@mmangen – Twitter Goddess from Mark Gehrke on Vimeo.

Debra Gehrke talks with Michelle Mangen about Twitter, the #newend hashtag and how to use Twitter to follow along with the NEW END event during the day and after the event.

Getting More from Twitter Starts with Asking for Help from Mark Gehrke on Vimeo.

Twitter is a great networking platform to connect with your audience.  Twitter can be valuable to build stronger relationships with your customers and your brand.  Twitter’s benefits really come through continued use and building a relevant network.  When you first start using Twitter is can be very confusing.  I believe this is why many people quit the service before they see the benefits.

In this video Debra Gehrke, of Mandala Life Media, talks with Kim Sippola ( @ATWairport ) about how having help with Twitter from Michelle Mangen ( @mmangen ) made a big difference to her understanding of how to make best use of the platform for her.

A valuable thing you can do when you’re first getting started on Twitter is find a knowledge user that can explain it to you.  If you have someone show you how to make sense of the terms, technology and practices you can get a huge jump start. Tweeting can be an enjoyable and valuable experience for you with a little support.

Our Recommendations:

• Find a Twitter mentor
• If you can meet in person
• Be open-minded and curious to learn
• Ask lots of questions
• Do be afraid to try
• If you don’t understand ask for clarification
• Jump in and practice, it’s not about perfection
• Think about how you can add value
• Participate in the conversation
• It’s not all about you
• It’s an evolving medium, keep learning

Want a jump start with Twitter?  We can help.

If you’ve been using Twitter and would like to expand  your Twitter strategy we love to help.  For small businesses using Twitter, getting clear about what you want to accomplish is essential.  Evaluate your strategy up front and remember that strategy to action is a continual cycle.   Your strategy needs continual attention if you want to see results.

Outagamie Co. Airport Uses Social Media from Mark Gehrke on Vimeo.

Outagamie Co. Airport Uses Social Media from Mark Gehrke on Vimeo.

Debra Gehrke talks with Kim Sippola, Outagamie Co. Airport Marketing Manager, about how the airport uses Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to connect with travelers and the community.  Interview conducted at Renew Summit 2009 presented by New North and NEW END.  We love to help support the local North Eastern Wisconsin social media business community.  Social media is still very new for most businesses and navigating these ever changing waters can be challenging.  We hope this video and the story we shared recently about how Grassroots A Salon is blogging to get their story out to the community will give you a little inspiration to jump in and participate.  And if you have more questions we are happy to help.

According to the study by Hebrew University ( article below )  the main utility has been to increase communications hyper-locally.

These hyper-local connections are why local businesses can benefit from social media.  You don’t have to be a business with a global reach to gain value from participating in social networking.  By connecting where your customers are having conversations you can provide a resource to the local online social networks in your community.  If you’re listening to the conversations in your community you can discover ways to be helpful.  If you participate in the online community conversations you can become a trusted thought leader.   While listening to your local markets online conversations you can learn value information about your community and industry that will help your business succeed.

Local social media conversations are happening daily.  Do not underestimate the opportunity to connect with your local community on the web.

from Fast Company

Ever use email to talk to the person sitting one office down? You’re not alone. Most people use the Web to talking to people within their own city, not far-flung contacts, according to a new study by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The study says that while the Web has developed a reputation as a tool for geo-commerce and penpalling, the main utility has been to increase communications hyper-locally. In fact, the abstract says, “the volume of electronic communications is inversely proportional to geographic distance.”

The finding puts a new spin on Stanley Milgram’s controversial 1963 hypothesis that every American is connected by roughly six mutual acquaintances. Apparently, our most-used connections–even aided by Facebook and all our other techno-tools–still have more to do with geographic distance than personality, work, politics or other uniting factors.

Experimenters studied data from 100,000 participants that were both Facebook users and email users. They found that most Facebook users’ friends are within several miles of their location–not too surprising (see graph above). But they also found that emailing followed the same pattern: 41% of the emails that participants sent were within their own city (see graph below). Click below to download the study.

[Via Clay Shirky]

Here are some of my hilights from the video:

• If you want the world to change you can have a tribe.
• It only takes 1000 committed people to have a successful tribe.
• Anticipated, Personal and Relavent is important.
• People buy because of the story and the way it makes them feel.
• Make something remarkable.  Be inspirational!
• If we set out to make something remarkable we will.
• If you care about something you can stand up and lead.
• Everyone can be a leader and form a tribe if they want to lead.

Watch this short video through to the end to see what happens when the words are turned around.  I see this as a great example of reprogramming your thinking.  What would happen if you turned your words and thoughts around?

Starting a new on line community space can be a bit like throwing a party. You have the idea, decide on a theme, pick a time and location, send the invitations and wait for the people to show up.

When you open the doors to any new community on the web, having community managers ( party organizers ) are essential; especially in the beginning stages, if you are going have any kind of focused success with your community.

Here’s a story from the book Crowdsourcing about the challenges that Assignment Zero ran into when they created their new community to crowdsource the collection of crowdsourcing the news.

Rather than recruiting people beforehand to manage each topic, doling out assignments, corresponding with would-be contributors or just providing a friendly face – we decided to hold off building this essential layer of community managers until after the party had already started. It was a fateful mistake. The flood of guests made our community’s design flaws quickly apparent.

Baffled by the overall concept and confused by the design of the website and unable to connect directly to a manager or organizer, most of the initial community members simply drifted away.

Communities are about creating and managing experiences. My personal experience as a community manager has shown me that organizations tend to forget about the crucial role of having real people to engage new members. My community manager friends have also experienced this lack of understanding by their organizations. Community managers are critically important to help create a sense of belonging in any new and existing community.

If you’re starting an on-line community here are some things to consider:

• Pre Plan the role of Community Manager
• Your Community Manager will be at the front line of community relationships
• Hire for quality. Excellent people are a wise investment
• Get your Community Manager involved in site organization and planning
• A good Community Manager will be an excellent resource for greater insight into your community

Twitter is a conversational tool filled with low level chatter of people sharing what they are doing.  I love how Laura Finton ( @pistachio ) shares the beauty and value in these small connection opportunities that make a village and human society function.

Little relationships make a big difference in how we weave our society together. Twitter is about these little conversation links and building micro relationships which can blossom to real world connections.

Watch the video and share your comments on Laura’s thoughts on Twitter’s real time impact on connectivity in our society.

Give some link love this Valentine’s curiosity of Hubspot

Social networking is really pretty simple.

This videos uses a few real world examples of how social networks work.

Enjoy!