Social Media Club: Chapter Launches

November 15, 2008

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 5pm 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:

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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Social Media Club: Weekly Chapter Call

September 30, 2008

Want to launch Social Media Club in your city, or have you started, but would like some advice on how to growth or manage the group?

We are getting requests daily to launch chapters in cities around the world, so we are scheduling a weekly call series for every Wednesday at 8:00am PST to review what it takes to launch a chapter and how to ensure success when you do.

As I mentioned in an earlier post today, one of the goals of SMC is to encourage the sharing of knowledge between the cities - I want Paris to know what is important to Chicago, London to know what Austin is talking about, New York to keep tabs on Kansas City, etc. - so you should keep in mind we are building infrastructure to help you not only manage the local chapter easily, but also to connect with the other cities and members. It is coming, I promise, but for now - things are done a little manually across various platforms (wiki, Facebook, Ning, the main SMC site). We will also invite local chapter leaders from existing Clubs to join in each week to share their insights of what has worked best and guide you along the way.

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: (641) 715-3445
Access Code: 509633#

We are also working on an official chapter launch guide, and have started to draft some items on the wiki. We encourage everyone to review these BEFORE you join the call so we all have a baseline to work from:

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.

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Social Media Club: A short history, a long and bright future

September 30, 2008

When Chris and I started Social Media Club (SMC) two+ years ago, we understood growth was going to be more organically based as there were only two of us working on the organization on a part time basis, and we needed to set up each city with a baseline infrastructure to ensure we met our goals of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and promoting media literacy around the emerging area of Social Media.

We could have followed BarCamp by posting a wiki page and leaving it open to anyone to host an event, whenever - but we wanted to make sure these events happened more regularly (monthly), they were both informational and socially based, and at the end of the day - the learnings would then be shared back into our community for the betterment of all. We realized early on, we needed to set some guidelines and then oversee the chapters to ensure we were meeting our goals. We had to manage it.

Fast forward to 2008: we are now a handful of people managing the global organization on a part time basis, and actively working towards hiring full time staff as we file our 501c6 and push SMC further into the global space. Thanks to the efforts of our local leaders, we have grown to over 25 active chapters with 10’s of 1000’s of people gathering around the world. Woot!

Now, with all the woot! comes the reality we have fallen short on some of our goals - primarily, not connecting the chapters as well as I would have liked, and we need to ensure the knowledge shared at SMC chapter events is then pushed back into the system so all can utilize. A large part of this is the infrastructure behind the scenes. Wikis are tough for some, Ning and Facebook are not the best storage sources.

In order for us to continue to grow and show value to the community - we need to finish building out the new portal that will make launching new chapters easier, finding events in your local community faster, allow communications with other members, and harness the knowledge produced at each event.  The last piece (knowledge sharing) is critical to me - when chapters are talking about a certain topic, we need to ensure there are digital scribes in the room who are then responsible for bringing that info back into the portal so other chapters can then use it for their chapters or members can read up on what is hot in that community. This requires someone managing the global calendar and then following up with each city the day after to make sure this is being done - this is a primary role for me to fill, and I hope to have announcements on this shortly.

We are also working on our Four Missions Project and are gathering volunteers to drive them forward: Media Literacy, Sharing Lessons Learned, Encourage Adoption of Industry Standards, Promote Ethical Behavior. If you are interested in helping on one or more, please add your name to the wiki and the project leader will be in touch with you.

SMC has been extremely fortunate over the last two years to have people believe in the organization and support it via paid memberships to allow us to continue to grow. To all of you who have contributed so far, thank you, thank you, thank you.  It means the world to us.

Stay tuned for more to come. As Timbuk3 likes to sing - SMC’s future’s so bright, we gotta wear shades…

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Social Media News: September 2008

September 25, 2008

In this issue:

· Welcome New Members!

· Member Benefits Package

· Social Media Workshops: Starting the Conversation

· Documenting Election 08 Using Social Media

· SMC Gatherings Around the World

· Conference Discounts Available to SMC Members

· Local Chapter Leader Conference Calls

——————–

Welcome to our SMB and Professional Members:

We’d like to acknowledge our new Co-Founders, 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.

· SMB Co-Founders: Janet Fouts, CJ Brasiel, Patrick Sellers, Roxanne Darling, Shane Robinson, Lee Odden

· SMB Members: Bradley Silver, Tom O’Brien, Laura Chavoen, Aaron Strout, Heather Strout, Matt Shandera, Regan Fletcher, Karen Greenburg, Ted Morris, Ashirwaad Badami

· Professional Co-Founders: Jackie Peters, Patrick Reilly, Steve Banfield, Jennifer McClure, Scott Schablow, Stephen Collins, Alex de Carvalho

· Professional Members: Douglas Pollei, Joel Richman, Ayelet Baron, Jeanne Meister, Jim Nieters, Chris Ray, Crystal King, Beth Harte, Eric Rochow, Tucker Carney, Jason Falls, Cyril Simone, Janie, Graziani, Jason Kintzler, Ziad Kane, Jeff De Cagna, Te-ge Bramhall, Allen Mireles, David Naumann, Steven Fish, Tim Eby, Kathleen Ferretti-Gambale, Andy Sernovitz, Michelle Brusyo, Heidi Proctor, Zoe Korstvedt, Tessa Horehled, JoAnn Peach, Kyung Han

Each of the members mentioned above will receive a Social Media Club Member Kit that includes a membership card, t-shirt and stickers.  We are also happy to announce that for the next few months, new members will also receive an Akoha starter kit.  If you don’t know what that is yet, you need to check out http://akoha.com/ to see this great concept for yourself. We will continue to beef the kits up as time goes on with other promotional items, discounts and various other benefits, so stay tuned for further announcements!

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Member Benefits Package

We have been working behind the scenes to define the value proposition to attract new members (and keep existing ones connected) to Social Media Club and work towards building out the member benefit packages that are a little light right now.

The committee members are Michael Brito, Serena Erlich, Chris Heuer, Aaron Strout, Des Walsh and Kristie Wells and some thoughts have been shared on the SMC website on what we are thinking of and we would absolutely love your feedback on what you think the should be included in your SMC membership. Please post a comment and/or connect with us directly. Thank you for continued support.

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Social Media Workshops: Starting the Conversation

If you are trying to understand why Social Media is such a hot topic and what your organization should be doing about it, this is your chance to attend a workshop hosted by SMC professionals from around the world.  Each workshop has a slightly different focus and flavor, and each workshop is hosted by a different group of leaders, but each workshop is designed with you in mind, so you not only learn from lectures, but through conversations and interactions with the leaders.

We have two workshops coming up this year (with more to come in 2009):

Honolulu Hawaii - October 23, 2008

Northern California - November 8, 2008

  • $395 Registration ($100 discount if you register before October 31st)
  • 9am - 5PM @ TBD
  • Workshop leaders include Erin Kotecki Vest (QueenofSpain), Lauren Fitton (Pistachio), Adam Metz, Jeremy Toeman, Kristie Wells and Chris Heuer
  • Erin will be leading off this workshop with a keynote on her insights from the 2008 Presidential Election from the prior Tuesday.
  • More information on the Northern California workshop including agenda and venue details will follow shortly

SMC Members in good standing (i.e., paid up on dues) can receive an extra 10% off by using a special discount code, which you can receive by emailing events@socialmediaclub.org.

——————–

Documenting Election 08 Using Social Media

The SMC Boston chapter, to encourage more hands-on social media learning, built a social network for people to document Election 08 from a Social Media perspective. In a little more than a week, there’s been a lot of great content, and from some very cool and smart people in the Boston area. But it’s not just a Boston idea. It can work everywhere.

Add your thoughts now and join the conversation.

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SMC Gatherings Around the World

We have a fresh round of local events coming up over the next month and hope you can join us at one of them:

More cities to announce upcoming dates shortly. Keep watch online for a gathering in your local city.

As for growth, while we would like to build the organization organically and just blindly say ‘go do it’ – we also know the value of the Club will be finding ways to get the cities to work with one another, so we are intentionally growing at a slower pace right now as we implement the technology to ensure that happens.

If you are interested in launching SMC in your local city, please sign your city up on the wiki so we can start collecting names of other people interested in attending in your area, and seeking out venues to hold each gathering.  It will make it so much easier when we get ready to launch to know what the dealio is.

We also ask that you listen to the following podcast and read the wiki material on things to consider, and then jump on our weekly call held on Wednesdays, starting October 1st, to discuss the requirements for launching Social Media Club in your city, as well as receive advice and feedback to ensure your launch is a success.

  • SMC Founder, Chris Heuer, recently interviewed SMC Louisville Chapter Leader, Jason Falls, on Organizing a Local Chapter (30 minute podcast)
  • Best practices and items to consider provided in the How To Run a Meeting guide (on the wiki)
  • Weekly call on Wednesdays at 8am PST. Conference Dial-in Number: (269) 320-8400, Participant Access Code: 509633#. These will be recorded for those who are not able to attend the live call. Playback Number: (641) 715-3445, Access Code: 509633#.

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Conference Discounts Available to SMC Members

I am pleased to pass along discounts provided to members of the Social Media Club (SMC) community for the following events:

  • AMA - Viral Marketing - Is it right for your firm?: September 25, 2008 in San Francisco, CA - Discount Available: $15 off standard non-member ticket price of $50. Use discount code fall08.
  • Social Media Marketing Summit: October 1-2, 2008 in San Francisco, CA - Discount Available: Passes available for $495 (onsite reg. $1,295). Use discount code w3ace2.
  • SMX East New York: October 6-8, 2008 in New York, NY ( USA). Discount Available: 10% off badges at all levels. Use discount code smx10smc (case sensitive)
  • Executing Social Media: October 15-16, 2008 in Atlanta, GA - Discount Available:  $200 off the registration fee. User discount code ESM08SM.
  • Social Media Summit: October 20-23, 2008 in New York, NY - Discount Available: $200 off registration. Mention Social Media Club when registering.
  • Forrester’s Consumer Forum 2008: October 28-29, 2008 in Dallas, TX - Discount Available: Call +1 617.613.5905 or email events@forrester.com and mention SMC to save $400 off the full conference rate. Discount applies to new registrations only and cannot be combined with other offers.
  • Searchnomics Social Media Strategies Conference: October 29-30, 2008 in San Francisco, CA - Discount Available: $150 off registration. Use discount code smclub.
  • The Marketing & Online Communities Conference: November 5 in New York, NY – Discount Available: $100 off registration. Use discount code smcmoc9.
  • Social Media for Internal Communications: November 17-20, 2008 in San Francisco, CA - Discount Available: $200 off registration. Mention Social Media Club when registering.

Other conferences happening around the world:

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Local Chapter Leader Conference Calls

We are going to begin regular monthly conference calls with the SMC Chapter Leaders to ensure you are informed on the latest happenings within and around the Club.  Your feedback will ensure the Club grows strong and is meeting the needs of our members.

Watch your email for the details on each call.

Be well you Media mavens.

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Social Media RoundUp

September 16, 2008

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:

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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Filed Under Education, Social Media Now, Social Media RoundUp, Stories · 2 Comments  

Social Media Breakfast

March 20, 2008

Social Media Breakfast SF - 12

Social Media Breakfast SF - 13

This morning 40+ folks interested in SocialMedia converged on Sears Fine Food for an early morning networking experiment overseen by the Social Media Connector extraordinare, Jeff Pulver.

Jeff has put together a toolkit to jump start conversations by taking an online tool (tagging) and bringing it into an offline format to help people meet one another through a very basic exercise. It’s beauty is in its simplicity.

This idea epitimizes everything we love about Social Media as it shows what the tools can do to help connect people - both online AND offline (muy importante to build relationships in both realms).  It is something we have believed in and promoted for some time now, and we are extremely happy to see Jeff ‘productize’ it to give it a giant push forward.

Thank you Jeff and everyone who came out this morning.

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Social Media Club NY Meeting, 12/11/07

December 12, 2007

Last night, Business Wire hosted SMC New York for a panel on “What Worked and What Didn’t in Social Media in 2007.”

I moderated a panel with Jack Myers, Founder and CEO of Myers Publishing, Joel Smernoff, President and COO of Paltalk, and Peter Himler, Founder and principal of Flatiron Communications LLC. Being moderator, I couldn’t really take too many notes, but thankfully2 intrepid bloggers captured some of the action.

Jenny Ambrozek posted in “Social Media Club Gathering 20071211: A Gorilla on YouTube” a thought from panelist Jack Myers:


“Jack proposed a potential outcome of the current writers strike is fundamentally changing the traditional television broadcasting industry. Given the impact of digital technology on transforming the recording industry, an entirely reasonable prediction.”

Les Blatt wrote some comments about the other Gorilla in Social Media, Facebook:

“There was a long discussion of Facebook’s Beacon conflict. Did Facebook hurt itself with Beacon? Possibly, although they do seem to be trying to fix it – the move from opt-out to opt-in, while perhaps not handled as smoothly as it should have been, is at least a move in the right direction.”

I know that the intrepid Steve Eisenberg, who helped organize the meeting, has recorded audio and we’ll link to it when it’s posted.

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