Location based marketing is the interaction with customers by their location offering value based opportunities to increases customer loyalty and social sharing in which you can measure.

What are your thoughts on location based marketing?

During the Future15 Online Video section other speakers and friends presented on other video topics such as:

• Video Search Optimization Strategies To Grow Your Business – Bill Leake, Apogee Search
• Hyperlocal Focus: Growing A Vibrant Community Media Ecosystem – Bill Simmon, VCAM
• Just the Host: Web Video Divas Dish! – Amanda Congdon, Oxmour Entertainment Inc / Sometimesdaily LLC – Amanda Congdon
• Web Video: Can We Now Say Something Sucks? – Liz Shannon Miller, NewTeeVee – Liz Shannon Miller
• Attracting Big Sponsors With a Super-Niche Webshow, Freezer Burns, Gregory Ng

I lived streamed 3 out of the 5 presenters and will be posting some of their presentations and video from there talks too. After my talk Tod Plotki from Green Buzz Agency asked me what did I think about the role of video in corporate marketing. Here’s my video response below. Note: I think I was still nervous from the presentation

How do you see video being used in social web in the upcoming months?

Vampires over the years have transformed from creatures of the night to day walkers with powers that mortals dream of having. Although they seem soulless with very few weaknesses, when it comes to the internet you often don’t make the assumption that Vampires are tech savvy but today they are. In today’s time, Vampires are not only geeks but they use social media like any brand or agency. You wonder how? Click through the slides below to find out how Vampires use social media.

PS: Yes I’ve seen TwilightNew Moon

Last week I the opportunity to speak to a group of MBA students at NC State University about Social Media. Since the second half of 2008 I have been asked to either lead session or sit on panel covering various topics such as social networks, video blogging and using social media for journalism at Duke University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (UNC). I have actually spoken at UNC 4 times in the last year and when I was asked to speak at NC State I felt as though I was completing the big 3 Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill) university loop. (past speaking events)

I was asked to join a list of other guest speakers as part of MBA Social Media and Management class. A few of the other guest speakers includes Andy Beal, Joseph Jaffe, Katie Morse, Jeff Cohen and Polly Pearson covering various topics such as Blogging and micro-blogging, social networks, creativity, reputation management and B2B marketing using social media (schedule). My topic was social media etiquette, video and community building. The class was 1:15 long and to prepare I made a content outline and a list of questions to ask. One of the first things I told the students was that I wasn’t going to stand in-front of the class and talk for 1:15 and show them a bunch of slides. Not that there is anything wrong with having a presentation ready but if I’m leading a session on social media we’re going to be social.

A few talking points were:

• Why is video important?
• Example of video shows
• Best practices for creating online video
• Why online communities matter
• Comparing various communities
• Creating valuable content
• Conscious content posting

I’m glad I had an outline and was prepared but after an introduction from Professor Claudia Kimbrough, who introduced Chis Moody who then introduced me, I looked into the eyes of the students they all gave me that here comes another boring social media talk look. So then I decided at that moment to switch things up and as they say in the hip-hop world, freestyle it. I wanted to see what was on the students mind, what they have previously covered in social media and what was at the core using social media effectually. Therefore I asked the diverse room of students a series of questions about what happens during a period of time of online conversations between two new individuals using social media. The outcome was a relationship and trust using various tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.

Other topics we touched on were the value of location based sites like Brightkite, uses for Linkedin and Facebook fanpages. While discussing Facebook fanpages we talked about brand engagement and why it’s important for companies not to just post / push content but really make an effort to communicate with their fans. Surprisingly we spent very little time focusing on Twitter and more time on social networking etiquette and what role students online content and behavior could affect their future in the job market.

Near the end of the class I suggested they look at creating a social media policy and I did touch briefly on how much it doesn’t cost to launch an online video show. Then I showed the students Jeff Cohen’s daughter new video blog called Grace Talks about Food to where she’s talking about a Hannan Montana Cereal in a video on YouTube. The reason I showed the class the video is because it’s a classic example of how simple it is to create videos about any topic you’re passionate about and how brands should reach out to their customers who are online posting content about their products. In other words, I’m expecting Grace to get an email or comment from Disney soon.

After the class I thanked Professor Kimbrough for having me and Chis Moody for the invite. While I was leaving I was wondering what the students thought of the session and by the way of tweets, I think they enjoyed it. Take a look.

LindsayCrawford: Thanks @waynesutton for an engaging presentation! He knows his stuff!

MacMan34: sitting in class listening to @waynesutton talk about video, social media, & communities.

lshawtter4: @waynesutton Thanks for dropping by NCSU. Informative and energetic presentation!!

Before the class started I did recved a few tweets from Paul Jones @smalljones a professor at UNC about more Social Media classes being taught by him and Fred Stutzman @fstutzman which can be found here and http://ibiblio.org/pjones/jomc449/wordpress/ and that Richward Waters @rdwaters teaches another class on social media at NC State too on Social Media and Public Relations http://ncsupublicrelations.wordpress.com

For more information on the NC State Social Media MBA class, see the links below.
Class syllabus: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~cbk/schedule.html
Class blog: http://ncstatesocialmedia.wordpress.com/
Professor: Claudia Kimbrough @calliekuhn

Again I would to thanks to Professor Kimbrough and Chis Moody for the invitation. Chris also has a blog post with a few notes from my session that can be found here: How to ACE Social Media: Alignment, Control, and Engagement

If you had the opportunity to tell college students one thing about social media what would it be?

A few weeks ago I had the privilege to speak at the Triangle Chapter of the American Marketing Association luncheon with with Jim Tobin and Chuck Hester on Building Your Personal Brand Through Social Media. I only had about 5 minutes for an intro conversation on the topic before we went into a panel discussion and Q&A. Below are my keynote slides and notes.

A few points I tried to emphasize in a limited time were.

• Everyone has an online Identity
• It’s up to You (the individual) to manage your identity
• You have to create and control content about yourself.
• Design Matters
• Be consistent with your social networking avatars (smile)
• Use social media tools and measure your personal brand as if it was a campaign.
• Do Something Awesome to get noticed.

Ironically my West Coast pal Louis Gray was on  panel with Loic, Guy Kawasaki, Steve Patrizi of LinkedIn and Renee Blodgett of Magic Sauce Media, for the San Francisco American Marketing Association, discussing  why PR, Advertising & Marketing Suck!, Now What?

Here are a few youtube videos from Louis’s panel:
$10K can make HUGE marketing impact: 3 steps #sfama: Louis Gray

“Truth in Marketing” – Louis Gray: Who would have thought those 3 words together?

What if your customers are not on Twitter?

I want to say thanks to the Triangle Chapter of the American Marketing Association for asking me to present at the luncheon.

1. Feedback Widgets from Google & Twitter:

See: http://twifeedback.com & http://www.google.com/friendconnect

2. Add a SlideShare presentation: (everyone loves a good presentation)

3. Host a live video show using one of the following sites on your company site. Hubspot does this all the time.
Justin.tv
Ustream.TV
livestream.com

4. Promote a webinar on your site using eventbrite or a similar service and host using a webinar using:
dimdim.com
yugma.com
vyew.com

5. Add a real-time conversation flow to your site using FriendFeed, example Building43

In the end its still about the content but so much information being push to individuals I think content creators and site owners should think about content diversity and various ways to engage with visitors when they arrive to your website.

How are you engaging with your current site visitors?

This was my second time speaking at a WordCamp event, my first was WordCampCTL in Charlotte, NC in November of 2008 where I was on a promotion/marketing panel. My topic at WordCampRDU was Twitter but I really wanted the audience to not focus on Twitter so much but look at how we use to promote our blogs before twitter, the past, present and future of social media and twitter related plugins for WordPress blogs.

Below is my WordPress & Twitter: “It takes two to make a blog go right” presentation but keep in mind that I talked a lot more than what’s covered in the slides.

After taking a look at the slides and I hope the attendees of my session left with the impression that when I say “it takes two” to make a blog go right, that I’m not actually talking about twitter but the content.

Also here are a few reference links that I used for my presentation:
Jump on the social media bandwagon graphic via Matt Hamm
2010 web graphic via Robert Scoble
Twickie
100+ Remarkably Beautiful Twitter Icons And Buttons
Flavours Icon Set And Cute Tweeters Icon Set
12 Tools To Synchronize WordPress And Twitter
10 Twitter Hacks For Your WordPress Blog

More on the founder of WordPress Matt Mullenweg in another post, as I had the chance to interview him and hang out with Matt after WordCampRDU.

PS. If there is no video it didn’t happen…..

A few of my photos from WordCampRDU:

From LouisGray.com “Because I want more. Feed me more. At recent business events, there is a dramatic need for those I run into to get an extra push to get and grasp blogging, to understand what’s happening in social media, who’s winning and losing, and best practices. And right now, I don’t think my 5 minute answers are enough. I am starting to get inquiries from people to help them more formally, and yes, I will. I will also be signing up for more speaking opportunities, more panels, more podcasts, and more advisory roles if they think I can.”