It’s time that businesses stop thinking of social media as a separate function and instead view it as a part of the entire organization! I couldn’t agree more with this statement from

During Leslie’s webinar “Social Media Success Starts with You!” she shared how to bring social media into your organization and, more importantly, how to support it.

When talking to people about incorporating social media in their overall marketing strategy, I often like to play off the famous “Field of Dreams” quote and tell people ”just because you build it, it doesn’t mean they will come.” This is exactly what Leslie was stressing in her presentation. Setting up your multiple channels such as a Facebook page, Flickr and Twitter accounts are a great first step, but that’s it. It’s just just a first step and the easiest one. The hard part is managing those accounts and, as Leslie pointed out, you have to nurture them and help them grow or success will be hard to come by.

Along with discussing some huge hurdles many organizations are faced with, other key takeaways from her presentation which can be viewed below include: 

• Stop tripping over the social tools; focus on a handful and master those before moving on to the next shiny thing
• Social media is not new; its the same thing we used to use for business, but with prettier, more attractive packaging that is easier to use
• Did you know that social media was born in 1978?
• Social media buy-in from the top down is crucial for its success in any organization
• Companies need to give their employees flex time to use social media tools to help promote their business
• The customer is not always right
• How do you manage it all?

The slides including the additional links Leslie added post webinar can be found on her Uptown Uncorked site here: http://uptownuncorked.com/2010/06/29/social-media-starts-with-you/

Video and slides can be downloaded here: http://www.awarenessnetworks.com/learning/webinars/poston

And I was right.

The premise of the session was that in business, we all use metaphors of one kind or the other to drive home a point. The problem with doing that is in most cases, those metaphors – no matter how cool or relevant they seem to you, might mean absolutely nothing to the person you are speaking to. It’s important to remember, if using metaphors to explain a concept or topic, that you first make sure the person you are speaking to knows what they hell you are talking about or it will go right over their heads.

Tim, Aaron and Kyle all shared their personal sports metaphors and explained how they related to business and then opened up the floor to the audience to share their own sports metaphors.

Tim shared with us his bowling metaphor and how a professional bowler, in order to succeed, needs to consistently bowl a strike or spare in every frame. Deviate from that pattern and that bowler will drop down and ultimately lose the game. In business, to be successful, you must push out consistent, quality content. Tim used David Armano and Chris Brogan’s blogs as examples of this consistent quality and recommended that others observe and emulate them.

Kyle Flaherty’s metaphor – “Break Four Minutes” was a mystery to me at first and apparently was to him until his boss at the time explained what that meant. The break four minutes analogy was in reference to Roger Bannister, who in 1954 was the first person to run a mile in under four minutes – he did it in 3′59.4. Up until Bannister came along everyone thought it was impossible to run a four-minute mile. Once he broke that barrier, 16 other people attempted and achieved what was once thought to be physically impossible.  In business, and more specifically in sales, once someone goes and “Breaks four minutes” then others will soon follow suit.

At the time, I didn’t have any sports metaphors to share, but have since come up with one that I am sure many are familar with.

“Be The Ball Danny”

This, of course, is from Chevy Chase in Caddyshack.

How does this sports metaphor relate to business? Well….you see “There is a force in the universe that makes things happen. All you have to do it get in touch with it and stop thinking. Let things happen and be the ball.”

Just be the ball…

A big thanks to Salina McIntire, Membership Director with The Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce for her assistance in planning this event and others. And we definitely couldn’t do it without the help of our sponsors – Microarts, Vital Design, Patti Fousek of CreativeMind Search Marketing and Awareness. Thank YOU!!

I am also very excited to be able to bring you live music from The Sea Captains!!

Adam Flaherty @aflaherty_media (also a member of @TheSeaCaptains) created this awesome video to help promote the event while we were at @RedHookNH yesterday afternoon. Check it out!!

See you on 2/18!!

NH Tweetup :: Retro TechUp 2/18/10 @ Redhook, NH from The Sea Captains on Vimeo.

- I had kids! Two girls who are amazing, beautiful and so smart (I love you with all my heart A & L)
- I sold my house and built a new one. Well, I didn’t build it, but I had a lot of influence on what went into it. I made a lot of trips to Home Depot and Lowes that summer!
- I bought and sold 5 different cars (3 minivans, 1 Jetta Wagon and my current vehicle, a Nissan Cube) Guess I am fickle when it comes to cars
- I worked at 3 different companies. I am currently at Awareness and loving it! (you can include the bonus in my next check)
- I launched this blog
- I started planning these silly events called “TweetUps” where I brought people together offline to network and strengthen their online relationships
- I met all of you!

As I continue my journey into the next decade, I am excited and optimistic of what the future will bring. And I am truly thankful to everyone who has come along with me for the ride.  Each and every one of you has made an impact on my life in some way or another and I thank you for that.

So, without getting all mushy, I want wish you all a happy and healthy New Year. With you all there to join me, it truly will be an amazing journey.

While my kind of change has nothing to do with my voice, some of the lyrics do fit.
When it’s time to change, then its time to change
Don’t fight the tide, come along for the ride, don’t you see
When it’s time to change, you’ve got to rearrange
who you are into what you’re gonna be.
Sha na na na, na na na na na, sha na na na na
Sha na na na, na na na na na, sha na na na na

Now I am sure you are humming along and cursing my name for infecting your brain with this annoying song, I wanted to share some news with all my friends that I am making a job change. After 11 years working on the agency side doing public relations and social media for high-tech clients with both Beaupre & Co. (seven years) and PerkettPR (four years), I am making the leap to the client side.

I am very excited to announce that, as of today, I am the Marketing Communications Manager for Awareness Inc. where I will be responsible for helping to elevate and promote the company and brand. If you aren’t familiar,  Awareness builds online communities for companies who want to leverage social media marketing to engage with their customers, build their brand, and increase revenues.  Some of their customers include Kodak, McDonalds, Sony and Hershey’s (my favorite chocolate in the world!)

 First, I want to express my gratitude for having had the amazing opportunity to work with and learn from some of the best agencies and people in the business (yes, I am a bit biased). These experiences have prepared me for this next phase in my career. A heart felt thank you to each of my colleagues and clients.

I would also like to thank my family and friends for their continued support and encouragement to push me to learn and try new things and make me believe in myself. I am forever grateful. This is a very exciting and important career move for me.

I look forward to this next phase in my career and sharing it with you all.

Hey! If you are in the NYC area or attending the Web 2.0 Expo next month, Awareness will have a booth (#1228) at the event and I will be out and about there and around the expo from 11/17-11/19. I would love to connect with folks while I am out there so please stop on by to say “hi”  if you are at the expo or connect with me and we can try to connect. Hope to see you soon.

 -Christine

Sha na na na, na na na na na, sha na na na na (yeah, that’s right – sing it loud!)

It all started during a discussion with Michael Schneider about the burrito, which we both agree  is the perfect food. We thought it be great to get a bunch of people together who also felt the same way about burritos as we did.

The BurritUp was born.

You see, one of my favorite things to do is bring people together around common interests and passions. In this case, the focus was centered around the burrito – plain and simple.

The plan was to keep this little TweetUp low-key, but the day I posted the event on Eventbrite, it was written about within The Brookline Tab Blog by Neal Simpson (who also attended the BurritUp with a photographer for a story he wrote about the event here). Through the power of word of mouth, or Twitter in this case, buzz continued to build about our little “BurritUp” and before we knew it, there were 60 people signed up to share some burritos with us.

John Pepper, CEO and founder of Boloco, who always looks for opportunities to connect with customers offline as well as online, loved the idea and decided to come along. He also gave all the BurritUp attendees gift cards to come back for a free burrito. Before the BurritUp began we had a chance to ask him a few questions about how he uses social media to market Boloco and future plans for the business. Please check out the video interview below.

Ultimately 45 burrito lovers came out to the first ever BurritUp. Which goes to show you that all you need is a great idea, passion,  and some amazing people with big appetites and you have all the ingredients for a successful event! This will certainly not be the last BurritUp and there were a lot of grumblings about other food-related TweetUps that we are sure to see soon!

Want to get a taste of what the BurritUp was all about? Take a peek at this video slideshow of the BurritUp I created below using Animoto’s new video feature (very, very cool). I also included a photo slideshow Steve Garfield pulled together using Animoto (Thanks Steve!)

Other BurritUp photos can be found on Flickr. Videos from the BurritUp can be found on BurritUp TV.

Be sure to follow @BurritUp on Twitter for news about future BurritUps and just talk about burritos.

For my 7 year-old daughter (pictured back row, left), it was her first day of 2nd grade. For my little one (pictured in front, right) it was her very first day of kindergarten and also her first time riding on a school bus – the same bus she watched her sister get on for the past two years and drive away without her.

I thought for sure I would be a mess as my baby got on the bus for the first time, but it was actually the complete opposite. You see, Lauren banged her eye on a table last night and got a HUGE black eye (perhaps you can see it i the picture?) Well, she was hysterically crying this morning (a continuation from last night’s crying) which meant I had to remain strong for her.

But as the bus began its decent down the hill towards our driveway, Lauren snapped out of her crying spell. Even at 5 years-old she knows that first impressions are everything and didn’t want to cry in front of everyone on the bus.

Now it was my moment of weakness. As the girls walked onto the bus I followed behind, ignoring the dirty looks from the bus driver watching me go down the aisle. I wasn’t going to let this “first” moment go without taking this picture – one that I will remember forever.

For all those parents out there…I hope you and your children all had your very own ‘firsts’ that you will remember for years to come.

The name of the show (she came up with this on her own) is “Avery Discovers” and the premise is just that…Avery is going to share things with you that she discovers. It could be toys she likes/dislikes, movie reviews, events she attends, etc.

The first episode was thrown together in my home office with some additional lighting from around the house. We used my Kodak Z16 HD digital camera (recommended by Steve Garfield) and hit record. We did it in three takes because the first two were interrupted by Avery’s little sister who decided she wanted to join in (aka whine a lot). I then did some quick editing using iMovie and this is the final product. I hope to eventually create a fancy schmancy introduction and ending, but until then, I will keep it simple.

So I hope you enjoy what we hope will be the first of many episodes of “Avery Discovers” where in this premiere episode she talks about two of her favorite Littlest Pet Shop toys.

I would love your comments/feedback and if you have any requests for what Avery should discover next, let me know.