Double your pleasure

While at TWTRCON I had the great honor to sit down with the cool guys from GURU TUBE and record a couple of pieces about my Social Media philosophy and experiences. There are now 2 little videos for you to check out if you so choose--click here.

I am so excited and doing the Wayne's World We're not Worthy thing
because David Meerman Scott who appears a few videos below mine is one of my heroes in the industry. He was one of the first "gurus" that I started following and helped shape how I think about and use the tools.

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I also added my 2 cents worth to a thread on LinkedIn and thought I would re-post here as well since I have yet to really outline key points about Social Media strategy--from a beginners point of view:

When asked, I often tell people that you want someone already using the channels and familiar with the format using them for you. That may mean your reception would be better at Social Media strategy than your marketing manager!

Darren, the key to our Social Media strategy is first understanding the philosophy that social media must be used as a communication tool that can by default lead to sales, not a sales tool that leads to communication.

the 3 steps we have used are:
1. Listen/Audit/Follow
-listen to what people are already saying about your brand as well as the ton of conversations around your products or like companies.
-audit; take an audit of where you may already have a social media presence such as facebook groups etc.
-Follow key influencers and resources to learn the ever changing tips and tools

2. Test/Engage/Prepare to Fail
-test various messages and tactics to see what yields the results you desire with your target audience
-engage those currently talking about you and encourage them to continue the conversation-use them as ambassadors to engage more friends/fans/followers
-don't be afraid to try-try-try again; this is all one big experiment and there are no true benchmarks or guides-platforms change before books can be published and your audience is still catching up. So try a ton of different things and don't freak out when one fails---just learn from it!

3. GET REAL!
If your not prepared to be authentic, if you have to run all of your copy through brand marketing; social media may not be the medium for you. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are all about the conversation--people will only pay attention if your tone and information is presented as such. Make it a two way street and don't over analyze. Additionally if you can't devote enough time to keep up with the conversations by responding to people in a timely fashion-beware; that could really work against you much in the way poor customer service would.

Marketing, Road Trips and Hammers

So much has happened in the last 2 months. I launched a killer Twitter based fund raising campaign with the organization I work for Operation Smile. We flew to San Francisco and threw a launch party and then promoted it at TWTRCON, the first Twitter for business conference.

It was so amazing meeting the various personalities and marketing professionals who, like myself are trying to harness Twitter and (for the most part) use it's powers for good. It was also refreshing to discover that one can be valued for their ideas and ability to develop unique and dynamic strategy even while they may lack the technical mastery to fully implement. I was told an analogy of marketing days gone by when websites first arrived and it wasn't up to the strategist or marketing manager to write the code for the site but it was up to them to make it look great and produce.

AHHHHH sigh of relief. Because frankly these web tools are so vast and while I am working hard to master them and reading the masters to do so (you know who you are because you get my dm's and @'s)i sometimes get caught up in the tools and forget that i am skilled at the plans. My husband had yet another great analogy as I fretted in the car on a roadtrip en route to Bonnaroo at my lack of ability to get my apps to work on my Blackberry.

He said-every man has a tool set in their house somewhere, a hammer, a saw some sand paper. But do many of them have the forethought, creativity and drive to use those tools to really create something amazing like a piece of furniture or art?

WOW. pretty heavy stuff. I used to use the pencil and paper analogy but in the tech world this is even more illustrative. (the pencil analogy if you haven't heard me ramble about art is that you can give 50 people a pencil and paper and ask them to do something with it and the artist or creative thinker will create something magical while the others will right their name or play tic tac toe).

So for the rest of the road trip I contemplated the tools I needed to master, read my Seth Godin and Clay Shirky like a good little web marketer and felt excited about the evolution of my marketing and creative mind.

So we've arrived in lovely Manchester Tennessee where we are surrounded by what I can only dub "Faux Hippies". I just woke and started reading my morning blogs, still reeling from my road trip of web marketing exploration and home read this incredible blog post from Mark Olson which seems to echo many of the themes I was contemplating yesterday. "Groovy man"

I am so inspired and excited about this paradigm shift, where finally innovation and passion have equal places in the tool box as experience and technical skill. The constantly evolving and revolving nature of the tools we are using evens the playing field a bit as we're all learning them together.

So I guess for the duration of this "Social Media Strategy" road trip I'm on, I'll make sure I subscribe to the right RSS feeds, maintain a steady watch on the tool makers, keep an open mind and then continue to figure out more creative and incredible ways to use my hammer...

Week-End Review

Whew, I don't know how the bi-coastals do it. It is Wednesday and I am just recovering from the crazy Twitter filled weekend. I took a red-eye Sunday night back from SFO to Norfolk, thinking I would be 100% by Tuesday morning but alas I was still working my way back into full speed yesterday.
I've been trying to get a grip on all of the many wonderful things that happened, the conversations, the connections, the lessons learned and of course the money raised for Operation Smile. If you've been following along you know about 140 Smiles the Twitter based fund raising campaign I helped devise for Operation Smile (who I work for). Having connected with @adventuregirl through Twitter just over 2 months ago, the opportunity to partner with TWTRCON presented itself and so,naturally, we needed a killer Twitter campaign to accompany the opportunity.
We engaged Common Knowledge a killer firm that specializes in web development and strategy for non-profits. They offered strategy and web design pro-bono, got a bit of assistance from the super awesome Chris Carson at Modern Media (who put on TWTRCON)and VIOLA-we had a campaign to launch in under 3 weeks!

So the launch...well we'll chat about that in a seperate post but here's a video snippet

Blog on Connection Cafe

The super awesome Jordan Viator of Convio fame asked me 2 weeks ago to write a guest blog for the Convio "Connection Cafe" blog site. I was so honored and excited and talked her ear off about strategy and philosophy of social media. It was right after NTC so she filled me in on some of the awesomeness from that.

anyway I had just arrived in San Francisco to prepare for the 140 Smile launch and got her e-mail reminding me she needed the blog today. OOPS--time flies when your planning a crazy Twitter campaign. So I wrote it in the back of the airport shuttle and quickly found out that typing while dodging San Francisco traffic is much like riding that spinning thing at the carnival after you've eaten 4 corn dogs, cotton candy and a Slurpee. Anyway, here it is.

Thank you so much Jordan for letting me ramble on about my little baby, can't wait to do the follow up and how we helped over 140 children!

talk about chatty

I was on @KenLudwig’s web radio show yesterday and chatted (at length) about Operation Smile, Twitter and 140 smiles! Click below, it’s May 26th, let it fully download and the fast forward about 13rd of the way. I’m right after “California Dreamin” Listen Here

So I chat a bit but what a great conversation with Ken! Plus, he's a stones fan too! Love it!

And the smiles keep coming

Wow, I am just more and more excited and inspired. I had some great calls and fun news about our launch event. I have also heard from some incredible folks whom I admire.

When I first left my post as Donor Relations Supervisor and took on Operation Smile's social media efforts I serendipitously started following @kanter. Ironically the very first week I was to create a Social Media Strategy, Beth was offering her now famous We Are Media workshop through Nten. This incredible workshop helped me form my plan and gave me the confidence to soldier on for smiles. (i also met incredible folks like @rachelannyes and of course Beth)

Anyway--So of course I was really hoping Beth would join us for the launch event of #140smiles campaign. Well, she's coming and much to my pride and excitement she even wrote a blog post.

CHECK IT OUT!

Rock on #140smiles!!!!

mini-media tour

I chatted up the killer guys at Twooting today. They have a daily podcast all about Twitter which makes them a fitting partner to help us get the word out about #140smiles. It was a great interview and we are so excited that they are donating 10 Smiles to the campaign--WOO HOO---So amazing. I am truly moved by how people are coming together to help us reach our goal--and the campaign hasn't officially launched!!!!

WOW!

Then I had a very rockin call with @kenludwig for his radio show. The interview was awesome and beyond just sharing the stories of our medical volunteers and patients, we got to bond over our mutual obsession with The Stones! Rock on Ken!(archive soon to come)

Everything's moving along and I think we may reach our goal--the world (tworld) is making smiles happen!