Our guest on this week’s edition of the Bella Buzz podcast is Chad Elkins. You may remember Chad from the conversation we had about regarding the excellent social media efforts he is conducting on behalf of The Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta. We are happy to have Chad back on the podcast with us to discuss Foursquare Day in Atlanta.

We invited Chad back to The Bella Buzz to tell us all about the hottest networking app Foursquare, and the grassroots event that took place on April 16th called Foursquare Day.

Foursquare is a location based application, which takes advantage of the social gaming excitement that has been most prevalent on Facebook. However in this case, Foursquare provides opportunities for real life customer acquisition and retention strategies for business. By checking in (identifying yourself as being present) at various locations, users can earn badges, points and even a classification as “Mayor.” If it ended right there, it would be a fun game that did not have much relevancy. With a back end built for business, it provides opportunities for incentives to users for checking in, privileges for Mayors, and at even more sophisticated levels, deep analysis and actionable user data.

Foursquare users can see others who are in a location where they have checked in, or simply just the Tips (reviews) they have written about the place. Since this is a location based application, it may push specials and offers from nearby locales as well.

Chad was putting together a group of venues who would participate with offers during Foursquare Day in Atlanta and for many this was their first foray into the service, so this application is still in its very early adopter stage.

In celebration of the “global social media holiday”, there were swarm parties hosted around the world where Foursquare users would gather to celebrate the event.  The founders of Foursquare were gathered in New York City, while Atlanta guests attended an event at The Cheyenne Grille as seen in this coverage from MetroMix.

Rumors appeared recently that Yahoo was making a bid to purchase Foursquare, however these are the founders of the previous location based service DodgeBall that was purchased by Google but ultimately was discontinued.

There are some serious branding campaigns that are using the badge features of Foursquare including Starbucks, Bravo and The History Channel. Chad has a great story about using the History Channel tips on a pilgrimage to the famous magnolia tree from the home of the Atlanta Crackers, Ponce de Leon Ballpark.

For more information about Foursquare, you can watch their blog and for Atlanta based activities watch Chad’s site at Foursquare Atlanta.

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Rebekah Lovell from Renown Promotions is our guest on this episode of The Bella Buzz podcast.  We discuss the field of public relations and how social media has changed the game for small and medium sized business.  Renown is a communications consulting company that specializes in community-minded marketing and PR for small business. From copy writing, to full campaigns, they are a source for original and creative approaches to communication challenges.

Change is a constant in this day and age, and nothing has been impacted more than PR. We begin by looking at the way a PR professional goes about practicing client communications.  Rebekah points to the fact that the old form of a press release is dead. The thought leader David Meerman Scott wrote the book The New Rules of Marketing and PR, and promotes the paradigm shift from a press release to a news release, and advocates that companies become publishers themselves. You no longer have to rely on the media as being the gatekeepers of information distribution.

In the past, a cultivated and proprietary media lists used to be one of the greatest assets that an PR agency could own, ensuring that a client’s story would be seen by the right media person covering that industry.  In today’s social world, there are tools available for everyone to access with details about contact information. Sarah Evans has developed the extraordinary resource called Media on Twitter.  Using this social form of communication eliminates the prior practices of mailing or faxing, however it has shortened the pitch time for presenting the story and gaining interest from a media contact.

A valuable insight that Rebekah shares with us is how to use Twitter Lists to see what the media is talking about each morning. She can direct client messaging and ensure real relevancy as a source on the latest topics.

The latest form of communication distribution comes from the web site pitchengine.com, which combines written and visual elements into what they term a social media release. Desiree points out that a key feature of this type of release is a “Share” button, allowing for easy re-broadcast of a message. An SMR will also provide good search engine optimization benefit delivery traffic to a web site.

The one thing that has not changed with the implementation of social tools is the clear and concise delivery of a story.  There is no time for fluff and filler to appear in a pitch, with the speed of the news cycle, and it is even more of a challenge to pitch within the confines of 140 characters.

When trying to decide whether to work with a PR professional, make sure to look into the ways in which that person is practicing the profession.  Someone who is simply spamming and broadcasting re-purposed press releases and calling it social media will not be successful in effectively representing you and your brand. There is a great shift in the balance of power where the smaller specialty agencies can be quick and nimble in applying new technologies as they prove successful, while a larger agency must be concerned with maintaining billings.  This allows for affordable, high quality work for clients who might not have been able to use a professional in the past.

In the end, good media relations is a mutually beneficial relationship where the client’s message can be presented to the right person at the most relevant time.  A PR person will know what the media member is writing, their niches, how they prefer the stories to be presented .. whatever is necessary to make sure that the reporter / blogger is successful as well.

BTW, we are celebrating our one year anniversary here on The Bella Buzz! We are so grateful to everyone who has inspired us, appeared with us on the show, left us encouraging feedback .. and most of all, to the listeners who graciously allow us to express ourselves each episode! Thank you for all of the great comments and message you send us about The Bella Buzz!

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On this week’s episode Desiree speaks from the cockpit of The Bella Beetle, as we welcome Chad Elkins, the voice behind the social media strategy of the Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta. He first came to our attention through a writeup on the blog Not Easy To Forget from its author James Ball.

For those who are not familiar with this Atlanta landmark, Oakland Cemetery is one of the oldest cemeteries and one of the largest green spaces in the City of Atlanta, and it is on the National Register of Historic Places. Famous “residents” include Bobby Jones the golfer, Margaret Mitchell the author, Maynard Jackson the former Mayor of Atlanta, and Joseph Jacobs who was the proprietor of the soda fountain where Coca-Cola was first served in 1886.

Chad brings a great perspective to his use of social media in attracting new visitors to the cemetery, and believes that his use of a Twitter account has reached a different demographic than the traditional destination / attraction marketing that tourism venues typically enact.

The content that Chad likes to generate through his social media efforts include the same types of things that any business should consider distributing.  Don’t let the fact that he is interacting on behalf of a cemetery fool you!  He is looking to engage in conversations about events and answer customer service type questions, plus he can include some interesting history that makes his tweet stream an interesting read.  Chad believes that it helps to share information about other things that are happening around the City of Atlanta so that it incorporates Oakland Cemetery as part of the “eco-system” of venues.

Successes include driving measurable traffic to the web site at Oakland Cemetery.com, as well as seeing additional friends and fans attend their events such as the Run Like Hell 5K, Halloween Tours, and Sunday in the Park. All of their events had record attendance which can be attributed to these efforts.  It also pays off from a volunteer recruitment standpoint (and must also be applied to employee recruitment in more traditional business).

Chad suggests that the Atlanta Tourism community look into something like the new location based application Four Square. Another service of this same ilk is Gowalla.

The success that Chad has witnessed on behalf of the Oakland Cemetery demonstrates a couple of key points that we stress on the Bella Buzz podcast, it can be accomplished no matter what the business is. If a cemetery can find a voice in social media, anything can have a voice.  Also, Chad works on a volunteer basis so it is not an all consuming time commitment requirement.

We have often heard the question raised that it can be a complicated scenario when an employee who has taken on the social media responsibilities, in effect, has become the voice of the organization, leaves for other opportunities.  Have the gains made been lost? Does that employee end up carrying the followers with them to the next stop?  Chad beautifully answers this concern by stating that the “voice” of the organization should simply be a reflection of the internal culture within the organization.  The term that we have used, and Chad reinforces is transparency.  By being honest and transparent, and reflecting a community culture, there should be no loss in effectiveness when reassigning the social media duties and responsibilities.

Chad can also be found at the Twitter handle @Ratpack

Just as we are about to sign off, we end up talking about Listening tools such as the ones we discussed on last week’s episode.  One item we did not bring up last week was the search for commonly misspelled terms that you are monitoring.  Chad keeps an eye out for the misspelled Cematery and uses it as a chance to reach out to a potential visitor.

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It is a Super Bowl commercial postmortem on this week’s Bella Buzz podcast.  Desiree and Joe break down the effectiveness of the advertising dollars that the big brands spent during Super Bowl XLIV, or should we say lack of effectiveness.

Last year, the expectation was more and more of the big brands would find creative ways to incorporate social networks into their traditional campaigns.  The rating for social media usage by this year’s advertisers is once again a big #FAIL.

We know we tend to see things from within our bubble of online marketing and social media practitioners, but it’s time for the big brands (and more specifically the big brand agencies) to start leveraging the dollars they spend on broadcast advertising by driving customers to interact via social networks.  The opportunity exists right now to engage a customer, capture some of their key contact data and then continue to interact with that customer so that they become a true brand evangelist.  Why are they wasting this media buy!?!

On the podcast, we did dig into a couple of the ads directly to discuss our reactions to them and the first one we reviewed was the Google Ad:

We had both heard that a spot was a possibility, so we were on the lookout for it to appear on the broadcast.  It was a very well done spot which subtly displayed how search is completely embedded in our lives. Google just needs to be careful about how well they present information for web searchers.  They could be accused of “scraping” so much content from web site owners and content producers that the traffic no longer actually clicks to the original site.

Throughout the night’s broadcast there was a considerable amount of conversation taking place on Twitter using the hashtag #BrandBowl you can still see some activity there by following that link to the Search.Twitter service.  These large brands HAVE to be aware that there is a large, receptive audience ready to interact with them if the creative is done correctly.  That hashtag was different from the #SB44 which was mostly game specific conversations.  Brands should be able to manage the variety of conversations effectively by understanding the difference.

At the very least consider what we call the Offline Ask.  At every opportunity in front of a potential customer you must make the ask.  Ask them to become a part of your community whether it be to follow you on Twitter, join a Facebook Fan Page or submit an email address.

What specific actions should a business owner take when participating in the Live Web?  Get involved in the conversation around a particular event.  If you come with relevant, interesting, eloquent insights that make someone take notice and check out your profile .. which in turn, drives someone back to your business web site, you just might gain a customer.

How did the Super Bowl ads work for you? Were you expecting anything in the social media space that didn’t appear, or maybe you did see some things that we might have missed?  Let us know in the comments, we would love to know what you thought.

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During the podcast we recollect our actual whereabouts on that day, and what we were doing on the moment we first were made aware that the Trade Center had been hit.

We try to make complete speculation about how we would have witnessed the scene if there had been Twitter, Facebook and probably most importantly YouTube on that day.

In many cases we have said that social media has been better at capturing live events instead of traditional media, however in this case the second plane hitting the tower on live television could not have been any more powerful. Technology would have provided  more eye witness accounts at ground zero and we might have experienced the horror to an even greater degree as video became available.

It is possible though that GPS technology, Google Latitude, Brightkite or other location based technologies could have helped loved ones locate each other.

We also cannot forget the millions of people not directly impacted by were stranded in airports around the country, the personal stories that they experienced would also have been included in the social media distribution of meta data.

We have discovered a repository of 9/11 videos that is being powered by our friends at Magnify, and is part of the Camera Planet Archive.  At this web site is some of the video that might have been distributed almost in real time on that day of September 11, 2001.

This repository is a powerful effect for the future generations so that they can understand what our experiences were like as it happened.  It underlines the importance of a project like StoryCorps which provides a way to capture our personal histories.

Would these tools have helped in the healing process?  It probably would have .. we would have reached out to the friends that we have made online using the social networks.

We also have to consider the global social networks that we have grown as we would have been able to witness the events through the eyes of the world.

How do you think the technology would have changed the national experiences on that day in September 2001?

The opening and closing theme for the Overflow Podcast is called The Information Age, by Anthony Fiumano and you can find it at the Podsafe Music Network.

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As much as we are able to provide information to the students during these discussions (btw, we always have the group re-arrange the furniture into a circle so that we are discussing, not presenting), we are able to get back just as much feedback on what is working for this particular demographic.

This week on Overflow we discuss our impressions of social media networks through the eyes of this group of students.

The most prominent feedback was the widespread immersion in the use of Facebook versus the total disregard of Twitter. The take away seemed to be that Twitter was just another place that needed updating, and everyone that needed to be kept abreast of their actions was already part of their Facebook network, so Twitter was just a duplicate task.

This finding is reinforced by an article in the New York Times just this week regarding the “driving force behind Twitter“.

The students were not aware of the search and conversation (hashtag) capabilities of Twitter that provides much of it’s value. They were also not aware of the acquisition of FriendFeed by Facebook at all, and the additional features that it will bring to the network,  such as real time search.

This may also reflect the theory that at a young age, the most important measure of value is to have a popular group of friends.  Everything that a young person does revolves around friends and family, precisely the type of influencer relationships found on Facebook.  Twitter tends to be more self promotional, news gathering, research driven, and less concerned with relationships.  The difference between the use of Facebook and Twitter may simply come down to the hard wiring of age.

We did get into the topic of job search and employers use of social networks to review the “character” of potential hires.  Of course, the students felt that it was not a fair assessment but agreed that some form of constraint must be applied when posting on line.  They believe that at some point in the future the playing field will be balanced where both employers and employees will have things in their lifestream demonstrating questionable behavior.

The other big take away element from our conversation was the complete lack of circling back around after an online transaction to leave a comment or a rating.  It actually didn’t seem to occur to the group to participate in the dialogue surounding their interaction with the product or service.  Again, it seemed to be deemed another task that was not important to them.

We tried to emphasize the importance of using comments in a number of ways.  In one sense, it will help them to get discovered as a “personal brand” as they look for employment after graduation, particularly if they can point to a large number of quality blog posts and comment discussions about relevant topics.  It is also important to them as consumers.  They admitted to having ratings influence a buying decision, so it only stands to reason that they would have better results if there was a larger pool of ratings to review.  Growing the percentage within their demographic who are willing to take the time to rate an item will help to build up more meta data, providing more relevant feedback when it comes time to search and transact.

The only time someone in the class had actually gone through the process of leaving a rating was based upon a tourism experience, and it was encouraged by the property.  We addressed this issue in our Overflow podcast called Make the Offline Ask.

The last bit of insight that they were able to impart, was their preference to have an interaction with a brand if there was a way to make it more “personal”. A character or a spokesperson who was speaking through the Facebook Fan Page was going to get their attention more than an impersonal brand.  Examples might include the Burger King King and the e-Trade Baby.

Once again, we’d like to thank the class for having us in to discuss Social Media.  If you are interested in having us speak or present to a class please send an email to jmagennis@ befluid.com.

The opening and closing theme for the Overflow Podcast is called The Information Age, by Anthony Fiumano and you can find it at the Podsafe Music Network.

You can subscribe to The Overflow Podcast directly from ITunes by following this link, and we would be happy to receive listener feedback and ratings at The ITunes Store.

Due to vacation time, work deadlines and simple fatigue we identified that it has caused Cameron to participate a little bit less throughout his social networks.  It brings up a very real question, especially for those whose work involves not only contributing but fully immersing in social media on behalf of clients and as an agency in general.  How can you prevent the fatigue that comes with trying to be plugged in 24/7?

For the most successful users, contributing on social media platforms becomes a habit and a way of life even, not so much a task or a chore that needs to be part of a daily checklist.  Social media practitioners should consider their contributions on networks as being in sync with their regular duties and responsibilities, not something that is ancillary.  It should have equal weight in priority level.

We try not to focus the conversation only on Twitter, but we address the fact that with the increase in spam, celebrities, and mass media it has taken a bit of the shine off of the service for us … so we identify rule number one to help prevent social media fatigue.  Participate in niche groups of people on Twitter that interest you,  and avoid the old fashioned “party line” approach where there is a bunch of noise and it’s hard to pick out any single relevant voice.

Businesses who have adopted social networks as ways to handle customer service issues and business related matters specifically, will certainly have less of a chance of getting fatigued because it will absolutely be integrated into everyday tactics and priorities.

Using automated tools for distributing content has been addressed in previous episodes of Overflow.  Although we don’t necessarily recommend it as the most prominent way of participating in social networks, it does have value in flattening out the peaks and valleys of getting your avatar into the stream.

Since a good majority of the media headlines focus on Facebook and Twitter, we can sometimes overlook the myriad of other social networks that should capture our attention, and have extraordinary benefits from a business perspective. If there comes a time that you don’t feel like getting involved in a real time chat with a group of people, some solo time reading and commenting on blogs, posting and tagging photos in Flickr, and contributing reviews on sites like Yelp or Kudzu for example can help overcome fatigue by simply being a different neighborhood to stroll through.

It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that cases of fatigue can pop up from time to time.  Prior to having social networks to participate in, many would simply isolate in seclusion to recharge the batteries.  It was just much less noticeable…. and as we have heard from Google CEO Eric Schmidt, it’s ok to unplug every once in a while.

Here’s our List of Ways to Prevent Social Media Fatigue:

1) Limit your following/friending to a targeted, smaller niche group of people who have close interests to you. You will be more inclined to stay connected by avoiding all of the noise.

2) Consider creating good relevant content that can be pre-scheduled for distribution using tools such as Twitterfeed.  This will make sure that your brand is still represented, even if you have less time or energy to devote.  It will bridge the up and down cycles of having things to say.

3) Diversify the social networks that you participate in.  You may discover an enthusiasm that may have been waning when you were just focusing solely on one or two networks.

4) Step away from the keyboard and unplug every once in awhile.  It may feel strange, you might miss a breaking meme or two, but if it’s really important it will find you!

Have you ever experience Social Media Fatigue? How have you overcome it and how do you prevent it?  Please share with us in the comments your thoughts on the matter.

The opening and closing theme for the Overflow Podcast is called The Information Age, by Anthony Fiumano and you can find it at the Podsafe Music Network.

You can subscribe to The Overflow Podcast directly from ITunes by following this link, and we would be happy to receive listener feedback and ratings at The ITunes Store.

Cameron and Joe set the stage for the discussion as it relates to a former client who had hired us to help with their marketing efforts.  We had immediately assessed their need for a re-branding and re-positioning strategy in order to achieve their stated goal of reaching an entirely new demographic.  This tourism / destination site had seen a steady decline in attendance as their core clientele had simply continued to get older.

We addressed their graphics standards and decisions regarding marketing materials, attempting to migrate them towards development of email databases. As things would transpire, budgets were impacted and our services were no longer contracted.

In today’s environment using social media, we were lamenting the fact that the account would be very exciting to work on again since there is so much interesting content available for distribution via cost effective social channels.

However, it was pointed out to us and is the main point of this discussion … we were also trying to push them into addressing overall operational issues of the facility to ensure that the expectation levels were met once we reached that new audience, and persuaded them to attend an event on the property.

There is only one chance to make a good first impression, and if there are serious flaws in the operation it doesn’t matter how good the communication is, you will potentially lose that customer forever.  At the very least it will take considerably more effort to win the customer back for a second visit.

In this case, we can envision the damaging potential from the key demographic for achieving long term success, which also mirrors early adopters of social networking, who would arrive on site but then quickly disseminate negative and disparaging information about the poor services and tired physical plant.

The key take away from this line of thinking is to make sure that you have addressed all of your serious issues regarding your offering BEFORE embarking on a social media campaign to attract new customers!

The opening and closing theme for the Overflow Podcast is called Showdown at the Bridge, by Eric Dietrich.

You can subscribe to The Overflow Podcast directly from ITunes by following this link, and we would be happy to receive listener feedback and ratings at The ITunes Store.

We really appreciate every listener taking the time each week to to check out what we’ve got going on, and in order to make sure that we are addressing the topics that you want to hear, we are extending an invitation to you to contribute directly to the show.

In order to use the tools available for conducting social conversations, we are reminding you that you can use twitter to reach us at @ joemagennis or @ coolpapac.

Also, we are both going to be monitoring the hashtag #Overflow in Tweetdeck. Include that hashtag in your Tweet so that we get the message in our Twitter Search and we’ll know it’s a response to the podcast.

What do you think about posting comments on the site?  So far we have only had real dialogue take place on just a couple of episodes out of the 22 so far .. Does it work well?  If not, why not? …. we’d like to dialogue there as well.  It’s possible that the topics we are choosing aren’t generating “comment worthy” content, so let’s hear what is on your mind and we will be able to stimulate some comments.

What about a Facebook Page?  Is there a reason to use that Social Networking platform as a communication tool?

You might decide to contact us the old fashioned ways as well and call ….  404 . 875 . 1008 … or email us directly at jmagennis@befluid(dot)com & cwatson@befluid(dot)com.

What type of topics do you want to talk about?  We can steer the conversation into directions of traditional marketing if you want … how traditional media is being impacted by social media.

We can take a look at how brands are changing, how they must become more open and transparent in the face of changing expectations from customers and clients.

The Overflow Podcast is all about speaking to you .. but also getting contributions from you as well.  We’d love to hear what you think about our podcast.

We applaud Dr Larry for reaching out to many different professionals to speak to his class, since things are changing so rapidly in online marketing. We are sure that the class will gain significant insights into marketing tactics by hearing directly from the source.  For reference materials, the class also uses  Life After the 30 Second Spot by Joseph Jaffe as well as listening to the JaffeJuice podcast.

Facebook was a major segment of the conversation particularly as the students discussed the migration away from My Space for various reasons, most notably the intrusive nature of the advertising on My Space.

The main point that we tried to make during the conversation is that there are different types of influencers who have impact on consumers, depending upon the social network being discussed .. from anonymous influencers on Amazon to friendly influencers on Facebook, with follower/following influencers in between.  Marketers need to understand how all types of influencers can have an impact on consumers and the most successful will initiate brand conversations on every social network, according to the type of relationships that are established there.

We should also point out that the class had a definite understanding of online privacy concerns and in particular how it could impact their job search should inappropriate things end up where they can be found.

A suggestion for Dr. Larry’s class is to invite a legal expert in to discuss privacy in the digital age. The class could be geared towards the responsibilities of a marketer who might be developing apps or Facebook games to promote a brand, that simultaneously gathers market research and personal information. How is a marketer obligated to handle this information without causing harm to the user?

Meanwhile, Facebook announced and then retracted their changes to the Terms of Service. The flap seems to be a big stink about something that was percieved as reality in the general public anyway .. anything that is put online is generally no longer in your control.  It does however, point out a general mistrust of Facebook’s overall intentions, particularly among power users who have seen services like Beacon get launched and then withdrawn due to privacy concerns.

Facebook has to consider how their reputation is percieved, most notably among influential bloggers who criticize the company.  From the initial complaints recently settled by the founders of ConnectU who claim the concept was stolen from them .. all the way through to Beacon and now TOS fiascoes, Facebook has been battered many times over. While another behemoth online, Google continues to advance apps that could directly impact a person’s privacy while setting up a major marketing windfall without too much complaint.

What do you think, should privacy become a central part of the curriculum for a marketing class?