Tag Archives: smbtv

Yes, I’m still here…

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It’s been quiet around the blog lately. I’ve been traveling a lot for work (and some for fun) and blogging has taken a back seat. Plus, it seems like I haven’t felt like I’ve had too much to say. I’m resolving to get back on track, though.

Here’s some of what I’ve been up to over the last six weeks:

I guest lectured on social media to a graduate-level PR class at The College of Saint Rose and talked with them about how social media has influenced and changed PR over the last several years. The class is working on a social media strategy for a local non-profit and I gave them some ideas for ways to encourage volunteering and fundraising via content marketing. My slides from the class are below (and they’re pretty bland – I usually try to jazz up presentations more!)

Social Media and Public Relations
View more presentations from Amy Mengel.

I was a member of a panel of speakers on social media at the 2010 Hugh O’Brien Youth Leadership Conference at the NYS Museum. I had never heard of this group before, but it’s fantastic! This national organization has chapters all over the US and brings together 10th graders from different schools for a weekend devoted to leadership and community service. The kids were excited, energetic and inquisitive. For my part of the panel, I talked to them about how social networking is an important component of online reputation management. When they’re applying for jobs or scholarships, people are going to Google them. They need to make sure that their social activity (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, other online postings) reflects the type of person they want to show to the world. I also taught them how to Call the Dawgs.

I read Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. I received a copy of the book at last October’s Inbound Marketing Summit, when it was pretty new, but never got around to reading it. I thought it would be interesting to wait to read it until almost a year after it was published and see how well it held up. I’m generally not one to like social media books (or even business books in general). I’ll probably save my observations on the book for another post in the coming weeks.

I flew three round-trips to BWI for conferences about PR in higher education and communications in government. I talked with lots of readMedia clients (and hopefully future clients) about effective ways of reaching hyperlocal media, how to manage enterprise-level PR and communications within complex organizations, and how to ensure social media is baked into PR best practices so that it becomes a natural extension of communications activities. I go back to BWI in two weeks to present a workshop on social media for government communicators. I’m going to be the mayor of that airport in no time.

I finally pulled together a group of smart, hard-working people to help me keep Social Media Breakfast Tech Valley moving forward. The event has grown so much in the last year and was more than I could handle on my own – so I’m now happy to have a team behind me making it happen. We took a break from our typical early morning programming in June and instead hosted a social media happy hour at a local biergarten. Networking was greatly enhanced. We’re looking forward to bringing back regularly scheduled programming in August.

So, this post is a total cop-out, but I plan to be back to blogging (semi) regularly soon. Stay tuned…

Beyond the Facebook Status Update: SMBTV #5

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If you’re a brand trying to market to customers on Facebook, how do you cut through all the noise and reach your audience? What can you do to engage people through the medium, beyond just having them fan your page? Atlanta-based social media strategist Brad Ruffkess tackled these questions this morning at the fifth Social Media Breakfast Tech Valley.

Brad shared some interesting data points about Facebook:

  • Brad Ruffkess SMBTV The average user fans two pages a month on Facebook
  • Facebook approximates 30 billion page views per month
  • Gaming in social media is huge. Farmville has more users than Twitter
  • Facebook’s self-service ads drive $200 million in revenue

He shared some interesting ways brands are using Facebook: Adidas’ Star Wars campaign that integrates Google Maps and a Facebook user’s location to “blow up” their city with a blast from the Death Star. Canada’s CTV broadcast network integrated the Olympic Torch Relay live video stream with Facebook Connect to allow viewers to post status updates about watching the relay live.

Brad left plenty of time for Q&A that covered everything from the benefits and differences of profiles vs. groups vs. pages to the intricacies of FBML and ways to measure effectiveness of Facebook engagement.

Some of the key takeaways:

  • The value in Facebook is not necessarily the “share” but the “re-share” – what can you do to get your network to post content on your behalf? People like and trust information they see from their friends more than they do from brands.
  • Don’t forget to take your Facebook engagement off of Facebook. It’s very easy to use widgets and simple lines of code to add Facebook functionality to your Web site. Add a fan page box, allow users to comment on content on your site (video, e.g.) via Facebook status updates, use Facebook Connect for people to comment.
  • Quantity does not always (or sometimes ever) trump quality. A small number of passionate fans is more valuable than mountains of people who don’t really care.
  • Paid media is critical to success on Facebook and one way to cut through the noise. Advertising on Facebook is extremely targeted and affordable. At the very least, you can use the self-service ad tool to look at data surrounding the particular group you want to target.
  • There are rules of the road to Facebook and if you violate them, your page and community can be removed. Know the restrictions around things like contests and protocol for contacting fans and asking for their personal info. If you abuse the rules, Facebook can and will remove you – and then you’ve lost all the time and effort you’ve spent building up your page and following.

You can watch the video of the entire presentation via UStream, courtesy of MZA Multimedia. You can also view the Twitter transcript of the event.

What’s the most creative marketing use of Facebook that you’ve seen?

My new gig: inbound marketing at readMedia

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Forget the catchy lede. I’ve had this cat in the bag for a while now and it’s time to let it out: I have a new job!

Starting today(!), I’ll be heading up inbound marketing efforts for Albany-based readMedia. After seven years in corporate communications, I’m trading the manufacturing plant for a hip downtown office, the Blackberry for an iPhone, and the red tape of big company bureaucracy for an intimate start-up culture.

I’ve been working with readMedia as one of my consulting clients for the last several months and so when they offered me a full-time position, I already knew it would be a great fit. My new coworkers are fun, smart, and generally have good taste in beer (want to follow ‘em? Check out this Twitter list of readMedia employees I created).

So, what am I going to be doing? A lot of really cool stuff. I’ll be running the company’s paid and earned media campaigns, representing readMedia at trade shows and conferences, managing their social media presence and using inbound marketing to generate sales for the company. Right up my alley.

readMedia

A little background on my new company: readMedia is a software and media company whose platform allows organizations like governments, nonprofits, and schools to publish social media-enabled news releases online and distribute them directly to geographically-targeted media outlets. readMedia’s clients produced over a quarter of a million pieces of specialized, hyperlocal news content last year — like this story about a state worker selling drugs in the basement of the State Capitol. (Seriously. Only in New York. And maybe Illinois.)

The media landscape continues to change as newspapers shed the staff and resources that were traditionally devoted to covering local news — town board meetings, fundraisers and local events, students away at college being named to an honor society or making the dean’s list. But these types of stories are still important to local communities and form the original content that drives old, new and niche media stories within a community. readMedia gives its clients the tools to serve as their own beat reporters and publish high-quality, hyperlocal content online and to traditional media outlets.

I can’t even describe how excited I am to get settled in at readMedia and become a part of their team. I’ll still be organizing Social Media Breakfast Tech Valley (though likely with some more help) and blogging right here, but I’m stepping away from consulting to fully devote my time and brain waves to readMedia.

So many of you supported me throughout this past year by acting as mentors, sounding boards, collaborators, and friends. I’ll dispense with the Academy Awards-style mushiness, but I really do appreciate all of the great advice and input I’ve received as I transitioned from corporate communications to consulting and now to this new role. So simply, thank you.

Game on!

Why I blog

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I’ve flogged this deceased equine before, but no foray into social media– be it blogging or anything else– should be without strategy. That emerged as a major theme from last Friday’s Social Media Breakfast Tech Valley #4, which featured a panel discussion on blogging.

The panelists discussed how companies should decide what they hope to get out of a blog before they start one. That’s solid advice for companies, but it also spurred a discussion about personal blogs: Not every mommy blogger needs or wants to grow up to be Dooce. Not every technology blogger needs or wants to grow up to be Engadget.

It got me thinking about a very simple question: Why do I blog? What am I hoping to get out of this?

I started blogging nearly a year ago practically by accident. My first post explains how I had been becoming more active on Twitter and finding I had more to say than 140 characters allowed. I had been a long time reader of PR blogs but never felt as though I had anything to contribute. The last year has been quite a journey for me and after reflecting for a bit on “what does this all mean?” (blogging, not life), here’s what I came up with:

I don’t necessarily have a “strategy” for this blog. I don’t blog for page views or ad revenue. It’s one piece of a diverse online presence for me where I share conversations (both personal and professional) with colleagues, clients and friends. For me, it’s a success.

Why do YOU blog?

Recap: Social Media Breakfast Tech Valley #4

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In just over four months, Social Media Breakfast Tech Valley has grown to be among the largest in the country. Last Friday about 150 people turned out to hear Aaron Newman of Techrigy talk about social media monitoring and measurement at SMBTV #3.

It was a much broader crowd this time, with a lot of fresh faces and several people who were relatively “new” to social media. While I’ve worked hard as the SMB organizer to keep the event from being at too much of a 101-level (because there are plenty of those events), there were a lot of general social media questions that Aaron did a good job answering.

Aaron asked that the presentation be interactive and he wasn’t disappointed. There were so many questions that at one point I had to ask people to hold them until the end just to make sure we could get through Aaron’s slides in time! A lot of attendees had great social media stories to share and it was good to see everyone networking and enjoying each other’s company.

Here are some of the key ideas I took away from Aaron’s presentation:

  • Monitoring, measurement, and analysis are often used interchangeably when talking about social media but they’re really three very distinct phases.
  • There are lots of things you can measure in social media, but what you should measure depends on your strategy. Start with strategy. Always.
  • Computers don’t understand sarcasm, so measuring sentiment is still a challenge. Not all monitoring can be automated.

Lots of great content was generated about/around the breakfast itself, too:

I’m quite amazed at how quickly Social Media Breakfast has grown in this area and what a great networking and community event it’s become.

The next event is in December and will feature a panel of fantastic blogging minds: Greg Dahlmann, Lara Kulpa, Christina Gleason and Amanda Magee. The College of Saint Rose Communications Department will be sponsoring.The American Red Cross has offered to host us and I’m working with them to try and combine Social Media Breakfast with a blood drive.  More details to come!

Image via Flickr user amymengel (wait, that’s me!)