Social Media University, Global (SMUG)
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Below is the presentation I’m scheduled to deliver on Friday, May 29, at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, as part of the Innovations in Election Technology conference:
Yesterday was another of those days that seem to be getting more frequent, in which I met face-to-face someone with whom I had only interacted via social media.
I started the morning with a Tweet (which I also posted to my Facebook status via Tweetdeck), about my travel plans for the day:
To my surprise, a few minutes later a comment showed up from Roy Kenagy, who works with the public library system in central Iowa:
In fact, after a stop in Algona to interview one pair of patients, I was planning to be in Ankeny. So I replied via iPhone and he got me the address:
Which led to us getting to meet for about 15 minutes just before 2, and so I took a picture of Roy and his colleagues (Roy is the one in the middle!)
Another demonstration of the power of social media, particularly Facebook, to make virtual connections real.
I was in Ankeny to meet Marlow and Frances Cowan, the delightful couple whose piano duet at Mayo Clinic has become a YouTube sensation:
You’ll be seeing more of the Cowans in coming days, at which time I’ll be posting some more video and telling the story of how their duet has gone from 1,000 views to more than 1.6 million in a little over a month.
Later last night I got to have a good conversation with some health system communicators in Davenport. I’m uploading those photos to the SMUG Facebook group.
All in all, I have to agree with this assessment from Matt Feyen:
Much of what I blog about is related to social media, and many of the people with whom I’m engaging online are other social media evangelists or people in health care who are interested in using tools like blogs, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. And I think the examples we’ve been able to show through our Mayo Clinic work definitely show not only the potential of social media, but also the actual, real-world benefits, for large organizations.
But what about individuals, or smaller organizations? Can they use social media profitably?
That was a question I addressed a couple of weeks ago with a young professionals group in Niles, Ill. So when I tweeted from the airport about my travels for the week and got a response from Tom Vanderwell, a mortgage lender from Grand Rapids, Mich. whom I had met previously through Twitter, I immediately asked him to share his experience.
When we talked by phone that night I asked him, “Do you get real business from your blog?” His response: “Well, today alone I got two emails from potential clients. One is in a state where I can’t do business, but I can connect the person to someone I’ve met through social media who has previously referred business to me. The other one I can do. So yes, I’ve definitely gotten business from my blog.”
I asked Tom to follow up with an email with some of the details about his blogging experience, and I’ve reproduced an edited version below.
Tom works for a large bank, so in that sense he’s not really a “small business” example, but on the other hand as someone whose compensation is based on business generated, he’s the ultimate entrepreneur. Many people like him invest in advertising to get people’s attention. I don’t know whether Tom advertises or not. But it seems his blog is a great way for people to get to know him and how he thinks, building trust in his perspective.
Here’s some straight talk from Tom about how he uses social media, particularly his blog, in his business, and the benefits he’s seen:
Continue reading “Social Media for Small Business”
In Part III of this series, I offered a recommendation for health care associations with regard to Twitter:
Create a Twitter account for your association, if only for defensive purposes. Use Twitterfeed to automatically tweet.
I think that was fine, as far as it went, and I think it is an essential step. But in the last two months I have seen immense potential for beneficial engagement by actively becoming involved with Twitter at the organizational level. It needs to be more than just a defensive measure.
I see Twitter being valuable not just for communication with members, but also for outreach to people who share your organization’s goals but may not yet be members. I believe it’s really worth your time to understand it, and to that end recommend the SMUG Twitter curriculum (or for an overview, going through the #tweetcamp2 course, for which the slides and accompanying videos from the Webcast archive are embedded below.)
Our Mayo Clinic (@mayoclinic) social media team is hosting Tweetcamp II (#tweetcamp2) on Thursday, April 23, 2009 from 3-4 p.m. CDT. You can sign up to participate in the comments on this post (please leave your organization name and city) and can get more details, including the link to the live video stream, on the Mayo Clinic News Blog.
After you’ve signed up, here are 3 steps you can take in advance to get the most out of the experience (and to help share the opportunity):
These three steps will help you see some of the power of Twitter, and at Tweetcamp II you’ll get even more hands-on experience.