Todd Defren on Social Media Content

This morning, Todd is speaking on bringing information and social media content to the right people on the web.

C.C. Chapman said Social Media is a small town. Todd Defren says Social Media is a block party. I see a theme. Here are a few take aways from Todd Defran's presentation:

Bring content to the block party
Take the information to the people who need it. Find potential-- qualified -- customers on blogs and twitter. Don't spam. Be selective.

Repurpose your content as necessary
Get the value out of your advertising dollar. Repurpose media as many times as possible or necessary. Before shelfing your old videos figure out how you can use them in social media to reach the right people.

Ask your fans/customers to create media for you.
If you're brand's fans from Poland have 250,000 views on their video about your company on YouTube, leverage that. Use their passion for your brand and their social network to promote your brand.

Advice from Todd Defren
Know thy customers
Where are they hanging out?
What content to they share?
What are your competitors doing?

Engage before content creation

Create compelling content
Start slow; experiment (nobody will get mad at you for testing new stuff)
Act on user feedback
Repeat

Give people what they want

Great presentation by Todd Defren at the Social Media Breakfast in Burlington.

-Amanda

Stay Tuned for Mike Hayes - Wizard of Wonderments and Digital Delights Magic Hat Brewing Company

Social Media as a Small Town

Speaker C.C. Champman on how Social Media is much like a small town

Online everyone knows everyone. Social media is about who you know and how you treat people. It's about your neighbors and your reputation. It is not like old media where people are forced to pay attention. Facebook, Twitter and the like are not the old-media flashy billboards.

According to C.C. Chapman the first step to using social media is not, in fact, going directly to the tools. The first step should always be to set goals. Ask yourself What am I trying to do? What do I want to accomplish? Then, move to the tools but remember, social media is not a magic cure for poor business practices. If your product or customer service isn't good then social media is not going to help you, it will make it worse.

Another piece of advice from C.C. -- don't go for the shiny new toy. Everyone get's too hyped up over the latest social media trend. Business shouldn't waste their time on new technologies until they've been tested by connoisseurs and professionals like C.C. and Todd Defren. Not everyone needs a blog just because News Week says so.

On the internet it's about who you know. When using social media for your business, focus on the people first.-Talk to them like they're humans, have real conversations, address their concerns. Don't try to force products.

Don't be afraid of what people might say about your company. People love to talk online and they're probably doing so right now. There are always trouble makers who are going to complain but there are also the loyalists who will rave about your brand and product. Do not be afraid of bad conversation it gives you a chance to step in and be a part of the conversation and find out what could be improved.

Online your personal and brand reputations are everything. People don't always buy from a place because it's cheap, they buy from the place that provides a good customer experience. Consumers trust each other more than they will trust any advertisement. Customer reviews and personal recommendations can be very effective.

Social media isn't easy. It takes a lot of work. You have to pay attention to it and constantly be involved in it. It is not a passive medium. Social media is an opportunity to have real conversations. People have the chance to talk to everyone else more openly. The conversations should be candid. C.C. advises us to keep the PR people away, as responses to critical questions shouldn't sound like press releases but genuine, non cookie-cutter feedback. It is important to know how to respond to blogs, tweets and podcasts. Social media must be there all the time, it must be current, we need to pay attention. There are opportunities to get in there and get new customers and if people are not in social media all the time then they're missing out on potential business opportunities.

C.C. Chapman's last piece of advice was don't forget to have fun. It's a fun medium, take advantage of it. Give people a reason to talk about your brand. Find customers who love your brand and ask them to talk about it. Share the love of the product.

Now for a presentation from Todd Defren
-Amanda

Stay tuned for more from the Social Media Breakfast

Social Media Breakfast @ Champlain College

Hey everyone,

My name is Amanda and I'm one of Elaine's students at Champlain College. She asked me to live blog today at the Social Media Breakfast here in Burlington, Vermont also known as #btvsmb on twitter. Over the next few hours I'll be updating about the exciting event and noteworthy speakers, so tune it and enjoy!

Amanda
Marketing & Graphic Design Student
Champlain College
Burlington, VT

Summer Speaker Series Begins TODAY!

I've been asked to be a speaker and moderator and participant in some interesting local conferences this summer and since my first engagement is today, it seemed like an appropriate time to talk about my Summer '09 Speaking Tour!

Women Business Owners Network
TODAY (May 15th) from 1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
I'll be speaking (after lunch) about "Small Business Online Marketing Success Stories". I've got one hour to tell the audience about some very interesting and diverse organizations that have one thing in common: they are all in Vermont. Who will I be talking about? Magic Hat Brewery, Flash Bags, Cynthea's Spa, Seven Days, The Inn at the Round Barn Farm and The Healthy Hippie. Why? Well as I'll be telling the audience today, they are all doing a mix of interesting things with interactive media -- from Twitter to Video and Facebook to Blogging -- they are all engaging with their customers, and they seem to be having fun doing it.

Alliance for Community Media Northeast Regional Conference
Thursday, May 21st from 2:00 p.m - 3:30 p.m.
I'll be moderating a panel discussion on Nonprofits & Media Reformers Turning to Web 2.0. This will be very interesting as we'll be hearing from The Snelling Center, Planned Parenthood and the Vermont Workers Center on how they are using social and interactive media to connect with their constituents. I've built in lots of time for Q&A so it should prove informative and engaging. By the way, the Twitter hashtag for the event is #acmne09.

Burlington Social Media Breakfast
Monday, June 1st from 8:00 a.m. - 12 noon
I'll be participating in the first Burlington Social Media Breakfast (Twitter hashtag #btvsmb) that is a co-production of Digalicious and Champlain's Communication and Creative Media Division, and sponsored by the Burlington Free Press. It will feature CC Chapman of The Advance Guard and Todd Defren of Shift Communication as well as Mike Hayes from Magic Hat Brewery. Special guest live tweeters will include some amazing marketing students who you can follow on twitter at: @impersnickety, @keldia, @barqhasbite87 and @schuylerhunton.

Leadership in a Connected Age
Tuesday, June 9th from 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
I'll be presenting from 1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. on social media tools. Title of my presentation is "Behind the Curtain – Using Social Media Tools to Expand Your Community, Business, and Mind". Sounds pretty cool eh? I'll let you know closer to the date what I'll actually be covering!

Summer Institute for Educators
Monday, June 22nd through Friday, June 26th
I'll be presenting on social media and social networking in the classroom. Should prove great fun. The plans for this one keep evolving just like the social media world keeps evolving. More on this later.

Whew! That's what is on my whiteboard for now. Hope to see you at one of them.

Advice from the Trenches: Words Grads Should Live By

As serendipity would have it, Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research posted a very interesting blog today. It was about what criteria people look for when hiring/looking for social media services.

I posted a response to his post in hopes to get deeper insight into a more general question which was:

Jeremiah:

More of a question than a comment — your focus here is on those with experience to help an organization with their “social media” efforts. I’m wondering what type of skills you might expect from graduating college seniors when it comes to social media and marketing?

As a college prof who teaches Internet-based Marketing I’ve been working hard to ensure my students are grounded in Marketing best practices and that they are up to date on the latest tools (as much as a 15 week class can get them there).

So, if a college grad came to you fresh out of college with a marketing degree what would you want to see on their resume or LinkedIn account?

Leave it to the social media community to provide me with timely, relevant advice for my students and other grads interested in Communications, Marketing and PR. Here are some excerpts that were posted in the comment section as well as some advice that came to me via email. (To read the full discussion/comments go to the original post: http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2009/04/08/social-media-services/)

1. jeremiah_owyang: A good question. When it comes to the freshly minted graduates, I personally would focus on: 1) Eagerness and willingness to learn, then followed by 2) related accomplishments in the field they are pursuing. Here’s where internships, school projects, and volunteer work come into play, giving graduates related experience as they enter the workforce. Specifically, if they were going to head into the social media field or marketing in general, they should be able to demonstrate their abilities around their own personal brand. What and how they use the tools, in addition to what they say will be telling.
   
2. Rick Murray : The first thing we look for at Edelman is raw intellect. We want people who can think; we can teach them PR. Second, is a real passion for learning; this is often articulated as a love of news, and/or an awareness of what’s new and emerging in society, politics, technology, etc. Third, is how well they communicate and present themselves.
   Fourth, is like-ability and perceived cultural fit. Increasingly however, the prelude to all of these is a quick scan of the search engines to see how findable they are, and to what extent are they using social media / networking to express themselves. It’s not that we don’t hire people who aren’t knowledgable about and avid users of social media; we most certainly do. That said, a candidate’s value to us — especially those at entry level — is dramatically enhanced if they are.
   
3. melissa cheater ...when in the process of hiring an entry level social media position - we definitely went the way of recent grads from two great local programs - and got nothing in the way of hands on experience. We ended up hiring a media masters student but I think the criteria above from Rick would have found us someone who could hit the ground running .. It’s true that you can teach pr and marketing, so it is important to focus on initiative, innovation, passion and problem solving/ability to survive...
   
4. Joseph Kingsbury I’d also echo Rick Murray’s point about raw intellect. To use a clumsy sports analogy, look for people that can run fast, hit hard and who have non-stop motors; you can teach them the playbook.
   
5. Elyse Tager We are a media strategy, planning and buying agency and have hired several newly minted grads in the past - some successful, some not so. Social media knowledge has given these people a whole new skill set to leverage in the job search. However, I would (and will in future hires) look first for all those traits that Rick Murray mentions above. I would also add that the importance of good communication skills and a strong sense of professionalism is even more important in the social media realm, since all communications are “out there”. One last thought - Hiring is an unnatural act at best and intuition plays a key part.
   
6. Scott Hammond (via email): We look for two things above all others: social media aptitude and communication skills. By social media aptitude I mean user aptitude of traditional social media channels in the Myspace/Facebook/Twitter-verse. We don't really care if someone can quote HTML code from memory, or if they have designed multiple sites, because the tech skills we use are simple and easily taught. We do care that someone is an active participant in social media, plugged in to multiple channels, and a positive contributor in those spaces. One of our interview "trip questions" is asking someone what their internet usage habits are. The correct answer should go something like, "I wake up, check e-mails and messages on Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter, brush my teeth and shower.....I put on my pj's and check messages on Myspace Facebook and Twitter one last time before going to sleep." By communications skills I mean reading comprehension and composition specifically. We like people who have read and written A LOT in the past, and English and History majors always get a careful look. This is key because reading messages and responding intelligently to them is either the job itself, or the skill set required to execute new plans.

So there you have it. Advice from the trenches. Many thanks to @jowyang, @rickmurray, @mmbc, @jkingsbury, @ElyseTager and @scotty_nola for their advice.

Anyone else have advice for graduating students?

Lessons from the Classroom: Facebook Business Pages, Blogging and Twitter

It began simply enough. The goal was to be able to show my Internet-based Marketing students how the new FB Business Profile Pages, Blogging and Twitter all serve different purposes to further the brand. Oh, and while doing that work in how to develop the content for each in order to achieve that mission. And...um...how to know when to use which and when not to...and do it in less than an hour.

So, here it is:

• Facebook Business Profile = Engagement
• Blogging = Expertise
• Twitter = Value

I know. That's not quite enough info is it?

Facebook Business Profile
The facebook redesign which seemed to be the bane of my students' existence has become a golden opportunity for businesses. In today's social media landscape, a brand that wants to fully engage with their customers now has a way in which to do that -- through Facebook. How? By doing the same things I can do as a person -- connect with my friends, comment on their walls, send messages, posting photos, joining groups...and my friends can comment on my posts and engage in discussions. Many others can see and take part in these discussions hence my emphasis on engagement.

Take a look at how Magic Hat is ENGAGING with their customers on their Facebook Profile Page



When you first go to the Magic Hat FB page, you come to this tab (Did I mention above that businesses can control the "landing page"?) Lot's of great pics and videos that show an exciting and interesting brand (which is what Magic Hat is all about).





So they caught my attention above. And now on the Wall I, as a consumer can comment on their status posts along with other fans and Magic Hat can respond to me directly. (Which they've done)





Is Magic Hat fully there yet? No. But as a local Vermont-based Company they are really taking advantage of a great opportunity to provide a space where they can engage with their customers and their customers can engage with the brand.

Should Magic Hat have a FB page at all? YES. Their target market is there. Their brand image fits with the FB landscape.

How should they measure their ROI? Number of fans is one simple way, but the true test is engagement. How many people are engaging on the page? How many in discussions? On events? Just like ANY site, Magic Hat should set clear objectives that are measurable so they can determine the ROI for their use of FB.

Blogging to build Expertise

My point of view on blogging is that it is not about selling. A blog is about showing your customers and potential customers who you are and what you are about. It boils down to creating a sense of expertise. Why would I, as a customer, trust YOU? Some great examples (also from Vermont, of course) include Seventh Generation's Blog: The Inspired Protagonist. I LOVE this blog. It really highlights why I have built a trust for Seventh Generation.

Here's another by local Web Development and Marketing Firm Union Street Media. If you don't have them bookmarked and aren't grabbing this firms FREE expertise (in the form of a well written, team blog with timely, important information) you are missing a great opportunity. So, why would they give this information away for FREE? Simple. Their blog shows their expertise. As a reader you learn to trust them and when it comes time to do something with your website, or enhance your Internet marketing strategy or focus in on blogging, who are you going to remember? Yep. They got you because they have shown, more than titles and puffy language, that they know their stuff.

Building Value with Twitter
Perhaps the biggest challenge right now is to address how something like Twitter can help in a brands marketing strategy. There are many words of advice out there so I'll add to the chaos (grin) with my thoughts.


There is NO VALUE in engaging in what I call "Follow Fever". You know what that is. It's a sickness that has struck many a Tweeter -- how many people can I get to follow me and how fast can I do it? Like a race. Mass follow tools are sprouting up like so many weeds. At the end of the day if 5,000 people are following you and you mass follow them back, how has that helped to increase your brand image? How does that help you reach your target market? At the end of the day you have a bunch of useless Twits (yeah, not a typo) following you for no good reason other than they might have follow fever too.


So, STOP with the follow fever. Start by assessing your brand image and how you will use Twitter to ADD VALUE for your customers, because at the end of the day, that is what it is all about.

Why would I follow anyone? I follow the people I do for specific reasons:

1. They provide valuable information for the work I do. People including (but not limited to) @rohitbhargava, @prsarahevans, @bethharte and @dannybrown and locals @gahlord, @cresmer and @rnadworny all help me do the work I do every day.
2. They expand my business and local network. Do they share my professional interests? are they in my local geographic region?
3. Are they my students or students at Champlain College?

Who don't I follow?

1. Anyone who is a "self-proclaimed" expert/wizard/maven/guru...etc.
2. Anyone who doesn't tell me who they are.

For a business, the value of Twitter is that you can reach out to customers who are passionate (either really really happy...or really really unhappy) in a way that brings value to the relationship. ComcastCares is a great example. Customer Service via Twitter. Provides VALUE for the customer. JetBlue is another example that provides the customer service access via Twitter. Locally we have some great examples of value creation through our Print News Media from Seven Days and the Burlington Free Press who are both utilizing Twitter in interesting ways. This was clearly evident today in Vermont during the veto override of the same sex marriage bill. Historic day in VT and Twitter is how I followed the process thanks to @shaytotten.

Another great local example of a company that is adding customer value through Twitter? Magic Hat! Their recent "Twitter Taste Live" event where they had several of their brewers available along with a Beer critic Tweeting Live responses to customers questions as they all sampled beers from the Spring Fever Pack. Um WOW! Great way to provide extra special value. Not only do I get my beer, but I get to Tweet about it with other people and learn great information.

How do you measure the ROI on something like that? How many people participated? Was there a spike in sales prior to the event? How many people blogged about it? What kind of "buzz" (yeah, I had too) did it create?

So there you have it. Why I think FB is for customer engagement, Blogging is for building expertise and Twitter is for creating customer value.

One final point that I made to my students was that if your brand is using any combination of these then they should all be linked to each other.

Champlain For Reel: Crowdsourcing at Champlain College

What do you get when you ask Champlain College students to tell the world what makes us special?

You get Champlain For Reel of course.

It's our own little bit of neighborhood crowdsourcing from students in a wide variety of majors telling you what they have gotten out of their experience here. Now, while I'm not in any of them (sigh), I can attest to the fact that they are all pretty representative of our campus and student body as a whole.

To see them all go to http://www.youtube.com/user/champlainforreel

Here's a few that I think do a great job of telling the "reel" story about Champlain. And by the way, a lot of what they capture is WHY I WORK here in the first place (grin).

One Thing



Champlain College: What it is...



Get Lifted



Camp Champ



A Daily Motion



Don't you wish you went here?

Final SxSWi Post: Major Lessons Learned

It's been a week since I returned from SxSWi and while I did my Lessons Learned from each day posts I just felt the need to do one more final posting.

Honestly this will help me with a few presentations I'll be giving so it's more for me than for anyone else.

I've boiled it all down to 5 C's:

1. Crowdsourcing: Great conversation about that one from the session on Digital Tsunami: Breaking News at Breakneck Speeds. How do you crowdsource for a crisis? How do you crowdsource for marketing? Amazing examples from NPR. Including Ushahidi which highlights just what this kind of technology can really do. Wow. The Power.
2. Convergence: As Charlene Li said, "Social networks will be like Air". Different tools abound and the focus seems to be more and more to bring them together in a mashup of communication technologies. Facebook Connect...on steroids.
3. Consumer Power: The tools will allow the consumer to exercise more and more power and internet culture will become even more ubiquitous. If you aren't listening as a Marketing or PR professional it will be a big Fail Whale.
4. Communication: The theories of communication (listening being a big part of that) are even more vital in our ever more connected world. Which tools to use when? How to accommodate new tools and old tools and make them all work for your target market? The amount of communication power Marketing and PR professionals have now is amazing -- and we haven't even begun to leverage it. Imagine what is coming our way in just a few years? Then of course there's the power of visual communication as well.
5. Content: Even more now the understanding of how to post content that is engaging, that reaches your market and connects with them is going to be the hallmark of excellent PR and Marketing.

In no particular order here are my best picks from the conference (a little re-hash from my lessons learned posts from last week)

1. Charlene Li's presentation on the future of social networks. Here's the podcast. Listen to it. Highlights were really about how we are going to move from management separate social networks to a point were our focus will be on IDENTITIES and those identities will be connected to different social networks.


2. Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos: So not so much about social media and technology (although Zappos is an online company) but more about customer service. The podcast is here, but the graphic information representation is here. Spend some time checking it out -- it tells the whole presentation visually (note to graphic design majors -- here's the business you should be in!)


3. Emerging Trends of Mobile Technology: Big learning here was the focus on "Augmented Reality". These folks talked about some very cool things including Topps Baseball Cards


4. Is the PR Agency Dead?: Great session and very relevant. What I wrote from my day three recap still stands:

1) the news release as we have known it is dead. PR professionals have to know how to leverage their content into social media releases with strong keyword density so it can get indexed by Google as well as utilize the right channels to reach the journalists. This means blogs, podcasting, Twitter, FB, email, phone, wherever your journalists are.
2) if you can't write, then you are in the wrong business. Period. There isn't anything magical to writing a news release. You must tell your story in an authentic way that is clear and to the point with no hyperbole.
3) Listen, listen, listen and monitor EVERYTHING. There is no excuse, given the tools that are available for not knowing what people are "saying" about your brand. From Blog alerts via Google, to Twitter Search you need to know what is going on AND you must respond...quickly.
4) Listening is not enough. You must respond and take action when necessary. You must understand how you can leverage the tools available to connect with your media channels in the most effective way. If people are talking negatively about your brand, you must respond. Listening without Action is almost as bad as not listening at all.

That's it for SxSW. I promise.

Ada Lovelace Day and our AMAZING Female Technology Professors

I volunteered to be part of the Ada Lovelace Day where bloggers all over the world are writing about women in technology.

For my post I thought I would highlight some of the women faculty at Champlain College who are teaching amazing things.

Here they are in no particular order:

1. Amanda Crispel Fox: Program Director for Game Art and Animation and Game Design
2. Suzanne Glover: Graphic Design and Digital Media
3. Karen Klove: Digital Filmmaking
4. Toni-Lee Sangastiano: Graphic Design and Digital Media
5. Susyn Dees: Program Director for Radiography
6. Sarah Pettitt: Web Management and Design
7. Julie Rancont: Computer Information Technology
8. Shubashree Thekahally: Software Engineering
9. Kathy Whiting: Radiography
10. Cynthia Brandenberg: CORE
11. Suzanne Newberry: Math and Science

Each of these women is an expert in her field and utilizes technology tools in the practice of their work in different ways. Courses range from the highly technical such as Introduction to Computer Theory (Rancont), Game Technology I (Rancont), Conceptual Game Design (Fox), Intro to Web Design (Glover), Server-side Scripting (Pettitt) and Usability and Design (Pettitt) and Software Engineering Courses (Thekahally) to the blend of art and technology in courses such as Introduction to Digital Film making (Klove), Form and Color (Sangastiano), Introduction to Typography (Sangastiano), Digital Publication (Glover), and User Interface Design (Glover) to the health technology driven radiography classes taught by both Dees and Whiting to the integrated learning of our CORE courses where Brandenberg teaches Scientific Revolution and our Math and Science managed and taught by Suzanne Newberry.

What an amazing array of talent we are lucky to have on our campus.

So, in celebration of Ada Lovelace Day, I celebrate my female colleagues who work with technology in many different ways and who are educating a new generation of women and men.

Ladies, take a bow!

Lessons Learned from SxSWi: Day 5

My last day at SxSWi was pretty intense. Not only did I have to check out of my hotel and get to the airport, I had sessions to attend as well!

I kicked the day off with a session entitled, "The State of the Internet Memescape: 2008-10" with Tim Hwang (@timhwang) of ROFLCon. Anyone who puts LOLCATS in their presentation is a BIG WINNER for me. And since this was about internet culture there were many LOLCATS, Hamsters and even Stuff White People Like. One he didn't talk about would be one that I'm seeing more and more (thanks to my students): FML. What was great about this session were the little nuggets of interesting things he addressed:

1. This is a good time for internet culture. Why? When people are out of work they spend more time online. He showed several charts. One was the dow average and how it tanked in October. The other was traffic to different sites since October. As the dow went down, visits to the sites went up. Not proof of anything...but certainly something to think about.
2. The future for internet culture is huge. We have sites such as LOLCats and SWPL that have moved from online to offline (through books) and have spawned other things (such as the LOLCats Bible Project.)
3. The Internet Meme is about CONTENT, CODE and PHYSICAL -- we need things that people create, we need code that allows it to be created and we need ways in which to see the content. As more people get access, and code becomes less important (thx widgets!) and more and more have mobile and computer access the meme's will grow.

Next I went to Digital Tsunami: Breaking News and Breakneck Speeds with

• Peter Imbres - Hill and Knowlton (@peeta)
• Andy Carvin - NPR (@acarvin)
• Alex de Carvalho - StartPR (@alexdc)
• Christopher Barger - GM (@cbarger)

Have you ever seen a panel discussion where the people are brilliant and the content is mind blowing BUT....the energy is really really really low? Well, this was one of those times. The panelists were very mellow and quiet (all dressed in black, by the way). While the presenters themselves gave off an aura of "meh", their content was first rate. They started with the USAir Hudson plane crash and did a breakdown/timeline. Upshot? With social media like Twitter and Twitpic joined with mobile phones (like the iPhone) you have citizen journalists Everywhere. The news media falls behind as do the PR organizations because the citizens move so quick and spread the word very fast. The challenge for the media: FACT CHECKING. It's very easy to pass the wrong information on, but breaking news will require flexibility on the part of the news media as well as on the consumers of the information. The challenge for PR: Who is your spokesperson? You can't let someone who is formerly affiliated with your organization become the "defacto" spokesperson online just because they have a history. How will you focus the communication at breakneck speed?

What I can tell you for sure is that NPR is doing it right. They have a social media strategist (@acarvin) who is pushing the envelope through online community creation. Examples include Votereport during the election, creating a Ning site during the Galveston hurricane crisis last year. Another interesting site they mentioned was Ushahidi which is a crowd sourcing program to help with crisis management.

Finally, I didn't make it to much of the Chris Anderson talk due to my flight schedule but what I can tell you is that he was focusing on his new book "Free". The parts I saw were interesting for sure.

Tomorrow I'll post my overall take-aways from my first SxSWi in order to contribute to the plethora of posts that are all doing the same...and I'll include some links to those posts as well.