Saving Hawaii’s beaches and open space is a widely shared commitment – not just among those of us who live here but even more so perhaps for the millions of visitors to Hawaii! Everyone is invited, as even those of you who may never visit have likely experienced calm and inspiration from looking a Maui sunset or listening to the rhythm of the waves while watching an episode of Beachwalks.tv.

I am part of the social media team that is helping raise funds for the Hawaiian Islands Land Trust (HILT) on January 28, 2012 and their annual fundraiser. We are putting social media to a test. In the past, this has been a local event that targets local attendees who bid on deluxe local packages. All of that is the same this year, however HILT is adding several social media options. I am blogging here to enlist you, dear reader, in our activities and to create an additional central clearinghouse for all of the social media assets being created!

Online Donation Campaign: HILT has secured a matching donor. If we can raise $5000 in online donations by January 28th, the donor will match us with another $5000. I think we can, but alas, it is going to be up to all of us to get this done. Please donate here now.

Here Are The Main Activities

Live Auction Packages. We KNOW the live auction will be a hit – there is a track record on that! But what about the social web? Can we build the buzz as well as the commitment to make a dent in supporting the Hawaii Island Land Trust? View all auction packages here. They are also listed below for your convenience.

Share-the-Cause Love: No matter what, we appreciate your help in raising awareness of our ʻaina (that means land in Hawaiian). Please blog about it, tweet about it, and if you are here – treat it as your best friend!

Resources – Use As Often as You Like!

• Like HILT on Facebook and share your stories of Hawaii. Recommend them and help build their community.
• Follow the Hawaii Island Land Trust on Twitter @HiLandTrust. They have an emerging account – help them grow their follower base!
• Use our event Hashtag: #BBTB2012 (BuyBackTheBeach 2012) so we can include you in the conversation.
• Make a donation now and then do it again as often as you wish by January 28th. Let’s get “social media” an honorable seat at the “donors” table.
• Buy a ticket or a table and join us at the luau on January 28th.
• Tell your Hawaii and especially Maui friends about these packages and recommend they attend the luau in person.
• Help thank our many sponsors and donors; links below.
• Friend, Like and share HILT photos on Flickr.

Follow and Tweet These Peeps: Hosts and Donors

Follow and Tweet the Social Media Team

Use and Share our Shortlinks

Discover What Our Social Media Team is Blogging About

Lots more to come! Please bookmark this page so you can see all the updates!

Here is an UPDATED list of the Auction Packages & Videos!

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It is the last day of 2011 and I want to add an exclamation point of gratitude on each of my blogs – most of which suffer from neglect from me. It was my friend and Maui blogger Liza Pierce’s idea: let’s all write a blog post for January 1st! So, I’ve set this to post just one minute in to the new year. Happy New Year!

I am starting on this blog, as this is the easy one! (I have at least three more I am aiming for.) This past year, I was hired by the Lānaʻi Visitors Bureau (LVB) to run a social media marketing campaign for them, based on a very original concept created in discussion with Mr. Keliʻi Brown, who is the PR director for the Maui Visitors Bureau (MVB). For those of you outside of Hawaiʻi, Maui Nui, as we call it, or Maui County, encompasses not just the island of Maui but also the islands of Lānaʻi and Molokai. So the MVB provides support to the LVB.

Lānaʻi is was the least known of the Hawaiian Islands. There are only three hotels! So we wanted a program that would shine the best light on this beautiful place, something that would go deep and not just be about “one more trip to Hawaii.”

First, though, watch the video! It is a quick one minute. Then keep reading for more on this program.

New Media Artist-in-Residence Program from Roxanne Darling on Vimeo.

You can read more about the setup of the New Media Artist-in-Residence program here, but in short, it involved the hand selection of seven well-known bloggers who each spent a week on Lānaʻi and who also agreed to collaborate in supporting the other team members throughout a six month period in 2011. Of course there is more to all this than meets the eye, but for now, in this post, I have two goals.

First I want to thank my clients at Maui Visitors Bureau and Lānaʻi Visitors Bureau for taking a chance with me on this innovative program! This is the second time I have worked for MVB and they are so willing to get out there and do what it takes to keep Maui Nui a top travel destination! Plus, they are willing to tolerate my at times demanding ways. Thank you so much, Terryl, Lynn, Keliʻi, Charity and all of the board members.

Second, I wanted to share the results – with you. Luckily, I had already prepared this video for our local Hawaii chapter of the Social Media Club’s year end party, which featured our social media accomplishments of 2011. The preso’s were played throughout the night on the big screen, so I made this without a sound track. I also want to thank my colleague and SMCHI president, Tara Coomans, who assisted me with the interpretation of the results and the ROI formulas.

We also received great coverage online. Be sure to read this summary over at Media Post and listen to my interview on the This Week in Travel.

Bottom line? Visitor spending was up nearly 28% on Lānaʻi, far more than on either Maui or Molokai.

Plus, I have been hired to run this program again for LVB in 2012! Lots more ideas are percolating of course, but for now, I share my gratitude for a wonderful year in 2011 – in so many respects, and am very excited about the big possibilities in 2012 – the year of the Dragon!

UPDATE: Please help me also thank the wonderful team of bloggers we had on this inaugural run! Visit their blogs and search for “lanai” to read all about their trips. Here they are, in order of their visit to Lānaʻi:
Shannon Hurst Lane of The Traveling Mamas
Chris Gray Faust of Chris Around the World
Matt Long of Landlopers
Gary Arndt of Everything Everywhere
Kara Williams of The Vacation Gals
Sheila Beal of Go Visit Hawaii
Melanie Waldman of Travels with Two

Aloha,

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My colleague and brilliant marketer, Tara Coomans, created an open playlist on the music sharing service Spotify, and has invited anyone to help beef up the party mix for our annual Hawaii Social Media Year in Review partee. Yes, of course you are invited!

But about the Spotify Playlist: Great idea! I thought. But it is easier said than done. So here is a quick cheat sheet. Of course, you will require a Spotify account before you can add any songs to the playlist.

1. Visit Spotify and set up your account.


2. Then navigate to Tara’s playlist.


3. Then click the “I have Spotify” button and the desktop app will open for you if it is not already open, and take you to the playlist.


4. Subscribe to the SMCHI Playlist.


5. Peruse the current songs, then decide what song you would like to add next.


6. Use the Search function to find your way to that song.


7. Then right-click on the album art and choose “Add to > SMCHI Playlist.”


8. Or, if you are on the iPad, click the small “i” in the upper left corner, then choose ”+ Add to” > The SMCHI Playlist.

See you on the dance floor,
Rox

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As the founder of the Social Media Club Hawaii chapter and a very active social media consultant here in Hawaii, I am often invited to attend events and receive services for free in exchange for social media buzz – aka tweeting, facebooking, photographing, and videoing about my experiences.

Though I thoroughly enjoy myself when I am on site and do pour myself into the activities at hand, I have this persistent nag of discomfort. I’ve been letting it percolate as I gather information and sort out all of the energies that are in play – just what my “systems analyst” mind likes to do!

I am ready to open up a conversation about this practice as I think we can do better.

In case it is not obvious why brands engage social media influencers in this manner, let me summarize as I see it:

• Brands give things away for free in exchange for buzz.
• Brands hope to use influencers to build their own influence and market their products and services.
• Brands save money by giving things away free as compared to hiring said influencers to work on the brand’s behalf.
• Brands save time by having the influencers organize themselves and manage their messaging, as compared to planning a social marketing campaign.
• Influencers get freebies and possibly a chance to build their own influence, by association.

I think I have nailed down the key reasons why I have threads of discomfort woven into my own participation as a guest tweeter or member of a volunteer social media team:

1) Those of us who get freebies are set apart from those who don’t. For some, this could actually hurt participation as friends and peers who were not invited for free, feel left out. (Have you experienced this? I would like to hear about it.) Social media constantly pushes up against high school clique issues, and as a believer in best practices, I want to make social media activities more inclusive not less. The theory has been to get the influencers on board first and the masses will follow. But what if some of the influencers are left out and choose to hide the event info from their friends and fans? What if they develop a negative feeling toward the brand that persists after any individual event? What if the masses begin to doubt credibility because of the pay-to-play underlying mechanism? What if the brand loses credibility only by featuring cheerleaders and not objective reviewers?
Bottom Line: To me, there is risk for the brand and the influencer to actually lose positive sentiment/respect in the community – at least here in close-knit Hawaii. By inadvertently creating cliques, we are anti-community building.

2) Those of us who accept the freebies generally get less value than the brand, on a dollar-to-dollar basis. Looking at this strictly as business, we are providing our services for below market value in most cases based on the dollar cost of the service/product being given. This reminds me of that old saying, “Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free?” Now if this is for a nonprofit cause, we have a different basis. So let’s take that off the table. But regarding for-profit businesses, they are paying very little for professional social media services. Consider a free meal or ticket or service in exchange for many hours of social buzz. They are also missing out on the best quality those influencers could provide them. If the brand makes judgments about the efficacy of social media based on these relatively random, unstructured free services, that would be a mistake.
Bottom Line: To me, when we work for free, we social media professionals devalue ourselves and do not help brands understand the full value of social media – regardless of the outcome of any given event – if for no other reason they are not getting our best work. OTOH, do you think working for freebies is a viable way for a newbie social media practitioner to build their expertise and business practice? Maybe I am jaded, having been at this for so long, and knowing with certainty the knowledge and value I can bring to a brand.

3) The third challenge is the FTC guidelines for disclosure. Bloggers in particular are held to a very high standard. (Tweeters not as much yet but the intent still applies.) I try to append my tweets at least a few times in the conversation with things like [gift] so readers know I am being comped. But I admit I do a lousy job of it and have never been given instruction by a brand to disclose. In a community, though, people have a way of finding out. When it is not out in the clear, I think there is enhanced risk of creating ill will as well as running afoul of the law.
Bottom Line: FTC rules require disclosure of freebies. We could all use clearer guidelines and easier practices to accomplish this.

So how do we improve on this? I have a few ideas and I am quite certain you readers can help add to this conversation. I want to hear from influencers and brands and community members about how we can collaborate in ways not that are not just win-win (you and me) but win-win-win (you, me, and the community aka marketplace).

Here are some ideas to get us started. I expect to modify them as I get more input from you. It requires an upgrade in your brand’s use of social media, but I think our time has come for that. Free tweetups were a great way to learn and connect but I think they have out-lived their usefulness to the brand, to the influencer, and to the consumer.

• Stop giving away freebies and instead create standard business transactions.
• Have a business goal for each event and hire influencers accordingly.
• Make it an open process, so you expand your pool of support rather than restrict it.
• Have at least a part-time social media consultant or staffer for your brand. There is too much to figure out on your own or in a scatter shot manner.

• Have your social media staffer/consultant define the scope of work, outline the goals and metrics, determine criteria needed to meet said goals, and agree on a working budget. It does not have to be big! Keep in mind, the adage “you get what you pay for” still applies with social media.
• Put out an open call for social media assistance and include your performance criteria. Your goals will determine the relative balance of skills you want: photos, tweets, video, blogs, local/mainland followers, peeps/business users, etc.
• Provide specific and measurable assignments to your team and equip them with as much background info as possible so they can do a great job for you.
• Measure and report on your measurements.
• Rotate your hiring to give as many people a chance to collaborate as possible – building your de facto network of influencers as well as good will.

Photo Credit: Mannequin Clique by quinn.anya on Flickr.

With love and Aloha,

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First, mahalo to Apple for giving us such a stunning home page in honor of Steve’s passing from this world. I am bursting with feelings tonight as I write this post. Which could go in so many directions.

What I take from him and the way he lived his life is the feverish attachment to being who he was. He was a perfectionist, and not afraid of it. He was odd, and not afraid of it. He was brilliant, and not afraid if it. He was emotional, even tyrannical, and not afraid of it. Many will suggest that more companies should be perfectionistic, or cultivate oddness, or confuse brilliance with determination, or tolerate tyranny “because Steve did.”

I don’t. Because it is not about copying. It is about simply being the singular person he was without apologies. When any of us are that clear about our true essence, there are no discrepancies even though one man’s dedication to his true nature surely upset many others’ apple carts!

Dozens of companies and hundreds of products have tried to copy what Steve produced at Apple. None of them can begin to touch the genius of genuine Apple products. It seems easier to simply copy than to work for and support original thought. I know; I fall into it myself repeatedly. But I only experience true joy and divine inspiration when I bring forth me, as me, and no one else.

What I learned from Steve was that his childhood didn’t matter. That his gift (his choice) in this lifetime was to simply be Steve. He was the perfectionist who transformed our world with a simple statement that was not grammatically correct: Think Different. And much of this transformation took place in the schools and universities where language is taught! Ahh, the delicious irony of it all.

I got my first Macintosh in 1986 – it was a Mac 512K. I also nearly got a divorce, as my husband (at the time – we did eventually divorce!) was so irritated that I would stay up until 3 and 4 am writing a book on my new computer, teaching myself desktop publishing with Ready, Set, Go and setting up databases for the students in my aerobics workshops in FileMaker 2! Jump 20 years to the launch of our internet tv show, Beach Walks with Rox. Can you imagine? Having the tools in our hands to shoot a 760-episode series that has attracted millions of viewers around the world? It’s because of Steve, and the dedicated teams of people drawn to collaborate with him.

Our business would not have been possible without Apple computers. The things we have created for ourselves and our clients – they all flow from the genius that centers around the love affair between hardware and software, design and function. All nurtured by iPods and new apps, coming like a dozen red roses on random anniversaries. It sounds corny, and Steve was never that, but he did understand love and creativity more profoundly than any other businessman I can even imagine.

When he fought for each of those perfect products, he was fighting for me, and for you, and I will be forever grateful to him for the epic example of a divine being having a human experience, that he was.

As I was writing this, my MacBook Pro battery went to 0%. I took a screen shot for you – as it is not believable! The computer stayed alive while I went for my power cord and plugged it in. This is the power that we have to connect with something so much more than any one of us alone. Even if we are not aware of it, it is there, for us. (Click to see it full size.)

I leave with no advice, only gratitude. I have no explanations, only awe.

With love and Aloha,

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This post title was crafted for me inadvertently by Mike McClure, in a tweet he posted with information about a conversation I will be leading this Thursday in Detroit. It is being hosted by the Social Media Club Detroit chapter and the #Tweetea community, with the venue provided by ePrize. As I am in the process of writing a lot these days, I wanted to bounce some ideas around the room in Metro Detroit (aka “the D”) to get new perspectives and possibly some case studies.

My working title for the book is “Running Your Business As If None of It Matters.”

Just in the run up to this event, several ideas have shown up. I present four of them to you here, in gratitude to my new friends in the D, as I look forward to many more (ideas and friendships!) come Thursday, 6 October 2011.

Walk Through Discomfort via Samantha Welter

Add in the fact that social media relationships have an interesting business-mixed-with-pleasure dynamic, and it can be hard to ascertain who is real and who is just marketing themselves as real. In the age of the personal brand, taking the brand out of the personal can be an uncommon occurrence.
I’ll admit that I’m relatively uncomfortable putting this out there. But again, I have to walk through the discomfort and be true to myself.

This is a Game and It is Real via Therran Oliphant

Crowdsourcing of the Unlimited Kind with Mike McClure

Harmonic Convergence with Nikki Little

Clearly, that has changed, now hasn’t it? I look forward to seeing you on Thursday, arms full of Aloha coming your way to the D!

Please bring your ideas of how life is working for you outside of traditional rules and tribal practices, and/or how social media has expanded your confidence and consciousness.

Aloha,

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My partner @Shane sent me a link today “Why They Stopped Using Foursquare” by David Berkowitz. It summarizes a number of my social media friends and peers who have weaned themselves off this geo-location social network also known as a check-in service. As Shane reminded me, he stopped using them almost a year ago: yet again he changes his behavior in advance of many of his peers. (If only we could trade in his futures stock!) It is a long-standing aspect of our company. We are extreme early adopters – which means a lot of talking greek – or shall I say geek – to those who won’t know about these trends for years.

As a trainer, this early adopter thing works fine – I get my juice from showing people how things work and that doesn’t go away. However, it is also my job as a trainer to give people the latest and the greatest info on topics. As big a splash as Groupon made in the market and all the talk about extravagant valuations and their turning down a $6B offer from Google less than year ago, it turns out they may not have a sustainable business model. But enough about Groupon!

I was never a fan of FourSquare, as the mayorship and the discounts hold no attraction for me personally. I do use Gowalla now and then, but very strategically. I mostly use it for two reasons: to support the small biz where I am checking in (I think this type of crowd-sourced marketing can be very useful to small businesses) and to market myself in subtle ways. The places where I choose to check in emanate a type of energy that I am interested in sharing with my network: airports and beaches figure in a lot! For the brand of Roxanne Darling: I like being one who shares adventure and beauty with others. I can be their chill out moment in an otherwise harried day.

The good news about right now is that businesses and nonprofits are at last paying attention to social media. The bad news about now is that many are running scared and are “following” without really thinking first. We now have lots of data about how people behave on social networks and lots of good examples of campaigns and strategies that produce positive results. But because the territory of social networks in general is still confusing and overwhelming (understandably so!), many businesses tend to copy rather than investigate.

I also believe many people run without thinking into social media in part for a genuine desire for a deeper human connection. I support that intention, though it is such a complex phenomenon! While you and I might be connecting, company X is mining our data and a stalker or a house thief is planning his next move.

On a larger note, social media is reaching a tipping point. Now that we can all be publishers, the noise level is extreme and the competition for attention drives too many to simply resort to link bait strategies in lieu of thoughtful conversations. Or to offer Groupons that get you a lot of business but it turns out to cost a lot of cash and not produce return customers. (Which is why I got on the Groupon thing above…I knew this was coming!)

Everything we do is training our customers. If all we ever offer are deals, they will only want us with a deal. Social Media actually has the ability to offer so much more, but we have to understand it well enough to make use of it. I love talking about podcasting because the consumer data on it is so telling. When you build trust with an audience, they will respond with all kinds of love including market transactions. 90% of active podcast listeners have taken an action (40% made a purchase) subsequent to podcast advertising #podstudy via Tom Webster.

The really interesting apps these days are the ones that are integrating into CRM services, directly enabling a deeper understanding of what the customer wants and when and how to deliver it. There is an easy primer on the topic here on the Social Media Examiner and 18 Use Cases of Social CRM from the Altimeter Group here.

In contrast my friend and PR expert Piia Arma, shared this data today about the continued erosion of trust in PR and Advertising professionals. Meanwhile, my colleague at Social Media Club Tara Coomans outs Twitter for some of its empty promises.

I think it is useful for a profession to be able to examine itself as Piia and Tara have done above. I think it also useful for us to help guide you, the unsuspecting experts in other fields about how to use it well. My main advice is often to go for quality not quantity. It is an idea that I addressed years ago in “Are you addicted to big numbers (it’s three years old!) and that is often cited in the concept of 1000 True Fans.

What if we could just fine tune our radar and create communities of interest to be able to connect and yes buy and sell too, without having to shout and discount all over the place? This is happening too. I know that social media still holds enormous promise, but it’s easy to miss unless we take off the rose-colored glasses and stop running after trends. Slowing down has enormous value. Taking time to learn can only enrich us – this applies to me as much as to you.

Consciousness is everything. And so much more useful regardless if you are an early adopter or last one to the party. I’ve been both, and it doesn’t matter so long as we have our feet underneath us! This time in history is about freeing ourselves from having to fit in. Even sheep can survive alone in the field. Savor it! And tell me how you do it so I can add to my consciousness database.

Photo Credit: Sheep Alone by neate photos on Flickr. (What a concept!)

Aloha,

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We are graciously featured in several articles in today’s PBN as we call it locally. Social Media is really getting a lot of coverage these days and deservedly so. I want to thank them for all the interviews and quotes and I want to welcome YOU to our Bare Feet Blog! Lots of their content is for subscribers however you can get started with these:
Hiring Managers Buck Trends When it Comes to Klout, Pacific Business News, August 19, 2011
Businesses dive into social media then learn to swim, Pacific Business News, August 19, 2011
Yacht broker sails into social media waters, Pacific Business News, August 19, 2011

I’ve made a short video (less than 3 minutes), for you, to point out a few things not to be missed while you’re here and to give you as personal a welcome as possible. Please keep reading below the video for several links and shortcuts that I don’t think you’ll want to miss!

STEP ONE
Look around our site! There are over six years’ worth of howto articles, case studies, and testimonials for you to check out. Click the link to your right called “Explore Our Topics” to see the full list, or use the Search box, or click on any of the tag links in each article to find more of the same. You can also explore by year – just click on “Explore the Archives” to your right and see what we were doing back in 2005, 2006… Here are some of the hottest topics right now:
Social Media
Strategy
Howto

STEP TWO
Be sure to join our free email list here for KnowHow Cafe. The signup form is in the right sidebar of every page here on our website. You’ll be sent a link for a free eBook once you sign up; it is guaranteed to give you information you don’t have about classic social media case studies and the all-important tips for creating and managing your “profile” on various social networks. KnowHow Cafe is our educational division. We offer live classes in Honolulu and on Maui and will be launching our online learning community one of these days. Use coupon code “rox” if you like – but everyone gets the same free ebook! The codes simply help us find out how people learned about us.

STEP THREE
Please visit our Hawaii Chapter of the Social Media Club. SMC is a global nonprofit educational association dedicated to developing and sharing best practices in social media. Our Hawaii chapter started in 2008 (courtesy of yours truly) and we welcome you to attend our free events. The next one is in October. Be sure to join our free SMCHI email list to hear all about local events. While you are there, please meet the local Professional Members – they and their websites and Twitter links are all listed in the right column of the SMCHI website. Contact any of them for assistance in developing your social media skills and strategies!

Please do use the Share links immediately below and/or leave a comment about what topics you would like me to cover in our next series of KnowHow Cafe classes!

Aloha,

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Last week I collaborated with two of my Social Media Club colleagues, Philippe Tassin and Tara Coomans in a three-hour consultation with the very cool folks at Montgomery Motors. If you don’t know them, they are a sixty-plus year old, family-owned, and Hawaii-born and bred company that sells motorcycles and related cool gear.

There are a number of things about this meeting that really rocked the house:

• Ross and Ann and their marketing consultant Clint really know their brand, their customers, and their business and want to keep growing it stronger and larger. (Seriously, lots of small businesses can be too close to what it is they do well, and this makes it hard to work on marketingplans – social media or traditional.)


• I got to do this with two awesome colleagues! Who, on any other day, could be classified as competitors. Being able to work together though is a particularly strong feature of social media. We pros recognize that the space is huge, and no one person knows it all, much as we try.


• We worked in the truly functional and creative-juice-hub known as the ING DIrect Cafe in downtown Waikiki. Part of their business model is to share their space with outside groups, knowing that we will tweet and blog about them in a most flattering light. Please follow the local peeps @INGdirectHawaii on Twitter.


• The bonus gift for me was that I asked Ross and Ann at the very last minute , as we were all leaving, for a short video testimonial. They said yes! Then they rocked it as one take wonders. See for yourself below!

I shot and edited this video on my iPhone 4 using iMovie on my short flight home from HNL to OGG, aka Honolulu to Kahului, Maui.

Aloha,

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Tomorrow I am working with an esteemed group of coral reef scientists here in Hawaii to illustrate various ways to use social media. I will be using a version of The Social Media Game, an interactive learning process originally developed by my darling colleague Beth Kantor a few years ago. I’ve updated it and added 12 more “tools” – and am still missing a lot of those available to us today. It just shows you how much app and platform development continues in the sphere of online social networks and mobile options.

The confusing part is also very good news: it is very arbitrary whether we call something a “social network” or an “online broadcast” etc – most of these tools listed below easily fall into many of these categories! I’ve stayed as true as I can to Beth’s original designations though have added 50% more options! And my savvy readers will recognize right away many more that I have not (yet!) included on this list. Feel free to add your suggestions in the comments so the net iteration will be even more thorough…if also more overwhelming for those who have not yet entered the social media space.

Note: I am rushing to get this live and will be updating it. Leave a comment so you can be automatically updated when changes occur! Second Note: In the PDFs below, I added even a few more tools!

Question from the workshop: How to find Twitter users in Hawaii? Check out WeFollow.com.

Here are the files I used to create the game cards and the situation cards. Please download, print, and use when creating your next Social Media Strategy. Mahalo nui to Tara Coomans for dropping in and assisting us in the game strategy session today.
social-media-tools-2011-07 (PDF)
situation-cards-2011-07 (PDF)
overview-time-commitment (PDF)

Listening

Yelp/Trip Advisor
Customer-generated reviews of products and services. You can interact with them directly.
Have you claimed your business? How will you deal with negative reviews?
www.yelp.com
www.tripadvisor.com

Google Alerts
Set up automated reminders for any mention of your org name or your product/service keywords.
How often should you get reports? Who will review & act?
www.google.com/alerts

Social Network

Facebook
Set up an organization page on an existing popular social network to connect with others.
What will you name your page and what will you feature there?
www.facebook.com

Ning
Create your own niche online social network with ready to use blogs, RSS feeds, forums and more.
Do you have a community on the ground to support an online community? Or would you be better served to set up a community inside another social network?
www.ning.com

LinkedIn
Use for recruiting, research on potential contractors, ask/answer questions, create org profile.
When will you set up your profile? How can you ask for referrals? What about your staff?
www.linkedin.com

Communication

Twitter
Web and mobile updates. Hash tag conversations. Share links.
Is your target audience familiar with using this tool? How’s your understanding of social media etiquette?
www.twitter.com

Mobile Texting
Instantly text message your audience about urgent updates to their cellphones.
How will you collect and manage cellphone numbers?
www.group2call.com

Skype
Free or low cost calls over the internet with ability to record and conference.
Will you create audio or video interviews using Skype? Will you connect with others at low cost?
www.skype.com

Collaboration

Google+
Just now opened to the public, you can chat in private circles, video chat on the fly, and coming soon you can live stream video from within Google+.
Can you make time to learn a new system to save time and extend your communication abilities?
plus.google.com

Exploration
Allow your staff to explore and learn more about the social web.
Where will you start? What do you want to know to move forward?
Google.com
www.mashable.com
Training Programs (Sign up for ours! www.knowhowcafe.com)

Wiki
A wiki provides groups with collaborative publishing and work- space. Great for group editing documents or projects.
Confident about collaborating? Who will be the wrangler?
www.wikispaces.com

Social Bookmarks
Help organize your own presence on the web by tagging your own pages or pages related to your mission.
Willing to make an effort to tag and share so others can find you?
www.stmbleupon.com
www.delicious.com

Private Groups
Facebook & LinkedIn allow you to create private groups. Manage invitees; they discuss and share.
Where do you and your staff spend more time?
www.facebook.com
www.linkedin.com

Hashtags
Create custom tags for your org & events or concepts. Prepend with a # sign, aka a “hash” mark.
Have you created your main tag? Are you checking for duplicates?
www.hashtracking.com

Tweetup
Host an event organized on Twitter. Raise money, share info, meet face-to-face (IRL).
Does your venue tell the story? Are you more influential in person?
www.twtvite.com

Media Content

Flickr
Create or archive photos online to share with others. You can also share find photos of other’s you can use under a creative commons license.
Will you create your own or use others? Create a group too!
www.flickr.com

YouTube
Create or archive videos online to share with others. You can also share other’s videos.
What can you post? How will you share your channel with others?
www.youtube.com

uStream
Create a live (and recorded!) video stream of key events.
What stories make sense in real time? Who can monitor the chat?
www.uStream.tv

Use QR Codes
Embed the custom graphic into your flyers or printed material. Lets users w smart phones jump directly to a webpage or get SMS.
Do you have a specific info page?
www.qurify.com

SlideShare
Share powerpoints and PDFs that can be embedded on other sites.
Do you have compelling presentations and/or data to share?
www.slideshare.net

Online Broadcast

News & RSS Feeds
Capture other people’s content using their RSS Feeds and aggregate (display) them on your website.
How will you choose your feeds? Do you have a feed?
www.feed.informer.com
www.feedburner.com

Project Blog
Organization uses blog to support projects and events. Can have many authors
How will people know about blog? Will you add share links?
www.wordpress.com

Personal Blog
Individual in organization writes personal perspective on a topic related to your org’s mission.
How will people know about the blog? What links will it include? How often will you post?
www.wordpress.com
Or a custom WordPress blog via standalone hosting:
www.greengeeks.com (our Bare Feet affiliate link)
www.hostgator.com (our Bare Feet affiliate link)

Mobile Apps

FourSquare/Gowalla
Geo-location app, users check-in at your place, share with friends.
How can you support your regular fans/customers? Who will monitor this social network?
www.foursquare.com
www.gowalla.com

Tout
15-second videos straight from your phone to Facebook, Twitter, Email.
Do you have basic video skills to make yours engaging?
www.tout.com

Facebook Places
Facebook creates geographical places that allow people to “check in” when they are there.
Do you already have a place? Are your fans checking in? Are you responding?
www.facebook.com

Event Tools

Aloha,

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