Harnessing the Power of Social Media for Marketing and Community Outreach

Harnessing the Power of Social Media for Marketing and Community Outreach Miami Dade College Conference Day, March 5th, 2009 Alex de Carvalho

Topics Introduction ✤ What is Social Media? ✤ Creating Identity and Brand online ✤ Community outreach, engagement ... and marketing ✤

Alex de Carvalho http://alexdc.org http://twitter.com/alexdc

StartPR: social media management - Track your mentions on social networks and on over 100 million blogs - Annotate and store important posts - Coordinate responses with colleagues - Report on mentions and improve blogger relations activity http://startpr.com

RefreshMiami: new media community - South Florida’s web and new media community - Established March 2006 - Over 1,000 members - Monthly meetups average 100 participants http://refreshmiami.org

BarCamp Miami: new media conference - Third web and new media “un”conference - February 22nd 2009, just before the Future of Web Apps conference - 806 registered and over 600 participants attended - Free conference supported by company sponsorships http://barcampmiami.org

Social Media Club of South Florida A community for the champions of social media and those seeking to learn - Expand media literacy - Share lessons learned - Adopt industry standards - Promote ethical practices http://socialmediaclubsf.org

social networks sure look like a random mess (and thus a waste of time?) ... Graph: GustavoG http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/gustavog/9708628/

Wikipedia is a social media ... let’s look here for a definition

TOOLS for sharing and discussing Tools Activities social media Interaction

ACTIVITIES that integrate technology and social interaction Tools Activities social media Interaction

INTERACTION that builds shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences Tools Activities social media Interaction

Through social media, people build their online ... • Presence • Credibility • Identity • Authority • Reputation • Inﬂuence

Traditional media Newspapers Magazines Television Radio Books CDs DVDs A box of photos Physical, paper mail and catalogs Yellow Pages

Digital media Cellphones Compact disc Digital video Digital television e-book Internet Minidisc Video games

Social media Blogging Social Networking Wikis Bookmarking Photosharing Calendaring Tagging Podcasting Microblogging

Social media • Traditional media above can’t be changed. A newspaper can’t magically change its stories • You can interact with my blog. You can leave a comment. • You can get some sense of the popularity of my stu in real time. • With the “new media” you can look at my archives and see all posts. • Here on my blog I can mix media. A post could contain text, audio, video, or photos. • Here on my blog I don’t need to convince a committee to publish. • The new media is inﬁnite. (time, space, schedule) • The new media can be syndicated, linked and easily reused. • The new media can be mashed up with data from other services. Robert Scoble, http://scobleizer.com/2007/02/16/what-is-social-media/

now let’s talk about ...

Tom Peters said (over 10 yrs ago): To be in “We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.” http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/10/brandyou.html From Issue 10 | August 1997

there are lots of books on the importance of branding yourself professionally ...

... but very few books (yet) on how to brand yourself professionally online Note: your online identity works for you 24/7

so here’s the deal: 1. what deﬁnes you? - write your bio, - select your avatar, - choose a username 2. go where people are 3. connect with people (who share your interests) 4. publish, publish, publish 5. display your activity streams

Axiom #1: your social proﬁles online and the stuff you publish will attract new connections and opportunities

memorize this set of words ocean moon face desk lights

count to ﬁve

now, name a laundry detergent

network of associations Gain moon Tide All ocean Fab wave Source: Drew Westen, Ph.D., “The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation” http://tinyurl.com/bawfff

work on your own network of associations people content You people content people content

this is how people find you online podcasts blogs blog posts social socnets video proﬁles You online avatars photos communities virtual tags lifestream worlds online comments presence

1. what defines you? reputation work experience passions education sports hobbies relationships geography thoughts associations groups desires community work other activities travel pets (now and in the future)

2. Go where people are Think of it this way. If you are a fisherman you would not fish for the trophy catch in stagnated water. You would need to go to where there is fresh water. That's where the fish are. http://infoworthsharing.com/blog2/2008/06/go_where_the_people_are.html

you mean, yet another social network?

think of social networks this way: The Social Media Starﬁsh Robert Scoble http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/dbarefoot/1814873464/

or think of them as a “Conversation Prism” Brian Solis http://www.briansolis.com/2008/08/introducing-conversation-prism.html

looks pretty random, huh? Graph: GustavoG http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/gustavog/4499404/in/set-113313/

Axiom #2: “People don’t just connect to each other. They connect through a shared object.” “Social Object” Jyri Engestrom http://www.zengestrom.com/

“The services that we love to play with allow people to socialize around objects” Flickr YouTube Del.icio.us “Think about objects as the reason why people get in touch with each other” Jyri Engestrom http://www.zengestrom.com/

the same social network as before, showing how people have connected by interests Graph: GustavoG http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/gustavog/4499404/in/set-113313

Axiom #3: People you don’t know well will you open more doors for you than your closest friends and family

Mark Granovetter on “weak ties” Weak social ties account for most of the structure of social ✤ networks in society as well as the transmission of information through these networks. More novel information ﬂows to individuals through ✤ weak rather than strong ties. Because our close friends tend to move in the same circles ✤ that we do, the information they receive overlaps considerably with what we already know.

David Armano

LinkedIn is a good place to start connecting your social networks to your other professional identity online, like blogs, slide presentations, etc. http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=application_directory

blogging: content, frequency, pipeline, links list 20 topics ✤ write the articles: ✤ keep them short ✤ link to other bloggers ✤ include visual media ✤ post the ﬁrst 5 to 10 at a frequency you determine ... ✤ then tell your contacts about your blog post the next 10 at the same frequency ✤ meanwhile, work on the next 20: ✤ always keep drafts in your pipeline!

a few words on writing for the web most importantly: listen ﬁrst ✤ you are part of a community ✤ say LESS people skim so keep it short ✤ ✤ front-load: inverted pyramid important content at the top ✤ ✤ clear headlines and headings make it easy for people ✤ ✤ be factual, not cryptic unless it’s ﬁction ✤ ✤ establish trust provide context ✤ ✤ use active voice passive voice is to be avoided ✤ ✤ pay attention to netiquette, be gracious ✤ ✤ culture, tone of voice

it’s not so hard to cut through the clutter

some corporations and media on WordPress

don’t forget to: • link to your own and to others’ content • make it easy for others to contact you

what about protecting my own content? what about using (embedding, quoting, reposting) other peoples’ material?

Creative Commons Share, Remix, Reuse — Legally Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from \"All Rights Reserved\" to \"Some Rights Reserved.\" We're a nonproﬁt organization. Everything we do — including the software we create — is free. http://creativecommons.org/

The news feed is another way to ✤ keep up with what your friends and contacts are doing - ofﬂine as well as online quick scan, no interaction = low ✤ transaction costs you may ﬁnd something ✤ interesting to do, based on what your friends are doing you get a better sense about your ✤ contacts’ interests and activities develop your “peripheral vision” ✤

your mini-feed provides a ✤ snapshot of who you are at any given point in time it also provides context ✤ show your personality ✤ manage your privacy ✤ Text Text real interaction and communication, or even just “phatic” communication

THE ONLINE OBJECTIVE Influence Authority p to e Reputation th to se Identity Ri Credibility Presence

Markets are conversations Hugh McLeod X is the membrane between your internal conversation, A, and what your customers are talking about, B http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/ 001607.html

Think of advertising in general http://thoughtnow.blogspot.com/2006/04/nyc-and-automobiles.html

Interruption marketing

How advertisers see us

Most of advertising is really not that different from ... http://thoughtnow.blogspot.com/2006/04/nyc-and-automobiles.html

... unsolicited commercial messages

advertisers might as well talk to the hand

because we’re besieged by ads! (and not even my cat likes spam)

do you see the membrane? http://thoughtnow.blogspot.com/2006/04/nyc-and-automobiles.html

break down that wall or membrane between your company and your customers

Jeep’s website

links to social networks on Jeep’s website

active community of Jeep aﬁcionados on Flickr http://www.ﬂickr.com/groups/ jeepexperience/

markets are conversations

Axiom #4: A brand is the collective consumer concept of a company. Logos are just brand identiﬁcation.

Skittles (a brand of candy made by the Mars company) http://skittles.com

Axiom #5 \"The biggest challenge is moving away from thinking about [social media] as marketing and PR. It's about product development, it's about IT. It's got to cut across all functions of the company.\" -Peter Kim Forrester Research http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i5dab627a6e5e9f670fe61aa2512a7514?pn=1

http://www.slideshare.net/absolutesubzero/community-management

1. Become or hire a community manager 1.a) Also, train your colleagues

Intel Intel will build credibility among the tough-to-impress IT crowd by putting its engineers out front, rather than a media-trained spokesperson. So far, 150 engineers have been selected to contribute as bloggers on Intel sites and on other tech sites. -ADWEEK, July 2008 http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i5dab627a6e5e9f670fe61aa2512a7514?pn=1

2. Listen

Questions: How do people feel about my brand? ✤ What is being discussed? ✤ Who’s talking? ✤ Are they inﬂuential? ✤ Is my marketing working? ✤ Are my products working? ✤ How do we engage in the conversation? ✤

Listen: track your mentions online brand monitoring / South Florida startup http://startpr.com

Listen: monitor your brand(s) http://startpr.com

What should I track? Key employees ✤ Company name and URL ✤ Competitors ✤ Product and service names ✤ Brands ✤ Keywords ✤

Listen, then manage and react to conversations http://startpr.com

You may be amazed at what you’ll ﬁnd out ...

3. Measure and count individual units, not just agreggate results

Harnessing the Power of Social Media for Marketing and Community Outreach

1 comments

Notes on slide 1

10 Favorites & 2 Groups