Beth's Blog: Nonprofits and Social Media

I'm the Social Media Tourist of the Future and Other Excuses Why I'm Not At PodCamp/Word Camp Hawaii

Sara with Roxanne Darling after the session about Tourism 2.0

The amazing Roxanne Darling and many dedicated Hawaiian social media leaders have organized Podcamp and WordCamp Hawaii.   The event is bringing together over 500 participants to the Hawaii Convention Center to meet some of the top podcasters, bloggers, videobloggers, social media experts, and web gurus.   I attended yesterday very briefly in the morning (with my entire family!) and heard a session called "Using New Media To Capture Outbound Chinese Tourism" with Roxanne Darling and and Christine Lu. (Kids sat through the session because they feel asleep due to jet lag!)

Kids are not smiling because they are muttering
when are we going to the beach?

I usually attend conferences alone and the family stays behind.  But when I told my family I had an opportunity to go to Hawaii, they insisted on coming along.   So, decided to take an all too brief family vacation.  This is a first for me - to have my family with me and to actually enjoy the location where I'm working.

Hanging with Neenz from All Top. 

I probably wouldn't have gotten to the beach or enjoyed Island culture if my family wasn't here, I would have been blogging the whole time!    We did get a chance to hang some social media geeks.  My kids just loved Neenz from All Top, not only because she gave them all top stickers with the donkey word on them, but because she said to us "Go to the beach now!"

So, that's my excuse for leaving podcamp so early ....  I just couldn't listen to sessions about Tourism 2.0 without experiencing Hawaii as a Social Media tourist.   So, we headed off to the North Shore, and I tweeted, flickered, and streamed our fun.

My husband and I visited Hawaii 15 years ago before the Web was around.  To prepare for that trip, we did months of research.  We picked up some guide books from the library and wrote away to the Tourism boards for maps, brochures and suggestions.   We didn't have a way to connect easily with other Tourists or know which of our friends could give us suggestions.

This trip was different.  While we checked out the Hawaii Tourism web site, it didn't influence our final decisions -- many which were made by reaching out to my social media friends and network.  I didn't do the amount of advanced planning either - making many decisions in the moment. 

I posted a status alert on Facebook and asked for some suggestions on Twitter. Friends messaged me about where to eat, what to see, and what to do. That's how we made many of our choices.

Sara enjoys Shaved Ice at Waiola

I learned about Shaved Ice on Twitter from my friend Paul Henderson who has lived in Hawaii. While I was eating Shaved Ice, I tweeted it and shared the experience with some followers.

Our North Shore experience started with a visit to the Dole Plantation to ride the Pineapple Express, wander the world's largest maze, and eat Pineapple soft ice cream.

But what a great reaction from my twitter friends was the Coi Pig out

Next we headed up to Waimea Valley where there was a beautiful botanical garden and waterfall. I didn't have a signal, so I fulfilled my one Hawaii experience goal - do macro photography of exotic flowers and birds. Harry and Sara got to frolick in the falls.

Qiking the Hawaiian Sunset at Sunset Beach

We left just in time to catch sunset at Sunset Beach - I twittered the sunset at sunset beach with my toes in the ocean. Unfortunately, I dropped my treo in the sand and it touch screen no longer works - much to the glee of some followers who telling me how jealous they were! Sorry guys. Or sharing my fun with their friends by retweeting.

We found ourselves up on the North Shore and looking for the perfect place to eat. We wanted a place with great food, good wine by the glass list, and kid friendly. I tweeted this and luckily Michael Ni who does PR for Hawaii Tourism suggested Ola's where we had a superb meal (I had the garlic shrimp and a wonderful salad).

The kid's meals were great, but best of all were served on a frisbee. So, after they finished, they could play on the beach while my husband and I enjoyed the ocean view and breeze.

The waiter gave us the check and asked how we heard about the restaurant. I told him Twitter. He wasn't familiar, so I showed him how to Twitter and also about live streaming. He was excited and said he was going to tell the owner about Social Media -- I did an interview with him via Qik.

Then onto Polynesian Cultural Center - and the spooky zoo ride, Unfortunately, it was sold out because we got there too late. (Ah, an excuse to go back to Ola's!) We'll visit today, but earlier. Now, all we need is a hiking place and a beach suggestion nearby ... so @kanter me. Aloha!

Social Media Club Workshop in Hawaii: Reflections on Social Media Game - Aloha Version

Hawaii Social Media Game

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: hawaii socialmediaclub)

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!