Last week was the 140 Characters Conference on Twitter which I wasn't able to attend, however I did catch big chunks of it live on Ustream.com. In keeping with Twitter's concept of brevity, the 2-day event played host to an ongoing string of Twitterers, some more well-known than others, who had up to ten minutes to tell their story (see schedule here).
Jeff spread the love by inviting the Twitterati to speak about how they're making the most out of the tool, and then opening it up for the whole world to see it live online for free on Ustream.com - plus now it's also available for playback on demand. In doing so, he's reaching many more social media fans and giving them very valuable information, while at the same time getting wider exposure for his conference. According to Pulver, there were 1000 people attended in person, but the live broadcast on Ustream added a worldwide audience of 77,728 unique viewers / 128,664 total viewers, and on Twitter, they were also one of the top 10 trending topics of the week.
For those that couldn't be watching it live, you could also follow it on Twitter by entering the hashtag "#140conf" in the search box. That's where attendees like Amy Vernon (@amyvernon) gave us a play-by-play of the whole event, listing all the screen names of the participants and adding interesting quotes as they spoke. More giving! But that's probably why she has almost 20,000 followers.
One of the speakers, Jessica Gottlieb (@jessicagottlieb), ended her speech by prompting people to "give a little bit more than you take to help keep this a magical place", which got me thinking.
Small business owners, myself included, often say - how will I find time to tweet or update my status? In this age of instant gratification, we can't see how the time we spend on social sites will amount to business. If we don't see results right away, then why bother? But actually, when you give, that's when the magical part kicks in.
Last week I met someone that was graciously offering to introduce me to potential prospects and wanting to do all sorts of things for me, without asking me for anything in return. First I was a little suspect, as any good New Yorker would be, but as we continued our conversations I felt flattered by her kind gestures because it's not often that strangers are so gracious. Secondly it made me want to give back by doing something for her: the "magical" part.
So for all you small business owners that are still on the fence about giving - whether it's putting in time on the social nets, or giving away free products or services - take a leap of faith. Power up your business with some L-O-V-E. Trust that what you give out will reap rewards. But be smart about it - give strategically.
How good are you at giving? Please share!
Monday, April 26, 2010
The Love Powered Economy
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Social Media and Back to School
Ah the pleasures of summer...shorts and tank tops, free outdoor concerts, bare feet on dewy grass, lemonade, ice cream and...sales! In August we usually see retailers make their big push for "back to school", but what's different this year is their use of social media in addition to traditional print, TV and online advertising campaigns. Mo Krochmal, journalism professor at Hofstra University and I, inspired by this article, traveled to Herald Square, site of the brand new JCPenney flagship store - its first ever in Manhattan - to cover the story. We wanted to see first hand how big box retailers JCPenney, Staples and OfficeMax are using social media. Facebook fan pages, Twitter and YouTube are big.
Will they be successful? Time will tell, but so far:
JCP Teen on Facebook has doubled its fan size to 17,000 since July 25th, and they're doing a a great job of cross marketing the fan page with a dedicated website where you can actually buy the products, plus they're also running other campaigns linked to concerts and skateboarding.
Staples has a back to school tab on its Facebook page which also links to a matching landing page for shopping. They have a 3 campaigns centered around giving to students in need. The fan base grew by about 4,000 members in the same period but it's hard to tell whether it's all from back to school or just supplies in general because it's all together. I took a quick scan of the latest comments but didn't see any posts from teens, like you see in the JCPenney page.
OfficeMax has no mention of the viral penny prank videos on their website and their Twitter account hasn't been updated frequently, although they do have over 500 followers.
Some points to consider when deciding whether your business should launch a social media campaign:
-Where is your audience? Do they spend time on social networks?
-How can you tie in your other web assets, like your website or blog to the campaign?
-Who will be managing content and moderating the conversations?
-How will you measure success? Is it traffic, sales, engagement?
How are you using social media for your business? Please share!
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Future of Media Discussed at NYU Panel
Internet Week is in full swing here in New York this week. There's tons of great events going on, including today's excellent panel on the Future of Media at NYU. Jack Dorsey, Co-founder and Chairman of Twitter (that's him in the suit in the right), was the first to be asked about whether its success is sustainable.
Jack: "Twitter is a success when people use it as a utility, a part of communication, like email, SMS and the telephone. We've seen phases of usage since it was launched. The product is being driven by users and developers. As for making money from it, by creating Twitter we made it possible for people to come up with different ways of using it and building applications for it, so we're treating the business model in the same way - by establishing patterns in usage, and seeing which ones can be monetized."
Patrick Phillips, Founder of I Want Media, moderated the forum, and then asked Jack if Twitter will be a rival to Google in search.
Jack: "There's room for both. It's a discovery engine. Twitter is more for vanity searches (for people to find out about themselves, their company). But it's also about discovering new content, people and things they didn't know about. News trends up on Twitter. The technology makes it very easy to be anywhere and report about it. It's good for "man on the street" accounts. What's missing is the editorial part - a cohesive narrative around the report. We need to bring journalistic integrity to the mass of messages."
Jack says that for news he checks what's trending up on Twitter first then he goes and reads the full story in the New York Times online.
When asked about social media policy, Alan Murray, Deputy Managing Editor at the Wall Street Journal referred to the recent memo that was circulated to employees regarding social networking do's and dont's. "Business and pleasure should not be mixed on Facebook and Twitter, don't talk about sources, but mostly the basic message is don't be stupid."
Bonnie Fuller (above), who resigned last year as EVP and editorial director at American Media and is now launching Bonnie Fuller Media, stayed mum about what her new company will be about. She was also coy about telling the audience how many followers she has on Twitter (4200+). But she felt strongly about there being enough room for multiple sources of news. To illustrate she pointed out that women 24-47 comprise a huge portion of the population and have varying tastes and habits so there's plenty of room for PerezHilton, People or The Enquirer or others (looks like she eyeing this demo, doesn't it?).
The conversation then moved to the future, and Alan said that in 10 years we'll have large Kindles or other electronic devices to deliver the news. Wow, that really sounds like the end of newspapers. I discussed this with fellow blogger and socialista Nichelle Stephens, who I bumped into on my way out. I think it would be great for trees, and of course that means no more inky fingers, but it's a concept that takes a little getting used to. We're kind of already there though. I use my HTC Touch to get news when I'm out and have time to kill. But I have to be somewhere where I can get internet access, so no reading on the subway. And the screen is tiny which makes it hard to read long articles. I guess that's what they'll address with the larger devices, but at home I probably would prefer to flip through the pages of a magazine or newspaper, not sure if I'd use a gadget for that, but ya never know. In the end it's all about changing with the times.
Those were some of the things I found interesting today but if you have about an hour to spare and want to watch the video click here.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Art Gets Social with Brooklyn Museum's "tweets of art"
What makes New York City such a creative place to be these days is people extending their online social networks into the offline world. I've never seen so much enthusiasm in the air. Whether it's through Meetup, where so many groups are thriving, or through events like Social Media Week, which was conceived a short 3 weeks ago by Toby Daniels and has turned out to be phenomenal.
The first panel at SMW was all about two of my favorite topics: art & social media. Will Cary, Membership Manager at the Brooklyn Museum talked about how he is testing the social media waters by offering a Twitter feed where followers get "tweets of art" - and organizing events around that. It's part of what 
they're calling the "first-of-its-kind socially networked membership", and charging $20 a year for it. So far they have about 100 followers.
The museum had noticed there were a lot of people attending their monthly "First Saturday" events, where they allow free entrance from 5-11pm. A lot of visitors would come and view the art but they wouldn't join as members. They also had a huge following through their Facebook page and through Twitter - but those weren't joining either. The question was, "how do we get these people that have an interest in us to want to be more involved?"
The museum's mission is community based, so they tried to set up communities online, like "members only" groups on Facebook and Flickr, but that didn't work. Then a month and a half ago they came up with 1st fans, where if you sign up you get a Twitter "art feed" that features a different contemporary artist every month, exclusively for them. The artists tweet everyday for one month, then on 'First Saturday' they'll show all the art they tweeted, plus a lecture for '1stfans'. An Xiao was the first artist to participate, and she tweeted in morse code (see her video preview here). About 100 supporters have signed up so far.
Through '1stfans' the museum interacts with people that they would otherwise have no access to but who are big supporters of their art. "It's a way to enlist them and offer them a way to have a closer relationship with the museum", explains Will. "We first addressed it through our blog to show them that we're not trying to trick them. It's just something cool we're offering. For those that enjoy what the museum does, this is the next level of involvement. It's what can we do to address their needs", he adds. Which is smart because it's getting to them early in the process and letting them know that they're valued even though they're not full members.
"Artists go through a heavy vetting process. They have to submit a proposal to be considered for this program. They must be consistent with what the museum stands for. Once we review the proposals we then discuss it with the curators and other departments," says Will. '1stfans' don't have a say in picking the artists.
'1stfans' are very active Twitterers and this requires that someone be engaged with them all the time, which basically means Will has no life. But he was the one that came up with the idea so he's passionate about it. The '1stfan' initiative is a philosophy that's carried across all the departments, whether it's technology, membership, or any others - they'll are engaged.
How do you approach a museum's board to get them on board? "It's trust between the museum and the trustees, and the museum and the members. Even though we have no idea of how it will turn out, it's no different from walking into a museum and taking the leap of faith that you will find the art worthwhile. '1stfans' get access to the museum in a new way - we get back to them and answer their questions and comments. Listening to what people have to say is like having checks and balances", Will points out.
For those that are already members, the Twitter art feed is an added benefit. '1stfans' however, don't receive the regular benefits that full members get, like free admission anytime and invites to special exhibits, and store discounts. "It's good we're growing slowly so we get to know the people and let them get to know each other. People don't think of the Twitter feed as a membership. The second '1stfan' event was last weekend and 30 people came. We make the extra effort to educate them about the museum. We want to be sure they know we believe in growing the community and offering them a variety of experiences online and offline", he adds.
Organizations have a tremendous asset: employees that are passionate about what they do. People like Will, who spends nights and weekends answering tweets, and caring about people that right now may only afford $20 but tomorrow might become members or even one day, who knows, platinum donors? He's spreading Brooklyn Museum love to those on the fringes, and making them feel good about being part of the community, which is something advertising can never do. And they're even making a little money from it.
How are you engaging with your community? Blogging and Twitter are some of my favorite ways, so please, connect with me!
Twitter: @mogulette
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Social Media Camp Recap
By the time I got to my first session at Social Media Camp, the one-day event at Sun Microsystems on Thursday, Joshua Mack, VP of Network for Outside.in was wrapping up his schpeel on "place blogging", a term I had never heard before (other cool lingo I picked up that day: failwhale - what you get when the Twitter server is busy...). Their software allows you to enter a zip code and track blog conversations people are having in your local area. Very cool.
Twitter was the big theme of the day at this social symposium, and the next session I attended was a case study on how a business uses it. It was led by Saul Colt, Head of Magic at a company called FreshBooks (man, I wish I had a job title like that in my resume!). Saul (that's him with me in the picture below) is obsessed with Twitter and spoke for an hour on how he uses it for the company he works for, which makes online invoicing and billing software. Actually what he does is the opposite of business, because his "tweets", or the messages he sends on Twitter, have absolutely nothing to do with business. For example,
he'll send a tweet in support of fellow Twitter-ers if they share a disappointing experience.
Saul believes that we must use the internet to have real-world relationships with people, and twitter-ing is a way to do that. It used to be we knew everything about what was going on with the people in our community, like who had a baby, who went to what school, who was going where on Saturday night, etc. Somehow that got lost as society evolved, but the web is enabling us to find a way back there.
Saul pointed out that he gets 70% of his business from Twitter but says you can't track the effectiveness of word-of-mouth marketing in traditional ways. So he takes out all the things you can track, like promo codes, etc. and the rest is WOM. His last two cents: "Make people feel they're part of something special. Never pitch product - if it's good it will sell itself." Saul's quotable quote: the 4 E's - "execute on extraordinary experiences every day - that's what people will talk about."
From there I moved on to a fascinating discussion given by Loretta Donovan. Her session was titled "Customers, Clients and Social Mediators, When the Wiki Becomes CoLaboratory" (note: the spelling of the last word is intentional). Just in case you're fuzzy on what a wiki is, Wikipedia defines it as "a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content." This makes for interesting collaborations between employees inside an organization (many of these are private), or anyone within an industry that wants to share knowledge about a specific subject. Loretta took us through the 3 main elements that wikis must have to be effective:
1-Knowledge - meaning information, and to this she suggests adding tags and allowing comments.
2-Integration - with more knowledge, for example, adding links to video or other sources that contribute to your premise. You can add a new page allowing contributors to continuously add and edit information, insert links back to other pages of the wiki, and raise questions that can be answered by other contributors - all this creates quantity.
3-Execution - this is the experimentation phase. Here you can create a prototype of something and then test it, and write about the results of the first test, and the second test, and the third, and so on, always allowing for people to leave comments.
Loretta added that wikis leave a visible path of how our thinking is going. They create a level of transparency for organizations, and a sense of psychological safety among employees - and where people feel safe, creativity abounds.
In the end, however, you need to sustain it. There are many wikis that are started and then forgotten, so you need to have a social mediator in charge of attracting those conversations to keep it going.
Next stop: Howard Greenstein's, interactive session on Twitter, where he posed the question, "how do you use Twitter for business?" to the group. These were some of the responses:
- as a source of news & information
- to participate in the community - answer questions and ask questions
- to alert your community about upcoming events
- to follow interesting writers/conversations
- to send out a daily tip
- to meet like-minded individuals and connect with them locally or when you travel
- to promote awareness of a particular issue
- to offer what you have
