Alexa Scordato and I invite you to participate in a two-hour beginner workshop that will give you a clearer sense of how to use social media for both personal and professional uses.

PART I
During the first hour of the workshop, we will:

• discuss the basics of social media and its implications on the world today
• outline real case studies from individuals and companies using social media effectively**
• describe how Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn may be used to build a personal brand

PART II
In celebration of historic Hotel 140, the second half of this workshop will focus solely on Twitter:

• What is Twitter and why’s everyone talking about it?
• Getting started - where to begin and how to avoid common mistakes
• Who’s doing it right and what’s the ROI

**John Pepper, CEO and founder of Boloco (our wonderful food sponsor), will give a short presentation on his use of Twitter and what it means for brands to market themselves online.

This event will be hands-on so don’t forget your computer. If you don’t have a Twitter account already, by the end of the session you will! Plus, you will have a bunch of new friends to begin tweeting with.

Date: Thursday, 7/23
Time: 6 - 8 PM (Food and non-alcoholic beverages will be served. Assorted wraps courtesy of Boloco)
Location: Hotel 140, 140 Clarendon St, Boston (across the street from the Back Bay T station and walking distance from Copley Sq)

Questions, please contact Alexa at alexa.scordato@gmail.com or me at maria@mediaawaken.com.

One of my favorite first stops on the getting your feet wet highway is the Common Craft Show. This site has a myriad of intro/how to/in plain English videos. One of my favorites is Social Bookmarking in plain English. Last summer, my mom asked me what delicious is and why she would ever want to use it. After tripping and stumbling over my tongue for a few moments attempting to figure out how to explain it to her, I turned on my computer and showed her this:

After watching it she said, “ok, I get it” and then she actually started using it! My goal this summer: get her on Twitter.

Now onto blogs:

There are quite a few quality blogs out there. All of them require a newbie to comb a little, but there are definitely nuggets of gold to be found. A few good places to start are Chris Brogan’s blog, for microblogging (aka Twitter) Laura “Pistachio” Fittons’s blog, Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel is also great. I recently blogged about a list that Viralogy put together of the 10 best marketing blogs by Gen-Yers. If you are interested in affiliate marketing and how to make money from you blog, and about blogging in general definitely check out Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger. If video blogging (or vlogging) is your thing, then Steve Garfield is your man.

Now, before I hurt any one’s feelings for leaving them out… I want to state loud and clearly that there are a TON of amazing blogs out there on a TON of topics. Many of which I read almost daily (I definitely don’t have time for the newspaper anymore, but with all the great content out there, who needs a newspaper?!) The resources I listed above are simply what I view as a good starting places to begin the adventure that is social media.

With all that being said, what do you think? Is there a blog or a site that you advise people to read when they are dipping their toes in for the first time? I’m always looking to be a better advice giver, so please share :)

Photo Credit: Bartek Kuzia

What can you do then to stop this wave of frustration? Pay customers for their time on the phone? Offer incentives for quality answers? Casual Friday? Maybe, but none of these solutions offer any real progress to solving the customer service headache.

Ways to Change:

1.    Reward Innovation. The best solutions usually come from the call center floor. The people in the trenches know the best ways to find out whether something works or not simply by testing it. So ask them to come up with solutions.

2.    Don’t block access, enable it. If you can’t trust your customer service employees to do the right thing and solve problems by giving them access to a system that would allow this. Why are they employed by you? What value could they be possibly adding?

3.    Utilize every channel (and make sure people can access your services from where THEY are and not where you are). This is getting more and more important as time goes on. People don’t use one form of communication to reach people anymore. They utilize several…until they get a response they prefer. The phone and email have been the standard for to long: let’s open up the door for a variety of services.

Empowerment is the only way to ensure customers have a more positive experience. You need to allow people to actually help people in order to help people? Not exactly rocket science but in today’s world it seems pretty damn close.

Does your company have the same commitment to customer service as the rescuer? It should.

————-

This is a guest post by Stuart Foster.

Stuart Foster is a marketing/PR consultant in the Boston area. He specializes in brand management, social media, and blog outreach. He authors a blog at Thelostjacket.com

Today, Viralogy came out with their Top Ten Gen Y Marketing Blogs list. While some of the names on the list are familiar to me (Stuart Foster’s Lost Jacket) most are blogs I haven’t read before. I’ve already checked out a couple of them this morning and am greatly looking forward to reading the rest soon.

The metrics for rating the top blogs are very interesting too. Linkbacks, Traffic, Comments, Authority, Followers, and Retweets were all evaluated to create a rubric for rating each site. I find it very interesting that he didn’t just look at the blog’s status, but at the impact and waves the authors are making on other sites too.

If you haven’t checked out Viralogy before I highly suggest you do. It’s a blog/vlog by Jun Loayza (@JunLoayza) where he interviews, via Skype, other awesome gen-yers. His blog is pretty sweet too.

What do you think of the list? What blogs do you think he missed that should have been on it?

This past Tuesday, during Social Media Breakfast 13, George Grattan shared with us the extent of how Earth Watch is using social media. One thing in particular about what George said stood out for me (and I think a lot of other people in the room). He told us that Earth Watch isn’t on Twitter. Yet. He stressed the yet because he says that he understands the value of Twitter but isn’t ready to engage.

This is simultaneously commendable and worrisome.

C.C. congratulated George for not getting caught up in “shiny object” syndrome. Too often, we see brands that are using social media simply for the sake of using social media, and because it’s the “hot” thing to be doing right now.  Many a blog posts have been written about the importance of listening before engaging, of creating a strategy before jumping in with both feet. I completely agree. Only engage in social media if it makes sense for YOU.

So. Why did I find his comment worrisome?

I haven’t had the opportunity to sit down with George to discuss, so this is purely conjecture and my own reaction, thus, it is entirely possible that what I’m about to say does not in fact apply to Earth Watch, but nonetheless, I believe it does apply to many people/brands/situations.

Part of the reason he gave for not engaging yet, is he isn’t sure what to say. Not knowing exactly what to say is not a reason to not be on Twitter. This may seem like a contradiction to what I said previously about having a strategy, but I assure you, it isn’t. Strategy and tactics are two different things. Strategy is the reason you are there, the overall approach that will hopefully have a specific outcome. Tactics are the nitty gritty. If Earth Watch isn’t on Twitter yet, because they haven’t decided on a strategy, then great. They should wait. If it’s dues to tactics, then I’m worried, for their sake.

When I first joined Twitter I was often struck with paralysis of the tweet. I wanted so much to be witty and interesting and smart, for people to enjoy my tweets, for them to want to engage with me and read what I had to say. I wanted all to the point that I found myself frozen in front of my computer or cell phone in hand, having no idea what to say.  I had effectively psyched myself out of the game.  It took me a while to relax and just be myself, without the strain of worrying if my 140 characters would change the world. With paralysis (or simply not engaging) comes so much missed opportunity.  So don’t get stuck!!

What about you? Have you been struck by shiny object syndrome? Or paralysis? If yes to either, how do you navigate it?

photo credit: marcus_jb1973

A few of my take-aways from the day:

• Be human, be real, be vulnerable — we are people talking to people. Not brands talking to brands or companies talking to companies.
• One email can make all the difference (of course this is one of my take-aways, it was mine and Alexa’s session ;-)
• We need to stop talking about social media in social media. Time to spread the gospel. Or time to just use the tools without always talking about the tools.
• Be HELPful - Hustle, Engage, Listen, be Passionate
• Engage each generation, utilize each one of the generations’ specific talents. No one is irrelevant, no one is too inexperienced. Each generation brings a unique perspective to the table. Be cognizant of that and use it to your advantage.
• Numbers matter. But don’t let them matter too much. (CC Chapman first spoke about how the numbers don’t matter, then later in the day CS Penn rebutted with how certain numbers do matter, and matter a lot. The balance of the two points of view was perfection.)
• The influencer doesn’t matter. The message matters. If you say something good, and say it for long enough, people will hear. You don’t necessarily need a loud speaker. And having one doesn’t necessarily mean that people are going to pay attention.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to passion. BE PASSIONATE about what you do. Excitement can be found in the most mundane of details and tasks if you look hard enough. And in this crazy world we live in, with the economy spiraling out of control, my one little piece of advice–keep breathing.

SocComm had a pleasant mix of the 101 sort of speakers and higher level, philosophical content.   There were speakers that got us riled up (a la @garyvee), and there were speakers or panels that rehashed the usual topics on privacy, work/life separation, and the history of the ‘Net.  Also, there were speakers looking at social media usage in sectors I hadn’t heard discussed before–social media for actors, legislation that may effect the industry (i.e. privacy law), and mobile social (a topic that people love to talk about but not usually in too much detail).

The best part of the conference, per usual at these types of events, was in the hallway.  Aside from the bathroom signs, which were entertaining, the conversations where fantastic. 

In the hallway, nursing a cup of joe, I met Jordan Epstein, founder of VolunteerBIG.com.  An awesome idea, though not up and running yet, VolunteerBIG is (or will be) a collaboration network complete with tools to help organizations do more for the community.  

Also, I ran into a man I knew from a past life, Larry Weinberg from Israel21C.  When I was in college, I was heavily involved in the cause of the Israelis–still feel strongly about the issue, but I would say I’m less of an activist now (out of necessity).  That said, I met Larry at a summit his organization put together to teach us college activists about positive discourse.  “A Focus Beyond the Conflict” is their tagline and scope of work–there’s so much more to the entire area than war, violence and terror, and Israel21C really emphasizes bringing the positives to light.  Great, powerful work.    

Back in the theatre, @GaryVee energized the crowd.  “If you’re not doing what you’re passionate about you’re an idiot,” he said, then dropped a few f-bombs for emphasis.  Brilliant, hilarious and incite-ful.  @GaryVee was certainly a highlight.  

Can We Make it Better?

All in all it was a great event, but a few of us have some thoughts for next time:

• Move the basics to the front: establish a baseline for those who are newer and allow those who know what’s up to catch a few more Z’s. 
• Get an egg-timer: the real challenge at an event like this is getting people to stop talking when their alloted time is up. An egg-timer says stop like no real person can.  It’s simple and there’s no one to get mad at when the egg-timer says to stop talking. 
• Make the cheerleaders the end caps: GaryVee and Chris Brogan got us pumped up and energized, but before there was time to digest there was already another presentation getting started.  Put the heavy hitters before breaks and they’ll be the topic of conversation through lunch, coffee, snacks, etc.  

With that said, I’m already looking forward to the next one!  See you soon at the next #SocComm. 

The blog post, written by Beth Harte, is called: Lured in by Social Media: An Unofficial B2B Case Study. In this post, she chronicles her journey of a company (whose name is revealed at the end of the post) first coming up on her radar, her use of social media tools to find out more about it, and her interaction with the company–culminating in her hiring them. Then, at the end of the post, she wrote a challenge:

And finally, because I really want to see if they are on their social media game and if they are listening, here’s the company name Hubspot. I’ll know for sure if they leave a comment.

From what I can tell from the date/time stamps, within a few hours (HOURS!) someone from the company had responded. They had been listening! Not only did one person respond, but FOUR people did including one of the founders and the VP of Marketing. They knew that Beth had been doing her due diligence. They knew she was asking questions, poking around. And they DIDN’T interrupt her! They waited til she was ready, and then they were there, present and responsive.

In the comments, one of the founders of Hubspot, Dharmesh Shah, addressed their actions and said

The idea behind social media for business is to build a relationship over time with people that might benefit from your products and services.

Building A Relationship

As a social media junky and consultant, I know that social media is about relationships. I know that it isn’t a get in and get out type deal. But it’s amazing how many people don’t get it… They want to know how a Facebook page is going to get them a sales lead - tomorrow.

So, while Beth’s experience may not be revolutionary, and the idea of building relationships is not new (at least to me), I was thrilled to read this post and know that some companies out there are getting it. Thank you Beth for sharing this with us, and thank you Hubspot for doing what you do.

The List

Take this list of new media pledges to heart and you’ll find yourself harnessing the power of the community in a positive way. In the new year, my business:

• will not put the shiny, new tool before the overarching strategy;
• will go out and engage with our customers and audiences on the platforms and media where they are;
• will put our social media strategy on a diet–if called for–and limit my company to what we can realistically do well, with the understanding that we’re no good to anyone if we’re spread too thin;
• will take our “engagement” to the streets, interacting with consumers, reporters and others in both new and traditional ways;
• will get out of the echo chamber of our industry and comfort zone to find people who can benefit from our services, even if that requires a little education on our part;
• will be honest about our failings and successes as a company and seek out ways to improve;
• will work to be consistent in our communication, both in message and frequency. It’s tough, we struggle with it too, but we gotta try!

Questions? Disagreements?  Please share!

I love her energy and vision. We’ve come up with some big plans for Media Awaken that I cannot wait to set into motion! And I hope that her love of yoga (she is going to be a certified instructor soon) will rub off on me and we will soon be strategizing while in warrior pose or upside down something-or-other (I hear blood rushing to your head is good for the thought process?!).

I’m super excited Sandy and I will be working together. What a wonderful way to begin a new year!

(side note: WP is being lame and won’t let me upload a pic. But i promise, once that is figured out I will put up a pic of us!)