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

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!!!!

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.

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

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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