A brief "state of the union" update for DC’s Social Media Club.

It’s already been a great year for DC’s Social Media Club (SMC-DC). We kicked off with our September meeting on Social Technologies in Associations and Non-Profits. Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation LLC moderated and Fleishman-Hillard hosted the event.

Our October meeting brought us some insight into government agency use of Web 2.0 technologies. Brian Giesen planned the event and John Bell moderated. The entire Ogilvy Digital Influence 360 team hosted.

Thank you so much to everyone who has participated and brought together great panels and content for members. If you’re not already following the SMC-DC conversation on Twitter, check out the  hashtag #smcdc for additional updates. Also be sure to follow @socialmediaclub for more information about the national organization.

Upcoming 2008-2009 Meetings

NOVEMBER 2008

Date and time: November 12, 2008 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM

Location: National Press Club

Description: How to Apply Local Search, Social Media Search, and Trusted Networks to your Web Marketing and Outreach

**REGISTER ON EVENTBRITE – CLICK HERE**

Special thanks to Jared Goralnick of AwayFind & Technotheory for organizing and moderating this event, and we greatly appreciate Beth Shankle and the National Press Club for kindly providing the venue.

DECEMBER 2008

Date: December 10th, 2008

Location: TBD

Description: Clearspring’s Justin Thorp will be talking about how, if you want to get your content or Web app seen, you need to have a distribution/sharing strategy that will help to get it out into the marketplace, where people spend their time online.

More details to come, but should be a great discussion with Justin!

JANUARY 2009

Date: January 14, 2009

Location: TBD

Description: Government 2.0: Part II. We’re still finalizing details, but this follow up to October’s meeting will feature government agency and social media experts Mark Drapeau, Associate Research Fellow, National Defense University; Steve Field, Media Relations Manager, Ground Systems at BAE Systems; and Chris Dorobek, Federal News Radio co-anchor, The Daily Debrief with Chris Dorobek and Amy Morris and former FCW Editor-in-Chief.

2009 and Beyond

We’re still looking to plan meetings in 2009. If you know of interested individual keynote speakers, panelists, have other ideas for meetings or looking are to get involved with SMC-DC, then please let us know! Venue and sponsorship opportunities also available. Please e-mail your inquiry using the subject line SMC-DC 2009. Contact information below.

In other exciting news, next year the SMC-DC Chair position will be turning over. If you have a love for event planning, social media, and our DC community of professionals, then consider putting your name or organization in the running. More details to come, but the position will turn over in May 2009.

Our final event for this year will be BlogPotomac 2009. Save the date now for June 12, 2009. Last year was a great success, and we’re looking forward to planning another great event for 2009. More details to come!

Questions, concerns, confessions?

Please CONTACT Larissa Fair at larissa@livingstonbuzz.com or on Twitter (@LYF108) for more information.

Connect with others on the SMC-DC Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2419741913

Last night was the first ever Grunig lecture at the University of Maryland, and Richard Edelman was the keynote. His presentation is here. What I found to be so uncanny about the speech was his hard hitting start, dismissing conventional mass media advertising approaches and demanding that PR become an engagement model with real influencers, all the way to the family level.

Maybe it really is Halloween. Listening to Edeleman was kind of like watching a post mortem on the Cluetrain Manifesto’s impact. Or maybe like watching a historian dissect a recent, rather bloody revolution (image from Gagglescape).

Now, I am sure Doc Searls et al did not envision the world’s largest private PR agency embracing the impact online has made (“There is no market for messages”), but it goes to show you how far the social web has come. Consider in our new fractured media environment the importance of Twitter in CNN broadcasts. The entire communications business has been turned upside down.

And yes, while many of us have been beating this drum for quite some time, it’s now beyond question. Edelman’s adoption as an ethos marks the true rapid adoption point for the business. Now for communicators it’s about who can adapt quickest and with the best quality.

Edelman went on to discuss how the new influencers impact PR, and how the business needs to move towards an engagement model that embraces a wide, diverse group of stakeholders (See Rich Becker’s discussion of the Edelman firm’s over-reliance on influencers to launch the new Pepsi can). During the question and answer phase, Edelman was quick to say that media relations will not disappear, but that all components — traditional and social — need to be integrated. He also spoke towards a topic near and dear to our hearts here at LComm, the need to embrace social good and incorporate it into business strategy.

All in all, I thought it was a pretty darn good speech, and I am sure the students got a lot from the event. Find below my tweet stream from Edelman’s Grunig Lecture

Do you want to live in a world where companies use micro-blogging as a means of communication? Where projects are managed and client invoices are produced all under one program? Well, we do live in a world where such programs exist – all thanks to the online services called Harvest and their newly launched Harvest Co-op.

Created by a New York City-based web software company called Iridesco, these two services provide companies (especially small business) with an array of features to help with office operations.

Harvest features:

• Powerful reporting: Harvest lets you analyze the distribution of time amongst your clients, projects, people and tasks. You even get to filter which projects are billable and non-billable. You can export your time into Quickbooks or CSV format.
• Faster billing: Through Harvest’s time tracking device, you can create invoices to your clients.
• Estimates: Set your time estimates for each project for time management. You can see estimates for each project as a whole or through individual tasks.
• Timesheets: You can enter your work hours in a weekly timesheet or in a daily timesheet. Harvest also provides a widget to for real-time input on your timesheets. The widget is compatible with Macs and PCs.
• Team Management: You can add an administrator, project manager and employee/contractor on your account. Each type of user has limited accessibility to certain accounts.
• Back-up: Harvest performs daily back-ups for security purposes and does not share your data.

Harvest Co-op ‘keeps everyone on the same page’ with their features:

• Workstream: The workstream works similarly to a micro-blogging tool, but you can type more than 140 characters. You get to converse with your colleagues and provide updates on certain projects. The workstream also acts as a worklog of daily accomplishments and a virtual watercooler allowing team members to stay connected.
• Time Tracker: Efficiency is a common goal companies want to attain. Harvest Co-op’s built in time tracking combined with your regular Harvest account lets you write about your project on the workstream and click on the start timer button next to your entry. Use the stop timer button to figure out how long you spent on that particular project. You can gauge how efficient you were!
• Agenda: Post your to-do list for the day in the free-form text area and be able to view your colleague’s agendas as well. See who else is working on a particular project with you!
• Team Status: An ‘at-a-glance’ view for your team’s last updates on the workstream. Colleagues actively tracking time and those who made recent updates will have a green dot next to their names.

Buzz Meter Ranking: 4 out of 4 Buzz Bees

Positive: Harvest and Harvest Co-op’s features are wonderful tools for companies. The integration of a Twitter-like stream, time tracker, and other various operational services makes working easier. How many of you have a widget for your time sheets? Can you see what is on your colleague’s plate for the day without continuously checking their Outlook calendars? You can also leave work with a sense of security knowing your data is backed up every day. Best of all, you don’t have install anything; you just need your web browser.

Negative: Harvest Co-op is free and regular Harvest is not. Harvest offers various monthly pricing plans for all of their features. You can always sign up for the free package, but it only allows you up to three projects. If you just use Harvest Co-op, you can’t use the built in timer feature without the regular Harvest. Thank goodness Harvest has reasonable price options.

Conclusion: Both Harvest and Harvest Co-op offer companies a great solution to time management, and continued workflow and communication amongst colleagues. Companies should definitely try both Harvest and Harvest Co-op to help make their organization more efficient.

The Network Solutions sponsored Solutions Stars Video Conference (today at 1, don’t miss it!) features nine content themes:

Balancing time online is critical. You need to market and build a reputation, but finding the right balance is critical.  Here are five suggestions to save time:

1) Focus on the two social networks that your community most cares about. A lot of people tell you need to be anywhere, I say BS: You need to be where it matters, and that’s the back channel where your stakeholders are congregating.

2) Set aside a limited amount of time to participate.  A quota on time is helpful. 

3) Focus on quality, not quantity.  How are you building your online social media community? What are you doing to contribute?  People remember someone who has delivered great quality to them, either through actual networking or valuable information.

4) This one came from my time saving friend Jared at AwayFind. Get all of your email sent to second email address that does not affect your workflow. Check it on your terms, when it makes sense.

5) Never supplant facetime with Facebook time. Know what pays the bills.

I hope you can join us for the conference today. It should be outstanding. And with that, I am done blogging about Solutions Stars.

The Network Solutions sponsored Solutions Stars Video Conference (Oct. 29 at 1, don’t miss it!) features nine content themes:

This is the eighth of nine posts in nine days, offering thoughts on each section.

Rising Above the Noise

The increasingly crowded marketplace for eyeballs — the fractured online media environment — makes it very difficult for businesses to successfully market themselves online. There’s so much noise that folks have to rise above the average blog, the prototypical social network user to distinguish themselves to their stakeholders.

Our panelists discussed several ways to separate from the pack. Here are my top five, some from our bloggers, some from my own experiences.

1) Build value for the community with meaningful content and conversations. This is obvious. Like Chris Brogan, constantly serve your readership and deliver time in and time out. When you do that, folks keep coming back AND they inevitably start developing relationships with you.

2) Have an opinion. Most businesses feel they need to people please, that they need to be safe. Great voices on the Internet have an opinion and stand by it, even if some folks don’t like it. They stick by their guns in the face of controversy and other opinions (but if proven wrong factually own it), and they offer strong theories. Some are more diplomatic than others, but all offer value and make people think.

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody - Bill Cosby

3) Be generous and give your spotlight to others. This is the generous web, and by highlighting other influential voices through links, comments interviews and social network bookmarking, you are helping their social media efforts to succeed. It’s a karmic inevitability that your will draw positive attention to yourself.

4) In addition to building value and shining a light on others, write/create great content. I still think participation on social networks precedes content creation success, but without great content the effort will fail. So while content may not be king anymore, it’s certainly royal.

5) Be you. Personality, genuine, transparent, authentic… Whatever, choose your word of choice. It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. Your personality needs to come through so that people can identify with you.

I put this fifth and last for a reason. Most folks overemphasize this and underemphasize the prior four. That’s the social media expert’s mistake. You need to put your stakeholders before your ego.

In addition to the main site, please visit the Solutions Stars Video Conference event pages on Facebook and Upcoming:

• www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=33854706886
• upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1200021

Many bloggers find it troubling that they put out great content but are unable to generate a high volume of readers. On Chuck Westbrook’s Blog he says, “There is a simple way to discover under-appreciated blogs and help them reach the audience they deserve.” See what Chuck has in mind, and find out what you can do to help unearth blogs that provide great content.

Mike Fuchter offers a comprehensive list of 35 tips to start your social media presence. His tips range from how and what to include in your about page, to building relationships with key influencers, to how and why you should set up a Google Reader. Read through his suggestions on his blog My Thoughts On Social Media, and help him round out his list with your own tips.

What does Twitter’s future look like? Henry Blodget says that Twitter is spreading their resources too thin and becoming vulnerable to a larger company like Microsoft. Henry says, “When one of the big guys competes with Twitter, they will do everything Twitter does, compatibly, and they will also offer a fire hose without restrictions, licenses or approval.” Visit Silicon Alley Insider to see Henry’s full thoughts, and share your own opinion.

On his blog, Doug Haslam offers the top five recent issues he found most interesting in social media. He comments on Chris Brogan’s talks of scaling social networks, about David Spark’s post on the mistake social media gurus make, and Doug discusses what is and isn’t appropriate for the public domain. Visit his post for all of his insight into the world of social media.

Beth Kanter is leading a charge to make a social media tool kit for nonprofits. On Beth’s Blog she says, “I’m really excited to see what we come up with in terms of tools, tips, and tutorials …that can help you spread buzz and generate awareness about your organization.” If you have any ideas or suggestions, visit the WeAreMedia Toolbox and help contribute. You may even get a free WeAreMedia T-shirt from your suggestions.

The Network Solutions sponsored Solutions Stars Video Conference (Oct. 29 at 1, don’t miss it!) features nine content themes:

This is the seventh of nine posts in nine days, offering thoughts on each section.

You Need Social Networks

Here were my thoughts after viewing this series of videos:

This was by far my favorite section in the series. It was fantastic to see all of the bloggers touting the importance of social networking, in some cases, ahead of blogging.

It reminded me of a post I wrote on Now Is Gone last spring titled, “Stop Pushing, Start Pulling.” In that post I lamented the ever constant focus of companies pushing out content and not participating in social networks and communities. Here’s a healthy snippet:

…a customer probably couldn’t give a damn about Company X UNLESS it’s an active member of their community, a member who understands them and tries to resolve particular needs. Companies must become part of the larger whole.

Getting a blog out there is great. But so what? It’s not special anymore. People that say folks will flock to your site are operating off old marketing information from last year.

How are people going to find out about it unless you are participating in the larger discussion? Which social networks do you play in? Why will they care without relevant context to their problems. Ditto for blogger pitches. Don’t treat bloggers like media!!!! Why bother unless you really know what the blogger wants, writes about and cares about?

Since I wrote that post we’ve seen a lot more activity by companies in social networks, particularly on Twitter. Lots of folks are trying to figure out how to make Twitter work for their enterprise. Our interviewees were also very hot on Twitter, in particular Tim Ferriss and Tony Hsieh.

What was interesting was to see the different styles of Twittering, from Ferriss’ no follow back to Zappos unleashing 400+ employees on Twitter. Then there’s the whole personality thing on Twitter, too. Lots to think about…

Personally, I find Twitter to be a great place to be for Livingston Communications. And for Geoff Livingston (find me here). It’s been a mix of highs and lows, friends and the not so amiable, and in truth, some really strong conversations. Twitter has been the network I’ve hated, loved, from which I benefited, and also shied away.

Eighteen months after joining, I’m still Tweeting and every LComm employee has their Twitter address on their business card. After Google reader, it’s our top referrer to the Buzz Bin, and the top social network So in my mind, it’s a must. Not to mention, I have a lot of friends out there, too.

In addition to the main site, please visit the Solutions Stars Video Conference event pages on Facebook and Upcoming:

• www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=33854706886
• upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1200021

We’ve pre-released Solutions Stars Video Conference session 2, the Social Opportunity. Featured in this session are

The Solutions Stars Video Conference will be held at 1 p.m. The nine videos in whole are 45 minutes in length, and with chat, etc. we anticipate the event will run until 2:30 or so.

The nine sessions are:

In addition to the main site, please visit the Solutions Stars Video Conference event pages on Facebook and Upcoming:

• www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=33854706886
• upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1200021

Anticipation for the Solutions Stars Video Conference is mounting. The video conference is a jam-packed 2.5 hours featuring 34 of the industry’s brightest minds giving their insights into online marketing. Best yet, this video conference is free and highly interactive (live chat networking). (Be sure to mark your calendars for October 29 from 1 – 3:30 PM EST).

In this special edition of Blogs of Fire we feature a round-up of online buzz about the event. On behalf of Network Solutions, thanks for spreading the word. For additional buzz #solutionsstars.

• Successful Blog: Meet Me at the Solutions Stars Video Conference!
• PR Squared: Listen to the Stars
• Online Marketing Blog: Corporate Blogging Trends, Insights and Events
• Get Elastic – The Ecommerce Blog: Catch Jason Billingsley and Linda Bustos in Solutions Stars Video Conference
• Social Media Explorer: Solutions Stars Video Conference Helps Small Businesses, Entrepreneurs
• Techno//Marketer: Solutions stars video conference by Network Solutions
• Greg Verdino: Marketing, Media & Trends: Network Solutions to present expert marketing tips
• Small Biz Survival: Video conference on web presence
• Inside the Marketers Studio: More Stars than the Big Dipper: Solutions Stars Video Conference Next Wednesday
• Servant of Chaos: Join the Solutions Stars Conference
• Community Guy, Jake McKee: Rapid Fire – Monday, October 20
• Better Communication Results: Solutions Stars video conference looks set to be an absolute bottler!
• FrogLoop: Free Video Conference: Solutions Stars on Internet Marketing
• GetEntrepreneurial.com: Solutions Stars Video Conference
• Communicators Anonymous: Solutions Stars Video Conference – What you will be doing 29 October!
• VibeMetrix Blog: Network Solutions – Solutions Stars Video Conference
• The Harte of Marketing: Are you an SMB? Want to learn from the best in marketing & social media?
• Presto Vivace Blog: New Media for Small Business Video Conference
• Webgrrls.com: Solutions Stars Video Conference – October 29
• The Letter Two: Make the Internet Work for your Business
• Chris Abraham: links for 2008-10-20
• Conversational Media Marketing: Join us for the Solutions Stars Video Conference Wednesday, October 29
• That’s Great PR! Blog: Solutions Stars Video Conference Brings the Conference Directly to You
• Jacob Morgan’s Blog on Social Media, Technology, Marketing, and Life: Free Solutions Stars Video Conference with Business and Marketing Pros
• Trinitude Network: Internet Marketing All Star Video Smackdown
• The Social Media Marketing Blog: When It Is Darkest, We See the Stars
• Alan Weinkrantz PR Weblog: Save the Date: Network Solutions’ “Solutions Stars Video Conference
• Thrilling Heroics: Tune In for a Free Social Media & Internet Strategy Conference This Wednesday!
• Diva Marketing Blog: Social Media Conference In Your PJs
• The New PR: Geoff Livingston talks to social media stars – and me
• LUNAWEB: Social Media Helps Small Business
• AdRANTs: Draft/FCB Shake Up Coming, DirecTV Gets Ideas, Enfatico’d Ethics
• Being Peter Kim: Free marketing advice and education
• Just for Small Business: Join An All Star Cast For A Video Conference on October 29
• PR, Social Media and Marketing Mentor: Come Learn at a Free Video Conference on Social Media Solutions, October 29

The Network Solutions sponsored Solutions Stars Video Conference (Oct. 29 at 1, don’t miss it!) features nine content themes:

This is the sixth of nine posts in nine days, offering thoughts on each section. We are passing over “You Need Social Networks,” which will run on Monday.

Visibility Through Search

Here were my thoughts after viewing this series of videos:

Of all the content areas, this is by far the shortest and the one that could be expanded the most. In large part this occurred because our videos were shot at BlogWorld Expo, not PubCon (I’m speaking on November 12, check it out).

In fact, if there will be additional Solution Stars Video Conferences search is one of the likely next topics. It’s that important to one’s marketing effort. Consider the following statistics:

* 41 percent trust Internet news according to (HarrisInteractive)

* From Searchers: Do you trust your search engine with your information? No say 62% (hakia)

* 44% of searchers regularly use just one engine, and another 48% use just two or three (Pew/Internet)

* Marketshare (ComScore):

Let’s be frank, one of the reasons why social media remains of so much interest to companies is that search engines reward earned social media write up, blogging and content creation. That being said, our interviewees discuss briefly how online content and SEO can impact a company. Again, this section was short so I encourage you to read our interviewees blogs and learn more.

Marketers who appear in Visibility Through Search:

In addition to the main site, please visit the Solutions Stars Video Conference event pages on Facebook and Upcoming:

• www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=33854706886
• upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1200021