Ideas and Angles is proud to announce that we have teamed up with Traci Via of Trace Marketing in Blue Springs to teach social media marketing through the Blue Springs School District’s Community Education program! We are really excited to have this opportunity. We have been working hard to gather all the information and tools on the internet in order to present them in a logical way with a hands on approach. As many of you know, social media is a hot topic and using the tools can be a bit confusing. Our class will not only talk about the tools, but it will be held in a computer lab so the students will be participants and actually using the tools right there with us. Below is the course description as it reads in the Class Schedule Brochure:
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Social marketing through the internet has quickly become the fastest-growing component to small business marketing. This class will train you to utilize the new media marketing tools of bulletin boards, blogs, videos, photos, social networks, and other social media related web sites in your online marketing efforts. Build your online presence by learning how to use online tools to make your company’s communications more efficient. You will learn how to use sites such as, but not limited to, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogging, and Google. This class will be a hands-on experience where you will be working on a computer right along with the instructors.
Instructor: Zach Cobb, Chris Culbertson & Traci Via
Class # 305
Wed, Sept 30 – Nov 18 8 sessions 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Hall-McCarter, Media Center Fee: $89
To view more classes offered through Blue Springs Community Eduction visit their website.
We hope to sell the class out quickly and would appreciate your help in doing so. We encourage you to share this post with anyone you think may be interested by email or using your social media outlets!
Kansas City is consistently showing itself to be a part of the conversation in understanding the current state of the social media space and shaping its future.
Execution and Results
The Embarq team including SMCKC regulars Zena and Kevin offer a fantastic roadmap for integrating social media into a Fortune 500 company which you can see presented below.
Radian 6 also featured them in an extensive case study showing the impact their tools and the work being done with those tools have. Check out the full PDF.
Thought Leadership
When BtoB magazine needed a perspective on the Interactive Advertising Bureau setting social media guide lines they went to NK. (Via BtoB)
“There is a lot of confusion in the marketplace right now because people aren’t speaking the same language,” said Chris Kovac, social media supervisor at Nicholson Kovac, a b-to-b marketing communications agency based in Kansas City, Mo. “Establishing a common language has to be the first step,” he said.
“Once we’re on the same page, then we can define subgroups of advertising. Is it an interactive banner ad, is it an engagement ad, etc.”
Traditional Media Exposure
KCTV5 tapped the CEO of LightThread for a segment about the potential social media has for businesses.
I+A is really excited for fellow the Highlight Midwest alums and all around good guys that make up team Swindlr. They are launching their first product “Zappn” with a party in the crossroads.
Be sure to come out and support the launch of this social media\events service born in Kansas City. You can RSVP here.
Zappn is a utilitarian web and mobile destination that allows the planner of a public or private social gathering to manage an event at all stages of its life.
Swindlr created zappn on the certainty that the technology exists to create, manage, and share events in a way that has never been done before. Zappn.com is a complete, multi-faceted management tool based on multiple, individual perspectives of a social gathering and the desire to share those perspectives with others. No longer will all images of one event have to reside in so many different places, unavailable to those who want them most. With zappn.com everything is easily accessible in one spot.
Swindlr invites you to the exclusive launch of their first product zappn.com. After 2 years in the making, swindlr LLC. is ready to release zappn.com to the public.
Hosted by Chase Hawkins & Brock Masterson
Friday, May 29th 2009
Arts Incubator
115 W. 18th St. KCMO 64108
Hors d’oeuvres and Cocktails @ 7
Special Performance from Kansas City’s own – NOMATHMATICS @ 9
*** Please RSVP @ www.zappn.com/launch by May 27th. ***
When you RSVP, This will guarantee you instant entry to the event.
I+A is excited to announce the first “White Board Wednesday” session. A normal meeting for us involved a lot of forming ideas and working through them on our trusty white board. We are always working to find new ways to connect with people and solve problems so why not take it live to the people?
Who? – Zachary and Chris but most importantly YOU! We couldn’t go a single day without our amazing community at I+A.
Why? – Collaboration and the sharing of ideas are what make social media such a strong and exciting force. You will be able to ask us questions about anything business or social media related. We are an open book.
I+A looks forward to learning with our community! Come out and say Hi!
Don’t think we don’t hear you because we do. It might frighten you to know that social media folks listen even more than they talk. The next guy that says your company needs to be on Twitter? Be nice to him, don’t kick him repeatedly in the neck because he means well.
The hype is out there in full force, and it is natural for people to push back. That is alright because I can take it. I will sit and listen to all the reasons you think social media is a fad. I will smile patiently while you talk about all the train wreck scenarios that could come about from the freedom you are giving to the people in the trenches representing your company.
After you have had a chance to lay out your justifiable concerns I will ask you about the goals of your company. Then I will try and understand your current marketing practices. Here is one of the tough things for me in this situation; I am not the smartest guy in the room. I will never be as knowledgeable about your business as you are, that is why I am working so hard to understand your current practices.
After I compile all the information you had enough trust in me to give I am going to get with my business partner Chris and we are going to map out a strategy. Maybe I should apologize right now because the way some people are talking up social media you may think this strategy will be made of gold or comes with a serving of cracked lobster with drawn butter. The strategy is actually a list of actionable items that we create to work with your business. The plan will be simple and effective, taking as much time as you are comfortable with spending per day and per week. You will also get a guide of “best practices” to be sure everyone involved is consistant and empowerwed to act within the best interests of the company. The whole deal is custom tailored to the goals you already have as an organization.
Going forward you are set. I think you will be a little better equipped to cut through the noise of all the “experts” that just talk about social media. “Get a blog” or “get on Twitter” is not the answer to every question. You are about showing your expertise and creating trust. You are about relationship selling. We really appreciate you allowing us to listen in on the inner workings of your company. If there is anything I can do to be of assistance going forward my contact information is below.
Zachary Cobb
816.876.1870
zach@zcphotography.com
P.S. Maybe we can follow up with a BBQ lunch in a few weeks?
Entertainment in Kansas City is jumping on Twitter to connect with their customers and get the word out on their events and happenings. Here is a quick guide to some entertainment options in our city and their Twitter profiles. Did we miss one? Drop us a line on Twitter or leave a comment!
Update: 12:40 - Big thanks to local Twitter user @TheDLC for some great additions to our list. Don’t know how Record Bar missed the first cut we are both big fans.
Facebook has well over 200 million users. That is an impressive number in and of itself but the fact that as recently as August 2008 they had 100 million members shows you the kind of run this service is on.
This isn’t your former college roommate’s Facebook. According to recent research people over 30 represent the largest growing demographic on the site and the past six months have witnessed a 550-percent explosion in membership among women over 55.
Facebook has revamped the way a business can represent themselves on the service. Allowing you to connect with customers, show content, and build a community revolving around your brand. You can see an example at the Ideas and Angles Facebook page. Even though it has only been around a few weeks it has a community of people that are tuned into blog posts, news, content, and the overall happenings of i+a. You can send message blasts to anyone who signs up to be a “fan” of your companies FB page.
Facebook boxes have made it very easy to make the page “yours”.
When you first create the page it is a good idea to import your blog’s RSS feed if it has one. Right off the bat your own page is filled with the recent activity of your company.
The magic bullet to making a creative Facebook page is an application called “Static FBML”. When you add it to your page it allows you to add custom boxes of code in your “boxes” page. This works very similar to the way widgets are organized and shown in WordPress. You can use these boxes to add custom text, and images using normal HTML. One of the tricky things is adding rich media. For that you use FBML (Facebook Markup Language) which is very similar. If you are interested in learning more about customizing your Facebook page with FMBL check out this great resource.
This is a great opportunity to set up shop in the place where your customers are having conversations. If you need any help getting some ideas on how you can add value to your business on Facebook or want assistance in setting it up don’t hesitate to contact us. We love the chance to empower businesses in the social media space.
Nice to see exposure of the hard work friends of i+a like Zena, Derek, and Justin. On a related note we had 50 or so people at this mornings SMCKC event. Wow, love seeing all the new faces.
“Businesses learn lessons in Twitter technology” (via KCStar.com)
By DIANE STAFFORD
When the Enterprise Center of Johnson County announced a “Twitter Bootcamp,” the seminar room capacity of two dozen was reached immediately.
The waiting list filled a second seminar set for later this month. And that waiting list precipitated a third seminar for May.
Representatives from large and small area businesses, eager to figure out how the social networking phenomenon can help their businesses, got an intro-to-tweeting lesson Thursday in the first of the three bootcamps.
Derek Gathright, Steven Chau and Darby Frey, three Web developers and software engineers, explained the Twittersphere, in which users are sending concise messages to each other’s cell phones, PDAs and desktops.
Twitter.com started out three years ago with some techies and other “early adopters” sending quick updates to one another — in answer to the signature question “What are you doing?”
Now, it has morphed into an advertising, marketing and public relations tool with perhaps 8 million users (though precise numbers aren’t known).
Southwest Airlines and JetBlue use Twitter. “It’s especially good at quieting angry customers,” Frey said. And Gathright described how Twitter helped him connect with lost luggage in Las Vegas.
Zicam, maker of a cold remedy, uses Twitter. Let someone send a message to a friend that says, “I’m sick,” and she may get a tweet in response that says, “Have you heard of Zicam?” along with an offer to download a coupon.
The seminar presenters said a couple of Kansas City companies have skilled Twitter users. They singled out Justin Gardner at AMC Theatres and Zena Weist at Embarq. They are among a relatively new class of worker known as the social media manager or interactive brand strategy manager.
Sprint Nextel also uses Twitter to scout out and help squash consumer complaints, the presenters said.
As a still-young medium for business, Twitter is being shaped by the preferences of its early adopters. For example, Chau said, the chief executive of Zappos, an online shoe vendor, tweets to share his views of the world, a technique that humanizes the company and builds a fan base.
Dell, the computer company, has a variety of Twitter accounts to reach users and prospective buyers. Gathright said the company had sales of more than $1 million in 2007-2008 generated through sale alerts sent on Twitter.
The three presenters said one of the clearest values of Twitter — as opposed to Facebook.com — is that a sender doesn’t have to be invited in or approved as a “friend” to receive a message.
That broader access has allowed CNN, for example, to account for comparatively high-volume Twitter traffic in news bulletin tweets.
But using Twitter isn’t a no-brainer, they said. They cited an effort by Skittles, the candy, to do a Twitter marketing push. Tweet traffic, presumably among young users, quickly became dotted with profanity and other less desirable stuff.
“With Twitter, you get instant feedback from users,” Gathright said, noting that can be good or bad. “You reach a much broader, random audience than using the more private e-mail, instant messaging, chat rooms or blogging.”
Unless you are reading this in an RSS reader you noticed it. Our web presence has gone through a whole lot of change. I+A started as an idea in the sandbox, fueled by the curiosity of entrepreneurship and a hunch that the way people do business was about to change.
We are no longer in the sandbox and I+A built a web presence that better represents who we are as a company. Moving forward here are some of the things we are focusing on…
Improving the “noise to signal” ratio for our clients - You can’t go very far without hearing someone talk about social media. We would like to assist in showing people the value that the power of social media can bring to your company in the real world using tactics that are actionable and effective.
Education - There has been an overwhelming push for people to join social networks. Twitter gets more mainstream with each passing hour but more needs to be done to show the value of these resources, especially for businesses. Blog posts, seminars, videos, one on one teaching…we are developing effective ways to show the average technology user the intricacies of the social space.
More rich media - We are looking forward to creating more original video content. Rich media allows to people to connect with you on another level, it is also a great way to show off creativity.
Creating new relationships - If I+A went DOA as I wrote this and we never made a cent from it going forward I would still feel nothing but joy to have been a part of it. The relationships built from being involved in this industry and community have been great experiences. Amazingly smart people from so many industries and walks of life taught me a lot about life and business. We as a company want to keep making those connections in the area.
Don’t think we don’t hear you because we do. It might frighten you to know that social media folks listen even more than they talk. The next guy that says your company needs to be on Twitter? Be nice to him, don’t kick him repeatedly in the neck because he means well.
Facebook has well over 200 million users. That is an impressive number in and of itself but the fact that as recently as August 2008 they had 100 million members shows you the kind of run this service is on.