I was recently asked to keynote the final presentation at the NH Travel Council’s Governor’s Conference on Tourism in Portsmouth, NH. My focus was (shock, surprise) social media. But instead of just talking about social media, which frankly, I think there is too much talk about social media and not enough doing,  I decided to share some real examples of organizations within the travel & tourism space who are doing social media and doing it well.

I have to admit, I was really nervous about this presentation. I mean, I have spoken before, but never as the “keynote” and certainly not for a whole 60 minutes! So, in preparation for my big keynote debut, I leveraged my network and put a call out for some great examples of travel & tourism organizations having success with social media. I got several responses, one of which was from The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire.

Being familiar with The Museum from working with them for one of my NHTweetUp events and because they are local, I chose to include them as one of my featured case studies. So, I took my kids and my video camera and made my way to The Children’s Museum to speak with Heidi Duncanson, director of marketing for The Museum.

I was impressed. Really impressed with how Heidi was spearheading The Museum’s social media efforts. With their Facebook Page and Twitter account combined with their email newsletters (what BlueSky Factory calls the “Social Glue”), The Museum is able to connect with its members while building and nurturing their community.

During my video interview with Heidi (click below to view), she shared the Museum’s social media strategy along with some great examples of how just simply listening resulted in a visit from an out of town travel blogger who then wrote about her experiences within her blog that caught the attention of several other travel writers.

In later posts, I will share some other great examples from my presentation including my talk with Taste of Portsmouth about their social media efforts including their involvement with Foursquare Day in Portsmouth.  Please check back for that.

Hope you enjoy my video interview with Heidi. In case you are wondering who those two little cuties popping up in the porthole of the submarine are – they are my girls!

Know any organizations actually jumping in and doing social media and doing it well? Shoot me a note here or on Twitter @cmajor to let me know. I am always looking for great examples to capture and share.

TechKaraoke SXSW Photo Credit: Wayne Kurtzman @WayneNH

Despite the fact that I completely lost my voice during the conference, I did manage to sing with the help of my pal, Margot Bloomstein, who carried the vocals as we belted out The Violent Femmes “Blister in the Sun” with the live band. Not sure how great we sounded, but it was pretty awesome to have the fans blowing our hair in true “80’s big hair” fashion. Hey, I felt like a rock star for a good 3 minutes!

So, here is the video with Jen where I found out a bit more about her company Pinqued why she colored her hair pink.

Thanks Jen and Kate!

Want to learn more about how USATODAY.com is using social media to connect with its readers and share content?  Brian Dresher presented “More than just the news. A social media case study” during a recent AwarenessInc webinar. The complete recording can be accessed here.

According to OurCompassion (OC), the community, which was launched in June 2009,  is “a place for all of us to come together and get organized on behalf of children living in poverty.”

This is an amazing organization that serves more than 800,000 supporters who are sponsoring more than one million children worldwide. The OC community serves as a place for supporters to share, organize and speak up on behalf of children living in poverty.

During our discussion, Katie shared how the OC community was instrumental during the Haiti Earthquakes as it played an important role in facilitating communication with supporters around the world. Through this tragedy, the community went from being a new, young endeavor into a key player in the grand scheme of Compassion’s social media strategy as it became an integral part of their disaster response approach.  With the community, they were and continue to direct Compassion sponsors to the community for further support and information.

What they also found was that through this, the community naturally displayed new levels of “social maturity” (commonly looked for on social networking environments) as members showed deeper levels of friendship and honesty as they all worked through this tragedy together.  

My video interview with Katy is below. Please take a moment to hear what she has to say about OurCompassion.org and please check out their community for more information on how you can get involved.

I can’t wait for the Spring Fever #SoxUp at the Absolut Clubhouse at Fenway Park taking place on Thursday, February 25th.

The Boston Red Sox along with The Social Marketing Hub (we will be talking more about that later) are joining forces to bring you this awesome night of networking and fun.

Learn more by watching this short video promo filmed by Steve Garfield himself in one of the awesome Pavilion Suites at Fenway. Tickets are limited so I encourage you to buy yours ASAP! http://soxup.eventbrite.com

A huge THANK YOU to our #SoxUp sponsors including: Tungle.me, Awareness, Inc., Brightcove, Sullivan Tire, Soxology and Kodak! 

See you there!!!!

We chatted a bit about his passion for online communities, what goes into successfully creating and managing one and why brands should create their own.

Check out my discussion with him for yourself below

Do you “got community?” If so, what makes your community so successful? If not, what are you waiting for??

While Battle Decks is predominantly for fun, it is a great exercise for the public speaker to be able to speak on their feet about a topic they know nothing about and convince the audience that THEY are the expert at that particular topic. All of the speakers & judges did an amazing job thinking on their feet while, most, made us believe they were the experts on the politics of social media dancing and the dying art of the moustache!

The judges, who were scoring all presenters on a scale from zero to 10, all agreed that both Diane Vautier and John Herman were the big winners of the day as they faced off during the Battle Decks Deck Off. Five slides into the Deck Off,  John Herman determined that there was room for two winners – even though he felt “3″ would have been more appropriate – and stopped.

Thanks to presenters Ed Justen, Steve Garfield, Anthony Liang, Diane Vautier and John Herman and judges Seth Cohn, Tara Sullivan and Leah Carey for participating and making this session a success. You all rock! I can’t wait for the PodCamp NH in 2010 where Battle Decks will be bigger and badder than ever!

As they entered Brewhouse Foyer, the smell of fresh hops filled the air.

“Thar’s the smell of some of the finest beer ever brewed,” said the old brew monkey master to the group as they entered the room.

As the brew monkey master was broadcasting to the world, the zombies began to come to life and started to slowly (they are zombies afterall) lead everyone out of the room and into the cemetery for a Thriller dance.

The spooky food was delicious and included everything from wart of toad to eyes of newt and was provided by Walter “wanna be a Thriller zombie” Elly from MicroArts, The Vital Design Construction Workers and the masquerade masters from Ballards.

A creepy contest ensued as one of the lead zombies waddled away with a night’s stay at the Haunted Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Portsmouth. Other SpookUp guests were lucky to walk away with:

• A Redhook Ale Gift Certificate
• Some freshly ground coffee from Port City Coffee Roasters
• Your choice of a beautiful print from Stephanie Wales Photography’s NH Fine Art Gallery and Phil Cohen
• Bluetooth® Home Stereo Adapter DC800. $70 Value from CreativeMind Search Marketing, LLC
• A $35.00 Gift Certificate to Portsmouth Tea Company
• Zombified T-Shirts from Zombies at Work

The night ended at the stroke of midnight (well, it was more like 10pm) when all the zombies, ghosts and goblins journeyed back into the night. But before they disappeared into the fog, they all gave each other one last “elbow bump” and agreed that they should meet above ground more often.

~Fin

*******************************

This Pirate wants to thank everyone for dressing up and coming to the SpookUp on a rainy, gloomy night. It was an amazing event which could not have been possible without some amazing people including Salina McIntire from the Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce, Amanda Telford and Jessica from Red Hook Brewery, Tara Sullivan – Zombie Coordinator Extraordinaire, Walter Elly of MicroArts, Brian DeKoning of Vital Design, Ballards, Patti Fousek from CreativeMind Search Marketing, Tara Aiken from Port City Coffee, Stephanie Wales photography, Phip Cohen who not only took pictures of the SpookUp, but donated a print to raffle, Marshall Malone from Portsmouth Tea Company, Mike Schneider - aka BelchingMonkey and all of YOU!

Thank YOU for making these events a success for everyone involved.

The pictures from Phil Cohen will be added here soon and I will tweet about them when they are available. Until then, here are some shots from Amy Greenlaw – @GirlGamy

If you have any photos or videos or comments about the event to add, please do so in the comment section below.

And if you wouldn’t mind – please share your thoughts on the event by filling out this Boston TweetUp poll: http://bit.ly/BTUPollSpookUp

Thank you!!

-Christine

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!)

Any brand that has not embraced social media or has a presence but not really managing it properly is missing out on connecting with and engaging with consumers. Anthony’s generation not only expects to be able to interact with brands online, but these real connections form their opinions of those brands and drive their decisions to buy and also tell their friends about their experience with that brand. In a world where word of mouth is a huge factor in driving purchasing decisions, brands need to make sure they are making a great impression with their consumers.

To learn more, please check out my video interview with Anthony below to hear his thoughts on how his generation prefers to interact with brands and some tips on how to do so.

How do you prefer to interact with brands? What effects your decision to buy from one brand over the other? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.