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prsarahevens

Moving the Virtual Relationships to the Physical Reality

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Someone asked the other day … are you always on Twitter?  Hmmm … yes, I guess I’m on Twitter quite a bit.  Twitter allows me to interact with so many friends/followers in different ways.  Being on Twitter has taught me how to move my new friendships up the Twitter Relationship Stairway.  In keeping with the idea of moving up the stairs, I wanted to share with my community an opportunity to take our relationships a step further.  Being on Twitter is an excellent way to listen, learn, participate, make friends, bond and share incredible insight. And, as I review my calendar in the upcoming months, one more excellent way to move up the Twitter stairway is to meet my New York City friends/followers in person.

Here’s the opportunity: I’m going to be at two conferences in New York City, one in May and the other June.  Both are very different opportunities with friends.  The first is PRSA’s Digital Impact Conference on May 6th and then the PRSA T3 Conference on June 11th.  Here’s why each conference has the potential for a unique experience with my friends, and an opportunity to move up the Twitter stairway.

Digital Impact:  I’ll be at Digital Impact presenting on the topic “How to Create a Social Media Plan.”  My mind will be focused on helping people to develop strategy before tactics, and even how to “fix” what you’ve done before you take a new approach with different programs moving forward.  I’ll also discuss developing business goals and objectives, research initiatives, messaging and content creation, distribution channels, conversation monitoring and performance measures.  Here’s the opportunity, I’m at the conference to help people.  I remember when I was at the PRIA conference in Australia. After my keynote session I sat at the book signing table, but it was so much more than just signing books. I talked to each and every person who stopped by to visit with me.  It was an incredible experience.  Not only did I make new friends, but also was able to answer questions, offer insight on their projects and really get to know people.  Can this be done on Twitter?  Yes and no… yes until the conversations become in-depth and then you must move them into another form of communication beyond 140 characters.  In person, face-to-face is the best, when you’re able to shake hands and feel like you’ve made a great connection.

PRSA T3 Conference:  This is a unique opportunity for me. I’m the co-chair of the conference along with Rich Teplitsky and will devote my day to T3, and all of the conference attendees.  I can’t remember the last time I was at a conference for the all of the sessions, without running out the door to go to another event or leaving early to travel or get back to my office. It’s a fantastic opportunity for me to meet people, network and move relationships a step further. T3 will allow me to practice what I preach.

I’m also very excited to see @PRsarahevens and to hear her keynote presentation.  I participate frequently on #journchat, but it’s a different experience than hearing Sarah discuss what’s next in PR, strategy and technology and to engage with her in person.  I’m also going to meet Christine Perkett (@missusP) for the first time in person. She was one of our special guests for a #PRstudchat session, and of course, she was wonderful.  I’m a huge fan of Christine and looking forward to learning a great deal from her session, “Driving your Online Footprint: PR Experts as Influencers.”  Jacob Morgan (@jacobm) is another person I’m really looking forward to meeting for the first time. I read Jacob’s book, TwittFaced, and have been recommending the book ever since. It’s about time that we finally meet in person!  And, then there’s Justin Levy (@justinlevy), Director of Business Development, Corporate Strategy & Client Services at Facebook Marketing: Designing your Next Marketing Campaign.”  I’m looking forward to seeing Justin again and reading and reviewing his book on my blog. Of course, I could go down the list of all of the other speakers and people that I know who want to attend the conference, but then this blog post would be too long!

So, now I need to ask you a question … how are you moving up the Twitter Staircase and are you taking your relationships to the next level? And, if you are in NYC, is there an opportunity for us to meet at either Digital Impact or the T3 Conference.  I hope so, because meeting in person is the best way to take a relationship to the next level.  Hope to see you over the next couple of months.

The Twitter Chat

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I had the honor and the pleasure of moderating @prsarahevans #journchat this past Monday night.  It was an amazing experience that I will never forget.  I’m very familiar with the Twitter chat session because of #PRStudChat. However, the #journchat community is considerably larger and moderating the conversation taught me a few more best practices with respect to creating and maintaining a dynamic community discussion.  First and foremost, I want to thank so many of my colleagues/friends who showered me with incredible compliments that night. However, for the record, the true appreciation and the reason why I looked like I could “ROCK IT,” was a direct result of the passion, enthusiasm and incredible knowledge in this community.  I just got the conversation started and the community did all of the work!

Nonetheless, here are a few of the tips that I’d like to share with you about how to handle a large community for a significant period of time (2 hours).

–       Be prepared for the discussion by visiting the community prior to your session and by listening carefully.  Being an active part of the discussions and understanding the dynamics and the interests of the group is key.

–       If you listen and participate, then you will quickly learn the types of questions and content to share in the community. I think some of the best questions during #Jjournchat focused on what was happening in the news.  It’s easy for community members to provide insight on prominent news stories as they relate to a community member’s career or personal experience.

–       Have a tweet sheet ready of things you know you have to say including “Rules”, set questions in advance (as you wait for the community to send in their questions) and/or have prepared any type of informational tweets that will go out to the community as housekeeping reminders.   I don’t send out timed tweets for a chat session but rather just have them ready, so I can get them out in a timely fashion.  Remember, although you have a tweet sheet, make sure you still inject your own personality and talk to people!

–       Take the time a day beforehand, or the day of to the chat session, to reach out and ask members of the community about topics of interest they’d like to discuss, or find out what questions they would like answered.

–       Use other communities as resources. If you find interesting and passionate “hot buttons” in other forums, you can use similar topics to ignite the same type of spark with the group you are moderating.

–       Show your personality and engage with people before, during and after you moderate. For example, if you see that someone would like to attend and can’t, then let them know that they will be missed! Or, if you notice that someone signs in late, a warm welcome will make then him/her feel a part of the community, no matter what time he/she signs on.  And, pay special attention to any questions that people may have as you move along.  I also asked a friend and colleague to be my eyes and ears during the session (Thanks @mikinzie).  Mikinzie helped me so much! As people made comments or had questions, she would DM me if she thought that I missed something.  Which, quite frankly, moving at that speed you tend to miss a lot.

–       If something goes awry…don’t panic.  There were a couple of bumps for me. One was harmless, but nonetheless you have to act quickly.  I found out the link I tweeted with a question, for the group, didn’t work.  It’s a simple message to the community.  For example I said something like, “Working on getting a new link”…. or “Will be posting a link that works in a moment.”  It just tells everyone that you are on it…you know you messed up and that you are fixing the issue.  In general, I found #journchat community to especially patient and very forgiving even when I didn’t include the question number with a question!  (That was one of the Rules).

–       I also think that Sarah set up #journchat to be extremely organized with its housekeeping, especially the way the RULES are stated in the beginning.  They are easy and concise and chat participants are able digest the information. And, if someone during the session asks you a question, you can just tweet the rules directly, making it a simple process.

Some more helpful tips ….For #PRStudChat, @valeriesimon and I do a couple of things to help the community.  We have a Twitter Guide for anyone that is new to the community and we make it available for our special guests to review.  We also set up a wiki and a LinkedIn Group so that the conversations can go beyond Twitter into other networks where people can join in and collaborate even more (#journchat has a LinkedIn Group too, if you want to check it out.)

As a moderator, there are many things that you can do to aid the community.  That’s what you’re there for…to listen and to help and to feed the community the information that ignites their passion and creates great discussion.  But, remember, it’s the community that takes the information and runs with it and it’s also the community that creates the dynamic discussion so all of us walk away with insight and new knowledge.