Dog and Pony Shows -- it's all about Social Media

It's a beautiful thing. Students are mostly gone (smile), there's no more grading homework and the faculty collaborative has ended. In other words...it's SUMMER and I am FREE!! Well..sort of.

I'm still a program director (until the end of June) and there's still a bunch of administrative things to wrap up and classes to staff for the fall. But it is manageable and I have free time.

So, of course...I'll be busy doing other things!

This past week, I presented a session to real estate agents at Coldwell Banker Hickock and Boardman Realty in Burlington, VT on best practices in social media -- specifically we talked about how to utilize blogging and social networking ... or when not to. I handed out a tip sheet which focused on what I think are the MOST IMPORTANT things to consider when thinking about which online tools to use to help you market your business/service online. I'll post those tips soon.

Next week I'll be presenting at the Sen. Leahy e-Business Seminar with Dave Winslow of EpikOne, Ted Adler of Union Street Media and Dan Cyprus, a Real Estate Agent with ReMax at the 2008 Business EXPO. Our topic: Creating A Buzz About You and Your Business: Should You Be Marketing Yourself and Your Company Using Social Networking Sites?

On June 23rd, I'll be a presenting at the Summer Institute for Educators. The theme is integrating technology into the classroom, and my topic? Betcha can't guess...."Technology students use in everyday life". I'll be giving a quick intro on IM, Texting, Social Networking and how students are using them...and not using them!

Later on in July I'll be conducting a two day session for K-12 Educators on Social Media. The details are still being worked out, but it promises to be great fun -- we'll be looking at specific tools and talking about the challenges for the K-12 educator in incorporating these tools into their teaching.

Gee...maybe I should start charging!

On another note, adjunct professor Daniel Schutzsmith has launched a new site called DSGN+DVLP. A recent post on his blog was about the term ONLINE VISIBILITY and references the class I developed and he is now teaching. He's come up with a definition. You should check it out. There's a good discussion going on there about his definition ... and I just think I might post!

Update to Teaching Social Media in the Classroom

Just checked my RSS feed at NetVibes and saw that Cathy Resmer over at Seven Days has posted her BlogRoll for the day.

There's a link to my earlier post from this morning! I've already posted it in the course room for the Online Visibility students.

Now THAT'S what I'm TALK'N ABOUT!

SWEET!

As always...Thanks Cathy!

Teaching about Social Media in the classroom

It is no secret that I'm a college professor who teaches a series of classes in e-Business Management and Marketing at Champlain College. One of the classes I'm currently teaching is an online course that lasts for five weeks. Online Visibility is the subject. Here's the "official" course description:

Creating online visibility for a business, service or product is becoming more complex as more and more tools become available. Moving outside the realm of advertising and building websites, this course will provide students with hands-on experience in using the web to disseminate information about their product or service in this examination of PR-oriented online tactics. E-mail marketing, RSS feeds, news release distribution, viral marketing, and referrals will all be explored and utilized as students disseminate information utilizing online tools.

One of the key components of the course is setting up blogs so that students can explore the use of RSS Feeds, subscription and the effect of linking and tracking key words in order to measure online visibility.

Students create blogs for their business, organization, business idea and even a hobby. Part of the work is learning how to write for the blog, link, track success, and see what happens when others subscribe and mention their blogs.

So this post, besides setting the context for what we are doing and why, is part of the assignment I gave the class. Today I have successfully signed up for almost everyone's blogs and they are ported into my NetVibes. And now I'm doing part two of the assignment, which is to write about each blog and see what gets picked up!

The first blog to get picked up in my Google News Alert for "Champlain College" was Welton Mountain Tech. This blog emphasizes the challenges facing web security. In one of the posts, the blog linked to Champlain College and mentioned one of our faculty, Gary Kessler.

Another blog in the class features a tribute to the Red Sox -- I believe they are a soccer team, right? This blog, aptly entitled Just another Red Sox Fan, portrays the interests and links that one who follows the Red Sox might care about -- the post that provides links to other sites might be useful to some.

Vermont UnBoxed is a blog that supports a business idea of one of the students to have a website where people can order and learn about vermont-made products. While the website is still an idea, the blog is "real" and this post on a local farm stand is one way to highlight Vermont at its finest.

If you are interested in BMW's then the this blog from our resident BMW Ethusiast provides some questions about where to find parts and the experiences the blogger has had with rebuilding and updating the cars.

Another business idea for creating more opportunities for people to find their favorite movies can be found at K Movies. The idea behind this blog is to link it with a website and drive people to purchase movies. While there isn't a website yet, this experiement will surely reveal some of the opportunities and challenges that come with linking e-commerce to blogs.

The world of Online Education is examined in the Continue Your Education blog from Champlain College's own Division of Continuing Professional Studies. One post highlights some student work at the South End Art Hop from several weeks back!
Another addresses the use of Web Analytics -- and links people to one of our other one credit classes in..Web Analytics!

Advice on Online Visiblity comes in many forms. In How to Acheive Online Visibility for your Business the focus is on advice for highly specialized business to business clients so they can augment their personal selling with a push from the web. It's a tough nut to crack for B2C -- imagine the challenges with B2B! Branding is important no matter what, so this post should resonate with many!

What an amazing array of options -- don't you just love the Blogsphere?

More in the news

Well the news keeps on a roll'n! Yesterday, September 6th, yours truly was LIVE on Vermont Public Radio's noon Vermont Edition with Jane Lindholm. The topic? Social Networking of course! Jane and the production team at Vermont Edition interviewed Marketing major Dan Bergeron (of the Seven Days story) on campus the evening before and kicked off the show with him talking about how students are using Facebook to communicate and stay connected.

Then it was my turn! It's been a long time since I've been in the studio -- and this was a lot of fun! Jane did a great job and I enjoyed the conversation. The other guest speaker was the Director of Student Life from Lyndon State College, Jonathan Davis.

Listen to it HERE.

By the way...if you are around checking out the South End Art Hop this Sunday I'll be on a panel of local experts at the Digital Tools for Artists discussion sponsored by Last Monday [interactive]. We'll be over at the held at the Vermont Community Access Media studios at 208 Flynn Avenue from 1 - 3. The goal is to provide artists with information about how to use digital media tools in different ways...and I'll be addressing MARKETING and Online Visibilty and Social Networking. Hope to see you there!

Champlain College Online Marketing Bootcamp: Final Post

Digg

Delicious

Twitter

VOX

Blogger

Second Life

MySpace

Squidoo

Facebook

YouTube

Technorati

Feedburner

FlickR

RSS

CoComment

Twitterific

LinkedIn

BeBo

iTunes

-------------------------------------------------------
Um...get all that? And yes, I know, they should be linked, but then that would ruin the pretty colors and I am certainly NOT going to break into the code to figure it out!

So that was my day today. A total immersion into the world of Social Networking and Online Visibility.

I LOVED IT!

Of course, I teach it ... so this was a unique experience for me to be the student. Think I might have over-stepped a few times (bad me) in the class room (sorry Dave and Dan!) around some of the things...but the best part was the things that I learned today. Great context of Social Networking and Online Visibility and some good connections.

Let's get to it (before I do a faceplant on the keyboard -- gee whiz I'm tired).

As I mentioned earlier, Dave Winslow from EpikOne kicked us off this morning. Besides the whirlwind overview and the hands on with LinkedIn and Blogger, Dave provided a great list of:

Steps for Planning a Social Networking Campaign

1. State your goal, identify your target and know what your success
2. Determine how much money and time you will invest
3. Based on the budget, create a plan – just like any other marketing plan
4. Identify what mediums you will be using – ie video, text, etc.
5. Choose which networks you will allocate your budget too
6. Align your resources internally or find a good outsource
7. Execute the plan and please make sure to track your initiatives

While I like the list and will use it in my Social Networking class there is ONE thing missing and that is making sure to INTEGRATE whatever you do with your current marketing messages and branding. It's a very important step because with this medium, if people really "Digg" it (smile) you need to be ready and it (whatever it is) better match your brand identity.

We moved into this afternoon with a great presentation on Social Networking -- with a focus on Blogging and Facebook (my favorite!) from Daniel Schutzsmith (linkedin) (twitter) who is the editor of GraphicDefine, an eZine for graphic designers and business. Check it out at: http://www.graphicdefine.org.

I won't bore you all with the in-depth details but there are a few things I wanted to address.

So what makes a Social Networking "Expert" anyway? To hear Dan tell it, it's a mix of pure chance, passion and a healthy dash of insanity.

Disclaimer -- remember, I'm a college professor, so when Dan said that he didn't use his PR degree right off, um, I had to wonder because...well...Dan, all of this that you are doing it's um..PR!

Anyway...here's Dan's "Story" (as told by me -- my sense is that I've boiled down the past 15 years of his life into well...a few short lines)

History of Dan

PR major in College
Graduated
Tried different jobs in business and design, businesses tanked…he kept on moving
(note dot.com bomb here somewhere I'm sure)
Started posting in forums and link pages and discussions providing advice and comments which led to a...
call from Chopping Block
so he started working with them in Biz Development where...
they didn't do any advertising they just...
went to forums
submitted links
send info to Ad Week
and Clients evolved from the virtual word of mouth they generated
(um, I think there was good design work too!)

Which got him pretty much involved with business side of design
which evolved into graphicdefine magazine – an eZine
which moved from his solo postings...
to other people/multiple contributors on the site
and then some
teaching at school of visual arts – at NYU
and of course
speaking Gigs on Social Networking and Online Visibility!
(um, Public Relations I'm think'n!)

Both Dan and Dave said these posts were supposed to be short...but...well...it wouldn't be fun if I didn't break the rules!

Big take aways?

Gotta have passion to do this. What else? Well here are some tips that make a lot of sense to me:

First, build a personality. One that goes with you and is consistent through all your social networking gigs whether it is MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, or whatever.

What do people want to see?

• Remove the Bullshit
• No Sales Speak
• Stay Consistent
• Make it easy to link to

Keeping followers and credibility

• Update Consistently
• Quality Content
• Remain Humble
• Be Truthful
• Own up and admit mistakes
• Correct the mistake
• Don’t Censor
• Listen
• Implement and Compliment Feedback

Handling Criticism

• Evaluate
• Address it
• Correct it
• Follow up

What not to do

• Hide
• Attack
• Counter-criticize
• Sue
• Slander

And finally...Dan's Tips for overall success:

1. Stick with it.
2. It takes hard work
3. Focus on the message
4. Encourage participation
5. Be serious about not being too serious
6. Have fun

So what did I think overall? It was a great session. The full day worked very well together and even though I walked in with my own blog and an UBER Facebook presence and a well developed LinkedIn Profile, I still came away with a continuing appreciation for what is happening in the OnlineVis space and that there are others out there like me who find this not only interesting but revolutionary.

Dan calls himself an "Evangelist". Easy to do that in the business world -- especially in NYC and especially when you are a "creative". Much more difficult to do in Higher Education with curriculum -- but I'm working on it! (insert evangelical exclamations here!)

Read on over the rest of the summer as I take what I've learned and what I continue to learn in the blogging world and use it to update and improve the classes I teach in Internet Marketing, Online Visibility and Social Networking.

Now...I have GOT to get to bed.

Using Blogging to Create Online Visibility

Well, believe it or not, one class is done (Social Networking...see the post below) and another is in full swing. I'm now teaching a class in Online Visibility through our e-Buisness Management program here at Champlain College. This is the second time I've taught it and one of the things I'm learning about teaching this topic is the challenge in writing a blog that is intended to provide information at the same time it is intended to help you get found online.

There's more to it than Marketing text that tells people about your company. The real focus should be about providing information that allows individuals to find out more about what a company does well through the advice they provide. Information that is useful is what will be linked to and will provide opportunity for others to seek out your organization.

Utilizing the right keywords in combination with providing useful information is how a blog will assist your online visibility. Avoid the superlatives and the reprint of the "about us" from your website -- put your energy into something that provides value and it will come back to you through links and the search engines.