Email LinkedIn Twitter

Google+ Twitter Q & A at Newport Interactive Marketers

1 Comment

Newport Interactive Marketers shared best practices and techniques to using Google+ and Twitter as effective social media platforms.

Michelle Quillin, social media maven of New England Multimedia and Matt Medeiros of Slocum Design, shared their experience and expertise with the #NIM group.

What did the #NIM audience take away from this Newport Interactive Marketers session?

Google+ offers

  • Targeted messaging
  • Social circles and hangouts
  • Makes online life more “real” via sharing abilities

Tips for Google+

  • Categorize your circles
  • Use Google+ circles to target specific people and avoid over-posting
  • Follow back every follower and then reassign to relevant circles
  • Google hangouts a great connect face-to-face
  • Look for people who are following thought-leaders

Google+ takeaways

  • For now, it’s best for marketers
  • Will not kill off Facebook
  • Will Google+ outrank other social mentions in search engine results?
    • Google says no, NIM attendees say yes

Interact on Google+ and Twitter

  • Tune your voice to fit various social media platforms
  • Matt’s take on finding your social media voice
The NIM group had varied opinions on the relevance of both of these platforms for their individual campaigns. Try them out and see what works the best with your audiences.  Then cater your voice to effectively reach out  to your intended audiences.

Thanks to @PRNick, @wordtracker, @kristinzhivago, @rrenfreehawes, @ChristiesNWPT, @HeatherCinOC, and  @NewprtBridgeRun for contributing to the dialogue.

Looking forward to more #NIM conversations!

P90X and social media with Tony Horton at URI

Leave a Comment

By Julie Woodside

P90X fitness guru Tony Horton had students flexing their brains during his inspirational visit to URI’s Social Media Strategies class taught by Designated Editor’s Suzanne McDonald.

Tony Horton, URI alum, has worked for over 20 years to create the P90X workout, the best-selling home fitness program in American.

How did he do this and how can you achieve the same level of success in your endeavors?

Tony Horton goes social

  • Tony loves direct contact with his audience
  • Uses social media: Facebook, Twitter, blogging
  • tonyhortonsworld.com allows different groups people to interact
  • Social media creates great content for large-scale view
  • Tony attributes P90X success to internet and social abilities
  • Social media has has even made Tony a better typist!

Be healthy, be mindful,  be open, be social.  Thanks for the great presentation, Tony!

Inspiring tips from Tony

Health and fitness first, find your passion, think and act outside of the box, challenge yourself, find your mentor, be grateful, live in the moment, laugh, meditate, find balance, choose right over wrong, navigate obstacles, manifest your dreams

Class dismissed.

 

P90X fitness guru Tony Horton with Designated Editors

P90X fitness guru Tony Horton and Designated Editor's Julie Woodside (left) and Suzanne McDonald. Tony explained how social media has helped launch his profile to URI's Social Media class, which Suzanne designed and teaches.

Create your brand story: Newport Interactive Marketers

1 Comment

Jamie Palmer, senior practitioner at University Business Consultants, taught Newport Interactive Marketers how to create an effective and personal brand story for online and offline platforms.

“78% of people are visual … if you can build a story, people will remember you.” – Jamie Palmer

What’s your brand story?  Are you telling it so listeners will engage?

Create your brand story

Return on investment
  • Build trust + engagement  = ROI
  • Once you’ve built trust and engagement, you can sell (softly)

Pillars of storytelling

  • Build structure and reframe your stories based on how the other person responds
  • Keep it simple: Have a specific theme, use strong words, be positive and/or funny
  • Be sneaky: Tell stories that show your expertise without overtly saying it
  • Use chunking techniques: Keep any stories less than 3 minutes, 2 would be ideal
  • Can only have 1-3 characters in your story: Don’t lose your point in character development

Create a metaphor, paint a picture that illustrates your offerings

    • What does the product do?
    • How would I describe the product?
    • How does the brand make me look and feel?
  • Utilize strategic intent

Tips

  • Have meaningful conversations
  • Bring in a third party to help tell your story instead of always talking about you
  • Make real-life connections like Newport Interactive Marketers

Twitter tips

  • Sometimes you tweet just to help SEO
  • Be careful what/when you tweet
  • Twitter counter measures counts up/down
Remember: Wherever you go, you are marketing your own brand and creating your own story.  Take Jamie’s strategies to create a story that uses the pillars of storytelling and paints a compelling picture to connect with your audience.

Check out University Business Consultant’s Connected movie trailer

Thank you @seangw, @carloverkat, @KevinTVine, @chrissheehy, @RIBloodCenter, @SidewalkBrand for adding your insights via Twitter to this #NIM event.

Social Media Europe at Social Media Week Berlin

Leave a Comment

Social Media Week Berlin puts Twitter and hot social media topics in context

Social Media Week Berlin panel

Interesting panel on crowdsourcing at Social Media Week Berlin in Berlin, Germany.

Which city is most Twitter-happy? Globally: London, according to Twittergrader

Top-Tweeting cities then take a distinct North American focus: LA, Chicago, and then New York. Every top 10 Twittergrader city but London and Sydney are in North America.

Facebook, according to Social Bakers, is far more geo-diverse: London ranks fourth, and the next Euro city is Madrid at #10; NYC is #14.

Granted, Twitter and Facebook are US companies. And living between Boston (Twitter Grader #8) and New York City, it’s fair to say I’m bathing in the Kool-Aid.

It was, therefore, of great interest to be a part of Social Media Week Berlin. Social Media Week is a global weeklong event, a bit of South by Southwest strung across the planet.

Berlin, according to Twitter Grader, ranks #38 in Twitter usage. It’s interesting to see how each of the 12 cities stacked up for Twitter and social media mentions. Sheldon Levine from Sysomos took a snapshot of #SMW activity for each of the days. I was particularly interested in Thursday, when I presented “How to Get a Job in Social Media.”

What do companies expect you to know already when you’re interviewing? I crowdsourced via LinkedIn Answers and added my own commentary as President of Designated Editor and Social Media Strategies professor at the University of Rhode Island.

How to land a job in social media

 

While my LinkedIn respondents spanned the globe, there was a Boston-New York bias. And it’s amazing to think how big an influence Boston has: Chris Brogan, David Meerman Scott, HubSpot, SCVNGR, all mentioned.

Yet all met with unfamiliarity in Berlin.

 Perhaps Berliners are simply less Twitter-centric?

Seems so. Levine “captured 52 YouTube videos, 48 forum postings, 53 online news articles, 262 blog posts and 4,012 tweets mentioning ‘Social Media Week’ or the hashtag ‘SMW.’ ”

I found it somewhat heartening that Berlin’s tweets accounted for only about 10% of Social Media Week Tweets. That is, I spoke to a packed room of 75 people +/- and no one had his/her face buried in a smartphone. It was refreshing.

Levin’s snapshot is hugely fascinating, since I’m especially interested in hearing what social media means in non-native-English-speaking countries. Thankfully everyone was spared my faulty German; the presentation was in English.

Turns out there seemed to be quite a variation in social media topics from here to there: My talk could have been subtitled: “What We Talk About in the States When We Talk About Social Media.”

I was only able to attend a few sessions due to my teaching schedule at URI, but was heartened to hear Berliners talk about Open Source and Crowdsourcing and Community Management when they talk about Social Media: much less platform-specific and more tools to serve society better. One talk argued that Venture Capital is strangling Open Source, comparing Capitalism to Socialism.

Berliners, be they German or Auslander, say their city is the Social Media / Entrepreneurial capital of Europe

They may be excluding the UK. Why?

  • Cheap rent compared to any other major European city
  • Crossroads of Europe
  • A city reborn and revitalized
  • Vibrant public transit: “You’re 30 minutes from downtown to the rest of the city.”

Having visited Berlin many times in the past 30 years, and attended school there, the international nature nurtured through the Cold War has left the city with a palpable sense of vibrancy.

Where else in Europe, or the world, could you go and get by only on English?

Not just touring around, but having a viable occupation.

Where in Europe has the entire downtown been redefined? Mitte, 30 years ago, was the heart of communism, with decomposing buildings and foreboding No Man’s Land running like a ribbon between the 2 Berlin Walls through the heart of the capital and encircling us.

The former East German capital is a hotbed of hipster hotels (Soho House was once the East German political headquarters), museums, embassies, and parties.

It’s this sense of renewal, youth, and enthusiasm that sparks not just social media innovation but the can-do spirit of entrepreneurs of all stripes. That spirit is fundamental to our American ideals and has a heart beating outside the Bundestag as well.

Long live innovation, wherever it may be.

What variations do you see when taking an international Social Media perspective?

« Previous Page
Next Page »