Many thanks to Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells of the Social Media Club for organizing fantastic Social Media Workshop and inviting me to participate. I learned some much from them and Roxanne Darling - who was also instrumental in making this workshop happen and who gave an informative presentation about the power of social media to support tourism goals. A big Mahalo to the generous sponsors (Viddler, Chimp, HTDC, Hubspot, KnowHow Cafe, and Viddler).
I wanted to write some reflections about what worked and what could have been improved with the Social Media Game. As I mentioned to the group, it is always a work in progress and this Aloha Remix included some new ideas - the point system, the situation cards, and scenarios that were not all non-profit.
I best part of this experience was the learning that took place in the room and it is especially impressive because we had a mix of levels. We had social media experts and gurus in the room - in addition to fellow workshop leaders Chris Heuer, Kristie Wells, and Roxanne Darling, we had folks like Todd Cochrane (father of podcasting) Lorelle the Wordpress Guru, Neenz the evangelist from All Top, Colin Devore who is a total expert in social media from Viddler.
But we also had people in the room who were new to social media - trying to understand the concepts of listening, participating, sharing content, and online communtiy building - and who were just being introduced to many of the tools - like Twitter or Utterli.
Would this mix of levels be a recipe for disaster? Heck no! It made the game incredibly rich - and a key learning. In order to play this version of the game, you absolutely need a mix of knowledgable people in the room to facilitate the small groups.
I also think the morning - which includes presentations and world cafe model - introduced all of the key concepts in the game - especially how social media relate to marketing, advertising, publicity, and public relations. We didn't drill down into the tools at all - most mostly concepts and case studies.
It is making me wonder about how to remix this for a group where I have mostly beginners or don't have an expert at each table who is familiar with all the tools. I have two workshops coming up where that might be the case. Hmm ... something to ponder later while walking on the beach.
In addition, I saw some areas to tweak in the initial presentation, point system, and rules that might make it work smoother. I also need to add a card or include viddler and all top into the deck. In addition, Chris Heuer had a fantastic idea - to have a scrabble like board where people could lay all the cards.
I took some live notes over on the wiki, but Lorelle has a wonderful post summarizing the learnings from the game that can be taken into your practice.
- Use the right tool for the job. Not every social media tool will work for every project.
- Target your audience. If you try to paint the world with your project, the return on your investment will be small. If you aim directly for your audience, your ROI may be much higher and less financially painful.
- Be willing to tell your client that they need to change. To achieve some marketing strategy goals, a business might have to change how it markets itself, but also how it does business. It’s a changing world and you have to change with it.
- Old thinking doesn’t work any more. While there is a lot of similarity between the old methodology of marketing and advertising, it really doesn’t work any more. Broad strokes don’t work any more. Customer service is where every advertising dollar must go. Happy customers have big mouths. Everything is social, it’s about the relationships not necessarily the numbers, and throwing money at a problem will not fix it.
- It’s pressure that cuts diamonds. While your plan may be great, it’s the reality in the progress of the project that truly defines the end result. The Social Media Game takes into account “shit happens” and you can win extra points and lose points based upon your decisions to that point. When you are forced to change your strategy and make extreme decisions because of limitations, constraints, and crap that just happens, you make clearer, cleaner, and better decisions, honing the end result often into a better result than you planned in the first place.
- It’s time to rethink and remix everything you knew about marketing. It’s a new world and it’s not too late to catch up. It’s not hard to understand social media, but it is time. Start today.
For those folks who asked if they could have copies of the card (the slide deck can be downloaded from SlideShare), the pdf files can be found here. I set up a wiki where I've collected links to others who have remixed and was hoping to create some templates and source material for people to remix it.
If you are thinking about remixing the game or have done so already, please do share what you learned and your version.
Mahalo!
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