Posts Tagged ‘Tweetup’

Deep Fried Mashup and Branded Communities at SMC Triangle

2 comments Written on November 18th, 2009 by
Categories: Events, Marketing, PR, Social Media, Strategy
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Last week the Triangle Social Media Club had two guest speakers, Karlie Justus (@karliej) and Jason Peck (@jasonpeck). I’ve had the pleasure of meeting both the speakers and interacting with them on Twitter over the past several months. I was glad to see Karlie speak about the NC State Fair since I had been trying to catch up with her to find out how effective social media was in promoting the State Fair. I have written two blog posts about the NC State Fair and Deep Fried Tweetup in the past few weeks so was interested to see how the campaign went for the NC Department of Agriculture (NCDA) that manages the Fair.

The goals of the social media campaign were to reach new audiences as well as reach media in a new way. The campaign started in July of 2008 and ran for a full 16 months. The team began with a new web site design and created a blog that communicated interesting facts about the Fair as well as announcing entertainment acts and other announcements. Other social media sites that were created included Facebook group, MySpace page, Twitter account, Flickr photos and YouTube channel. Some of the more interesting stats were:

  • 70,000 unique blog views with 27,000 unique visitors in October
  • Facebook page had 5,000 friends, 420 fans and over 1,400 photos tagged
  • Twitter account had over 2,331 followers with 1,828 updates and 422 direct messages. Many of the direct messages were from local media that supplemented the PR plan.
  • YouTube channel hosted 37 videos and had 58,000 unique views with 55 subscribers.
  • MySpace page had 928 friends with 8,000 blog views and 99,000 page views.

Other social media tactics included having a Deep Fried Ambassador contest among local bloggers, inviting bloggers to the press conference and hosting the Deep Fried Tweetup on the Thursday night of the Fair. The Tweetup attracted over 150 attendees and further extended the Deep Fried brand. One interesting note was that Thursday traffic spiked with 2000 unique visits to the blog and average of 60 tweets per hour. The event was also streamed and attracted 43 views.

 Overall the NCDA team achieved success by incorporating social networks to further establish relationships with fair attendees, media representatives and other audiences. Also social networks facilitated customer service by responding to questions from the general public and directing them to specific information on the web. Karlie also pointed out that it was a team effort and that her coworkers contributed to the effort (Jen Nixon (@jennix5), Natalie Alford (@joynatalie), Brian Long (@brian_long66), Andrea Ashby (@aasbhy) and Paul Marshall Jones (@pmarshalljones). Great work by this group!

Whew, that’s a whole blog post, but wait there’s more! Jason Peck had a tough act to follow but did a fantastic job speaking about branded communities. Jason’s company eWayDirect takes features of social networks and brings them into a single platform. The goal is to bring people together while having full control of the look and fell, content, ads and metrics. I have a dream and that is what eWayDirect offers…a single platform with control, basically a branded community.

Some of the great advantages to their approach include:
  • Protection: no random Facebook ads, your community is spared from junk and spam
  • Exclusivity: you may not want everyone, just certain people that are your customers and prospects
  • Research: polls, metrics and other tools to gather information from your community.
  • Business metrics: the ability to determine revenue per member. Mmmm, ROI is that something everyone keeps talking about regarding social media?
One of the biggest advantages is the ability to aggregate existing content into a single location. My job requires me to try and automate all the outbound communication including social media. I have been able to use tools like RSS and other data exports to cross reference all the sites. But in order to aggregate all the RSS feeds and sites content I would have to create another site, basically a portal. Hence one more site to design, configure and maintain.
Jason gave a few examples of how his customers have employed their technology. One great example was ELF (Eyes, Lips and Face) beauty network. Their goal was to identify brand advocates and deepen relationships as well as acquire new customers. The campaign started with a personal invitation to the network and also has a desktop announcement feature that I want to find out more about.
ELF had some great results three months into the campaign including:
  • 4,500 new members
  • 56,000 visits
  • 5,000 unique visits, increase of 75%
  • 9% of members opted to received the desktop notifications and reminders
  • Average revenue per member increased 270% more than non-members
Again social media ROI can be achieved with the right strategy, platform and planning. Jason closed his presentation with some great lessons learned:
  •  Have a purpose for your community, give people a reason to join
  • Make people feel welcome, it’s important
  • Establish measurable goals ahead of time will drive you towards them during execution
  • Make sure the community does not exist in a silo
Many thanks to Jeremy (@jeremysaid) and Brian (@unravelthetwine) of Twine Interactive for hosting the event and Our Hashtag (Wayne, Jeff and Ryan) for organizing the best social media series in the Triangle. I met another great group of people whom I’ve followed and chatted with on Twitter and other networks so it’s always great to attach a person to an avatar!

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Posted in Events, Marketing, PR, Social Media, Strategy

Deep Fried Fun at NC State Fair

No Comments » Written on October 27th, 2009 by
Categories: Events, Social Media
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Last Thursday Triangle Tweetup was held at the NC State Fair for the first ever Deep Fried Tweetup. Sponsored by the NC State Fair and Our Hashtag, the gathering was a fantastic event for everyone that attended. I was able to combine my kids’ trip to the Fair with the Tweetup and ended up spending eight hours at the Fair. Some people would say that eight hours is a long time at the Fair but if you plan correctly the time goes by fast, even with two kids in tow.

So after several hours of rides, food and exhibits we headed over to the Folk Festival tent at 7 pm for the start of the Tweetup. At the registration desk we received our badges and gift bags containing two nice posters of the State Fair and the Tweetup as well as some other nice gifts.  Inside the tent there were several great activities to choose from. For the ladies, mini makeovers were being done. A sketch artist was present and did sketches; my kids were patient long enough for him to capture them. People lined up for face painting of Twitter birds and Fail Whales. My daughter had her whole face painted as a Twitter Princess. Samples of chocolate cover bacon, buffalo crab Rangoon and other deep fried treats were available. And of course everyone was meeting and greeting new tweeps as well as reconnecting with existing friends.

Twitter Princess Reigns

In keeping with the Tweetup Theme, there were several Twitter activities too. Tweetgrid was being used to search and aggregate all the related tweets on a large screen. A charging station was set up which for me was vital since I had exhausted my battery being at the Fair all day. Using a neat random tweet selector tool Wayne Sutton selected the winners for the evening giveaways on the big screen. The evening ended with a scavenger hunt for clues found throughout the fairgrounds. Several teams participated in the hunt and tweeted their answers to participate.

Being a good parent I had to leave around 8:30 as the kids’ batteries wore down as much as my iPhone. I had a great time seeing everyone and meeting new people. The Tweetup lived up to the hype in that it was a “Whole Lotta Happy,” based on the good cheer and smiles on everyone’s faces. The NC State Fair team and Our Hashtag did a great job promoting the event and keeping the activities flowing.

Click here to see my photo album from the Tweetup and State Fair.

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Posted in Events, Social Media

Brands, Business and Twitter at Triangle Tweetup 2.0

No Comments » Written on May 4th, 2009 by
Categories: Digital Media, Events, Marketing, Social Media
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I attended the Triangle Tweetup on April 30th at Bronto’s office in the American Tobacco Campus with great anticipation.  I had been following the past tweetups online since I had not be able to attend the past few events.  The location was awesome since I had not been to Durham in over a year and the DPAC looked incredible as I strolled towards Bronto’soffice.

I was glad that I printed my ticket so I did not have to wait in line to check in.  I saw my colleague at SAS, Dave Thomas as I arrived and had a short discussion with him before he prepared for this panel discussion, Brands, Business and Twitter moderated by Kipp Bodnar @kbodnar32.  The panelists were: Dave Thomas, @DavidBThomas, SAS, Social Media Manager; Thor Kessler, @thorstenkessler, Raleigh Grande Movie Theater, General Manager; and Ryan Boyles, @theRab, IBM, Project Zero Community Manager.
The panelists began with introductions and some background on how their companies are using Twitter.  Dave Thomas explained how SAS Institute @sasinstitute has a Twitter account with only one tweet, “At SAS we’re letting our employees do the tweeting for now,” followed by a list of SAS staff members with Twitter accounts.  The reason for this is that people want to communicate with other people than brands.  SAS has used social media for events like the SAS Global Forum (SGF), the annual SAS user group meeting.  By using the #SGF hash tag and creating a NetVibes portal participants were able to communicate using Web 2.0 as well as allowing non-attendees to follow the event from a attendee’s perspective.
Thor Kessler spoke next about how he has been able to connect with customers of the Raleigh Grande Cinema due to his efforts on Twitter and Facebook.   Kessler noted his efforts in social media have allowed customers to bring concerns to his attention, allowing him to better serve his customers.
The next topic question posed to the panel was to tweet as a company or as an individual.  This was particularly interesting to me since I manage my personal Twitter account and three brand accounts right now. The panel agreed that the voice and power of the individual is greater than the brand.  Ryan Boyles added that, “@therab brings credibility to IBM.”
The final topic the panel discussed was, “can you use Twitter and get work done?”  The panel said yes and stated that lazy employees are not a social media problem,they are a management problem.  I found this to ring true as productivity stems from good management, communication, processes and measurement best practices that have to be set in place for today’s companies.
Overall the event was a great success.  Many thanks to the Triangle Tweetup team @dgtlpapercuts, @ginnyskal, @kbodnar32, @theRab, @ToAsTySnAcKs  and @Bronto for sharing their office space with us!

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Posted in Digital Media, Events, Marketing, Social Media