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If you read this blog with any regularity, you probably know that I have been involved in every PodCampAZ put on, including the last one. Yes, you read that right – the one in November 2011 was the last PodCampAZ. Starting with 2012, we are changing the name to TechPHX.

Not much else is changing. The same group of people will make up the core of the organizing team. The location will be the same (UAT). The ideas will be the same (and more so). The community interaction will be the same.

What will be different? Two things…

First: Our team will be led this year by @TSDivaDani. She’s been involved all along and has agreed to step up and lead the effort this year. You can read her take on the new set up on her blog.

Second: We want you to get involved! Ok, we always want you to get involved. But this year, we are telling you right up front. Please come help:

• If you run an event in Phoenix
• If you have a population you think we have overlooked in the past
• If you have an idea for how we can make the event better
• If you have a project you want to kick off during this year’s event
• If you just want to come and see how we do things.

This year, I am going to be doing a special project during TechPHX. I want every speaker to be welcomed and introduced, so I will be gathering ideas and volunteers for a Speaker Concierge system during the event. If you are interested in that, let me know!

Our first meeting will be Saturday Feb. 11th at 10 am in Room 203 of UAT in Tempe. I hope to see you all there!

Continue reading »]]> Just in case you didn’t know it, PodcampAZ is this weekend in Tempe at UAT.  This is, in my mind, one of the best conferences put on anywhere in the US. A free conference full of great speakers, great conversations, and awesome connections.

I’ll be there sharing the process Bruce and I used to update our OutdoorCook.com site. It needed a redesign and we will be sharing the process we went through to get it updated.

Lots of out of towners coming this year, including @Karoli, @GrammarGirl, Scott J., and many others. The usual crew will be speaking as well, but not always on the usual topics. @TSDivaDani will be talking politics, for example!

We have parties too – one tonight at CaHoots, one tomorrow night at Gangplank, and a low key one Sunday (for those with the energy) at Gangplank. We have prizes (everything from books to Disneyland tickets) and surprises.

All in all, it is a weekend not to be missed. And what’s more – it’s the last one – you don’t want to miss the explanation for that!

Important!

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What are you waiting for? Go register! 

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Earlier this summer, I was contacted by Joe Vangsness of the Chicago Computer Society to do a remote presentation on Social Media to his group.I recently did that presentation and had a blast at it. I thought I would share with all you loyal blog readers the materials from the presentation.

PS: IF you are coming to Cleveland for the APCUG conference, I will be presenting on this same topic, but aimed at user group presences instead of businesses. Be sure to sign up and let me know if you will be there. Register via Eventbrite!

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On June 15, 2011, I was privileged to present a set of four workshops on Social Media to the attendees of the Online Marketing Summit’s Social Media Marketing attendees. The day was planned as an introduction to social media in four workshops. (Slides for this workshop are posted on SlideShare, but I have also embedded each of the four sets here for your convenience.)

Before we get to the workshop content…

If you are interested in having me lead any or all of these workshops for your team, please let me know. The workshops may be purchased as the full set of four workshops or as individual sessions.  The materials can be presented live to your team or remotely. Please be aware that each workshop has several exercises and each session is also highly interactive.

Workshop 1: The Social Landscape and Building your Social Media Strategy

The first workshop was intended to be an introduction to what’s out there and how to get started. Beyond a “what’s out there” discussion, we also talked about branding, connecting with your customers, building personas, and figuring out what channels will work best for your audience.

Workshop 2: Execution:  Meeting Goals, Community Sourcing and Creating Shareable Content

The second workshop was all about creating tactical goals and interaction use cases. We also covered how to talk with different segments of your audience and looked at a number of sample social media policies.Oms phoenix6 15-2011-workshop two

Workshop 3: Social measurement: metrics and ROI

After a break for lunch, we started up with metrics, measurements, and how to measure ROI in the social media world. This section also included some role playing for selling social to the rest of the organization. Workshop 3 wrapped up with my suggestions on where to learn more so that you don’t burn out.

Workshop 4: Harnessing the Open Graph

The last session of the day introduced Facebook’s open graph – what it is and how to decide how much to use. We also talked about how to integrate other pieces of the social/open graph into your site.

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Don’t know yet? After this many years, you probably can guess what I will be doing! I’ll be at PodCampAZ 2011, our 5th annual event.

Yes – it is time to register for PodCampAZ 2011. This year’s event will be November 12-13, 2011 at UAT.  (No PodCampAZ birthday for me this year. I get a day of rest before I celebrate.)

What’s on tap this year? Lots of stuff:

• Expanded genius panels
• Two parties
• Great sessions
• PodCastAZ
• Great door prizes
• And a surprise you won’t believe

Want to know what PodCampAZ is all about? Think hundreds of social media people taking over a technology college. Content on everything related to podcasting, blogging, social media, and any other relevant media topics you can come up with. Put on by a dedicated group of volunteers, this event has no cost (unless you want the t-shirt). Our great sponsors help make the event worth your time by donating cash, prizes, time and resources.

How can you help?

• Pre-register!
• Nominate speakers (yourself or someone else)
• Volunteer to help

Not enough? OK.. There’s one more way you can help!

Important!

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I want to speak at PodCampAZ. I even know what I want to talk about. I just don’t have a title for my talk. Read the following description and let me know what you would call it. Best title will get credit for picking it and a free PodCampAZ 2011 t-shirt as a gift from me!

Talk Description:

Have an old style site that needs updating? We did! OutdoorCook.com is so old school it doesn’t even let you comment on the recipes. Come learn how we updated it without losing the page rank that it currently has. If Bruce and I can do it – you can too!

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What? Am I actually recommending that you be fake? That you be a copy of someone else?

No – Of course not.

What I am recommending is that you come play with the best of Arizona and the world’s podcasters, bloggers, and social media enthusiasts at PodCampAZ 2010. Come join the pod crowd and have a blast.

You’ve seen me write about it before. The great connections that are here waiting for you. The wonderful sponsors who make it possible. The speakers and geniuses waiting to share what they know with you. The great weather. This is our fourth one and it gets better every year.

My question to you

Why aren’t you a pod person yet? Why haven’t you registered to join us November 21 and 22 at UAT in Tempe?

• what: Podcamp AZ 2010
• where: University of Advancing Technology
• when: November 20-21, 2010
• who: New media innovators, enthusiasts, participants, and newbies who are interested the role of the internet in interactive communication.
• why: It’s two crazy cool days of learning, sharing, and people meeting. And Phoenix metro is gorgeous in November.
• how much: FREE

Ready to register? Click here!

I’ll be there.

Will you?

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In response to the post I wrote on Job Qualifications and Salaries for Community Managers, I was asked on Miio what I would recommend someone do to get started in the Community Management field. Here are some ideas to get you started.

The place you start is where the conversation is. I firmly believe that the best way to learn is to do. Find out where people are talking about what you are interested in and join the conversation.

Pick a unique name/handle for yourself. Pick something that relates to who you are. Names are great, if yours is unique. Numbers aren’t great – at least in my opinion. Be consistent in using that name across all the social sites where you create accounts. Get a great picture or avatar to go with it and use it everywhere as well. (I have two. My photo is some places and my manga style avatar is others. They look enough like me that it works to have both out there.) Put together a good story about who you are and what you do. Use that when you create profiles. (But don’t always use the exact same wording – it will make you look too much like a robot.)

Follow the best in the community management world, including:

• Connie Bensen, Alterian - http://twitter.com/cbensen
• Shashi Bellamkonda, Network Solutions – http://twitter.com/shashib
• Amber Naslund, Radian 6 – http://twitter.com/AmberCadabra
• Kristie Wells, Social Media Club – http://twitter.com/kristiewells
• Jake McKee, Ant’s Eye View – http://twitter.com/jakemckee
• Sean O’Driscoll, Ant’s Eye View – http://twitter.com/seanodmvp

Follow them on Twitter and anywhere else they are. Read everything they write. Check out the tools they use. Comment on what you read. Get involved. Don’t be a spammer about it, be real and be authentic. But do connect as best you can. Find out where they are and be there too.

Search out forums you can get involved in and start participating. Remember that a good bit of the conversation is still happening in old style forums. If you want to connect with people, create an account where your topic is being discussed. Make sure you fill in profile fields so that people find you. Answer questions. Help out. Do what you can to be a good cyber-citizen.

If you know a certain piece of software, find out where people are talking about that software and start talking. Answer questions more than you ask. Give more than you take. A good place to start is with boards where people are active. If you know Microsoft software, for example, check out the Social Answers site. You probably already have an account there, you just need to make it active.

Start creating content that helps people. Become the one that knows how to do it, then you can become the one who gets paid to do it. Whenever possible add screen shots to your answers. Create screencasts and videos to go with your content. Create a test case which you can use to document your skills. Find a project or non-profit that needs online help and volunteer.

When people ask you questions, answer as much of it publicly as you can. Yes, you CAN answer questions via email and private message. But if you answer them publicly, you help more people. Answering a question privately fixes the problem for one person. Answering it publicly answers it for everyone who has the problem.

Practice measuring and monitoring the social media presence and community presence for a product or brand you love. Check out the best of the monitoring and measurement tools. Learn everything you can about how to track information, gather data, generate graphs, etc. Write about what you learn.

Find new tools and sites for social media. Check them out. Try them out. Offer to beta test them. As you play with them, help others learn them. If you run into problems, report them. When you report the problems, be sure to tell the development team what you were doing, why you were doing it, and what you would have liked to have happened that didn’t. (Looking for a way to find the best social media tools? Ask people. Check out OneForty.com regularly for new tools and ways to use them.)

Finally, pick three of the things off the list of job qualifications that you don’t already know how to do and start learning them. Ask people to help you get better at what you are doing. Ask them how you can help. The more you learn, the more you can share. The more you share, the more likely it is that someone will see what you can do for them and ask you to help out. Every time that happens, you get one step closer to your goal of becoming a full time, paid, community manager.

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As Bruce and I have been looking for work and clients, we’ve noticed that those posting ads for social media work are changing the words they use. They ask for people who can help with Twitter accounts. For people who can create great Facebook pages. For people who can “bring the conversation to our site”. They ask for social media experience. They ask for all the right things. Many of the ads also want people to:

• Drive traffic
• Create marketing campaigns
• Write ads
• Increase sales

In other words, they want people who are into marketing. The ads are full of market speak. They are looking for a new way to do things, as long as the things that need to be done don’t change. They want you do to do what they are comfortable with, not what their customers and clients have come to expect. That’s a problem.

Because with social media, not just the words have changed. What you need your employees to do has changed. What you control has changed. What content is shared about you has changed. The real change? It is that your customers and clients now can reach out to their world and find what they need and share what they know. If you aren’t set up for them to share good stuff about you, they won’t come back. They will buy once and walk away.

The tasks listed above aren’t bad things to have people do for your company. In fact, each of those things can be good and should be done. They just aren’t all that needs to be done anymore. You need to be willing to set the expectation that you want to do the best possible for your clients and customers. You want to be the place people do business with over and over.

Many of the companies running these old style ads seem to want someone to do all of this for little or no money with overnight results. Let me tell you, that doesn’t happen. Overnight successes take a long time to make happen. They take energy and effort. They take work.

If you want to get the conversation going, think about these ideas:

• Traffic alone won’t help. If 100,000 people visit your site, but none stay longer than 10 seconds, you won’t gain anything. If none of those visitors come back, you aren’t much further than you were when you started. If none of them have a great story to share, you won’t stick in their mind the next time they need your product or service.
• Creating a marketing campaign can be a good thing. Don’t plan in how to tell the story and how to connect with those you market the products to and you will never know if it worked. You can’t just tell people something anymore. You have to join the conversation and listen to what they have to say as well.
• Writing ads is something that is never going to go away as a required skill. I know that. BUT what if instead of writing “ads”, we asked people to share what they think. If instead of sharing marketing speak, we listened to what they want and what they need. If we actually found out how they are going to use our products, why they are going to come to our restaurants, etc. What if we actually listened to what they want from us, instead of telling them all the great things we offer them.
• Increasing sales – oh, that’s a good one too. Everyone needs to increase sales. That’s a given. But, what sales do you want to increase? Do you want someone who will bring in 600 people over the course of a year, but never bring any of them back? Or, do you want someone who will over that same year give you a way for those 600 people to talk about your product and share how wonderful your service is? Take the second approach and you have 600 sales people out there as well as 600 buyers. Makes more sense to me, doesn’t it to you?

If you want people to be interested in what you are doing, do it right. Let them find you because someone told them how great you are, not because you told them how great you are. Give the customers you have a way (and a reason) to talk about how great your team is. Give them something to pull them and their friends back to your business. Make it possible to sell once and have the customer buy many times.

Easy to say, harder to do, right? Well, let’s look at what you could do today to start the process:

• If your business has a location, get out there and claim it on Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, Google Places, and all the other geolocation tools out there. Make it easy for your customers to check in when they walk in the door. Make it worth their time to check in. Reward your mayors, etc., yes. But also reward the average user as well. Put up tips that tell the world why they should come to you instead of your competition.
• Do something with your Twitter account. Don’t just post links and what you are doing. Talk to people. Find out who is talking about your industry or your business. Talk with them about who you are and what you do. Get involved in issues that matter to your customers. Do the right things and do them now. Really want to make an impact? Don’t just run a one time campaign to gather followers. Make it worth their time to read what you share. Pick a follower every week to praise and reward.
• Make your Facebook page a destination people want to visit. Add a game. Let people talk. (Yes, that means you have to monitor the conversation. Being big enough for the trolls to notice is a good problem to have. Especially if you go into it with the approach that you will reward content and conversation, but ignore the trolls.) Give people a reason to come back regularly. Send out updates to those who like your page.
• Join the communities that your customers belong to. If you sell art supplies, find an online community for artists and join in the conversation. (Ever been to DeviantArt? Check it out. Great place. Etsy is another one every art supply company should check out.)
• Run contests. Not just one time things, but contests that make it worth people’s time to come back again and again. Always give a prize that brings people to your business. And then, surprise the winners by asking who else you should reward. Ask people to share pictures of your products in use. Ask them to share advice they got from your store. Have them share content for your site or blog.

I hear you: You don’t have time or money to do all this stuff. You have a business to run. I get that. That’s where the true beauty of a social media consultant should come in. I am not here to run your business. I am here to help you run it better. To learn what your customers want. To share with you how to reach them and bring them back. I am here to be your voice to them and their voice to you.

None of this is going to cause overnight growth. What it will cause is a steady increase in interest. And if your customers are interested, they will come back. They will share. They will talk about you.  They will spend money on your products and services.