Professor 2.0

The Social Media Life of a Diversity Event, Part II: The Post-Game

Post-Game: Five Tips for an Event-Based Social Media Campaign.

Recently I put together a special program in diversity for a prominent business school that focused on the general lack of recognition of women in technological spaces. Though I have been planning diversity events for years now, this one was different…even special. For the first time I was going to be using social media to manage, market, and capture an event. Additionally, the content of the program was going to be about the ways that social media can be utilized strategically to bring visibility and recognition to women in all organizations, and even for starting their own. Finally, this was going to be the first event of any kind at the school that would utilize a full social media campaign. The legitimacy of social media as a strategic resource for the administration of the school’s programs would be greatly affected by the success or failure of this event to meet its performance goals.

Now that the event is in the past tense I want to blog about my experience. I think that there are a few lessons that I learned in the process that may be interesting or useful for others. This blog will be cut into two parts. The last blog contained a short list of lessons derived from the pre-event planning and campaign building. This blog will be about the post-event wrap-up.

1. Use Social Media to touch all participants three times.

I think it is very important to touch all actual and virtual guests three times. This includes the pre-event blog, the actual event, and at post-event blog and email. This last touch is very important because by creating a blog post you are inviting guests and participants to share their thoughts about the event in a public way. This step will increase event satisfaction since you have created a channel through which constructive conversation about the event’s content can be directed. Social media is about creating and maintaining relationships, so it is harmful to the impression of the event if people are simply left hanging when the event is over.

2. Create a centralized website to capture all media convergence.

Most of the readily available social media strategy advice pushes users to sign up for several kinds of media channels but few stress the attendant need to create some hub or portal that will serve as the common connector to all of these media. Media convergence is a central goal of social media management so it is important that you tie it all together somewhere. Though your blog could serve this purpose, I prefer to have a separate, free-standing website. I chose Wix for my hosting (www.professor20.com) and am really satisfied with the flexibility of the editor.

3. Utilize Analytics for all channels for a comprehensive view.

A wonderful dimension of social media is the prevalence of analytic data plug-ins, such as Google Analytics. Attached to a webpage, GA provides data on the number of unique visitors, avg. time on site, how many pages deep into the site visitors travel, etc... My Typepad blog account tracks referring websites and visits over time. And programs like TwitterCounter and Twitalyzer allow you to track your accounts’ overall behavior and network impact. In fact there are so many different ways to measure the impact of your event – see “100 Ways to Measure Social Media,” http://p.ly/aQMk8 - that you have to have to be clear which channels need to be managed and, therefore, measured.

4. Have an eye toward the long tail.

Remember that the viral effect produced by social media means that your YouTube videos and blogs will continue to be visited long after the initial spike in interest that happens right after the event is over. A well-crafted social media campaign will cast a long shadow. When measuring the success of the event, keep the long tail in mind. Check back on the statistics periodically. For example, the number of views you have after six months might be a more important indication of your social media campaign’s success than statistics gathered after the first week. Also, come up with creative ways to remind your social media friends and fans about your blogs and videos.

5. Don’t forget to Meet-up!

Social media supports social interaction but it is not a substitute for it. Turn those “followers” into “friends” by meeting face-to-face.

Next: Using Social Media in my Business Ethics, Strategy, and Entrepreneurship course.

 

 

 

The Social Media Life of a Diversity Event, Part I: The Pre-Game.

Pre-game: Five Tips for an Event-Based Social Media Campaign.

Recently I put together a special program in diversity for a prominent business school that focused on the general lack of recognition of women in technological spaces. Though I have been planning diversity events for years now, this one was different…even special. For the first time I was going to be using social media to manage, market, and capture an event. Additionally, the content of the program was going to be about the ways that social media can be utilized strategically to bring visibility and recognition to women in all organizations, and even for starting their own. Finally, this was going to be the first event of any kind at the school that would utilize a full social media campaign. The legitimacy of social media as a strategic resource for the administration of the school’s programs would be greatly affected by the success or failure of this event to meet its performance goals.

Now that the event is in the past tense I want to blog about my experience. I think that there are a few lessons that I learned in the process that may be interesting or useful for others. This blog will be cut into two parts. This blog will contain a short list of lessons derived from the pre-event planning and campaign building. The second part will be about the post-event wrap-up and conclusions.

1. Invite speakers who are Social Media Mavens.

When targeting speakers privilege those who are already involved in social media. Within diversity it is becoming easier and easier to do this because women and people of color have traditionally had to build the platforms for their voice outside of mainstream communication channels. Social media allows for them to do this and network effectively among each other. What has been very inspiring to me personally is the number of thought leaders and business professionals from racial/ethnic/gender minority groups participating in Web 2.0 technologies. But, whatever your target pool of speakers may look like, choose the ones that are already plugged-in and engaged deeply in social media. That way you will truly be able to take advantage of their networks, thereby receiving a viral effect on your event’s publicity and exposure that is exponentially greater than you can generate on your own.

2. Utilize Twitter “#hashtags” and “@mentions.”

Now that I am becoming more skilled with social media I try to give my tweets more impact by targeting them to some specific person or group(s). While it’s true that all of your followers will see the targeted tweet if they happen to be monitoring their account in real time, the @mentions make sure that specific people will get your message whenever they happen to check their account. The #hashtags, on the other hand, allow your tweet to be seen by anybody who has a search for that particular name, such as #smccville. Always ask the target group to “RT (retweet).”

3. Google Docs for RSVPs.

The Google Docs package contains a custom form option. Recently, a friend introduced me to this program and in 30 minutes I was creating custom forms designed to capture the vital information I would need to chronicle and keep in touch with my event attendees. The program organizes the data into a spreadsheet and also has nifty graphics. I have found it quite useful for segmenting the audience based on different types of affiliation with the university. Warning: Be careful about asking for too much information.

4. Blog about the event.

Though I host the events in my special programming series I am usually not one of the panelists or keynotes. My intellectual contribution is usually in the forming of the event rather than the content of the conversation. I like to blog about how I got the idea to put the event together in the first place. It deepens the narrative meaning of the event for potential audience members by “priming the pump” so-to-speak and gets the conversation started before the date of the event, which also builds anticipation and buzz.

5. Livestream/Ustream the event and upload the content onto YouTube.

Livestreaming services are readily available online and free to use. They are also very customizable, so you can brand them for your organization (sometimes this is an extra fee, though). With an extra click of the mouse you can record the event right onto your hard drive for uploading later onto YouTube. All programming or other event structures have several potential audiences to reach and limiting the “live” experience of the event to only those who can physically attend is, I now believe, a missed opportunity. I am in a university setting, so I am always asking myself the questions: How do I engage the alumni? How do I reach the greater university? How do I reach the community? With the free livestreaming services I don’t have to compromise. Also, when attempting to measure the ROI on the event, adding the livestream viewers and the YouTube views to the attendance counts can makes for a dramatically different portrait of the events’ “financial performance.”

Check back for The Social Life of a Diversity Event, Part II: The Post-Game.

Rapper Chamillionaire's Twitter-style Stakeholder strategy.

Now Playing Chamillionaire’s Twitter business sense.

I love to see how artists have circumvented large corporate media and are now meeting their customers face to face. Chamillionaire is a perfect example of this. The power of his brand lies in the fact that through Web 2.0 technologies he can build and maintain relationships with his customer base. This allows him to have full control over his brand, and also gives him the opportunity to invite his followers into his life. Fans have the opportunity to help him make artistic and business decisions thereby giving them a stake in his career. This is brilliant. He also participates heavily in social media communities and events so that his profile is particularly high among Web 2.0 users and thought leaders.

I have also seen MC Hammer out there keynoting large social media and business strategy conferences with roughly the same message. Big labels are no longer reliable from the artist perspective. This has forced musicians into being the early adopters, innovators, and pundits of Web 2.0. Imagine what these technologies would have done for the already successful hip-hop artists that sold tapes out of their trunk? Too $hort would have gotten as large as U-2.

There is a stakeholder management strategy being instituted in these music industry cases. In brief, managing stakeholders strategically gives the firm/entrepreneur Centrality, Urgency, and Control. These important concepts can be problematized as follows:

• Centrality - This concept recognizes that the firm/entrepreneur is the hub of a stakeholder network, a network that is looking to be satisfied by the firm in many different ways.
• Urgency - UPS' slogan "Moving at the speed of business" means that management decisions are made in a fast moving and ever changing climate - some would call this the firm's strategic landscape - where stakeholder demands must be met in short order.
• Control - A firm/entrepreneur operates for stakeholders, but stakeholders do not run the firm, e.g. the leadership must lead and that demands not just having significant stakeholder relationships but a means for controlling those relationships.

As articulated by Chamillianaire, social media takes the media company our of the center and replaces it with the artist. This means that the artist can now understand the consumers desires in real-time and gives him the ability for agility. Finally, Chamillionaire has control of his brand and its products. He also has control over his stakeholders because the social media gives him the business  intelligence to capture their perspectives and also to help shape their desires. There is an authentic encounter, that recognizes the consumer resulting in the co-shaping of the product path by the artist and their fans. Not only is this a better state of affairs for all stakeholders, it is a profitable strategic positioning for the artist. Congrats Chamillionaire!

Look for more Stakeholder Theory perspectives in future posts from Professor 2.0.

via www.building43.com

Making a social media pitch to your firm? First find friends...

This means that by learning Web 2.0 I am going back to school. But, for the school to serve its students well I think it will have to pay more attention to the youth. That means that I must be close to my own students, getting into their world and participating as an equal. But, that also means that my own mentors must listen to me when I share with them my intuitions about the future and how we might have to change our pedagogical practices to better meet it.

I have targeted several people in my building who I think can be advocates in the process of getting some of the Web 2.0 strategies adopted. This past week was devoted to learning alot about these strategies so that I will be a good salesman. But, I know that success in getting new practices adopted will be not be primarily due to the quality of my arguments but the stature and good will of my advocates and mentors. Wish me luck!

Domesticating Social Media: marketing scholars and social media commercial performance metrics

1. Translatability: Scholars and professionals cannot pitch social media solutions as if we were in a vacuum. There are very good techniques backed by solid research data that are already informing our colleagues and customers. This is about the displacement of one set of practices with another. For this to happen, the new technologies and language must be recognizable to the encumbents. If social media is the quantum leap that its proponents believe it to be, then there is the real possibility that in many contexts there will be no lingua franca or common language with which the new media advocates can use to translate their ideas into existing frameworks and metrics. 

2. Experimentality: I know that is not a real word, but I will coin it now. Social media empowers all users by disrupting organizational silos and constantly revising organizational maps. It encourages users to try new apps, and combine - mash - more and more information at a faster and faster rate. Often there is little reward for reflexion; only constant innovation. This is a problem for the prevailing management paradigm because it seeks to control and regularize business practices. This dynamic is also a problem for research because it seeks to canonize some conception of a business practice. These management and research goals are not easily met when their organization's cultural context is in constant flux.

3. Temporality: It seems to me that management and research techniques are going to have to change dramatically if they are to continue to provide us useful information at a critical time. If the customer or students time frame has been substantially accelerated, it stands to reason that the manager or professor must be able to meet them where they are. Agility will be the key, and their leadership and credibility will absolutely depend on their speed with which they can deliver critical information. Especially now that so much traditional marketing data is now instantly available and free of charge.

In my opinion, temporality poses the largest threat to firms and b-schools because the new customer is versed in the language and experimentality of Web 2.0 and probably does not care about translatability. The encumbents managers and professors have to prove that they are relevant where CRM or SEO professionals do not. And the customer will shop with her feet. B-schools and brand managers beware!

We Need Social Media Strategies for Business Professors and Professionals

This video makes clear that Social Media is not a passing fad, or a pastime paradise for juveniles. Market communications have made a quantum leap. More specifically, there have been numerous mini-adaptations by scores of of market makers. The implications for business and management education are mind boggling. Business professors are late to the Web 2.0 dance and, as a result, we may have to face the embarrassing proposition that we are not preparing our students or employees for the future. The rhetoric of the day in management is "innovation" but the limitations of leading innovation in an organization may be both technological and pedagogical. One of the purposes of this blog is to chronicle the way that I am using Social Media in my own classes and consulting. I hope that this blog attracts others who will share their stories and give advice.