Social Media Birmingham

I think one of the major turning points in my social media studies has to be attending Social Fresh Nashville this year. Getting to meet so many great people there who are taking Social Media to the next level was amazing.

One of the sessions I remember most was @JasonFalls talking about Social Media and the Bottom line. Mainly because the #sofresh hashtag blew up trying to find out about the “tree-hugging hippies” in our lecture.

But basically, Jason called out all the Social Media “flower children” and “tree-hugging hippies”. You know, the ones of us who are “you can’t put ads in your RSS or on your site to make money. People hate ads”. As much as I hate to admit it, I was one of these people for quite some time.

But what Jason said struck a cord with me. It’s not People who don’t like ads. It’s us, the social media community. We are tired of being bombarded with banners and flashy flash ads. Normal People, those who live outside the bubble, really don’t mind those ads and may actually find the side banner ad for a bagpiper in Atlanta actually useful and helpful, adding value to their experience on your site.

But how does this relate to experts? Well, mainly because we’re confusing our clients by NOT calling ourselves experts. I can think of no less than 5 so-called “social media experts/gurus/whatever” who are having success in the market with half the knowledge and experience they need. Why? Because their clients know what to expect from them.

An Expert is someone widely recognized as a reliable source of technique or skill whose faculty for judging or deciding rightly, justly, or wisely is accorded authority and status by their peers or the public in a specific well-distinguished domain. –Wikipedia

No where in that description of “expert” does it mention that the expert has to know how to use all the tools effectively. All they really need to know is the main concepts of the techniques and skills they provide to execute the task effectively. Tools are the easy part. Anyone can tweet, create a Facebook fanpage, or blog. It takes an expert to move the needle and get an ROI on Social Media.

This past week, I felt just how powerful social media here in Birmingham can be.

A couple of weeks back, I went to Social Fresh Nashville. It was great to rub elbows with Community Managers and CEOs who are living proof that social media can stay social and benefit a business (ROI anyone?).

In the ROI of Community Building panel, I remember DJ from Blue Sky Factory and Amber from Radian 6 talking about how your community will protect you. Essentially what they were saying is that if something blows up while you’re not around for some reason (sleep, dinner, vacation, sleep, driving, etc), you’re community will step up to the plate for you until you can take care of a situation. Assuming, of course, you’re cultivating a good community, of which Amber and DJ do a great job.

Fast forward to Thursday of last week. I had this very same conversation with Mellanie from Taziki’s (@tazikis_bham) during a meeting. It was more of a tidbit at the end of a conversation, but a serious point nonetheless.

Not less than an hour later (distance from Taziki’s in Hoover to Wal-mart in Roebuck, minus a pitstop to Burlington Coat Factory), I had a chance to run lead blocker for Mellanie.

I was checking my Twitter feed before going to pick up some zucchini (love the stuff) when I noticed that @heydusti had had a bad experience at one of the local Taziki’s. I also noticed that she had used the wrong @reply to get to Mellanie directly. So, I sent a simple tweet saying to @heydusti that I think that Mellanie may want to chat.

Within 5 minutes the entire situation was taken care of. Mellanie caught up with @heydusti and hear what happened. I hear Mellanie even did some followup within the location to get to the root of the problem, which was a simple fix. No one got in trouble and a little education was all that was necessary.

My point is that if you are good to your customers and your customers see that, they can be your most powerful marketing/pr tool of all (adverts, TV spots be damned). How do I know this? Because I have heard from at least from at least 2 people in person they were watching and liked how @tazikis_bham handled the situation (and how fast). Now, I know for a fact that there are a lot more people watching/lurking on twitter than just those two. How many people will now head over to their local Taziki’s for take out dinner than before? This may not be measurable directly, but it added a heck of a lot of brand value to those who where watching, and those who they choose to tell.

I just want to take a moment late on this friday night to say I’m part of #teamcoco and supporting Conan O’Brian in the NBC debacle. Part of his final monologue addressed something I try to run Social Media Birmingham by and all of my social media consulting.

Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen. As proof, let’s make an amazing thing happen right now.

–via Variety

Class act, Conan. Can’t wait to see what you do next. After your 7 month forced vacation, that is. My vote is Revision3…

So, for about the last two weeks, I’ve been playing with FourSquare, a location-based game on most app-based phones. Since it opened to all cities around the world back on January 8th, I’ve seen it’s usage amongst my friends triple.

The idea behind foursquare is that you compete for points with your friends by “checking in” at different locations you travel throughout the day. The points reset every sunday morning, but the power of foursquare is huge.

I recently attended #sofresh in Nashville (blog post coming) and automatically checked myself in to the hotel via foursquare. In that second, it dawned on me just how powerful FourSquare was. I looked at recent checkins and knew who else attending the conference was there, nearly automatically. I saw four others, three of which where chatting in the lobby. I was able to recognize them immediately.

Now, I’ve also had the question from a couple of local users: “But my followers don’t want to know where I am”. Have you asked? As an early adopter, I’m just going with the flow. But I’ve already had a few chance encounters meeting other “plugged-in” people. We talked in passing, or sat and had a coffee. You never know until you ask. If they have said that they don’t like your foursquare tweets, ask them nicely to continue to follow you, then let them make the choice. Again, I’m an early adopter. I go for the gold. Opinions may vary.

Probably my favorite part has got to be the badges. If you check in a certain amount of times, at certain times, in certain places, you can get badges. There’s nothing that they do, other than let others know just how nerdy you are. I have five currently, and am looking for ways to get more.

Overall, I love the idea of FourSquare and think it’s got a good backbone. But it’s still very new to most of the world and will take getting used to. I’m just glad I’ve got a head start. That way I can be Mayor for much longer.

Part one of Geekend Jan 2010 was attending WordCamp Atlanta. Let me first start off by saying thank you to @tessa, @sheatsb and @cdharrison for putting on an amazing conference. Incredible turn out and incredible support for the local community.

Now, #wcatl had three main tracks: Design, Development, and Content. I attended at least one session in each track and had several very interesting discussion about each. And the message from each track seemed just about the same from all the people I talked to.

Design = Confidence

Wordpress is a very stable platform. There are a lot of people who attended the conference who are monitoring their use of Wordpress via consulting/freelancing/etc. The main message I received from sessions and people about this track was have the confidence to ask what you are worth. You have invested the time and effort to develop a very unique skill. Now it’s time to get an ROI.

Development = Community

Whether it was from the keynote by @janeforshort talking about 3.0 or by the volume of people who attend, one thing was clear. Community is what sets Wordpress apart from other platforms. And it’s that community that will drive the future success of the Wordpress platform. A huge reemphasis of that community is a commitment of @automatic and the other leaders of the #wordpress community.

Content = Consistency

Simple concept, yet very hard for many to execute. Whether you’re just getting started or building brand loyalty, you have to be consistent in the content that you’re generating otherwise you’re not contributing to the community. And communities don’t like dead weight.

There will be more news/notes/stories from #wcatl in the coming days/weeks. Stay tuned.

So, for those playing the home game, I’ve spent the weekend traveling the southeast to a couple of conferences. Friday and Saturday, I hailed from #Atlanta for #wcatl. Yesterday and today, I’ve been in #Nashville for #sofresh.

I know @treypennington has already hit me up for a blog post about #wcatl and I know that #sofresh is going to be HUGE so be patient, posts for both are coming.

In the meantime, head over to WordCampATL and Social Fresh and check them out. Hopefully, that will keep ya’ll busy enough for me to absorb/regurgitate some of the great information I got this weekend.

Last night I received and invite to a Linkedin group attempting to organize scattered Google Wave users.

Now, I remember when Google Wave invites were all the rage and trust me, I got mine. But I never found it very useful, mainly because I haven’t used it. It’s an extra window. And while I open extra tabs like bunnies reproduce, it’s just not convenient.

Had Wave had some sort of integration with my CURRENT gmail account (besides namesake) I think it might have taken over the world by now. I mean, Wave is a great concept. But it’s kinda like Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, Awesome logic – next to zero practicality.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I still plan to use it. I think it will be great to be able to quote people from interviews. And I would love to see more wide-spread use, I just don’t see it integrating into my daily workflow anytime soon…

As I’m changing the goals of the blog, one thing I want to do more of is review new social media mediums.

One of the mediums that has peeked my interest is Blippy. I first heard about Blippy from one of my co-workers and started following them on Twitter. It seemed like over the Christmas holidays they where giving out invited like presents, 20 or so at a time (guessing there) via an invite code they put out over their twitter account.

Looking around Blippy after an easy signup, it instantly made sense to me. I am not responsible for posting items. Items post themselves from my various consumer accounts (iTunes, Netflix, Audible, Amazon, etc). This takea the pressure off wanting to generate content. So, when I’m catching up on Doctor Who via NetFlix, I’m generating content for Blippy.

Now, when I get the time, and I find myself finding time, I get to catch up on what others are buying and that helps me discover new things in iTunes, Amazon, Netflix, etc, etc, etc…

Only con I’ve found so far is that there’s no way to sort by consumer accounts. Especially since I’m a new Audible member (@leolaporte finally broke me).

The folks at Blippy are doing a great job and I look forward to seeing what’s in store for this new medium.

What are your thought? Still looking for an invite? Comment below, I might have a few left…

Well it’s about that time of year again. Everyone is looking at the new year as a fresh start to set goals. I’m not one for jumping on the bandwagon, but this year I’ll give it a goal. Besides, one thing I’ve been lacking here are measurable goals… [/duh]. Hopefully, these resolutions will give you some ideas for your goals in 2010

1) Consistency – I’m not committing to clockwork. However, blogging more as well as making my web presence felt more through consistency (and timeliness) are things that I’m am committing myself to this year

2) Follow Through – This one’s a biggie for me. In the past, I’ve been notorious for starting strong, but then ducking my head into the sand and letting things fall my the wayside. This year I’ll be setting measurable goals to hold myself accountable.

3) Be extraordinary – I know, I know, this is from my last blog. But I can’t tell you how much this is true! This year I’m putting fears aside and I’m going after it. I’m questioning the everyday logic. I’m asking what I’m worth. I’m committing to being extraordinary in everything that I do.

@Amberweinberg tweeted out today asking for her followers to make suggestions for a list of 101 things to do in 2010 if you’re a freelance developers.

Starting out on my developing career as continuing in the jungle of Social Media something has become very apparent to me in the last few weeks. And it’s best summed up by the Doctor.

I’ve been watching Doctor Who (the remake) on Netflix for the past few weeks. Great show. David Tennent and Christopher Eccleston do an amazing job portraying the Time Lord known only as “The Doctor” who has a keen fascination with the human race. It seems that every episode he’s giddy with excitement because of another accomplishment of the human race.

And every episode, he seems to tell someone to something that rings very true for myself and hopefully should ring true for you as well.

Be extraordinary.

It seems so simple. And yet most of the time it’s one of the hardest things that we’ll choose to do. So I hope that in this new year and new decade that you’ll choose to “Be Extraordinary” in whatever you do.