This is kind of a big deal. In a perfect world, we’d have clean email lists that include location data for each address. But my world is not perfect, and I’m guessing I’m not the only one.  So when Mailchimp announced that they’ve enabled geo tracking in their latest release, I pretty much did the happy dance right on the spot.

How do they do it? Basically, they are able to track IP addresses for people who interact with you during the double opt-in process, by opening your email and displaying images, or by clicking on a link in your email. Is it perfect? No. But it’s a huge step better than nothing. And overtime, it might even be more accurate for non-members than the information we collect at opt-in–afterall, people move, but they probably aren’t going to update their subscriptions if they haven’t changed their email address.

Another cool perk of the geo tracking is something Mailchimp is calling “Time Warp.” Basically, the system will automagically deliver your message at the time you choose, regardless of time zone. Whoa. Can I get an w00t w00t!

Maddie and I are getting ready for #tech10–the ASAE Technology Conference happening next week. Or, at least, we’re getting ready to get ready for #tech10. How did February sneak up on me? So…here’s what the SocialFish will be getting into while we’re at the conference next week.

Our Session(s)
RUTI Volunteer Town Hall: Building, Launching and Nurturing an Online Community–Thursday at 2:45pm. We’re gonna be talking about the process of launching an online community, using the ASAE Collaborate site as the case study. You’ll hear from people who were involved–members as well as ASAE staff–in an informal discussion format. I’ll be driving the interwebs while Maddie facilitates the discussion. Peggy Hoffman from Mariner Management and Marketing, Jen Miller from SusQTech and Wanda Little-Coffey from ASAE will do most of the talking. Reggie Henry of ASAE fame might just show up to put his 2 cents in as well.

TinyChat Video Streaming Extravaganza-Stay tuned. Rumored to be happening with @cardcat and @kikilitalien.

Connecting with the ASAE Community
#Tech10 group in the ASAE Collaborate site. Join it. We did. You need to be an ASAE member…and if’ you’re attending you’re a member now anyway. This site is still in a kind of beta phase…working out the kinks. But if you read this blog, and you’re an ASAE fan, you’re gonna want to be in there.

Going Mobile
Twitter and the HUB–We’ll be following and contributing on the #tech10 Twitter hashtag, of course. I think the easiest way to follow along with the #tech10 banter is TweetChat. The Tech10 hub is also a good option, especially if you don’t plan to tweet and just want to have a good view of what people are saying. It also has a schedule and expo hall map that are handy on-site.

Foursquare (GoWalla for me)–And here’s the real awesomesauce. I’m pretty sure this is going to be the event where geolocation makes a splash. I plan to find and connect with all my ASAE peeps who are using Foursquare (and then subtly try to convince them to switch to Gowalla, cuz I like it better but I’m lonely over there.)

Gatherings
YAP 80’s Dance Party–This is the third YAP party at an ASAE Technology Conference. There will be a DJ playing 80’s music…and yes, we will be dancing, so you’ll want to come just for the spectacle. We’ll have some real A-Ha moments. Teehee. Starts at 8:30 at RFD (map) in the back room.

Higher Logic–We’ll also be making an appearance at Bar Louie for the Higher Logic Party. That’s earlier in the evening.

NFI Studios–Then we’ll head up to the NFI Studios party at Ping Pong. That’s right near the YAP party, so we’ll be there until we need to go set up.

ThePort Network–If you can’t deal with 80’s music (huh? really?) then the other cool option is ThePort party that starts at 9pm at Zengo.

Tradeshow
I really am psyched about the tradeshow this year, too. There are so many vendors there that we want to meet. And there’s going to be a booth that features mobile apps, so we can’t miss that. I heard there might be a Tweetup for Omnipress (our Engage365 pals) and I’m willing to bet there will be more hijinx that I hope to be in the middle of.

What did I miss gang? This is your chance to tell me where I should be (and when).  I’d also love to hear about any sessions you’re excited about, because I really haven’t even gotten that far yet.

Building Social Media Capacity
8 steps from our new whitepaper

SocialFish Food Tips
These tips were originally sent in our kinda monthly email newsletter, SocialFish Food. Here’s the original email. Here’s how to subscribe.

Here is an excerpt from our new, free whitepaper, Social Media, Risk, and Policies for Associations. The purpose of the paper is to help folks like you develop good social media policies for staff and top volunteers. We also discuss a more general plan for building social media processes into your organization. Here are the basic steps, as we see them.

1. Monitor the social web for discussions about your brand and industry.
2. Understand your objectives for using social media.
3. Develop a social media strategy by prioritizing those objectives and applying your learning from monitoring in step 1.
4. Assess and mitigate your risks—include your legal counsel and insurance professional in the discussion.
5. Make sure your insurance coverage is appropriate for your social media activities.
6. Adopt the appropriate policies and guidelines.
7. Set up interdepartmental workflows for social media collaboration.
8. Educate your staff and volunteers.

For much more in-depth information about building capacity for social media and creating appropriate policies, download the whitepaper.

…it’s advertising. Or maybe PR. And there’s a lot of luck involved.

“Viral marketing” has become such a buzzword, with so many vendors promising “viral results”–ugh. Would it be great to create the next Pink Gloves Dance and be featured on national news outlets? Sure. Would it raise a ton of awareness? Yes. And if that’s what you’re trying to do, than great.

But it’s not marketing. Not really. I talk a lot about word of mouth marketing and community-driven marketing (homage to Jeremy Epstein). Using WOM is a discipline. It takes a commitment to community building, 2-way communication, and clarity over control. There’s a lot more to it than creating an awesome video and spreading it around on YouTube, though that may be a piece of the bigger picture. There’s a lot more to it than throwing a button on your website that says “share this with your friends,” though that may be a piece as well. Great WOM cultivates relationships that lead to measurable results over time.

And maybe that’s the distinction I’m trying to make. What does “going viral” really do for you, other than put you in the spotlight for a very short period of time, until the next big thing comes around to take your place. Word of mouth marketing, on the other hand is a long-term movement that has the potential to flourish over time with the right nurturing. And by the way, word of mouth isn’t confined to the web.

Most associations will never create a viral phenomenon. And why bother? Focus on the fundamentals of word of mouth–give your members something worth talking about and an easy tool to do it. Measure, adjust, and repeat.

PS – Check out Maddie’s comment on this Associations Now article, “How to go viral.” Amen.

“It’s not information overload. It’s filter failure.” -Clay Shirky

Listening through the social web is one of the core skills that we all need to develop. I’ve been doing it for years, and yet I’m always thinking up a better way, a more useful keyword, or an improved lens.

I challenge everyone reading this post to get back to basics this week, and improve your keyword searches. That means using operators like AND and OR. It means negating certain words. You might try searching in a specific site or user.  There are lots of little tricks to brush up on. To help and inspire you, here are two resources from two important listening posts: Google Search and Twitter Search.

• Google Advanced Search Tips
• Twitter Search Operators

Maddie recently wrote a post about Tweckling (Twitter heckling) and Maggie McGary left a great comment with a link to Dana Boyd’s personal experience as a speaker at Web2.0 Expo. Lisa Junker also picked up Dana’s post on Acronym. Dana had some very specific, preventable issues that conference organizers can learn from, and I think it’s worth spelling it out here.

“A week before the conference, I received word from the organizers that I was not going to have my laptop on stage with me.”

Really? Why not? What difference did it make to them?

“I only learned about the Twitter feed shortly before my talk.”

Huh? That needs to be communicated early and often. And she should have had the option to have it turned off during her talk.

“When I walked out on stage, I was also in for a new shock: the lights were painfully bright.”

Perfect. So right now, she can’t see the Twitter stream, she can’t see the audience, and all she knows is that people are laughing at all the wrong times. Ugh. Anyone would get rattled.

“The Twitter stream was initially upset that I was talking too fast. My first response to this was: OMG, seriously? That was it?”

If she’d known the problem was so minor, she wouldn’t have gotten rattled–which just made the problem worse. Who had her back? Couldn’t someone have given her the feedback she needed, when she needed it?

Twitter backchannels are an important trend. But don’t forget to prep your speakers. Even if you don’t plan to have a live Tweet-to-screen feed, you should still plan–as Maddie suggests in her post–to have someone monitoring who is prepared to step in to help.

By the way, I don’t think having a Twitter feed up during a session is a bad thing, necessarily. It depends on the audience, the nature of the presentation, and how the speakers interact with the stream. At Buzz2009, we had the Twitter stream up throughout. It was a nice way for attendees in the room to see who else was engaged from around the country. But it was not as prominent and overwhelming as the Web2.0 Expo example.

What have you guys been doing to prep speakers? Can’t wait to hear.

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Following up on Maddie’s 10 steps for building an internal social media team, and my little clarity over control post, here’s a little something for all you visual people.

On the top, you see what happens when an organization sets up their social media team as the gatekeepers of all online social interactions. Below that is a depiction of the social media team as a service to the organization, providing the framework, structure, training, and clarity for the rest of the organization to run with. When you remember that the more people you know, the more you can do, one of these pictures is clearly more attractive. (Homage to Jessica Hagy.)

What do you think?

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My other half likes to say “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” He picked the phrase up from a senior executive in his organization. So here’s my little rant for the week.

• Forget trying to find the perfect technology tool for your organization’s social media needs–you’re procrastinating. When the tool finally comes around, you’ll be so far behind it won’t help.
• Stop trying to force your old business processes onto social media tools–we’re not handcuffed by fax machines and mimeographs anymore, people. And yes, some of the processes seem that old.
• Quit scolding your fans for using the wrong phrasing, the wrong logo, the wrong approach–yeah, I know they should have talked to you first, but hey, at least they did something!
• And please, please, please quit sucking the personality out of your organization by over-producing, over-polishing, over-thinking every little detail into some kind of marketing message. It’s like dealing with Stepford Wives, and I’m over it.

Phew. Thanks for letting me get that out. I feel better. You’ll feel better, too, if you have a couple rants of your own to add.