Like 2300 other hopefuls, I have submitted a proposal to present at South by Southwest 2011. This is actually for a dual presentation with Jennifer Wojcik (@TheJenATX on Twitter), co-founder of Pinqued. Here’s the description:
One reason businesses delay entering the world of social media is the fear of swimming in shark-infested waters. Even the most seasoned writer may not be prepared to handle scathing comments or a full-out assault by Internet trolls. This session will include examples from personal experience, case studies, with ample time for Q&A. Attendees will learn: Why every company needs a social media engagement policy and comment guidelines. Why an intern should not be in charge of your company’s social media presence. How to distinguish between snarks-verbal snipers-and attention-seeking trolls who are bent on disruption. Whether to allow anonymous comments. When to moderate comments or suspend them temporarily. How to handle negative comments and help steer the conversation to a positive outcome.
We would appreciate your vote, and I think we’d fall over backwards if you left a comment!
SXSW 2011 PanelPicker - Social Media Engagement Guidelines: Surviving a Snark Attack.
I’m also partnering with Lisa Petrilli on another proposal, titled Resources Roulette: Winning Social Strategies for Shrinking Budgets. The panel will answer this question:
While the low barrier to entry of social networking is attractive to entrepreneurs and small business owners, their resources-which include their time-are quite limited. Can these companies still create an effective social media presence?
Please click on the button above for the full description. Again, we’d appreciate your vote.
But wait … there’s more!
I’m honored to be included in Social Media Club’s panel proposal called Social Media Club: Building a Global Community. I’ve been a co-founding member of SMC since 2006 and co-founded the Austin chapter. Growth over the last few years has been phenomenal: we now have 230+ chapters around the world-every continent except Antartica. Kristie Wells, SMC co-founder, will moderate, with Jason Falls, Serena Ehrlich, Kevin Urie and me rounding out the panel. We’ll discuss how a grassroots organization can become a global non-profit organization. We have so many lessons to share that will help anyone who is organizing a community-online or off.
And, finally, Sheila Scarborough, who has written many popular posts for Every Dot Connects, has a panel proposal that is a must-attend for anyone with an interest in travel or tourism.
Check it out here: Tourism Catches On: Old Industry Meets New Media.
August 20th, 2010 at 10:21 am
Hi Connie. Do you not think that the power of social media and indeed the beauty of it.. is to allow UGC and input from your customer base? I agree that interns shouldn’t be put in charge of all social media activities, but I do think that it’s the younger, ‘Net Generation’ who best understand the way social media works.. even if they don’t consciously know it.
August 20th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
The younger generation indeed have more “native” social media skills, or at least familiarity with the tools. The problem is that they have no knowledge of the business use of social media, and that can get a company into trouble. That’s what we’ll be demonstrating in this presentation.
Thanks for your comment, Lynne!
August 26th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Thanks for mentioning our tourism panel, Connie!
September 2nd, 2010 at 9:38 am
Hi Connie, enjoyed this post and couldn’t agree more.(incidentally, I wrote a bit about B2B social managers recently here: http://bit.ly/bDsaGA if you’re interested:) Business users need to have clear strategic guidelines in place if they are using social media (and if they aren’t -why not?!), but I believe it’s really important that companies allow as many of their staff as possible to access the SM streams - with proper training obviously.
As far as snarks go - I actually think that if you handle complaints on site properly, in an open manner, they can end up being beneficial to your brand. Businesses should let customers see that they’re working to resolve problems.