In our inaugural year, we awarded in 8 categories. We are looking to expand the offering this year. What do you think would make a great award category, and why? Add your ideas to the comments below. The committee will be taking all comments into consideration when deciding on the categories this year.

Remember, they don’t have to be too serious. Last year, we had 3 fun categories, too.

I first made my venture into social media several years ago. Owning a business, namely a private fitness studio, dictated that I find out what all the chatter was about. I can’t even remember how I heard about Twitter but it seemed like a good venue to share ideas and meet more of the local Victoria community. I also was interested in the ability to meet/chat with others in my field from all over the world. So, setting up a twitter account ( @narinaanne ) seemed like a good opportunity to do just that. It didn’t take too long and I was learning the basics of tweeting, following, RT’s and hopefully good Twitter etiquette.

Along with Twitter, I had come to realize that a Facebook account was the next aspect of my social media campaign that I needed to learn about. Having never been on Facebook it was a bit of a steep learning curve. Learning about personal profiles, business pages, advertising and just what/when/why and how I was to communicate is still a work in progress.

Thankfully some bright local social media experts realized that there was a host of us lost social media souls out there trying to sort out all the social media ins and outs. Hence Social Media Camp came to be. I attended the first social media camp in 2010. Now, I have been to a lot of conferences over the past 11 years of owning my business – some very well run, some a disorganized mess and others coming up short in the content department regardless of how well organized it was.

Social media camp was an eye opener to say the least. I had absolutely no idea the field of social media was so huge and far reaching. Yes, I dabbled a little bit and did see the value of what I was doing. But this conference opened up my eyes just how vast this newly emerging field has become. Now I would never be mistaken for a “techie” but I am fairly literate when it comes to computers and tend to pick up things fairly easily. The best thing about Social Media Camp 2010 was the variety of topics. Some were very technically oriented and so were totally lost on me, even though I managed to glean a few tidbits of info to take home. But most of the workshops proved to be very valuable and each one of them provided me with information that I could take home and implement in my business.

What I did take away from Social Media Camp 2010 is social media is here to stay. It is an important part of owning/running a business and that there are experts out there to help you wade through the ton of information available and set you on the right course to tweet and facebook away.

Planning for the most awesome SMC 2012 is underway.

The agenda will include two-days of:

• workshops
• panels
• speakers
• roundtables
• genius bar
• trade show
• and the most awesome West Coast Social Media Awards yet…

Don’t let the “gizmo factor” seduce you into throwing the latest shiny toy into your print ads and marketing materials. Show your clients you are a sophisticated marketer by using the technology effectively.

Learn to use QR codes effectively at the SMC Workshop Series.

Not sure what the difference between a QR code and an MS Tag?  Read On >>

SMC Success Stories?

This morning I had a very interesting meeting with someone who attended SMCV11 (they shall remain nameless for the time being as you’ll be hearing from them soon). They were excited to tell me about the social media activities they recently launched as a result of ideas they picked up at SMCV11. In particular ideas that came out of Tim McAlpine’s talk about credit unions and social media.

This wasn’t the first story I’ve heard about social media success coming from inspiring ideas, people met or connections made at one of the last two SMCs. Don Power, who I met back in July 2010 at a tweetup he organized in Nanaimo, attended SMCV10 and took that opportunity to do a social media ‘clothes line‘ on Sprout Social CEO Justyn Howard in an effort to score a position as “Blogging Phenom” at Sprout Social Insights Blog.

So Here’s the Pitch

With more than 1,000 attendees from the last two SMC’s we know there are many more success stories out there. If you have a success story we’d like you to tell it right here on the SMC Blog. If you are interested simply leave a note in the comments below or on Twitter saying “I have an #SMCsuccessStory to tell” and we’ll get in touch with you about the details.

Paul, Tell em What They’ve Won

On December 15, 2011 we’ll do a random draw of all the blog posts we use and one lucky blogger will WIN an All Access Pass to SMCV12 + a copy of Chris Brogan’s new book.

Added bonus: and if that wasn’t enough (although I probably don’t have to tell you this because you’re already social media wise) you have the opportunity to plug yourself (company / organization) and your latest social media initiative within your blog post to the millions of people that read the SMC blog (okay that may be an exaggeration).

Your blog post will need to meet certain criteria in order to be published. It doesn’t matter how successful it was – even flops can be successes if you learn from it and improve.

The Criteria:

• You attended either SMCV10 or SMCV11
• You did something you consider successful with social media as a result of attending SMC (learnings from a panel/speaker, making a business connection, meeting a social media coach, or simply being inspired…)
• This is open to individuals too. You don’t have to have a business or be part of an organization. Perhaps you decided to open a Twitter account to talk with other gardeners, quilters, Yoga enthusiasts, whatever, and now you have a host of new friends
• Blog post has to be written by you and be a minimum of 300 words.

Social Media Camp is launching a Workshop Series that brings together some of the top experts in the industry in a practical, hands-on environment to offer a series of intense 1-day workshops across British Columbia.

Our first workshop will be held in Nanaimo, BC on Monday, September 19th at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre. This workshop will be held in partnership with the 48^th Annual Tourism Vancouver Island Conference & AGM.

This is an intensive 1-day event with four 90-minute sessions, and a working lunch, lead by industry experts, that will kick your social media program into high gear.

Your Trainers:

• Paul Holmes – Social Media 101
• Chris Burdge – Maximizing Facebook
• Don Power – Maximizing Twitter
• Angela Crocker – Social Media Productivity

On completion of this workshop you will be able to:

• Understand the social media landscape
• Leverage social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, Hootsuite and blogs to connect with your customers & build relationships
• Develop a content and engagement strategy
• Set-up systems to maximize your time online
• Track and evaluate success and ROI

VI Conference Centre

Social Media Camp is launching a Workshop Series that brings together some of the top experts in the industry in a practical, hands-on environment to offer a series of intense 1-day workshops across British Columbia.

Our first workshop will be held in Nanaimo, BC on Monday, September 19th at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre. This workshop will be held in partnership with the 48^th Annual Tourism Vancouver Island Conference & AGM.

This is an intensive 1-day event with four 90-minute sessions, and a working lunch, lead by industry experts, that will kick your social media program into high gear.

Your Trainers:

• Paul Holmes – Social Media 101
• Chris Burdge – Maximizing Facebook
• Don Power – Maximizing Twitter
• Angela Crocker – Social Media Productivity

On completion of this workshop you will be able to:

• Understand the social media landscape
• Leverage social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, Hootsuite and blogs to connect with your customers & build relationships
• Develop a content and engagement strategy
• Set-up systems to maximize your time online
• Track and evaluate success and ROI

The first 25 registrants will receive a FREE copy of “Trust Agents” by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith.

For complete workshop schedule & registration details >> CLICK HERE.

Seating is limited and this workshop will sell out.

Watch for upcoming workshops in your city to be announced soon. Drop your email in the field to the right for email updates. Next up Victoria BC.

SMCV11 Networking Dinner

The networking dinner was everything I expected and more: full of thought-provoking conversation, laughter, new connections and amazing award winners. I was able to re-connect with Kelly Marshall from Sector Learning Solutions as well as Mat Wright of The Wright Result and David Archer from Soundstone Music.

While sampling some amazing food from the caterers at the Victoria Conference Centre, we were treated to a few speeches before the awards ceremony. There were some surprises for the first ever West Coast Social Media Awards or ‘Westies’ as they were called, but all of the winners and the nominees deserved to be recognized for their achievements in social media and I was happy that I was there to witness it all.

Best Use of Social Media for Customer Service went to Dane Low for Cactus Club Cafe Restaurants. I was happy for them as I’m a huge fan of Cactus Club and I love how Vancouver chef Rob Feenie has re-vamped their menu.

Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega

The Most Inspiring Social Media User award was given to the late Derek K. Miller. Although I didn’t know the man or his work, the acceptance speech given by his good friend Dr. Raul Pachero-Vega was poignant and heartfelt and I know the award was well deserved.

Social Media Campaign of the Year was given to local web development and website design giant northstudio 360 while Blog of the Year was given to Culture Vulture Victoria for his continuing coverage of the performing arts scene here in Victoria.

Next came the funny awards of the night with Funniest Profile Picture going to Dylan Benson, Funniest Tweet going to Brennan Storr (with the words “It’s like The Omega Man out here except instead of vampires I keep running into feral packs of douchebags”) and The Most Likely to Become a Social Media Celebrity to Yukari Peerless.

An honorary award for Best Viral Video went to Shawn Slavin for UVic Lipdub. I give him full credit for undertaking such a huge production to show the creativity of UVic students and how it could match up to other similar videos. It was an award that was well deserved and I’m happy Shawn and the others who worked on the project were recognized for their hard work.

The awards were a resounding success and there was still more to come with the tourism panel I attended on Saturday.

Moderated by Jordan Keats from IdeaZone, the tourism panel featured William Bakker from Think Social Media!, Allison Markin from All She Wrote Consulting and Perry Schmunk, the general manager of Long Beach Lodge in Tofino and head of the Tourism Tofino Board.

William detailed a campaign his company created for Tourism Dallas using the Super Bowl as a draw for potential tourists. He described a concept known as ‘Passionate Communities’ where there is a community and influencers within that community spread the word about an event, experience etc. that all of them are passionate about. In the case of Tourism Dallas, the community was everyone in town and the influencers were the bloggers in town and the remarkable experience was the Super Bowl. They created a campaign via Facebook whereby one mystery man was sent to Dallas while another one was sent to Green Bay and anyone who found him and entered the secret phrase on Tourism Dallas’s Facebook page would win tickets to the Super Bowl.

Secret clues related to the phrase and location of the mystery men were connected back to key attractions, landmarks and areas within Dallas, which generated interest and increased tourism revenue.

Allison Markin

Allison Markin talked about cultural tourism and created a following of BC wine lovers under the Twitter handle @OkanaganTaste, talking about anything having to do with BC food and wine. She connects local wineries in the Okanagan together through referrals and shout-outs on Twitter and has created a community surrounding BC food and wine in the area.

Perry Schmunk, the general manager of Long Beach Lodge in Tofino and head of the Tourism Tofino Board, is known for his CLM promos for the property (otherwise known as career-limiting moves); by attracting customers over and over again to the lodge through promotions that other properties would think were too risky. Three years ago during the 2008 snowstorms that rocked much of the island and the Lower Mainland, Perry created the ‘No Snow Guarantee’ to attract customers, claiming that if it snowed during their stay, their vacation was free. It didn’t snow and Perry’s promotion filled all the 61 rooms in the hotel.

Last January, he did a promotion for fans of Long Beach Lodge’s Facebook page-if they referred a friend, they earned a free night’s stay. With that promotion, they managed to get from 2,500 to 5,000 fans in 48 hours and from 2,500 to 10,000 fans in 8 days. Consistently, the Long Beach Lodge has an average of 75% occupancy rate throughout the year and one distribution channel, 97% of reservations come to the hotel directly through phone calls or the online booking system with only 3% through Expedia.

I would say that overall, Social Media Camp was an eye opener for me, in terms of both network connections and knowledge that I can apply to my own social media presence and that of clients’. I  definitely want to contribute next year as a volunteer and learn more about the world of social media.

SMC Co-Founder, Chris Burdge

When I arrived before 8 in the morning on Friday for my volunteer duties as Tradeshow Assistant, setup for Social Media Camp was already in full swing. Tables for IdeaZone and bWEST Communications, the businesses of the presenting sponsors of Social Media Camp, Paul Holmes and Chris Burdge; were setup along with media partners The Zone @ 91.3, Times-Colonist, 100.3 The Q! and SendtoNews. Also present at the tradeshow were the likes of local social media and SEO specialists Stikky Media as well as Royal Roads University, Helijet and Yelp.ca

Highlights from the tradeshow for me include the Podcast tent, which was literally a tent with mics and recording equipment set up for interviews, along with someone who was writing about each podcast as it happened. I also loved the booth concept that was the brainchild of One Net Marketing known as ‘Flash Your Gadgets’. They built a photo booth and provided volunteers with props and removable social media symbols made out of plastic that people could stick on their clothing and take photos with 3 different poses. Afterwards, the photos were automatically sent to all of the person’s social media profiles from Twitter to Facebook and everything in between, with the press of a button. It was by far, the most creative and fun display at the tradeshow.

SMC Co-Founder, Paul Holmes

I also have to give kudos to Intertainment Media Inc, one of Social Media Camp’s Gold Sponsors and parent company of divisions responsible for products like Ortsbo and Ad Taffy. Although Ortsbo, their online translation program, was their main focus for the tradeshow as they debuted the product launch of Ortsbo 2.0 for the iPad, I was more taken with Ad Taffy.

Ad Taffy gives any company with a Google Adwords account and numerous online ads more bang for their buck and more customer retention. Instead of just the ad with a link that directs the prospective client or customer to the website’s home page and has them dig deep for the information they need, Ad Taffy has a built-in component that allows the company to display their number so the customer can call them AND enables the customer to input their number so the company can call them directly. I was shown a great demo by Intertainment Media’s Marketing Manager, Chris Collie, as he demonstrated how Ad Taffy is localized, by finding the nearest Jaguar dealership and using the embed phone pad to place a call to the dealership.

Highlights don’t stop at the tradeshow, of course. I also highly enjoyed Jay Baer’s keynote address on the Friday afternoon as he made several points that are applicable to my career goals as well as other opportunities.

Audience at Jay Baer's Keynote Address

Jay Baer’s Key Points to Effectively Utilize Social Media

1. Build an Ark with a group of people that figures out how social media will make you money indirectly

2. Listen to what people are saying about your company and where they are saying it

3. What’s the point for your company to use social media? Is it to create awareness, build on sales or loyalty? Remember: You can’t segment messaging for different audiences on social media platforms

4. People fit into five categories in relation to your company, they are either: unaware of your company, aware, willing to try your company on a trial-basis, they’re repeat customers or they are strong advocates for your company

5. Analyze your audiences-what’s their story, how are they using social media?

6. In the social technographics ladder, social media audiences fit into seven categories: creators (those that create and post content), conversationalists (those spend their time talking to others), critics, collectors (who collect information), joiners (who join numerous social media platforms), spectators (who read content) and inactives (who aren’t on social media).

7.  Give your audience proper social media assignments (eg. don’t expect an audience of 45-60 yr. old males to create youtube videos for your contest)

8. Beware of saturating your audience with too many invitations

9. Passion is the fuel behind any good campaign. It’s about the people, not the logos.

10. Build a home base (eg. your blog) where you interact with the most people and outposts (eg. Twitter) to drive traffic and audiences back to your home base; create a strategic eco-system

11. Pick good success metrics that you can measure, whether it’s to gauge loyalty, awareness or sales. Track social specific actions such as having cashiers record discounts for customers due to a group accessing a special code for a discount and having the record at head office

12. Measure behavior, not aggregation

13. Above all, remember that the goal is not to be good at social media, it’s to be good at business because of social media

In spite of the busy day, speaking with the tradeshow participants and assisting with the set-ups as well as design on their tables, I was able to take in Rebecca Bollwitt’s presentation. Also known as miss 604, Rebecca’s presentation focused on the area she’s famous on the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island for: blogging.

Rebecca provided a few key tips in order to have a successful blog.

1. Create a teaser about the content of your blog post in the update or tweet in order to gain more of your audience’s attention.

2. Post 2-3 times a week to drive more traffic to your blog.

3. Blog posts don’t have to be long. Rule of thumb: one long post/week, the other one(s) can be photo blog posts or short posts

4. Gauge your audience to see what is the optimal time for them to read your post, depending on the topic (eg. Blog on food should be posted before lunch)

Part Two of the Highlights from Social Media Camp Victoria 2011 will focus on my experiences at the networking dinner and first ever West Coast Social Media Awards as well as an informative tourism panel that took place on Saturday.

63% of You Rated Your SMCV11 Experience an 8 or Higher

While we hope that you enjoyed SMCV11 and got good value from the speakers, sessions and trade show, we know there are always opportunities to improve. In order to help us do that, once again this year we conducted a post-conference survey to get your feedback.

Here’s what you had to say.

1. Please rate your overall experience with SMCV11.

2. Please rate your satisfaction with the conference facilities.

• 83% of you rated the VCC an 8/10 or higher

3. Were the speakers and presentations beneficial to you?

4. Were the workshops beneficial to you?

5. Were the genius bar sessions beneficial to you?

6. What did you like MOST about SMC?

• Great range of speakers and workshops. Very useful – especially keynote speakers.
• Short sessions, with followup available.
• Meeting new people, the variety of presenters, the inclusion of government, news media, and non-profits among panels, access to speakers after their presentations, Q&A time with presentations. I learned so much about SM and came away with an enthusiasm that I have already shared with others who could not attend.
• I enjoyed the sessions where we were actually taught how to do something. (ie. creating a FB page for a company)
• The breadth of presentations. People were friendly and low-key. Sessions were the ‘right’ length. Get on the bus wasmy favourite.
• Layout, venue, cool elements such as a the Podcast Tent – nice touch

7. What did you like LEAST about SMC?

• Some of the sessions were very beginner. Although having some beginner sessions is important, would like to see more variety from beginner through to advanced workshops/sessions.
• Minimal food provided and was all gone when workshop was over. Had to go out and buy something. Not great considering the cost.
• Inability to attend sessions that were at the same time as the sessions I felt were equally as beneficial. Inability to simply find the course outline separate from the speakers.
• Not having lunch on Day 1 was a bit of a bummer, especially given the long line-ups at the adjacent cafe. Increase the fees and give me another box lunch and I’ll be happy!
• Not enough time for lunch and in between sessions! I wish there was more time for networking and going to the Genius Bar for people who also attended every time slot of workshop/session
• No WiFi at the Empress – seriously. This is a SOCIAL MEDIA conference! Next time it should be included for delegates. (NOTE: while the Fairmont Empress is attached to the Victoria Conference Centre it was not connected to the conference. They do have WiFi but charge for it).

8. What would make SMC more valuable for you?

• Yes – Social Media Labs. Get us thinking, doing and acting with the support of the experts. Workbooks, exercises .. PARTICIPATION
  
• Add seminar descriptions to the booklet so one can know what the seminars are about before choosing them.
• Running workshops twice (e.g. would have liked to attend “Twitter” but it was at the same time as Facebook). Offering a one day fee for those that can’t make it for both days.
• Maybe some kind of structured discussion where you get together into workgroups to discuss how your SM strategy works with similar businesses/orgs to yours.
• It would be great to have descriptions of the sessions available. 3-4 sentences to help us better determine if it is good fit. I’d love to have discussion sessions with people on various top
• A mentor program or cheat sheet for us newbies that explained acronmyms and the other secret languages being spoken
• A third day! Thursday to Saturday! Even a Thursday night keynote/opening address and a networking event.
• Some sessions on LinkedIn. I think LinkedIn is one of the most subscribed-to social media channels that is the least understood. How do you get value from it anyway?

We included a representative selection of the 149 answers to the open ended questions. in analyzing the all of the feedback there were a few common themes that we intend to address next year:

• Include a more detailed description of the sessions in the program along with level indicators for Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced.
• Offer more beginner and advanced specific sessions. We may assign rooms to specific levels for the day.
• Offer more food and payment options
• More interactive sessions
• More sessions to cover some of the common tools e.g. LinkedIn

We welcome your feedback on your feedback. Use the comments box below the continue the conversation.