ShanaRay.com

From a PR standpoint, Twitter is great for starting conversations with key influencers in any industry.  It is an easy way to make friends and get your message across.  But it is also an easy tool to shoot yourself in your own foot if used improperly.

Case in point: A Vice President at one of the largest PR firm’s in the United States was visiting one of their largest clients in Memphis, Tennessee.  After landing in Memphis, he tweeted:

“True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, ‘I would die if I had to live here.”

The large client saw the tweet and, needless to say, was not pleases that this VP was trashing the city that they are headquartered in.  For more, please read Former CBS News Correspondent David Henderson’s article on the subject.

This foot in mouth scenario is a great reminder that what happens on the internet, does in fact, stay on the internet.  And is available for all to read.

The irony of this is that the VP was headed over to visit the client to discuss Social Media strategy.  I think he needs to take a spoonful of his own advice. Using Social Media for a brand is all about creating relationships and building content that will help your brand.  He was a part of the brand for his agency and rule #1 in Marketing: Do not bite the hand that feeds you.

I know that not all of my tweets are all about work related issues and I cannot judge anyone for making a comment without thinking. We are all human.  But it has definitely got me thinking about my online persona and what I say online.

taken by daniel brusilovsky

This past Tuesday I ventured to San Fran to make a stop at social media camp, a conference much like cupcake camp or bar camp and I learned a few things:

1. “Wanna be successful, make people around you successful.”  This quote struck a cord deep down in me when I heard it in Erica O’Grady’s opening speech.  It is from the book Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz.  It is so obvious, yet so powerful.  Working in marketing, the first rule is that if your client is not making money then you won’t keep the business for long.  In my new position as the social marketing and promotions manager for Healdsburg Magazine, my job is to care about bringing more money to local businesses and the Healdsburg community/economy as a hole.  I recently learned that many small family owned wineries in the area are already on the Open Wine Consortium (social network for people in the wine industry). This proves that they know that the web is a great vehicle to get their voice across, now I want to help them get heard through multiple other social media sites, thus making them more successful (and in turn, making me more successful of course).

2. Sex still sells! At the Half Baked activity, the room was split into 3 teams, my team constituted of a few people, including Tilly from Yahoo. The idea of Half Baked is to spilt into teams, pick two “buzz” words from a list that the crowd yelled out and then to create a website (with name, tagline, revenue model and marketing plan) in 10 minutes. Our team chose AtomicPimp.com, a subscription based dating site where people pay to be “pimped” out to find dates. A percentage of the profits go to “pimps”, who set people up on dates. Pimps can promote themselves through various social networking, blah, blah, blah…. Anyways, our team won tickets to the Summer Mash SF party at the Mighty… All because sex sells (oh, yeah, and our idea kicked ass).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS2tmS17q30]

3. Twitter is one of the biggest social networks out there, yet it is still only known by other fellow web geeks. In the beginning of the camp, we all went around saying our names, three “tags” (mine: Healdsburg, tourism and live events) and our favorite Social Media site (Hi my name is Shana and I am a Twitter-holic). Almost everyone in the room said Twitter as well. I must say there is definitely something in communicating in 140 characters or less.

4. Geek guys are hot (It is the glasses). That is all.

5. Just be honest and write about what you know, if it is interesting, people will read (just don’t constantly spam your friends with your blog URL *oops).

6. Social Media Marketing takes time. You have to build relationships, as well as maintain them. Old Media talked TO people, not with them.

7. Basic Online necessities:

1. Create a blog— WordPress is my personal favorite

2. Twitter — Start following people and have something to say

3. Facebook — It isn’t just there so you can poke old high school friends, FB has allowed me to connect with business owners, wineries and journalists in the area. It works.

4. Email — If people email you, make sure to follow up!

I have been noticing an increase in the amount of cupcake discussions on Twitter, maybe it is because I am following Ariel Waldman and she has an obsession with cupcakes (one of her many cupcake tweets), but it isn’t just her. There has been a few others on Twitter mentioning them (some even saying that “cupcakes” have jumped the shark).

My friend Lizzy just mentioned that she was helping to consult a friend of hers that just opened a cupcake shop in Cotati called Sift Cupcakery. This past weekend I visited this cupcake shop and it was like walking into my dream house in 1986.

As you can see, I think their cupcakes were delicious…. To quote my friend Jinx:

Even the glitter tastes pretty.

I was pretty impressed that they even have a blog called A Cupcake a Day. Currently, it is all about the trials of opening up a cupcake shop.

Ariel Waldman seems to be so obsessed with cupcakes that she created a Cupcake camp in San Francisco coming up this weekend on June 1^st.

I am going to try to go. It should be a good cupcake eating time.

Upcoming Page on the event.

whoo hoo.

but I did find a new site to send mms messages to Twitter. The site is called Twit Pic and so far I love it, even if it the new form of drunken text messaging.

See my picture of the Ravenous at midnight from The Engine is RED show on Saturday night:

No, I am not there, I went last year but I am currently too busy with work to go…. That is a good thing though right?!?!

Anyways, I have been watching the @stevehall, @arielwaldman and @stephagresta tweets. I also just started following @alisamleo today, so I have been trying to keep up-to-date on what is happening there.

One of the first keynotes of the day was from Kodak’s new CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett who started in 2006 and has quickly changed Kodak (famous for not quickly evolving to digital) completely around.

According to an Adrants blog post, some of the things that Kodak is doing to keep up with the Joneses:

• An aggressive focus on digital. The Kodak Gallery, where pictures are shared and archived, boasts 70 million members. It is the second-largest social network in the world.
• Blog outreach. Jeff’s not scared of nasty press or naughty talk. It’s part of the flame-fanning. Kodak was also one of the first companies in the world to hire a female Chief Blogging Officer.
• Seizing moments of (sometimes manufactured) serendipity. He cited a moment when NASCAR heroes were photographed in Kodak hats. He talked about the Kodak Challenge on Celebrity Apprentice and the Gene Simmons controversy. Sales doubled the week following that episode.

“Hayzlett outlined the tactics Kodak has used to engineer a corporate transformation. In marketing and promotion, it has meant straddling the line between advertising and content and being willing to take some risks with the brand—if those seem to promise sales increases down the road.”

- Promo magazine.

Some great thinking seems to have come from adtech this year, but of course it isn’t without it’s problems, because according to @alisamleo’s final word of the first day of adtech:

“final word: the shear lack of how the social web and its cultural constituents operate is astonishing”

So true, no matter how “old” this space may seem, it is constantly reinventing itself and we are all scrambling to keep up-to-date.

“So what is the next big thing? It’s ‘realigning organizations to execute in a digital world.’”