The 5th session of Social Media Breakfast San Diego turned out to be a dynamic, animated session about how social media changes the way we engage and interact with others. Bryan Person, founder of Social Media Breakfast Boston back in 2007 and social media evangelist for LiveWorld, spoke and lead today’s discussion.
Bryan started off asking, Is there this sort of collision between our work lives and personal lives etc. that prevent us from blogging about what we’re really doing, how we’re really feeling and who we really are? There are all these different people in our lives, friends, family, church mates, bar buddies etc., so how do these different groups of people change the way we’re creating our content. Do we want certain people to see things while others not? Are we essentially assuming a role when we Tweet or blog creating this sort of “reality star personality” as one member referred to it? If we have to be diligent and worry about who we are going to offend is it the real “you”? The question was raised, how much of yourself is really in your content? It also raised the question of whether or not people are really trying to get to know you or simply trying to get more followers. Twitter as a tool was built to have useful effective conversations between individuals, but it seems to have lost its authenticity if it’s the latter.
There was a lot of great feedback and insight surrounding this topic. The discussion was very energetic. You can view the discussion at
San Diego – Social Media Breakfast 5
We also went over our top 10 in 10 and found some great new things happening in social media this past month. Here is our list,
1. Stweets: Google Street View and Twitter: Takes the coordinates posted by a Twitter app and uses data to find the approximate location Tweet came from on a Google street view image.
2. Twitter removes a feature: The change which removes the option to view “half conversations” between someone you follow and someone you don’t. (hastwitterfixedrepliesyet.com)
3. YouTube Tool: YouTube lets you put 10’s and 100’s of videos into rows and columns. Just enter a YouTube video ID and frame width for each “piece” of the mosaic.
4. Starbucks brews traditional, viral ad mix in its biggest ad push in history: A challenge to customers to be the first to post a photo of a Starbucks poster on Twitter. Competition: $100 million McCafe line.
5. Climber scales Mt. Everest while Tweeting: Gavin Bate is taking Twitter up Mt. Everest. He is selling Tweets to advertisers to raise money for charity. (myeverestchallenge.com)
6. Church promotes social media during sermon: A church in Charlotte, NC allowed members to bring their phone to Easter Sunday service and post to Twitter throughout the service.
7. Susan Boyle, the biggest YouTube sensation ever: The appearance of Susan on the show, Britain’s Got Talent. The YouTube video is approaching levels of some of the biggest viral hits of all time.
8. Social Media Comes to Town Hall: Portland, Oregon’s County Chair is looking for a Social Media Coordinator. Local residents are.
9. The Elusive Justin Timberlake’s Mother’s day video: The follow up to one of YouTubes and NBC’s, D*ck in a Box. NBC no longer has a YouTube channel and has posted the clip to its website.
10. Twitter the movie, 140: Irish filmmaker, Franmk Kelly is creating a feature-length documentary inspired by the connectivity and synchronicity that Twitter users experience.
11. Bonus! Featured Tool: Pittsburgh Steelers quartback Ben Roethlisberger had a digital doppelganger creating false identities across claiming he had been diagnosed with skin cancer.
Think Together, an after school program was the winning nomination for our non profit feature project. Nadia Flores, Skyped in and gave the group a brief overview of the organization and its social media challenges.
Rebecca, from Parker White Inc. briefly shared with the group their Hansen’s Natural Soda viral campaign they’ve recently launched. Anyone can submit a photo of themselves with Hansen’s Soda, rules apply. There will be a grand prize of 5,000 dollars for the winner. Please visit, www.hansenslovessandiego.com for more details. Contest ends June 7, 2009.
We ended the session with Feedback 5, which allowed a few people to present the issues their facing in their own social media campaigns.
This morning turned out to be a great success!
A big thanks to Milano Coffee Co. for having us and especially a big thanks to Bryan Person and LiveWorld for speaking and sponsoring the breakfast this month.
Next session: TBD More details will be available on the SMBSD website soon!