6 Simple Ways to Turn Your Event into a Social Butterfly

Posted by: on Aug 18, 2009 | No Comments

If the adage “content is king” still holds true in the world of social media, the most stressful question for most marketers is:

“Where the heck do I get fresh content?”

The answer probably lies right under your nose, or more specifically, in the marketing programs your company is already running. A prime example: workshops, side sessions, and other hosted – but offline – events.

When was the last time some division in your company held an educational seminar for one of your products, or on a hot industry topic? Or perhaps ran a side meeting or panel at a major conference? Or even an employee education session? Probably pretty recently. Perhaps you have one coming up. So, did you make plans to capture it on video? What about saving the audio? How about the slides? There’s your content, just waiting to get social with the wider world.

Here are six simple ways to extend your traditional marketing events into bona-fide social media sensation:

1. Create a lasting video library with a YouTube channel

With high-quality video cameras becoming starting to show up in pockets everywhere, it’s almost hard *not* to capture an event, speaker, or conference session on video. If you have the resources you can spring for professional crew to capture the event, blend in slides and onscreen demos, and mix sound, but even if not you can grab a reasonably cheap HD camera and do it yourself. Then it’s simply a matter of creating a free YouTube channel for your company and off you go. [Example: Talks@Google]

2. Turn it into a live video event with UStream.tv

If you’re already going to capture the event on video, what about taking it live? UStream is a fantastic, and free, tool for live video streaming of events. All you need is someone with a video camera, a laptop, preferably a decent mic or event sound, and good broadband access, and you’re on your way. The instructions from UStream are incredibly simple. You likely won’t be winning an Emmy for outstanding video quality with this setup, but it’s still a useful way to turn a panel with conference-in-the-round seating for 20 into a global webinar with attendance limited only by your own capacity to spread the word. The events can also be recorded for posterity, and exported to your YouTube account to build out your video library (see above). [Examples: Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Social Media Club's of Seattle, with an event at the WTIA meeting, and the Social Media Club of Hawaii, both have nice examples of this.]

3. Launch an event-based podcast mini-series

Got the speakers? Check. Have a topic or theme for your event? Speaker’s have content for their sessions? Absolutely. How about you do some short, 5 minute phone interviews of the speakers in the days or weeks leading up to the conference and release them as a podcast series? You can syndicate these through iTunes, build up interest in advance of the event (or pull in additional Web visitors during and after), and generally provide a rich, engaging podcast series layered on top of your already-planned offline event. All you need is a couple of headsets, Skype, and off you go. [Example: RSA Conference '09]

4. Spread the joy of slides through Slideshare

I mean, who doesn’t love PowerPoint slides? Why not let them live on in perpetuity out across the ‘net, rather than wasting away in some shared folder only you and your 10 coworkers can see? Slideshare is like YouTube for PowerPoint, in effect, and it is perhaps the simplest way of extending your event content and getting a bit social in the process. Once the event is over, post the speakers’ slides to Slideshare and be sure to tag it with your event’s or brand’s name. Watch for comments and embeds, then go comment on those blogs. Just be sure to ask the presenter first, to avoid any uncomfortable breaches of etiquette, copyright, or non-disclosure (apply that to every suggestion on this list). [Example: Chris Pirillo's annual Gnomedex conference in Seattle]

5. Open up the Q&A with a Twitter conference

Beyond the obviously invaluable uses of Twitter such as sharing your breakfast preferences or catching up on Ashton Kuther’s latest doings, it also happens to be a great tool for hosting far-ranging, open-to-all virtual conferences through the magic of #hashtags. Invite those speakers to participate in a Q&A over Twitter, identified by a hashtag (e.g. #youreventname), with all your Twitter followers as the audience. All you need is a moderator – someone who is fluent in using Twitter – the panelists, a suitable hashtag (research ahead of time so you don’t inadvertently hijack one already in use), and an hour or so. [Examples: Smartsheet's #crowdwork, Sarah Evans' #journchat, and Mack Collier's recurring #blogchat]

6. Capture the moment, lots and lots of moments, with Flickr tags

If pocket video cameras are becoming common, cameras long-since passed into ubiquity, with cameras attached to wifi connections catching up fast. Sure you can hire out a pro to capture the formal, brochure-ready stuff, but all you really need is an open “pictures are encouraged” policy and a recommended Flickr tag for everyone to share. This kind of thing has been done for years, so nearly qualifies as an “oldie but goodie” – yet it’s still a great way to encourage your attendees to share their perspective on the event with a much wider audience in a very social manner. Simple, time-tested, and effective. [Example from the home town: SMCSeattle]

This is likely only the tip of the iceberg in terms of great ideas for leveraging (marketing bingo word, 50 points!) your event content as a useful foundation for social media efforts. The point is your content is already being created by partners, sales teams, channel and field marketers, and so on. The event is already coordinated, branded, and promoted in some fashion. The hard part is done. The social tools are there – reasonably simple and for the most part free. All it takes is some creativity, experimentation, and a willingness to try something new.

Remember, Social Mallard can help you craft a plan for practical social media marketing, just drop us a line.

*Photo by mathplourde via Flickr under CC license. Shows video being captured for later sharing online at the University of Delaware.

Event Blog: Learning Healthcare Social Media from Mayo Clinic

Posted by: on Jul 28, 2009 | 5 Comments

Yesterday I attended a seminar on social media in healthcare, hosted by GA Creative and featuring Lee Aase (@leeaase) from the Mayo Clinic. Lee is an entertaining speaker and brought a wealth of information about how Mayo is using social media tools to deeply engage their patients, staff, and the media. I haven’t seen the exact slides from today, but here is a similar presentation Lee posted to Slideshare:

Energizing Word of Mouth through Social Media

View more documents from Lee Aase.

Some quick takeaways:

You’ll never realize value from social media unless you get out there and do it
A couple quotes/paraphrases: “Your kids aren’t smarter than you. They’re just less afraid to look dumb.” “Your mileage may vary, but you have to at least get a car first.” Both speak to the need to avoid paralysis from analysis and just get out and there and try social media. Claim your orgs Twitter handle, set up a FB fan page, establish a foothold in the social media space. At least start listening.

HIPAA creates unique privacy challenges for healthcare organizations embracing social media
This is true for new content, such as sharing patient stories, and even for blog comment moderation. For example, you have to moderate or “de-identify” (change names) comments from people who are sharing medical stories from relatives in order to guard against HIPAA violations.

Video is a great way to generate content without stressing the experts
Lee had an early concern about how to generate a steady flow of good content (posts, mainly) without over-stressing the doctors and researchers with writing asks. The solution was a cheap Flip video, short and fast interviews, and simple editing guidelines.

Capital investment are close to zero, yet staff time costs can also be kept in check
An oft-quoted slide in Lee’s deck – he has presented similar decks elsewhere – refers to “$0″ as the cost of using Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc. Mayo runs their blogs via WordPress.com, and pays about $75/year for options. All in all, dirt cheap, which is a key part of Lee’s story – it doesn’t take thousands of dollars to get a social media effort up and running.

Obviously the question is about staff time and skills – the triple challenges of mastering the tools, monitoring the conversation flow, and generating compelling content can be a vast time suck. This is a very real barrier for many companies who would otherwise embrace new media technologies.

I appreciate Lee’s reply that you should avoid creating a social media staff silo, avoid dumping it off to “the kids” (aka interns and junior staff), but rather make use of the untapped creativity and potential of your existing team members. Identify a “gray haired” champion who can advocate to senior management and help get these efforts elevated on the staff priority list. The nature of social media tools is not that they let you do radically new things, but rather they help your staff do what they do already – media relations, patient communications, etc – more effectively, faster, and cheaper than ever before. This is one of Lee’s key recommendations: don’t focus on the discontinuity social media tools bring (that scare people off) but highlight how they help them do their current jobs better.

Social Media in Healthcare Cheat Sheet

Posted by: on Jul 23, 2009 | 8 Comments

I’m excited to be attending “Taking the Mystery Out of Social Media: Strategies for Healthcare Marketing” – a one day educational workshop from the team at GA Creative and featuring Lee Aase, social media manager with the Mayo Clinic.

Mayo has really embraced the idea of connecting with patients and advocate communities via blogs, podcasts, Twitter, and social networking – for instance the Sharing Mayo Clinic blog, which features the voices and stories of Mayo patients, is a wonderful example of how to use a blog to create opportunities to share and foster community. Lee’s presentation should be a good one.

While researching social media marketing for healthcare, I collected a few relevant presentations, research reports, and links that I thought could be helpful for others.

If you’re serious about this topic however, I’d suggest following Ed Bennett, whose blog is a treasure trove of great stats and information (such as Hospital Social Media Updates).

Enjoy:

Presentations:

Research Reports:

Statistics/Links:

Twitter #hashtags:

Twitter accounts to follow:

On YouTube: