Need Permission for Social Media Monitoring?
Depending on how traditional your organization is and their reluctance to adopt social media practices, it can’t be worse than this video. Here’s an extreme example from the pharmaceutical industry where the legal adviser cannot even authorize listening in the social media space. Show it to your boss next time they tell you that you can’t do something.
Buick Tweetup in Greensboro
On Friday night I drove to Greensboro to attend a Tweetup sponsored by Buick. It was at a cool restaurant called Liberty Oak. We were upstairs on a loft overlooking the dining room. Some of their social media team and designers were in the area for the High Point Furniture Market. They are thinking about the design of the interior of their cars in new ways that relate to home design, and were looking for feedback and input from other designers. Since they were in the area, they also wanted to connect with Twitter users and other social media types.
I was the lone Triangle representative in attendance. I saw my friend Adam, who i met last year at Startup Weekend, and have seen many times as he joins us for social media events in the Triangle. I met several people that I knew from Twitter, but have never met in person, including Danielle and Tammy, who is a fan of North Carolina Wine TV. I also met Brandon, Jon and Sarah, among others.
The gathering was hosted by Lish (from Buick’s agency) and Robert (Buick’s social media manager). Robert was the one who showed me the 2010 Buick Lacrosse pictured above. That picture was taken with my dSLR, and the dashboard picture and these others were taken with my iphone. They say the camera you have with you is the best camera, but if I am carrying both cameras, my dSLR is better. I talked to both of them about social media and showed Robert some of the things that I can do with my iphone. He captured some video with his Flip of me explaining my posterous blog as seen on my iphone.
I also had the chance to speak with Alexandra, the woman responsible for the interior design of the car I sat in. She was interested in my perceptions of American cars and what can change those perceptions. We talked about one of the main differences between buying living room furniture and buying a car. A car is one thing and you are probably not going to go too far out in left field with your car choice. If you pick something trendy because you are trying to be cool, like the Nissan Cube, you will probably regret it in a couple of years. If you buy a standard living room furniture set, you can add a funky chair to the mix to accent your style. And in a couple of years, if it feels dated, you can just replace that one piece. It’s also like painting one wall of a room a funky color, rather than the whole room. A car doesn’t have that ability to upgrade, or change the style, if you tire of it. That’s why people make conservative choices. So car designers can only push the envelope so far.
One of the cool interior touches was recessed lighting throughout the interior. The technology included satellite radio, a backup camera with directional indicators based on how you turn the steering wheel, and an auxiliary jack to plug in your mp3 player along with a usb port to charge it, both located in the center console. There was also a light in the console so you could find these plugs.
It was a fun time and I made some new connections, new friends, and learned a little bit about a new car from Detroit and some of the thought behind it.
Lish and Robert at the Buick Tweetup at Liberty Oak in Greensboro NC
My Media Exposure Continues: Interviewed about Foursquare Launch in Raleigh
Yesterday I was contacted by Tyler Dukes from News 14 Carolina, our local cable news channel, requesting an interview about the launch a Foursquare, a location-based social network. The program has rolled out in a number of larger cities, and just added Raleigh to its roster of nearly 40 cities. Here’s the text of the complete article below, and here’s the link to read it in context. And, yes, they did call me Jeffrey, but I told them to, and that’s a different story.
RALEIGH – Jeffrey Cohen was surprised to learn that the social media application Foursquare was launching in the Raleigh-Durham area Thursday.
Just two days earlier, Cohen had been selected as one of five beta testers for the application, which combines elements of social networking and friendly competition to help users explore their cities.
After downloading Foursquare on their smartphones, users can search for anything from restaurants to entertainment venues, then “check-in” when they visit using their built-in GPS. That information is passed along to the user’s friends, along with any reviews or recommendations they might have.
“It is essentially a location-based social network,” Cohen, a marketing and social media strategist based in Durham, said.
But in a phone interview Thursday, Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley said the lead time for the beta testers shouldn’t have been too shocking, given the size of his team.
“It’s four guys sitting around a table,” Crowley said with a laugh. “It’s less formal than you’d think.”
After starting with an initial list of places, Foursquare depends on users like Cohen to add to its local directory, essentially creating a crowdsourced database of — ideally — every business in the area.
“Once we have enough content, the users fill in the blanks,” Crowley said.
Users have already begun this process in 23 cities around the world, from Atlanta to Amsterdam. But Thursday, the start-up firm announced it was expanding the service to 15 additional places, with Raleigh-Durham among them. The service adds cities based on user feedback on its Web site.
Location-based social networks aren’t necessarily anything new. Services like BrightKite and Loopt allow users to share things like photos or places they’ve visited. The microblogging service Twitter recently announced it would add location services as well.
But for Cohen, the defining feature of Foursquare is the competitive element. Every time users check in with the service, whether at a bar or a city park, they receive points. Those points are compared to other users who visit the same place, creating a virtual hierarchy.
“It actually has a leaderboard,” Cohen said. “The more times you check in, the more time it accumulates.”
The user with the most points — or “mayor” in Foursquare parlance — is selected for each location every week. Users can even cash in their titles at participating businesses for freebies or discounts.
“Today I became mayor of Open-Eye Cafe of Carrboro,” Cohen said. “The leaderboard is one of the key things. It adds a competitive element to it.”
Crowley said points can also earn users specialized badges created by Foursquare programmers and often recommended by users.
For example, he said, “if you’ve been to too many karaoke bars, you get the Don’t Stop Believin’ badge.”
The element of competition and the chance for reward has so far kept users coming back.
“It’s really sticky,” Crowley said. “Once you start using it, you get addicted to it.”
And Cohen can attest to that.
“I feel like I need to drive around and go to places to check in to be on the leaderboard,” he said.
But Cohen points out that the service is mostly limited to smartphone users. Although users can access Foursquare on the Web, it has limited functionality compared to the mobile version. Crowley said that’s intentional.
“What we do is build things for phones to make cities easier to use,” Crowley said.
As with all location-aware programs, Cohen said a lot of people are hesitant to broadcast their whereabouts to a large audience. Often, he said, some of the same concerns come up.
“Do you really want people to know where you are every minute?” Cohen said. “If you check in at a coffee shop, people will know you’re not home.”
But he points out that users control what information they put out and who will see it.
Crowley said that control is important to users, and his small team has focused on this element since they first began Foursquare in 12 cities back in March.
“You don’t want everyone to know where you are all the time. You want some of your friends to know where you are some of the time,” Crowley said. “That’s what we’re trying to help you do.”
Quoted in News & Observer about Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup
Today’s Raleigh News & Observer features an article about the upcoming NC State Fair and the Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup that my business partners and I helped organize.
Even if you don’t play the plastic guitar or send text messages to your BFFs, you’ll be welcome at the first Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup, an event organized with OurHashtag, a Triangle-based social media group.
The group tries to host tweetups each quarter, said Jeffrey L. Cohen, a partner in OurHashtag. Tweetups allow people who know each other from Twitter, the microblogging site, to meet in person and share ideas about online communication.
“It’s a way to get together to put a face with a Twitter name,” Cohen said.
The first Triangle tweetup in 2007 attracted five people to a coffee shop. The group’s 2009 spring get-together attracted 250 people.
Attendees at the fair tweetup will be able to sample some of the fair’s deep-fried offerings, interact with fair entertainers and participate in a scavenger hunt using Twitter.
While most of these competitions are aimed at young people, [state fair spokesman Brian] Long hopes they don’t spend all their time in the gaming tent.
“If we can get young people in and still use the fair to educate them about the importance of agriculture, that’s a good thing.”
State Fair using social networks to sell tickets
The following article is from the UNC Daily Tar Heel about my work with the State Fair press office and their social media team. The article also quotes Chapel Hill native and American Idol participant, Anoop. I have copied the entire article below to make sure I have the article in the future.
The N.C. State Fair is Tweeting, blogging and Facebooking its way to an unprecedented increase in ticket sales.
The fair’s social networking outreach, which began in June 2008, has helped to double ticket sales from this time last year.
With the fair less than two weeks away, more than 16,800 admission tickets have been sold without anyone leaving their homes.
The troubled economy could have helped ticket sales — local attractions become more popular when people can’t afford to travel, said Karlie Justus, state fair public information officer.
The N.C. State Fair is the first state fair to use Twitter to promote ticket sales and fair officials are also using it to encourage potential attendees to tell fair officials what attendees want to see, eat and do at the fair.
“We try to have conversations with people on Twitter so people can relate to us,” Justus said.
“People always want to hear about the new foods and the rides. It has been a really great customer service tool.”
Twitter is facilitating more than just better ticket sales. American Idol contestant and 2008 UNC alumnus Anoop Desai was able to contact the state fair’s management and book a performance — all via Twitter.
“It’s really helpful because you don’t necessarily have to go through a PR firm, you can just put it out there and it happens,” Desai said.
He announced on Twitter that he wanted to perform at the fair and the fair management contacted him after reading it.
“Honestly, he would not be performing at the fair if not for Twitter,” Justus said.
The fair will be Anoop’s first solo performance since American Idol.
“It was something that I wanted to do for people that supported me,” said Desai, a Chapel Hill native.
“I’ve only missed about three fairs in my entire life, so I’m very excited about performing there.”
The fair also is promoting a new event called the Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup, which will bring together local Twitter users at the fairgrounds.
The fair is partnering with Ourhashtag, a social networking company that has organized Tweetups throughout the Triangle area.
Jeff Cohen, social media strategist for Ourhashtag, said the fair partnered with the company in order to attract fans who have participated in Tweetups throughout the region.
“The folks at the fair are trying to reach out to people who wouldn’t necessarily go,” Cohen said. “The Tweetup is designed to make these people feel special, almost like a VIP group.”
The fair is also using a blog called “Deep Fried @ the N.C. State Fair” for publicity. The blog features frequent updates about what will be happening at the fair, a video of Anoop’s training regiment and other ticket sales updates.
A “deep-friend ambassador” was announced Monday on the blog. The winner will attend the pre-fair media lunch, sample the newest fair foods and music and blog and Tweet about the experience on her own personal blog and the official fair blog.
“We want someone to come out and blog about everything,” Justus said.
What I Have Learned Drinking Wine
My friend Ilina writes a blog called Dirt and Noise, where she publishes a regular Friday feature about a 5:00 cocktail. She recently asked for guest contributors, and I volunteered. I wrote about a wine that we tasted on NorthCarolinaWine.TV, but it was more about what I have learned by drinking wine.
Today’s 5:00 Fridays post is not about a cocktail you can make at home, but about a kind of wine. Actually, it is less about a particular bottle of wine, than about what I have learned drinking wine. And how good is life if you can learn things by drinking wine? I do a wine show on the internet (see shameless plug below), which should make me qualified to write a guest post about wine. As it turns out, I am a co-host on a wine show, and I am the one who is learning about tasting and describing wine in our show about North Carolina wine. One of the best wines we have tried in nearly 50 episodes (one bottle per show) is from Raffaldini Vineyards in North Carolina’s Yadkin Valley. This is our concentrated wine region with over 20 wineries and the first of North Carolina’s American Viticultural Areas (AVA).
Three Goals, Shared Three Ways
In yesterday’s soccer game, my son Peter scored three goals. It was the second game of the season and his team lost 4-3. The impressive thing about this, as a proud soccer dad, is that he has not played organized soccer in 5 years. Soccer was his first organized sport at 4, and I was one of his coaches. He developed a love for football, and started playing when he was old enough (seven). Now that he has discovered he is more interested in watching football than getting pummeled in football, he’s back to soccer. And at the rec league level so he doesn’t humiliate himself. His words, not mine.
As a social media guy, I am armed with my iphone, ready to share his accomplishments with my online friends and followers. Who knew it would turn into a blog post about ways to share photos and updates? But isn’t everything in my life fodder for a blog post?
So the first thing I do when I arrive at a new place is to checkin on Brightkite. This way if I post any photos, they will be tagged to a location and distributed to my selected networks.
After Peter scored his goal, which was done at the far end of the field, he came out of the game and got some water. I took his picture with my iphone and posted it to Brightkite. Here’s how it shows up on the location-based service. And there is a place for people to leave comments. I have Brightkite set to post notes and photos to Twitter as well.
Here’s the post to Twitter, which includes a link back to Brightkite and an indication that this is a photo.
After he scored his second goal, again at the far end, I took a picture when he came out again to get some water. I asked him to raise his hands in celebration. He humored me. Since I take photos using the camera function of iphone, rather than within any application, I can take multiple shots and choose the best one, and even change how I want to share it. For this second photo, I chose to post it to Posterous. This site allows you to post by email, which is super easy. This is now my preferred method of posting photos, as it can function as a photo blog for my mobile photos, although you can post anything there. Here’s the photo. Again, a place for comments, and again it posts to Twitter.
Here’s the post on Twitter with a link back to Posterous.
When Peter scored his third goal, I did not have a picture to post, so I just sent an update to Twitter.
Additionally, when I post photos to either Brightkite or Posterous, I have them set to also post the photos to Flickr, my main online photo repository.
And, I have all Twitter posts set to update my Facebook status as well.
And finally, FriendFeed is set up to aggregate all my content, so this is what that looks like. Since my Posterous site is new, I need to link that here too.
So that’s one way the flow of sharing information that works for me. There are lots of other flows and connections as most sites can be integrated to others. My two comments are that you don’t want to overload people and connect everything to everything as that can create duplicate content, and don’t post updates to places where you never go and interact with people. You need to respond to comments or updates about your own updates.
Let me know if you have any questions, and happy sharing.
Did the Universe Just Change? Mom Leaves Blog Comment!
Several years ago, when I still had a blogroll I added the blog of Danny Miller. He is a freelance writer living in LA, but he is also the brother-in-law of Wilco frontman, Jeff Tweedy. I would visit the blog occasionally, but my mom became a regular reader. She recently forwarded me an email she received from Danny Miller in response to a comment she left on his blog.
Danny and his wife gave birth to a premature son, and as bloggers are wont to do, he thoroughly documented it on his blog. My mom followed along. I periodically checked in on updates, especially as they intersected with Spencer Tweedy’s blog, Jeff Tweedy’s teenage son. Visits to LA with Wilco tours always have links to Uncle Danny’s blog.
Below is the comment my mom left on the blog when Danny announced that his son Charlie was coming home from the hospital. My mom felt a bit uncomfortable leaving the comment, but she was so moved by the emotion of the story that she had to share it. In that moment of leaving her comment, she understood why people blog and how you can make real connections online.
you do not know me…i got to your blog because my son is a wilco fan…i started reading it when kendall was pregnant and have lived through all your trials and tribulations…i cried along with you…i am a jewish grandmother living in southwest florida and have 8 grandchildren…i still cannot stop crying after reading about charlie going home…he is a beautiful baby and hope to read only good things…mazel tov…
And here is Danny’s response to her via email. There are pages of comments and I’m sure he replied to every one.
Oh, Marjorie, I am so moved that you’ve been following our story and I so appreciate your support! Especially from a bona fide Jewish grandmother–I am so sad that my mom is not here to enjoy Charlie in the flesh–she was such a great bubbie.
I appreciate your taking the time to write!
All the best,
Danny
Online Wine Show Featured in Winston-Salem Newspaper
The online wine show that I co-host and produce was recently featured in an article in the Winston-Salem Journal. Michael Hastings, Journal Food Editor, interviewed Kipp and me separately and wrote the following article. Here’s a link to article, but I have also reproduced it below if that link ever breaks. It was a great article, and people who read the piece went to our site to check out our show.
Web site is fresh way to discover N.C. wines
Let’s say you’re interested in learning about North Carolina wine.
You could start spending your weekends touring area wineries.
You could even go to the supermarket or a wine store and pick up a bottle at random.
Or you could log on to www.northcarolinawine.tv and learn about the wines vicariously from two curious Raleigh residents.
Kipp Bodnar and Jeff Cohen started www.northcarolinawine.tv in May. The Web site now has more than 30 videos of the two men trying North Carolina wines: swirling, sipping, tasting and giving their opinions.
Bodnar and Cohen both work in social-media marketing. They help companies get hip to Twitter, Facebook and other new media forms to help them market their products.
Division of labor“I was thinking one day, ‘I have wine from California and Washington. But I know nothing about wine from North Carolina,’” Bodnar said.
“We just said, ‘Why don’t we try out the wine — and video ourselves while we’re doing it.’”
“I thought it sounded like a great idea,” Cohen said. “We could do a video and people could learn with us.”
Cohen, 44, is a film buff and is handy with a video camera. Bodnar is a self-professed foodie.
“Kipp is the wine guy,” Cohen said. “He is much more focused on the flavors and on describing the wine. And in the show, I’m trying to find what he’s describing.”
Cohen said he has always been interested in wine but didn’t really know that much about it. So in the videos, he’s the novice drinker who’s learning just like the people watching the videos.
Bodnar, 27, said he has been influenced by Gary Vaynerchuk’s popular www.tv.winelibrary.com as well as other podcasts. “I’ve watched his show for a long time. This is a niche that you can’t get on TV,” he said.
Having a lot of funBodnar and Cohen try to post four videos a week. Every Tuesday and Thursday they post a video review. On Wednesdays, they post some kind of video tip. On Fridays, they retaste a reviewed wine with a particular food.
So far, they have posted more than 30 reviews. They are also using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to share their findings.
For a review, sometimes they visit a winery. But generally, they just buy a bottle.
One thing they never do is taste the wine before they hit the record button. “When you see us on camera, that’s the first time we’re tasting the wine,” Bodnar said. “This is about as honest and authentic as you can get.”
They will rate the wine from one to five bottles, with five being the best. They gave five bottles to the Skull Camp Confusion, a new second-label rose from Round Peak Vineyards near Mount Airy, and to Vermentino from Raffaldini Vineyards. They gave only one and half bottles to such wines as Raylen Vineyards 2005 Carolinius and Westbend Vineyards 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon.
When they do visit a winery, they shoot their videos on site. Bodnar said that wineries have been nice about leaving them alone to shoot the reviews.
“We go in with the understanding that we’re going to give our honest opinions,” Bodnar said.
He mentioned that when they picked up a bottle of Duplin wine at the store and tried it, they hated it. And they posted a negative review on their site. “But what happened after that was the owner wanted us to come to the winery,” Bodnar said. “We went and had a good time, and when we were ready to shoot, the owner just walked away.”
Neither of them has ties to the wine industry. The site is just a hobby.
“I spend a lot of time doing things that are serious and intense,” Cohen said. “This is a great way to spend time doing something really fun. And we are having so much fun. We’re never going to run out of videos because the goal is to try every bottle of wine made in North Carolina.”
Facebook Friends in Real Life Roadtrip
As we add friends on Facebook, even old friends, we sometimes forget that there are real people behind those status updates. Graham took a road trip to meet as many of his Facebook friends as he could in a week. He saw childhood friends, college friends and ex-girlfriends and captured the whole thing on video.