Twitter Black Friday Tips

Twitter Black Friday Tips

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Monthly Business Webinar Series

The 1st Thursday of every month, a webinar will be offered to small business and entrepreneurs to teach the basics of Social Media.

These webinars will cover Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and a few other lesser known but highly effective social media networks that can assist in promoting your business or brand.

Each webinar lasts for 1 hour; 45 minutes of presentation, 15 minutes of discussions and questions.

These webinars are ideal for anyone who wants to start utilizing social media for promotion, as well as those who have under-utilized their social networks.

Are proven consultations have been condensed to a user-friendly webinar format so that you can learn the essentials without taking to much time out of your busy days. Our consultations are for any industry. Our clients represent industries ranging from entertainment to dentistry.

Cost: $150
To register, click on the link below for the webinar that suits your needs. If you would like to register for more than one webinar, email me at socialmediasocialite@gmail.com.

Webinar Schedule:

Date: 2/4 - Twitter 101
Learn all the basics to starting your branding campaign on Twitter.
- How gain followers.
- Trending topics.
- Utilizing Twitter functions like Twitter lists.
- The best desktop and mobile Twitter clients and applications.
- Peak times for Twitter usage.
- Coordinate Twitter feeds with other social networks like Facebook and blogs.
- The power of retweeting.
- Using keywords and hashtags.
- How to monitor conversations about your industry and/or business.
- How to schedule campaigns.
- The best Twitter ad networks and promotional companies to use.
- How to identify the most influential users based on your industry.
- Brief overview of successful Twitter campaigns launched by major brands, popular case studies.
Click here to register.

Date: 3/4 - Facebook 101

Learn all the basics to starting your branding campaign on Facebook.

-To set up a friend page or a fan page.

- How gain friends/ fans.

- The best desktop and mobile Facebook clients and applications.

- Peak times for usage.

- Coordinate Facebook feeds with other social networks like Facebook and blogs.

- How to monitor conversations about your industry and/or business.

- How to schedule campaigns.

- The significance of ads.

- How to identify the most influential users based on your industry.

- Brief overview of successful Facebook campaigns launched by major brands, popular case studies.

Click here to register.

Date: 4/1 - YouTube

Date: 5/6 - Blogs & RSS Feeds

Bill Cosby Draws Over 95,000 Viewers for U-Stream Webcast

Tonight I watched Bill Cosby debut and introduce the world to his new hip-hop album via U-Stream, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Cinch, Vimeo, 12 Seconds, and Blogtalk Radio. He pulled an impressive 97,000 viewers on U-Stream.

Although this exercise was somewhat historic, I felt that some key areas were missed in execution, in order to engage the intended target audience through the use of social media.

During the U-Stream webcast, viewers were chatting with eachother via the U-Stream chat platform. Each message contained the hash tag #BillCosby. After the webcast concluded, a colleague and I went to twitter to see if #BillCosby had become a trending topic, which it hadn't. We then checked Google Trends. It wasn't there either.

This discovery begs the questions where were the influencers, who was #BillCosby's intended audience and how can over 97,000 viewers translate to a true case study in social media influence and/or engagement.

It wasn't like #BillCosby's webcast wasn't properly promoted. It received top-billing on U-Stream's homepage. The news of Cosby's webcast and album release was publicized on outlets like Billboard, ABC News, Reuters, Entertainment Weekly, The Wall Street Journal, Mashable, Hip-Hop Wired and the Washington Post, to name a few. The resounding message through out all of the press was that the release of Bill Cosby's hip hop album was to unite hip-hop artists for an "Emergency."

I'll say that, as far as advance publicity goes, his team gets an "A." However, for the execution of the webcast, his social media team gets a "C+" at best. With over 97,000 viewers, he didn't do enough to engage them, in my opinion. So many viewers were simply impressed with the numbers he drew alone. Though, as a social media enthusiast, I personally expected more.

Here is what I would have loved to have seen:

• One or two key influencers from hip-hop that were a part of the discussion and could provide insight on where hip-hop began to where it is now.
• A few chat room moderators to keep dialogue flowing in the intended direction and to reiterate what viewers were seeing and hearing. (Someone to accent the main points of discussion.)
• More answering from the chat room and twitter

At one point, during the discussion, there were even a few hip-hop influences, like Killer Mike, that hopped into the chat room to talk to Bill Cosby and his viewers. None of them were even acknowledged by Cosby but evidence of their influence was demonstrated as some of the chat room discussion turned toward the unexpected chat room guests.

The true impact of Cosby's experiment might not be revealed until later on this week. However, I predict that he'll get slightly less post-event coverage, which will still be impressive as a whole but I doubt he'll break digital download records. After all, he's no Drake...just joking.

You Are What You Tweet!

There are a plethora of stories that emphasize the importance of online reputation management. So if you have read any of those, you can disregard this post because this is just going to reiterate that point. However, for those that aren’t aware, this post is for you.

With so many social networks buzzing online, for some, it’s getting harder and harder to differentiate between the networks that are joined for professional purposes and those that are joined for social purposes. In the PR profession, I’m constantly monitoring the online activity of not just my clients, but my personal activity. In doing so, I have to scrutinize the activity and online exchange of my friends, colleagues, clients. Additionally, I also have to watch the activity of their extended network to ensure that certain branding initiatives aren’t compromised by a temporary bout of Tourette syndrome.

When engaging in online discussions, you have to consider several factors:

1) What is the main purpose or interest in which the social network was created?

2) What’s your purpose for joining the network?

3) What types of exchanges exist on the network and are these the type of exchanges that support your goals?

4) Is your profile and communication within the network public or private?

5) What is the reputation of the friends or colleagues that you’ve connected within the network? Based on their conversation, what’s their purpose for joining the network?

After answering the above questions, you may want to take time to do a full assessment of the social networks that you belong to and how you interact within those circles. And then after doing that, you should do an internet search of yourself to see how many of your public profiles are visible online. Are you content with what you see? If not, the beginning of the year is a great time to do a Social Media Makeover. Take time to separate your professional online identity from your personal one. Or at the very least, ensure that your personal online profiles are private (only visible with your permission).

To illustrate this point, I did a search of my online profiles in Twitter and Facebook. Below are the images that will appear in any public search by anyone who isn’t an approved friend or within either of those two networks. Since Twitter has been dubbed the virtual watercooler for conversation, it’s a little more difficult to police some of those candid discussions, which is why my updates are protected. Conversations on Twitter can range from politics to online flirting, depending on who you follow and who follows you. Likewise on Facebook, some profile pictures do not always match conversation topics. For instance, the conversation may be about animal cruelty or becoming a vegan and the most vocal comments may come from a member whose profile picture has them posing with a full-length fur coat.

The social media phenomenon brings a new meaning to the phrase, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” However, with Facebook, can you?

Contact Me

404.348.8289
jslaughter@chatterboxpublicity.com

My 2008 Social Media Socialites

I've compiled a list of the people or firms that have inspired me both directly and indirectly. In addition, these people and/ or companies were influential in ChatterBox Publicity’s new business direction. Note: the following appear in alphabetical order.

1. Angela Benton and Markus Robinson / Black Web 2.0
2. Ava DuVernay / The DuVernay Agency/ The Urban Collective
3. Baratunde Thurston / Jack and Jill Politics Blog
4. Brian Solis / PR 2.0
5. CBP’s Social Media & PR Circle: Robin Caldwell / The J Standard, Christal Jordan-Mims/ Enchanted PR, Nicole Garner/ The Garner Circle, Dee Dee Cocheta-Williams/ ABC Publicity, Danielle Armstrong/ Organic PR, Keisha McCotry/ Prominence PR, Candice Reese/ Envision Global
6. Cedric “Big Ced” Thornton / Freelance Writer with Social Media Swagger
7. Dove Clark / AllHipHop.com & Tyger Eye Entertainment
8. Gina McCauley / Blogging While Brown Founder
9. HBCU Roundup Creators / Rustin & Bryndan Moore
10. Hill Harper / ForRealSolutions.com
11. James Andrews / Key Influencer
12. Jason Kintzler / Pitch Engine
13. Kevin Ross / 3 Baas Media
14. L. N. Rock / African American Political Pundit Blog
15. Marco Hansell / Fan Force, LLC
16. Maurice Cherry / The Black Weblog Awards
17. Necole Bitchie / The Urban Blogger
18. Pam Spaulding / Pam’s House Blend Blog
19. President- Elect Barack Obama, The Country’s First Social Media President and his Social Media Strategy Team: Blue State Digital, Rahaf Harfoush, Chris Hughes, and those we missed.
20. Shawn P Williams / The Dallas South Blog
21. Tamera Reynolds / Glam Media / Black Life
22. Todd DeFren / PR Squared
23. Twitter Founders: Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams
24. Wayne Hicks / BDPA Education Technology Foundation
25. Wayne Sutton / Social Media Evangelist, Guru

If you are unfamiliar with any of the above, this list is also a good guide to creating your own black book of social media contacts.

Happy New Year!