Social Media Marketing - a refresher

On Thursday, I attended a seminar in Vancouver, put on by the Canadian Public Relations Society Vancouver (CPRS).

The seminar was titled "Social Media - Beyond the Basics" and featured Gillian Muessig, President and Co-founder, SEOmoz. The session was billed as an opportunity to learn about "the world of social media content development and promotion through SEO, social media, and beyond" and also to go "beyond best practice to advanced stats and tips for implementation of social media".

Not really sure that the seminar followed the description that well, but I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Gillian speak. She had a well-thought out presentation that flowed well, and had a lot of interesting stats, without information overload. Plus it was nice to have a social media refresher and a chance to talk shop with women (because there didn't seem to be many guys there) who work with social media marketing (SMM) everyday. My only negative about the experience was the lack of question period, because I'm sure Gillian would have had some great answers.

Some of my key learnings (both from the presentation & from conversations):

• SMM needs to be a long-term strategy, and shouldn't be the end-all of your marketing plan
• Twitter isn't near as popular as one may think, despite my own trend toward writing emails in 140 characters or less, as conditioned by frequent Tweeting
• Most marketing professionals still don't "get", or even use, Twitter
• Mobile marketing looks like a big trend, maybe here to stay
• Social networking is up 100% for people over 65, while Facebook still targets ads to under 65 . Might be a business opportunity?
  
• Customer engagement is critical
• Use SMM to "listen" to what customers are saying
• Let people know you're listening, and remember to say "thank you"
• Strive to increase "stickiness" - make people want to stay with your business

Photo credit: svilen001

TGR's Re:Session (A ski & snowboard movie)

Although it's been raining outside most of today, it was actually snowing up top of Whistler and Blackcomb. Which means we're getting close to ski season!

And what better way to get excited than with ski movies? I was scanning through Twitter the other day and saw a post from @doglotion about TGR's latest movie screening at Whistler this week called Re:Session.

I've already got my tickets for the screening at Whistler's MY Millenium Place Theatre this Friday, October 2nd at 7:00 p.m. (there's also a 9:00 p.m. showing). And a word of advice -- you'll save money by calling directly and ordering tickets over the phone (604.935.8410) rather than by ordering online.

Apparently the after-party is at Longhorn's - see you there!

Time to Twitter

So I joined up with Twitter a few months ago and have slowly gotten into the flow of things. Although I only have a small group of people I follow (and followers), I've gotten used to reading people's posts and have found some great links and new people to follow. The majority of content I listen / comment on is related to either skiing (come on winter!!) or marketing.

But today, I took a big step into the Twitter world. I created an account for the company I work for and listed myself as the current user. Then I started searching for people who seemed involved in technology, both in Vancouver and around North America, and took some time to judiciously add them as people I'm following. And now I feel like a kid at Christmas - wondering if I'll end up with presents or just a lump of coal. Will people add me? Will they talk to me? So far, I've had one person add "me" a.k.a. the company. I've actually had to sign out to help fight the urge to check for new posts.