Entries from June 2009 ↓

We had our 6th session this morning of Social Media Breakfast San Diego, which turned out to be a very energetic session.  Our featured speaker was Steven Cox, CEO and Founder of TakeLessons. TakeLessons is Americas leading source for private music and voice lessons.

Steven began his speech discussing what some of the challenges TakeLessons has come across in their own marketing strategies. One question they had as they began to build their strategy was how were they going to apply social media, which is now 15% of their marketing.  TakeLessons fundamental issue was to create a trustworthy and safe environment for their audience.  Their goal is to inspire a generation of people through music, so how could they create this safe environment through social media?

Their 3 marketing challenges:

1. How do we build trust?
2. How do we communicate passion to people?
3. How do we sell more lessons?

The social media solutions they’ve integrated are as follows,

1. A Blog: Firstly, creating relevant content, which establishes them as credible experts, which in turn helps create that trust.  Secondly, recruiting guest contributors, which opens the blog up to junior editors.  This allows people to be a part of the experience by sharing their thoughts.
2. A Twitter Feed: Of course this is on the list to help connect and create value for the people
3. YouTube: To showcase their customers.
4. A Facebook page: How they get people to be their “brand ambassadors”. They communicate their latest happenings and use that to build trust.

One of their philosophies is that people buy from people they know, so one of their fundamental reasons for integrating social media into  their marketing is to help people feel comfortable and to help create value.  One important aspect in all this that I personally took away from this speech is that TakeLessons really try’s to bring out the human side of what they do.  They listen to their feedback, they communicate with their customers/fan base, they decide what is most interesting and relevant to their audience with help from this feedback, then they run with it using all the social media tactics mentioned above.  In essence they use social media to build trust.

It was a delight to have Steven Cox speak this morning.  You can view the presentation here:

TakeLessons Presentation

You can view the session at:

San Diego – Social Media Breakfast 6

We went over our top 10 in 10 and found some great new stuff going on in social media this month.  Here is what I grabbed,

1. Twitter Tees: Twitter launches official Threadless T-shirt store. Twitter and Threadless have partnered up to bring Twitter T-shirts to the masses. Tweets on Tees  Example: In space no one can hear your Tweet.
2. Patrick Swayze not dead despite Twitter reports: Traditional media reported it and social media helped spread the news only it was false.
3. Iran-A social media election held on June 12, 2009: twitter is the best place to follow what’s happening in real time.  YouTube has video content from inside Iran.
4. What is Twitters value to Dell Computers?: The Twitter account @dellourles-Tweets discount offers for Dell products has generated more than 2 million in sales in 2 years, making it the biggest concrete business on Twitter.
5. Twitter plans to conquer the Tube with a TV show: Twitter has partnered with Reveille productions and Brillstein Entertainment to develop an unscripted series we know that it’s going to be a competitive TV series which will “harness Twitter to put player on the trail of celebrities”.
6. How 2 roommates saved a dogs life using Twitter: Twitter has found a heartwarming use.  2 roommates found a Pit-bull on the side of the road injured.  They took him to vet and needed $400 to amputate in order to keep the dog from being euthanized.  The 2 girls set up a Paypal account and used Twitter to raise money. They raised $500, so they used the remaining $100 for food for the dog.
7. The United Nations Environment Program: The UN has engaged in a really cool Twitter campaign for every follower @unepandyou gets by midnight June 5, 2009 the program will plant a tree with a cap of 100,000 trees.
8. E-Commerce tool BillMyParents allows teens to enhance social experience: parents are able to manage teen’s purchases on social networking sites with a new payment system that enables teenagers to purchase goods and services on social networking sites and e-commerce sites, but this gives parents full control over whether to either accept or decline the child’s purchases.
9. Bing: Microsoft launching new rival to Google: Microsoft plans on spending 80-100 million dollars in ad campaigns. Google spent about 25 million dollars in 2008.
10. Another Facebook phising scam: Scammers continue to exploit Facebook. From a site called Areps.at, like other scams it asks you to input your Facebook username and password, with a design that looks similar to Facebook.  If you give them this info all your friends will get the message telling them to go to Areps.at and the scam will spread like a wildfire.

We ended the session with Feedback 5, which allowed a couple people to present some issues they’ve been facing with their own social media campaigns.

A big thanks to Milano Coffee Co. for having us and to Steven Cox for speaking. You can follow TakeLessons on Twitter @Take_Lessons

A special big thanks to UserVoice for sponsoring this month’s breakfast.  You can follow them on Twitter @uservoice

Next Session: TBD More details will be available on the SMBSD website soon.

Starting at 8:00am Central Time tomorrow morning, we’ll be (fingers crossed) video live streaming, through UStream, a presentation from Tim Walker at Waco’s Social Media Breakfast 7.

We’ll also be testing out the Live Stream Box that Facebook released to publishers and developers last week.

I’ve wrangled together a page that will display the UStream feed and Facebook chat box side by side. To participate in the chat, you’ll need to use Facebook Connect.

To follow the stream and participate in the cat, start by clicking here:  UStream/Facebook Live Stream at Waco Social Media Breakfast 7.

(Cross-posted to BryanPerson.com)

Social Media Breakfast has come to Atlanta. The inaugural event will be held on July 23rd (Thursday) from 7AM to 9AM at the Duluth Diner at 3620 Peachtree Industrial Boulevard in Duluth, GA 30096.

Reservations are required since the Diner is opening specifically for our meeting.

http://smbatlanta.eventbrite.com/

Since the land mass of the metro Atlanta area is larger than most we will have rotating locations until we can establish leadership for each region – Northeast (Duluth/Alpharetta/John’s Creek), Northwest (Marietta/Roswell/Kennesaw), Southside (Ellenwood/Fayetteville), and Central (Midtown/Buckhead/Sandy Springs). If you are interested in becoming a part of the leaderhsip team and you are from one of the other outlying areas please do your best to attend this inaugural meeting on July 23.

The organizers for the Atlanta Social Media Breakfast are Lane Bailey, http://lanebailey.com and Ken Cook, http://icobb.com

Lane is a prolific blogger and you may have met him at any number of area events – Meetups/Tweetups and Bloggerodeo. He travels as much as possible to other Social Media gatherings across the Southeast. Lane is a Real Estate Agent and car aficionado. Lane may be contacted directly at 678-200-5895

Ken is an Atlanta native with over two decades of online networking experience and is a PHP/MySQL/AJAX developer, photographer and musician. Since November 2008 he has hosted/cohosted the top Blog Talk Radio show on the subject of Social Networking “Social Media Edge” (Tuesdays at Noon Eastern http://budurl.com/jckc) He most recently spent a decade as and currently serves as Social Media and Operations Director of NovaStar/Novation Mortgage companies. Ken may be contacted directly at 678-517-6367

Reservations are required since the Diner is opening specifically for our meeting.

http://smbatlanta.eventbrite.com/

Summer 2009 marks the one year anniversary of the Breakfasts in Ottawa. To help us celebrate we’ve got David Crow (@davidcrow) joining us for Breakfast 10 taking place on Wednesday morning, July 15th! David is Microsoft Canada’s User Experience Evangelist. And, many of the Canadian startup community will know David well as being the instigator of DemoCamp and Founder & Funders.

A bit about him . . .

David is a software designer with a passion for community. At Microsoft, David helps companies understand the technology and design opportunities for creating compelling digital experiences. He focuses on helping companies to extend their customers’ reach with next generation technology for the desktop, digital devices, standards-based applications for the Web, and rich media applications.

David has been named Toronto’s Best Web and Tech Evangelist for his efforts in founding DemoCamp, BarCamp Toronto and Founder & Funders. David has worked to facilitate a vibrant community and ecosystem in Toronto. David continuously helps his clients understand that the power of community is beyond just being an audience: community is the framework.

Want to meet and learn from David Crow? Sign up today at http://smbottawa10.eventbrite.com or by clicking the button below!

Fall 2009 – Save-the-Dates!

We’ve also been busy programming for the Fall. A couple of Save-the-Dates for you to consider:

Wednesday, September 16th – Breakfast 11 with Miss. Rogue – Tara Hunt

Wednesday, October 14th – Breakfast 12 with Krista Napier, IDC

Rob, Ryan and I will tweet more details as we get closer to the dates. And, you can join us on Sixent, LinkedIn and Facebook.

We hope to see many of you on July 15th! Remember to help spread the word and tag your content with smbottawa

Thought-Provoking.

Brain-Filling.

Mouth-Watering.

Social Media Breakfast East Bay

• Date: Wednesday, July 15, 2009
• Hours: 8:00-10:00 am
• Location: Cesar restaurant, 4039 Piedmont Avenue, Oakland, CA 94611
• Cost: Free (thanks to sponsorship by George P. Johnson)
• Event tag: #

Frank Eliason and his team at Comcast have made headlines helping customers who complain about Comcast service on Twitter. However, critics argue that such an approach to customer service won’t scale. After all, the number of complaints the team addressed in a year is slightly more than the total number of customer service reps employed by Comcast; the complaints answered on Twitter is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the total number that come in by phone.

But Salesforce.com has integrated a Twitter search into its customer service module, so every customer service rep, in addition to handling calls, can respond to problems people raise on Twitter, with direct access to the customer service database integrated into the module. Can this be the solution to scaling Twitter-based customer service?

Tom Wong, Vice President, Dreamforce, Customer Marketing Programs at Salesforce.com and author of “Salesforce.com for Dummies,” will be our guest speaker at the second Social Media Breakfast East Bay event.

The San Francisco EAST BAY Social Media Breakfast is being organized by Shel Holtz and Kenny Lauer. It brings together all kinds of folks: social media experts, newcomers and enthusiasts, for a morning of eating, stimulating dialog, sharing, and learning. Did I mention eating?

Ok who is welcome? See if you fit into one of these: Marketers, PR pros, entrepreneurs, bloggers, videobloggers, podcasters, students, new-media enthusiasts, Twitterers, community managers, recruiters, and online social networkers.

The breakfast is free thanks to George P. Johnson’s sponsorship, but seats are limited. Please reserve yours at our by clicking here–>Eventbrite listing.

Sponsor

*** Our special thanks to our generous sponsor,George P. Johnson Experience Marketing

Special thanks

** Finally, a big thank you to Richard, Diane, and everyone at Cesar restaurant for accommodating us.

How can you rally small, but passionate tribes of people around a non-profit cause?

Join Social Media Breakfast Toledo and host Ellyn Davidson on July 10 for Weaving a Web(2.0) for Success: How social media is changing the non-profit world.

Ellyn Davidson

Davidson, a 15-year partner of Brogan & Partners and who recently joined Ignite Social Media, will be speaking about how various types of social media can be effective in the non-profit sector. She’ll bring several case studies on how non-profits have used social media to achieve goals.

After a breast cancer diagnosis a few years ago, Davidson used her blog and created a Facebook page to keep family and friends updated on her health, treatments and state-of-mind. She found a passion, enthusiasm and a great understanding of the power of social media and discovered that if used wisely social media could:

* Deepen engagement with constituents, volunteers, philanthropists, and staff

* Rally small, passionate groups around a non-profit cause

* Facilitate collaboration and teamwork

* Develop listening efforts to identify vocal critics and enthusiastic supporters

Davidson received a BBA in Marketing and Operations Management from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an International Business Specialization from the London School of Economics.

Social Media Breakfast Toledo is lucky to have shared three events so far with our own SMB panel, Aaron Newman and Dave Rigotti. Register now and join us and Ellyn Davidson for the July 10 (7:30 a.m.) Social Media Breakfast Toledo at http://smbtoledo4.eventbrite.com.

Do you have questions or comments on our series? Visit Social Media Breakfast Toledo’s Ning site and we’ll meet you for breakfast.

New York’s Tech Valley (Albany, Schenectady, Troy, Saratoga Springs) held its inaugural Social Media Breakfast on Friday, June 19, where more than 60 social media enthusiasts gathered to learn from a panel of talented speakers. The discussion was moderated by Amy Mengel and featured Mike Germano of Carrot Creative, Rhea Drysdale from Outspoken Media and Stuart Foster from The Lost Jacket.

View from the panelist's table, from Mike Germano

The conversation focused on creative ways of using different social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, strategies for promoting local businesses through social media, and discussing the potential of mobile apps in reaching audiences. Attendees came from a variety of backgrounds, including higher education, state government, software, travel and hospitality, PR and advertising agencies, law and theater. Many attendees live-tweeted the event with the #smbtv hashtag (transcript here).

Generous sponsorship from AllOverAlbany.com and SUNY Cobleskill made the event possible. The event drew a huge amount of interest and the available seats were sold-old in under three days. A larger venue is in the works for the second event, which will be held in August. Those interested in attending are encouraged to follow @smbtv on Twitter or join the Facebook group for updates. You can also contact SMB-TV founder Amy Mengel if you have questions, ideas, speaker opportunities or potential venues for future Social Media Breakfasts in Tech Valley.

This month in San Diego we’re heading into session 6 and our speaker is Steven Cox, CEO and Founder of TakeLessons. TakeLessons is America’s leading source for private music and voice lessons. The company based in San Diego, is a privately held company with instructors teaching in over 400 cities across the USA. In addition to private lessons, TakeLessons also offers turnkey music lessons to private schools, after school programs, and corporate wellness facilities.

Steven will be discussing the social media channels and strategies TakeLessons has and is currently using to show how it has helped the company grow to what it is today. TakeLessons is one of the few music companies who are using a wide range of social media tactics to communicate with their students and teachers as well as perspective students and teachers.

New Social Project Update:
Our spreadsheet is up for our non profit organization, Think Together and is ready for volunteers to sign themselves up. We have created various groups so that people may choose what will suit them best.  We will announce this during the breakfast and will be taking any questions and statements regarding our next steps.

Event Details:
Where: Milano Coffee Co., 8685 Rio San Diego Dr., Ste B, San Diego, CA
Parking: Recommended parking across the street
When: June 30,2009…7:30am-9:00am
Bonus: Free…bring a friend or 2, but please RSVP
Cost: Pastries and Coffee will be provided

This month’s sponsor is UserVoice. The company was started in 2007 as a simple way to prioritize feature requests, reinventing the way companies engaged customers. Today UserVoice continues to capitalize on crowd sourced voting to simplify the aggregation of untapped knowledge from employees, constituents and consumers. UserVoice is revolutionizing the industry with its real time, “Ideas Anywhere” solution, making idea generation not only easy to integrate, but so cost effective that any size company or organization can redefine how they learn, share, and evolve their offerings. You can follow UserVoice on Twitter @UserVoice.

To sponsor a future event contact Erin Levenson VIA Twitter @erinlevenson or @SMBSD

If you are interested in following updates about the Social Media Breakfast San Diego.

Thursday, June 11th Joe DiNunzio will be leading an active discussion on gaming and social media at the June Cincinnati Social Media Breakfast. DiNunzio is president of Fido Management, a visiting professor at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management and a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Interactive Media Peer Group.

This month’s discussion is designed to engage the audience. After DiNunzio profiles some companies doing interesting things in the social media space, he’ll lead an audience discussion around how the work these companies are doing relates to attendees’ experiences.

Companies profiled are doing work in Alternative Reality Games, a next-gen Internet-connected gaming device, crowd sourcing feature quality animation, widgets and tools to analyze and measure the impact of WOM/social media placements.

Event Tag #cincysmb

Date Thursday, June 11th from 7:30 am until 9:30 am

Location The Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal 1301 Western Ave Cincinnati, OH 45203

Cost FREE.

Questions? Contact Daniel Lally and Kevin Dugan via cincysocmed AT gmail DOT com

About Joe DiNunzio: As a senior executive with more than two decades of leadership experience with corporate and entrepreneurial ventures, DiNunzio has extensive expertise in strategy, business development, product development, operations, marketing, and technology deployment.

DiNunzio is president of consultancy Fido Management, a visiting professor at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management and a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Interactive Media Peer Group. Previously, he spent six years at Walt Disney Imagineering, where he served as SVP of New Product Development. DiNunzio has an AB (Psychology) from Harvard and an MBA from Stanford.

About Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal: Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal is a nationally recognized institution. Organizations within Museum Center include the Cincinnati History Museum, Duke Energy Children’s Museum, the Museum of Natural History & Science, the Robert D. Lindner Family OMNIMAX® Theater, and the Cincinnati Historical Society Library. These organizations combine to serve more than one million visitors annually, reaching out to nearly 400,000 young people through hands-on exhibits and programs. Originally built in 1933 as a train station, Union Terminal stands as one of the last remaining grand-scale Art Deco style railroad terminals.

About Cincinnati Social Media: Founded by Kevin Dugan, Daniel Lally and Dave Knox, Cincinnati Social Media counts more than 400 members and holds monthly events where social media experts and newbies alike come together to eat, meet, share, and learn. It is part of the international Social Media Breakfast series which is held in 25 cities.

Dave Rigotti was the featured speaker at our third Social Media Breakfast Toledo event at the Toledo Elks Club. Rigotti spoke on the Do’s and Don’ts of Business Blogging.

Dave is an award-winning online marketer, whose works have been mentioned in such publications as The L.A. Times, Techcrunch, Cleveland Plain Dealer and others. Dave, who was part of the panel for April’s inaugural SMB Toledo, is also the owner of an internet marketing company called Freezing Hot.

We’re learning about social media – and social media breakfast planning. Tell us how to improve our SMB Toledo events at our Ning site.

First Friday in July? Go to the lake and enjoy your Fourth of July weekend. See us on July 10 for Social Media Breakfast No. 4.