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

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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?

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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?

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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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Note from admin:

We are currently in the process of transferring our EveryDotConnects.com domain to a new registrar.  Due to the way this works, the site could be closed for a few hours one day this week.  We apologize in advanced for the inconvenience.

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The “fam tour” or “familiarization tour” is standard practice by which tourism boards and Convention and Visitor’s Bureaus (CVBs) introduce their destinations to media people.

In the past, such tours have been filled with only print and broadcast media representatives. Not any more.

One example in progress right now is the “So Much More Hawaii” fam tour just for bloggers; it’s sponsored by the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA.)

I’m on the tour covering mostly family travel, and other blogging specialists include:

• Rick Calvert, founder, Blog World and New Media Expo – a huge annual blogging conference.  He’ll cover the islands as a business and convention destination.
• Leah Lamb, covering eco-tourism and green travel for Current TV. I know she must be intrigued by Hawaii’s recent efforts to invest in clean and renewable energy resources.
• Jim Turner, OneByOne Media and host of the Social Mediasphere show on Blog Talk Radio.
• Shira Lazar, blogging on solo travel for Jaunted.com, the pop culture travel guide.
• Aric S. Queen, producer, writer, podcaster and value travel blogger for the UpTake travel site.
• Mark Tafoya, our tour foodie blogger. He’s a professional chef and co-founder of the Culinary Media Network.
• L.P. “Neenz” Faleafine, a native Hawaiian, Chief Evangelist for Alltop.com and founder of Hawaii-basedPono Media.

As we all know, the economy is down around the world. The Hawaii tourism industry is in crisis right now andthe outlook is grim.

By some standards, this social media outreach could be considered a risky move by the HTA, but I think it’s simply smart.

I applaud this major tourism organization for seeking new, more effective ways to use social media to showcase the islands for potential visitors.

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Welcome to the May 21, 2009 edition of the Social Media Blog Carnival. Thanks very much to the carnival “owner,” New Media Labs, for asking us to host.

Next week’s host is Social Media Wiz, so send ‘em in.

For this carnival, the host reviews all the submissions and then picks the post that he/she thinks is the best combination of original, useful social media-related information AND presentation.

This week’s winner is….Tim’s post The SEO and Social Media Mix at Search Engine Optimisation.

Runner-up is Steven Leung’s post Defining Integrated Marketing at Integrated Marketing Experts, saying, “At the intersection between Web 2.0, social media and traditional marketing is integrated marketing. Business owners need to know how this impacts the way they publicize their business online.”

Some carnivals don’t show you the other submissions (we all have a different style) but I thought you’d like to see what else came in, so it’s listed below.

Angel presents Fallen Sword Web Based RPG Guide posted at Burn a Brain.

Patricia Turner presents 100 Online Brainstorming Tools to Help You Think Outside the Box posted at Forensic Science Technician.

Anthony McCune presents Tweets From Capitol Hill – Members of the United States Congress On Twitter posted at The Lives and Times… of Anthony McCune.

ivan presents How To Increase Your Feeds Subscribers posted at PC Hacks, saying, “If you ask any blogger what metric they would like to increase on their blog, it’s likely that their first answer will be feed subscribers.”

Jeremy Smith presents Best in Social Media – May 11, 2009 posted at Social Marketing by Michelle MacPhearson.

That concludes this edition, and thanks for participating.

Please submit your (one, non-spammy) blog post to the next edition of the social media blog carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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