The world’s *first* Social Media Club awards event was held in Salt Lake City, Utah, on November 6, 2009. The Social Media Club of Salt Lake City began efforts to present the Utah Social Media Awards earlier this spring. Those efforts culminated in presenting 20 Utah Social Media Awards to individuals and companies in Utah accomplishing great things in the social media space.

The Utah Social Media Awards, affectionately known as the USMAs (#usma on Twitter), recognized 18 people with awards for the best use of a particular new media platform and provided two overall awards, the People’s Choice and Best of Show Utah Social Media Awards.

“More than 140 people gathered at Noah’s in South Jordan for the awards networking, dinner, keynote address and program,” said Pete Codella, program director for the Social Media Club of Salt Lake City and chair of the Utah Social Media Awards. “We couldn’t be happier with the support we received and the outcome of the first annual Utah Social Media Awards. Congratulations to each and every recipient.”

The evening’s keynote address was provided by a man known as “the human Internet,” Utah’s own David Bradford, CEO of Fusion-io. The presentation of the awards was made by Codella and Angie Larsen, anchor of Good Things Utah on ABC Channel 4. The catering was by Culinary Crafts.

Best of Show was awarded to XanGo for its “impressive online and social media presence, from Web sites to blogs and podcasts,” according to the USMA judges, comprised of members of the awards planning committee with help from the Social Media Club of Phoenix. XanGo also received an USMA for XanGo.tv for Best Video Blog.

The People’s Choice recipient received an impressive 15 percent of the overall vote. It was clearly a crowd favorite. Comments included: “Tons of new content — podcasts, stuff to read, recommendations, Tweet stream and tips,” “A crisp layout, great navigation, right column showcase of ads, links to iTunes feed, RSS, Twitter, etc.,” “This is the cream of this crop,” and “I absolutely love this site.” The People’s Choice USMA was awarded to The FredCast by David Bernstein.

Utah Social Media Awards recipients received a custom-made acrylic trophy etched with the USMA logo, a printed certificate, an electronic Web banner to display online of their win, and a rose imprinted with the USMA logo, courtesy of Speaking Roses.

The complete list of 2009 Utah Social Media Awards recipients:

Best Blog (four recipients) — CraziBeautiful Women, Fat Cyclist, Today’s Mama, and World’s Strongest Librarian.

Best Video Blog (two recipients) — Provo Acoustic, XanGo TV.

Greatest Impact on Podcasting — PodCampSLC by Thom Allen.

Best Use of Twitter (three recipients) — @BigBags by Nate Bagley, @mozy by Nate Kartchner, and @sltrib by The Salt Lake Tribune.

Best Use of YouTube — Mormon Messages by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Best Facebook Fan Page (three recipients) — BabySteals.com, Utah’s Hogle Zoo, and PC Laptops.

Best Social Media Content Guru (two recipients) — Jordan Kasteler, and Janet Meiners Thaeler.

Best Integrated Social Media Campaign (two recipients) — Goldsmith Co. Jewelers Mother’s Day Campaign by Sprout Marketing, and Standard-Examiner.

People’s Choice USMA — The FredCast by David Bernstein.

Best of Show USMA — XanGo.

The call for nominations for the Utah Social Media Awards occurred this summer. More than 225 nominations were received by members of the three Utah-based Social Media Clubs — Salt Lake City, Utah Valley, and Cache Valley.

Members of the awards planning committee selected finalists, then with help from the Social Media Club of Phoenix, determined the 2009 USMA recipients.

To preserve the integrity of the awards, no members of the Social Media Club of Salt Lake City leadership team or USMA planning committee were eligible to receive awards.


About the Social Media Club of Salt Lake City

The Social Media Club of Salt Lake City is Utah’s first chapter of the worldwide Social Media Club organization which was founded in 2006. SMC of SLC launched in January 2009 and quickly amassed a membership of several hundred people. While membership in the local chapter is free, members may choose whether or not they join the worldwide organization with varying levels of membership. The nonprofit club holds monthly meetings, usually on the third Thursday in the evening, to foster camaraderie among local social media practitioners. SMC of SLC sponsors professional development seminars and workshops to teach social media skills and provide up-to-date information about happenings in the social media space. Attendance at most meetings is free with meeting facilities and refreshments provided by sponsors.

About the Utah Social Media Awards

The Utah Social Media Awards were presented by the Social Media Club of Salt Lake City, with support from the Social Media Club of Utah Valley and Cache Valley, to recognize excellence in social media practitioners and practices throughout Utah. SMC of SLC plans to build upon the success of this year’s event when it presents the second annual Utah Social Media Awards in 2010. This year’s awards were sponsored by Advanced Brain Technologies, eBay, Merrell Remington, Park City Mountain Resort, SelectHealth, Think Tank Creative Consortium, and UtahPulse.com. Members of the 2009 USMA planning committee include Pete Codella (chair; @codella), Roxy Cross (co-chair; @roxycross), Sarah Buhr (@sarahbuhr), Jack Hadley (@Jack_Hadley), Christopher Katis, Allen Parkinson and Marcus Perry (@marcusperry).

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Notes:

The awards program script, which includes judges’ comments, is available. To request the script, complete the online contact form at UtahSocialMediaAwards.info on the Contact page.

This release was written by SMC of SLC Program Director Pete Codella. Please contact him at 801/294-7188 with additional questions.

Photos of the event, courtesy of Cary Snowden, are available here.

Just *some* of the prizes for which those of you joining us on Friday night are eligible:

*$100 Amazon gift cards via Bungee Labs!
Bungee Labs is a local startup building a Cloud-based development platform to help companies move applications and data to the Cloud.

*Four $50 gift cards from eBay!

*Copy of I Need a Killer Press Release. $20 value!
This handy guide to online PR is by our own Janet Meiners Thaeler.

*Gift basket from Whimsy Clothing!

*BrainBuilder® from Advanced Brain Technologies and our sponsors and friends, Alex and Mandy Doman. $200 value!

*Thanksgiving Point gift box/membership. $275 value!
Thanksgiving Point’s mission is to inspire the minds and renew the spirits of young and old by providing unique learning experiences, family-friendly entertainment, and opportunities for discovery in a safe and beautiful environment. Its offerings include Thanksgiving Point Gardens, the Museum of Ancient Life, Farm Country, Harvest Restaurant, and the Emporium boutique.

*From PC Laptops: FULL version of Windows 7 Ultimate. $319 value!

A large group of Twitterers who usually tweet from desktop clients like TweetDeck are returning to the Twitter website these days to do some of their tweeting. Credit Twitter Lists for this trend.

If you haven’t heard of Twitter Lists, here’s a quick recap:

You can put anyone on a list you’ve created and named (you get 20 of them, up to 500 names each). You don’t even have to be following the person to place them on a list you’ve created.

Lists can be public (viewable by anyone) or private (for your eyes only). You can see which public lists you’ve been placed in by clicking the “lists” link, located on your Twitter profile near “followers” and “following.” Right now, the only way to manage Twitter Lists is through Twitter.com (although Seesmic Desktop just integrated them and other APIs like TweetDeck and Tweetie are soon to follow).

So what do Twitter lists mean for you?

Already, people are claiming lists as the new status symbol. How many lists are you on? Whose lists? Did you make the “social-media-experts” list, the “people-i-am-married-to” list, or are you just on some guy’s “americans-i-know” list?  What if you’re not on a list? Or worse—what if you’re on someone’s “people-with-ugly-faces” list?

Remember that Twitter lists, just like all social media, can be used as just another online popularity metric or as a legitimate tool to help make social media life easier. Several other bloggers have already written about how you can use Twitter Lists. Here are a handful of the best ways I’ve seen to use Twitter lists so far:

Learn about yourself. You can learn about how others perceive your personal brand and the value you create on Twitter by which lists you’re on. You may think you’re a PR-specific Twitterer, but maybe your tweets don’t reflect that consistently. If you’re on very few lists, it may just mean that you’re unique, for better or worse.

Make a list for vendors/applications you use. You don’t really want them in your normal feed, but you still want to hear about new services, products, updates, or feature improvements from companies you use daily, especially If you’re like me and instinctively unsubscribed from all of their e-mails. Plus, you’ve got their accounts all grouped together in case you ever need to contact one of them. (Plus, if everybody did this, we’d have a great reference list to draw on when evaluating new vendors/products)

Group profiles that always tweet the same kind of content. Most people are following several accounts that are strictly industry news or blog feeds (or contests). Instead of following them, group them together in similar lists like a categorized RSS feed. For blogs that don’t have a corresponding Twitter account, you could create a new Twitter profile and send blog RSS feeds to it using Twitterfeed. In concept, you could ditch RSS completely and not be racked with the guilt of having 1000 unread items. Sounds good, huh?

Create a temporary list of events. This is a great easy promotional tactic. If you’re organizing an event, you can get people talking about it and networking in advance by showing who’s going to attend. This takes the pressure off people having to write down everyone’s Twitter name during the event, and enables people to follow up afterward. For example, I just made one for people attending the upcoming Utah Social Media Awards, which I’ll probably delete a few weeks after the event is done. (Let me know if I missed you)

Have another way you’ve seen to effectively use lists? Let me know on Twitter (@scottcowley) or in the comments below.

About the author: Scott Cowley does SEO and social media for SEO.com and is passionate about helping clients catch the vision of how social media can be put to use. He enjoys making friends through SMCSLC and SMCUV and currently resides in Provo with his wife Kathy.

It is the SMC of SLC’s pleasure to highlight member Josh “Shua” Peters: social media strategist, amateur artist, and  *major* horror movie fan. Josh is also the brand new co-author of the book Twittfaced. Josh describes himself as a “very analytical, strategic, and detail-oriented person.” Read on to learn even more about Josh. (Oh, and the next time you see him at a SMC of SLC meeting, feel free to ask about his numerous tattoos! He’s happy to spill the goods.)

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SMC: First up: please explain the quotes in your name: Josh “Shua” Peters. Inquiring minds wanna know!

JSP: “Shua” is the nickname I’ve gone by for a long, long time. It’s pronounced SH-WA (like the upside down E).

SMC: Cool. Give us the skinny on you as an interesting individual and Utahn.
What were you like as a teen versus five years ago versus today?

JSP: I don’t know if I’m interesting, but I definitely have a story. As a teen I was your average, awkward Wyoming kid in who didn’t know how to talk to girls (Still struggle with that at times!). I was trying to be a good son, but also had a mad desire to be a punk rocker. In college, I transformed into said punk rocker. But I had no musical talent, so I became friends with all the punk bands, dancing on stage and helping with security.

Yet even with sporting a 9-inch Mohawk, I was able to impress my professors with my grades and work ethic enough to nab departmental scholarships every semester.

I moved back to Utah about eight years ago. (I was born and raised here until ninth grade, then my family moved to Wyoming.) Once back, I calmed down the crazy hair somewhat – but then later had no choice because it started falling out. At least I had some good times with it while it was there!

I found myself doing menial jobs, which I hated. One day I decided that complaining wasn’t going to get me anywhere. So I started reading, learning, and returned to school, to create a future for myself. I’m not yet where I’d like to be, but I’m steadily working on getting there. Earlier this year I finished the University of San Francisco’s Master Certificate in Internet Marketing. A future goal: to own a house with a yard!

SMC: You’re obviously a creative guy. How/why did you channel your energy into social media?

JSP: I got started in social media back about three years ago when I was working on a startup called RoyalAnts (a social events calendar platform that isn’t dead; it’s just on the back burner for the moment). I began looking at how we could market the site with a very limited ($0.00) budget. To get up to speed, I started doing a minimum of two hours of research a day. I read everything I could get my hands on, attended webinars, and created guidelines around each platform I encountered.

At one point, about two years ago, I spent over 16 hours a day – for several weeks straight – immersing myself in social media. I blew through all the vacation time at my day job just so I could grasp the concepts I was seeing. Soon I began offering advice to friends, and advising on and auditing company plans. I nabbed my first big client earlier this year.

SMC: On your “shuaism” blog (pronounced SH-WA-ISM), you label yourself as a “social media strategist.” How did you earn that title — beyond setting up Facebook and Twitter accounts?

JSP: Well, that’s really all I did … that’s all it takes to be strategist, don’t you know? Just kidding! I now have extensive experience working on social media plans and strategies for companies – from single-owner startups to huge companies such as Symantec.

SMC: So, social media strategist…and now new co-author of the book Twittfaced. Word on the street is that there’s a cool (ironic?) story about how Twitter helped you to get Twittfaced published. Spill!

JSP: Well, my co-author Jacob Morgan and I wrote an e-book about social media, which we released for free on Twitter. Knowledge of the book spread, thanks to some awesome Twitter friends. One day I got an email from a publisher asking if it was ok to share the book with their new authors. I said yes. About an hour later, I got another email saying that the owner of the company loved the e-book and wanted to know if we were interested in writing a full book for publication. That’s the inside scoop on Twittfaced.

SMC: Interesting! But why write a book focused solely on Twitter? Is it your favorite social media tool?

JSP: Actually, only one chapter deals with Twitter. Twittfaced is a guidebook for understanding and maximizing social media in general. But Twitter is pretty much my favorite social media tool.

SMC: Josh, you just ponied up for the SMC of SLC’s 2010 Board – serving as the club’s membership director. What do you see as the club’s chief benefit to members? How do you plan to help grow the membership and the club’s reputation within the greater Salt Lake City business community?

JSP: I think the networking aspect is the biggest benefit of being a part of the Social Media Club of Salt Lake City. It’s a great place to meet people and exchange ideas. I hope to help grow the membership by helping to create and put on killer events.

SMC: That’s inspiring, Josh! Please leave us with a take-away, if you would: Sum up, in just one sentence, why social media blows your mind.

JSP: Social media blows my mind because of how powerful and flexible it is; you can accomplish just about anything online with it.

**Find Josh here:
Shuaism
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn

It’s crucial, says Mark Ragan, CEO of Ragan Communications, in a brief conversation with SMC of SLC’s Program Director Pete Codella: Social Media is Survival*

Ragan visited Salt Lake City at the invite of SMC of SLC, to present a day-long social media workshop, “Social Media Boot Camp,” to a packed room of attendees.

*YouTube video

Think again, says Mark Ragan, CEO of Ragan Communications, in a brief conversation with SMC of SLC’s Program Director Pete Codella: Social Media Sheriff*

Ragan visited Salt Lake City at the invite of SMC of SLC, to present a day-long social media workshop, “Social Media Boot Camp,” to a packed room of attendees.

*YouTube video

We have launched the world’s first Social Media Club-sponsored annual awards event honoring our own community’s social media strategists and gurus.

Complete information about the USMAs, as we affectionately call them, are available on the site UtahSocialMediaAwards.info.

We hope you’ll join us in November as we make history with the Utah Social Media Awards. And we hope, after the awards, you’ll congratulate the USMA recipients on a job well done.

Drew gathered a fantastic panel of professional video folks and experienced embedders to educate attendees. And learn we did, as evidenced by a tweet by SMCSLC member Josh “Shua” Peters (@JoshSPeters): “I learned more about video at tonights #SMCSLC than I have in my entire life of being online. HUGE thanks to @Knite20 & @BetaLoft!”

Woa, dude! That’s a HUGE compliment!

If you missed the event, fret not. Here’s the ENTIRE 40-minute discussion for you to dive into!

Video Power: SMCSLC Panel on Video Tips from Drew Tyler on Vimeo.

RealPlayer SP

Introducing RealPlayer SP. It’s social. It’s portable. And it’s perfect for playing and sharing video with your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter. Now you can download and organize your favorite videos from thousands of web sites. Then watch them anytime, anywhere you want. Our new video converter makes it incredibly easy to copy online video to your iPod, cell phone, Xbox, PS3 or other favorite device. Download the free version of Real Player SP.

Using video with Social Media?

Here are some do’s and do NOT’s from a panel of experts.

Key takeaways:

Video CAN be done on the cheap. To do it right, make sure you have LTAA:
1.) a Light source (Google “3 point lighting”)
2.) a Tripod
3.) quality Audio. Use a real mic, not the on-board mic
4.) know your Audience

The Panelist:
Drew Tyler of BetaLoft Coworking (@Knite20, @BetaLoft)
Ryan Bradshaw of Surface9 (@ryanbradshaw, @Surface9)
Chad Booth of “At Your Leisure.”
Randall Bennett of TechVi.com (@Randallb)

Links:
http://betaloftslc.com
http://www.surface9.com
http://www.atyourleisure.info
http://techvi.com

Do you ever lose your passion for social media or marketing? I will admit that I do. Every few months or so I will start to feel like I’ve tried everything, and I still haven’t taken over the world. I’ve tried Facebook, I’ve tried Twitter, I’ve tried blogging, and texting, and newsletters, and SEO, and more Facebook, and more Twitter. And nothing is working. There is no silver bullet. Social media is boring me.

Am I the only one who ever feels this way?

I’ve tried attending conferences. But I have yet to find a really good conference that I feel is up to my skill level. I attended a WordPress course, hoping to find inspiration on how to be the best blogger ever. Instead I walked out thinking I could have taught the course. I didn’t need a lesson in what a blog is and how to use it for business. I need a shot of passion and inspiration on how to come out with interesting, amazing, and compelling content for six different brand blogs when I feel like it has all been done before! And I could use a shot of inspiration on how to find amazing readers.

Are you with me yet? I’m a professional! I do this full-time, but sometimes, I just need that extra infusion of passion when everything gets commonplace. And I don’t think I’m alone. So I sat down and tried a few new things to get my social media romance back on track.

Here are a few ideas with which I’ve found success:

1. Write an article for LinkedIn, or another professional organization. Forcing yourself to sit down and explain why social media works, and what you can do with it, really can help bring the romance back.  (And I know SMCSLC would love to have a few more guest bloggers and column writers.)
2. Try something new. Think you have tried all the good methods out there? You’re on all the appropriate networks? Then try a new one that is completely out of your comfort zone. Are you on Bebo yet? What about Reddit or Yelp? Pick something and dive in. Maybe it won’t work, but it will probably give you some new ideas for something else that might work better.
3. Call up a friend in a similar capacity and meet for lunch to exchange new ideas. Ask what he or she is doing in their current social media campaigns. I recently had the chance to help out a friend while she was out of office for a few weeks. Her company needed someone to continue their campaign while she was out. Just getting to see what her company does and what she excels at in social media really helped give me some new ideas for my company to try. Also, she got to take advantage of my strengths as well. Take a few minutes to learn from a friend.
4. This is the big one! Ask yourself the hard questions. Is it the social media that isn’t working? Or is it what you are promoting with social media? Is it the marketing campaign itself? Social media is only as good as the product or message you want to share. You have to have a good key message. Maybe it’s time to revamp the campaign or message, and stop hating the tools.
5. Step away from the computer. Close your laptop, hide the Blackberry, and return to the old-fashioned world of pen and paper. Map your ideas out. Brainstorm without a whiteboard and a committee. Ask yourself who you are trying to reach and where they are found. Make lists of all the things you could be doing. Are there channels and tools you could be trying that you just don’t have the time to focus on? Ask yourself what really matters, and put it in writing.

Just like in all relationships, you have to work at it to keep the romance alive. Trying the same thing over and over again isn’t going to get you anywhere. Don’t keep banging your head against the same old wall. What’s the old saying? “If you do what you’ve always done, you get what you always got.”

These are just my ideas. What are yours?

Why attend? How about networking opportunities with like-minded people, a keynote by David Bradford, the CEO of Fusion-io, and meeting the best social media users in the state? Plus a great dinner, great company and an overall great time!

When making your purchase, please be aware that we will NOT be sending out printed tickets. Just come to the registration table and tell us your name – you’ll be on the list.

Get your tickets now, before you hear about the USMAs on everyone else’s blog, Twitter, Facebook….