Archive for the ‘Celebrities’ Category

Posted on June 19, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

On the Social Media plane with the @SkyDiver – Peter Shankman, adventures in Raleigh.

Earlier this week I had a chance to spend some time with Peter Shankman. Peter was in town to speak at the Raleigh Public Relations Society (RPRSA) 50th Anniversary and Award Dinner . Peter arrived in Raleigh on Monday evening and I followed the tweets to “track” his whereabouts so we could catch up and have some dinner later that evening. When Peter arrived, Kipp Bodnar, Jeff Cohen and I took Peter to The Pit Barbecue Restaurant in downtown Raleigh. We had some laughs, talked about Peter’s HARO (Help A Reporter Out) newsletter, and conference ideas over some great food. Jeff had never met Peter before and I told him to be ready because there’s only one Peter Shankman and when you meet him, just enjoy the experience. I think Jeff did and all I’m going to say is we didn’t order any chicken. (inside joke)

On Tuesday before Peter’s PRSA speech, Kipp and I met Peter at his hotel to hang out and record a few videos. One video I didn’t record is Peter when he came storming into the conference room after his workout about a Google Alert he just received with his name in it. I’m not going to tell you what he said, you’ll have to ask him about that, but it was very funny! Here’s Kipp video with Peter on “Customer Service Killing Public Relations“.

Later that evening Peter, Kipp and I walked from the hotel to Marbles Kids Museum where he was speaking. Almost immediately after arriving at Marbles, Peter saw the some of the green fun balls and the next thing you know a tweet went out saying “BALL PIT BALL PIT BALL PIT!!!!! OMG Shiny and round!!” with the twitpic photo below.

As the night continued Peter gave his talk about HARO, his thoughts on pitching on Twitter and social media. Here are a few tweets from Peter’s talk.
@skydiver says we talk to 3% of our network daily – let’s connect people! (via @khubbard)

Same four rules from @skydiver… New context. # 1 Transparency. Got to do it. People will google your faults. Be transparent.

When a journalist needs a source…they call me. That’s power. (Via @skydiver)

@skydiver – Great speech at RPRS, Peter. Especially the focus on accountability.

You can also watch his talk via the video below.

After the talk, Peter shook hands and posed for a few pictures. Kipp and I gave Mr. Shankman a ride back to his hotel and called it a night. It was fun to see Peter again, as the last time we had a chance to hang out was at SXSW and before that was another PRSA dinner in Greensboro, NC late last year. If you’re wondering, like some of the attendees of the PR Society Awards Dinner, how do I know Peter Shankman? The answer is via Twitter early in 2007. We met offline at a Triangle Interactive Marketing Association (TIMA) event in 2007.

A few notes on what I learned from watching Peter in action.
1. Always stay connected to your mobile device checking emails.
2. Have fun
3. Be yourself and don’t try to impress someone when you find out they have a lot of followers on twitter….
4. If you don’t want to receive an email from HARO or Peter just use the (unsubscribe link) long story.
5. Be passionate about your work and think of ways to scale your products and/or services
6. Build a productive, trustworthy team around you.
7. Be careful who you offend.
8. Speak with passion about your topic when giving speeches.
9. Remember, it’s about you!

Here are a few photos after the Raleigh PR Society Awards.

A big thanks Joe Mecca to and the entire Raleigh PR Societyfor hosting the event and congrats to the winners.

Posted on June 15, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

14 things I learned about Matt Mullenweg and WordPress at WordCampRDU

Photo via WordCampRDU

This past Saturday, I had a chance to participate in WordCampRDU. Matt Mullenweg (Ma.tt), the co-founder of WordPress and AutoMattic, was the keynote speaker at the event. After WordCampRDU several of us had a chance to spend some time with him over burgers and bbq downtown Raleigh. Matt had my full attention, as I always try to learn as much as I can from successful individuals, especially those in the online/technology world. Here are 14 things I learned about WordPress and Matt. Some were new features of WordPress, while others were reminders about existing features that I hadn’t used.

1. VideoPress:
VideoPress is WordPress new video hosting feature. It costs $59.97 a year as an upgrade feature for WordPress.com users, but there is also a beta VideoPress plugin for WordPress.org users. You can custom design the VideoPress player and additional player branding features are on the way.

2. WP.com:
Matt recently acquired the domain WP.com and told the WordCampRDU crowd that it “may” become a tinyurl service for WordPress blogs. It’s something Matt has thought about, but he mentioned how spammers abuse existing tinyurl services. I’m confident that the WordPress team will find a way to implement this feature.

3. P2 WordPress Theme:
I’m not going to say Matt doesn’t like twitter but, have you really taken a look at the P2 Theme for WordPress? It’s not your normal blog theme. By installing the P2 theme you can have your own microblog platform with threaded replies. I use the P2 WordPress theme on http://smhustle.com. Search for other examples of P2 being used to see the many things you can do with this new theme or watch the video below:

4. Press This Button:
WordPress includes a Press This button under the tools section that allows you to blog from any web page. It acts like a bookmarklet for your blog.

5. Matt is a “stat-a-holic”:
Matt love stats. Just ask Matt about downloads of WordPress 2.8, plugins being installed, or how much bandwidth his company uses and he can tell you the numbers off the top of his head. If math is required, he can calculate it easily on his iPhone.

6. WordPress for iPhone app:
You have to like a someone who’s honest about his own product. Matt mentioned in his keynote that he’s not a fan of WordPress for iPhone application and to expect a new version a few months after iPhone 3.0 OS has been released.

7. Matt is more than just WordPress:
At just 25 years old, Matt has already accomplished more than what some have done in a lifetime. With those accomplishments comes experiences and although Matt co-founded WordPress he sometimes would rather talk about other topics such as entrepreneurship and life. He told us a story about a talk he given about a man who had a perfect memory. If you ever get a chance to meet Matt ask him about it.

8. Matt is not the CEO of Automattic or WordPress:
I was writing a blog post on my iPhone blog and Matt kindly corrected me that he’s not the CEO but the co-founder.

9. It’s AutoMattic and not Automatic:
You get it it? It’s Auto”Matt”ic … nice one, Matt.

10. Matt is a forward thinker:
Matt is a forward thinker. We were talking about how the Kindle and the iPhone touch was ready a few years before public knowledge. Matt and the WordPress team are already working on making WordPress better to work with software and hardware three years from now. “If you start now you’ll be ready vs starting in three years and playing catch up.” Matt says.

Photo via Jason Keath

11. Matt is not a Mac guy:
Surprisingly, Matt doesn’t carry a MacBook around, but a Sony PC. He also started Palm users group back in the day. But he does have an iPhone now and most of the AutoMattic team uses Macs.

12. What Matt likes about NC?
Matt loves NC sweet tea. We tried to take Matt to one of our famous BBQ places but it was full. I think he still ordered BBQ, but I didn’t get a chance to see what he thought about NC BBQ vs other states BBQ.

13. Email a post to WordPress.com
Did you know you can create a unique email address for your WordPress.com blog and email post with attachments. You can even email .mp3 files to your WordPress.com blog and they’ll post and play automatically.

14. OpenID and Jabber:
WordPress.com is an OpenID provider and you can use your WordPress.com user name to for Jabber chatting. I think there’s something WordPress may have to turn on to get Jabber to work with your username, or it may be a user error on my part. But it does work. Update: Matt emailed me to let me know the way the WordPress Jabber account work is username@im.wordpress.com.

Overall all after spending a few hours with Matt, I left with the impression that Matt is one of the smartest and coolest guys in technology. He doesn’t get as much credit as he deserves for contributing to the success of others, and to the internet as an whole. Thanks, Matt, for creating an awesome platform and I hope we’re able to cross paths again soon.

Photo via Kipp Bodnar.

Also I did get a chance to interview Matt for the upcoming relaunch of WayneSutton.TV. Be on the lookout for the interview online soon.

Posted on March 21, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

@iamDiddy says, take that to mogulus and the twitter nation

The King of Bad Boy & MTV ‘s Making the Band super producer Sean aka Diddy Combs is officially taking over or at least trying to take over twitter. In recent weeks Diddy has been pimping his twitter profile (@iamDiddy) more than Donnie’s 1st album and although I didn’t see the show, I heard he was on Ellen talking about twitter like he was the cofounder … only Diddy.

The other day I saw a tweet by Diddy saying he was live and it went to his Mogulus live stream url http://www.mogulus.com/ptwittytvlive Take a look at Diddy on Mogulus, it was short lived..

Diddy was forced to switch to Mogulus after high traffic volume shut down his feed at Ustream.TV. Surprisingly, while Diddy was broadcasting on Mogulus, the Ustream.TV team contacted him and asked him to come back to Ustream.tv because they worked things out. Ok, Diddy… I wish I had that problem. Either way, the next day Diddy was all set with a custom Ustream.TV design, without the normal Ustream.TV chat but a tweetgrid.com widget. Ustream.TV show url: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ptwittytv

Why tweetgrid, instead of the live chat? Simple: @iamDiddy is all about the tweets and followers. He even said on the Mogulus live stream that he wasn’t responding to the chat but only tweets. On top of that, guess what the #1 trending word was on search.twitter.com Friday? Diddy.

So can the man who has the #1 show on MTV now have the #1 show on twitter and Ustream.TV? Only time will tell. Also check out: P Diddy Becomes the Newest Celeb to Use Ustream.tv on Mashable.com.

• What are your thoughts on P.Twitty.TV?
• Is Diddy over doing it or is he showing the rest of the music industry how to use social media to survive?
• What music artist would you like to see use social media like Diddy?
• Did Mogulus miss an opportunity to work with Diddy while he was using their service?

Posted on December 23, 2008 - by Wayne Sutton

Hill Harper makes history using social media. Hollywood takes a back seat to the web.

Tonight I felt like I was watching history in the making. I sat at my computer, watched James Andrews @keyinfluencer , host a live video show with famed movie, star and current CSI actor Hill Harper (@hillharper) and participated in an online chat with many other online friends who I’ve communicated with previously through the popular social networking site twitter. The show took place on Hill’s For Real Solution Ning social networking site http://www.forrealsolutions.com along with a Meebo chat. The entire setup used, Ustream.TV for the live show, meebo embed chat, blogtalkradio for audio recording and viewer call-in. I originally heard about the live show via an email from the http://www.forrealsolutions.com ning website as I’m a member their but then I was reminded again by @TheJennTaFur on twitter. You can say she’s was the unofficial marketing person for the event.  The show started at 9:00 p.m. EST but I started visiting the site around 8:45 and was surprised to see many of my virtual friends already online chatting including:

• @Abenton – Angla Benton, cofounder of http://blackweb20.com
• @Jaheed – http://www.vl-hosting.com
• @TheJennTaFur - http://thejenntafur.tumblr.com
• @indiebusiness - Donna Maria – http://www.indiebusinessblog.com
• @dhatfield – Debbi Hatfield – http://daniellehatfield.blogspot.com
• @rahsheen – Rahsheen Porter -  http://sheenonline.biz

I left the live show before it ended but while watching, the free meebo chat reached it’s limit of 80 users, viewers were redirected to the blogtalkradiochat room and the ustream.tv count was up to 167 people watching Hill Harper engage with friends, family, fans, followers about topics that such as politics, eduction, entrepreneurship, giving back to the community, youth, social media, support for single home families and more.  I even had a chance to call-in and talk to Mr. Hill Harper himself which lead to Mr. Harper asking me about how he could grow his twitter following (I was put on the spot) in which I suggested he tweeting about his life, do Q&A with other of his celebrity friends and about his day to day activities. After that I asked Mr. Harper about how he got involved with social media and why don’t we see other actors using it. To hear Hill’s answer you can listed to the entire show here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thekeyinfluencer/2008/12/23/talk-w-hill-harper

So why was this history in the making? For one, how many actors do you know willing to take the time to do a live Q&A via the web about almost any topic from any caller? I know their are a few but not that many. Also during tonight’s show I didn’t feel as though as I was watching Hill Harper the Hollywood actor but Hill Harper a friend who has some of the same concerns and passions as I do. For those of you who have been on twitter for at least 9 months then you know transparency, relationships and conversations are three buzzwords that everyone is saying when we talk about social media, well tonight we saw all three in action. But this method of using social media won’t work for everyone and just because you’re an actor or NBA player or rap star or country boy from the tobacco field doesn’t mean you’re going to start a twitter account, host a live show and have thousands of followers on twitter or other online projects, it takes work.
Tonight’s question from Hill had me wondering why Mr. Harper doesn’t have more twitter followers than I do? Mr. Harper currently has 1,229 followers when I last checked. He’s a famous actor, played in various movie rolls, TV shows, written a book, been a guest in music videos and I think he is close friends with President Elect Barack Obama.

Not only have I seen Mr. Harper on twitter but I’ve seen him record Youtube videos and engage with online users using other digital platforms as well.

In a time we’re we have seen Britney Spears and TylerPerry being called out for not using twitter or social media correctly by having their PR team doing their only promotions here is Mr. Harper engaging the community, having a conversations with his followers the right way. Could Mr. Harper do a better job tweeting, yes but so could the other 100,000 or more new twitter users just signed up in the last few months. (see techcrunch post).  Will Mr. Harper grow his followers online, yes, just as long as he keeps doing projects like he did last night.

Well, me being the twitter guy that I am, I asked on twitter: How would you like to see actors use twitter & social media?

Here are a few tweets from the 16 replies I received:

@brotherjesse: @waynesutton empowering their following at the same time sharing the behind the scenes work it take to be where they are

@z3rr0: @waynesuttonJust like everyone else. No PR – real things.

@KristenEJ: @waynesutton -It’s great when they use it for positive means like Hill, not as a way to get more junk publicity for themselves.

@jdawkinsatl:@waynesutton I would like to read about the other things they may be passionate about. Fav charity or org, craft or hobbie?n My 2 cents.

@3rddeadline: @waynesutton 1st like the rest of us. Engage. Don’t come trying to upsell us on your “brand”. 2nd let us inside ur world as best u can.

@urbaneimagery: @waynesutton I would love to see actors use Twitter and social media to talk about their upcoming projects and community involvement

@ProfAlliHost: @waynesuttonFor updates to live chats, like Harper. They are busy, but occasional interaction would be nice. We pay their salaries

@jrmozart: @waynesutton i’d like to see actors talk not just about appearances, films, etc. but abt what they’re doing in their daily lives

@james3neal: @waynesutton In all seriousness, I think actors should use Twitter/social media in the same manner us “regular” people do. Tweet reality.

Most people of the people are saying actors or stars however you want to call them, should just uses the tools like everyone else. Engage, and don’t try to just sell us your brand or ask us to sign-up for your newsletter but let us into your daily lives. Sometimes it is about what you are doing and who are doing it with. With social media you may be on the West Coast but I can be sitting at my desk felling like I was right their by reading your tweets, watching your behind the scenes live stream or participating in a live chat. Can you the busy movie star do it all yourself, no but with the right training or a team you can have as many people going to see your movie on opening night or watching your Thursday night TV show, seeing you online talking about the production of the movie or watching you in between episode takes.

Mr. Harper, I admire you, you’re a community leader, a trend setter, and when others in your industry start to copy what you are doing I’m going to say Hill Harper was doing it first.  Keep twittering, recording youtube videos, and growing your social network and I hope I get a chances to chat with you during the next live Hill Harper Q&A video show. Thanks James Andrews aka @keyinfluencer , Liz  @calinative and others who made history last night.

Question: Who are some other actors using social media to extend their brand?