Do you live tweet events? Do you like following others who do? Are you annoyed when your stream is filled with event tweets?

Personally, I love tweeting events and following events I can’t make it to from Twitter. And while I usually have people encourage me to continue, thank me for tweeting and always a sharp increase in followers, there’s always one or two who ask me (sometimes rudely) not to.

So if you do like to tweet at live events-here are a few tips:

• If you are putting out lots of tweets, consider starting those tweets with someone’s username (i.e. the speaker) what this does is ensures those tweets only show up in the streams of people who also follow that person and therefore are likely interested in your tweets.
• You don’t need to tweet EVERY word coming out, wait for the valuable nuggets. However sometimes, especially when you are seeing very seasoned speakers, that’s difficult.
• Tell your followers in advance what conference you are at and that you will be tweeting. You can also recommend they use an app to mute you or temporarily unfollow if they are not interested. I have not used it yet (like I said I like following events!), but I often see TweetAgora recommended. They’re also a Toronto-based startup so full support from me.

If you enjoy live-tweeting and feel you get value in doing so, continue! If you’re a hater, the unfollow link is always there, but I’d consider trying a muting service first.

Maybe this seems strange, but bear with me here. Do you wear glasses? Have you ever thought about buying them online? Chances are it seems like a good idea in theory, but what about trying them on? What about the expert opinion of the optical store sales person? What about fitting and prescriptions and measurements? That’s exactly how I felt too. Until I received a wonderful email from the PR rep at ClearlyContacts.ca offering me a free pair of glasses.

From the email, I learned that ClearlyContacts.ca was targeting bloggers who appeared on a list of influential bloggers in social media. I don’t know who else or how many others were targeted or even how he knew I wore/needed glasses (until this blog post you’d never find a photo of me with them!). As it turns out, eye care is not covered under my benefits and I desperately needed new glasses. Fate!

Now before you get in a huff about whether my blogging habits merit free glasses, or that I’m simply writing about them because I got free glasses, let me point out a few interesting tidbits about this campaign:

• Yes, I got a free pair of glasses.. but if you search ClearlyContacts.ca you’ll see they’ve been handing out free glasses like crazy! In fact, two Fridays ago the ClearlyContacts team gave out 3,000 pairs to Montreal residents, a week before I had seen friends from Ottawa posting they had received free glasses. They’re not just for bloggers, but while they’re giving them away left, right and centre, it’s not a bad strategy to seek out potentially influential people.
• I was never asked to write about my experience, the pitch was more targeted as a reward for my hard work as a blogger. Obviously, they wanted me to write about them, but it was never requested, pushed or really implied even. I also would not write a positive review if my experience wasn’t positive. However, my suspicion is they know they have a good thing going and they’re trying to get the word out. Success!

It’s definitely too soon to tell if the ROI on giving out thousands of pairs of free glasses will pay off. However from my experience I can tell you that already I’ve told at least a dozen people about the site who are now enthusiastic about buying a pair (because they are *SO* much cheaper than any alternative anyway), and I’m definitely a customer for life. I plan on purchasing my contact lenses through the site, and will most definitely purchase my next pair of glasses. Fortunately with the very reasonable prices, I will hopefully not wait another six years for new glasses!

Why it works

If you’re not a glasses-wearer, let me enlighten you for a minute. Glasses are EXPENSIVE. You buy frames which typically can range from $50-$500. Next you need to purchase lenses, lenses can typically run from free (included with the frames) to maybe $200. Optical stores also upsell you on all sorts of extra coatings and features (UV coating, scratch resistant, non-glare coating)… Now if you’re especially blind like me and have radically different prescriptions in each eye, you also need something called high-index lenses so you don’t look like a weirdo (may sound vain, but trust me on this one. Not too mention off-balance glasses). Bottom line: in my experience I’m usually dropping at least $500-800 on a pair of glasses. Even if your benefits cover eye care, it’s usually only about $200 every two years. The rest comes out of pocket.

Now the pair I got (a lovely pair by Valentino) are actually on the more expensive scale on the site ($198) but super reasonable as far as frames go. Lenses are included in the price along with all those fancy up-sell features optical stores will nail you on (all of them! Free!) Even the high index upgrade was only $99. Had I paid the full price, even with taxes they would have come to $327–less than half what I paid for my last pair.

ClearlyContacts.ca has a great product at an amazing price. However, it also has a significant barrier-people want to try on glasses before they buy. Because of this I hadn’t considered buying glasses online, however it turns out it is actually really easy and they have a very generous satisfaction guarantee. In this case, blogger (or influencer) outreach is a great strategy to boost awareness. And like I said, I’m a customer for life now.

While I definitely agree with the masses that this was a well-executed campaign-it was funny, engaging and captured the attention of so many, but I’m still reluctant to declare it a resounding social media success story (yet?) for a few reasons. And more importantly, these are some factors to consider before you go out and try to replicate Old Spice’s success (since I’m sure already this will be a case study social media experts everywhere will be preaching to the masses):

1. Will it increase sales for the company? My guess would be quite possibly, but we don’t know yet, it’s simply too soon to tell. Aren’t we always whining about business outcomes and that success needs to be based on more than just eyeballs?
2. What about ROI? Sure maybe they’ll get fantastic results, but clearly they spend A LOT of money on this campaign.
3. Did Old Spice really take a big risk with this campaign? Well not really, the built it off an already successful ad campaign–which don’t get me wrong was a very smart move, but let’s all remember that when we’re trying to build our own loveable brand character.
4. Doesn’t social media require long-term commitment and ongoing strategy? Obviously they can’t keep up the videos for ever. where will they take it yet? How will they keep their new-found audience engaged? I’m not saying they won’t but perhaps we should wait and see before we declare this the most successful social media campaign of all time.

Maybe I’m just a little bitter because my man already wears Old Spice (long before Old Spice Man even) and now every man will smell like him? Either way, I love the campaign but I’m saying stop the madness–at least until we’ve had enough time to step away and see the whole picture.

And now, for your viewing enjoyment, the original Old Spice Man ad that started this all

Makes a lot of sense, right? Then why is it often lost in the business world?

In my general observation and experiences, most companies don’t follow this rule. Fortunately there are some fantastic examples (Zappos obviously comes to mind!), so not all hope is lost.

Here’s a few examples:

• Do you enjoy receiving unsolicited bulk email? No, you don’t. No one does, so why send it?
• Do you like when old high school friends (or whoever) send you mass Facebook messages daily to promote whatever it is their doing but never actually send a personal message? Probably not.
• Do you like when someone follows you on Twitter, so you follow back, but then only floods your screen with self-promotional tweets and never engages in conversations? Not likely.

The positive side…

We can also look at it in a positive light:

• Do you like being complimented? (I bet you do!) Why not try and compliment someone else every day?
• Do you love your tweets being re-tweeted? Take some time to re-tweet whenever you can. (Hint: don’t always re-tweet people like Chris Brogan and Guy Kawasaki. They get lots of love already, look for the hidden gems.)
• Do you love having an old contact/friend reach out to you randomly, just to say hi? Why not take the time to re-build some old relationships, you never know where you may end up finding a great business connection.

Just a random thought for the day. I’m sure we all know and understand this, but I think sometimes a little reminder can help us all. What are you doing about it today?

Win a free ticket!

There is a cost to attend, but I don’t want that to stop you! That’s why I’m giving away a ticket to one of my readers, all you have to do is leave a comment and tell me what you think is the best way  a business has used Twitter or LinkedIn–doesn’t have to be something you’ve done, just something you’ve seen/heard about. On June 5th I’ll throw all your names in a hat and randomly draw one.  Please, if you do win and later find out you can’t make it, let me know so I can pass it on to someone else.

What I’m really looking for is to identify companies that are looking for, and can truly benefit from, avid and enthusiastic social media users from PR and marketing walks-of-life. Whether it’s a social media strategist role, a community manager, or a more traditional PR/marketing role with a heavy focus on the social media stuff, these roles seem to be few and far between up here in the great white north…

What I’m really looking for as well is Canadian companies who absolutely revolve around the “Web 2.0″ (for lack of a better word here, it’s been a long day!) way of business (think Google & its unique corporate culture). Specifically those that treat each employee as an valuable asset, one that takes an open minded approach to trying new things, and one that’s on the cutting edge of technology and marketing techniques –all the good stuff.

By now these types of companies are a dime a dozen in the US. However, though I’ll admit I haven’t looked *too* hard, I haven’t heard much about Canadian companies like this. Sure some are trying to pass off as this new breed of company, but few actually “walk the walk.”

So without future ado, throw out a suggestion or idea about either sites to find these types of jobs, or some hot companies to keep an eye on. I’ll get it started….

Job Posting Sites

• Ok I could taket he time to post a bunch of good ones, but fortunately My Name is Kate has *already* done that for us! However, I will point out again One Degree (which Kate also owns) as definitely one of the best ones, though not a lot of job postings they are often high quality.
• Yansarazin, a fellow Ottawan & Twitter buddy recommends sites like TechCrunch & Mashable, which seem to have some awesome job posts–but not many Canadian. (When I first asked on Twitter, I didn’t specify Canadian)
• StandOutJobs.com is a Canadian site which caters to the market, probably a good one to keep an eye on.
• Jeremiah Owyang has lots of great advice on his site, as well as tips where to find a job, but again it’s very much US-based as well as focused on large enterprises.

Companies to keep an eye on

This is the biggie – and where I’m looking for your help. Drop a comment and tell me about some innovative Canadian companies that fit the bill. (International companies with a strong presence in Canada will do too) I will update this section as I find/hear about them.

• Radian6, who’s social media monitoring software I will be reviewing here very soon seems to be a company to keep an eye on & I was pleasantly surprised to learn they’re based in New Brunswick.
• Canada.zappos.com Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is definitely a social media mover and shaker, and though the company is based in Las Vegas, I wonder if it’s Canadian branch has some social media leadership potential? Or maybe they need someone like me around? haha

I can probably think of a few more, but it’s bed time, so over to you! Tell me about some great Canadian companies or how you landed your awesome social media job or whatever’s on your mind…

*UPDATE*

Colin suggests starting your own business to do what you really love. I *love* the idea, but scared about losing the consistent monthly income (esp. after working in the public sector) That’s definitely where I’m headed but a while out. PS-If you need any sort of web marketing–Colin is your guy!

Yan chimed in again, this time with Canadian sites like StartUpOttawa.com, Startupnorth.ca, MontrealTechWatch.com, MarkEvansTech.com.

Why will it stick?

Now I’m certainly not ready to give up Twitter–I worked hard to build up my followers–but I could definitely keep coming back to plurk, and that’s because on top of it all it they build another dimension of fun in with your Plurk Karma. The more you post, the more karma you earn, and when you invite people into plurk you earn more karma–this point is key because any type of social site’s success depends on it’s ability to continuously expand. And we all know friend referral is the best way to do that. Anyway, what does plurk karma do? Earns you cool stuff of course! The more karma you get, the more you can customize your profile. As well you earn new and cool smileys. These obviously become “Cool” status symbols and those of us who don’t have them yet are just dying to get them!

So, if you dare, give plurk a try, and don’t forget to add me as your friend!

PS-Are you on Plurk? What do you think about it? Have you not tried it yet? Why not? Keep the conversation going below…

Now I will admit I *could* sit on both sides of this argument, but my real peeve is pulling the “brand” card like your brand makes a big difference in people’s lives, because chances are, it doesn’t. What *really* makes a difference – excellent customer service, open and honest communication and respecting your customers/prospects/stakeholders as real people.

Considering that you spend a lot of money “protecting your brand” only to have people reading your blog in an unbranded reader, or getting your emails as text or mangled HTML, or maybe just mis-read or represented by others. Is it really worth it?

1. It’s not about the tools.

Despite the fact that this blog IS (mostly) about the tools, the whole concept and ideals behind social media are not. It’s about better communication because people are now able to connect, grow, learn on their own, at a faster pace than ever before. And businesses need to adapt. Those who’ve grown accustomed to ‘old’ marketing often dismiss terms like social media, user-generated content etc as a passing fad, or just another tool for the marketing toolkit, but it’s really so much more. Personally I’ve never been a fan of “interruption marketing” or broadcast media, simply because as a consumer, I hate tv commercialsand the fact that over 50% of my magazine is ads and especially those ugly flashing banners on site, they’re all in my way and wasting my valuable time. However, I love when a brand engages me with a fun flash game, or sends me emails with exclusive offers I can pass along, or even follows me on twitter and participates in my (sometimes) silly conversations. I really love it. And while some believe the old marketing is a necessary evil, I don’t. I’m done with it, before I ever really got started…

I started my career as a PR girl working in the email marketing biz. Like marketing, PR often gets a bad wrap, but for different reasons. I was always taught the key to PR was respecting your audiences and giving them exactly what they want in order to acheive your goals and objectives and that honesty, ethical behavior and transparency are absolutely essential. It makes perfect sense to me, and I saw it as very relatable to email marketing, which is probably why it was so easy for me to understand, embrace and tell others about. (BTW I still blog about email marketing, over at Tamara Gielen’s Be Relevant! Blog)

2. Sadly, though the book was written nearly 10 years ago (eons in Internet years…) So many companies still don’t get it.

By “it” I mean the fact that “mass marketing” is no longer effective, that employees are a company’s greatest asset and that open, honest and personal dialogue between a company and its customers is the new key to success (these are the points Cluetrain Manifesto is really driving home). I’m only now realizing the reason I get all this social media/online stuff is that as a teenager I was secretly a big geek–on newsgroups, IRC, early bulletin boards, etc. I loved that I was able to learn and get to know people potentially on the other side of the world. I’m super curious by nature and the Internet has always been my portal to ‘the rest of the world’ outside the suburb I grew up in. Now though the tools have evolved and changed greatly, although Facebook and MySpace and the likes have brought these things into the mainstream, really it’s all the same. In fact, in 1999 I joined a local nightlife website which became my obsession for years, it was membership driven, had bulletin boards, the ability to ‘friend’ other users, share photos and toggle event attendance… It *was* a social network, and it was a huge part of me, before I even knew what the term social network was!

Ok, wait, back to my main point here. The point about companies getting “it” has been proven 100 times over. Take Google for example – have you ever seen a Google TV ad? What about banner ads? How did YOU here about Google?(My mom actually told me about it!) What about its slogan ‘don’t be evil’ and have you taken a peek at the Googleplex lately? It’s pretty obvious Google has evolved into the type of company that embraces new ideals brought on by the communications shift, and I don’t have to tell you it’s working for them. Consequently, not only is Google bringing in bazillions of dollars ever quarter, it’s got hundreds (probably thousands, actually) of brand evangelists walking around–employees that is…Who doesn’t love working with those who absolutely love their jobs?

I haven’t posted in a while, so please excuse my wacky tangents. My time for blogging is tighter than ever, and the hardest part is finding inspiration for writing (I could write for hours on end, so long as I’m inspired)… If you have any great topics, ideas, or suggestions, drop me a line at kelly(at)web2dotwhat.com or, of course, comments are always open!

In this on-going series (though I warn you it might be slow) I’m going to look at the various tools available and give my opinion on what I like about them and why I think they are useful.

First up is a company called Infegy, who has a tool called Social Radar. When I first mentioned I was interested in exploring SMMs, Infegy President Adam Coomes contacted me right away via Twitter, so these guys are definitely on the ball. Since this is the first tool I’ve looked at, I don’t really have any benchmark, but I was definitely able to see a lot of value in it (vs monitoring via Google Alerts and good old-fashioned legwork, which I have done in the past). For those of you in a hurry, here’s my quick review

Product: Social Radar by Infegy
What it does: Tracks mentions on blogs and any site with feed capabilities; allows you to analyze that data and better understand value of mentions.
Who’s it best for: Hmm, probably small to mid-size companies with a moderate to strong online presence (Though it could definitely be scalable for larger companies).
Who should use it: Someone who knows a little about social media, loves to look at and manipulate numbers and data.
Why you’ll love it: Super fast, intuitive, easy to use.
But what is the product really like? I’ve used quite a few online tools for varying purposes, but never have I seen anything run as smoothly or quickly as Social Radar, even when doing complex searches in its very well developed database. Right off the bat I was impressed.

Also, one of my favorite features is the home page. Think iGoogle, but for the purpose of media monitoring; you are able to pick and choose which widgets you’d like to display, so you build your own dynamic dashboard:

Also if you’re an analytics junkie, you’ll love this tool. You are able to slice and dice data in any way you like and run beautiful charts to satisfy upper management.

Finally in my informal list of what made me go “oooh” and “aaaah”: the tool lets you build ‘eco-systems’ like this picture below. Basically each orb represents a blog or site talking about your product/brand/search term, and the lines around it represent inbound and outbound links, giving a great visual representation of influence. While I definitely think if you’re really on the ball, you should be reading all the influential blogs in your space, (so it would be no surprise). However this tool would allow you to easily explain influence and the importance to others, say managers, who pay your salary. Obviously this is important!

Infegy’s Social Radar is based on an enormous database of feeds which is constantly growing and updating. From the demo I had it was definitely apparent it covers enough sites out there to get good bang for your buck. The only downside I noticed was that it’s unable to track mentions in audio or video files (i.e. podcasts) Though I’m not sure that’s possible for anyone, so I wouldn’t hold it against them. Also, presumably most podcasts would have a feed, and probably a text description so you’d still be covered.

Anyone out there ever use Social Radar? Any thoughts?

**UPDATE!**

So I actually did this demo about three weeks ago and just received a tip from CEO Justin Graves about a brand new feature. I was going to wait a few days to update, but it’s just sooo cool I had to get it up here. Now Social Radar can read the sentiment and give you an indication about whether your coverage is positive, negative or neutral. I’ve never heard of this being possible before, so it sounds fantastic! Now I haven’t seen it in action, but I wouldn’t expect it to be a *perfect* science, but invaluable none-the-less. Here’s a few shots of it in action. Justin also tells me you are able to build these charts based on a specific time frame and are able to compare month-by-month or year-by-year… Whatever makes most sense.