Month: January 2008

Bzzzz … bzzzzz …. oh no kidding, YOUR_EVENT_HERE is happening?
The above represents the cherished goal of the PR/Marketing type person.
So, how am I doing it?

Maintain Your Sources of Buzz
Who goes to events unless someone they know tells them about it with enthusiasm. As for me, organizer of NewBCamp that I am, this is a crucial concern, especially since the networks in which I am active place a high value on the source of the information. For example, do they have a reputation to maintain? Are they connected to a larger professional network? Do they personally know the organizers of the event? A big turn-off for people receiving information from a source may be if that source receives compensation for funneling participants to the event. It’s important that hearing the news about an event doesn’t feel like an advertisement. Working closely with a variety of people linked into the social network spreads the enthusiasm for the event. They take ownership and create exposure by integrating it into their own personal blogs and online presence. Hopefully they are a diverse enough group that they can reach their own friends in different venues, reducing the overlap and sharing with a wider community.

Learn from the Best
I met a lot of great people at Podcamp not to mention seeing how it’s done. My event is based on Podcamp, so the more experience and the more contact I have with the model for my event the better. Nik Butler (loudmouthman) had this to say about how I benefited from the “five rules of social networking”:

• Arrived at Podcamp
• she Listened to the Sessions and individuals
• she Asked questions and then Advised others
• Provided further information and ideas to the group for the benefit of fulfilling her own visions
• I am working on the fifth one, which is to Deliver the goods

Nov 4 Post – Loudmouthman Blog

Keep it Current
Whatever you do, update people on it. I use Twitter to keep myself in communication with those people interested in what’s going on with NewBCamp. Microblogging is great because it lets you do a few sentences on what is going on that day, and over time it becomes a record of your progress. A weekly “jam session” type activity has helped as well to keep people’s interest. I do a weekly show on Operator 11 that is interactive and discusses the themes I’m promoting in my blog and for NewBCamp in general.

Centralize the Data
This tows the line where the last blog left off – to avoid overwhelming people with all the stuff I’ve posted all over the place, I’m maintaining a centralized site sync’d up through RSS feeds from the various sources that are updating on the event. As I add to the collage of social network sites, I’m updating the main site to keep people in the loop. Keeping the event organized and making sure there’s communication among everybody involved will preserve the organizer’s sanity and eliminate confusion among those who are just getting the idea of the event.

A good event benefits from buzz – but an awesome event will make its own buzz. I hope anyone interested in promotion of any type of event or product through social media can learn from my experiences, come to NewBCamp, and then invite me to their event 🙂

Lots of stuff, too little time.  I find that when I am looking for something in particular, either I find it right away – it’s at the top of Google’s list – or I wade through pages and pages of irrelevant material scanning for what I want.  Then there’s reading through feeds in Google Reader – one RSS feed after another that I should have skipped.  Then there are all the e-mail accounts I need to check, one for work, one for school, one for personal/junk, one for personal/private, etc.  Don’t forget the social networks I’m on – need to skim through those and see if anything interesting has happened.  When Robert Scoble was recently banned from Facebook (his account was reinstated after a slap on the wrist), I wonder if he didn’t secretly think to himself “good, one less social network to keep track of”…

Another interesting aspect to this question is how I manage my output of information.  I generate photos, posts, all sorts of login/password/identification info, and somewhere out there that’s all taking up space on various servers.  I know I’m a drop in the bucket as an individual, but every little bit helps.  What can I do to consolidate and “defragment” my online presence?

I recommend applying the 80/20 rule – inspired by Pareto’s Principle.  The idea is 80% of your resources – like your time and attention – are consumed by 20% of your activities – like reading e-mail or RSS feeds.  If you identify the 20% that’s sucking up all these resources, you can narrow down your activities to the ones that give you most bang for your buck – and free up some of that 80%. 

Applying that to my case, I notice that I spend way more time looking at my iGoogle home page than I do checking any of my social networks.  I haven’t looked at my LinkedIn profile, MySpace, or YouTube accounts for probably a month.  Who knows what interesting things are going on there.  Rather than making a special trip here and there to those various social networks, I can funnel them all into Google Gadgets and stick them on the front page.  Ahh, Google.

As for managing my output, it’s all about streamlining.  Consistently using the same user name is good thinking, since it makes me recognizable.  I have a blog, a social network profile, and a personal web page, but I need to merge them and give people a better experience trying to find me.  Taking the time now to do all this will generate time and increase productivity, especially as my online presence grows to be a more fundamental part of everyone’s experience of me.