SMCHI events have increasing value for the community. Our speakers and topics are better than ever. And as anyone who has ever been to one of our events can attest, they also come with the added benefit of being very fun. Get a bunch of “social” people in the room and watch the magic happen.  In addition, one of SMCHI’s goals in 2012 is to be able to host other high caliber speakers, like last year’s Mari Smith event, for an affordable cost.

But SMCHI does more than host events, we maintain a website with a blog which features custom content by our professional members. We manage numerous social media profiles and try to keep everyone in the loop about social media and digital literacy events throughout the islands. While all activities are 100% volunteer driven, SMCHI still incurs administrative costs for items like web hosting, equipment, live-streaming, and communication management.

Traditionally our events have been free. With this month’s event we’re announcing a slight change: we’ll begin charging a small fee for our events to cover SMCHI’s ongoing administrative costs. We know this might come as a surprise to some, but rest assured in the spirit of inclusion, our events will remain high value at a very affordable price; in fact, much more affordable than public events for other professional and educational organizations. Due to our ever generous event venue sponsor, Hagadone Printing, our nonprofit rental cost at Amuse is covered, so due to their generosity, we’re able to keep the price of our events down significantly.  We hope that some of these fees can also help SMCHI begin to bring in some knowledgeable social media leaders from around the country. We want to continue our reputation as one of the most dynamic Social Media Clubs in the world by leading our community with top-notch events and speakers. We want to continue to find ways to support our neighbor island professionals.  As a side note, SMCHI events will remain free to all Professional, Small Business, Nonprofit and Educational members.  

We continue to invite all members of the social media community to be part of SMCHI and its events, regardless of their experience with social media. We know that more than ever, people are curious about social media and want answers from reliable sources like those that SMCHI is able to bring to you. We’re committed to bringing you more and better quality information.

Thank you so much for your ongoing support of SMCHI. And we look forward to seeing you at our next event on May 14th, where we’ll show you time saving tools for managing social media.

• Are affordable
• Save you time
• Manage multiple team members
• Measure your impact
• Track conversations
• Monitor and listen

We’ll start with live demos of two social media management tools, HootSuite and SproutSocial, and finish with open Q&A.

Bring your laptops if you’d like some assistance in setting up some of these time saving tools!

Be sure to register, there will be limited seating! Please note this meeting is on a Monday instead of the usual #SMCHI Tuesday. Please note there is a small fee for this event. You can read more about this change here.

DATE: MONDAY May 14th at 6pm
LOCATION: Amuse Wine Bar – Cupola room
COST: $10
FREE for professional members (look in your email for a promo code)
Amuse Wine Bar (Plenty of free, covered parking available in the Honolulu Design Center)
1250 Kapiolani Boulevard
Honolulu, HI 96814
Google Map Link

Around the same time  CityCamp, created quite a stir. A hackathon, supported by the city and sponsored by private business, CityCamp introduces geeks to open data from the city enable citizens to create applications which make the content more accessible to the larger community.  Jane Zang and Andy Yip created an Iphone app, DaBus, that tracked bus locations (using GPS) and identified nearby bus stops and routes. In a city with a high bus ridership, this was a welcomed

Using DaBus App to figure out our timing.

application to many.

There was a movement afoot: government and citizens were collaborating in unique ways.

Before the fellows departed Honolulu, Sheba Najmi  invited me to meet with her, Burt Lum (planner of CityCamp, and Honolulu tech advocate and SMCHI Professional Member)  and the City of Honolulu’s communications director, Jim Fulton to discuss the use of social media for some of the technical development the city is either supporting or developing. While there was internal support for the use of social media and the city has an active social media presence, Fulton was skeptical that social media could be used to engage the community. Before the meeting was over, Lum and I had committed to creating a pilot program – a tweetup to celebrate the launch of the DaBus App, with a Geeks on the DaBus tweetup with Najmi cheering us on and offering support.

What is so incredible about this particular event is the citizen collaboration that occurred.  The first meeting about Geeks on DaBus took place at GreenHouse Hawaii, a co-working location which has developed into a collaboration and innovation hub.  John Garcia is GreenHouse’s owner and he’s also a SMCHI Pro Member, he immediately agreed to develop a website for the event and as quickly  Derek Gabriel (SMCHI Pro and Board Member) jumped into assist.  Lum, myself and Forest Frizell, Deputy Director of IT at the City and County of Honolulu sat down to hash out our plan. We agreed to start identifying social media aficionados who also took the bus. The first tweet wasn’t 30 seconds old before social media bus riders were self identifying, then social media enthusiasts who weren’t bus riders were asking if they could participate too! How could we say no? We made one rule: to get free lunch, you had to show evidence that you took the bus and tweeted or posted on Facebook  - that was the price of admission.

Energy was building. Despite the fact that the tweetup was scheduled for lunch time on a Thursday, it sold out! Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle agreed to attend the event along with key stakeholders from the City and County of Honolulu. The app developers, Zane and Yip agreed to attend as well.

Mayor Peter Carlisle and myself, celebrating our successful use of DaBus app!

On the day of the event, KITV Morning news show hosted Frizell to discuss the event and to discuss the DaBus App, meanwhile  geeks and  busriders started tweeting early!  Gabriel even agreed to escort this bus neophyte to the day’s multiple locations; shout out my personal DaBus app! As the morning went on, about 15 people (in addition to his entourage) joined the Mayor at Honolulu Hale (City Hall) as he himself jumped on the bus to tweet along side geeks and unsuspecting bus riders. Jana Pierce, SMCHI Pro and Board Member who is the city’s archivist was a member of the Mayors entourage and acting host of the city’s twitter discussion on @HNL_Info. At the GreenHouse, there was a flow of over 40 people throughout lunch. There was an impromptu Q&A with Roger Morton, President of Oahu Transportation who wowed attendees and the tweet stream with fun bus stats.

In the end, our tweetup created a sustained conversation about Honolulu’s bus system and #DaBusHNL app, for over 10 hours on a single day and the hashtag lives on.   People have adopted it to use throughout the bus experience. New people took the bus and experienced bus riders embraced the app.  Over 92 unique people participated and dozens more followed the journey of geeks all the way through Honolulu on an interactive map. In the days surrounding the event, there were 762 downloads of the app from Itunes. The app and the event were featured on Hawaii Public Radio and two television stations, but the heart of the energy came from those who participated either by taking the time to write an app, create a website, design a campaign or tweet along with the rest of #DaBusHNL geeks.

MAHALO to all who contributed in anyway!

Get highlights from the day’s activities on Storify.

Sandy Carter has the chops to write a book on “social business” she’s the VP of IBM’s Social Business Evangelism. As a daughter of an “IBM’er” I’ve watched with fascination as IBM has transformed itself in the past 25 years. But perhaps the most fascinating shift for this “traditional” big business is its ability to embrace social media to accomplish its business objectives. If Sandy Carter can create a path for a behemoth like IBM to embrace the new way of business, “Social Business” then surely business owners of all sizes can learn from her insight. Carter’s story is so similar to other thought leaders in the social space, they began by using social tools personally and as a result, the business began paying attention.  She finds that successful social businesses have three characteristics, they are Engaged, Transparent and Nimble. Again, if a business the size of IBM can incorporate these characteristics into its business model, imagine how smaller companies who are significantly more nimble can incorporate the other two to stand out in this social space.

Carter sets forth 6 key steps for developing a social strategy for your business. The AGENDA Model is a flexible and smart, step by step process. Supported by a wide variety of case studies, readers get to see how “Social Business” is implemented in the real world.

A – Align organizational goals and culture: “Culture eats strategy for lunch,” says Carter. This means leadership has to be not involved, but supportive of its employees who can act as brand ambassadors.
G- Gain Social Trust: Forming an audience and more importantly, friends, clients and other stakeholders.
E – Engage through experiences like gaming and interactive platforms. Carter says that “Experience will be King (and Queen) in the coming years.” in otherwords, it won’t be about content, it will be about how your audience interacts with your company and its product through experiences that create emotional connections.
N – “Social” Network your processes and making social media work for your business objectives. “Socially enabling your processes is a key competitive weapon.” – Jeremiah Owyang
D – Design for reputation & risk management speaks to developing a way to respond quickly when there brand or product emergencies. A major part of this design, is listening and responding quickly.
A – Analyze data. Carter says analytics are the new black and I couldn’t agree with her more.

So does it apply to small and medium businesses?

Not every business has the resources that IBM has, so will this book help them too? The short answer is “yes, if you are willing to take risk.” A recurring theme throughout is that for exciting (Bold) results, there has to be an inherent willingness to take a risk.  In fact, although the case studies are larger organizations, the take aways for businesses of all sizes are the same, including willingness to create exciting change. Social Business really starts with culture and that’s something that all businesses have. What’s so fascinating about  Get Bold is that it proves that social media DOES scale.  In fact, one of Carter’s key take aways is to incorporate all disciplines of an organization within social media strategy and implementation. Using this model, we see that businesses don’t have to hire a single person for social media, but can spread out the work among several, this is particularly helpful for small and medium size businesses. For larger businesses, this may seem scary at first, but Carter does a great job of explaining how to lay the ground work for such implementation.

What stood out for me when I look at businesses in Hawaii, was the “N”, Social Networking Processes. By creating or modifying internal processes to reflect the use of social media, businesses can take full advantage of the opportunities while saving themselves time in the social engagement process. This really means creating communication paths and empowering other departments such as HR and Customer Service to utilize social media to achieve departmental and overall business goals.

For those who joined SMCHI for the Creating a Social Media Policy Event on February 21, Carter has some succinct advice for how to create an internal policy; her 1o steps address business culture and expectations while keeping the policy itself clear and to the point. With her 10 recommendations, she also provides links to additional policy samples. She also references the differences between “social employees” and traditional employees, much of which we also discussed at our last event. In other words, social employees are coming, ready or not. Its time to think about ways to encourage social employees in your business rather than hinder them; they can do much more for your business when they are empowered.

Most exciting for small and medium businesses is the ROI considerations that Carter considers. She understands that social media impacts all parts of a business; Carter even gives examples of how social media can impact specific goals for businesses. No matter what size business you are – creating goals and measuring against them is the only way to measure ROI. But Carter also points to cost savings such as YouTube videos which are less expensive than advertising. Carter even references some affordable tracking programs that businesses of all sizes can use.

Overall, this is a great read for businesses of any size, no matter where they are in “socializing” their business. There are actionable insights in Get Bold that can take you to the next level. Period. Get your copy here (non affiliate link)

Our panelists covered some many angles of consideration when creating a social media policy including internal culture, employee relations and the all important legal perspective. We covered considerations and decisions about social media from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the implications of their findings. We had some great conversation about ownership of social media accounts in light of last year’s PhoneDog case as well as hiring employees who already have a significant social media presence.  In the end, all the panelists agreed every company should have a social media policy that empowers the use of social media that is consistent with your internal cultural, have clear expectations, have a policy with teeth but also make the discipline progressive and consistent with a variety of factors and finally include good ‘ole common sense into your policy.

During our meeting several resources were mentioned that we promised to share with our audience and those who couldn’t make it live and in person:

US Chamber of Commerce – Social Media Policies Before the NLRB

Altres Social Media in HR Whitepaper (free) 

Policy Recommendations from Connye Harper Page 1, Page 2
Social Media Policy Examples:

Sample Social Media Policy Courtesy of ManPower

Airforce Social Media Policies

Army Social Media Handbook 

Navy Social Media Policies

Navy Social Media Posting Policies

Federal Agency Social Media Usage Guidelines

Catch the recording of this very insightful discussion

Again, a special “thanks” to our brilliant panelists for their fantastic insight and guidance.

The rise of mobile media is causing one of the most significant changes to consumer behavior since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Today’s smartphone users are growing, and the pace is accelerating. What does that mean for your business today? What does it mean for you as a marketer?

What Mobile Means for Your Business

According to Google, more than 70% of smartphone users have used their phone while shopping in-store, and 88% of people looking for local information took action on what they were looking for within 24 hours. This has huge implications for your business!

Hawaii brands need to consider the context of where their users, prospects or customers are when they develop their online marketing campaigns. Increasingly, it will be on mobile smartphones.

Where are your customers spending their time online? Most likely, it’s with online games, by far the most popular activity on smartphones. After games comes music, entertainment, then news. Incorporate these elements into your online engagement campaigns. Utility apps are not as popular, but they can  be effective at reaching narrow, niche audiences.

As you develop your online social media strategy, consider how your customers prefer to hear from you. That could be Email, Text Message, Facebook, LinkedIn, TripAdvisor, Yelp!, FourSquare, Twitter or Pinterest. Be where your customers are looking for you. Don’t know? Ask. You’ll discover it’s some combination of the above, depending on your customer’s age, needs, mood, location and time of day.

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Tip: Be on the lookout for emerging new platforms that might grab your customer’s interest. Do you represent a hotel or restaurant? Be vigilant about anything having to do with travel, exploration, lifestyles or adventure.

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Meanwhile, keep in mind Hawaii traditionally lags mainland trends by at least two years or more, which can give you a head start on the competition. Facebook users in Hawaii are increasing, with the 45 and over demographic rising the most, but overall numbers lag mainland trends. Face-to-face communication is still preferred in the islands. However, there are still opportunities for using Facebook and Twitter in Hawaii, especially if you are targeting a younger, under 25 audience.

Here’s what you can do today to get your business mobile ready:

1. Start Now! Remember in 1999 when few companies had a website? It took five or six years before the CEO finally realized how important the website was to the company’s marketing strategy. This time, you don’t have the luxury of waiting. As this video by Mary Meeker explains, you don’t have 3 to 5 years to get this right. You have less than 24 months:

2. Map Out Your Possibilities. Consider all the ways mobile can potentially affect your business. Think big! NetFlix has changed the way people watch movies and iTunes has changed the way we listen to music. How will mobile change your business or industry? Imagine yourself in your customer’s shoes. Innovate in ways only you can. Ask an outsider for ideas about how you can stand out from the crowd. Think about why your customers come to you. What do they need most from you? Make that content mobile-ready.

3. Invest accordingly. Do you have a “digital team” on board? If not, get one. How much of your digital strategy is focused on mobile? It’s not enough. Mobile can not be a small portion out of an already small budget. The mobile wave will crest over your business if you don’t make it a priority. Start saving and planning for how you will optimize your website for mobile. Are you a retailer? Look at BestBuy and Petco for examples. Take the effort to make the experience top-notch. Do as much as you can.

Ready to get started? I developed this step-by-step, fill-in-the blank Mobile Marketing Planning Workbook that you can use right now!

Follow @lkinoshita

There are a plethora of posts about social media out there, and I thought I’d pitch in my two cents from someone who is in the social media trenches.

Follow a Strategy

In an effort to keep up with the competition, or most often because everyone is talking about it, many business owners feel the immediate need to dive into social media. A social media strategy is most important to develop before you embark on a social media journey because it will help you choose the most efficient tools, identify how you will measure your ROI (return on investment), and act as a road map to help guide you each step of the way. Even the smallest mom and pop business would benefit from having the strategy conversation.

A social media strategy should also seamlessly integrate into your overall marketing plan. How do you currently measure the success of your business in general? If you’re not currently measuring, then a social media strategy will at least define how you can measure social media success. Are you looking for more visibility, more awareness? Are you looking to increase sales of a particular product? Are you launching a startup and need help gaining brand advocates? These are all valid reasons to use social media, and a strategy will help you pinpoint exactly why you are doing what you are doing and save you from wasting your time and money.

Be Social

The term “social media” is a buzzword that is almost outdated. Social media is so 2010, the term for 2012 is social business. Mari Smith, a popular Facebook guru (and a trusted source for all truths social media), explains social business as the new culture of business that is social. Social business is every aspect of your business being social, not just your marketing efforts. Marketing is just one tiny piece of what makes up your business, and the public wants to be a part of it.

That said, don’t be a marketing drone. People are no longer interested in your latest deal or coupon (although that should still be a small part of what you post), they want to know the juicy details of who the business is—and the only way to demonstrate that is to be social. Start and have conversations!

My rule of thumb is 20% of your social media activity should be marketing “check out my new product”, and 80% of your activity should be engagement—aka conversation. That’s right, 80% of your time on Facebook should be spent in your HOME tab—talking to people, liking their content, sharing their content, commenting on their posts. How else will people know you’re home if you’re not showing up at theirs?

Everything you post needs to be engaging, relevant, and most important, social. Ask an interesting question that evokes a response. Share a funny or viral video that made you laugh. Post a photo of you and your co-workers acting silly at lunch. People are now engaging with your brand through your content, and the content that is most engaging will always rise above its’ competition.

Listen

Listening is an art. Listening takes practice, and great monitoring tools! But listening is not only about what tools you use (I’ll share some of my favorites later), but it’s about what to listen for. It’s a given that you need to listen for any mention of your brand, your personal name, and any variation thereof.

Listening also includes listening to your competition. That means if you are a small ice cream parlor in Kailua, you need to be listening to (monitoring) all of the big boy competition like Baskin Robbins, Bubby’s and ColdStone. You can learn a lot from those with mammoth marketing budgets. What large-scale social campaigns are they doing that you can adopt in a smaller scale? How are they connecting with their customers?

And then there’s your influencers and like-businesses. Your community should include other small ice cream shops including any shave ice, frozen yogurt or dessert-type shops in the whole state of Hawaii. Although they may seem like competition you should keep a watch on and at arms distance, you will actually lift each other’s brand if you knock down the “competitor barrier”. By taking the bold leadership step of embracing and conversing with your competition, you will be amazed at the brand loyalty and community goodwill.

Respond

Say you’ve been in business for 10 years in Hawaii. You probably have a phone and an email address that your customers can contact you, and you would respond to an email in a timely manner, and pick up the phone right away during business hours. Well if someone tweeted you, shouldn’t you respond in a timely way?

The biggest mistake I see businesses make on social media is not responding to their audience! If no one is home people will eventually stop knocking and move on to the next door, and you will have missed an opportunity. How fast would you respond to a voice mail? An hour? 24 hours? Meeting your socially savvy customer’s expectation, you have one hour to respond.

But what if I don’t operate on the weekends? Am I expected to respond then? Well that depends what kind of business you are. If you are a B2C (business to customer)—for instance, you sell bikinis directly to the public—then you may want to consider being available on the weekends. The majority of your customers most likely work during the week, and many of them take the weekend to catch up with their Facebook, tweet their friends, and are generally more active on social media. If you’re available on the weekends, then you’re opening up more opportunities to close a sale.

A lot of businesses will often include “social media” business hours on their profiles so their customers know when they will be available online. Setting expectations can often save you the trouble of apologizing later for “getting back to you so late”. If you’re a B2B (business to business) and offer a service to another business, then most likely your clientele does not conduct business on the weekends and you won’t need to be available. My advice is to try to be accessible as much as you can.

Be Fearless

One of the biggest reasons that businesses do not do social media is fear. Not knowing where to start may be a barrier, or cost or lack of resources may be another. What if someone says something bad about me or my business? What if my competition leaves a bad review on Yelp? What if I misspell something? What if I don’t look good on camera? And for the larger businesses, what if my employee says something inappropriate?

All of these fears are perfectly valid, but what a lot of people don’t see is that in today’s world of social business, people are a lot more forgiving and human than you think. If you show your human side, then no matter what the outcome people will most likely treat you as such.

Say a disgruntled customer leaves a bad review or complaint. You can always delete a post or a tweet—take the customer service conversation offline—but that is truly a missed opportunity to heal a situation and create a fan. Deleting posts that are not favorable is an old school way of doing business, and the antithesis of social business.

My advice is to take a complaint on in full view of the public, with respect, true intention to solve that person’s problem, and kindness. If you can resolve a customer complaint on your social profile, then you are creating two amazing outcomes for your business:

1. Most likely the person who complained will be converted to a brand advocate and you’ll have a customer for life. Even if it was a valid complaint, often acknowledgement and a simple “sorry” goes a long way.
2. The public will see how well you handled the complaint and be even more apt to use your service, buy your product, and come back to your page. You have built trust.

The exception to keeping customer service complaints online would be if a situation is escalating to the point of a lawsuit. Barring that extreme, keep online and keep it real. Always try for the win/win and remember that your community will often chime in to shush the complainers.

Here’s a local example of being fearless. If JPAC (Joint POW Accounting Command), which “conducts global search, recovery, and laboratory operations to identify unaccounted-for Americans from past conflicts in order to support the Department of Defense’s personnel accounting efforts” can do it, then so can you. They’ve not only gotten over the fear of being a military agency in a public space, but they’ve built a vibrant and thriving community of advocates and supporters. They even recently made their first episode of JPACtv, check it out here: http://youtu.be/rqihZqHf1cY

In conclusion, no one glove fits all hands. Social media success of one business is not the same for the next. My tips are just that, tips. You need to do what works best for your business, and there are many social media professionals in Hawaii who can help guide you along your way.

One place to look (here’s a little self-plug): Social Media Club Hawaii Professional Members of which I am one. You can tweet any professional member from the list in the top of the sidebar to the right.

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And now as promised earlier, here are a number of cool tools I like to use:

SproutSocial: it has more than just reports, but I use SproutSocial to print out monthly status and growth reports for Facebook and Twitter. They’ve also got a handy competition comparison tool.

Twilert: Get email alerts every day or weekly on any keyword or hashtags. Very handy to track brand or name mentions.

Google Alerts: I use this to find news or blog posts from certain keywords. This is most handy in finding related content to post to social profiles.

Hootsuite daily reports: If you’re shrinking your links in Hootsuite, you can send yourself a free, easy-to-read daily report on how many clicks that link got.

TweetReports.com: If you participate in Tweet Chats, this is a very handy tool to not only get a transcript, but find the most influential people who participated. This is also a great tool to track people tweeting under a trending topic or hashtag.

Time.ly: Find out when your followers or fans are most active. This is a great indicator of when YOU should be posting.

ShortStack.com: A really easy to use, and feature packed FREE Facebook tab builder. The free version puts their logo on the bottom, and you can’t customize the tab icon, but it’s great to use if you want a temporary landing tab for an event or promotion.

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The final tip: Join us at Social Media Club. It’s free so come and mingle with others who are all interested in social media. I’m sure you’ve gotten the picture by now but we are human, so come be human with us. Share what you know, we’ll share what we know, and all will benefit from the experience.

The next public Social Media Club Hawaii meeting, Social Media Policies—What, How, When? is on February 21 at 6pm.

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Here are some great people to follow who were mentioned in this article:

Follow @MariSmith

Follow @JPACteams

Follow @WahineMedia

Follow @SproutSocial

Follow @Twilert

Follow @Hootsuite

Follow @TweetReports

Follow @ShortStackBen

I wanted to give you a little run down on our meeting and the general direction of SMCHI this year.

State of the Club

• Through growth in membership, a special event and collaborative partnerships, I’m proud to announce that our 2012 BOD voted to full reimburse those members who paid for things like live streaming, web hosting and more last year, this is the first time we have been able to fully fund our operations and its a big deal.
• Our membership 2011 growth last year was tremendous, the largest majority coming from neighbor islands.

JOIN US FOR A HALF-DAY WORKSHOP & LUNCH BUFFET
Friday, February 10, 2012 – 11:30am to 5:00pm
Lunch & Learn at Amuse Wine Bar Cupola Theater in the Honolulu Design Center

Learn how new trends at the intersection of human resources & social media are changing everything related to employment, recruiting and staffing. In this hands-on, highly participative workshop, you’ll learn the basics of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn for business networking, employee referrals, workforce development & promoting job postings.

Come & network with forward-thinking Human Resources, recruiting & staffing industry professionals, enjoy a delicious hot lunch, and learn from local social media experts.

Designed specifically for beginners, this friendly “what and why” workshop will take the fear out of social media and show you how easy it is to:
* Build your business network using social media
* Promote your employment brand & job openings to a targeted audience
* Effectively use social media both personally and professionally

HOW TO PLAY THE SOCIAL NETWORKING GAME:
In a lively, interactive game led by Tara Coomans, Social Media Hawaii Chapter president and Head Brainstormer at Akamai Marketing, you’ll learn how to develop a social media strategy to meet goals & initiatives, determine which social media platforms are useful for specific tasks, and how to tie them together for a targeted campaign.

TALK STORY – OPEN FORUM:
Learn simple steps on how to get started using social media tools. In an informal panel discussion facilitated by the Social Media Club leaders, local business people will share stories, resources and ideas. You’ll get diverse perspectives on what works from Beth Busch, Connye Harper, Mary Despe, Quincy Solano, Derek Gabriel and YOU. Got a story to share? Or just bring your questions!

PLUS: LinkedIn Essentials
Learn how to get started on LinkedIn, write your profile and join online networking groups to attract clients and make new business connections. Have the confidence to become a super user of LinkedIn in a LIVE WEBCAST presented virtually by Margo Rose aka @HRMargo of the Social Media Club Nashville Chapter.

Cost $25 + $1.62 registration fee
Includes buffet lunch and free parking
RSVP by February 6

Follow this event on Twitter #SoMeHi.

CAN’T MAKE IT? Human resources, recruiting and staffing practitioners on neighbor islands and the mainland who cannot come to the half-day workshop in Honolulu are invited to attend the 60-minute LinkedIn Essentials webinar. Contact info@aps2k.com for details and webinar-only registration.

This program is co-sponsored by SmartSearch applicant tracking software and Harper Strategies human resources consulting. We also invite you to check out Social Media Club Hawaii Chapter program on Social Media Policies Feb 21.

How DO forward thinking employers create policies that empower employees in the social media space while at the same time protecting the company’s many legal and branding considerations?

For our next event on February 21, 2012 we’re going to discuss exactly that challenge.  We have a power-punch panel (say that 3 times fast) who each bring a unique perspective to the challenges companies face when creating a policy. After leaving our event, we want you to feel empowered to create a social media policy for YOUR company and its employees.

Our panel of social media and technology experts:

Ryan K. Hew, Attorney at Law
Ryan focuses his practice on assisting small businesses in Hawai with a passion for technology and intellectual property issues. He sits on the Technology Committee Member at Hawaii State Bar Association is a graduate of Gonzaga University School of Law. Ryan also holds an MBA. Ryan also blogs about current issues and trends in the technology and legal sphere.

 David Bower, Director of Business Development, Altres 
In 2010, Altres issued a white paper on the topic of creating a social media policy. David will speak to what’s changed since that paper was issued and how he is seeing employers create policies that work for them.

Sylvia Dahlby, Rainmaker, Smart Search
Sylvia is a technology early adopter, having worked in the technology and recruiting industries since 1978, she’s seen it all. Since the advent of social media, she’s seen lots of businesses use social media for recruiting and communication. She’s the organizer of Social Media in HR Bootcamp, a member of SHRM-Hawaii and a PRO member of SMCHI.

Connye Harper, Consultant, Mediator, Investigator at Harper Strategies, LLC
With over 35 years experience in labor and employment law Connye has helped many different businesses implement policies, practices and programs which comply with federal and state laws and regulations. She is on the Board of Directors of Society of Human Resource Management-Hawaii and a PRO member of SMCHI. Since 1976, she has been a member of good standing with the State Bar of Michigan.

Tuesday, Feb 21st, 2012
6 – 7:30 pm
Amuse Wine Bar, Honolulu Design Center
Lots of free, covered parking, enter off Piikoi, just mauka of Kapiolani Blvd.

Yep. We got that. PubCon, one of the nation’s premier digital optimization conferences is coming to Honolulu February 13-15. Along with them they’ve got an exciting group of speakers , and as importantly, the topics are timely and relevant, from SEO to Google+ and of course, the 800 lb gorilla: Facebook.  We’re really excited to have this level of professional development here in Honolulu. Frankly, its very expensive to do events like this in Honolulu, so its unusual for us to get this opportunity. We get to network, get insight, and we get to do it all without having to leave our beautiful state of Hawaii. Lucky us. Again. Plus, we know where to drop in for a good nosh…even without checking out Yelp or Foursquare.  See? Its nice to be home.

I hope to see many of you there! Don’t forget to take advantage of the promo code for 15% off the registration price we sent out in the last SMCHI email and support this important event. Professional members have an even better discount of 25%! Let’s show PubCon Aloha for doing all the hard work and bringing a high quality professional development event right to our doorsteps.

Follow the #PubCon hashtag and connect with people before they get here!

A hui hou!

Tuesday, Feb 21st, 2012
6 – 7:30 pm
Amuse Wine Bar, Honolulu Design Center
Lots of free, covered parking, enter off Piikoi, just mauka of Kapiolani Blvd.

Aloha and Happy New Year!

UPDATE: Full event details are now posted here.

P.S. Please read our most recent email newsletter to see other events happening in January and February.

UPDATE:
Please congratulate our newly elected 2012 Board of Directors! All of our current Pro members can be seen listed in the side bar.

Each position is appended with a note about where the work must be done for that position; there are several that can be done from any island!

President: TARA COOMANS
Coordinate all other roles; set strategic course; interface with SMC.org; media spokesperson; MC quarterly events; plan quarterly Professional De sessions; supervise LinkedIn group; negotiate cooperative agreements with other associations and events; chief wrangler and cheerleader. Oahu for now.

Programs: HAL WILKERSON
Plan quarterly meeting topics; seek out qualified presenter; give them our meeting requirements; coordinate their slides and presentation; provide speaker details and links to the communication team; pick up leis for the meeting – for presenter and for sponsor; collect speaker bio; craft and deliver a personal introduction at the event; write a thank you note afterwards. Arrange for transportation/coordination for visiting speakers. Mostly Oahu.

Communication – Social: GWEN WOLTZ
Update Twitter & FB accounts; curate list of all member Twitter accounts and blog RSS feeds; highlight member accomplishments on FB and TW. Manage Flickr account. Any Island.

Communication – Web & Email: LAURA KINOSHITA
Post community events, thank sponsors, promote upcoming events, feature member accomplishments, create Eventbrite page and event blog posts. Any Island.

Communication – PR & Event Marketing: ALL BOARD MEMBERS
Write press releases and distribute; Post event info to SMC site and to as many other listings as possible; outreach to other associations; keep SMCHI in the news. Post SMCHI meeting info on related business sites. Update SMCHI LinkedIn group with information related to events per https://123.writeboard.com/6fspwtygu1qmohk3. Any Island.

Venue Planning: JANA PIERCE
Coordinate quarterly meeting dates and set-up with venue. Ensure venue meets tech specs. Communicate with venue in advance re: anticipated number of attendees. Print name tags for attendees on day-of. Arrive in time to greet attendees. Coordinate with tech support. Coordinate with sponsorship to ensure sponsors receive appropriate recognition. Monitor #smchi tweetstream during events. Post entry to SMC parent website after the event. Must be Oahu.

Venue Technology: DEREK GABRIEL
Set up live stream; set up presenter laptop; perform sound checks; help monitor Twitter and video chat. Coordinate with events to confirm hardware needs. Must be on Oahu.

Website Support: ROXANNE DARLING
Keep software and plugins up to date; create sponsor badges and place as needed; supervise user accounts. Any Island.

Sponsorship: ALL BOARD MEMBERS
Locate sponsor(s) for each qrtrly meeting and for the HSMYIR; collect payments; gather sponsor logo, urls and description for web tech; write entry on blog welcoming the sponsor; make sure sponsor receives due recognition and buzz; introduce sponsor at live meetings. Secure prizes for quarterly drawings. Write sponsorship proposals for new sponsorship opportunities. Mostly Oahu.

Membership: ALL BOARD MEMBERS
Outreach to potential new members; check SMC.org weekly for new members until auto-notification is in place; process new members (related post with info). Invite new members to Pro LinkedIn Group. Welcome new members on social media outlets, Facebook and Twitter. Request membership updates quarterly from SMC. Remind members whose membership is expiring. Keep SMCHI membership list updated on website. Keep membership Google Doc updated. Monitor SMCHI General LinkedIn Group for inquiries about membership. Print Pro Member name tags as new members are added. Assist neighbor island member visitors with transportation needs. Any Island.

Neighbor Island Reps – Maui, Big Island, Kauai: ALL MEMBERS
Be our ears and eyes locally; coordinate satellite screenings of quarterly meetings; share local events with email list manager to help in promotion. Promote social media best practices, Island Specific.

Anyone is welcome to review our BOD guidelines here.

This is our Second Annual celebration of your work and success in social media, the Hawaii Social Media Year in Review (#HSMYIR).

True to the commitment of our global Social Media Club – If you get it, share it!, we’re opening it up for everyone to share their social media accomplishments in 2011, the end result will be a digital “brag board” of sorts. We’re inviting you to tell us about your social media activities, so we can tell the world! Whatever your social media accomplishment for 2011, we want to hear about it and help you celebrate it!  Nothing is too large or small. From opening social accounts to creating campaigns, everyone is growing in the social media sphere and we’d like to celebrate it all!

This year we talked a lot about video and how it can be used in the social media sphere, so in the spirit of that topic, this year’s submissions be via video. We think video will create an impactful and unique presentation for this year’s #HSMYIR at the year end party on December 13, and  the best part is, you’ll also have an asset for you to use on your site! We’ll be giving tips on how easy this can be to do – so not to worry if you have never done video before.

Our guidelines for submission are simple:

• All entries must be based on the tools and concepts of social media.
• Each person is limited to a maximum of three entries (In the event of more than three submissions, we will ignore all but the first three.)
• Submissions must be your own work, not the work of others. They may be on behalf of a client.
• Submission is by video, uploaded to www.vimeo.com and an accompanying form submission (below.)
• Videos must be a maximum of one minute in length.
• Accomplishments can be large or small – all are welcome so long as the above criteria are met!
• Open to ALL based in Hawaii (not required to be a SMCHI member).
• All entries must be received by the deadline (UPDATED AGAIN): NOON December 13th.

Here are several ideas for how to create your social media accomplishment video:

• Make a Keynote or Powerpoint presentation and export as a movie file.
• Make a talking head video right from your computer webcam.
• Make a video from your iPhone and interview your client or colleagues and show us the business location.
• Take pictures and make a moving slideshow from them.

PSSST:

We are seeking prize sponsors. If you or your client are looking to get in front of a digitally connected crowd, this is a great opportunity for you! Please complete our sponsorship form here! For more information on sponsoring particular elements of the event, please fill out the form as well!

For More Info: 

Save the Date: Hawaii Social Media Year in Review

Register for Hawaii Social Media Year in Review

About Vimeo
This is a free web hosting site that allows you to create a free account and upload HD videos. We will be able to curate a list of all valid entries and it will create one place online where we can watch and discuss all of the entries.

HSMYIR Submission Form

Feeling stumped about how to make your video submission? Roxanne Darling is giving a 30-minute webinar on Sunday night to give you several ideas!

WHEN: Dec 11, 2011 at 8:00 PM HST.

https://www3.gotomeeting.com/join/209352446

Use your microphone and speakers (VoIP) – a headset is recommended. Or, call in using your telephone.

Dial +1 (510) 443-0603
Access Code: 209-352-446
Audio PIN: Shown after joining the meeting

Meeting ID: 209-352-446

Looking back at the tweet stream, (hashtag #HiMari) there were dozens and dozens of actionable tips: enough to put on your “Facebook Page To Do List” for a good 12 months in my opinion! In fact, I am so excited about all the nuggets that flew by I am sorting through the hashtag conversation and will be posting a separate Tip Sheet in a week or so. I will update this post when that is ready for viewing.

UPDATE 2011-10-26: Member Peter Liu created a Tweetdoc with all the tweets. Available for download here.

Meanwhile, our SMCHI chapter president Tara Coomans created a “Storify” from the event. It’s embedded here for you to enjoy!

What was your favorite moment at Mari’s workshop? Do tell us!

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2011 – HONOLULU, HI – 6-9 pm

We will be meeting at our favorite space, Amuse Wine Bar in the Cupola Room for an extended gathering 6 – 9 pm. We are still polishing the details, however you can be thinking about *your* social media accomplishments in the past year. This is not a competition! And like most all aspects of social media, everyone is invited! We think of it as our “un-awards” gala!

Here Are The Highlights:

What would you like to share with our Hawaii community?
- Big or small, we honor your adventures in social media – aka the modern way to connect with your customers and employees.
- What are the key points of your story?
- Who was beneficial in helping you?
- What have you gained as a result?
- Submit your story here.
Would you be interested in sponsoring this event?
- We are collecting prizes to give away.
- We would like to be able to purchase some party decorations.
- We have a number of neighbor island members attending; can you assist with lodging, car rental, or airfare?
- Prize drawings – to be announced on Twitter so as not to interrupt the party AND to give you maximum buzz! (We did this last year and it was great fun.) Submit your prize here.
Who will attend with you?
- This will be a fun event to share with colleagues at work.
- Have you been more social with friends? Invite them!
- Do you support a nonprofit who could benefit from social media? Please introduce them to our hui.
- Click here to RSVP for this event so we can have your name tag ready at the door.
What will be happening at the event?
- Food and drinks available for purchase.
- Music and possibly spontaneous outbreaks of dancing…
- Viewing your accomplishments on the big screen, looping all night long.
- Do you Spotify? Add your favorite party songs to our open playlist for the night!

Sponsors:

Our wonderful friends at Hagadone Printing are our Premier Sponsor for this special year-end event! Please follow them on Twitter @h1forall and join their Facebook page.

Vince Mitchell (@digitalsignguy) is bringing his Social Media Kiosk for us to play with! Thanks Vince.

Here’s the scoop:

Date: October 18th 6:00-7:30PM 

Event: Understanding Social Media Measuremt
Produced by SMCHI #SMCHI
Cost: Free; seating is limited.
Read more and register here for this free event.

Date: October 19th 9AM-4PM

Event: Hawaii Social Media Summit #SMSHI
Produced by Tech News Bytes
Cost: $90 with Promo Code: SMCHI ($110 without promo code)

UPDATE 2011-10-26: Member Peter Liu created a Tweetdoc with all the tweets from this event. Available for download here.

This fall’s Hawaii Social Media summit will also be part of two larger tech-related conferences taking place at the same time, which means the Hawaii Convention Center is going to be positively buzzing with marketers, techies and business owners. The fantastic Mari Smith will be the keynote speaker. If you aren’t already familiar with Mari, she’s written several books about social media, she’s considered a Facebook expert and is a social media source for publications including The New York Times, Fast Company, Inc., and the Wall Street Journal. She’s a fantastically popular speaker on the mainland and always draws a crowd.

In addition to Mari Smith, the education line up includes John Heckathorn of Honolulu magazine, local social media and community builder, LP Neenz Faleafine and several SMCHI Pro’s such as Linda Sherman, Laura Kinoshita and panels including Peter Liu, Roxanne Darling, Hal Wilkerson, Rob Bertholf, Tara Coomans and Bill Sodeman. This is definitely an action packed day you aren’t going to want to miss!

Register here:  Psst: Don’t forget that promo code: SMCHI.

UPDATE 2011-10-26: Member Peter Liu created a Tweetdoc with all the tweets from this event. Available for download here.

Date: October 20th 3PM-5PM

Event: Event Relationship Marketing with Mari Smith #HIMari
co- produced by Bare Feet Studios and SMCHI

Cost: $35

An intimate afternoon with Mari Smith. Mari Smith shares her secrets about building a circle of influence in social media. Having built a career as one of the country’s most highly respected social media experts using the very techniques she’ll share with you during this session, you’ll get to hear first-hand advice and recommendations. Mari’s followers are wildly passionate about her and her dance card is always full. This is a great way to connect with Mari in an intimate setting. Don’t wait to get your tickets until you see her on the 19th: it’s sure to be sold out by then!

Learn more and Register Here.

UPDATE 2011-10-26: Member Peter Liu created a Tweetdoc with all the tweets from this event. Available for download here.

As the author of this book, Marshall Sponder points out, unlike other forms of media, there is no single, widely accepted methodology for social media analytics. As an industry, we just haven’t settled on that. Indeed, its quickly becoming the holy grail. But the other camp has a valid, if purist argument: measuring the value of conversation in itself is impossible. Its true that there are numerous qualitative benefits to social media that don’t fit nicely on a spreadsheet.

But for those who have clients or stakeholders who are in need of results-oriented information, the book Social Media Analytics (affiliate link) is a fantastic place to start. Sponder begins his book reminding readers that setting up social media analytics requires significant time and research to implement. There are several areas that can be researched before determining what KPI’s will be applied. As someone who works with clients regularly on this issue, I particularly appreciated the way the author values the set-up process and identifies tools that are available for various tracking types. Included in these tools is a complete range of options with some case studies and practical advice about which tool may work best for you. From Radian6 to other lesser known options. There are not many measurement recommendations which have palatable price points for small business, although some do exist.  Understanding that it isn’t always practical, its worth stating that starting out with a quality measurement tool from the beginning will enable you to have baselines from which to compare future growth. If businesses aren’t measuring from the very beginning, measuring mid-stream will present its own set of challenges. Using a solid measurement tool from the very beginning also enables businesses to help identify the KPI’s that will be part of the social media growth. I’m in the camp of if you’re going to do social media right, it will at the very least require an investment in time and its worth it for businesses to understand how to measure and refine the efforts. I find that many businesses don’t know what to track in social media and investing in analytics software from the beginning will help in determining what is important to track depending on business’ objectives.

Another portion of the book I particularly appreciated was acknowledgement of debate over how to measure the value of a Facebook Fan or a Tweet. In addressing this topic, Sponder uses several case studies and quotes several “thought leaders” on the topic. What we see is that there is no one true value of a Facebook Fan or a Tweet, determining those values is dependent on a number of factors and if that’s a number that you or your client wish to track, then there are a multitude of considerations to take into account.

While there are numerous choices for methodology identified in the book,  the author gave an example in weighting different types of content and responses. I use a weighting model similarly when measure social media results and it was great to see another weighting strategy that might be employed.  The book sticks strictly to measuring social media, which I find slightly limiting because social media effects multiple areas of business including PR, Marketing, Customer Service and even Product Development. That said, by using a weighted scale of value, you could extend the benefits of social media to these other areas and this book gives markerters a good baseline from which to start.

Further along in the book, Sponder makes recommendations and gives examples on creating social media and implementation scorecards. Again, while the exact scorecard for a particular business or project may vary, the examples put forth are practical and useful. Included in the book are example scorecards from such well known companies as Ogilvy PR which measures what they call Conversation Impact. Essentially Conversation Impact seeks to quantify the value of particular messaging using 15 different metrics, but while its great information, as Sponder points out, its a benchmarking rather than analytics tool. Other models are presented as well including one for Share of Voice and Social Influence.

What the reader learns from this book is that they will have to choose which type of measurement will work best for the specific client or company and that there are a variety of options. No matter what phase of social media you or  your client is in, from beginning to strategic, something can be learned from reading this book. Its offerings and case studies are thoughtful and useful and the book itself is easy to read for data geeks as well as the uninitiated.  I suspect this book could be rewritten every 6 months as social media is a dynamic field, but much of what is contained in the book will continue to be useful for many years regardless of tools or changing philosophies of measuring the effects of social media.

SMCHI will be giving away a copy at our October 18th event on Social Media Analytics. In addition to my presentation on the topic, we’ll hear from some insight from the other camp of social media ROI presented by Gwen Woltz of Wahine Media and possibly even some others that we are working on! It should be a great evening! SMCHI is also in the midst of planning a panel on the topic for the Social Media Summit Hawaii, please use promo code SMCHI when you register for a $20 discount on ticket price.  So, if you’re interested in this valid discussion of social media analytics and ROI, please join us for any and all of these events for insight, lively discussion and different viewpoints on this very hotly debated topic.

PSSST: If you are a member of SMCHI, you are invited to attend a free webinar hosted by the Author of Social Media Analytics, Marshall Sponder. Register here: SMC Book Club Social Media Analytics

For more conversation on this topic, please follow” @smanalyticsbook on Twitter

Featured Presenter:
Tara Coomans (SMCHI president) will present an overview of the social media measurement/metrics landscape.

UPDATE 2011-10-25: Here are the slides from Tara’s presentation on Slideshare.net.

UPDATE 2011-10-26: Member Peter Liu created a Tweetdoc with all the tweets from this event. Available for download here.

Read her blog for all sorts of information about this topic.

Follow her on Twitter for a very engaged, informative, and entertaining conversation.

Bonus Presention: Gwen Woltz and Karen Weikert of Wahine Media
Gwen and Karen are going to wrap up the discussion on metrics with her insightful presentation on “What is the ROI of an Elephant?” View the Wahine Media slides on slideshare.net.

Book Giveaway:
Social Media Analytics: Effective Tools for Building, Intrepreting, and Using Metrics by Marshall Sponder You must be present to win! (Amazon.com link)

Free Analytics Webinar by Marshall Sponder:
September 20th, 8 am HST
Read all the details here.

We are working on a few other ideas so this is just the start of what we’ll be offering at this event! We will definitely want to hear about your experiences with social media measurement too.

Who Will Benefit from This Topic:
* Those who are directly engaging in social media and want to understand the ROI
* Those who are managing social media for clients and/or employers (calling our PR, advertising and marketing friends!)
* Those who are just starting with social media and want to know the important things to measure before you spend a lot of time or money developing strategies and campaigns

Location:
Cupola private room, at AMuse Wine Bar, 2nd FL Honolulu Design Center
1250 Kapiolani Blvd
Honolulu, HI 96814
There is free parking in the Honolulu Design Center garage. Entrance is on Piikoi St, just mauka of Kapiolani Blvd.

Event Sponsor: H1 at Hagadone Printing
Please help us thank our Sponsor for this event, Hagadone Printing, and check out their H1 Division for “One SOurce Marketing.” Follow them on Twitter @H1forAll

Here is the slide deck with the preliminary results of the survey. If you are a social media practitioner, please take the survey and share it with your colleagues! More info can be found here.

If you’re developer, there’s a developer app with some great documentation. If you’re not, there’s a Static HTML: iframe tabs application that provides a friendly way of setting up a custom tab without too much pain. It even has built-in reveal functionality, which is the ability to present additional content to visitors after they press the Like button.

Here’s what you do:

Step 1: Install the Static HTML: iframe tabs Application

Install the Static HTML: iframe tabs application on the Facebook Page. If you administer several, you’ll be presented with a choice of pages to choose from.

Then go to the page and click on the new “Welcome” tab that was added by the application.

This brings up the application’s interface.

Step 2: Create Your Content

As you can see in the screenshot above, your content can consist of HTML, CSS, Javascript or anything that you might have in a web page. You can be as simple or elaborate as you like. For the Kaiscapes page, I simply created a image in Photoshop and uploaded it to this website.

Then I entered some simple code to display the image in the application.

Then I created a second image in Photoshop to reveal to the visitors after they press the Like button.

This time, the code sends them to this website if they click on the image.

Then click on the “Save and view tab…” button at the top.

You’ll get a message saying your tab has been saved, and be able to view it as a fan or non-fan. At this point, I should echo the warning that Facebook forbids autoplaying any media on tabs. Make sure your content doesn’t autoplay anything, or Facebook may shut your page down.

Step 3: Make This Your Landing Tab

The last step is to make this tab the default when visitors come to the page. Click on “Edit Info” at the top of the page.

Click on “Manage Permissions.”

Set the Default Landing Tab to the one you just created.

At this point, you’re pretty much done. If you want to change the name of the tab to something else, click on “Apps” while you’re in Edit Info.

Then click on “Edit Settings” for the application.

A popup will appear where you can change the Custom Tab Name.

Originally published at Kaiscapes by Peter Liu.

I know. We’ve all been there. In fact, the more time we spend in front of our computers, even being social on Twitter or Facebook or now..Google+, the more we really need it. It does seem kind of ironic. With all the technology why event meet at all? The answer is clear: No matter how much I love Twitter (and boy, oh boy do I loooooove Twitter), the more I find myself seeking ways to engage in person. Being together creates an uplifting energy that’s undeniable.

SMCHI always has the most interesting group of people at these meetings from such different backgrounds. Some of us have marketing backgrounds, some have advertising backgrounds, some people have advanced tech experience. Some people have been using social media for years, some just started and some, well, they what we’ll call them social-curious. Everyone is welcome, because everyone has something to add to the conversation. Because of this,  when we come together, we always find a way to solve one another’s challenges and help one another reach our goals. Social media tools like Facebook and Twitter reinforce those relationships, but its that person-to-person connection that we still need. Every single time I leave a SMCHI meeting, my creative juices are cranking. I’m always inspired by the group of people who gather.

Where do my ideas come from? Always from a conversation. When we meet in person, we exchange ideas in a collaborative way that we just can’t do any other way. That’s why SMCHI continues to have community public meetings. Not only that, but seriously, have you SEEN the wine list at Amuse? I mean, it weren’t for the wine bar, we’d have a harder time putting the “Inc. into Drink”. But that’s what we do, sip-discuss rinse repeat. After all, creating solutions can be the best time ever!

So no matter what your looking for, a recommendation for a project your working on. A little free advice. Some fresh ideas. Or maybe you just want to meet people in the community, I encourage you to stop by SMCHI. We’ll be doing our public meetings only 3 more times this year. July 20th (register here), October (date TBD) and our annual Christmas party. If you’ve been craving some truly social engagement, then there is no more social crowd than SMCHI. Our gatherings are vital for not just the social media marketing and digital communities, but especially for those not in those communities. Why? Because this is how you learn just enough to go forward and bring ideas and concepts back to your business and when your ideas come to fruition, you’ll have the resources to make it happen.

If you’re on a neighbor island, you can connect with our members there. We have members on Big Island, Maui and Kauai.  On Kauai, they are meeting to participate in the live stream, together. It’s open to everyone who wants to join or is curious about using social media.  They meet. They eat. They talk. Its the greatest combination of IRL (in real life) and digital collaboration. Its truly cool. I need to get over there and go to one of their meetings too!

C’mon down and join us. We promise to be friendly and not use acronyms like “IRL” or “LOL” in real life. We’re human too. Come see for yourself.

The informal structure worked well and in keeping with the Social Media Club’s mantra of “If you get it, share it” supported both social media professionals and businesses seeking to learn about social media. Last year, however, the parent organization received official 501c6 status, making them a n IRS-approved educational nonprofit organization. Our local chapter, SMCHI, was offered the opportunity to become an official chapter operating under the parent organization.  Committed members of SMCHI felt this would offer the club several advantages. However, in addition to the perks offered by nonprofit status, SMCHI was also required to elect an official Board of Directors and conform to organizational requirements and a Code of Ethics.

On May 7th, all current paying members were invited to a planning retreat where one of the topics of discussion included nominating volunteers to official board leadership positions and the definition of those positions. Those nominations were put to a vote to all current paying members and we are proud to announce our first elected Board of Directors for 2011:

Chairman/Founder:
Roxanne Darling, Bare Feet Studios (honorary position)

President (2011):
Tara Coomans, Akamai Marketing

Events and Sponsorship Chair:
Tyler Stratton, Hard Rock Cafe Honolulu

Awareness Co-Chairs:
Roxanne Darling, Bare Feet Studios and Tammi Hitchcock, 3 Peas Media

Technology Chair:
Peter Liu, Kaiscapes Consulting

We congratulate all new BOD members and thank them in advance for their commitment to advancing social media best practices and helping educate the community about SMC throughout all of Hawaii.

If you are interested in getting more involved with SMCHI or perhaps running for a BOD position in 2012, please contact us for ways to get more involved with the leadership of SMCHI. We are an entirely volunteer-run organization and immensely appreciate those who can assist with events, communication and resources! Next year we hope to fill even more board positions.

Steve Garfield has some pretty heavy production chops, but his new book Get Seen (not an affiliate link) removes all the fear and stigma from using video for business. While he covers a lot of technical elements, he does so in an easy, step by step manner that includes photos. But perhaps Steve’s most helpful advice is reminding users not to get too hung up on purchasing expensive equipment or worrying about production perfection. Throughout the chapters, he shows users how to use sites like Vimeo and YouTube and interviews video masters who provide insight into how businesses are using video for content. He even throws in some fun sites that you’ve probably never heard of, like Xtranormal.com where I made this fun video in less than 15 minutes.

While I was making my own video for this book review, I took to heart Steve’s advice and “just did it.” A couple perhaps more obvious lessons are available in the out takes of this video. I’d call myself a novice video producer, in other words, I’ve made some for fun and I even made one for the famous Best Job in the World Application in Australia a couple of years ago. But while I can navigate Imovie and a point-and-shoot video camera I haven’t utilized the format much for business. I mean, after all, we can’t all be Roxanne Darling and have a hit YouTube series. Or can we? Steve Garfield is all about encouraging you to take a stab at it. Whether you use video for your blog or as a citizen journalist with CNN’s Ireport or as a product demo video is a tool that people love to see – and its easier to produce than you probably thought. Steve even has a series of recommendations for creating video content without having to star in your own video. Perhaps the most fun I had was playing with a site Xtranormal.com, you can see the results of my test here, it took 15 minutes to produce and it was free. So have it at! Let your imagination run wild…I know my own brainstorming gears were grinding!

Now, you can see from my video, I didn’t do anything fancy. I wasn’t trying to showcase my video chops, I wanted you to see how easy it can be. Even from your desk. I chose to use Vimeo to share the video with you for lots of reasons. I think Vimeo is a great resource for professionals and its just as easy to use as YouTube, without the clutter. It doesn’t have the built in audience that YouTube has, but it I think its viewers are more targeted Also, our own blog has a 20MB limit on uploads, so it was easier to post it on Vimeo without giving up any of the production value. I did have some wonky challenges with embedding the video into this blog post, most specifically that after adding in the embed code, the site didn’t want it to stick. I solved that by adding the code right before the “save”. But just in case there is another issue, check it out here.

So what are you waiting for? Give it a shot!

And if you’d like your own copy of Steve Garfield’s book “Get Seen” then be sure to join SMCHI for our July 20th event. But even if you can’t be there, tweet @smchi with the hashtag #getseenhawaii to be entered into the drawing!

Thanks for watching. And reading!

We’ve also heard on the street that some of the people at our meetings want more formal presentations, Well, we have that for you this month!

We’ve been conducting a survey of social media practitioners to find out how they sell their services, and what types of programs have been truly beneficial to their clients. We will feature a panel of our professional members who will explain the numerous ways to plan and purchase social media services. Here is a short URL you can use to help us spread the word: http://t.co/vGhoXgO

Presenter: Roxanne Darling

Roxanne will present the results to date of our Social Media Practitioners Survey. She’ll be covering what people charge, how they package their services, and all the inside scoop that will make you a smarter social media buyer. Roxanne is a Professional Member of Social Media Club, the founder of the Hawaii Chapter, and a partner at Bare Feet Studios. She just completed a six-month New Media Artist-in-Residence campaign for the Lānaʻi Visitors Bureau.

Presenter: Laura Kinoshita

Laura is joining us in the house from the Big Island! She is a Professional member of Social Media Club and has a PR and Marketing company that specializes in social media. She recently conducted a survey of social media use by small business in West Hawaii and will presenting her results. She is an analytics guru, and measures “outputs, outgrowths and outcomes in areas such as awareness, engagement, influence and behavior.” Her survey will explore a number of local trends.

Presenter: Felicia Durant:

Felicia is a graduate student at UH and has been tracking small business use of social media in Hawaii. This research is an exploratory study that aims to identify the various uses of social media – namely, Facebook and Twitter – as a public relations platform by small businesses in Hawaii and their perceived effectiveness. Preliminary findings and data will be discussed. If you have not taken her survey yet, please do so before the meeting! The link is here.

After the presentations, we will have panelists joining us via Skype and in the room – rumored to be with us are Chuck Lasker, Professional member from Kauai, Peter Liu, Gwen Woltz, Professional member from Oahu, Professional member from Maui, and Toby Tamaye, of AT Marketing, and more!

Doors open at 5:45 pm; Tuesday nights have special discounts on food and wine at Amuse Wine Bar so please bring your appetite along with your curiosity and expertise. We’ll be meeting in the private room Cupola, complete with leather lounging sofas, cafe tables, and waiter service! Please note our July meeting is on a Wednesday.

This month, we’ll be giving away a copy of Steve Garfield’s book Get Seen (book review here), which has some great advice for businesses, entrepreneurs and bloggers for using video as a content cornerstone. Whether you can make it to the event or not, you can tweet @smchi with the hashtag #getseenhawaii to be entered into the drawing.

1. Register Now and Join us on July 20th.
There will be food and drinks for purchase (so the event itself is FREE). Plus, eat pupus and reload your wine card at Amuse!

2. Use and Follow the tag: #SMCHI
That stands for Social Media Club Hawaii and helps us track the conversation and photos about this event!

3. We welcome Virtual Attendees! Please register so we can send you last minute details. You can join our Twitter chat or the live stream chat here:
bit.ly/smchitv

Date: Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Time: 6 – 7:30 pm.
Location: Amuse Wine Bar, Cupola Room
Cost: Attendance is FREE! Drinks and food will be available for purchase!
Dress: Anything goes. Please bring your business cards and smart phones. Everyone is welcome!

Be smart and register now so you will have a pre-printed name tag and can sign in without standing in line!

There is free parking in the Honolulu Design Center garage. Entrance is on Piikoi St, just mauka off Kapiolani Blvd.

5:45 – Doors open; come early and help us set up!
6:00 – 6:15 pm Networking
6:15 – 7:15 pm Discussion
7:15 – 7:30 pm Networking