It is the last day of 2011 and I want to add an exclamation point of gratitude on each of my blogs – most of which suffer from neglect from me. It was my friend and Maui blogger Liza Pierce’s idea: let’s all write a blog post for January 1st! So, I’ve set this to post just one minute in to the new year. Happy New Year!

I am starting on this blog, as this is the easy one! (I have at least three more I am aiming for.) This past year, I was hired by the Lānaʻi Visitors Bureau (LVB) to run a social media marketing campaign for them, based on a very original concept created in discussion with Mr. Keliʻi Brown, who is the PR director for the Maui Visitors Bureau (MVB). For those of you outside of Hawaiʻi, Maui Nui, as we call it, or Maui County, encompasses not just the island of Maui but also the islands of Lānaʻi and Molokai. So the MVB provides support to the LVB.

Lānaʻi is was the least known of the Hawaiian Islands. There are only three hotels! So we wanted a program that would shine the best light on this beautiful place, something that would go deep and not just be about “one more trip to Hawaii.”

First, though, watch the video! It is a quick one minute. Then keep reading for more on this program.

New Media Artist-in-Residence Program from Roxanne Darling on Vimeo.

You can read more about the setup of the New Media Artist-in-Residence program here, but in short, it involved the hand selection of seven well-known bloggers who each spent a week on Lānaʻi and who also agreed to collaborate in supporting the other team members throughout a six month period in 2011. Of course there is more to all this than meets the eye, but for now, in this post, I have two goals.

First I want to thank my clients at Maui Visitors Bureau and Lānaʻi Visitors Bureau for taking a chance with me on this innovative program! This is the second time I have worked for MVB and they are so willing to get out there and do what it takes to keep Maui Nui a top travel destination! Plus, they are willing to tolerate my at times demanding ways. Thank you so much, Terryl, Lynn, Keliʻi, Charity and all of the board members.

Second, I wanted to share the results – with you. Luckily, I had already prepared this video for our local Hawaii chapter of the Social Media Club’s year end party, which featured our social media accomplishments of 2011. The preso’s were played throughout the night on the big screen, so I made this without a sound track. I also want to thank my colleague and SMCHI president, Tara Coomans, who assisted me with the interpretation of the results and the ROI formulas.

We also received great coverage online. Be sure to read this summary over at Media Post and listen to my interview on the This Week in Travel.

Bottom line? Visitor spending was up nearly 28% on Lānaʻi, far more than on either Maui or Molokai.

Plus, I have been hired to run this program again for LVB in 2012! Lots more ideas are percolating of course, but for now, I share my gratitude for a wonderful year in 2011 – in so many respects, and am very excited about the big possibilities in 2012 – the year of the Dragon!

UPDATE: Please help me also thank the wonderful team of bloggers we had on this inaugural run! Visit their blogs and search for “lanai” to read all about their trips. Here they are, in order of their visit to Lānaʻi:
Shannon Hurst Lane of The Traveling Mamas
Chris Gray Faust of Chris Around the World
Matt Long of Landlopers
Gary Arndt of Everything Everywhere
Kara Williams of The Vacation Gals
Sheila Beal of Go Visit Hawaii
Melanie Waldman of Travels with Two

Aloha,

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This post title was crafted for me inadvertently by Mike McClure, in a tweet he posted with information about a conversation I will be leading this Thursday in Detroit. It is being hosted by the Social Media Club Detroit chapter and the #Tweetea community, with the venue provided by ePrize. As I am in the process of writing a lot these days, I wanted to bounce some ideas around the room in Metro Detroit (aka “the D”) to get new perspectives and possibly some case studies.

My working title for the book is “Running Your Business As If None of It Matters.”

Just in the run up to this event, several ideas have shown up. I present four of them to you here, in gratitude to my new friends in the D, as I look forward to many more (ideas and friendships!) come Thursday, 6 October 2011.

Walk Through Discomfort via Samantha Welter

Add in the fact that social media relationships have an interesting business-mixed-with-pleasure dynamic, and it can be hard to ascertain who is real and who is just marketing themselves as real. In the age of the personal brand, taking the brand out of the personal can be an uncommon occurrence.
I’ll admit that I’m relatively uncomfortable putting this out there. But again, I have to walk through the discomfort and be true to myself.

This is a Game and It is Real via Therran Oliphant

Crowdsourcing of the Unlimited Kind with Mike McClure

Harmonic Convergence with Nikki Little

Clearly, that has changed, now hasn’t it? I look forward to seeing you on Thursday, arms full of Aloha coming your way to the D!

Please bring your ideas of how life is working for you outside of traditional rules and tribal practices, and/or how social media has expanded your confidence and consciousness.

Aloha,

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We are graciously featured in several articles in today’s PBN as we call it locally. Social Media is really getting a lot of coverage these days and deservedly so. I want to thank them for all the interviews and quotes and I want to welcome YOU to our Bare Feet Blog! Lots of their content is for subscribers however you can get started with these:
Hiring Managers Buck Trends When it Comes to Klout, Pacific Business News, August 19, 2011
Businesses dive into social media then learn to swim, Pacific Business News, August 19, 2011
Yacht broker sails into social media waters, Pacific Business News, August 19, 2011

I’ve made a short video (less than 3 minutes), for you, to point out a few things not to be missed while you’re here and to give you as personal a welcome as possible. Please keep reading below the video for several links and shortcuts that I don’t think you’ll want to miss!

STEP ONE
Look around our site! There are over six years’ worth of howto articles, case studies, and testimonials for you to check out. Click the link to your right called “Explore Our Topics” to see the full list, or use the Search box, or click on any of the tag links in each article to find more of the same. You can also explore by year – just click on “Explore the Archives” to your right and see what we were doing back in 2005, 2006… Here are some of the hottest topics right now:
Social Media
Strategy
Howto

STEP TWO
Be sure to join our free email list here for KnowHow Cafe. The signup form is in the right sidebar of every page here on our website. You’ll be sent a link for a free eBook once you sign up; it is guaranteed to give you information you don’t have about classic social media case studies and the all-important tips for creating and managing your “profile” on various social networks. KnowHow Cafe is our educational division. We offer live classes in Honolulu and on Maui and will be launching our online learning community one of these days. Use coupon code “rox” if you like – but everyone gets the same free ebook! The codes simply help us find out how people learned about us.

STEP THREE
Please visit our Hawaii Chapter of the Social Media Club. SMC is a global nonprofit educational association dedicated to developing and sharing best practices in social media. Our Hawaii chapter started in 2008 (courtesy of yours truly) and we welcome you to attend our free events. The next one is in October. Be sure to join our free SMCHI email list to hear all about local events. While you are there, please meet the local Professional Members – they and their websites and Twitter links are all listed in the right column of the SMCHI website. Contact any of them for assistance in developing your social media skills and strategies!

Please do use the Share links immediately below and/or leave a comment about what topics you would like me to cover in our next series of KnowHow Cafe classes!

Aloha,

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Last week I collaborated with two of my Social Media Club colleagues, Philippe Tassin and Tara Coomans in a three-hour consultation with the very cool folks at Montgomery Motors. If you don’t know them, they are a sixty-plus year old, family-owned, and Hawaii-born and bred company that sells motorcycles and related cool gear.

There are a number of things about this meeting that really rocked the house:

• Ross and Ann and their marketing consultant Clint really know their brand, their customers, and their business and want to keep growing it stronger and larger. (Seriously, lots of small businesses can be too close to what it is they do well, and this makes it hard to work on marketingplans – social media or traditional.)


• I got to do this with two awesome colleagues! Who, on any other day, could be classified as competitors. Being able to work together though is a particularly strong feature of social media. We pros recognize that the space is huge, and no one person knows it all, much as we try.


• We worked in the truly functional and creative-juice-hub known as the ING DIrect Cafe in downtown Waikiki. Part of their business model is to share their space with outside groups, knowing that we will tweet and blog about them in a most flattering light. Please follow the local peeps @INGdirectHawaii on Twitter.


• The bonus gift for me was that I asked Ross and Ann at the very last minute , as we were all leaving, for a short video testimonial. They said yes! Then they rocked it as one take wonders. See for yourself below!

I shot and edited this video on my iPhone 4 using iMovie on my short flight home from HNL to OGG, aka Honolulu to Kahului, Maui.

Aloha,

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If you are in a hurry, watch the one-minute video!

If you have a minute or two, I’ll give you some more info. Shane and I are founding members of the Social Media Club, a nonprofit educational organization celebrating its fifth year in existence. It was started by Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells in San Francisco, with the motto of “If you get it, share it.”

Unlike so many other professional associations, that aim to keep much of their professional intelligence inside the circle of practitioners, SMC always envisioned a very open tent where everyone was welcome to come and share, learn, and improve on the practice of social media. To date, there are over 90 chapters worldwide, from Boston to Bahrain, from Honolulu to Utrecht. You will find tremendous diversity throughout our member ranks yet we all share a love of social media and its ability to help us communicate and create community unlike anything ever before.

The funny thing here is that I have been doing video for over 5 years at our Beachwalks.tv show, have taught countless seminars and conference presentations on how to use video, and yet! It has taken me until today to sit down and make a simple video for our local Hawaii chapter! I started the chapter back in 2008 at the time of Podcamp Hawaii in hopes that it would give us a connection to the larger world of social media peeps and to have a framework to grow awareness here at home. Indeed it has, as we are now one of the top 15 chapters in the world based on professional members. You can see all of our local members in the sidebar of the SMCHI website.

Tomorrow we have our quarterly event, with the topic “How To Buy Social Media Services.” I guess the time has come as we have nearly 100 people pre-registered! Note we have only used social media platforms to promote this event, as the local traditional business press won’t return our emails. It goes to show how we can become the media and support each other directly.

I always say, it is never too late to get started, and today, I am taking my own advice! And congratulating our official Social Media Club community of over 100,000 members worldwide! I hope you will join us soon and be sure to get on our email list now.

Aloha,

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As a direct result of the U.S. Navy’s outreach to bloggers here in Hawaii, I have been fortunate to both participate in some outstanding programs (like an overnight embark on the USS Nimitz) and also developed enormous respect for their adoption of social media (video interview) and their orderly and standardized approach. They are among the best examples of what I often wish for: more grown-ups using social media to get the job done! I mention them frequently in my talks to business, as I did earlier yesterday to business customers at Hawaiian Telecom University.

Last night we held our monthly meeting of the Hawaii chapter of the Social Media Club (yours truly is the founder.) Our topic was Social Media, Tsunamis, and Crisis Management; lots of good links in the comments there too. Judi Clark live-blogged this event; you can read her summary here. Geophysicist Brian Shiro of the NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center joined us to share the back story and help us fact check. View informational slides that Brian prepared here.

I had reached out to Chuck Bell, Emerging Media Director of the U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet based here in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor; he was unable to attend in person but sent me this thorough report via email. I am sharing it here as it really is a step-by-step example of how this works – written in plain speak and bullet points = music to my ears! I have bolded a few things that really stand out to me as best practices and best case scenarios.

Please leave your comments and kudos for Chuck and the US Navy in the comments below and on Twitter: @PacificFleet.

It was a given that social media was going to be a primary means of communication. Adm. Patrick Walsh, U.S. Pacific Fleet’s commander, emphasized early on in the crisis that our efforts via social media were critical in communicating with our wider Navy family. While we in public affairs realize this instinctively, we are fortunate to have senior leadership that embraces the use of social media as a key means of communicating with our various audiences.

Here are the actions we took: —I immediately monitored my Facebook news feed, which includes extensive likes of Navy commands, and my Pacific military Twitter lists, for announcements and advisories from Navy commands in Japan.
—I reposted each advisory on our Facebook page with attribution and by tagging the Facebook page from which the information came.
—The Navy is much more active on Facebook than in Twitter, so I tweeted everything I was re-posting on Facebook, for the most part.
—At critical points during the crisis, such as the decision to have the ships remain in Pearl Harbor, the Pacific Fleet PAO provided very specific verbiage for use on both Facebook and Twitter.
—As we began receiving questions that I couldn’t answer, especially those of an operational nature (no visibility on those types of decisions from my den at home), I immediately emailed them to the Pacific Fleet PAO and our PAO in the operations center. I would have answers back within minutes and was able to quickly respond to comments and concerns.
—We quickly had a “database” of answers to respond to questions, as many were similar.
—We addressed every question that was posted on our wall, often within minutes, and tried our best to keep a close eye on comments in our posts to quickly address any issues there.
—24/7 monitoring of our social media presence continued for three days.
—Given the ongoing relief effort in Japan that our Sailors are supporting, we are continuing to monitor our social media presence very closely, with truly, only a few hours during the day when there is not eyeballs on it from this office.

Biggest take away: Not only did the social media channels offer a way to immediately share critical information, but the interactive nature of it and our ability to answer questions and concerns immediately, appeared to provide reassurance in particular to the family members of our Sailors.

Thanks Chuck for being part of the conversation and for making it look so easy.

Aloha,

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I’ve been meaning to write more about the innovative travel blogger program I am doing with the Lānaʻi Visitors Bureau and have decided that it’s just gonna ship without being perfect! I started the conversation here with some advice for travel destinations. I am very grateful to my clients at the Maui and Lānaʻi Visitor Bureaus for their willingness to reach out in this ground-breaking way! Read more about the program I produced in 2010 for Maui here. Now, by popular demand, is an overview of the program itself!

Lānaʻi Visitors Bureau Launches Innovative New Media Marketing Program

• They received a special digital invitation to join us as our guest.
• They are invited to bring an assistant to help develop more, better produced, and richer stories.
• They are being treated as guests, Hawaii-style, and honored as “New Media Artists-in-Residence” to reflect each person’s talent as a travel story-teller in his/her unique style and perspective, for their diverse online communities.

• Each artist guarantees a minimum amount of content (stories, photos, and conversations) to be delivered across numerous social web platforms
• Each artist has agreed to collaborate with the other team members, extending and cross-pollinating their extensive individual networks.
• This collaboration creates a much longer and stronger impact (measurable by links and tags) across the six-month time frame as compared to having individual writers come on isolated, solo trips.
• Artists were selected based on several criteria, including their ability to reach diverse audiences: male/female, 20-30-40 age groups, single, couples, and family travel. They are based throughout the U.S., representing east and west coast as well as central locations. Six of the seven are currently in the top 100 Travel Bloggers.
• Numerous types of content will be created: text blog entries, Twitter messages with links, Flickr photos, Facebook conversations, and YouTube videos. There will be daily updates while on-site as well as edited stories posted before and after each visit.

• I created a new Posterous blog, that enables quick, simple article creation by approved contributors generating links that are automatically cross-posted to Twitter.
• I also created a Twitter account and Facebook page to help manage the online conversations on behalf of the LVB and begin to build some social media assets of their own. I also wanted to be sure and grab those names too!
• There is a central hashtag that is in use, to aggregate multiple assets across numerous web sites over the six months, (#VisitLanai)
• The conversation and market communications began within one week of confirming the initial group of artists, and will continue through May, 2011.
• Interested travelers can follow and join the online conversations in real time. It is interactive; we can entertain questions over the course of the campaign and give answers – documented in photos, audios, and videos. (Both Shannon and Matt have queried their readers about what to do.)
• A new media artist brings enormous credibility – they are committed to sharing the authentic travel experience. This can address one of the most common questions re: the out of the way locations: “What is it really like? What did you do actually? Show me!”

• Private online web site where partners can easily find information about the team, and follow the milestones of the trip.
• Periodic conference calls for Q&A with the partners.
• Brief training and “cheat sheets” to be provided so the partners can make the most of the artists while in residence.
• This will translate into some partners creating Facebook and Twitter accounts for the first time while others receive advanced tips for social media engagement.

New Media Artists ( in order of their visits)
Shannon Hurst Lane – Traveling Mamas
http://www.travelingmamas.com

Chris Gray Faust – Chris Around the World
http://caroundtheworld.com/
Featured in USA Today Travel

Matt Long – Landlopers
http://www.landlopers.com

Gary Arndt – Everything Everwhere
http://everything-everywhere.com/

Sheila Beal – Go Visit Hawaii
http://www.govisithawaii.com

Kara Williams – The Vacation Gals
http://www.thevacationgals.com

Melanie Waldman – Travels with Two
http://www.travelswithtwo.com

This program is being produced by Roxanne Darling, Bare Feet Studios for the Lānaʻi Visitors Bureau.

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I am producing a social media marketing campaign for the island of Lānaʻi, here in Hawaii. It is a rather unique concept, a “New Media Artist-in-Residence” Program. I will write about the specifics in a separate blog post, though I did start noodling on this idea back in 2008. Today I want to share with you some tips I have put together for the destination partners, which apply to any type of social marketing with bloggers.

Program Overview
The LVB has invited seven well regarded new media “bloggers” to visit as New Media Artists-in-Residence. Each will be accompanied by a companion to assist in developing stories and making media (writing blog posts, updating social networks, and taking pictures and videos). Their visits will span five months, generating an ongoing conversation online amongst each other (with hundreds of links) about the island of Lanai.

Working with New Media
These folks tend to be much less formal and far more interactive with the destination partners than is typical for traditional media reps or writers. They want to engage with you and other local people. They want behind-the-scenes experiences. They are looking for stories to tell and interesting people and places that can truly convey the essence of a place.

Keep in mind, a New Media Artist’s loyalty is to their readers, the people they inform and inspire, while sharing their authentic experiences. The more you engage with them, the more likely they will mention you. And the more likely others will learn about you and want to know more. If you want to make any special offers available, the new media team will be able to help you get the word out at no extra charge. They love having exclusives and scoops for their readers!

It’s All About the Conversation
Online social conversations cover a wide territory – from short greetings and reference links on Twitter to long form blog entries with lots of photos, links, and nuanced story telling. The conversation will be taking place in many locations or what we call, on several different platforms. Each artist has a destination blog where s/he will be writing their in-depth pieces about the trip. Light, chatty, link-sharing takes place on Twitter and Facebook. Photos are shared on Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr, where they can be seen by thousands of others. Videos are hosted on their blogs as well as on YouTube for extra wide distribution.

Remember, on the social web, everyone’s invited! That includes you too.

Here’s how you can interact with New Media Artists, aka Travel Bloggers:
* Introduce yourself on Twitter and their blogs; interact with questions and suggestions for their visit. Introduce them to others in the community. Point them to your website or Facebook page. Share a picture of your business location or activity. Tell them about you so they can share that with thousands of others.
* Post welcome messages to each artist on Twitter and Facebook the day of their arrival.
* Take a photos and/or videos with them and your staff while on property and post to Twitter, Flickr, and/or email to the blogger to post it for you.
* Follow the artists on Twitter and read their blog before, during, and after their visit. Leave comments!
* Mention them on your Facebook page (and include a link to them – any of their links will do) if you have a FB page.
* Follow (and use!) the tag we have in place to keep track of the conversation and all of the content being created: #VisitLanai. This is a short cut on Twitter to see what is happening right now amongst all of the team members too. Save the search as a bookmark so you can check in easily and often.
* Even if you are not on Twitter or Facebook, you can still follow the conversation in a web browser. See the links below and save them as bookmarks!
* You can take pictures with your phone and email them to the bloggers to get them posted.
* You can send an email message to your customer email list telling them to follow your hashtag to meet real people who are visiting here.
* You can leave comments on the bloggers’ web site.
* You can do something memorable that they will cherish and want to write about!

VisitLanai Web Resources
Search the tag on Twitter
The temporary blog for the LVB
The Twitter account for the LVB

Aloha,

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For the best science and insights in the business I frequently turn to my colleague Tom Webster, whose blog, BrandSavant, has been exploring social media metrics these days. Tom is adept at pointing out the risk in over-relying on purely transactional data and reminds us frequently (one of my favorites) that baseline data is one of your most useful metrics. Most companies tend to rush in and worry about measurement later. On the web we are lucky, as some of this can be done after the fact: certain transactions are inherently trackable and come with a date and time stamp! I think Tom and I would agree though the ex post facto method will leave out some of the more relevant data points.

New media and internet business people have touted our ability to measure “things” as far superior and accurate as compared to traditional media. Traditional media surveys a manini segment of the population once or twice a year, hope those people are telling some version of the truth, and then they extrapolate like hell to come up with numbers. “Each magazine is read by an average of 3.4 people!” Really? (Please hear that “really” in your head through the voices of Seth Myers and Amy Poehler on Saturday Night Live.) New media people measure every things that shows up on a web page, then try like mad to turn it into something meaningful, aka sentiment analysis. I love that everyone is trying, yet we have by no means nailed this challenge.

Yesterday Tom was looking at some of things that are not easily measured, aka “The Unmeasured Power of Social Media” and why we should not be blinded by just sales data as in many cases it cannot tell the whole story. He was referring to a recent article from my other colleague Chris Brogan, on Social Media Metrics. Chris was sharing one of his faves, the value of conversion: How many of those warm fuzzies turn into sales? Of course that is relevant to business, and dare I say we “social media types” have gotten a little defensive at times from the onslaught of skeptics who maintain that social media is nothing more than a few warm fuzzies. Yes, conversion matters to us too.

So now that it’s on the table, of course we business people know that some things can be literally measured, some things cannot, (PR anyone?), and at the end of the day we can learn other ways to assess the value of our efforts in the marketplace.

Which takes me back to my earlier career as a health coach for Johnson & Johnson. You all know how hard it is to change health behaviors, right? Well, JNJ supported a researcher, Dr. James Prochaska, over 20 years leading to not only an understanding of behavior change but also the development of a coded system for creating behavior change. Would you believe that a 10-minute phone call between coach and client once a month for 6 months could translate into a 15-30 point drop in blood pressure or 10-20 pounds of weight loss or cholesterol down by 10-20? It did, over and over again.

The secret to our success was being able to assess the stage of “change readiness” and then collaborate with the client on a stage-appropriate behavior change that was not just palatable but welcomed by the client. While the human interaction was very important, the foundation is quite defined and could be applied in numerous ways, technologically speaking. Curiously enough, the first “stage” of change readiness is defined as “Not interested in change at all.” The brilliance of this methodology though was that there are prescribed things we can do to move a person from that stage to the next! Compare this to the traditional treatment for smokers. First, there are only two stages in most trained health professionals’ minds: smoker and non-smoker. So then if you encounter a smoker, your “only” option is to make them a non-smoker by enrolling them in a smoking cessation program – 80% of which fail. Not because the program or the patch doesn’t work – they do – but because most smokers are not at the actionable stage for quitting when others intervene upon them!

I have often wondered what would happen if we transferred this knowledge to business. We talk a lot about targeting based on evolving data of first demographics then psychographics and what I now call “friendographics.” What Tom describes in his post, is that early stage of market behavior: “thinking about buying a car” that by definition will not lead to a car sale transaction in the next 24 hours or in a single measurable transaction. I know Tom; he is far too thoughtful to act that quickly no matter how slick your sales offer or compelling your tweet. But if you have the patience to help educate Tom about the benefits of your vehicle and know how to engage with him in a “stage-appropriate” manner, you are well on your way to having not just a happy customer but one who will share his transaction with his followers. How do your strategies match up to the “stages of sale” as I will call it, and that Tom laid out so clearly below? (Emphasis mine.)

..consumers move from problem recognition, to information seeking, to evaluating options and eventually to a sale (and to post-sale behaviors, loyalty, evangelism, etc.)

It’s what I’ll be addressing head-on next Tuesday in my keynote address at the Hawaii Social Media Summit (#HISMS), hosted by Technology News Bytes: Social Media – More than Tweets the Eye. The seminar series tickets are mostly sold out however you can join the Expo from 12-5 pm for only $3. We’ll have a booth there for our “coming soon” KnowHow Cafe along with the Hawaii Chapter of the Social Media Club. If you are an early riser, please check out my related appearance on KITV 4 Tues, Oct 5th, around 6:15 am Hawaii Standard Time. Tweet them your questions and comments: @kitv4, @mahealani, @danmeisenzahl.

Aloha,

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Last night I facilitated a panel discussion at the Hawaii Chapter of the Social Media Club, featuring three Hawaii musicians: Jenn Wright, Kenneth Makuakane, and Shawn Moseley Livingston. They represent what we call here “mixed plate” in several ways. Male and female, native and haole, classical, funky, and Hawaiian style music, and each person sings, writes, plays multiple instruments, and produces!

Although they were talking as musical artists, many of their ideas are relevant to all of us. Their biases and perspectives are quite different though, and that makes for a good panel that keeps us from drinking just one brand of social media koolaid!

Here are some highlights from my notes I wanted to share with you.
The best social site for musicians currently: Reverb Nation. (Unanimous!)
Love your fans, respond to their comments, give them stuff! (For example, free downloads)
Beware of perfectionism – though do put some effort into making your music come from your heart. People can tell when you are just a copycat versus really committing something to your art.
Ken and Jenn recommended getting a presence on several social networks.
Jenn is using YouTube a lot and getting results.
Ken is using Facebook a lot and getting results.
Shawn uses his website and email list, and keeps his social web contacts truly personal.
Use the tools! Tagging, commenting, sharing your schedule and your samples. Give people links to share with their friends to your music, to your gigs, etc.
Make a really good demo! You will instantly stand out from the crowd.
We can’t rely on mainstream radio – we have to market ourselves.
Use the podsafe music communities to share your music with podcasters. This is a way to share networks and offer mutual support. Try these: Ioda PromoNet, Ariel Publicity, Music Alley (formerly known as the Podsafe Music Network).
Search for podcasters who have radio shows that play your style of music (or cover your type of services) for interest.

Now for some plugs!
Welcome to our Canadian visitors! Jake Bergen, of TractorBeam, was there visiting us from Alberta, Canada with his Dad Rod Bergen.

Many thanks to Fresh Cafe for hosting our event. There back room warehouse space is perfect for our meetings, and the staff is so supportive. Please check out the many other happenings there, especially the fine jazz from Fresh Standards (Bruce Hamada and Jim Howard) every Tuesday night starting at 8 pm.

For our event, awesome live music was provided by Yoza Allen. Please check her out around town and on her web site. Read this review of her at the Honolulu Weekly.

Go Waimanalo! And visit the East Honolulu Clothing Company. They shared their postcards with us so it’s easy to share their info with you!

Yes it takes a village to host these events and I have tremendous gratitude for Tara Coomans, Judi Clark, Angie Blaisdell, and Rob Bertholf – my co-leaders at Social Media Club – for helping produce this event. You can watch the recorded live stream at uStream.tv/smchi.

Aloha,

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