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

Reality Check: How Are You Really Using Mobile Video?

Mobile video is here to stay, and the Social Media Club San Francisco / Silicon Valley chapter met in October to discuss how mobile video is being created, deployed, and consumed. As part of the Reality Check series sponsored by Real Player SP, the event was designed to examine how the technology is really being used.

The first segment focused on the technology of mobile video, featuring panelists Rishi Mallik from Qik, Justin Kan from Justin.tv, and Lacey Kemp from RealNetworks. Chris Heuer drove the conversation as moderator, prompting questions and answers from both the panelists and audience.

How do you want to access mobile video? How do you best engage an audience? What are real people using mobile video for? What would you like to see?

• Engagement
  Engaging in meaningful conversations when there is a large audience is a concern. This is acknowledged as a problem by technology providers, and one of the issues they are trying to address says Kan.
• Access
  Users want to have access to video content on the go, but they want a smooth, consistent experience. Spotty coverage from service providers, combined with small screens on mobile devices, make for less than ideal conditions. In a perfect world, live video conversations could take place on mobile devices seamlessly.
• Ease of Production
  “What video do you have on your mobile device right now?”

Heuer poses this question, point-blank, to various members of the audience. The answers are somewhat surprising. They all include user-generated content. Friends and family, car accidents, sales videos, awards presentations and product demonstrations.

JD Lasica mentions that recently, at Blogworld Expo, Leo Laporte declared that podcasting is dead. What does that mean for mobile video? It means that it needs to be simple for people to edit and share content, and it must be delivered in a way that makes it easy to consume in any format.

After a short break, Moderator Jennifer Lindsay shifted the focus to storytelling with mobile content, discussing an innovative user-generated video project with videographer Eddie Codel.

Codel, a pioneering vlogger and producer for Geek Entertainment TV, was one of five people chosen from around the world to work on an innovative film project with Spike Lee, entirely shot on mobile phone video cameras.

His advice for aspiring videographers?

• Use the best tools available. Align your goals with the quality of your equipment.
• Professional cameras are nice, but mobile devices are perfect for capturing real-action events.

Eddie shows a brief interview that they were able to do with Spike Lee. Lee confesses that the main advantage of going to film school, was to gain access to equipment. This equipment is available everywhere now, so his message is: “Just shoot.” Lee claims to be a fan of social media, but when asked about posting content on YouTube, he says that he wouldn’t put any ‘good ideas’ on the site.

As evidence of the power of video, there were over 1,000 viewers of the live video stream of tonight’s event on Justin.tv.

Lenovo Live @ CES 2010

Social Media Club members are invited to join Lenovo along with other leading journalists and bloggers for Blogger Nights @ CES. Tonight’s event is sold out, BUT if you are a card carrying member of Social Media Club, a registered member of the gdgt community or an attendee of Social Media Jungle, all you need to do is show your credentials to enter. We will be at AquaKnox in the Venetian from 9:30PM to 1:00AM.

If you missed last year’s Ultimate Blogger Dinner, you don’t want to miss Lenovo’s Blogger Nights @ CES 2010. We have incredible food from one of the best restaurants in Las Vegas (according to last year’s reviews), and an open bar with premium wines, cocktails and beer.

Lenovo’s Blogger Nights is a chance to relax and unwind at the end of the day with your colleagues, to share stories and to create some new ones for your readers/viewers/listeners (and some that will stay in Vegas). This is one CES event you won’t want to miss.

Lenovo’s Blogger Nights is co-hosted by Social Media Club, gdgt and Social Media Jungle. During Blogger Nights, Mitch Ratcliffe will be live streaming each night, interviewing attendees to discuss the most interesting news from each day. If you would like to pre-schedule an interview, please email mitch@ratcliffe.com.

Be sure to check out Lenovo Social, a great portal to find recent news on Lenovo and things happening here at CES.

“Keeping Social Media Human” in Virginia Beach

The Virginia Beach chapter launched in October where a crowd of 50 people discussed, townhall style, what platforms work well for those in business? How do we merge personal and business ? These questions led to lively discussions on privacy, such as  how to create the Facebook group lists and hide what some friends can see. Lori Aitkenhead, a founder, was at a conference in Boston, so she gracefully allowed us to do a live Skype call to introduce her to the group.

The demand for the social media approach was high so we continued with “Keeping Social Media Human.” at the November 9 event.  Momentum remained strong for this, our second meet-up ever! We were thrilled to have a nationally-recognized social media personality as our guest speaker. Francina Harrison, “The Career Engineer,” – a national career, business and networking expert – lead an interactive discussion about building business relationships through social media. She emphasized the importance of connecting with your audience regularly, staying engaged and providing good content. In fact, one of Francina’s most valuable nuggets of wisdom was, “Content is king!” Amen, Career Engineer!

After the meet-up, one attendee commented, “Great event! Many familiar faces, but lots of new ones. Info shared was fabulous–especially by Francina.” Indeed, Francina was an amazing guest speaker with a ton of relevant personal experiences and great information to share.  After the event, she was gracious enough to speak with us via podcast. Thanks to Garner New Media, this podcast will allow you to share in what we learned from The Career Engineer! We plan to have monthly podcasts highlighting and breaking down each meet-up.

Our December 2nd event will have small break out groups where the discussion will be about entering the Blogosphere: Set-Up, Strategy, and Content. Join us for daily discussion on our Facebook page, where members have reached over 400 and growing!

Help SMC Austin Help Peggy Into Her New Home

This past August, the Social Media Club of Austin adopted the Mobile Loaves and Fishes’ Habitat on Wheels program for a six month program of creating awareness and raising money. The goal is simply to raise $10,000 in order to purchase one recreational vehicle that can serve as a home to a homeless person in Austin.

Alan Graham of Mobile Loaves and Fishes wrote on their website that the real goal was to get one brother or sister off the streets of Austin permanently.  He wrote, “Just imagine a few people giving $100 per month, a few giving $50 per month, a few giving $20 per month and a few giving $10 per month. Collectively, we can change the world for one human being. Imagine!”

The Social Media Club members in Austin have used their imaginations and, since that meeting in August, we’ve come a long way in reaching our goal. We’ve reached out on every social media channel we can think of and raised significant sums of money online. We’ve received a large, anonymous donation as a result of the buzz around our efforts. We are well on our way.

Then in October, RealPlayer SP stepped up and donated $1,000 through the Social Media Club to Mobile Loaves and Fishes and we set as a new goal to specifically get Peggy off the streets and into a permanent home.

This weekend, Alan Graham and I will be part of a 48 hour Street Retreat with the homeless of Austin. It will be my third time to do so. During these Street Retreats Alan and I use social media channels to raise awareness of the MLF mission. Follow Alan @MLFNOW on Twitter and me @MikeChapman. We will be posting throughout the weekend using the hashtag #sr.

It’s my hope that our Social Media Club colleagues from around the country and the world can lend a hand by retweeting, blogging, forwarding videos, maybe donating some money, and anything else you can think of to spread the word and help get Peggy off the streets permanently.

This link - http://mlfnow.org/smc – was created especially for Social Media Club. Please visit it, forward it and give any assistance you can in spreading the word and helping Social Media Club use social media for social good.

Mike Chapman
Social Media Club Co-founder

Social Causes: Tweets For Boobs.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and my dear pal, Josh Strebel, has rolled up his social cause loving sleeves and launched the Tweets For Boobs website to support the efforts of the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

The goal is to raise $10,000 for breast cancer research.

First off, the site is pure genius, and a great example of utilizing social media for fundraising. The integration with Twitter, Facebook, etc. is well done and I love how easy it is to pledge.

All you have to do is include #tweetsforboobs in a tweet through the month of October and with every tweet you are making a $1 pledge for donation.

Follow @tweetsforboobs and at the end of the month, we’ll give you your pledge total so you can make a donation to Susan G. Komen Foundation for your total pledge amount.

They have raised just over $1,000 over the last two weeks. We’d like to lend our support for this cause, and would love to see everyone in the Social Media Club community tweet just once using the #tweetsforboobs hashtag. Commit to $1. Let’s rally together and help make a difference. Do it for the boobs people.

Conference Discounts Available to SMC Community

Below you will find several conferences that have offered nice discounts to the SMC member community:

• Social TV Forum: September 28 – 29, 2009 in London (UK). SMC community members receive 20% discount by using code SMClovesU.
• Social Media for Government: September 29 – October 2, 2009 in Ottawa, Ontario. How To Engage Your Employees And Citizens By Using The Latest Web 2.0 Technologies To Drive Communication Results. Mention “SMC” to receive a special $200 member discount!
• Social Media for Healthcare: October 5-8, 2009 in Washington, DC. How To Use The Latest Web 2.0 Technologies To Engage Your Community, Improve Quality Of Service, And Build Your Reputation. Mention “Social Media Club” to receive a special $200 subscriber discount!
• The Social Media Business Forum: October 23, 2009 in Durham, NC. This conference will feature national and local speakers from marketing companies, technology companies, and social networks discussing ways in which business communications have changed due to social media.Use code SMC to get 15% off.
• TribeCon: October 28-29, 2009 in New Orleans, LA. Join us as we assemble national community leaders to discuss ways of leveraging online tools to grow communities and empower action. For brands, activists, entrepreneurs, artists and anyone who values the power of communities to create share resources and create change both online and offline. Use code SMC to receive 25% off tickets!
• Social Networking World Forum North America: November 9 – 10, 2009 in Santa Clara, CA (USA). SMC community members receive 20% discount by using code SMClovesU.
• Social Media for Crisis Communications in Government: November 2-5, 2009 in Washington, DC. How To Integrate The Latest Web 2.0 Technologies To Maximize Effectiveness Before, During, And After A Crisis. Mention “SMC” to receive a special $200 member discount!
• The Social Consumer – B2C Case Studies and Roundtable:  November 12, 2009 in New York, NY (USA). Social communications is now part of an integrated marketing and communications platform for most leading organizations. This conference will showcase the best case studies that demonstrate how leading brands use social communications to achieve tangible business goals. SMC members receive a discounted rate of $155. Please tell them you are with SMC.
• Social PR Forum: December 4, 2009 in London (UK). SMC community members receive 20% discount by using code SMClovesU.
• Social Media for Government: December 7-10, 2009 in Washington, DC. How To Engage Your Employees And Citizens By Using The Latest Web 2.0 Technologies To Drive Communication Results. Mention “SMC” to receive a special $200 discount!
• Social Media for Gov Conference: Feb. 8-11 in Washington, DC. Mention this post & receive a $200 registration discount!

Worthy cause for you to check out:

• TweetsGiving09: November 24-26, 2009. Social Media Club is proud to partner with Epic Thanks, a global celebration that seeks to change the world through the power of gratitude. This event is scheduled for the 48-hour event and will encourage participants to express their thanks using online tools and at live events to be held globally, and to give to a common cause in honor of that for which they’re most grateful. More details to follow.

Welcome to our new SMB and Professional Members

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

• SMB Members: Alexander Guiragossian (Edinburgh Fine Gardens, Inc.)
• Professional Members: Piia Aarma, Ann McDermott, Michael Lamattina, Chris Abraham, Chad Latz, Jill Howell, Jennifer Windrum, Marie Kare, David Shantz, Angela Darcy, Joseph Donlan, Zac Bowling, Jim Caruso, Vernon Brown and Linh DePledge.

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.

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

Tyson Foods Steps up to the Hunger Challenge. Again.

The San Francisco Food Bank, Tyson Foods and Social Media Club San Francisco are working together to increase awareness around the issue of hunger during the 2009 Hunger Challenge taking place this week:  September 20-26.

Tyson has graciously offered to donate truck loads of food based on our ability to use Social Media tools to  spread the word in support of our local food banks. 

From Tyson’s blog:

There’s a list of hunger facts below.  All Tweetable.  Tweet  or retweet any of them with the hashtag  #HChal and Tyson Foods will make a 100 pound donation (up to a total of 100,000 pounds) to the San Francisco Food Bank. Blog about this effort and we’ll donate 500 pounds.  Or comment to this post with your own verifiable fact (not opinion)  about hunger and we’ll donate 100 pounds.   That’s all you have to do. Let’s see how far and fast we can spread these facts out there in Twittervillle. If you’d like to make reference to this post, here’s a shortened URL:  http://bit.ly/sBE9x

Tweetable Facts About Hunger

• More than 35 mil. people in the U.S. are on food stamps–up 3 million since Jan.  #HChal
• App. 40% of families now on food stamps have “earned income”–up from just 25% 2 years ago.  #HChal
• For every $1 donated @SFFoodBank can distribute $9 worth of groceries. #HChal #hungeraction
• In San Francisco, 150K people are unsure where their next meal is coming from. #HChal #hungeraction
• 1 in 4 San Francisco children lack reg.access to food they need to learn, grow, & have a healthy start in life. #HChal
• 1 in 5 San Francisco adults can’t count on daily meals they need to lead healthy, productive lives. #HChal
• 1 in 4 San Francisco seniors lack the nourishment need to control chronic health problems. #HChal
• .@SFFoodBank distributed over 33.5 million pounds of food in the past year–nearly 8% more than the year before. #HChal
• 60% of the clients @SFFoodBank served last year come from working families.  #HChal
• In CA, the average food stamp recipient gets $4 a day to spend on food.  #HChal #hungeraction
• In CA, a single person can get food stamps only if their yearly gross income is $14,079 or less. #HChal
• 5.3 mil. Californians are living below the federal poverty line ($21,834 for a family of 4) #HChal
• The number of households participating in @SFFoodbank’s grocery pantry program is up 24% over last year. #HChal

Bonus Challenge:

Social Media Club would like to up the anty and asks everyone to donate $5 this month. Forget the latte for one day, and help feed a family of four. If you do not have the $5 to donate, the food banks could always use food – their most-needed foods include rice and pasta, canned fruits and vegetables, tuna or other canned meats, soups and stews, peanut butter, and cereal. You can find a local drop off center near you.

I hope you will help us reach that goal of donating 100,000 pounds of food. Would be awesome to raise $10,000 this month too. Can we do it?

Happy Birthday SMCSA, Now One Year Old!

Well we’ve hit the first of what is sure to be many milestones, our first year in the city of San Antonio and we’ve had the pleasure of meeting a great many new people and we’re honored to have them and all of our regular favorites share in this experience with us.

Can you believe it’s been 1 year since San Antonio joined the Social Meda Club family? In that amount of time we’ve seen our club grow from the early-adopter geek crowd to include business, non-profit and media types.

We’ve got a great speaker planned for this event who will share with all of you the key points to social conversion. Brian Massey who is otherwise known as the “Conversion Scientist” will be joining us as our amazing guest speaker for this big event and we’re hoping that Brian can help you figure a way to turn that community of yours into something big. Brian’s topic: “Social Conversion Rate” is sure to be as informative as it is entertaining.

You can also catch Brian’s amazing wisdom over on his website The Conversion Scientist, but don’t blame us for your success!

Time: September 10, 2009 from 6pm to 8pm
Location: C4 Workspace, 108 King William, San Antonio, TX 78204

Photo Credit hfb

Mars brings on the SMC #sweetups

Everything is better with chocolate, right?

We think so, which is why we partnered with Ms. Green and the fine folks over at Mars to send boxes filled with M&M’S®, Snickers®, Twix®, 3 Musketeers®, Milky Way®, and Dove® to 20* of our Social Media Club chapters around the United States as part of the Mars Real Chocolate Relief campaign.

*The boxes started to ship two weeks ago and will/have been seen at Social Media Club chapters located in Austin (TX), Boston (MA), Chicago (IL), Greenville (SC), Los Angeles (CA), Louisville (KY), Miami (FL), Minneapolis (MN), New York (NY), Philadelphia (PA), Portland (OR), Raleigh (NC), Richmond (VA), Sacramento (CA), Salt Lake City (UT), San Antonio (TX), San Francisco (CA), Seattle (WA), St. Louis (MO), Washington (DC), and Wilmington (NC).

For those of you not able to get to one of these 20 cities (or even if you do), bookmark the Mars Real Chocolate Relief website as every Friday between now and September they will distribute 250,000 coupons for a free full sized chocolate bar. Sweet.

We wish to extend a big ‘thank you’ to Mars and Ms. Green for making our events a little sweeter, and hope you will savor the taste of real chocolate this Summer.

SMC SFSV Sonoma Wine Trip Was a Hit!

• 24 wine enthusiasts. Check.
• Bauer Executive limo bus. Check.
• Road map of Sonoma. Check.

Add in a couple of ice chests full of champagne (and beer), enough snacks to feed two football teams and a bevy of smart phones charged and ready to tweet every move – and we were ready to point the bus North and head into Sonoma.

Before I dive into each stop we made, I must first give our sincere thanks to Barbara and John Drady who not only booked the entire itinerary for our group, but provided a surprise wine tasting on the bus from their winery, Sonoma Coast Vineyards, that was both informative and very tasty too! Barbara and John went above and beyond all expectations, and really made it a memorable time. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Now to the wineries:

Our first stop was Keller Estate Winery, where our tour guide Scott took us on a stroll through the wine cellar while pouring tasty bits of viognier (first release ever!), Pinot’s and a Syrah that I knew immediately had to come home with us (and they did, several bottles worth). Note: The 2005 Pinot and the 2004 Syrah were my favorites. Incredibly yummy.

Keller Estate also provided a light lunch out on their veranda, all the while Scott continued to pour and give us insight into the makings of Keller wines. So good.

We then headed over to Baletto Vineyards and Dutton-Goldfield (they share a tasting room) for a guided tasting that also included plates of cheese, crackers and fresh fruit. The tasting was led by Balletto Vineyards winemaker Anthony Beckman and Brandon Lapides from Dutton-Goldfield. I think out of the two vineyards, I leaned toward Dutton-Goldfield a wee bit more (more smokey/tannin), but made sure to pick up a bottle from each so we could do another tasting at home – you know, just to be sure.

Last stop on the trip was Owl Ridge/Willowbrook where we had 12+ wines to choose from. I ‘think’ I got to seven (7) of them before I realized my palette was toast and headed over to the cheese/cracker cart to try and soak up some of the goodness I had consumed throughout the day.

After a short break, Barbara and John treated us to a wine making class where they walked us through the flavor components of wine making: sweet, sour, salt and tannin. We then sampled a Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and a Malbec and were asked to make our own blend based on the flavor components that most resonated with us. As I noted, my palette was too far gone at this point to be any good at making a decent bottle to drink, but bottle I did make, and had a good time in the process.

Side note: Barbara teaches a wine boot camp, and I would love to sign up for this one day to really learn the essence of making a good bottle of wine.

Again, a world of thanks to the fine folks at Keller Estate Winery, Baletto Vineyards, Dutton-Goldfield and Owl Ridge for opening up your businesses to us and giving us an opportunity to taste your delicious wines. Big hugs and thank you’s also to Barbara and John Drady who really made this a stellar day of wine tasting for us all. And last, but not least, thank you to J.J. Toothman who came up with the idea for the Sonoma trip and to Janet Fouts who put us in touch with Barbara Drady. You two are the bees knees.

I have more photos from our trip, as does Chris Heuer, Francine Hardaway and Cory O’Brien.

Updated: July 26, 2009 – added link to Cory O’Brien photos.

Welcome to our new SMB and Professional Members

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

• SMB Members: Doug Kern (Inovis), Bruce Fisher (Hawaii-Aloha.com), Kevin Kilduff (Weber Shandwick), Barbra Pleadwell (Hastings and Pleadwell)
• Professional Members: Tess Staadecker, Gerard Babitts, Ann Glenn, Dan Parks, Michele McGraw, John Mecke, Donna Baske, Scott Williams, Emily Grant, Becky Parker, Elssy Baddour, Josh Gordon, Alex Lawrence, Cathryn Hrudicka, Madia Logan, Jenna Langer, Ralph Rogers, Jordan Anderson, Nathaniel Lee, and Frank Hametner.

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.

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

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:

MAY

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

JUNE

• Chapter Launches: Charleston, SC (USA) – Corpus Christi, TX (USA) – Detroit/Ann Arbor, MI (USA) – Lincoln, NE (USA) – Rio Grande Valley, TX (USA) – Utah Valley, UT (USA)
• Planning Meetings (preparing for launch): – Orlando, FL (USA) – Southwest Florida, FL (USA) – Toronto, ON (Canada)

JULY

• Chapter Launches: Charlottesville, VA (USA) – Knoxville, TN (USA) – Mexico City (MEXICO) – Missoula, MT (USA) – Munich (GERMANY) – New Haven, CT (USA) – Nigeria (AFRICA) – Southwest Florida, FL (USA)
• Planning Meetings (preparing for launch): Hartford, CT (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 usually recorded and are available for listening up to one week following each call.

We do ask that you review the following 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 were hoping 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, we 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!

The Power of Influence

“Eavesdropping isn’t influence, engaging in a conversation is”…leaked a speaker prior to the start of “The Power of Influence,” an assemblage of eclectic panelists at the Social Media Club San Francisco / Silicon Valley’s late June gathering at Eastwick Communications in Mountain View, California. Sponsors included eCairn Inc, Eastwick Communications, DiGirono Crispy Flatbread Pizza, Amazon Consulting, and Krause Taylor Associates.

Moderator and Principal of Eastwick Communications’ Barbara Bates kicked off the evening giving the floor to panelists including Dominique Lahaix, CEO of eCairn; Jeremy Thomas, Partner and Director of Global Brand Planning at Collaborate; Scott Hirsch, VP of Get Satisfaction; Jennifer Leggio, ZDNet social business blogger; and Ryan Calo, academic fellow with the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. Eastwick Communications’ Jennifer Lindsay, Director of Digital Services and Social Media moderated the conversation on Twitter.

“We all know the old model of communication and the power of influence has changed dramatically, but whom and where are the new influencers, and how can you find them? How do we apply a scientific approach to identifying influencers online? How is brand influence changing? What is the power of peer influence? What is the role and influence of media/bloggers in the new communication world order? How can we use technology to persuade and influence?”

Ready, set, go.

ECairn’s Lahaix led talking about connecting with bloggers on a one by one basis, measuring how many times people talk about his Company and finding out what they (bloggers) are saying. Technology isn’t measuring human behavior – it’s measuring how people react to messages.

Get Satisfaction’s Hirsch profiled “Sally” who is in many places online, but still can be measured by her behavior across his entire network – by the Phd’s the Company hires to evaluate the complexities. The audience chuckled. Hirsch – personally – doesn’t think that Twitter is influential because its just another broadcast channel, and you can listen to your customers and broadcast out a response. Or, if conversations were threaded, Hirsch adds, you could track a conversation. Hear part of Scott’s conversation in this video shot by Rich Reader.

As “Social CRM,” influence could be a social layer around customer relationship management, realizing who’s out there online. If you could ask their permission to make their information transparent, then you – the company – could get something in return. Mint he said sells the private financial information of others, yet never reveals whose information it is selling. The Mint customer gets a lot in return for giving away private information, yet both Mint and its customers walk away as winners.

In terms of also “crowd sourcing,” Hirsch added, if you enable your customers to talk to one another, you’ll get value out of it by eavesdropping and so will the customers, but to get the best value you should engage in a conversation with them.

Social networks don’t do engagement well, Leggio stated. There are ways to engage with customers. There are true customers on Twitter. There are threaded conversations through the salesforce.com Twitter tool (soon to be released). However, there is too much focus on the tool – which is a really dangerous path to go down because if you get too focused on the technology, you’re not on the engagement.

It’s about the brand, Jeremy Thomas states. Brands do matter. “There’s an idea that eyeballs can be seduced and ‘how to build the brands’ have been forgotten in the process. The brand has to learn how to adapt in so many more contexts than before. How can an identity form itself? It is going to follow the conversation and be relevant. It will not just be noise. We can do more with brands because the canvass is larger. We’re doing a lot of educating on the principles of branding. The channels are taking the focus off of going back to the wisdom.”

“Big consumer brands are intuitively entering into the conversations via social media,” Thomas added. “Technology brands are pushing messages into conversations (B2B) when they do not flow into the conversation. It all comes back to human needs and desires, the conversation is still the same, back to face to face, understanding what your customers want and responding to that. Word of mouth is still our great friend, and what’s bad is really bad and what’s good is really good.”

The truth is out there.

“The conversations are happening whether you’re aware of them, participating in them, or not,” Leggio adds. For example, she told, a company wanted to launch a corporate blog, but not open comments. The company just wanted to field comments through email. Leggio calls that the “marketing page on the website.” You have to have those (comments) open. You can choose not to engage nor invite those conversations in, but are “really doing yourself a disservice, and you should take on those conversations.”

Lahaix says that the companies who win with social media are the brands that have built trust with their customers, especially after a crisis situation has happened. Leggio agrees, and says if you’re waiting to get out there, you’re too late (post crisis). You have to have a crisis communications program in place, so you don’t create those situations (where you will miss out).

Ryan Calo asks, what does technology really change? “It changes the circumstances under which you can get to a crisis,” he answers. “Technology changes who the influencers are and who the important people are. It also creates opportunities for control. It allows you to refine and change your message. The technology that allows people to target can help you get your message out to particular people. If you talk to people about their experience in social media, women say it’s very different than men. There are these techniques to refine your message, but ways in which consumers can also respond – in unique and different ways.”

Is technology short circuiting the conversation?

“We used to waste messages on 60 percent of the audience,” Leggio adds, “but today we can get that targeting right down to the nose, and the message has to be better.” Ads in the UK used to be shown in theatres as a “reward” and theatergoers would “boo” not because there were ads pre movie, but because they were bad ads.

What’s surprising about how influence is happening today?

Leggio just talked at a PRSA event recently, and shared that buying decisions are coming more and more from peer networks, and not from direction of traditional media. “When it comes to lead generation or getting involved in customer conversations – when they (customers) talk to one another – that’s not just for the sales team,” Leggio adds. “Regardless of your role in a company you need to get involved in those conversations or you may become ‘irrelevant.’”

“You’re trying to influence someone to do something,” says Calo. “Facebook saw Twitter coming and it wanted to get its status bar updating on a quick basis, and prompt people to respond to post their status. “You can do so much with queues and prompts. I worry that we’re moving in an opposite direction toward a perfection of design.”

Among many other questions asked across the hour, Bates closed with “how do you develop your own influence (as individuals)?” Leggio says she doesn’t think about developing her personal brand. She unapologetic about herself, and just lets people see who she really is, and let them in (though, not into her personal life). The role of authenticity is critical to influence adds Hirsch. “Community management as the new customer service. Treating people humanly unless they treat you un-humanly.”

Crediting the panel with stimulating dialogue, Social Media Club members and guests learned a lot on how to be influential with social media. Final takeaways included one must be versatile, share messages to teens with teens, define your targets, and behave yourself in your and someone else’s community.

Note: We shot a video of the event that is still being edited. Will post an update to this once it is ready.

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