Together with Mobile Loaves and Fishes, we did it! Thanks to several large contributions and a bunch of small ones made possible through the efforts of Social Media Club Austin and Mobile Loaves and Fishes, Alan Graham has informed us that he has been able to locate a home for Peggy. It’s all being done through the Habitat on Wheels program of MLF which has already helped over 30 other homeless people off the streets of Austin.

We still need to raise more money in order to make Peggy’s new home handicapped accessible. Please go the http://mlfnow.org/smc if you can make a small (or large) contribution. And if you can’t, please tweet it to your followers, post the link on Facebook, blog about it yourself, or whatever you’re comfortable doing. Old fashioned forms of communication are also welcome. Just please help spread the word as far and wide as possible.

Thank you to everyone who is helping with this. Thanks to your efforts, Peggy is going to have the best holiday she’s had in many years.

As Josh puts it, social media is easy when everyone is saying nice things about you, but how do you respond to someone calling your company a F$%KING SC%M on Twitter? See real world examples from @OtherInbox and learn how to get your biggest complainers to apologize, thank you, and tell their friends how great you are.

Questions Josh will answer:

why would you want to respond to your customer service problems in public?
what places should you be looking for opportunities to respond?
how do I respond if someone says something inaccurate, derogatory, inflamatory, or just plain mean to me?
how can I use CoTweet to manage Twitter for my company?
how can I use GetSatisfaction to benefit from people complaining in public?
what is my “Twitter search” that I need to monitor what’s being said about my company?
how can customer complaints attract new customers for me?
how do Twitter @replies work and why is it so important?
can I have an intern do it?
what URLs should I write down for future reference?

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

 Speaker Bio: Joshua Baer, CEO of OtherInbox and Managing Director of Capital Factory

Joshua Baer has been working to empower consumers on the Internet and improve email marketing best practices for more than a decade. In 1996 Baer founded SKYLIST, one of the first email marketing companies, in his college dorm room. In 1998 he co-authored RFC 2369, a technical standard for unsubscribe that has been adopted by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

Baer first conceived of OtherInbox as a solution to his own email management problems. He soon realized that it was also an opportunity to address many of the pains of email marketing while keeping consumers in control.

Already an active angel investor and startup mentor, Baer joined with other entrepreneurs to found Capital Factory - a summer program for startups that brings $20,000 in cash, $20,000 in free stuff, and 20 mentors to accelerates early stage technology companies.

Baer was recently recognized as an Austin under 40 Finalist, as recipient of a Texas Social Media Award and as the Austin Information Technologist of the year. Baer holds Computer Science and Information Decision Systems degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and lives in Austin, TX with his wife and daughter.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Alan Graham and the rest of the gang at Mobile Loaves and Fishes work tirelesslessly year-round with our brothers and sisters on the streets. We - all of us - can help just a little and make a big difference.

Click Here - Learn More - Make a Difference

Alan Graham - @MLFNOW - and I - @MikeChapman - will be on a 48-hour street retreat this weekend. Watch for the hashtag #sr. Send us messages, we’ll respond. Help spread the word. We’re almost there for Peggy.

Please help. Together we can do this.

Mike

This event was inspired by an Austin family’s adoption of their Ethiopian daughter last year. The family’s friends hosted a small live concert last November to raise money for the Ethiopian orphanage. It was such a great event, the organizers decided to do it again this year, only larger, and benefiting the Gladney Center, which is a licensed, not-for-profit agency that has been creating bright futures through adoption since 1889, and has become a global leader in providing adoption services.

If you haven’t seen it yet, this YouTube makes a great case for supporting the event.

COME JOIN US! Here’s how…

The event is November 13th at 7:30pm or 9:30pm, featuring Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk, John Pointer and the Sangra del Sol Dance Troupe.

Tickets are $100 apiece, $50 of which is tax-deductible. There’s also a silent auction and a cash bar.

Seating is limited. To buy tickets, click on the desired show time link below and enter the promotional code “ADOPTIONROCKS” (all caps)
7:30 pm link = http://budurl.com/adopt1
9:30 pm link = http://budurl.com/adopt2

The organizers are doing all the promotion for this event through word-of-mouth and social media to save on overhead. Please feel free to borrow anything in this post and spread it throughout your social networks.

The Facebook Fan Page is http://budurl.com/adoptfb

Following is all the relevant information you might need to get signed up and get in on what will be an excellent day of sessions on marketing online:

Thursday, October 29, Austin Convention Center
www.emarketingsummit.com for information and registration
Use Discount Code SMC9EMS for the special full day discounted price of $65.  Price includes full day summit, luncheon presentation, InnoTech Conference, expo & receptions.   The 5th annual eMarketing Summit meets in Austin, TX this year, and brings together over 200 marketing & business professionals. 
 
Featured Luncheon Speaker, hosted by AMA – Austin Chapter
- Bryan G Rhoads, Sr. Digital Strategist, Intel Social Media Center of Excellence
Tying it all together: Integrating your business and brand into social conversations
 
Additional Topics Include:
- Exploiting Social Media to master Search Marketing
- Top 10 Extreme Social Media Promotion Hacks
- Lessons Learned From Internet Marketing Experts
- Mobile Advertising: Engaging Today’s Consumer is Not All About Social
- Five Essential Tools for Improving and Measuring New Media Marketing Results 
- and much more.  Information and details at www.emarketingsummit.com or www.innotechaustin.com.

At the beginning of the SMC meeting this month, we are going to engage in a short, fifteen minute conversation about video and introduce RealPlayer SP. It’s social, it’s portable, and allows for playing and sharing video with your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter. You can download and organize your favorite videos from thousands of web sites. Then you can watch them anytime and anywhere you want. Their new video converter makes it easy to copy online video to your iPod, cell phone, Xbox, PS3 or other favorite device. It is currently available for the PC platform; the Mac version is due Q1, 2010.

RealPlayer SP (the SP is for social and portable) is a transcoding engine that lets you grab videos from sites like YouTube and view them on your Blackberry, Zune, iPhone, etc. You can share individual videos in one-click to Twitter and Facebook. There is a browser plugin that lets you download the movie you are watching in one click, then choose the device where you want to watch it. It also saves a library of videos so you can make your own playlists.
Free Download: http://www.real.com/realplayer

Then we’ll kick off the regular meeting that will include:

David J. Neff, Director of Web, Film and Interactive Strategies for the American Cancer Society’s High Plains Division

Armando Rayo, Director of HandsOnCentralTexas, a program of United Way Capital Area

David Davenport, President & CEO of the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas

Heidi Schultz Adams, founder and executive director of Planet Cancer

John Turner, Interim Director of Communications for Southwest Key Programs

The panel of 5 nonprofit leaders will discuss how they leverage their social networks to advance their respective organizations’ missions, collaborate with one another and use social media for social good.

1. For nonprofits, how does social media change the way you engage donors and constituents?
2. How do you leverage your networks to further your nonprofits mission?
3. What does collaborating with other nonprofits bring you?
4. How to use social media to reach Hispanics?
5. How can a CEO or ED of an organization use social media?
6. How to move online communities to offline action?
7. How does social media engage volunteers?
8. How to use video to tell your story?
9. What are things you tried that failed?
10. How do you engage the new online audience?

Use Social Media for Social Media Good
Click Here for time/location & to register.

A panel of 5 nonprofit leaders, social media monsters, and how they leverage their social networks, to advance their respective organizations missions, collaborate with one another and use social media for social good.

1. For nonprofits, how does social media change the way you engage donors and constituents?
2. How do you leverage your networks to further your nonprofits mission?
3. What does collaborating with other nonprofits bring you?
4. How to use social media to reach Hispanics?
5. How can a CEO or ED of an organization use social media?
6. How to move online communities to offline action?
7. How does social media engage volunteers?
8. How to use video to tell your story?
9. What are things you tried that failed?
10. How do you engage the new online audience?

Bios:
David J. Neff - David is the Director of Web, Film and Interactive Strategies for the American Cancer Society’s High Plains Division. His department manages all web and interactive strategies for 6 states.

Armando Rayo - Mando is the director of HandsOnCentralTexas, a program of United Way Capital Area. Rayo‘s expertise lies in developing community engagement frameworks, especially Hispanic engagement. Rayo is a consultant with Cultural Strategies, writes for GivingCity.com, TacoJournalism.com & has been featured in the Chronicle of Philanthropy & NPR.

David Davenport - David joined the Food Bank in March 2008 as President & CEO. In 2004, David became the Executive Director of End Hunger Network. Since 2004, End Hunger Network has received national acclaim as one of the most effective and innovative organizations of its type in the United States.

Heidi Schultz Adams - Heidi Adams is the founder and executive director of Planet Cancer, a non-profit organization dedicated to creating a community of young adults with cancer in their 20s and 30s, and to raising awareness about their unique medical and psychosocial needs.

John Turner - John is the Interim Director of Communications for Southwest Key Programs, which was ranked #4 among the Top 25 Hispanic Nonprofits in America by Hispanic Business Magazine in May 2009. Previously, John held marketing positions with United Way, the American Cancer Society Quitline, Marsh, GE Capital and managed ebusiness, CRM and marketing efforts for AAA in San Francisco.

Location and Sponsors:
Thank you, Open Text, for providing an awesome location for our events. Also a shout-out to our co-sponsors, Small World Labs and FG Squared who will be providing food and beverages for the year.

Senior level employees from Idea City will also be there to provide informal feedback on portfolios and resumes including Karen Jacobs, director of production, and Luke Sullivan, managing creative director and author of Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads.

Click on the poster to go to the Facebook page which has more info and a link to rsvp for the event.

The Austin Social Media Club is an all volunteer effort. And we do our best to spread the word about our members and their activities, especially if they are social media related. If you are a part of the SMC, interested in being part of the SMC, or have something that the rest of us would benefit from knowing about, please let me or one of the other bloggers here know about it. We’ll try to post it for the larger community to read about.

Cynthia Baker, a co-founder of Social Media Club and the founder of Accolades Public Relations, is working with Deltina Hay, author of the acclaimed book, A Survival Guide to Social Media and Web 2.0 Optimization, and they are conducting in-depth training workshops aimed at helping individuals move beyond the basics of social media.

You can’t see the back of the book (obviously) from this image, but if you could you’d see a quote from me. That’s how much I liked it.

 There will be two workshops for varying degrees of social media experience. The first workshop “Mapping a Realistic Social Media Strategy”, on October 10, will cover the fundamentals of social media tools. It is designed to help participants identify which tools are right for their needs. Participants will design a custom social media strategy as well as a targeted plan to implement that strategy.  

The second workshop “Integrating Your Social Web Presence”, on October 17, will offer advanced integration strategies for experienced social media users. It will assist participants with streamlining the process of keeping social media accounts fresh and engaging, as well as tips and tools on integrating those accounts to take full advantage of their capabilities while maximizing time and resources spent on the Social Web.

The workshop series is based on the principles of Hay’s book that has gained recognition in social media circles as well as in the academic world. The book is currently ranked as one of the “Top 100 Best Social Media Books, Ever” by Mellow Billow, and several universities, including Buffalo University in New York and Austin’s own St. Edward’s University have added her book to their curriculum.

Alright, I lifted some of the verbage for this post from a press release on the workshops, including this quote. “I chose to use this book in my classroom because it is one of the most comprehensive social media books on the market and it is easy for everyone to understand,” says Corinne Weisgerber, assistant professor of Social Media for PR at St. Edward’s University. “Deltina Hay breaks down each tool and explains why it is important. She guides readers through each step; from the set up process to the tool’s functionality as it relates to most users.”

The 4-hour workshops are scheduled at BookPeople in downtown Austin. Due to exclusive nature of the workshop, registration is limited to 25 participants. The cost is $279 with a 10% discount for members of Austin’s Social Media Club (discount code: AUSTINDSC) and an early bird discount of $30. Included in the price is a signed copy of A Survival Guide to Social Media and Web 2.0 Optimization complete with resource CD. Participants will also walk away with specific strategies tailored to their individual requirements, and a plan to implement their chosen tools.

For more information and to register, visit one of the following:

Social Media Power Workshops

Eventbrite Events Page

For questions email monica@accoladespr.com.

About Deltina Hay

Deltina Hay’s graduate education includes applied mathematics, computer science, and psychology. She has written two substantial books on social media and Web 2.0, is a regular contributor of articles on the subject, is a contributing editor on SocialMedia.biz and has given countless presentations. As a publisher and small business owner, she knows firsthand how to apply the tools of social media to the industry, and as a developer, knows how to build them. While she has taught at the university level, her deep working knowledge of social media ideas as well as how to apply them in the real world make her writings and presentations some of the most exciting and accessible in the industry today.

“Hey - that was AWESOME!!!!

“I consider myself to be well-versed in social media marketing, but I learned a lot…and would totally love to attend the other webinars!”
                          - Tamar Wallace, TAMAR DESIGN+MARKETING