It was my privilege today to speak to the Texas Council on Family Violence Executive Directors’ Conference. TCFV is a statewide organization representing a network of domestic violence programs that provide direct services to victims and their families.

Here are the slides from my presentation.

The link below is to a podcast I recorded for the AMA’s series on Toby Bloomberg‘s book, written completely on Twitter. While the book was written one tweet at a time, it’s not just about Twitter; the book covers all aspects of social media marketing.

Listen to the podcast here:

Social Media Marketing GPS: Twitter Tactics – American Marketing Association.

Download the free ebook here:

Social Media Marketing GPS

A short update I sent yesterday  sparked a small conversation on Twitter and inspired a blog post by Heather Rast, Market Where Your Audiences Are.

I tweeted this after receiving this text message from Jon Johnson, pastor of my church:

Please don’t forget this Sunday is Food Pantry Sunday. Food is running low and we need to restock. Please bring non-perishable foods this Sunday! You all are the best.

The intended recipient list for this text message was probably those of us in leadership known to prefer text messaging or Facebook updates to email. Note that two bits of information are carried in this short message: 1) a reminder of a church outreach that needs attention; and 2) five little words of encouragement: “You all are the best.”

If you don’t have a relationship with our pastor, those words might sound corny or even supercilious. But spend a short amount of time with the good reverend, and you’ll know just how genuine and heartfelt those words are — and therefore, how encouraging.

The Twitter responses and Heather’s blog post made me think of how churches, and other communities of faith, are using new media. Some, like LifeChurch, have thriving online communities and a full library of multimedia resources available for free. Others ignore social media altogether–and risk becoming irrelevant to younger members.

Most are probably like my church, somewhere in the middle. We have a Web presence–not what we’d like it to be yet, but it’s receiving great traffic–and we’re on Facebook. And now we have a pastor who sends text messages. Hurray!

Naturally, I’ve been lobbying for a greater social media presence for several years. We’re a small church and all our efforts are volunteer. But I’ve taught several people how to use WordPress, and I started the Facebook group three years ago–before fan pages existed. Now volunteers are maintaining the Web site and Facebook. Pastor Jon is great at engaging people in online discussions, and he recently learned how to Skype.

What is your church or community of faith doing with new media? Have you encouraged them to start using new communication tools? Better yet, have you volunteered to share your knowledge?

I was raised on General Motors cars; that was my father’s choice of wheels. My first car was a Cadillac–an 8-year-old one that my dad, an automobile dealer, bought for my 16th birthday. it was a behemoth V8 gas guzzler, and I loved to drive it. My current car is a 2002 Ford Focus wagon I bought when it had just over 20,000 miles. It happened to be the best car in my budget range when I went shopping, and it’s been an economic, efficient ride. I figure my late father would forgive me for venturing outside of the GM family.

I’ve been paying attention to Ford’s marketing and PR efforts since my friend Scott Monty was hired to lead their social media efforts. Scott was one of the first people I followed on Twitter, and I’ve had the privilege of meeting him in person a few times.

So I was really intrigued that Ford chose to reveal the new 2011 Explorer, not at a car show, but on Facebook, in conjunction with a live unveiling in Herald Square in New York City and in these additional locations: Toronto, Washington, DC, Miami, Chicago, Dearborn, Dallas, Denver, and Los Angeles.

Check out the Ford Explorer Facebook page, which served as the hub for all the day’s activities and a repository for the reveal videos. Scott was in New York, “manning the Interwebz” as he tweeted.

I watched a few of the videos and learned about the design and safety features of the new Explorer, including inflatable seatbelts for rear-seat passengers. That’s a great feature, and I hope it’s adopted by other automakers.

Oh, and I also registered in the sweepstakes drawing to win one of the new Explorers. Ford had announced that if they got at least 30,000 fans … er, “likes” … on the Facebook page, they would give away an Explorer. They went well over that mark last week, and the page now has over 53,000 likes.

It looks like nearly every post on the Facebook page has gotten over 100 comments, so there has been a lot of engagement with both fans and detractors. I’ll be curious to see reports on the results of the Facebook-driven launch.

What do you think about yesterday’s Explorer launch: was it simply social media hype, or does this signal a new type of interactive marketing event to not only reach but engage the masses?

For the first time in five years, I’m taking a real vacation, i.e. longer than a 3- or 4-day weekend. Destination: Alaska, on the Royal Caribbean cruise line! I’ll be back around September 25. Internet access on board is pricey, so I probably won’t be sending virtual postcards. I know, you’re heartbroken. But you’ll get over it. *grin*

Flickr Creative Commons photo taken in Juneau, Alaska by Traveling Otter.

My friends Sheila Scarborough and Becky McCray are about to launch a membership site where travel and tourism professionals can learn all about social media. If you’re in destination marketing, you couldn’t be in better hands. These two ladies are true experts–and they are both great teachers.

Don’t wait until the September 9 launch. Surf over to Tourism Currents and sign up for email updates before the site goes live.

Sheila and Becky will feature tourism-specific training materials, a moderated forum, exclusive interviews with social media and tourism experts and round table Q&A sessions. The site will be a unique resource for Convention and Visitors Bureaus (CVBs,) Chambers of Commerce, PR professionals who work in tourism, heritage/preservation organizations, agritourism, festival planners, or anyone involved in destination marketing.

Read more about it:
Sheila’s Guide to the Good Stuff
School’s in Session: Social Media Learning Resources for Tourism

BEST WISHES FOR A SUPER SUCCESSFUL LAUNCH!

I’m honored to be hosting this week’s #socialmedia chat on Tuesday at noon Central time. Our topic is Determining the Tipping Point in Social Media.

Be forewarned that I don’t have a definitive answer, but I’m acutely aware of the questions and always in pursuit of ways to enable companies to effectively manage their social media presence. Social media marketing consultants often urge companies to “join the conversation,” to interact with customers and constituents through social networks. But what happens when it succeeds to the point that it doesn’t scale?

Specifically, we’ll focus on these three questions:

Q1: Can a company have too many friends in SocMed?

Q2: When does quality trump quantity?

Q3: What are the most effective ways of scaling social for Business?

You can participate by going to the LIVE page for #socialmedia. Please join us and help make this a lively, and productive, discussion.

I’ve recorded a short screencast (just under 3 minutes) to show how to create and use Friend Lists on Facebook. Each friend list you create has its own news feed, which allows you to keep up with people whose updates tend to get lost on your home page news feed.

For example, I have 700+ friends on Facebook. The news items on my home page span a time frame of less than one hour. So I won’t see news from anyone who has not posted in the last hour without scrolling back to see older posts. But with the custom news feeds I’ve created for certain friends, it’s easy for me to retrieve news from people I really want to keep in touch with.

If you have questions after watching the screencast, drop me a comment. Feel free to leave a comment even if you don’t have a question. You know I love hearing from you!

NOTE: Click here to see full-screen version on screencast.com

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