On a gorgeous Tuesday spring morning in Boston, the city’s social media community gathered at PUMA City on the waterfront to hear from speakers who are “rocking the boat” in their work .
In this video interview recorded shortly after C.C.’s presentation, he talks about the opportunities for brands to better connect with their fans online.
Video: Bob Collins puts a wrap on SMB13
As the breakfast wound down, I asked SMB Boston organizer Bob Collins for his thoughts on the event.
The 3rd installment of Social Media Breakfast San Diego proved to be a dynamic session of learning about recent buzz within the social media space, exchanging ideas about campaigns and bringing on a social project. The first thirty minutes were filled with coffee, pastries and croissants over networking. The new format was definitely well received as we cut it down from two hours to one and a half to keep the session focused and collaborative. With new segments like “Top 10 in 10“, we covered ghost twittering, Skittles.com, Twitterhawk, unfriending and other social media topics. As the session neared the end we did “Feedback in 5“, which allowed people to bring up challenges they were having within their own social media initiatives. I’d say it was a hit. Here are some photos from the session as well as some of the buzz on Twitter:
BreakingPoint Systems‘ Kyle Flaherty informed and entertained in his talk on the business-to-business applications of Twitter at last week’s SMB Austin 6, held downtown in the scenic office space of Tocquigny.
Here are a few #SMBAUstin tweets from the morning that offer a flavor of Kyle’s presentation:
LtoR: Jennifer Navarrete, Joe Ruiz, Donna Tuttle, Jennifer Milikien, Elaine Wolff, Bryan Person, Penny Muckleroy, Laura Lorek
In February, Social Media Breakfast San Antonio’s topic was, “The Media in Transition”. We had representatives from the San Antonio Business Journal, San Antonio Express-News, San Antonio Current and KSAT 12 News. Donna Tuttle, Laura Lorek, Elaine Wolff and Joe Ruiz shared how Social Media has changed not only how they gather news, but also how it has impacted their industry.
The conversation began with stats for the respective publications and broadcasts. It quickly transitioned to how Social Media is changing journalism. There was a lot of energy and excitement around the increased accessibility of news sources and breaking news. At the same time there was the fear factor and monetization discussion. Given the online push, there is a disconnect between ad dollars in print distribution vs. ad dollars in web distribution. How journalists, newspapers and television broadcast news are making the transition along with the real discussion of how to continue to generate revenue.
It would be fair to say that the overall consensus was that journalism as we know it has changed. While it is an exciting time to be part of the “traditional media”, there is a huge shift in how the industry will continue. The distance between news happening in the world and the time it takes to report the news shrinks. The news media are not the only ones being affected by this transition. Education, big business, government and the non-profit sector are all dealing with the fast pace of the internet coupled with the slowing of the economy. These are topics we will be addressing at future Social Media Breakfast San Antonio events.
SMBSA photo courtesy of Joe Ruiz , Live streaming video by Leslie Baldwin aka Springanew, A special thanks to Social Media Breakfast San Antonio intern Penny Muckleroy for facilitating this month’s event.
The first Social Media Breakfast in San Antonio was literally a standing-room-only audience to hear Austin’s own Tim Walker of Hoover’s and his talk on the history of social media. The packed room included social media mavens, neophytes, tech reporters and more. Since this first event was such an overwhelming success, we’re being moved to a larger room for February’s meeting!
Thanks to Bryan Person and Tim Walker for a great event, and stay tuned for information about next month’s meeting!
On Friday, January 16, a group of wonderfully interesting and passionate social media folk gathered at Basis: New American Cuisine in Phoenix, AZ.
Ben Grossman (Chief Strategist at BiGMarK, Inc.) and Elizabeth Hannan (Website Marketing & Social Media Manager of Pragmatic Marketing) moderated a lively discussion with the 20+ attendees on a wide range of issues pursuant to the theme, Social Media in 2009 | Look Both Ways. Topics that were discussed included a review of Social Media in 2008 (mainstream acceptance, most effective use, the shifting communication model in journalism and life) and forecasts of what is to come in 2009 (viability of content aggregation, where influence resides, political implications).
Christi Woods, from sponsor Herman, Goldstein, and Forsyth P.C., gave a very compelling overview of how social media is a game changer for the legal profession: from evidentiary issues to professional networking.
Sponsor Once again, thank you to our sponsor, Herman, Goldstein, and Forsyth P.C. and attorney, Christi A. Woods for sponsoring the breakfast and sharing their point of view with us. Christi can be reached at 602-569-8200.
The Venue We’d also like to thank Pete and Basis: New American Cuisine for being so accommodating and providing absolutely delicious food. The have a wonderful standard menu as well:
Basis specializes in innovative cuisine that remains approachable. An all day menu ensures the guest will find just what they are craving whether it is one of the fresh daily soups, a lobster burger, a prime rib stuffed poblano or southwest chicken cordon bleu. Sunday’s ala carte brunch menu features creme brule french toast, eggs benedict over green chile scones and cinnamon donut holes in addition to several other items. Basis also has over fifty wines by the glass, an extensive domestic and imported beer list and offers a coffee menu with french press options.
Overall, the breakfast was a huge success, a wonderful chance to connect with friends new and old, and to openly exchange information. If you are interested in helping to host a future Social Media Breakfast Phoenix, please be in touch with Elizabeth Hannan.
Social Media is booming in Memphis, and we proved it at the December Social Media Breakfast! 50 guests, ranging from social experts to brand-new beginners, came to this month’s breakfast at Owen Brennan’s on Poplar. Many of them were drawn by the breakfast’s recent mention in Memphis’ largest newspaper, the Commercial Appeal. This was the last breakfast of the year and it proved to be an incredible turnout. The Memphis Social Media Breakfast is hosted by Dave Barger of LunaWeb.
The morning kicked off “officially” with a home-run presentation. We were lucky to have Jason Orendorff from Mozilla as our guest speaker this month. He showed us some great Firefox features and some very useful social tools built into the browser. Jason also gave us insight into the intricacies of running a company like Mozilla using thousands of volunteers and a mere 150 paid employees.
After Jason’s presentation, we broke out into core groups to discuss topics that were chosen by the audience in traditional BarCamp style. Discussions included: - Video
- Community ROI
- Social Media 101
- Best Practices
- The Broken Web
- Mobile
Several of the attendees left their groups with plans to meet again later in the month to continue their conversations.
We’re truly excited to watch our next project, the Social Media Expedition, evolve, and we foresee it bringing lot of positive growth to the Memphis business community and beyond. If you were unable to attend, you can look for information on the next breakfast at our meetup page. Make sure you’re there next month to join the Expedition!
Peter Kim led a spirited discussion on the value of social media marketing at Austin’s Social Media Breakfast 3, held this morning at Rudy’s “Country Store” & Bar-B-Q.
Peter, who’s currently building an Austin Ventures-backed enterprise social computing startup, asked several pointed questions of our group:
Does social media marketing matter at all?
Does social media marketing scale?
Why are enterprises still blocking employee access to social computing tools and applications?
Do A-list bloggers really care about “the conversation?”
Peter’s generally not shy about stirring things up, and today was no exception.
Take a listen to my own conversation with Peter, immediately following the breakfast
Peter Kim on social media marketing: a conversation on Austin's Social Media Breakfast 3 [6:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
To keep up with Peter’s daily take on social media marketing, follow his Being Peter Kim blog.
Author, blogger, and word-of-mouth expert Jackie Huba led an engaging discussion on the value of niche communities on Tuesday morning during Austin’s second Social Media Breakfast, held at Genuine Joe Coffeehouse in North Austin.
Jackie kicked off her talk with case studies from Fiskars and Maker’s Mark, two companies who’ve established communities through ambassador groups. With Fiskars, that community didn’t come together around their actual products (such as scissors), but around the hobby of scrapbooking.
Also emerging was a lively discussion around the value of “lurkers” in communities, a topic attendee Kyle Flaherty and Shel Israel have since blogged about.
After the breakfast, Jackie sat down with me for a one-on-one interview to recap the highlights of her talk, including:
Why Jackie thinks niche social networks are the “plastics of the future”
How customer communities can build loyalty and encourage participation
How Fiskars and Maker’s Mark have cultivated brand ambassadors.
More than 80 members of Boston’s social media community came together last Tuesday morning for a social media breakfast co-hosted by Jeff Pulver and me at the S & S Restaurant in Cambridge.
While there was no specific agenda, Jeff did distribute his personal social-networking toolkits to everyone, ensuring the gathering was … social! He also hinted that the “Breakfast with Jeff Pulver (and friends)” series he is hosting around the world might lead to a book.
