Cool Things I Learned this Week about Social Media

August 30th, 2009 by Elizabeth Beskin | Share Blog

My week was rich with Social Media experiences:

First, I had the opportunity to speak at the Cool Twitter Conference about my new favorite marketing pastime!  The conference consisted of small businesses talking to other small businesses about how they use Twitter to market their brand. It’s so inspiring to learn about how other passionate entrepreneurs are using the new technology to succeed.

The Cool Twitter Conference is another example of what Social Media is all about: sharing, networking, and learning from each other. There are a lot of small business gurus learning and sharing what’s working for them.  They are taking their marketing into their own hands! Here is the slideshow I presented on how to engage on twitter.

The second opportunity I had for Social Media growth this week was at the Roger Smith Hotel. Yes folks, Wednesday night is cocktails & Social Media meet-ups at a cute little midtown hotel on 49th and Lex.  I’m not sure if every Wednesday night has so many social media heavy hitters as this past week did, but I highly recommend the experience any time you can.

I was planning on networking after work with a few event industry folks who are all on Twitter, Sherri Haymond (@wy20 & @missmotercade) suggested on twitter that we meet at the Roger Smith Hotel (@RShotel. Soon Debra Roth of Pink Inc. Designs (@pinkdeb) joined us and a party was formed. Twitter was buzzing!

Once there, we noticed that “social media types” seemed to make up most of the crowd.  It turns out the host of the bar is a friend of @missmotercade: brian (@bsumi).  He told us his amazing inspirational story of how twitter helped him through a serious health issue. From that experience, he decided that the bar at the Roger Smith would become a place where folks could hang out who were looking to transform their twitter networking to face to face relationships.

While moving through the crowd, we met a group of artists and a wine distributor who were there for a wine tasting.  One of the artists had an amazing show on the top floor. They also pointed out Gary Vandercheck or @garyvee, who has been a huge inspiration for me. Gary is a guy who built a brick and mortar liquor business using social media and in the process has become a huge Social Media Guru, watch his keynote from web 2.0 conference on his blog–to understand true passion

Lessons learned from Gary Vandercheck:
You can never underestimate the value of being genuine, having passion, and sharing your insight. One question quickly led to a small group gathering around as he shared his perspective and offered us lamb chops as we drank nice wine.  We didn’t talk about wine, we talked about twitter, and in the process we learned about the wine we were drinking.

Pearls of wisdom from Gary:

“It was more fun when I had 30,000 followers. Now that I have 850,000, it takes too much time to respond & engage with everyone. Twitter has lost its ROI for me based on the amount of time it takes.”
“Being passionate about your brand is contagious.”

Gary’s newest interest is TUMBLR. Tumblr allows you to tumble someone’s blog article onto your blog and I am certainly looking into this when I have a chance.

Lessons learned from the social media meet-up:

Twitter is a great place to initiate conversations but being face-to-face makes those relationships grow exponentially. There is still nothing better than good old human interaction to solidify a bond.

Lessons learned from passionate small business twitters at cool twitter conference

@garretpopcorn “What I sell is popcorn-its fun! I like to have fun with our loyal brand enthusiast. If I can bring them popcorn when they are having a bad day, its fun!” She has an inherent joy in what she is doing.  Her tweets are generous and joyful and she understands her brand and how to keep people talking about Garrett Popcorn.

@cupcakestop Here’s a young guy out of law school who looked at a bleak job market and took his passion for good cupcakes and made it something else – wow!  He has a mobile cupcake truck in Manhattan, an Ex-chef from Bouley and a twitter following to let people know the cupcake of the day, where the truck is parked now and when it is leaving for the next place. What other hype does he need? Lev (the founder) doesn’t pay for advertising; he uses a publicist and pays half the price with huge payoffs. He’s got quite a story but the red velvet cupcake – oh yeah, worth the calories!

@bobfine By following his passion to help the environment and use social media to advance his pursuit, he has caught on to the fact that small business can help small businesses be successful using social media.  His Cool Twitter Conferences are a new way to learn from others and allow their successes and successes on twitter to build his brand. Cool Twitter Conferences is …coming soon to a city near you http://www.cooltwitterconferences.com/

Additional lessons from other fabulous business tweeters that presented at the conference:

• Its just as important to keep your followers as it is to get followers
• Twilert- twitter alerts like google alerts-seems cool!
• Reciprocal relationships already exist on Twitter, you get immediate feedback about your brand.
• Social media drives conversions through brand awareness.
• Social Media is the convergence of PR, customer service, and marketing.
• Use Twitter to find other businesses to collaborate with in related fields.
• Twitter is the bridge; it’s all about the human connection.
• There are visionaries and there are executors. Twitter is the bridge that links them.
• Think about incorporating images into your Twitter streams, and video, too.
• Fun is a critical component of Social Media!
• Never underestimate the value of a compliment

For additional insights from the cool twitter conference check out www.bevisibleassociates.com/blog and #ctc on Twitter.

Other speakers at the Cool Twitter Conference (follow them!)

Cathy Scott
True Crime Author & Journalist  @CathyScott

Stacy Cromidas
Scholar, Lawyer, Investor, Director, Volunteer, Facilitator
Supreme Court Network             @stacy_92037

Tamar Weinberg
Founder
Techipedia & Author of The New Community Rules (O’Reilly, July 2009)  @tamar

Michele Mattia
Founder & Life Design Coach  @lifes_dash

Scott Lackey
Co-Founder & Strategic Director
Jugular: A Communications & Content Creation Company  @scottlackey

Michael Admani
President of A&R
A&R Mike Admani LLC   @michaeladmani

Kevin Swanepoel
President The One Club      @oneshow

Lev Ekster
CEO The Cupcake Stop @Cupcake Stop

Alecia Dantico
Social Media Marketer @GarrettPopcorn

I highly recommend Cool Twitter Conferences for anyone who is using Twitter for small business or who is still trying to figure it out. Check out the schedule at: http://www.cooltwitterconferences.com/