ResearchGoddess

Last Wednesday, our Bellingham Social Media group met to discuss the recent bid our community made for Google’s Fiber For Communities program. Our presenters and panelists were Scott Pierce, a local content strategist, Nathan Carnes, principal of Carnes Media, and David Wiggs, a marketing professional and founder of Hitch. These three men, along with many other Bellingham residents, each took a keen interest in this project. The city commissioned Hand Crank Films to create a video to send to Google with our interest in this program – the video has stirred emotion in many local residents and was even featured on CBS News. We were fortunate to have Traci Hahn of Trac 2.0 Productions filming this presentation. You can view it in 10 minute segments with the following links:

The purpose of this discussion was for the panelists to share their involvement in this project as well as to discuss some of the bigger lessons that were learned from pursuing this campaign. Overall, the theme was community:  where to reach it, how to get it involved, and what to do next.

Scott shared the importance of reaching community where it already exists. Some of the things the guys learned in developing a grog (group blog) was that there was already a community developing on Facebook to support Bellingham’s bid, and that the platform chosen to host the group blog was a little buggy and made it difficult for people to participate. Scott played a big role in encouraging community participation through various online channels, which included going to this growing Facebook community because that’s where a lot of support had already been established.

David, a traditional marketing professional, encouraged other local creative agencies to get involved and shared with them the benefits of participation – getting their creative work in front of not only potential new clients, but also in front of the eyes of the executives at Google. He also said that it is important to ask your communities what is important to them before you try to decide for them.

Nathan developed a cool site called BellinghamAtlas to supplement the other efforts being put forth by the Bellingham community that was ignited by the campaign. The site is a place for people to upload photos or videos that are geotagged around the city to show why Google should bring fiber to Bellingham. This was yet another online resource where community came together for a singular cause.

What lessons can you learn from this effort for your own community? Whether we’re talking about online communities or actual neighborhoods, many of the lessons are the same. Most importantly, let people know what they’re getting involved in – asking them to participate without letting them know what’s in it for them is like asking someone to give you money without telling them what it’s for. (that’s called robbery in many cases!) Also, make sure you find out what the community wants and don’t just do what you think the community wants. It’s easier to get support for a group effort when the effort encompasses things that the community has share that it wants or needs. And lastly, keep the effort going. Even if Bellingham does not win this bid, those leading the charge have done extensive research into how to actually bring fiber to our community. We’ve got the information and most certainly will do something with it. And, for a city that is nicknamed ‘The City of Subdued Excitement’, to get the community to rally together like this is incredible, so we’re looking to keep the ball rolling!

How has your local or online community come together for a cause? What are some of the actions you’ve taken to get people more engaged in community efforts? I’d love to hear your stories – please share them in the comments below!

These spotlights are opportunities for you to get to know some individuals who were recommended to me for the article I wrote for Mashable, 4 Essential Traits for Social Media Success in Your Career. The purpose of my project, detailed here, is to profile some social media professionals to keep an eye on in the coming year.

Spotlight:

What Steve had to say about Amanda: “Amanda is an astute trendwatcher and uses these insights to advise some of the biggest companies in the world, all at a very young age.”

Amanda is a graduate of Emerson College in Boston. She earned her degree in Integrated Marketing and has worked in roles utilizing social technologies from the very start of her professional career. She joined Edelman in 2008 and has quickly made a name for herself there. Currently she works as a Senior Social Media Strategist supporting account teams in digital practice. She consults with clients about what people are saying about their brand and helps keep them culturally relevant. Amanda also blogs at We Are The Digital Kids.

How college impacted her interest in social media: Emerson did a great job of making social media part of the curriculum from the start. During her sophomore year, Amanda went to a PRSSA conference where Richard Edelman was speaking on digital and how it is changing business in general, let alone PR. For next two years she immersed herself in learning about digital and how it could change a company’s daily activities. During this time, she continued to hear about social media from professors and business speakers at school. She learned that getting involved in this world would give her the opportunity to be at forefront of a company and still grow and learn on a daily basis.

How making personal connections impacted Amanda’s career: When Amanda first started blogging, Rick Murray, President of Edelman Digital, reached out to her via Twitter. He proved that he is a digital native in the sense that he plays and lives in the space and it is as much a part of his life as it is his work. Rick gave Amanda encouragement to speak up in meetings and do the same things online. As well, Amanda reached out to Richard Edelman right before she went to the PRSSA conference and he responded and stayed in touch while she completed school. He has continued to be supportive of her whole career with Edelman.

Some of Amanda’s thoughts on social media and GenY: Amanda believes there is a misconception that young ‘’digital kids” should be advising companies and digital experts from the start. She says that digital kids come in all age ranges – not just GenY. Digital native status is more dependent on how one lives their life as opposed to when one was born.

Where Amanda sees social media going in the future: One of the most exciting things for Amanda is seeing how what’s happening in digital is not just a skin companies can put on their current activity – it has to be engrained in traditional business operations. Companies will have to adjust many processes to adapt to how social media and digital have changed how business is done. She gives an example of Dell and how they have gotten into social media from a campaign standpoint, but more importantly that they are changing customer service in a radical way by making customers feel they are truly collaborating with the company. She says that 800 numbers are not as important any more for younger generations; they want to be able to reach customer service on Twitter , Facebook, and so forth. Amanda believes that companies need to pay attention to these desires in order to stay relevant and that we will see many more companies embracing this method of outreach in the coming months.

Connect with Amanda on:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Blog

These spotlights are opportunities for you to get to know some individuals who were recommended to me for the article I wrote for Mashable, 4 Essential Traits for Social Media Success in Your Career. The purpose of my project, detailed here, is to profile some social media professionals to keep an eye on in the coming year.

Spotlight:

What Aliza had to say about Laura: “Laura is excellent at branding and marketing herself…this gal is a powerhouse, incredibly smart and seeing her moderate a panel recently made me realize how insightful she is.”

Laura attended the University of Texas – Austin and earned a BS in Advertising. As a self employed individual, she teaches small businesses how to market using social media through her company, LauraRoeder.com. She is also the creator of the Creating Fame Classroom and Your Backstage Pass to Twitter. Continue reading “Pay It Forward 2010 Profile: Laura Roeder” »

Last Friday, I gave a presentation to the Technology Alliance Group for Northwest Washington, otherwise known as TAGNW, on how to attract technical talent to Bellingham. Bellingham, for those of you who don’t know, is a small-ish city halfway between Seattle and Vancouver BC with about 70,000 residents. Our claim to fame is ski-to-sea – we’ve got skiing at Mt. Baker within an hour’s drive of Bellingham Bay, where one can go ocean kayaking, waterskiing, or charter a whale-watching boat in the summertime. In addition to that, we’ve got a series of interurban hiking and biking trails and boast one of the best mountain biking spots in the nation. Not to mention all the waterfalls, county and state parks, camping, dining, concerts, scenic drives, wineries, and wonderful local companies that make this city such an awesome place.

So, why the need for a presentation to attract people to this oasis? What I just described sounds like heaven on earth, doesn’t it? Continue reading “The Intangibles of Recruiting: My @TAGNW Presentation” »

Want a couple of simple tips to make your blog posts more social? I’ve been messing around with a couple of aggregation tools and I’ve discovered two quick ways to get your content in front of more eyeballs in the process. These techniques are simple and will help you to become more findable through some social channels – Twitter in particular. Continue reading “How To Instantly Make Your Blog Posts More “Social”” »