Social Media Events - How things have changed!

Last week thousands gathered via WOM to see Dave Chappelle in my own hometown at Pioneer Square. The Chappelle 'show' was a total success - by accident - purely by the instantanous word of mouth tools like text messaging, Twitter, and Facebook.

While Mashable has done a great How-To Article, and there's a good Slideshare presentation on how to do this, but here's my Social Media event planning playbook on how to create and market an event using social media.

1. Create the killer event. Let's face it - in this economy, WOM won't work if it's just...blah. Create a topic that gives immediate answers that your audience is facing right NOW, or a unique challenge to traditional thinking, or bring in a speaker that is real buzz worthy is critical in stretching out that event message. Who is well... your Dave Chappelle? This is the most critical step in spreading WOM. Ensure you can spread the word- it's worth going!

2. Use your existing network - or find one. Whether you own your own business or market for one, where is your network? On Facebook? LinkedIn? Twitter? Do you have Salesforce.com? Maybe your target audience isn't in your digital or social rolodex, - can you find that subgroup in an existing social network? Are they talking on Twitter? How can you reach them? Keep in mind - you want a wide net, not just to send your message to one network, but to many.

3. Prepare your message. Get a consistent message and brand it. That means putting the event out on Upcoming, Eventful, Facebook events, messaging in your blog and creating event ads and emails to reachout with your peers to spread awareness. A consistent memorable message about your event can really aide WOM marketing. Get ready with widgets and links including hashtags for tracking - all in a one page 'play book' for your sales team and collegues to link to the event.

4. Set up incentives. You can start messaging early with hashtags and twitter by offering free event for the first volunteers, discounts for early birds and exclusives for coming through particularly popular bloggers, and more. This will help you fill the event and gauge how effective your different social channels are doing at attracting attendees.

5. Align your players. By now you have brainstormed on all the ways you can build word-of-mouth about your event. That means you+at least a dozen people who will spread the word on our behalf- in multiple social channels. Match the players with the channels they are best at spreading the word (including blogging, email, and even phone). This may likely mean, you are doing old-school networking - sitting down and selling your event- to have them get the word out for you.

6. Spread the word. Communicate what the event is, why you should go, what the offers are and how to RSVP, and communicate go-live dates for invites and reminders to your network.

7. Show the play-by-play. At the event make sure you have asked people to live tweet and blog your events - in advance. Chances are you may be too busy in the AV details and event itself - and capturing the event details are great in creating buzz around the event.

8. Capture post-event highlights. You can also ensure you've captured the buzz with pics on Flicker, and video highlights on YouTube. These help keep the energy and momentum of your event going even after the guests are out the door.

Social Smarts: Integrating Email and Facebook

Let's face it - Facebook has seen hockeystick growth over the last year - over 175M active Facebook users last count, if you are a consumer brand, you are probably, like many figuring it out as you go along. Email can be a great channel for spring-boarding your social media campaign on Facebook. Then again, Facebook can be a great way to grow your email list organically. Here's a few great best practices in integrating social media and email.

1. Email - When you Go Big: Drive Exclusive Offers for Facebook Fans. For French Connection, they offer exclusive news and offers- and track these offers uniquely. Recently, French Connections and others started doing this with Twitter as well.

2.: Use Navigational elements in email to drive awareness of your brand's social footprint. You can see below in the footer from Peet's there's a clear list of social media sites: Blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube - plus a viral element to forward to a friend.

3. Message via email - and Facebook. If you are looking for a last minute Valentine's gift - it's okay to post updates on Facebook, and with an email campaign - just make sure you track both uniquely.

4. Like email, mix it up, and keep it relevant. Whether you are CPG product which has a Facebook recipe contest, or a fashion retailer with Facebook fans decked in your finest, fans can help your Facebook presence say isn't about just promotion, - it's about the fans.

5. Test. Track. Test. Repeat. Make it part of your practice to uniquely tracks text and logo for Facebook to see which users originated from which email - and which linked from email to Facebook or other social destination site. Having unique email and Facebook offer codes, and link tracking to help you evaluate how well these integrated campaigns work for your business, and which integrated campaigns worked best for your brand.

Four Easy Ways to Integrate Social Media and Email Marketing

In several social media white papers and presentations, there is this concept that email marketing is purely a 'push' mechanism to share information from a company to a consumer. Working for an email marketing ESP, I find that this thinking is long antiquated. Our best clients already use and integrate social media content in their email marketing campaigns. There's a few examples I came across which provide some easy ways to get started in integrating social media content in email campaigns. Numerous studies have shown that consumers trust information from other consumers - much more than from companies that send them email. Integrating more user generated content will bring your brand and it's advocates closer together.

1. Leverage 'creator' content in how to best use your product or service. If for example, you manufacture shoes, you can leverage 'best pairing' blogs on how to create new looks for spring. The example to the left is from Kraft's member newsletter.


2. Add Links for User Ratings,and common Q&A to your newsletters. Knowing what's a five star product from Sephora for example versus a 3 1/2 star product is tremendously valuable. In this example, member questions are included in an email newsletter.

3. Provide ways for your subscribers to connect with you - and each other. Do you have a Facebook page? Are you building a 'follow' audience on Twitter? In your email footers, you can provide links to where to find you company in Social Networks. Peet's Coffee and Tea for example, provides links for social networks, and blogs allowing recipients to find more about them, and become fans or followers.

4. Provide tools for sharing, bookmarking, and publishing your email content. This viral tactic moves your content beyond the inbox for others, including potential new subscribers, to find it. The example above is from Read Write Web. Better to have someone follow you in their RSS feed than not at all!