Technology & Social Media

I'm helping to spread the word about a super upcoming summit for teens and their families.  The Digital Family Summit comes to Philadelphia this summer and my Philadelphia Social Media Moms network is a media sponsor.  I think this event is a terrific opportunity for teens and their families to learn more about social media, content creation, and more -- and in a positive engaging way.  You know me, I'm always on the hunt for ideas to help colleagues and friends with teens program for and engage this young audience.

Here are the details:

This is the first ever conference for tween and teen bloggers, vloggers and digital content producers and their families.

"Are you looking for a fun, productive family activity to kick off the summer? The Digital Family Summit will provide plenty of inspiration for creative projects tweens and teens can engage in all summer long and serve them well as they gear up for the next school year.

The Digital Family Summit is an interactive, hands-on conference for teen and tween digital media creators and their families.  If you or your kid is interested in blogging, entrepreneurship, creating videos, games or animations this conference will help build skills and make connections that will take him or her to the next level.

Join professionals from the Food Network, Columbia University, Entertainment Weekly, Parsons School of Design and a host of tween and teen bloggers and entrepreneurs (and many others) for a weekend of fun activities, interactive and hands-on workshops, thought leadership and personal guidance at the Digital Family Summit in Philadelphia June 29-July 1."

The Summit takes place at Sheraton Society Hill in Center City Philadelphia and will feature a terrific line up of speakers of all ages, professions, and talents.  Beyond the conference itself, explore all the city as to offer -- the parks, museums, tourist sites, and shopping and dining.

Get your tickets now.  Receive 10% off the ticket price by using promo code PSMM at checkout.  The code is valid through May 31, 2012.

Read more about the mission of the Summit here. 

Obsessed with this tool now.  Just click through to see the whole image.

My colleague Holly who founded and writes for The Culture Mom recently shared her newfound interest in Fourquare.  Reading her write up made me cheer.  I've been a fan of the app for over a year now and like so many worried initially that it was a stalker's dream.  "I don't want anyone knowing where I am!," I found myself saying defiantly to the very early adopters in early 2010.  I broke down last summer and checked it out for a consulting project.  Much like The Culture Mom, I quickly discovered it is actually pretty insightful and fun.  Moreover, it's really up to us how much we choose to share - as with any social tool or platform.  You do not have to add/accept friends if you don't want to.  You also do not have to share/broadcast your check-in - these are all options easily changed under Privacy Settings (and FYI, the privacy settings here are no where near as cumbersome as FB).

Explore and Find "Specials"
A special is when an establishment listed on Foursquare entices you with some incentive for checking in to their place.  It might a percentage off a service or product for example.  I for one don't use it for specials.  I really could care less about saving 15% on my coffee.  What I DO care about is finding that hole in the wall African restaurant in a sea of Asian restaurants in Chinatown, NYC.  Foursquare helped me locate some great spots to check out -- dining, shopping, and more. I'm all about traveling like the local when I'm in Rome (or NYC).

For Businesses
What if you are a business?  My suggestion is -- it's really in your best interest to consider adding yourself to it. Consider folks that just move to your area and outside of asking a neighbor for a suggestion, where else can they go?  Foursquare.  That's how they will find your gift shop, your dry cleaners, your florist, your cafe, etc.  Moreover, like the power of eBay, Fourquare allows one to drill down to very specific search criteria.  Like African restaurants. 

Consider the "special." This is great for theaters, dining establishments, clothing/gift shops.  You offer a special that once the user checks in, he/she/they can present the offer at your establishment.  Check it out online and tool around, see what others are doing and what other organizations like yours are doing and how they are using it and engaging their customers. 

But read The Culture Mom's post ~ I am sure even the most skeptical will consider trying it out, even if you do keep it on the DL. I promise I won't tell.

http://www.theculturemom.com/foursquare/

I wanted to highlight a few social tools and examples that I think "get it" and "get it right" -- some are arts industry related and others are general.  I believe these online tools get it right because there is a thoughtful planning or curating to what they offer and deliver.  Some fill a clear niche...others are part of something bigger but still manage to provide their audience with meaningful information.

Sites and Blogs

Pretty much anything over at Arts Journal is worth investigating.  The site is a digest of some of the best arts and cultural journalism in the English-speaking world. Each day ArtsJournal features link to stories culled from more than 200 English-language newspapers, magazines and publications featuring writing about arts and culture. Click the tab AJ Blogs and you'll find a wealth of blogs that cover specific topics or offer a general look at nonprofit arts, management, and marketing.  Two of my favorites are Jumper and Artful Manager.  Layout and design wise, this site needs an overhaul -- it's stuck somewhere between 2001-2003.  Content wise, it's excellent.

There are a slew of mommy bloggers out there right now and while some might agrue they are not a true journalistic voice, the bottom line is they are real, authentic and have something to say.  And their audience listens.  I personally love the less formal writing style and appreciate both the sublime story as much as the culture tip or review of a family play.  Serious bloggers, mom ones included, know the value of Twitter and Blog conferences.  They participate, they follow back, they produce content that their readers love, and they stay on it.  You can hunt around on Twitter for a few if you think you have a product or service or event that you'd like to have catch their eye.  By taking 30 minutes and checking out a few of their followers or better yet - who they follow - you'll find more.  Two of my favorites areThe Culture Mom and Mommmy 101. Mommy 101 also runs Cool Mom Picks.

Mobile Apps

In the world of mobile apps, I feel like there are a dime a dozen.  Especially if you are an iPhone user.  I think of mobile apps the way I think of any product or service -- they need to deliever what they promise.  Maybe even overdeliver.  We all have apps to our favorite networking sites but what else exists?  What else makes my life a little easier?  You may have heard of a few of these but they are the ones I cannot live without -- RetroCamera, HopStop, Amazon, Blogger, Expensify, and Mapquest.  I'm not a gamer so I don't have Angry Birds on my phone.  My phone is also pretty big and I prefer my music on tiny devices so I can run/workout without any bulkiness - so no music downloading happening here. 

I suspect at some point my 3 year old son will become obsessed with all things game.  I've already got this covered.  While I'm also a very cultured mom, I thank god for inventions like the iPad because they make traveling easier and they also make a simple thing like cooking dinner easier.  I'm fine with my son - eventually - spending a little time playing a game because I know in addition to all the time he spends at school learning, I'm also supplementing that with a ton at home.  That said, I was recently introduced to Ruckus Media.  This very cool company reinvents family entertainment in an online world.  It creates original apps for iPad, iPhone, Droid, and other mobile media platforms and partners with bestselling authors and illustrators, animators, celebrity performers and musicians together with talented editors and software developers to create a completely new form of storytelling.  A great concept to a discerning mom.

Another sweet app I just downloaded is MOMA's.  I love how simple this app makes finding information.  It's way better than even having a site designed for mobile use.  I'm not scrolling across the screen with my finger or zooming in with the click of a link to read some teeny tiny text.  I can search what's going on by day, by exhibition, by topics, by programs.  I love it.  This is one app that overdelivers in my eyes.

This is one area that have no doubt is the future (maybe even the present) for arts centers, even artists. 

What does this mean for your marketing?

In a time where it's about simplifying and drilling down an overabundance of information, how can you work with an app developer to create a useful app for your organization?  Yes, you still have to have an updated and content rich site.  But now you need to get on the app wagon.  So drop that direct mail piece and reevaluate your marketing plan and budget.  The bulk of your dollars and time should be invested in the online world.  Your staff should be blogging and tweeting...and encouraging guests to do so too.  Create a calendar and a time line.  There's always more work to be done but EDs and staff should be setting aside time each week for social engagement.  No excuses for outdated design and content on your site.  With the right messages and content, you'll be exciting your audiences to see that amazing live performance. 

If you don't go where your audience is -- and I'm telling you they are online via mobile devices -- then in the words of Willy Wonka, "You lose.  You get nothing."  In a time of consolidation you have no choice but to do things differently and better.  It's how you inch out over your competitors and as Malcolm Gladwell would say, you have that "sticky" effect - you exist in the minds of your audience.

I'm dragging out my social media topic a bit longer because well, I can.  I had a couple ideas I wanted to cover in the past 2 weeks and work crept up and I didn't have time to post.  At any rate, I wanted to share a moment, an experience that involved social media and really brought home the fact that it's here to stay.

Late March I went to NYC to see one of my favorite singer songwriters of all time - Richard Ashcroft.  I'm not about to explain who he is.  If you don't know, shame on you.  He's a genius.  Google him. 

I saw the man ten years ago in 2001 at the TLA here in Philly.  He was touring and promoting his first solo album.  The TLA is a tiny venue and I adore it.  At the time I had a Motorola cell and frankly, by today's standards, it could pass for a V-tech kids toy - chunky and plastic with a ring tone to match the kid friendly vibe.  There was no texting let alone smart phone features.  It was me and Ashcroft...and a slew of others.

Fast forward to 2006 and he opens for Coldplay.  I suck up the big box venue because, it's the Man and he comes once every few years to the States.  I had crappy seats, he looked like an ant, and the acoustics were ho-hum, but still decent.  I was on my fourth phone by then, strangely enough another Motorola - the ever popular Razor.  Flash pictures and some video taking were possible albeit, terrible quality.  A few went off but overall, I was in the minority.  And forget sharing.  Those pics and video will be forever on the SIM card of that beat Razor.

2011.  Here I am in the SRO crowd at the Bowery Ballroom last month and I'm surrounded by some cool Evo peeps like myself and a host of iPhone users, all taking in the concert but not a moment passed where at least one person around me didn't have their phone held high over his head, flash off, snapping a photo or recording video.  Folks are texting and emailing to others about the concert and uploading playlists, pictures and video instantaneously to their blogs, Facebooks, and YouTube.  At one point I snickered because the guy next to me had an old school Blackberry Curve and the picture quality was horrendous - compared to the scores of Droid and iPhone users around me snapping HD footage.

In ten years the technology has advanced to the point where the whole concert going experience looks different and moveoever, someone like me expects whatever the best is at that very moment to capture it, record it and share it.  This is where social media is now...where it took us.  It's very cool.

There was a moment though, I admit, that I wondered what it would look like if it was smaller than it already was, if we could sit, if we could all see, and gasp, be told no electronic devices and instead just be.  I wouldn't imagine that for just anyone -- it has to be a performer that I adore like no other and who can enthrall me.  Richard Ashcroft is that artist -- the one that I will endure SRO for as well as - maybe someday - turn it all off because his presence is enough.  Sometimes I do want experiences to just exist in that moment, my mind.

Here is a clip of him from the Bowery, posted the very next day. 

Here is a clip -- non HD -- that captures my post perfectly.  Look at all those phones!

I'm pleased to announce that as of March 2011, I have been selected to join the esteemed roster of nonprofit consultants at LaSalle University's Nonprofit Center.  The Nonprofit Center works with nonprofit organizations in various fileds - like education, health, arts, human services, and more - throughout the Delaware Valley, PA region to strengthen the organization, its board, and staff.  The Center offers a wealth of programs and services to fit budgets, schedules, expectations and goals.  The Center respects that one size does not fit all and works smartly and thoroughly to place the right consultant on the right project.  Areas of consultant expertise include the following:

Strategic Planning
Board development & Nonprofit Governance
Resource Development
Financial Planning
Marketing & Communications
Executive Transitions
Partnerhsips & mergers
And more

Read more about the Center, their programs and services here.

Artists, non-profits, and small business owners who are pressed for time sometimes ask how they can be successful with social media while spending only a few minutes a day on Facebook and Twitter. My initial response to this question is that social media isn't a magic tool for instant success. Social media provides one more opportunity for you to work hard to build relationships and achieve success in your goals. 

Rather than trying to minimize the time spent on social media, I prefer to reframe the question as follows: "How can I be successful in my real world goals by using social media as efficiently as possible without wasting time that could be better spent in other marketing and networking efforts?" This question explicitly clarifies that the individual actually does spend time and effort on marketing and networking and is not seeking to achieve success with only a few minutes a day of any type of relationship building. 

My response to this rephrased question is more straightforward: Focus your social media efforts on complementing and enhancing your real-world relationships and goals. Anchoring your social media plan in your existing priorities will reduce the risk of spending time in activities that don't move you towards your goals. By leveraging your existing momentum, social media does not have to add significant time or energy to your efforts. 

So what does this mean in practice? Below are three strategies that you can incorporate into a social media plan without getting overwhelmed:

1. Connect with individuals and networks whose goals align with your goals

This includes people who have the ability to help you achieve your goals, as well as individuals and groups who you can help using your own abilities. Is your goal to increase your publicity and presence in your local media? Follow and build relationships with local journalists and reporters. Does your art or business target a specific audience such as children and families? Use social media to connect with non-profits that support this audience in your community.

You don't need 10,000 fans and followers to be successful with social media. Keep your time focused on targeted subsets that align with your specific goals and audiences. And don't wait for them to discover and follow you-actively seek out and initiate the conversation with them.

2. Listen

Participating in conversations and building relationships still can take significant time and energy. Simply listening to online conversations, without actively participating, can help keep your time spent on social media efficient and targeted. Do you want to find other artists to collaborate with on new projects? Search Facebook and Twitter for specific keywords and geography filters to discover people and groups to follow and/or approach. Do you want to discover opportunities to publicly showcase your work in a specific city? Setup another search with keywords for the city and terms such as "event," "tickets," etc. (think creatively and iteratively to develop the best queries).

Services such as HootSuite and Google Alerts can help you keep track of multiple searches over time. Developing your online listening skills will create a foundation that helps you discover the key people with whom you want to spend more time building relationships.

3. Add your real world contacts to your online network

Simply being connected to your existing contacts through social media, even if you don't actively interact, has several benefits. For example, your connections on LinkedIn determine your ability to reach and connect with people through searches and recommendations. When you create a Facebook event for a performance or event you are promoting in a certain city, you can invite your Facebook friends who live in that region as their current city or home town.

Who do you know in person that you have not connected with online? When you meet with someone in person, follow up with a connection on social media. Have you added your old college friends and classmates? What about your fellow artists and collaborators, or new colleagues that you meet at a professional conference or community event? Who else do you know that remembers you fondly?

These loose ties with whom have interacted in person can be activated at appropriate times, without adding a significant every day commitment.

If you add one connection on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter every day for a year, your network will grow steadily with just a few minutes a day. You already have put in the work through your face-to-face networking and relationship building, and adding these contacts to your social media networks is a simple extra step.

How can you ensure that your social media plan moves you efficiently towards your goals? Learn to listen in order to discover the key people and events that are most in line with your efforts, and think of building your social media network as supplementing the relationships you are building in the real world. Of course, there are many other ways to use social media successfully, but if you are looking to get started without getting overwhelmed, these strategies can help you simplify and target your efforts.

About Jacob Weiss
Jacob Weiss is the founder and director of Playing By Air Productions and High-Wired Communities. In addition to developing theatrical circus productions for performing arts, special events, and corporate meetings, he works with artists and non-profit organizations to develop plans for community building through social media and local networking.

If you read my guest blog on Mara's Treehouse Blog (see previous posts), you'll see I share Michael Kaiser's (ED of The Kennedy Center) view: There is no reason whatsoever that the arts - by its nature, a creative industry - should be lagging behind other industries in adopting new technologies, particularly as they relate to arts marketing.  Read his article in the Huffington Post on why we as an industry need to trust the technology.

http://tiny.cc/gr5md