Courting social media groups - very smart marketing

I took a couple of days off following Veteran’s day. Not for anything important just for the pleasure of having a couple of beautiful San Antonio fall days at home, some time to take care of a few administrative details of life and to work on a couple of writing projects.

I opened the house up and aired it out and wrote some on my National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWrimo, project, went out to the Roy Maas Youth Alternatives facility in Boerne, Texas for a tour and some interviews for an upcoming article and went to a tweetup at Patty Lou’s Restaurant where Jalepeno Pancakes and friends involved in communicating were the special draw. I really enjoyed the food and the company. If you get a chance, I’d recommend a breakfast there sometime. The prices are great and the place reminds me of a small-town cafe in almost any town, including my own hometown of Chehalis, Wash. If you aren’t familiar with it, it is on the corner of McCullough and Hildebrand.

If you have a small business and social media group in your home town, I recommend joining it. It usually is free and you will be surprised at how many like-minded people you will meet. There will be techies, journalists, bloggers and people who just enjoy telling great stories through social and traditional media outlets. They are generous with their ideas and really work to help people get in tune with the best uses for social media. I learn something from the great group here in San Antonio every time I get a chance to meet up, or tweetup, with them.


One of the things we talked about was how smart businesses were currently courting the active social media set with great results. These people are in touch with their communities and come with their own built-in networks. When they join those networks together, they create a powerful communication tool. Courting your local social media group is very smart marketing. If you are a small business, or a start-up and you want to create a buzz about your services, invite the local social media club to come and see what you do. Make an event out of it so that there is value added for attending. Ask them to “report” the event. Most of the time you won’t have to ask them to report, they will just do it because that is what they are all about. Instant buzz for the cost of a few refreshments, some entertainment or a discount.

We also talked about bad examples of social media use. We looked at citizen journalists who “reported” on the shootings at Ft. Hood. Not all of the comments were good because, contrary to popular belief, reporters don’t want all the gory details. The folks I sat with brought up some really bad examples of citizen journalism that violated some very basic rules of privacy, namely the HIPA rights patients have -- no matter who they are. The one citizen journalist that made the “I’ll never follow a person like that” list was someone at the hospital where the shooter was taken. They were tweeting about how the patient looked and how they couldn’t believe that he was brought there at all - and a few other unsavory comments. Lesson learned, even though - and probably because - twitter is instant, some things are still better left unsaid.

If ou live here in San Antonio, check out the Social media club visit http://smc-sa.ning.com/