Today, Neil Abercrombie filed his paperwork and took an oath at the State of Hawaii Office of Elections as a candidate for Governor of Hawaii in 2010. Part of his campaigning efforts include the use of social media tools and networking sites. He and his team have been using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and more since 2007. Now, he wants to empower his volunteers by providing them with cutting edge campaign training.
Beginning Thursday, March 4, 2010, as the Social Media Director for the campaign, I will be conducting social media training at the Abercrombie for Governor headquarters at Ward Warehouse, 1050 Ala Moana Blvd., in the former Stuart Anderson’s restaurant. Training is from 5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Each week, training classes will be every Thursdays from 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Last year, I attended SOBCon: Biz School for Bloggers in the beautiful City of Chicago and was literally blown away by my experience, knowledge gained, and most importantly engagement with others. In no particular order, I provide you 10 reasons why you should attend SOBCon 2010: Where the Virtual meets Concrete:
Founders, Liz Strauss and Terry Starbucker are genuine people who consistently engage with their community. I am a regular reader of both of their blogs often sharing their forward thinking leadership posts. Liz was recently named one of the Top Social Media Strategists to Watch in 2010.
Like I mentioned above, it’s held in Chicago, IL! Last year was my first visit, and during my walk through the city I was captivated by the historical architecture. I am looking forward to returning with my family to revisit the places that took my breath away and maybe this time @oprah would be up for a tweetup!
2010 will be about smaller groups, focused content, and most importantly fostering relationships to build and strengthen your communities. SOBCon targets a group of 150, allowing attendees to build relationships, thereby build their communities. My tablemates, Becky McCray, Sheila Scarborough, and Paul Merrill continue to be an encouragement for me personally and professionally.
Speaking of Becky and Sheila, this year they’ll be speaking! Since last SOBCon, they’ve launched their new startup, Tourism Currents which provides web learning resources for the tourism industry. Hawaii are you listening?
SOBCon is business school for bloggers and this year’s focus is strategy and tactics for integrating online and offline social marketing. Speakers, attendees, and sponsors alike are there to learn, grow, and network together. It’s serious business, with a splash of fun.
There’s a great line up of other forward thinking thought leaders who have been doing all sorts of great things in their communities. To dangle a few golden carrots aside from the wonderful people I’ve already mentioned, Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, and Ted Murphy are on the program.
If you’re a brand new blogger, consider registering for the New Blogger Boot Camp which is only 1-week, into the 8-week webinar. It’s run by SOBCon alumni, Kristen King and will be a great “first course” leading into SOBCon2010.
On the third day of the event, Geoff Livingston of Zoetica Media, a social enterprise that serves nonprofits will host the Nonprofit “Give Back” Event. Nonprofits will have 10-minutes to present their value proposition, and then attendees will work together for one hour to develop ideas for online and offline social networking to help young nonprofits build awareness, gain support, and promote their cause.
Go to your community. Although I live in Hawaii; my audience, network, and community reside beyond the islands. Therefore, I have to go to them in order to grow in all areas.
This year I’ve been asked to participate on a panel and I am so very humbled by for the speaking opportunity.
Today I was fortunate enough to speak to the members of PRSA Hawaii about using photos and videos in social media. My focus was on (2) different uses of video as a marketing tool.
Use video to explain your product or service
One of the assumptions that companies often overlook is that their targeted audience or potential audience understands their product or service upon initial inquiry or contact. When launching your product or service, keep in mind the 3-types of learners: visual, audio, and hands-on. With visual learners, do not make additional assumptions that text or pictures are enough.
As the Chief Evangelist of Alltop, my opinion may be subjective, but take a look at the MyAlltop tutorial video below it has all of the elements of the different types of learners, including hands-on because it simulates the actual action readers will perform to build their customized MyAlltop page.
Put the camera in your customers hands
In October, I was fortunate enough to have dinner with Scott Monty, Ford Motor Company’s Head of Social Media. It was then that I first learned about Ford’s social media campaign, Fiesta Movement. In a coconut shell, 100 “agents” were given the keys to a Ford Fiesta, sent on selected missions over a 6-month period and asked to document their experience via social media.
I received an email from Scott last night with the following numbers from the agents’ published content:
More than 6 million views on YouTube
740,000 views on Flickr
3.7 million impressions on Twitter
Additionally, Ford has been able too:
Attract 80,000 people whom have asked to learn more about the Fiesta
Of the 80K, 97% are currently not Ford owners
Awareness of the vehicle is at 58%
Ford sold 1K vehicles in the first week of reservations
It’s important to note that the vehicle being marketed will not be available at dealerships until another 6-months.
Bruce Fisher, Ed Morita, L.P. Neenz Faleafine
If you’re still not convinced to use video to either help your potential customers understand your services or product or as a promotional marketing tool; fellow speaker, Bruce Fisher of Hawaii Aloha Travel demonstrated that a search for specific hotels in Hawaii on YouTube return his videos in the top results. Fortunately for the hotels, his videos enhance their brand, however not every company is that lucky.
For those of you familiar with social media and Alltop, you’re probably wondering how or why MyAlltop can be considered a social media tool. The answer is simple, regardless of your role in the social networking world, but especially if you’re an organization considering or executing a social media marketing plan you should be — reading more.
Second, scan through our more than 650 alltopics via keyword search, by category or alphabetically and identify the ones that are relevant to your niche, products, and services. To get you started I’ve listed a few alltopics to get you started:
Many factors are considered in the order of the sites on each alltopic page, however it is important that you or a member of your organization set aside some time to explore the different sites before selecting your MyAlltop choices.
Once you’ve sorted through and identified the sites whose news are most beneficial to you and your organization, follow the steps to set-up your customized MyAlltop account.
What are the benefits of having a customized MyAlltop page for your organization?
Staying abreast on the top news relevant to your organization.
Providing your clients with insight into your organizations’ thought process.
Share relevant content through your different social networking sites.
Take a look at MyAlltop page which is a collection of news sites that reflect my personal and professional interests. I also scan the headlines of the alltopics listed above as well as Hawaii, KGMB9, Lifehacks, and more.
MyAlltop also received a recent upgrade making reading RSS feeds via an iPhone much easier. If you’re not reading what’s going on in your industry, your competitors are — so don’t delay.
In June of 2007 I read a news article in the Honolulu Advertiser about Ryan Ozawa livestreaming via his Palm Treo 700p. I became intrigued and began researching on the internet to learn more about this new technology that allowed anyone to create their own live show. One click led to the next and eventually I happened upon Twitter. According to Tweetdeck my registration date for Twitter is July 25, 2007.
Back then, there was no search feature on Twitter and the suggested users list was very small. I eventually found Ryan and went through the list of people that he followed and in turn followed everyone that either indicated they were from Hawaii or could possibly be from Hawaii. One of those people that didn’t list being from Hawaii (in fact he still lists his location as United but has now moved from 2B to 3B), but sounded like he could be from here was Guy Kawasaki. According to Tweetdeck, Guy joined Twitter on August 25, 2007.
In early October 2007 Guy had tweeted (posted to Twitter) that he was in Hawaii, and that he would be speaking at the S.T.E.M. Leadership Conference at the local community college. I had not met anyone from Twitter (Tweet ups were not yet born) and thought this was a great opportunity to meet someone that I followed.
I sent Guy a direct message to ask if I could attend, and he replied, “I think so, if not tell them you’re my bodyguard.”
I attended without having to flex any Samoan muscles and sat in the back row. By the end of Guy’s speech, I was ready to start something — I didn’t know exactly what, but he had added fuel to the fire that burned with in me and I was ready to dance in the aisles and scream choo hooo!
Before he left, I introduced myself and took a quick photo; our Lieutenant Governor was waiting behind me to also speak to Guy. As I walked towards the elevator I thought, “Wow, Guy must be important for the Lt. Governor to be here and waiting in line to speak to him.”
Fast forward to February 2008 (there’s more to the story, and those who have heard it will say that I’m leaving out the best parts, however it’s better to hear the rest of the story in person, like say a speaking gig!) and Guy, Will, and Kathryn (Two guys and a gal in a garage, otherwise known as Nononina, Inc.) launch Alltop.
I noticed Guy tweet that he needed help and I offered. I helped with the first project, and then offered again. I completed that task and offered once more. I noticed a pattern, and then began taking the initiative to complete tasks before being asked. By volunteering my help, listening and following directions, being open to learning and growing — I created my own opportunity to become a part of the Alltop team.
By following this same pattern I have created many opportunities for myself:
A sponsored invitation to participate in a leadership training facilitated by Lance Giroux.
To understand all of this a bit more, prior to creating my own opportunity with Guy, I was the Property Manager for one of Hawaii’s most notorious public housing projects.
Volunteering, listening, being open-minded, and the willingness to grind it out has allowed me to create my own opportunities. But, I want to learn about how you. What’s your approach? How do you create opportunities for yourself?
