Slides from the annual meeting presentation may be downloaded at:
Background Materials
One of the key background resources I mentioned in the presentation was The Cluetrain Manifesto. This is the source of the “markets are conversations” concept (though, as pointed out during the presentation, markets always were conversation before the industrial age and the rise of mass advertising.) You can get the full text for free at:
Also, for straightforward, easy to understand explanations of key social Web technologies, it is hard to beat the videos at Commoncraft.com:
- RSS In Plain English
- Blogs In Plain English
- Wikis In Plain English
- Social Networking In Plain English
- Twitter In Plain English
- Twitter Search in Plain English
- Online Photo Sharing In Plain English
- Podcasting In Plain English
- Social Bookmarking In Plain English
- Social Media In Plain English
- Websearch Strategies In Plain English
Listen
Before you dive in and start talking about yourself or your organization, learn to “listen” to what is going on out on the Web first. Some key listening tools are:
- Google Alerts: Set up searches on your organization name, key staff, and topics that relate to your mission. Google will deliver the results to your inbox or an RSS reader like the free Google Reader. (I recommend using and RSS reader and treating it like a brand “dashboard.” Be sure to use quotes around phrases you enter to ensure that results come back only on the exact phrase.)
- Also consider using the search capabilities on Twitter to see if people are talking about you, your organization, or topics that are important to you. You can subscribe to Twitter search so that you can view them in your RSS Reader along with your Google alerts.
- Addict-o-matic can also be a useful tool for seeing what’s being said across a variety of social networks. You can bookmark searches so that you can return to them later.
For more tools for listening, you might want to see 10 Tools for Monitoring Your Brand.
Ask
There are a wide range of free and low-cost approaches to asking question on the Web that can help you better serve your members and customers.
- For polls and surveys, consider Survey Monkey, the forms capability in Google Spreadsheets, and PollDaddy.
- One of the advantages of having a significant of followers on Twitter, or making use of Twitter hashtags, is that you can quickly ask questions of a group of people with common interests – and often receive helpful answers in a matter of minutes. If you are saying to yourself, “What’s Twitter?,” or “What’s a hashtag?” I recommend Jane Hart’s brief but thorough Twitter workshop presentation.
- Social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook also provide the opportunity to join groups and ask questions in the group discussion forums. And LinkedIn has an Answers functionality that enables you to ask (and answer) questions across your extended network.
As you are “asking,” keep your eyes and ears out for respondents who you may be able to enlist to help with planning and promoting your event.
Collaborate
There are a range of great Web 2.0 tools that can make it easier to collaborate with far flung staff, members, and volunteers for planning your event. Have a look at:
- PBWorks, a free wiki platform. Really, all a wiki does is enable multiple people to contribute to and edit the same document on the Web. It can be a whole lot easier than e-mailing around a Word document!
- If you want a more full-blown project management solution, Basecamp may fit the bill. It’s Web-based, full-featured, and very reasonably priced.
- Consider Yugma as a great desktop sharing tool that also integrated with the free Internet phone service, Skype. Or try out the free, open source Web conferencing platform DimDim. DimDim offers a range of features that is very competitive with well-known platforms like WebEx.
Promote
The ways the social Web can be used to promote your events is limited only by your imagination.
- Make sure you tap the network you have been building through listening, asking, and collaborating. Asking people to put badges for your event on their blogs and Web sites is one potential way to do this. Web2.0Badges.com and MyCoolButton.com are among a number of services that make it easy, and usually free, to generate buttons and badges on the Web.
- Take advantage of the ability to create Twitter hashtags and create one for your event. See, for example, how ASAE has done this by going to http://search.twitter.com and searching on #asae2009.
- Consider using the events functionality on social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook to announce and promote your event.
- Have a look at Work Literacy for an example of how the eLearning Guild used the free Ning social networking platform to create a very effective pre-event learning community.
- Use Web-based PR services like PRWeb to announce and talk about your events. These services distribute your news over RSS and can help drive Web traffic. PRWeb requires fees for most of its services, but there are also a number of free services out there. Here are just a few:
- Before sending out your release, consider running it through HubSpot’s free Press Release Grader.
More links coming soon!