Tag Archives: social media club

By Julie Blaustein

The Social Media Club Panelists: Moderator Chris Heuer, Peter Kim, Jen McClure and Michael Brito

The Social Media Club of San Francisco held their monthly meeting at PeopleBrowsr offices on Tuesday, May 17th. in SOMA. It was a conversation that included Chris Heuer, Founder of the Social Media Club as Moderator, Peter Kim of Dachis Group, Jen McClure of Thomas Reuters and Michael Brito of Edelman.

There appears to be a shift in the way that companies are messaging themselves; rather than conducting Social Media its preferred to be known as conducting Social Business. Much of the discussion centered around how each of the panelists define social media in terms of their companies and how it relates to social media. All agreed that social media has evolved from when it first came into our consciousnesses around 2004. Brito saw that when it first debuted to companies it was creating chaos but now companies are making sense of it and embracing it. McClure whose company has a large workforce felt that the term itself is being used less and its now more about it becoming part of the social organization and enabling employees to communicate with one another. Kim shared how the social media term is on the “outs” with the story of  how his client, Zappos‘ CEO Tony Hsieh, fined $1 to anyone who even uttered the term social media.

The panelists also shared their own definition of Social Business. Kim saw it similar to how you connect consumers but in the business world. Its how you communicate with employees through technology such as Jive Software that provides social networking, collaboration software, community software and media monitoring. Kim said, it “pains him when people use social business as social media which it is not.” McClure sees social business as a platform to connect and help employers learn from. Brito shared his definition of social business from an infographic that he has created. As he defined it, its the natural evolution that companies go through internally to equip themselves with customers. It starts with the people internally in a company such as the CMO and as a result processes are established within and technology brought on to manage it results.

Google Trend Comparison of Social Media vs. Social Business

A comparison between Social Media and Social Business in terms of search and news interest demonstrated how Social Business is barely a blip, yet its most definitely of importance to those in the enterprise social world. In the end perhaps the discussion was mostly about the semantics of language as it was agreed that social media is the umbrella term, with social business being a niche version of it. Some examples of those companies as seen in the forefront of this focus on Social Busienss were IBM, SAP, Cisco, Intel. Kim though felt at tis time no one is doing Social Business Particularly well but just getting started such as Disney and AT&T. There is still a huge amount of opportunity for companies to join the social world in a business way in the near future.

Join the Conversation with the Social Media Club SF at #SMCSF, view the video and photos from the event.

By Julie Blaustein

The Social Media Club of San Francisco held their monthly meeting Tuesday, March 22nd at the CoTweet offices in SOMA. The title of the event, The Future Role of Community Management, Is It a Dying Role?, provoked stimulating conversation.  The strong panel of Community Guru’s included Moderator Maria Ogneva, Head of Community at Yammer, John Virtes, Head of Community at Flipboard, Paul Gilliham, Director of Customer Marketing at Lithium and Scott Rutherford, Co-Founder at UserVoice.

The Panel with Moderator Maria Ogneva of Yammer, John Virtas of Flipboard, Paul Gilliham of Lithium and Scott Rutherford of UserVoice

The panel opened with the topic of What exactly IS a community manager? It was quickly determined that its hardly on the brink of dying but rather evolving into a critical role at any company whether its small, large, consumer facing or enterprise. As Gilliham stated, “Its not seen as a dead function, just a changing function.” The role is morphing from being focused on customer service to one that is now a key role as an evangelist of the company. Virtes pointed out, “It means something different at different companies. Support should be distinct but it still touches upon so many places in the company.” Rutherford emphasized its essence to a company, “Its become an incredibly important role. A key role, the breadth…the touch point…the positive voice of the company that can be found through blogs writing, marketing and other touch points.”

What makes a GREAT Community Manager? “The great community manager is kind of like your business’s Swiss Army Knife,” Gilliham so aptly put it. Someone who is able to have an agnostic role within the organization and know how to navigate all the different groups within the company, works well with people, is consistent with one’s policies and respectful of those in their community. Meg Clark, Community Manager at CoTweet pointed out, “Its someone who treats others like she would want to be treated.” To focus on the CoTweet brand and not to confuse her CoTweet community, she makes sure to use her handle of @meg_cotweet to refer to anything having to do with CoTweet while keeping her personal handle separate.

What happens when the voice of the company, your community manager who is possibly even seen as a Celebrity Rock Star leaves? You have to set expectations and boundaries with your community from the launch of your community. Most importantly, as Virtes points out, “You have to leave your ego at the door. This isn’t about you, its about the community and you should be able to hand over the role to anyone else in the company if you were to leave.”

A recent graduate from Texas University brought up another great topic. What makes a good community manager and what are the skills and background needed to BECOME a Community Manager? It was pretty much agreed by all on the panel that it takes someone who is not too junior, has a varied background, tremendous writing and communication skills and most importantly, someone who is passionate and perhaps even a“Super User” of the product or service of the company. As Ogneva stated, its someone “oozing with enthusiasm.” How does one actually LAND a job as a community manager? The panel was in agreement that it will almost naturally happen by being a part of your community of interest, networking in person, connecting through events, online blogs, communities and in the communities of social network sites such as LinkedIn, Quora, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The Social Media Club is definitely one way to become connected with like-minded, community people. Another way is to join the Facebook group, Social Media Jobs where there are numerous community manager jobs being posted by contacting them at socialmediajob@groups.facebook.com.

A great way to learn more about this topic is through the The Community Roundtable who just released its 2011 State of Community Management. The Commmunity Roundtable is a virtual table where social media, community, and social business practitioners gather to meet, discuss challenges, celebrate successes, and hear from experts and they are also dedicated to furthering the discipline of community management. You can gain more fascinating nuggets discussed about Community by the awesome panel and Social Media’s engaging audience on Twitter at #SFSMC.

Maria Ogneva, Moderaor and Head of Community at Yammer

Paul Gilliham, Director of Customer Marketing at Lithium

John Virtes, Community Manager at Flipboard

By Julie Blaustein

Chris Heuer, Founder of the Social Media Club and Panel

The Social Media Club of San Francisco had its first event of the year on Tuesday, January 25, 2010 at the newly opened shared office space, RocketSpace.  A panel consisting of industry thought leaders, known as Influencers in Social media circles, included Sol Lipman, Director of Mobile at AOL and formerly of 12Seconds, Harry McCracken of Technologizer and Time.com, Augie Ray of Forrester and Shel Israel, a Social Media Consultant and co-author of the book Naked Conversations.

It was a full house and it was quite apparent that this was the Social Media Club by the name-tags featuring just one’s Twitter Handle. Chris Heuer, Founder of the Social Media Club started off the event with a video featuring Social Media professionals from Adobe, Facebook, Research in Motion, Intel and Sony Electronics at CES who spoke about what they thought was in store for 2011. The common themes that emerged were the hopes for more content creation, scaling, community and more, oh please, more attention to Social Media to get consumers to use their products.

Shel Israel

Israel spoke first about the trends of social media in 2011. He talked of normalizing social media so that success isn’t measured by the number of people that follow you. He feels the question of ROI will be all about good business and using the right tools to get the job done well. He sees a future where the ability to easily translate and communicate around the world will become a reality along with the Internet becoming truly ubiquitous. He also summed up his thoughts regarding 2011 trends in his blog, Global Neighborhoods.

Harry McCracken

McCracken sees the social mobile web as the new frontier similar to how it was for the web back in 2005. “The social mobile network is doing well now and will continue to do so in the future.” He sees Facebook as something that people will use without even thinking about it as a social network. He is seeking clarity in the future of the dominance of the mobile social network, the dominance of Facebook and how companies will control the social aspects of the web. His blog Technologizer features his thoughts about the mobile social network in-depth too.

Augie Ray

ROI to Ray will no longer be the focus of social media. ”Its not the year of the ROI obsession where one needs to provide it in order to get financing. It is also not the year of Facebook or Four Square.” He sees FourSquare as limited by handsets carried and not all have location-based services needed to use them. Proving his point, he conducted a survey of the audience asking how many are on FourSquare and most raised their hand. When asked how many check-in as frequently as they did when first on the service, less than a third raised their hands. Additional great insights are found in his blog, Augie Ray’s Blog.

Sol Lipman

Last to speak and also most entertaining was Lipman, who talked of trends in terms of what the new and hip AOL is seeking when hiring a Social Media guru. They are interested in someone who is all about niche social networks, personalization and building social connections, about content that appeals to all audiences and one who will focus on iPad devices. If you have what it takes, you should contact The Solster.

If you have not already joined the Social Media Club, you can do so here and connect with others who are passionate about learning and sharing what social media can provide to your organization and community. You can also join the conversation about this event at #SMCSFO

On Tuesday night, dozens of Silicon Valley’s tech professionals and social media “discoverers” were in attendance at the Altimeter Group’s offices to bear witness to five of the industry’s more recognized commentators talk about the future of social media in 2010.

Through the generosity of the Social Media Club, the panel consisted of the Altimeter Group’s Jeremiah Owyang, Zoetica’s CEO and non-profit thought leader Beth Kanter, FutureWorks PR and author Brian Solis, security & privacy thought leader Jennifer Leggio & CNET editor of business technology Rafe Needleman. While most of the answers centered around privacy online and how social media may have “jumped the shark” along with some other insights, it was refreshing to hear from a variety of perspectives – an analysts, non-profit/NGO, PR expert, privacy/business blogger, and a journalist.

Following the panel conversation, the focus shifted to a be a bit more intimate with Solis interviewing Needleman on his new book Pro PR Tips: Public Relations Advice from a Jaded Journalist. Instead of being about social media, the crowd was treated to getting insights on pretty much how you can pitch a journalist without sounding like a douchebag. In his 128-page book, Needleman has listed tips on public relations insights he has accrued from his experience as a member of the press. Some of the tips include (paraphrased below):

• Search First: Before you pitch me, take time to find out if I’ve written about your company before.
• Tweet Me: Twitter pitches may be okay, but direct only & provide a link and reply email in the tweet.
• Follow Up: If you talk to me on the phone & I ask you to follow up by email, do it ASAP while call is still fresh in my mind.
• Free Ads? No product placement allowed. No stickers will be placed on my laptop. Try Scoble.
• Presumptive NDA: If sent an unsolicited email with an embargoed press release, it’s considered fair game to cover immediately. Agree to NDA first before sending press release.

Many more tips are in Pro PR Tips and it’s probably a good complement to Solis’s latest book Putting The Public Back In Public Relations - both of which were featured at this event & available for purchase & signing.

Here are some photos of the event:

Jennifer Leggio, Rafe Needleman & Jennifer Lindsay

Jeremiah Owyang

Beth Kanter

Brian Solis

A packed room for the night’s Social Media Club event

Brian Solis interviews Rafe Needleman

Just what happens when Brian Solis & Rafe Needleman read each other’s book.

More photos from the event can be found by clicking here.

One of the things that people have been struggling to do for a while now is how to use social media and the web for the greater good. Yesterday, the folks at Lunch.com, SF New Tech and Social Media Club converged at Orsen’s in San Francisco to talk about some of the ways we can innovate and evolve the conversation online and get more interaction with those using the tools. Moderated by Chris Heuer, J.R. Johnson & Myles Weissleder, Lunch For Good held its inaugural meeting in front of a packed room at this invite-only event.

According to their website, the goals for Lunch For Good is to:

Connect our industry’s thought leaders for an ongoing, dynamic dialogue about how to improve online engagement so that it can have a positive social impact. Our themes will cover “Responsible Participation,” “Critical Thought,” and “Common Ground” respectively each month.

With responsible participation as the theme for this meeting, people sat down in small roundtables and looked at two main questions about how to conduct yourself online:

1) What are the positive benefits of seeing a shift for online contributors being accountable for their participation and standing behind a credible identity?

2) How might a responsible participation be tactically approached? What specific types of practices, protocols or standards could be put into place to achieve this goal?

After a thorough discussion, participants were invited to present their thoughts and insights to the group – many of which were different answers, but unfortunately not really a definitive solution to the issue at hand. Definitely something to talk about more.

Here are some photos of the event:

Lunch.com’s CEO J.R. Johnson talks to the crowd.

Tamara Mendelsohn & Brian Zisk

Dom Sagolla

Ryan Hupter presents his group’s thoughts.

Marla Schulmann & Andrea Seja

Paul Carr

More photos of this event can be found by clicking here.