Actionable Ideas Blog

Humor & Learnings from Social Media Camp Long Island (#SMCAMPLI)

  

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Over 200 social media newbees, wannabees, and superbees landed at the ‘hive set alive” at St. Joseph’s College in Patchogue, Long Island, on Friday, June 25.  After the organizers handed out extra-large t-shirts and a St. Joseph-branded laptop bag, the Social Media Camp Long Island (SMCAMPLI) was in session.

SMCAMPLI’s “unconferenced format” allowed the organizers to put out a call for speakers/topics and then let the attendees to vote for their favorite.  Topics with the most votes became the topics of the event.

Registration Cost?  Free.

The sponsors, St. Joseph’s College , WordHampton Public Relations, Sofrito Media Group, Austin & Williams, Namnum, T-mobile, Patch, Colorvisions Art Glass Studio, and Sueanne Shirzay Jewelry, helped to make this conference free of charge. Special thanks to the New York Islanders hockey team for making the Camp T-shirts. Having spent part of my career overseeing and running big budget and big ticket conferences, free admission is a good thing if it can be done. These sponsors/organizers had “social” and not “financial” goals for this social media conference.

Kudos to St. Joseph's College (Twitter.com/SJCNY) for its hospitality and its wonderful students. Hosting an event like this says a lot about the caliber and the forward-thinking of the school, its students, and alumni community.

How I Heard About This Event

I learned about SMCAMPLI from Newsday career reporter Patricia Kitchen (Twitter.com/patriciakitchen) in this tweet:

See u there RT @twtvite_alert: @patriciakitchen reminder: Social Media Camp LI in a week! http://twtvite.com/smcamplongisland 1:02 PM Jun 18th via UberTwitter

I read many tweets from the people I follow - glad I saw Patricia's tweet. I met Patricia right before 9/11/2001 at the National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAAP) Annual Convention in New York City which I helped facilitate. She covered the convention for Newsday. I knew it would be great to see her at SMCAMPLI.

I signed up late; ended up on the wait list, showed up anyways and still got in. 

Here is what I learned.

Before attending the conference, I was familiar with social media and Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook tools. After the conference, I learned even more. Here are some actionable ideas and quotes that I hope you find useful. There were hundreds of tweets that poured in with hashtag #SMCAMPLI before, during and after the event. There was even a tweet about how the majority of the lunchtime panel was comprised of bald men which got everyone falling out of his or her seats in laughter.

1. Sueanne Shiray (Twitter.com/sueanneshiray) said,

• “Twitter is a huge group of cheerleaders who cheer me on every day.”
• “Use the 'favorites' button in Twitter. Mark nice compliments as a 'favorite' and direct people to your 'favorites page'.

2. Jeff Namnum (Twitter.com/namnum) said

• He heard about a story that said folks who are using Social media (i.e., Twitter) are chemically happier.” (Note from Julie: I found the reference here.)
• He encouraged attendees to use www.blastfollow.com to follow those who tweeted about this event which has the Twitter handle #SMCAMPLI. (Note from Julie: Do this right after an event and not weeks after an event. Blastfollow.com appears to have short-term memory.)
• Shared a story about how his Google-ability and use of Twitter reunited him with the new iPAD he left on the Long Island Railroad. Jeff tweeted his loss. A passenger googled Jeff’s name, which she found on a receipt and sent him a Tweet. Unbelievable.

3. Sachem Patch Editor, Chris Vaccaro (Twitter.com/chrisvaccaro), said to always include a photo with your Facebook post because it will encourage people to read it. I’ve tried this and it works.

4. Becky Kopprasch (Twitter.com/MissBeckala) talked about how she transitioned from TweetDeck.com, which requires a software download, to Hootsuite.com, which requires no software download. Both help manage Twitter/social media accounts.

5. St. Joseph's College Alumni Director Matthew Colson (Twitter.com/SJCNY and Twitter.com/MatKingCol) said that we need to keep in mind who might be looking at our social media footprint. 

6. Steve Haweeli, the president of WordHampton Public Relations (Twitter.com/stevehaweeli) said,

• “Facebook is a warmer community.”
•  “Keep it straight on the WordHampton page."
• “Don’t get too snarky (with social media)”
• His firm checks to see if candidates are on Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin to determine if candidates have a social media presence.  He has noticed that many of his candidates do not have a social media presence.
• Likes using the word “Tribe”.  “I would like to be part of the tribe. That’s my community. It’s good that I honor those that follow me…they made a choice – provide some value to them.

7. Tom Whitby (Twitter.com/TomWhitby),  English professor and social media specialist at St. Joseph’s College and founder of The Educators PLN, a personal learning site for educators said,

• “ Google yourself - You’ll find the digital footprint you have left.”
• “Go in and clean up your act if there are things out there that you don’t want people to see.”
• “ People can find out a lot about you that they are not allowed to ask you during the interview.”
• People have lost their jobs because of social media and the things they should not have said about the school. Everyone should develop a level of common sense.

8. Louise DiCarlo, president of Communications Journey, Inc. (Twitter.com/lovelylu) said,

• first thing that admission officers and employers look for is stuff on social media.
• The last thing you should do before you go to bed is take off stuff that you do not want to leave a lasting impression.
• There are consequences with using social media outside of  business hours.
• “The digital wall is so vast, but much smaller than we think.”
• Also encouraged everyone to “Google their own name and to set up a Google Alert to make sure that 'nothing is out there that you do not want.'
• There is significant talk about community, which is interchangeable with family.
• Social media makes it so much easy to have a large community.

9. Visit TwapperKeeper.com for an archive of all of the tweets associated with the hashtag #SMCAMPLI.

10. Visit the following website for photos here: http://twitpic.com/photos/namnum

11. A video stream of SMCAMPLI can be found here: http://smcampli.com/live

12. Here is a list of where the SMCAMPLI post-event write-ups can be found:

• Twitter.com/DixieLil: http://ow.ly/253o5
• Patch: http://patchogue.patch.com/articles/social-media-camp-at-st-josephs-college 
• Amanda Marsh (twitter.com/amandanmarsh): http://amandamarsh.me/2010/06/26/hello-muddah-hello-faddah/
• Patricia Kitchen from Newsday wrote several pieces before, during and after the event:
  • Happy campers after sessions on social media, June 28
  • Inside Long Island Business: Advice from social media camp, June 28
  • Long Island Now: Social media conference held at St. Joseph's today, June 25
  • Get ready for the unconference, April 20

If there are links missing or if you would like to share your thoughts, please feel free to add them directly into the comment box. 

Next Steps

From this group, I learned that Connecticut is connecting with Social Web Week in New Haven: swCT2010 @ New Haven July 10-16, 2010 - I plan to attend part of this event. Let me know if you will be able to attend.

Jeff Nanmum (Twitter.com/nanmum), sports drink entrepeneur and the creator of SMCampLi and Nathan R. King(twitter.com/NathanRKing), the art director of Austin & Williams, told us to keep July 28 open on our calendar. Feel free to use Twitter to follow twitter.com/SMCAMPLI. 

@2011 Kaimen Company.