Social Media Club Louisville

While things may seem quiet on the Social Media Club Louisville front, rest assured we have been mighty busy. The organization is now an official non-profit corporation. We have a board of directors (more below) and have had a successful first fund-raising event in our Boot Camp for Non-Profits last week. But that’s not the really good news. (Chris Brogan is coming to visit us in May.)

While we are not scheduling an official event in February, we have an exciting list of events for the spring I wanted to give you a sneak preview of so you could get them on your calendars.

MARCH GATHERING: HOW MARKETING IN A RECESSION IS SMARTER WITH SOCIAL MEDIA

SMC Louisville’s leadership will take you through ideas, strategies and tactics of marketing your organization in tough economic times using social media. Learn how to achieve marketing success with tightened purse strings and conservative budgets. Join us on Tuesday, March 24 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Louisville Visual Art Association at the Water Tower.

SOCIAL MEDIA BOOT CAMP FOR ADVERTISING, MARKETING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS

We’ll turn our focus to the advertising, marketing and public relations industries on April 14. for a half-day boot camp that will give professionals in those industries an up-close look at the tools, technologies and strategies they can use to reach their audiences in the social media space. This will be more than just the basics with particular focus given to working with creatives, integrating social media strategies across campaigns and delivering return on investment for social media efforts. Mark your calendars for 8 a.m. until 11 a.m., Tuesday, April 14. Location TBD. This will be a working session, so bring your own laptops! The cost will be $100.00 per person. (Opportunity to RSVP to come.)

APRIL GATHERING: GENO CHURCH FROM BRAINS ON FIRE

Join us for breakfast on Thursday, April 30 (site and time TBD) for a chat with Geno Church from Brains on Fire. Church is the word of mouth inspiration officer for Greenville, S.C., based Brains on Fire. Church and his firm helped develop the award-winning word of mouth movement, the Fiskateers, which is part of the Fiskars Brand. Church will take us through the social media and off-line strategies that help build a more than 5,000-member community of brand enthusiasts for Fiskars.

MAY GATHERING: CHRIS BROGAN

Social media expert and industry thought leader Chris Brogan will join us for two events on Tuesday, May 19. His New Marketing Summit organization will conduct an all-day boot camp, then Chris will speak to SMC Louisville Tuesday night. Sites and exact times are to be announced. The boot camp will have a cost associated with it. Details will be announced soon.

JUNE GATHERING: SUMMER NETWORKING

Join us from 6:30-8:30 p.m. on June 16 for some good, old fashioned networking. No formal presentation is planned. Door prizes will be given away.

SMC LOUISVILLE ELECTS BOARD OF DIRECTORS

As part of our incorporation as a non-profit organization, we were required by law to name officers which now comprise our board of directors. The Social Media Club Louisville officers are: Jason Falls, President; Michelle Jones, Vice-President; Nick Huhn, Treasurer; Brendan Jackson, Secretary; David Finch, Board Member. We would also like to thank Dan Canon (our lawyer) and Tammy Finch (our accountant) for assisting us with the incorporation and setup of the organization.

And just to make up for the lack of a February presentation, here’s some added value for you for this month.

Enjoy!

1. 100+ Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn - Linked Intellingence

2. 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business - Chris Brogan

3. Starting a Bog? 12 Ideas for Blog Posts - Online Journalism Blog

4. The Social Media Starter Kit - Altitude Branding

5. How to Use the New Friendfeed Search for Social Media Intelligence - Read Write Web

If you made it out to our bootcamp for nonprofits last week (or looked at our slides from the event) you know that a couple different presenters references the work of Beth Kanter. Business Week has done a little feature on her and how she uses her social networking to do good. Very much of interest to nonprofit folks I would think.

Beth Kanter remembers it as the year that Yahoo ruined the holidays. In was late 2006. The Boston-based Kanter had already notched lots of successes in fundraising for her Cambodian charity, the Sharing Foundation. But when Yahoo (YHOO) offered $50,000 to the do-gooder who could enlist the most contributors, Kanter shifted into overdrive.

“I showed the people on the [charity's] board how to send the e-mails pointing people to the site. I made my husband go to work. I went totally nuts. We were starting to get gifts that were second or third degree out. (That’s social networking lingo for friends of friends.) On New Year’s Eve, we were watching the ball drop and suddenly donations went up $15,000 from someone we didn’t know. We raised $53,000 and won the $50,000. And we doubled our donor list.”

Wild Apricot has a roundup and explanation of some online payment processing options for nonprofits. This ties in very nicely to our Social Media Bootcamps for Nonprofits yesterday so I wanted to pass it along.

Perhaps the most important part of the post though is this:

Ease of use is a huge factor — if the payment process is a big hassle for you to set up and manage, there may be an investment in time and/or tech support that’s more than you can manage right now.

Further, a membership payment or donation may be abandoned before it’s completed if the process is not quick, simple, and relatively painless from the online donor’s perspective. Users will be quick to abandon a payment if they are uncertain about what they’re doing, for fear of making a costly mistake.

Sometimes, “trust” and “ease of use” come together to create a barrier to donation

We had a great, interested and interesting group turn out for our Social Media Bootcamp for Nonprofits this morning. Thanks so much to everyone who attended. We sincerely hope you enjoyed the session and that you found value in it.

As promised here are the slides from the bootcamp. First is David Finch’s presentation on listening, then my presentations on Blogging and Personal Branding, then Brendan Jackson’s talk on RSS & Twitter. I’ll have Nick Huhn’s Facebook slides up as soon as I can as well. Nick Huhn’s slides have been added in now.