Tag Archives: social media

when sign up becomes turn off

I’m a fan of webinars

I like the diversity of content and the convenience of delivery. I like the comfort of participation and the cost, often free, is almost always within my budget.

What’s not to like? On and on and on and on *required form fields. As in this signup for an Aquent sponsored American Marketing Association social media webinar.

There’s nothing wrong with capturing data. It’s expected by participants. But requiring 17 fields – 17! – to successfully register is asking too much. When you present an offer and then throw up one roadblock after another, the goal of participation becomes the reality of disappointment.

There are better ways to milk data from attendees

Email, first and last are about all I care to share going in. Maybe phone, but that’s about it unless Krugerrands are being discussed. But if I like the content, feel free to ask away after the experience. If it was good for me, you’ll know soon enough how much I’m willing to disclose in the interests of furthering the relationship.

social fresh tampa: breaking it down

Whether you define social media as the 20th century spanned by two phones hooked together by copper wire or a bluetooth keyboard tapping out a tweet that ends up as smart phone text in the 21st, success with the medium begins with understanding the process.

Social Fresh Attendance by Category

Which is exactly where Social Fresh has landed on the map of the Continental United States. I was able to gain critical insight from some of the best in the business when Tampa played host to their multi-stop tour in February, promoted across the social media spectrum by founder Jason Keath (@jasonkeath) as the answer to marketers in various “underserved cities” wailing at the “How does all this stuff work?” wall of confusion.

The 1-2 day conference objectives are teaching marketeers – ad shops, pr firms, corporate communication staffers, philanthropic agencies – first the basics, then expanded specifics of invoking social media in its various forms. Facebook and twitter first, augmented by late breaking news in the app and cloudware departments later.

more than who had what for lunch

The chart above shows the typical conference breakdown of attendees by channel, and is indicitive of the broad interest among corporations, marketeers, government, non-profits and others in learning how social media communication strategies can be applied across markets. Social Fresh brings in a full slate of new media stars to shine in a venue that’s part camp meeting, part Mary Kay convention, where they’re free to serve up advice and instruction on the best ways for an audience of mostly pilgrams to navigate a landscape where there’s still no road map. It’s a job for experts, and Social Fresh delivers.

You can view more on the evolution of social media here.

prsa tampa holds first skype meeting

prsa first local professional organization to skype

The March, 2011 meeting of the Public Relations Society of America Tampa Bay chapter was the first local professional organization to feature live, over distance technology using Skype VoIP to bring in talent from afar and marked my debut as a producer and moderator of streaming social media content.

Skype allowed for a remarkably comfortable exchange of see you-see me conversation between the presenters beaming in from Baton Rouge, LA and Seattle, WA respectively. In addition the cloud presentation software Prezi was utilized for the first time as an alternative to the ubiquitous and to many banal Powerpoint bullet lists. Both techniques were employed after first being experienced at the Poynter Institute’s first Social Media Day in November, 2010.

The historic event featured two dynamic presenters from two different time zones: Monica Guzman (above, onscreen), Director of Editorial Outreach at Seattle’s intersect.com, and Louisianian Whitney Breaux, fellow PRSA and PRAL member, founder and exec director at Baton Rouge Social Media Club.

Whitney’s one of the first Baton Rouge practitioners I met as a new PRAL member, while my (virtual) introduction to Monica was at Poynter’s Social Media Day, which was also my first exposure to intersect’s remarkable social site. (Read more about the powerful features available at intersect in the PRSA December chapter newsletter here.)

Business Social Media uses Prezi cloud technology

With the explosion of social media niche channels circling the linchpin giants facebook, YouTube and twitter, tending the content garden is becoming a real exercise in time management and it’s become increasingly clear that the need to prioritize – triage might not be too strong a term – is becoming critical, as is the insight to quickly adapt to new channels as they become available.

Whitney (above, in monitor) spoke first about the evolving interest in her favorite project, the Baton Rouge Social Media Club, from startup to a fresh new design makeover just recently launched. Evidence of the buzz social media gets in Baton Rouge, state capital and home to Louisiana State University, is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that Tampa Bay – defined by St. Petersburg, Tampa and several professional sports teams – hasn’t yet caught up. She also talked about how her new position as director of social media at Wright-Fiegley Communications is already showing measureable results for the firm’s client roster, which includes several projects for the State of Louisiana.

Monica’s focus was on the remarkable flexibility offered by intersect that enables users to tag content in a linear fashion using both time and place locators. For example, looking for the intersection of Washington, DC and January 2009 returns a set of events remarkably different from the community view on the same day in Tampa, Baton Rouge or Seattle. For pr practitioners, there’s a very clear advantage to deploy intersect in the social media toolbox. I call it Google.

For business social, a term that seems to successfully encapsulate the real differences that exist between casual and professional internet chit chat, how that challenge is met could mean the difference between a well built out communications strategy and one that shortly after facebook falls off the radar.

hallett defines personal brand strategy

building your personal brand

Josh Hallett’s a social media pioneer who currently directs new media for content creation powerhouse Voce Communications. Their clients include Sony, Playstation, Yahoo, Disney and eBay. He spoke recently as part of PRSA Tampa Bay’s 2010 Professional Development Day on what’s needed in order for a personal brand to achieve online awareness across various media. (Read our series of articles on the same topic here.)

While his work mainly centers on large multi-nationals, Hallett’s comments were directed at the growing number of professionals who need to develop a coordinated online identity that for many is currently just an ad hoc combination of social networking mixed with the occasional hosted blog and a neglected twitter account. Continue reading →

powersports failing to engage huge segment of potential market

seo strategy a must as sophisticated algorithms become more selective

siebenthaler creative consistently earns page one rank

social media strategies matter