Social Media Club Hawaii Celebrates Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke

About a year ago I founded the Hawaii Chapter of the Social Media Club. It is part of a international nonprofit organization of social media practitioners and exists to develop and share best practices and ethics on the social web. One of the first goals we had was to get the word out in the community about our organization. My fellow volunteer and Program Chair Tess Staadecker came up with the idea to hold a contest and offer six months’ support to local nonprofit. We would walk them through the stages of setting up the social web assets. Read more

Using Social Media to Differentiate

I was invited to speak last week at the Sales and Marketing Executives meeting here in Honolulu, which featured Governor Linda Lingle as the keynote speaker. The topic was “Using Social Media to Differentiate.” I have posted my presentation file at Slideshare and also uploaded the five video episode snips I created to represent a few of the many case studies in the talk.

You can view the slide show here.
You can download a PDF of the slides here.

David Jones v Microchip

Watch the original video from David Jones.
Watch the original video from Microchip.

Blendtec Listens to & Surprises Customers

Watch the original video.

Johnson & Johnson Shares Even the Bad News

Watch the original video.

Gary Vaynerchuk Says Stop Waiting

Watch the original video.

The US Navy’s Social Media Policy

Watch the original video.

Video Case Studies: Links to downloadable files
David Jones v Microchip
Blendtec Listens to and Surprises Customers
Johnson & Johnson Shares Even the Bad News
Gary Vaynerchuk Says Stop Waiting
US Navy’s Social Media Policy

Executive Overview of Social Media for the C’s

I had an opportunity to speak with the “c”s at a leading Hawaii company today. That’s shorthand for the CEO, the CFO, the CTO, the CLO, etc. As is standard practice, I do not disclose our consulting clients unless the client wishes to do so. They shall remain anonymous for now.

I love doing this type of session – one and half hours of touring the social web and discussing the implications for marketing, customer service, new lines of business, technology, and of course the ever-present legal and HR concerns. Plus I enjoy working with smart people whose questions help me dig into my own background and experience.

I am the personality type that actually gets smarter and energized by interacting with others, so you can see why I am drawn to this type of work. In today’s case, the team member who has been implementing the social web assets was also present, adding very relevant information that I did not have regarding the company’s current status. The only thing I forgot was to take my easy button!

I like to share my presentations; today I created a small Quicktime movie that can be viewed on iPhones and video-enabled devices. I didn’t want to clog the client’s network with a large attachment so I chose to create this post and make the file available for download here, in case any of you readers find it useful. It includes a copy of Eric Qualman’s awesome YouTube video, the Social Media Revolution, which we used to open the meeting.

Download my presentation, Social Media: Hidden Pearls or Time Waster? as a Quicktime movie. (28 MB; slides without audio plus the embedded movie)

FYI the feedback was awesome. If your company or a company you know if would like to have the business message of social media delivered to your executives, please contact me. I have an ability to converse with strategic thinkers who may not be technical but who desire to be innovators in their organizations and industries.

Aloha,

Confused? Consider Rox’s 180 Rule

When I am doing social web training these days, at least once or twice an hour I implement what I call “Rox’s 180 Rule.” It is very simple, though not always comfortable to implement. As people and companies are learning how to participate on social networks, deciding what sorts of content to create, or even how to set pricing for web-based services, they initially experience that nervous pit in the stomach that comes from a lack of knowledge in the space. Travelers know this angst well – will I be scammed by unscrupulous merchants and fall into a tourist trap? Read more

Social Media and Spirituality: A Meditation on Change

I am speaking tomorrow on The Tools of Change Panel at Envision Hawaii 2009. It has me thinking about what changes are happening right before our very eyes and how we can proactively embrace them to move this party forward with more intention.

Barriers and Gate-Keepers Are Being Removed
One of the most exciting accomplishments for me professionally occurred 5 years ago when one of my clients had her blog added to Tom Peter’s blogroll. Mary Schmidt was a marketing consultant who had a common name in a crowded profession, along with the usual limited budget of a solo-preneur. She was also a risk-taker though and pursued the blog strategy we created for her with religious fervor! (Update: I forgot to mention this. Search for “Mary Schmidt” on Google – and see the results of all-organic SEO.) Read more

Social Media Events: New School or Old School?

Even though we have these amazing, 24/7 ubiquitous connections taking place on the social web, IRL (in real life) conferences are still booming. I think that many of us still long for those face to face connections, even more so now that our networks have blown way past the indications of Dunbar’s number. He he.

This is an opinion piece about things I see happening in the social media space, in short Twitter-sized sound bytes. I am imposing that limit on myself as I am short on time today.

With #podcamphawaii & #socialmediaclub we have open tents, everybody’s welcome. (My preference) Attendance is great. Experiences are powerful. Learning is all over the map.

Other events, when “who is welcome” is changing weekly, when “must request an invite” is the rule? Not so cool. (Especially when no reply is then sent.) Ticket sales are s-l-o-w. Is there a connection?

If you want a private event, by all means have at it. You better have a killer list though and enough personal energy to draw in attendees. The Lobby understands this.

I don’t recommend teasing the public to try to get your buzz on when signups to your private event are not happening. Just open it up and the people will come!

When people are vying for attention and excluding peers, IMO that is so #highschool and #oldschool. We’re due for a major shift in thinking in this arena IMO.

Perfectly reasonable people disagree. That is the good news. When it’s your event, you can do what you want.

I hope these points help you figure out which strategy is more fun and less stress for planning your next event!

Aloha,

Social Web Bootcamp – Time to Get in the Game

Does it feel like 1999 all over again?

Remember when you didn’t think you needed a web site because you had a brochure?

Confused by all the hype surrounding blogs, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook?

Then Social Web Bootcamp is for you. It’s a one day program that takes you from the 30,000’ view of how things work all the way down to live demos for creating a blog, a Twitter account, and setting up your social networking identity. Read more

How Do Logos Matter to You?

At a recent meeting of the Hawaii Chapter of the Social Media Club, I talked briefly with Dr. Bill Haig of Power Logo Design about the shifting sands of brand credibility and how that gets created and managed. He has a successful business and several white papers on the specialty of “credibility based logo design.” He has found it can increase conversion rates by two four times on the home page.

He emailed me today talking about how this impacts social web brand building and I offered to create a poll. So here it is after the jump! Please add your vote and share your comments with us. Read more