tips

Creating Expert Communities with Tweetchats

In June #MMchat aka #MarketerMonday chat will be held for the 100th time!

Established July 26th, 2010 #MMchat has become a weekly tradition for an ever expanding number of CMOs, marketers and others working in and around the digital social networking space. And all of us at @TheSocialCMO were recently very pleased when #MMchat was named one of the 15 Essential Social Marketing Twitter Chats by Mashable.

One of the most elusive goals of transient social networks remains the creation of sustainable ongoing communities of interest. Tweetchats are an excellent way to not only establish such an expert community, but to also keep it engaged and growing on an ongoing basis.

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What I Learned About Social Media from a DJ Battle

McDonald’s hosted the finals of the Flavor Battle, a national DJ comepttion with a $10,000 prize on the line. Admittedly, I’m a fan of DJ music. I find the craft and creativity of top mixers to be great for listening and jaw dropping to watch.  (So yes…I’m a bit of a fan boy)

Tweeting from the event was not only fun, but it helped drive home some lessons and planning:

Have a simple plan: Our challenge was pretty straight forward–to take an event at a small club in NYC and make it more social. That included setting up a USTREAM feed from the event and hosting a Twitter chat with three folks well known in the DJ community.

Take a “from the couch” point of view: The DJ battle was at a relatively small venue during a huge snowstorm. Even before the weather report looked bad, we knew that our online audience would be much larger than those who were able to attend in person. As such, a major portion of our plan was to drive that experience for folks watching on the Web. We also had tech teams on the ready to address any issues with the video feed. My role was stoking the Twitter conversation.

Don’t go it alone: The battle was judged by three fun, dynamic and well known folks. Spinderella @Spindeezy (formerly of Salt n Pepa) DJ Irie @DJIrie, and Rich Nice @RichxNice (amazing producer who has worked with all the big names and got 50 Cent his first record deal). Part of our “ask” of each judge was to join the Twitter conversation around the battle. This started with a Twitter chat for fans prior to the event, which had the dual aim of generating online buzz to drive more folks to watch the battle and then lasted throughout the evening to drive further conversation.

Don’t be afrarid to be careful: At times, the DJ and Hip Hop communities can use colorful language that doesn’t always fit with McDonald’s G-rated brand image. To help mitigate the risk of blue language in our Twitter stream, I conducted a 10 minute pre-game session with the celebrities where I asked them simply to “be yourself, but let’s keep this PG…or PG-13 at least. There might be some kids and moms out there.”

Don’t forget to say thank you: To your Twitter followers and conversation drivers.

Admittedly, none of these lessons may be particularly eye-opening, but given that social media tends to be a “connect through the screen only” experience, it is always refreshing to step away from the office and gain a different perspective.

Rick Wion

Five Tips to Keep Your Head Above Water with Social Media

There are so many different avenues when it comes to social media, and for someone just getting her feet wet, it can really seem daunting.  That’s when you call on an expert, like Laura Click of Blue Kite Marketing, who can bring it all down to size.  If you haven’t dipped your toes in the social media waters, this guest post will give you the courage and steps you need.  Thanks, Laura!

Facebook. Twitter, YouTube. LinkedIn. Oh my! It’s certainly enough to make your head spin. Although social media offers considerable value to small businesses, it can be challenging to make sense of it all – especially while juggling everything it takes to run a successful business.

It can be very easy to get overwhelmed with social media even before you dive in. And, once you do, it can quickly consume your time and prevent you from doing the other necessary tasks to build your build your business.

So, how do you make sense of it all and keep your head above water? Although there’s not one simple answer, there are steps you can take to make sure social media doesn’t get the best of you.

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Need New Product Success? Get Hipsters and a Revolving Door

OK, so you’ve got this product that you need to market, so that it’s ‘cool’, so that it takes off like all those other hip items that you just had to have, the iPad, iPod, tablet, etc..  I mean look at the iPod, it’s just a music player, yet for a time everybody had to have one, it became de rigueur to the max. And then you look at that Steve Jobs fellow and you think, yeah he’s got it. Went up against the might of Microsoft with a closed operating system, with a box that continues to be twice as expensive as anything else and yet he’s making a killing.

So you’re looking at your marketing guys and you’re thinking, maybe I should dress them up in some naff looking skivvy or polo neck jumper (in black, of course) like Jobs. But you know that won’t work. So, you realize you need to hire someone a little different, someone with an edge, someone like…an authentic hipster  – to infuse a counter culture in your marketing department.

Here’s the first lesson of being hip, or a hipster if you must: it means going against the current trend, it means being self-consciously anti- whatever it is that’s happening.

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9 Ways to Breathe Life Into Your Blog

grow

I’m not much of a numbers hound.

I don’t pore over my stats with a fine tooth comb, I don’t obsess about unfollows or subscriber numbers or any of that stuff. In fact, I don’t even have that nifty little widget here to tell you how many people subscribe – even though I understand the benefits of social proof – simply because it’s never been that important to me.

So it’s a bit contradictory for me to say that I’m proud to have recently crested 10,000 subscribers for this blog in the two years I’ve been musing here. It’s been an amazing adventure, and one I intend to evolve, shape, and carry forward for a while to come. I thank each and every one of you for making this place the rewarding adventure it’s been.

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