Creating an inclusive social media event
Jan 30th
A few years ago, I was speaking at a social media event in New York. A student wrote me and said, “I would love to come to meet you but I can’t afford the $375 ticket!”
I ended up working out a “scholarship” for this young person to attend but I started thinking about the chronic problems on the social media event circuit:
- The tickets are so expensive, excluding many students, young professionals, and those in career transition who really need to attend the event. And because the events are usually in New York or L.A., the travel and hotel costs can also be significant.
- Networking opportunities were limited. The speakers took the stage and then escaped to their lounge or the airport.
- It seemed like every event had the same people over and over again. Chris Brogan. Guy Kawasaki. Gary V. Aren’t there any new voices we need to be hearing from?
- There is a “glass ceiling” on the circuit. Unless you are an A-Lister or conduct an aggressive popularity campaign to get voted on to a SXSW panel, you simply had no opportunity to be invited to speak at a major event, no matter how worthy your ideas.
I just don’t think that all social media events should be so elitist. So I decided to do something about it. With the help of dozens of volunteers and the extraordinary efforts of the Social Media Club of Knoxville, I helped found Social Slam, an inclusive social media event. It has been a tremendous success. In our inaugural year we sold out three weeks before the event and had 430 attendees from 17 states and Canada. This year we are raising the attendance level to 600 — and I don’t want you to miss this event on April 27!
This is what is different about Social Slam:
- This is the best social media educational value in America. By far. Every person involved in the event — including the speakers — is volunteering their time. That allows us to keep our costs low and offer a rock bottom ticket price of $79, a fraction of what you would pay anywhere else. This is a conference built from the heart, not to fatten a wallet.
- But that’s not all. With the help of our sponsors, for that low ticket price you also get breakfast, lunch, an after party, a free book, and other valuable benefits. We’ve even created a special $99 hotel deal. So you can literally drive or fly to Knoxville, stay over night to enjoy our parties, and attend this event for less than it would take to buy a single ticket to any other event!
- Networking is a priority. The speakers are generally available to meet all day. Time is built in to the program to meet new friends and share ideas.
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Knoxville TN, Home of Social Slam 2012
We are featuring world-class speakers including Mitch Joel, Gini Dietrich, and Tom Webster (and you might even hear from me!) but we’ll also feature some amazing, fresh new voices like multi-media whiz Stephanie Wonderlin, blogging sensation Stanford Smith, and content marketing tornado Marcus Sheridan. Where else will you hear inspiring presentations on the spirituality of social media, or how social media saved a bankrupt business?
- The event is held in a park-like setting (actually it IS a park) at the beautiful Knoxville Convention Center. Everybody gets an electrical outlet and the wifi will work!
The Internet was built by volunteers. Our favorite apps like Wikipedia were built by volunteers. Now, the best social media conference in America is built by volunteers too. Come see for yourself. I can’t wait to meet you there!
Everything you need to know is here: www.soslam.com
Social media, our voice, and the power to destroy
Jan 30th
The ability for all of us to publish on the social web — to have a voice — is among the most profound sociological, economic, and political developments of our lifetime. It gives us the power to elevate a little boy from Canada to an international singing superstar or to unite a group of people to tear down a dictatorship.
This democratization of power is the central theme of my new book, Return On Influence. This new power is breathtaking and beautiful. It is inspirational and revolutionary. And, it can be deadly.
We have all seen how social media can be used to bully and destroy. A few months ago on {grow} Leslie Lewis told the story of how her career was destroyed by a social media stalker. A year ago, a student at Rutgers (where I teach) killed himself after Internet humiliation.
Last week, I was also in a position to use social media power to destroy.
My wife had been admitted to a local hospital for a routine procedure. We experienced the usual delays and administrative foul-ups (had wrong name on her bracelet!) that we have come to expect from the medical profession but nothing prepared me for the horror I was about to experience.
When I was called to her recovery room (where she was still asleep), I could not believe my eyes. The room was filthy. The trash can was filled with tubes and debris from another patient’s procedure. There was trash all over the floor — paper, a used drinking straw, and pieces of some strange green organic material. Worst of all, there were drops of blood (not hers!) across the floor. I was disgusted and outraged. These were like the conditions I have heard about from missionary doctors working in a Third World country.
I took out my phone and took both pictures and video to document the mess … with my wife sleeping peacefully in the middle of it. Nobody would believe this.
I finally was able to flag down an attendant and angrily pointed out the problem. Her response was “Oh … I didn’t see that.”
Perhaps you could overlook a clear drinking straw on a white floor, but certainly not bright red blood drops or a trash can overflowing with used plastic tubes.
When the surgeon came in, I explained how repulsed I was … and I was still feeling ill about the unsanitary conditions even after the blood was wiped up (with a wet paper towel). He said that he would report it and that I would be getting a call from the hospital administration.
Twenty-four hours later I had not received a call and I was still seething. My adrenaline was saying “post the video.” Instead, I posted a query on Facebook and asked the world what they would do. The recommendations ranged from “keep it in-house” to “get the media involved.”
I called the patient advocate and reached a voice recording, notifying me that she was only available during certain business hours. I also tried to leave a request through the hospital website but the form was broken and I just got an error message.
Later that day, I received a return call from the patient advocate. She was professional and apologetic and said she would investigate the situation.
Two days after this discussion, my wife got a call of apology from the head of the department and a letter from the patient advocate. And that’s how it stands.
This episode represented the first time in my life that I had a “social media voice” go off in my head … “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? I HAVE A VOICE!” I knew that I could have humiliated this hospital on the evening news … maybe even caused an investigation of some kind. Perhaps I should have.
But whether you agree with my decision or not, I hope you will consider this advice: If you ever get into a situation where you can use your social media power to destroy, don’t let adrenaline make the decision for you. That’s how people are getting hurt and humiliated these days.
When I let the adrenaline subside, I thought about the situation and realized that if I went public with this, the most likely outcome would be that some hourly-wage attendant would lose her job. I would probably be hurting a family more than a hospital. That is not what I’m about. That was not the right decision for me.
Every day I see destruction, hate, and viciousness on the web from people who can’t keep their adrenaline in check. The social web is a place of stunning beauty and terrible darkness … just like the human race I suppose.
I’ll open myself and my actions to public scrutiny because this is an important topic we are all likely to face at some point. Did I do enough as a civic duty in this case? What would you do if you were in a position to use social media to destroy?
Why are America’s fastest-growing companies killing their blogs?
Jan 29th
Are America’s fastest-growing companies shifting away from blogging as a primary social media platform? ”Maybe” could be a conclusion based on new research examining the INC 500 from The Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts.
For the first time in the five years that this research has been conducted, the use of blogging declined. Blogging had been steadily climbing as a corporate communications tool — 19% of the INC 500 blogged in 2007, 39% in 2008, 45% in 2009, 50% in 2010 and just 37% last year.
But there is an element of mystery here. Despite the decline, blogging was considered the most “successful” social media platform for the fourth consecutive year! In addition, among those companies not blogging, 62 percent are considering adding a blog.
How can we reconcile this seemingly inconsistent data? Is corporate blogging really declining? I have a theory that would conclude “no,” but before I explain my rational, let’s look at a few more interesting trends from this study:
Facebook and LinkedIn lead the way. For the first time, the platform most utilized by the Inc. 500 is Facebook with 74% of companies using it. Virtually tied at 73% is the adoption of the professional network, LinkedIn. As you can see in the graph above, video and podcasting use declined in this period. The researchers theorized that companies are spending more time on Facebook at the expense of blogs and video.
Social media tools are seen as important for company goals. 90% of responding INC 500 executives report that social media tools are important for brand awareness and company reputation. 88% see these tools as important for generating web traffic and 81% find them important for lead generation. 73% say that social media tools are important for customer support programs.
Social media investments will rise. 25% of the respondents said they plan to keep their social media budget the same in 2012, and 71% plan to increase their investment by 20% or more. Just one company had a plan to decrease the social media marketing budget.
Monitoring the social media buzz levels off. The 2011 study shows 68% of companies are using social media monitoring tools, down from 70% in 2010, which was the highest percentage of the past 5 years. Only 24% of the companies have a formal social media policy.
Measurement is inconsistent. When asked how they measured the effectiveness of their social media efforts, executives reported using fans, followers and supporters (26%), web traffic (25%), lead generation (16%), reduced cost of customer support (10%), the value of sales generated through social media programs (7%).
The work is being handled inside. Executives were asked how social media resource needs were filled in their companies. Two-thirds of the companies reported retraining or repositioning existing employees to handle their social media efforts, 10% use external consultants or agencies, 7% have made new hires specifically for their social media efforts.
Are company blogs really declining?
If you just read the headline of this study and looked at the graph at the top of this blog post, you would be hearing a death knell for blogging. But let’s not bury blogging so fast. Let’s apply a little critical reasoning to this study …
- It is important to consider that the data presented by the university researchers is not an apples-to-apples comparison. There is a tremendous “churn” of companies on the INC list. In fact, from 2007 when the survey started to 2011, the list of companies has almost completely changed.
- The authors admit that these changes have impacted the overall statistics in “distinct ways.” Most notably, there has been an increase in companies providing Government Services (a result of “Obama administration initiatives”). The researchers state that Government Services companies are among the least likely companies to blog. So in 2011, many traditional “blogging companies” were replaced on the list by companies that are unlikely to have blogs. If the researchers surveyed the exact same sample group, blogging levels may have even gone up in 2011.
- Also notable is that more than 60 percent of the companies on the INC 500 list did not exist in 2005. It is possible that these start-ups are not moving away from blogging to Facebook as the authors surmised. I think a more likely scenario is that these young companies are STARTING with Facebook because the entry barriers are so low compared to blogging. This would reconcile the curious fact that the companies with blogs see them as successful (why would they quit?) and that most companies who are not blogging plan to do so.
- Finally, another possible cause of the strange drop is sampling error. Only 34% of the INC 500 companies responded to the survey. Within the stated sampling errors, it is possible to conclude that the 2010 data and 2011 data are nearly identical.
It’s also interesting to note that the UMass researchers also do similar studies for non-profits, universities and Fortune 500 companies. In these studies — which have a relatively stable group of comparison organizations from year to year — blogging rates are level or on the rise. Why would the INC 500 companies be so different? I don’t think they are.
Is blogging dying? We can’t tell for sure, but I would not make that conclusion from this study. What do you think? What does business blogging look like where you work?
Political oversight. A {growtoon}.
Jan 27th
Join the growtoonists each Friday for a humorous take on marketing, social media, and current business events.
Joey Strawn is a social media strategist that loves enjoying a good book and then drawing in it. Check him out on Twitter: @joey_strawn
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