Heuer, also interviewed SMC Louisville Chapter Leader, Jason Falls, recently on Organizing a Local Social Media Club. This is a 30-minute podcast, please take a listen.

We have seen a bit of of pick up in requests to launch Social Media Club chapters as of late, and we will start posting a monthly update on what cities are ‘in the works’ to keep everyone posted. To get us current, here is where we are:

OCTOBER:

• Chapter Launches: Chicago, IL (USA) - Indianapolis, IN (USA) - Las Vegas, NV (USA)
• Planning Meetings (preparing for launch): Charlotte, NC (USA) - Honolulu/Waikiki, HI (USA) - London (UK)

NOVEMBER:

• Chapter Launches: Atlanta, GA (USA) - San Diego, CA (USA)
• Planning Meetings (preparing for launch): Jacksonville, FL (USA)

DECEMBER:

• Chapter Launches: London (UK)
• Planning Meetings (preparing for launch): Detroit/Ann Arbor, MI (USA) - New Orleans, LA (USA) - Orlando, FL (USA) - Portland, OR (USA) - Tampa, FL (USA) - Toronto, ON (Canada) - Tucson, AZ (USA)

JANUARY:

• Chapter Launches: Salt Lake City, UT (USA)
• Planning Meetings (preparing for launch): TBD

To find out information on your city launch and/or planning meetings, please visit the SMC Wiki and click on the city nearest you.

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