Archive for May, 2009
Social Fresh Launching in Charlotte
Social Fresh is a Social Media event series I am very proud to be launching in Charlotte, NC on August 24th this year, just a couple months away. The first event is a one day conference in Uptown Charlotte and is packed with great content.
I have seen the demand for social media education skyrocket these last couple months and really want to add an event that brings exciting and quality content to the social media marketing discussion.
Social Fresh is about 2 things, bringing tangible business examples of social media marketing success and discussing the future of the technology that drives social media.
If you are in the Southeast and want to learn from some amazing Social Media Thought leaders, you should definitely try to make it.
Who Will Be There?
We already have some amazing speakers, sponsors, and attendees signed up from companies like IBM, Facebook, Myspace, Rubbermaid, Best Buy, the Humane Society, Crocs, and more. Tickets have been on sale for just over a week and we have already sold 20% of what is available. With a couple months to go, I am very happy to see such great response.
Here are a few of the speakers. Get more info on them and their expertise on the website.
How Much Is It?
Prices are $195 for May, $235 in June and will go up again in July and August. If you are interested in attending, just watch the Social Fresh main site for updates about discounts that we are partnering with different people on. Keep in mind though, the ticket cost will rise each month. For the next couple of days a $45 discount is still available on our Early Bird registration.
More on Social Fresh
The Charlotte event is the first Social Fresh event, but we have already received interest in bringing it to a few other cities and are looking into some other spin off possibilities. No big announcements yet, but if you are interested in partnering with Social Fresh or want to bring an event like this to your city, shoot me an email (jason at jasonkeath dot com) or @jakrose me on Twitter.
Metricphilia
Another new media-word based on my personal experience.
Metricphilia n. – Obsession with and love of metrics, ROI, and online stats in general.
I played with a few root words here and ultimately had to decide between the suffixes of philia (love of, obsession), holism (addiction to), and mania (unreasonable enthusiasm). All could work, but I feel philia really spoke to the intimate nature some of the relationship many have with their metrics.
This can be commonly characterized by constantly checking your blog traffic, twitter followers/rank, and even PageRank or Alexa score. It can be quite constructive information, but we often follow the numbers a little too closely, wondering how many people searching our key words actually visited our blog landing page in the last 30 seconds.
Ever refreshed a stats pages after viewing the results only a few minutes before? You are likely afflicted and giving a little too much love to your metrics.
Got any examples of your own?
Graphic Design, Social Media Skills
Adam Martin (@amartindesign) is an independent graphic designer and social media strategist in Lexington, KY. He holds a BFA in Graphic Design and founded Social Media Club Lexington. Adam is also a frequent participant in Design Community Twitter Hours (@DCTH) on Thursdays from 6pm to 8:30pm EST.
Social Media and the Designer’s Perspective
What can social media marketers learn from designers? Isn’t social media business primarily for marketing or PR people? Not necessarily. Social media is an indispensable tool for anyone looking to communicate and engage with others, especially designers.
The designer’s ultimate goal is not just to make things look pretty, but to be communicators – to communicate ideas, brands, products, and information creatively, clearly and visually to targeted consumers. So, as a social media strategist, why pay attention to what designers are doing?
1. Designers Connect Emotionally With Their Audience
Effective designers seek to understand the needs and desires of their customers, then meet those needs through conceptual design. Designers don’t just make things look cool in Photoshop; they establish an emotional connection with the audience.
Apple is a great example of a company that utilizes a design-driven approach to connect emotionally with their consumers. Design does matter.
A great book titled Do You Matter: How Great Design Will Make People Love Your Company, co-written by Robert Brunner, Apple’s former Director of Industrial Design, explains these emotional connections more thoroughly.
Take these design goals of brand building beyond just visuals. Part of that brand building is the emotional connection you can make through social media.
A great example is using the search function of Twitter for customer service. Whole Foods does a tremendous job of this on Twitter. They utilize Twitter’s search functionality and interact with their consumers or potential customers. Using social media, you can ask your customers questions and respond to them, engage them, or simply listen to them.
2. Designers Realize They Are Not the Only Driving Factor Behind Business
A business with a bad business plan cannot be saved by great design alone. Savvy designers know and understand this. Plenty of companies have invested in great design, but ultimately failed because of the way they ran their business.
The same goes for social media. It is not the only answer, but when pieced together with great design, advertising, SEO, and PR – social media can produce big results in terms of building businesses, brands and niche communities.
What good is a website with great PR if the user cannot navigate it easily? All the pieces must work together. Do not rely on one to replace quality in the others.
Harley-Davidson is an example of a company that uses many of these techniques (HD on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube) and is very involved with their community. Randy Sprenger, Manager of Electronic Advertising and Direct Promotions at Harley-Davidson recently sat down with BrandWeek to discuss some of their marketing and social media strategies.
3. Designers Stay Trendy
In this information age, trends and techniques can advance quickly. Part of a designer’s responsibility is to keep up with it all, to know what is going on in pop culture, the design industry and the technology world.
Most designers are constantly reading, researching, learning and evolving so they can stay ahead of the curve and not fall behind. The design archives of AIGA, the professional association for design, is a good place to spot design and advertising trends of the past or present.
Social media marketers must be constantly learning as well. With the growing number blogs, social networks, and expanding social tools, we need to always explore new ways to use social media effectively.
The bottom line is, design and social media are complementary ways of communicating with consumers, so designers and social media marketers would be foolish not to harness the power of both.
Special thanks to Jason Keath for allowing me to post my thoughts here.
SERIES Social Media Skills — Advertising, SEO, PR, Graphic Design, Copywriting, and more…
I Love the Whole World
You really can’t beat inspirational, especially when accompanied by catchy music. Loved this spot by the Discovery channel since the first second I saw it. Great stuff.
MeTweet
I have definitely done this, no ill will intended here. Just a little fun with words.
MeTweet n. or v. – To republish a tweet by someone else, about you.
It can be a good self promotion tool a slight step down from seeming completely self absorbed. Plus it can serve as a sort of thank you.
Examples
- ChrisBrogan: “Read @chrisbrogan or get smacked down like Hogan”?? @mclinklove has gone over the edge – ck it out http://bit.ly/DYXKl (via @ShellyKramer) View Post
- WayneSutton: “RT @ldbaldwin Guess who is speaking at Wordcamp RDU? @gatewood5000,@jakrose,@waynesutton & many more http://wordcamprdu.com/2009” View Post
- JasonFalls: “RT @edeckers: Attention #Indianapolis social media ppl: You can see @JasonFalls speak next Wednesday for $20. http://bit.ly/Fdza0” View Post
Is MeTweet the best word for this phenomenon? No clue. If you have a better suggestion, by all means, chime in.
Tip: To check someone else’s MeTweets, use this twitter search “@username from:username”. This only works if the person does not talk about themselves alot. It won’t work, for instance, on Gary Vaynerchuk, who ends a lot of tweets with “@GaryVee me“.
