First Triangle Tweetup of 2009
Photo by Josh Hofer, part of the Triangle Tweetup Photobooth
Thursday night was the latest Triangle Tweetup, a gathering of local people who use Twitter. The above picture shows 4 of the 5 people who attended the first Triangle Tweetup in December 2007 (me, @waynesutton, @therab, @ginnyskal). As we prepared for this Tweetup, I noticed that lots of new people were tweeting about the event. I sensed that it would be big.
I arrived early and helped Wayne Sutton and Kipp Bodnar decide what to do about the chairs. I predicted over a hundred people would show up, and there were just a handful of chairs. We wound up moving the chairs to the side, leaving most of the space in front of the speakers open for standing.
People started arriving around 6:45 for a 7:00 event. There were lots of faces that I didn’t recognize. Twitter has been growing and our little community of users in the Triangle is growing along with it. One of the reasons for the event was to help new users learn how to use Twitter more effectively, whether for business or pleasure. I was one of the scheduled speakers for the evening, so it was important for me to understand how many newbies were in the crowd. I was planning on sharing my blogs and video projects in a way that would let me pass on some Twitter tips. No presentation to change if I needed to adjust my words. All I required was a browser.
As 7:00 rolled around, people were still streaming in the door. I was starting to get a little overwhelmed. Not from a crowd point of view, or even nervous about speaking, but from a people and connections point of view. There have been loads of people I have met over the past year that I see at these regular social media gatherings. I like to catch up and chat with them a bit. We may keep up on Twitter or through our blogs, but these friendships are stronger when you meet in person, or IRL, shorthand for in real life. And I just didn’t know if I would have a chance to talk to them all.
In addition to people I knew, there were also people I wanted to meet. These are people the I have begun communicating with recently, but have never met. I might have even started in past few days as they said they were coming to the Tweetup. And there were probably even some people who wanted to meet me. Since I was on the agenda as a speaker, they might have figured I knew something about Twitter. That part is true.
The event began and I moved through the crowd, taking pictures and stopping to chat with friends. It was such a big crowd that I had trouble finding a vantage point to capture it. The above photo shows part of it, but there were many more people who don’t show up in this view.
It was finally time for me to present and that was a blast. I knew what I wanted to say. I had an order to click through my blogs. And I think it went pretty well. I wasn’t nervous trying to talk to all those people. It was good practice for me presenting to a crowd. I need to do more of it. I also managed to video tape the crowd wishing the Triangle Tweeple Team good luck in the Krispy Kreme Challenge.
And finally, I met some new people that I will continue to tweet with, until the next tweetup when I will go expecting to see them. And if I didn’t get a chance to meet you, contact me through here or Twitter. We can grab a cup of coffee and I can find out what you are up to. I would be happy to give you a few tips about Twitter too.
Arrow of Light
Tonight Peter, and three other members of his den, earned his Arrow of Light award. This is the highest award one can earn in Cub Scouts, and something that can remain on your uniform in Boy Scouts. He also earned all 20 of the Webelos Activity Pins, when all you need to earn for Arrow of Light is 8. This is called Super Achiever. Peter has had this kind of Cub Scout experience.
When he joined scouts as a Tiger Cub in first grade, he declared that he would earn Eagle Scout. That is the highest achievement in Boy Scouts that one earns in high school. Now in fifth grade he will be joining a Boy Scout troop and will continue his journey in scouting.
I am proud as a Den Leader that 4 more of our scouts have earned this award, but I am prouder as a dad to have my son excel and reach these levels of achievement.
Wow Ella Covers Clapton
I have only known Ella Fitzgerald to sing pop standards and jazz. This cover of Cream’s Sunshine of your Love is very cool.
Cost of Healthcare
My kids are into Webkinz, which is a line of small stuffed animals that is paired with a virtual world. Buy an animal and you go on line to take care of it. Food, clothing and shelter are just the beginning. They have recreated many popular internet activities for children, like playing games of chance to earn money (KinzCash) so you can buy more stuff for your animal. How many hats and pairs of shoes does a virtual chihuahua really need?
Anyway, here is a recent conversation we had about life in Webkinz World, that seems to be bringing major societal issues to the forefront of kids’ minds.
Me: What happens if you don’t log in and feed all your animals?
Peter: Nothing. If you don’t log in, nothing changes, but if you are there, you need to feed them.
Grace: One of my friends didn’t log in and her animals got sick. She had to buy them medicine and it cost a lot of money.
Bad Snow Behavior
The following two items are from the Carrboro Police Logs:
1. Police responded to a dispute Tuesday about whether a woman should be rolling up a ball of snow. When police arrived, the arguers “went their separate ways.”
2. Police received reports Tuesday of kids throwing snow balls at passing cars on N.C. 54.
B2B Video Social Media Examples
According to a recent online survey of 400 senior marketing and media executives, two-thirds of them expect 2009 to be the year they embrace online video as an important part of their marketing strategies. Nearly three-quarters of those plan to use video to expand their brand awareness. And this trend will certainly be part of B2B marketing in the upcoming year.
Video is a more engaging medium than text on a screen, and as people become more comfortable with web video in their daily lives, this will flow through to the business arena. While there are several different approaches to generating video content for the web, companies will succeed when videos are created as part of a campaign with a clear goal in mind, and are developed within the context of the brand.
1. Develop your own videos
Cisco is a well known brand and a leader in the technology industry. As part of a product launch for the ASR 9000 router, they created a campaign around a bumbling tech reporter who is assigned to break the story of the new product. Even CEO John Chambers shows he can play along. The initial video was combined with a blog, facebook group, twitter account, youtube and a preview launch site to build awareness of the product launch. Read more about the success of the campaign and the importance of cross-promoting video content on Dianna Huff’s B2B Marcom blog.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB68LmoEoT4[/youtube]
Marketing software and service provider Hubspot created this video to explain what they can do for their clients. Again they cross-promote this, and other video content, through their blog, facebook, twitter and youtube.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-lGe5MnBlY[/youtube]
2. Call for user-generated content
Software company iRise has a slew of informational corporate videos, product demos and customer testimonial videos on their website, but according to this blog post by Tom Humbarger, the company CMO wanted to host a user-generated video contest to build awareness for the company’s products and give its customers the opportunity to share their passion.
By offering a $15,000 first prize, the company generated 44 entries to the contest. This was the result of posting in over 100 online forums and groups for film and video makers. While he calls the campaign a success with over 16,000 visitors to the contest website, 57,000 page views, and more than 30,000 video views on YouTube, I would point back to the goals of the campaign. No videos were created by iRise customers, including the 3000 members of their user community, but only by creative types competing for a cash prize. And the winning entry is not even included in the video section of their web site. The announcement of the winner was on the company blog, and the contest site is still live for your perusal.
Since the creator of the contest no longer works at the company, we may never know how this user-generated contest affected the brand, but this is a good example of a B2B video contest.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chj3p-fwVsU[/youtube]
3. Embrace existing user-generated content
And the final example of video marketing is to seek out and embrace video content that is being created. This example may be less relevant to B2B marketers, but people are passionate about their favorite brands and talk about them online. As video continues to be more widely used for online conversations, marketers and pr professionals need to be comfortable reaching out to video bloggers and be receptive when they reach out to them. Below is a video interview I did with Lynn Williams, Community Relations Representative of Mt Olive Pickle Company. I contacted her as a blogger interested in their New Year’s Eve event (a pickle drop) for my site NewYearsDrop.com
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/2691396[/vimeo]
So, in summary, video will be an important part of marketing in 2009, but like all components of a marketing campaign, it must be developed with a clear goal for success, be consistent with your brand, and be part of a larger promotional strategy. If you have other examples of B2B video, or any comments to add, please leave them below.
Originally posted on Koroberi.com.
Same View, Now with Snow
We Have A New President
President Barack Obama waves alongside his wife, Michelle, Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, as former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, leave the U.S. Capitol by helicopter after Mr. Obama was sworn in as the 44th President. (Pool photo by Saul Loeb via the NY Times)
Hattip to Ryan
Indoor Rock Climbing
Today we took our Cub Scout Den to Triangle Rock Climbing for some indoor adventure on a cold, drizzly Sunday. We climbed with someone belaying, an auto belayer (my favorite) and bouldering. It was hard work, but lots of fun.
Me climbing with an auto belayer
Peter having fun
Here’s a link to the rest of the photos on Flickr.
Travel in 2050
Today I encouraged (read: forced) the kids to work on creative projects. I had a list of suggestions they could pick from, or they could come up with their own. Grace decided that she wanted to speculate on what travel would be like in the future. I had suggested 2030, but Peter advised that that was not far enough in the future for anything to have changed much, so we agreed on 2050. Below are photos that I took with her direction and the sentences she wrote to describe them.
You can use jet pack shoes to get anywhere.
Cars can go underground and GPS is an eyeball.
Anything that you can fly will be replaced by jet pack shoes, but if they run out of oil you can use magic.
You can go on a vacation to the sun. There are 20 hotels in each country. You can only stay in a hotel for a month.
You can go underwater and stay for a week straight.