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.

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Seeking Case Studies: Social Media Successes

We would like to put together a list of ‘case studies’ of companies around the world (large and small) who have adopted a Social Media strategy and, here’s the kicker, successfully taken action on their plan.

It may not have been a completely smooth path for them to walk down, but they are making strides and their internal and external communities are all the better for it.

Who should we make sure is included in this list and why (short summary please)? And feel free to toot your own horn if you are proud of what you are doing.

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Vote for your favorite SXSW panel!

The SXSW panel selection process opened this morning, and several of the Social Media Club Advisory Group members have pitched presentation ideas in the hopes of sharing their experiences with you. If any of these topics move you, feel free to cast your vote for one, two or all of them (listed in alphabetical order):

• Against All Odds-A Media Literate World: The new “Media Literacy” means understanding the facts, context and perspective of content. When you share, modify, or comment, this shows who you are online and in society. The public record of your search and attention stream will define how you’re perceived. How do we increase media literacy?  Presenters: Chris Heuer, Howard Greenstein, Alex De Carvalho, Brian Solis (with possibly Howard Reingold too)
• Beyond Social Media: Introducing Social Communications: Who really “owns” social media? Is it PR, Marketing, Branding? This panel will demonstrate that it’s all of the above and more. Thus the new category “Social Communications,” which we can think of as a hybrid of PR, marketing, branding, WOM, customer service, product development and more.  Presenters: Jackie Peters, Kristie Wells, Connie Reece, Chuck Hester, Todd Van Hoosear
• Breaking Through the Digital Ceiling: Are you a woman (or a man) who loves to tech out but is tired of sexism, ageism, and the lack of diversity? Women in tech and social media experts identify strategies for breaking through the digital ceiling. The panel will discuss topics such as getting heard by upper management, how to effectively advocate for your work and expertise, what men can do to help promote women in technology as well as how to break through the barriers of being too young or too old in the tech sector.  Presenters: Allyson Kapin, Charlene Li, Connie Reece, Susan Mernit, Lynne Johnson
• Climbing the Corporate Ladder in a Mini Skirt (or pant suit?): Powerful tech women share their secrets regarding kicking ass, moving up the ladder, dealing with jerks, and helping other girls reach the top. Presenters: Mel Kirk, Sally Strebel, Kristie Wells, Bronwyn Jones, Aubrey Sabalas
• Corporate Reputation Management in the 2.0 World: For too long reputation management has involved cheap Google tricks and seat-of-the-pants tactics. Lee Odden and Rob Key, two prominent experts in search and corporate reputation management, will outline a strategic approach to reputation, based on a sophisticated understanding of conversation mining data and new media engagement. Presenters: Rob Key, Lee Odden
• Discussion on the Pervasiveness of Streams: The emergence of streams in our digital lives is, in many ways, aligning our thinking in a way that we are only subtly appreciating. Streams represent the end of top-down broadcast and the beginning of a confluence of information and communication exchange patterns that function multi dimensionally. Presenters: Greg Narain, Jackie Peters, Brian Solis
• Everything you know about Social Media is Wrong!: Everyone knows that social media has created a revolution in marketing. But aren’t most marketers missing the point about what social media can or cannot do for them? This panel will expose the horrible lies and deceptions surrounding social media marketing. You will know what social media is and isn’t. Presenters: Hugh MacLeod, Tara Hunt, Deb Schultz, Jeremiah Owyang, Chris Heuer and Brian Oberkirch (possibly).
• Fire Your PR Firm and Brand it Yourself: Social Media Club interim board members will give advice and anecdotes about how PR and branding have changed because of social media and how, as an entrepreneur, you sre empowered. You can now market your own product or company better than any PR firm. And you should. This is for technical people, to teach them the DIY of social media as a branding tool. You would be surprised how many engineers don’t know this.  Presenters: Francine Hardaway and a cast to be announced shortly
• 5 Common Misperceptions of Technological Creativity: Drinking the creation koolaid can sometimes be deceiving. It’s like trying to acclimate your taste buds to dog crap.  5 successful panelists share with you the ways to tell the difference between koolaid (the purple stuff) and Sunny D. to get results rather than reaching into a risky over populated grab bag. Presenters: Sally Strebel, Mel Kirk, iJustine, Kristie Wells, Laura Fitton
• Let’s Get Social! Moving from me to we: The Web 2.0 evolution has enabled companies to connect with their constituents in transparent and impactful ways, achieving a greater competitive edge. In order to take full advantage of this movement, companies must embrace open dialogue through community and fully understand the implications of becoming a more “social” organization. Presenters: Aaron Strout and a cast to be announced shortly
• Love Your Customers, They Love You Back: Relationships are the new currency in social media. They need cultivation and value from both sides in order to grow into something of value and longevity. Explore engagement as the only way to earn customer respect, business, loyalty, and referrals as we do what matters to earn their friendship. Presenters: Becky Carroll, Brian Solis, 2 Special Guests
• SEO for startups: Does your startup have a plan for SEO? Millions of searches are performed daily on the internet and there is an enormous amount of ROI that comes from ranking for targeted keywords and phrases. This panel will give you an understanding, dispel any myths, and provide tips on how to approach SEO for a Startup, just like yours! Presenters: Tony Adam, Todd Friesen, Lee Odden 
• Walking the tech runway in stilettos: Being a girl in a boys world. And succeeding. Similar to the panel above. But different. It’s a fun and lighthearted discussion that prepares females for greater success by helping them get comfortable in their own shoes. 5 panelists share the lessons learned on their journey toward success. Presenters: Mel Kirk, Sally Strebel, Kristie Wells, Bronwyn Jones, Aubrey Sabalas or Tara Hunt (I think)
• What does a community manager do: We will discuss and answer just what an online community manager is and what they do. How do you measure what a CM does? How do I know if I need one? How does a company evangelist differ from this? What skill set does my CM need? Where do I find a CM? What personality traits does a CM need? These and many other questions will be answered about this up and coming position. Presenters: David Peck, Jake McKee, Bill Johnston, Connie Benson.

Cast your vote and we hope to see you in Austin at SXSW!

UPDATED: Added SEO for Startups, Corporate Reputation Management and Everything you know about Social Media is Wrong!, What does a community manager do

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Social Media Camp: 7 City Summer Tour

Our friends over at Yoono have announced Social Media Camp, a one day unconference held in seven (7) cities across the U.S. focused on bringing some of the brightest minds in Social Media together with people interested in learning more about the power of Community Based Marketing. Top local names in Blogging, Podcasting, Live Streaming, and New Media will be on hand to lead sessions - a la BarCamp Style - to share what they know with the world.

There will be at least 2 tracks at each event - a beginner track (think Blogging 101), and an advanced track (think What is Social Capital - and Why Should I Care?).

They are brainstorming topics for the event now - so if you have something you’d like to talk about (beginner or advanced) - or if there is something you’d like someone to cover - add it to the Wiki in the city/cities of your choice.

Who’s Invited: Everyone interested in Social Media. If you’re a Blogger, Podcaster,
Community Manager, Online Marketer, Web Designer, Technologist, Facebooker, or Social Media Junkie then this event is for you. If you’re in Marketing, PR, Advertising, Communications, or Education - or if you work with a Non-Profit - then this event is for you too!

Cost: FREE

Social Media Camp is coming to the following cities:

• Seattle, WA - July 12th
• San Francisco, CA - July 15th
• Los Angeles, CA - July 18th (working on venue)
  
• Austin, TX - July 30th (working on venue)
• Miami, FL - August 2nd (working on venue)
• Boston, MA - August 5th (working on venue)
• New York, NY - August 7th (working on venue)

The Social Media Camp dates and cities were picked to coincide with Mashable’s Summer Tour, so make plans to join your peers in the day for some good Social Media loving, then carry on into the night at the Mashable party. Both events require registration, and information can be found on the respective websites/wikis.

Social Media Club is proud to be a Media Sponsor of this event, and we hope to see you at one (or more) of the gatherings.

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Trending towards more social organizations?

Chris wrote an interesting piece today that stems from some of his work being done on ‘The Social Media Playbook’ (out in 2008 or 2009 or 2010…have no idea…don’t ask…I know nothing) called Towards a More Social Organization.  It is a topic close to my heart. It is focusing the point of Web 2.0/Social Media back on the people, not the processes or the technology.

In the article, Chris suggests the need for a Chief Social Officer - someone who would work closely with a CMO/CEO. Someone who believes:

…embracing social media is embracing change management; changing the way teams collaborate; improving our relationships with customers; affecting our interaction with partners; overseeing customer support; empowering sales people to be purchase support; altering our product innovation and creation processes; and ultimately, bringing us out of the industrial age, beyond the information age and into a new age of enlightenment. It requires us to break down, once and for all, the silo walls that separate groups, the moats that have created fiefdoms of power and the interpersonal bullshit that prevents us from seeing that we all want what’s best, even if we have different ideas of how to do it.

What do you think?  Is this a new role that needs to be filled?  Please leave your comments on Chris’ blog.

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Join our Friend Feed Room, kill a mailing list!

OK, I finally succumbed to the hype and got past the shiny object syndrome to see the real potential of Friend Feed when they added the new rooms feature.  I have been telling everyone I know for the past 2 years that groups done simply and done right are the real killer app - and now this addition just might kill Twitter (though they are doing a pretty good job themselves).

Since I started using it for real as part of my continuous parallel attention,  which has been limited by deadlines and travel this week, I finally got it.  Not only are the comments and thumbs up (like) features cool, but ‘get a room’ has taken on a whole new meaning.

If blogs replace email as a way for communications and collaboration, Friend Feed Rooms replace the mailing list.  In that Mike McGrath, Janet Fouts and I were talking about building up the SMC mailing list finally, I realized we would just make a Friend Feed Room instead.  So come join me there and lets start really sharing with one another…

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SMC Seattle Meeting Tonight

The Seattle Chapter of the Social Media Club is having an event tonight, May 1, 2008 at the Text 100 office in downtown Seattle. The meeting starts at 6:30 and refreshments will be served.

Here’s the skinny-

A Published Stream of Consciousness:
Do Business and Micro-blogging Mix?

Micro-blogging services such as Twitter are continually growing in popularity, but many business people are asking how this fits into their professional life. Announcing to friends that you’re “exhausted from a late Saturday night” or “going to buy tickets to the TP concert…anyone interested?” seems far removed from anything co-workers (much less your boss!) wants to know.

While Twitter is great for personal use, many companies are using micro-blogging to enhance their business communications as well.

Join the Seattle Social Media Club to discover how you can use micro-blogging services to enhance your personal brand, grow and strengthen your business network, notify customers, promote your blog and more.

Randy Stewart, social media strategist and Senior Product Manager of Boxbe will be presenting short introduction to Twitter and microblogging followed by an interactive forum designed to help you get the most out of your micro-blogging feed.

Sign up here to let us know you are coming.

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Social Media Club Phoenix

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SMC New York City Meeting Reviews

Thanks to Les Blatt from LB’s Rambles for a great set of notes from last night’s SMC NYC meeting. In his post on “Learning from the Crowd” Les captured much of the discussion that went on as people introduced themselves and were asked to share one site or resource they found useful so that everyone in the group could learn about it.

Then, in “Business Gets Personal Again” Les reviewed Chris Heuer’s slides and the discussion that the group had around how Social Media is making business personal.

Allen Stern had a slightly more critical review of the meeting at Center Networks. Chris responded in the comments, and so did I but that one seems to have gotten lost or hasn’t been moderated as of yet. Allen’s feedback is appreciated, and we are looking for more folks to lead more topics. The challenge of the room’s layout -which didn’t allow for people to see each other (classroom format) - will hopefully be one of the things we fix in future meetings.

Steve Eisenberg recorded the meeting.

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BarCamp’s 2nd Anniversary Block Party!

I registered for BarCampBlock the other day on Facebook, forgetting that this was probably an event promotional venue rather than an event registration activity. Fortunately for me I follow Tara on Twitter where I learned that a) BarCampBlock was TechCrunch’d today and b) they ran out of spots and c) that she added more openings to the real Eventbrite registration page. Thankfully I just registered Kristie and myself for next weekend’s festival-like knowledge sharing event, so I will be there and so should you.

As I have said too many times to count, my experience at Gnomedex and BarCamp in the summer of 2005 were milestone moments in my life. It inspired me to launch BrainJams(woefully out of date), to learn the Art of Hosting and to ultimately start Social Media Club to help bring the spirit or open knowledge sharing and peer to peer/ informal learning to a wider audience outside of the technology community. To the degree that I know we have made a difference in many people’s lives through personal conversations with them, we have been a success. It seems that we are just beginning to realize a more sizable impact in terms of the numbers of people we empower with this thinking, essentially in the midst of the multi-year overnight success process.

To further my personal crusade to teach businesses why they should cultivate sharing cultures and host market conversations for creating successful market engagement, I am going to be leading a session at BarCampBlock entitled “Why Intention Matters to your Business“. The short summary of my thesis is: while the value a company provides customers with their product/service is paramount, selling it to exploit the market and separate people from their money will never create the most successful result or maximize long term profitability.

So I hope to see you at BarCampBlock, and hopefully to get a chance to talk to you about a new form of BI, Business Intention…

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Upcoming SMC gatherings

• San Francisco: July 31, 2007 (pending)
• Philadelphia: August 1, 2007
• Denver: August 7, 2007
• Silicon Valley: August 16, 2007
• Boston: September 13, 2007
• Phoenix: September 13, 2007
• London: September 20, 2007

Some of the following cities took short summer breaks, others are in the planning stages and we should have updates on their upcoming meetings shortly:

Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, Seattle, South Florida, Vancouver, and Washington DC.

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Reflections on SMC Atlanta Event

Last night’s Social Media Club meeting focused on the the changing face of media, and a phrase ending with “…the people formerly known as the audience.” The setup was a little different than usual, because we had a set topic and a slate of specific presenters (Steve Riley from WSB-TV and Marlon Manuel from the AJC) rather than the usual and flatter setup of all “participants” who might also be presenters as part of the meeting. The objective was to look at how those organizations view the current media space, and that’s why we had them set up as panelists. That did serve to change things up…

To read more of the story, please visit the Earthlink blog.

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CommonCraft Paperwork: RSS in Plain English

Great video from Lee and Sachi LeFever working to craft a better explanation of RSS for everyday folks. Good idea, and something we want to see more people trying to do - coming up with their own stories explaining the real value they get from their tools and how they use them. It is in their new ‘paperwork’ format and the first in what I imagine will be many such episodes, Video: RSS in Plain English.

The important thing to note here is that just because it has been done, doesn’t mean you can’t improve on it by trying your own creative explanation, but do give them some good feedback and love over on their blog. I think the one thing missing really was a good podsafe music background. I kept getting a Mr Bill vibe, was a little worried for the little guy sitting at this computer really… I really miss those great clay figure shows - perhaps Lee was channeling a bit…

I tried to embed the video here, but it is not cooperating with WordPress, so check it out over on their site… Video: RSS in Plain English.

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Howard Greenstein’s talk at Business Wire in NY

People who attended the Business Wire Breakfast in New York this morning may find slides of Howard Greenstein’s talk linked here as a pdf.

The event covered mostly Search Engine Optimzation and Search Engine Marketing from the PR and News perspective, and I learned a lot from my fellow panelists Rebecca Lieb of ClickZ, Greg Jarboe, and Melanie Mitchell of AOL, and our host Laura Sturaitis from Business Wire.

If you didn’t get to speak with me after the panel, you can email me at Howard [at] socialmediaclub -dot- com.

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Social Media Bay Area Events Update!

I am really looking forward to tomorrow’s Social Media Club meeting here in San Francisco. Raines Cohen will be leading a conversation around the topic he just wrote about on DailyKos:

“how do blogs, vlogs, petitions, podcasts, bulletin boards, email lists and forwards, chat, Content-Management Systems (CMS), and even Twitter help us communicate, organize, inspire, and fight rumor, despair, and malicious campaigns.”

Saving the Earth through Social Media: Blogging the Global Climate Crisis

From my perspective, this is a very interesting opportunity to discuss how people participating in the Global Climate debate engage with each other. Which tools they are using and why? To better understand from practical examples how social media tools are being used by passionate people, in a debate on an issue that affects us all.

Given that this is San Francisco, I think it is important to note here that we are trying to focus on how respectful disagreement is handled, and how flat out untruths are spun by people on all sides of the issue to the detriment of everyone else involved. The point is not to engage in the debate around Climate Change, but to focus on new ways that people connect with each other around shared interests and how those people communicate and collaborate with each other in that context.

There is a lot to be learned by all…

San Francisco Leadership Team

With all of the travel and other commitments, I am finding it difficult to put enough attention into getting this together in the way I would like each month. So I am hoping a few of you might consider joining the local leadership team for San Francisco. This will help to ensure the key pieces come together each month for a great conversation and we can also find ways to work together and support our community. Immediately following the San Francisco discussion in San Francisco, we will meet briefly to discuss and plan for next months discussion and review other logistics. Please comment here if you are interested.

Silicon Valley Group Starts!

I am really greateful for the support of Meredith Smith from NBC11 and Mike McGrath of Tacit Partners in getting Silicon Valley started. Meredith has been working hard at trying to put something real together for different types of media producers to come together and talk with each other. She really ‘gets it’ and I have been very happy to have been working with her on this. Mike popped up out of thin air it seems, with a lot of great insights on what is happening today and a wealth of experience in technology driven media innovation.

This sort of event is right in line with our thinking about how we all have something to learn from each other - the people I have spoken with at NBC sincerely want to be part of the conversation, to listen and learn, and to share what they know so we can all produce better quality media. From my perspective this is a great opportunity for a serious discussion between traditional and citizen journalists, as well as the media technologists of the Valley. I hope you will join us for a great evening - the first event will be a World Cafe at the NBC11 Studios in San Jose discussing “The Future of Local News”. Due to the format, there is a limited number of seats - see the Silicon Valley page and register at EventBrite to attend. We will also be meeting briefly after this event to talk about the next Silicon Valley conversation topic and to see what we might be able to do to support the needs of the community.

If this topic is interesting to you, you are probably interested in hearing Dan Gilmore and JD Lassica speak this Wednesday in Palo Alto on “Citizen Media“. We are very forunate to have some of the brightest thinkers around on this important topic - I hope to see you there.

MeshWalk!!!

If you are in the mood for inspiration tomorrow, join up with our friend’s Pascale Diaine of Orange and Shannon Clark of Never Eat Lunch Alone for Mobile Meshwalk. This is a great way to have fun, while exploring the city and talking with some really smart folks. When I helped Shannon with his first MeshWalk in Seattle, great podcasts and exceptional insights were found, along with some great friendships amongst us all (special props out to Dallas’ own Giovanni Galluci who has recently decided not to blog (text) any longer).

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