How to participate in either conference

These aren’t your typical conferences.  They are conducted using a web conferencing tool.  Not that a web conferencing tool is earthshaking new.  The meat of the conference happens in the social media based communities.  For Social Media Tools Week, this is in the back-chat channel occurring on Twitter and Google Wave.  Feel free to use ChickenFox’s Conversation Dashboard.

For LearnTrends, this will happen in Twitter as well as the LearnTrends Ning community.  Be a casual observer, or an active participant.  The choice is up to you.

LearnTrends 2009

LearnTrends is an online conference created by Jay Cross and his peers.  This year will focus on Convergence in the Workplace.  From my experience, its a great place to hear new ideas from the pioneers of informal and social learning.  The conference sessions this year will run Tuesday Nov 17 through Thursday Nov 19.  All you need to do is register to attend.

All presenters are asked to save half their time for questions and discussion with you. LearnTrends is hosted on the Elluminate platform. Show up a few minutes early to download Elluminate’s Java start file. All sound will be Voice Over IP. No telephone links. If you want to speak, you need to have a headset to avoid audio feedback.  Link to online event.

The Twitter hashtag is #learntrends. Tweet away but please use Elluminate’s chat function for questions for presenters.

Social Media Tools Week 2009

A similar type of venue to LearnTrends.  Come hear some thought leaders in the social media space in a packed schedule.  Contribute your thoughts in the back-chat.  This conference runs all week.  Again, all you need to do is register.  Even though it has already started, its not too late!

Discuss the conference on several platforms:

Google Wave search the public timeline (with:public SMTW)

Twitter hashtag #SMTW

In the first post, “I want to be KISSED“, I performed a quick social media presence assessment.  The results of the assessment showed a few places where the existing social media strategy utilized by KISS, could be improved.  The second post, “Oshawa – KISSed, Not Missed!” explored the media backlash toward KISS for not including Oshawa, Canada on the North American Tour even though the city won the KISS fan-routing tour contest.  Oshawa is getting a concert and Gene Simmons was a little outraged at the media for spoiling a surprise.

Anyway, I received this e-mail from KISSonline about the pre-sale.  This e-mail had a different look to it from previous ones.  Hmm, need to go investigate further.  Sure enough – at least from a social media site perspective (Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, iLike, and Twitter), the sights have a more cohesive appearance.  I’d like to think someone over at the KISS organization read my first post (since I did send a copy to them) and take action.  At least someone there realized they had a disconnect and addressed it.   Kudos to KISS.

PRLog (Press Release) – Sep 08, 2009 – Palo Alto, CA, September 8 – Palo Alto based Social Media Academy announces its Black Diamond global social media consultant network. Certified social media consultants from the US, Europe, Singapore and Australia are set to collaborate on a global scale to help small, medium and large businesses create social media programs that are specifically tailored to their social media ecosystems. The group engages based on unified methodologies from the Social Media Academy, including the Four-Quadrant Social Media Assessment model, the Strategy Hexagon for developing a robust social media plan, and five other standardized methodologies.

Axel Schultze, Founder, CEO Social Media Academy

Social Media Academy founder Axel Schultze said: “Business leaders have a hard time to select a social media consultant that is right for them. Too many self proclaimed social media experts only confuse customers. We conquer this problem by creating a worldwide standard for methodologies, strategy development and social media execution plans. The Black Diamond Network consists of a worldwide network of certified social media consultants with a very transparent and unified experience profile.”

“Mark Moore, from Atlanta, GA, one of the founding members said: “One of our big advantages is our globally standardized methodology approach. Any member can jump into any project and knows exactly how we all work. This provides a great project security for small and large customers”. Boughty Canton, another founding member, from Singapore commented: “Businesses begin to understand that social media is not just a marketing tool but a general business strategy. As Black Diamonds members, we help companies to think and execute strategically”. Wendy Soucie from Wisconsin said: “An important aspect of the Black Diamond Network is our ability to provide very cost efficient social media packages to small businesses. Even though we are connected in a global network – the individual Black Diamonds operate locally. Each Black Diamond brings to the engagement an understanding of a particular regional area or even a vertical market dynamic.” Rick Speciale from Sydney, Australia and Catherine Sherwood from Albuquerque, NM see another advantage of the Black Diam ond group in the collaboration of different subject matter experts. “We both focus on the financial services industry. Collaborating with other experts while maintaining a standardized operating method gives customers the breadth and depth in expertise they expect”. Barbara Daniels from Mesa, AZ, also one of the founding members stated: “We collaborate on projects and strategic engagements as a group, each bringing our unique talents and backgrounds to create a synergy in the fast-paced world of social media that is the first of its kind. We take social media far beyond the marketing aspect, assisting companies in building mindshare and market share by imploring the proven principles and standardized methodologies of the Social Media Academy.”

The Black Diamond group is orche strated by the Social Media Academy and organizes knowledge webinars in the US, Europe and Asia helping businesses to better comprehend the impact social media has to their business, their market and their ecosystem. The Knowledge webinar series starts in September and is free of charge. A Black Diamond reception is established to help companies find the best social media strategist for their respective needs. The next leadership class, which is the base education to become a black diamond, starts September 16.

More details are available at: http://socialmedia-academy.com/BlackDiamonds

More corresponding links:

Social Media Academy http://socialmedia-academy.com

Social Media Leadership class http://socialmedia-academy.com/html/us-leadershipclass.cfm

Social Media Academy Methodology overview http://socialmedia-academy.com/html/methodologies.cfm

Social sites from people mentioned in this press release:

Axel Schultze http://xeeSM.com/AxelS

Barbara Daniels http://xeeSM.com/wk4coffee

Boughton Canton http://xeeSM.com/Boughty

Catherine Sherwood http://xeeSM.com/CatherineSherwood

Mark Moore http://xeeSM.com/RMarkMoore/

Rick Speciale http://xeeSM.com/speciale/

Walter Adamson http://xeeSM.com/walter/

Wendy Soucie http://xeeSM.com/wendysoucie/

# # # The Social Media Academy is an education and research institute providing education for business professionals from all industries on how to best apply social media to their respective businesses.

Disclaimer: Issuers of the press releases are solely responsible for the content of their press releases. PRLog.Org can’t be held liable for the contents of the press releases. Report Abuse

Observe, Plan, Execute

Yesterday I was reminded of why organizations need to at least monitor their brand in the social media space, even if they choose not to participate in it.  I received a following notice on Twitter from an Id that was representing themselves as a directory resource for a particular city that relies on tourism and honeymoons.  Not a bad idea from a social media perspective.

So I go to check it out – especially since they had a large number of followers and numerous tweets.  My Oh My… what a surprise… 600 plus tweets of what appeared to be randomly generated tweets which every once in a while created some images of questionable activities with Bollywood movies.  I joke not… “committed the sin of Onan with ostensible Hindi movies” and “remembers the halcyon days of grotesque nightclubs” were actual tweets.  OK,  probably not as racy as you were expecting, BUT how would you feel if these tweets were coming from an account representing your company or posing as your company?  Twitter has a new service for “verifying” accounts, however you need to justify your need for these types of accounts right now.

So it gets a bit worse.  In Twitter, you can have a web URL in your profile.  There was one in this case, so I clicked on it.  Nothing racy on the other end, but it was an incomplete website.  It looks like someone is attempting to build a directory of businesses in this tourist town.  Again, not a bad idea, but what if you are the local government or the chamber of commerce for this town and already have an official site?
This case study gives us two lessons to consider…

First, what is at stake here is the town’s brand.  Regardless of your participation in social media, if you have a brand to protect, you should at least establish a program of “monitoring” your brand.  This program could range from using Google Alerts to a more robust tool such as those produced by Techrigy or Scoutlabs.  All options essentially let you start for free.  If you have limited volume, the “free” version of Techrigy or Scoutlabs may be all you need.  I personally use a combination of Google Alerts and a paid version of ScoutLabs.  I love the graphing capability of Techrigy, but for where my business volume is, Scoutlabs is the better fiscal choice.

The next step of your “monitoring” initiative is to define how you or your company will respond to events that occur.   These don’t necessarily need to be “bad” events.  You could reward those people who really promote your business.  Or you can intervene when needed.  Its better to be informed than blind.  I call these reactions “Engagement Scripts” and they should be shared with everyone who communicates on behalf of your company.  In severe cases, you may need legal counsel.

You may be thinking that I am blowing this case study out of proportion.  Maybe the city in question was  “alpha testing” some new social media initiatives and they just didn’t have the content completed yet.  I can go along with that hypothesis, and I would encourage the company (city in this case) to test things privately.  There is no reason to flood Twitter with 600 worthless messages – it still reflects poorly on the brand.

That leads us to lesson two…  Plan your social media initiatives.  By doing something as described in this case study, you are taking a shot-gun approach to social media programs.  What are you trying to accomplish?  Who are you trying to engage?  Take the time to conduct an assessment to learn where your respective ecosystem is. The Four Quadrant Assessment Methodology (as defined by the Social Media Academy, and my personal preference) looks at where people are in the social web, sentiment analysis, key interests and reflections in the following areas:

• Customer mapping and field assessment
• Brand analysis
• Partner and alliance analysis
• Competition analysis

I’m not suggesting you get paralyzed by analysis.  Think of it as clarifying the conversations you want to have and making them meaningful.  Shooting fish in a barrel may be easy, but shooting the falls in a barrel is not one of my recommended actions.  Do a little homework and planning, then go catch your trophy fish.  I look forward to hearing about it.

And that’s one of the first steps in defining your social media strategy… Identify your customer and where they participate on the social web.

So if you feel like your social media programs  or initiatives are a bit mushy?  Maybe its time to assess where the conversations you want to be involved in are happening.   So take a bite of that granola bar and go find your community!

The conversation gravitates to Twitter, the popular microblogging tool, and the desire of math tutors to utilize this tool for educational purposes.  The concept agreed upon is one that utilizes Twitter to submit a series of math problems  to the students.  The students are then rewarded for correct answers – the quicker the response, the greater the reward.  Great concept, however it has a few concerns.

The first is that of copying answers.  The answer to this is simple – use direct message replies. A direct reply in Twitter is only seen by the two parties in the conversation.  Another concept to solve this dilemma is to only reward correct answers made via direct replies or “at” replies prior to the first “at” reply.  This adds a bit of strategy to the game for the students… do they only do direct replies and collect points or do they eliminate the opportunity for thier peers to earn points by locking the problem with an “at” reply.  If you haven’t figured it out by now, an “at” reply is visible to everyone and therefore could be copies or retweeted (a way of rebroadcasting a message).

The second hesitation is a bit more complex because it involves the whole Twitter community.  Is it appropriate to flood the Twitter timeline with math questions and answers?  How do you prevent outside interference from non-students?  These are etiquette questions.  My opinion echoes what eventually was consensus,  the twitter community may grow tired of a prolonged use of the tool in this way.  Fortunatly, there are other microblogging tools you could use to create your own environment – such as Yammer.

Regardless, this concept is a very cool one for integrating social media into the classroom, or extra-classroom experience.  You may reach me on Twitter @rmarkmoore.  In the meantime, i’d love to hear about your thoughts on social media in the classroom or your thoughts on the etiquette concern.

I am fortunate to have some friends who are great networkers and always find a few key people that benefit from a mutual introductions.  When I am one of those lucky key people, I’m usually introduced as a resource for Learning Strategy and Social Media.  The people I am being introduced to usually separate the two and then look at me with a puzzled expression.  Once we start talking, I realize why.  Most of these individuals believe Social Media is just for Sales and Marketing OR the use of tools such as blogging, FaceBook or Twitter.

There’s probably some work I could do on my messaging, but I love these conversations because they lead into a detailed discussion of how Social Media may be used to strengthen almost any aspect of the business.  On Tuesday, we talked about product development, project management and customer support as business processes that could benefit from the use of social media if applied strategically.  It all comes down to identifying the customer (internal or external), stakeholder, client or whatever you would like to call the constituents of your community and how you interact with them.  I use the term community very loosely – I view a project team as a community just as I view a customer base as a community.  Once you understand your constituents and how they like to be interacted with, you can then build social media programs/structures to support them.

That said, I was very happy to find a blog post by Jason Hiner over at TechRepublic.  Jason discusses why IT should become more socially centered – specifically in three areas: Operations, Solutions / Project Management, and End User Support.  It’s a great little video of about 5 minutes and fits in nicely with what I talked about on Tuesday night at the networking event.

Feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss how social media can support your organization’s HR practices (especially learning strategy) or how you can support your other operations through a sound social media strategy.

In the meantime, please share how you are using social media beyond sales and marketing.

Mark attends a KISS concert in Hartford, CT (1996)

To be fair, let me explain my expectations.  I consider Gene Simmons to be an insightful marketing minds.  I mean love him or hate him, this guy has been selling himself and KISS for decades.  Even if you don’t like his stuff, you can observe that he gets it done.  So my expectations were pretty high.  I expected that a social media campaign such as a fan routed tour would have a very strong online presence.  I expected that Gene Simmons would have his folks working with the cutting edge technology that is pervasive in social media today.

So, what did I find?  I was surprised.  Keep in mind, I only did a bird’s eye assessment – nothing more than 45 minutes total.  In this assessment, I look at the major social media and bookmarking sites.  This is not enough evidence to build a plan around, but it is enough to give you a sense of the social media presence of an entity. Here are my findings:

Websites: I was dismayed to find that KISS.com is not owned by KISS.  They needed to go with KISSonline.com.  Given the productions that KISS usually generates and the financial capital they hold – I would have expected a more polished website.  Same with GeneSimmons.com.  The visual feel is very similar and echos the presence on Facebook and MySpace.  Consistency s good,  I just expected more.

LinkedIn: I was not surprised here.  I did not find evidence of any band members – even using their real names.  This doesn’t mean they aren’t there – it just means I did not find any I could certifiably state were legitimate.  I did find several impostors.  I also found one LinkedIn group which uses the band logo.  I am surprised here at least from the standpoint of Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley.  Being the business mogul he is, I expected to find Gene with a presence on LinkedIn.   I was hoping that Paul Stanley was promoting himself as an artist here as well.   I guess when you’re famous you don’t need a LinkedIn profile, but I disagree with that notion.

Facebook: There is a legitimate KISS fan page on Facebook with over 100,00 fans.  Figuring 2 million Facebook users, that’s 5% of the population.  There are some other fan pages, but they are either tribute bands or user generated fan pages.  The presence here is very similar to the KISS website.  So kudos for consistency.  There are even Facebook applications dedicated to KISS.  So on initial appearance (remember bird’s eye view), we have a uniform brand so far.   Gene Simmons also has his own Facebook page set up, so we are starting to see him carry his personal brand over to the online world.  Way to go Gene!

MySpace: As expected, there is a MySpace page for KISS.  I would have been shocked if there wasn’t.  When I think music and social media, I think of MySpace first as a place a band would be.

Twitter: Initially I was expecting a ton of impostors on Twitter.  The #Kiss hashtag is active with activity and shows related tweets.  I was able to find 5 accounts on Twitter which appear to be legitimate KISS representation, Gene Simmons was one.  Gene does not tweet very often and has only been on since March 2009.  Definitely a presence, but it could be tightened up a bit.  I also see how Twitter could become an integral part of the KISS machine – read on after the assessment notes.

YouTube: I was not surprised here.  There is a large KISS presence on YouTube – mostly fan generated though.  Who cares, its a large number of videos blaring KISS music.  This would be a great place to connect with the audience.  Heck, consider doing something official on Pandora as well.

Groups on Google and Yahoo: There are a large number of groups on Yahoo and Google talking about KISS – the band.   This is good because this is where the fan base is hanging out.   Knowing where your customers/clients/fans hang out is important – it lets you craft and target your message.  Mr. Simmons excels at that.

Delicious / Digg: As expected, there weren’t many (in comparison to everything else) bookmarks on Delicious or Digg related to KISS.   There were about 300 total between the two sites (yes there will be some overlap).  For a band, I’m not sure how important this area is to build a presence on.

SlideShare: I was just curious and went here to see.  There were 3 presentations involving KISS.  I expected none or for them to be related to Gene Simmons only.

So in a nutshell, I feel that Gene Simmons has a more cohesive social media presence than his band.  I also feel that there are some things that could be done to tighten up the messaging and branding on both fronts.  There is absolutely a role that social media could play in elevating the KISS brand and like many corporations – they are struggling with it a bit.  The good things are that the presence is strong where expected – those places just need to be connected together with a strategic purpose.  I see evidence that Gene is doing that for his personal brand.   There are plenty of places to engage the community as well.  This is where I would focus the Eventful Tour Demand.  As for the other places such as LinkedIn?  They may not matter nor may Gene care – I think a presence there would reinforce him as a maven of marketing and detract from the impostors.

That said, I still love the idea of using social media to have fans vote on what cities and in what order KISS will play it’s North American tour.  That’s an awesome idea and one that should be capitalized on.  And here’s the final idea for using Twitter.  Listen carefully Gene…  Set it up so that your set list on the tour is fan generated by Twitter.  My vote will be for “God of Thunder”.

For those wanting to do their own Bird’s Eye assessments, here’s the table I use to capture the data in.  Again it’s simple and shouldn’t take a lot of time.  Add columns to do a comparison between entities.  Again, this exercise is not enough to build a plan or strategy around.  The purpose of this exercise is to determine online presence from a social media perspective;  show were potential conversations regarding your brand, product, or service occur; and at a high level capture the sentiment of the conversations that are occurring.