This week, my friend Shaun King, launched a new social giving site called HopeMob. It’s a big deal and has already found success.

Take the story of 12 year old Jessie Rees. Her hope was to have 50,000 people ‘LIKE’ her Facebook page before the disease that was overtaking her young body won. Unfortunately, Thursday morning, she lost the fight, but her hope lives on. As of Thursday night, she far surpassed her hopes and she now has well over 57,000 fans. While you may think this effort is futile, one look at her Facebook page and you can see the hope that his “mob” of people is having across the world, but most importantly to her family.

Today, hope gets drowned out, but when a mob of people come together, it cannot be ignored. It’s a force to be reckoned with.

I applaud Shaun and the vision he has for giving hope across the world. Not because he’s found success, but because he’s offering something that so many people have given up on long ago: hope.

Below is an article that details the vision and mission of HopeMob as posted on the HalogenTV.com site. It also explains Jessie’s story.

I hope you’re inspired to be the change you want to see in the world.

Social good entrepreneur Shaun King launched a new social giving site that unites strangers for one cause. Much like a flash mob of hope, HopeMob pulls together people’s kindness to help one person.

The HopeMob campaign is currently raising funds through Kickstarter before its March 2012 launch.

“HopeMob is going to change people’s lives,” King said in his Kickstarter campaign video. “People are falling through the cracks of the government. They’re falling through the cracks of social services. You and I are going to find them and tell their story. We’re going to mob them with hope.”

Here’s how it works:

Users can register for HopeMob by creating a username and password. After registering, HopeMob will give each person 50 story points. Using story points, participants can help boost a story up in HopeMob’s “cause queue” until it becomes its one and only featured story with an international audience. The queue will be filled with real-life stories — families who’ve lost their houses, family with special needs children — anyone who’s needs a helping hand.

Jessie Rees was one of those recipients of hope. At 12 years old, she lost her battle with brain cancer on Jan. 5. Thanks to the countless HopeMob volunteers and backers, they spent weeks to make many of her wishes come true. One of Jessie’s wish was to have 50,000 Facebook fans. Together, they made that goal happen, and many others.

via Shaun King Launches HopeMob | Halogen TV.

In case you haven’t heard, Google released it’s version of Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Flickr a couple of weeks ago, all rolled up into one network called Google+. If you haven’t had a chance to give it a try, I highly encourage you to do so. The experience is just like the early days of Twitter when the content was actual conversations with real people, not just a bunch of self-serving blog post links. Bleh.

If you’re on the outs and haven’t had an invite yet, hit me up on Facebook and Twitter with your Gmail address and I’ll be happy to send you an invite.

If you are already on G+, here’s a link to my profile. Let’s circle up.

Stacked in my drawer are dozens, if not hundreds of business cards that I’ve collected over the years. Perhaps you have the same quandry as I do: what do I do with all of those cards?

If you’re like me, you don’t dare throw them away. After all, you might need one of them some day. But, the problem is, most likely, you don’t have a clue when and where you met those people. All you know is that somehow, you have their card. Good, but not helpful.

Jeff Pulver, co-founder of the Vonage Internet phone company and creator of the VON and 140 conferences, has an expression that you absolutely must take to heart:

“We live or die on our database.”

The days of just collecting business cards are over. It’s time to do change our ways and actually put them to good use.

Here are five steps to collecting and using business cards effectively:

1. Context – Take a moment to immediately write on the back of the card, the event and details of your conversation. If you promised to follow up, write that down too.
2. Storage – While at the event, be sure you store the card in a secure place: preferably your wallet, purse or notebook pocket. Avoid putting them in your clothes pockets. It’s almost a guarantee that you’ll lose them.
3. Review – Once your back at your desk, review the cards for context and action points. You’ll want to be sure you do this within 24-48 hours of making a connection. Also, a quick email follow up, or better yet, a handwritten note is a nice touch.
4. Address Book: Take the time to input each contact into your address book. You can do this manually or using one of those nifty business card scanners. Don’t forget to insert your contextual notes too.
5. LinkedIn & Connect. You now hold in your hands the currency for connecting to people on LinkedIn: an email address. Do a quick search and LinkedIn.com and request to connect with your new contact. Be sure to erase the generic note and write something related to your meet and greet. Including details will be a good reminder of who you are and why you’re asking to connect.

If you look at your stack and get overwhelmed about the amount of time it’s going to take to get through it, consider breaking it down into daily segments. If you started each day processing 10 cards, you’ll get through your stack in no time.

Chances are, reviewing each card will jolt your memory and you’ll be able to remember when and what you were discussing during the business card exchange. Be sure to include details in your follow up or LinkedIn connect message. People always appreciate it when you recall details: personal or professional. The extra time it takes to do so will always be worth it.

Has LinkedIn.com proved to be helpful for you? If so, how?

Today, I joined a couple hundred of my new closest socmed Charlotte friends for an all day conference called Social Fresh. Established and ran by former Charlottean, Jason Keath, this six-session event was packed full of topics that ranged from community development to corporate social policy.

I really enjoyed the conference, mainly because it was small and intimate. I met a lot of new people like @jakrose, @yarby, @benjamingetz, @CaseyLBrewton, @MCDolphens, @GenevieveJooste, @Mysticle, @arsbars, @RichTucker, @waynesutton and many, many more. The size of this conference makes it one of the most approachable, memorable and fun conferences I’ve attended in a long time. If you get a chance to attend a Social Fresh event in the future, do yourself a favor and go.

As I mentioned, a lot was talked about during the event, but I walked away with eight key takeaways that I thought I would share with you.

• Remember “You don’t need a social media strategy. You need a brand strategy that leverages social media.” —Chris Kirubi, Chairman of Coca Cola Nairobi
• You/me, we need to be paying much more attention to #LinkedIn
• Being there before the sale is marketing…at the sale is sales…after the sale is service. —@gregcangialosi
• Social media is a beast. The beast must be fed and it’s food is content. —@gregcangialosi (One of my favorite quotes of the day)
• Communicate internal social media policies frequently. Make it precise, efficient & frequent —@DavidBThomas
• Marketing in the socmed space requires more people than you think. —@bwdumars
• Quality, (story and creative) is more important with web video because it stands alone and has to be good enough to get noticed.
  and finally…
• Seriously, bacon gum balls are the best thing I never want to eat again. Thanks @masstransmit

To top it off, here are some new online resources that I found out about today:

• glassdoor.com —an inside look at what companies are paying their employees
• socialmediagovernance.com —A fantastic source for guiding social media use within your company
• Radian6.com – listen, measure and engage with your customers across the entire social web

Did you go to Social Fresh or have you been to a social media conference lately? If so, what was one thing you learned? Leave you thoughts in the comments below.

After being a Charlotean for a whole month, tomorrow I’m headed to the Social Fresh conference to jump in, with both feet, to the local social media community. The conference was founded and lead by social entrepreneur Jason Keith (@jakrose), and is targeted to marketers who use social media strategically. Personally, I can’t wait to meet a bunch of people who love Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare like I do. But most of all, I’m looking forward to learning. This industry is ever-changing and nobody is an expert. There is so much to learn.

If you’re reading this because we met at the pre-event tonight, or we will meet tomorrow at the conference, let’s connect:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn (kyle.chowning@halogentv.com)
• Google Reader (shared)

Please feel free to leave your connect info in the comments below. I’d love to follow you too.

If you are a business in Nashville looking for ways to contribute to the relief from to the #nashvillefloods this past weekend, the new geolocation social networking app, Foursquare, may be an easy way to facilitate your contributions.

What is Foursquare?

Foursquare is a relatively new social networking tool that gives people the ability to “check-in” at all kinds of places: cafes, bars, restaurants, parks, homes, offices—you name it. Think of it as an easy way of telling other users where you are.

As a local business owner, Foursquare provides you the ability to reward loyalty. Marketing says that it’s far easier and cheaper to market to your existing customer than it is a new one. So, Foursquare now provides you the opportunity to identify and reward returning customers by offering them “Specials,” which are  discounts and prizes you can offer your loyal customers when they check-in at your venue. Each venue also has a Mayor—someone who has checked into your business the most in the past 60 days. (I’ve provided a full list of “specials” that Foursquare provides below.)

There are lots of benefits of using Foursquare, but the biggest is the ability that the app brings of putting a name and a face with your contribution. Not for marketing reasons per se, but because it helps you, the business, connect with the people who are in need.

Example

Let’s say that Merridee’s in downtown Franklin, TN wants to give away a 500 loaves of bread during the month of May. One way to facilitate this would be to set up a “Check-in Special” with Foursquare so that every time someone check’s in, they are notified of the offer and are given the opportunity to get, or give away, their free loaf of bread. It’s as easy as that.

The Benefits

There are two main reasons why Merridee’s, the business, could benefit from using Foursquare to facilitate their donation:

1. They leverage the power of social networking to spread the word, thus, lowering cost of time and resources used in their efforts
2. Using Foursquare’s robust analytics, they would be able to see impact of the effort, both from a reach and loyalty standpoint

The Risk

The reality is, Foursquare is relatively new and not a lot of people or businesses are aware or are using it yet. You may end up answering more questions about Foursquare, than giving away bread.

The Benefit

Beyond the goal of distributing 500 loaves of bread into a community that desperately needs assistance, you’ve taken the first step towards identifying and rewarding those people who love and support your business.

My Recommendation

If you’re up for new ways to connect with your loyal customers, you can’t go wrong with this approach. It makes sense on so many levels. As more and more business grab a hold of the power and potential of Foursquare, there will be a momentum and, eventually, an expectation that you’ll be a participant in this space.

In the end, Foursquare is a fast and effective way to reward real-time loyalty. Furthermore, it will help you personalize your service, know your customers better and continue to reward them, again and again, for being patrons of your business.

• Mayor Specials: unlocked only by the Mayor of your venue. Who’s the Mayor? It’s your single most loyal customer.
• Check-in Specials: unlocked when a user checks in to your venue a certain number of times.
• Frequency-based Specials: are unlocked every X check-ins.
  Example: Foursquare users get 20% off any entree every 5th check-in!
• Wildcard Specials: always unlocked, but your staff has to verify some extra conditions before awarding the Special.
  Example: Show us your foursquare Swarm badge and get a free drink!

My wife sent me a link to an article and video (posted below) she found the other day with a short note that said, “Please be careful.”

The caution refers to my avid use of the usual social networks: Twitter, Facebook and my recent new interest, Foursquare (thanks Jeff Hamilton!). Over the past couple of years even my mom has spoken up on the topic of making people aware of where you are; which ultimately reveals where you aren’t.

To be honest, I am totally on the fence around this topic. Sure, I think that it could be stupid, but my logic says that so is riding in a car or flying in an airplane. The odds that a tweet or Foursquare check-in having negative consequences could be the same. Or are they?

Now, the real issue isn’t about what’s likely to happen, or not. It’s really about how it makes my wife feel. She hasn’t told me to stop, but I am well aware that there is a thread of concern that that she feels that my activities could have consequences. Noted. Very well noted.

The question is, what do you think? What are your practices?

In my new job, I do a lot of research specifically on the 18-34 “Millennial” demographic. If you’re targeting the same demographic, you are well aware the social media is playing a strong roll in your strategies. The good news is, social media isn’t waning one bit. In fact, it’s on the rise. The question isn’t should you market in the social space, but how? eMarketer.com recently release an article that offered their 10 best practices for social media success. These are so good that I wanted to share them with you. My thoughts are [italicized]:

1. Don’t think social media, think social marketing. – Social marketing is more about empowering, organizing and training select staff members to engage on social platforms—and building a corporate social presence—than it is about paid media placements.
2. Know your objectives first—then develop your social strategy. – Broadly speaking, the most important objectives relate to creating deeper relationships with customers and branding.
3. Recognize the secret ingredient: trust – Clearly, marketers see an opportunity to leverage this peer-to-peer trust factor by participating in and influencing social conversations taking place on the Web. But the way in which they do that is critical. The first step toward earning trust with consumers, as in any relationship, is to listen. [If you haven't read Chris Brogan's Trust Agents yet, do it soon.]
4. Listening comes first. [When @ComcastCares entered the Twitter space, they did so by listening first. It wasn't until they understood the medium and how their customers were using it, that they actually went public. Planning and preparation are key to success in the social space.]
5. Don’t just barge into a conversation: Add value. [In fact, nothing will get you ignored faster.]
6. Be authentic, transparent and humble. [Social media is about conversation. It's not a platform.]
7. Recruit from your core: the brand enthusiasts who already love you. – Digital communities allow marketers to both find these coveted consumers (through listening) and empower them to share a brand story with many others.
8. Target the coveted influentials. – Some consumers have more clout than others. These so-called influentials, representing about 10% of the population, according to Keller Fay Group, have an undue influence on others because of their extensive digital networks and perceived expertise in particular areas. Keller Fay believes that influentials are 130% more likely than others to talk about brands on any given day.
9. Adopt a long-term/real-time approach. As blogger and social media expert Joe Jaffe has frequently said, “[Social media] marketing is not campaign; it’s a commitment.”
10. Integrate social media with other online and offline communications. Social media represents another stream of touchpoints for the marketer, but they are most valuable when integrated with other consumer activities, from search and e-mail to watching videos and reading news online.

Whether you are a brand, or someone trying to figure out how to engage with people inside the social media sphere, this is a great list to go by.

What are your social media best practices?

Earlier last week, I made the move from using my Twitter username “chownage” to “kylechowning.” As to why, my main motivation is because people will know me before they’ll know chownage. Moreover, there are SEO (search engine optimization) benefits and overall, it just makes it easier for people to recall and reference.

After making the change, I got a few questions asking me how I did it and if there were any negative ramifications from doing so. The short answer is, it was easy and there weren’t any problems. However, the challenge that I encountered was that I had already registered the “kylechowning” username a year or so ago and there were pre-existing friends on that account. Because I didn’t want to start from scratch on either accounts, I had to get creative on making the swap.

By the way, if your new username of choice is not already taken, here are simple instructions on how to change your username. These instructions focus on swapping usernames of two currently existing accounts.

The following steps use the example of changing my main account chownage to kylechowning.

1. Log in to Twitter
2. In the upper right hand navigation bar, click Settings
3. Change Username from chownage to chownage2 – This will temporarily free up your current username
4. Log out of Twitter
5. Log in to your other Twitter account; in this case, kylechowning
6. Click Settings
7. Change Username from kylechowning to chownage – Now the username kylechowning is available
8. Log out of Twitter
9. Log in to Twitter using your chownage2 settings
10. Click Settings
11. Change Username from chownage2 to kylechowning

And your done! Due to the way that Twitter has setup the usernames, you don’t have to change anything within Twitter. All references to your name will change in non-cached Twitter feeds.

If you’ve integrated your Twitter account with any social networks or blogs, you’ll need to change your username so your updates are posted. Finally, don’t forget to change your settings on your favorite Twitter app(s).

Yesterday, I had the spontaneous opportunity to attend the Author’s Way event and see social media “typist” Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) talk about his perspective and approach on all things social media. He also dived into the heart of his new book, Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust (Amazon link).

A lot was said over the course of four hours and I took about six pages of notes. However, there were five things that I walked away with that have brought a paradigm shift in my thinking of social media.

Prepare to have your mind changed:

1) The more things you can create and giveaway, the more you will get back in rewards
Seth Godin says that value comes in execution, not in your ideas. It’s a loud call to stop hording and start giving. Chris said that he posts 98% of his ideas and thoughts online. The other 2% are unique to his clients. Furthermore, he stated that 75% of his leads, ie: income, come from something he’s said online.

2) To increase your Twitter influence, be helpful
Chris suggested that you utilize a 12:1 tweet ratio; for every 12 times you retweet, promote, talk about, or push someone else, talk about yourself once. How do you do that? Http://search.twitter.com is the best place to get started. Identify your interest, find what people are saying about it and enter the conversation. In return you’ll create trust which gives you social capital which increases your value and influence.

3) Twitter is a business winning tool
This is for the naysayer business owners and CEO’s. Being active on Twitter is like sharing a meal, playing 18 holes or a face-to-face meeting. Not one of those functions will seal the deal by themselves, but when used together you’ll create a winning outcome. Chris gave the example of Frank, an employee at Comcast who started @comcastcares on Twitter. One year later, Frank now manages a team of ten people who are dedicated to servicing Comcast customers on Twitter alone. Personally, I’ve used this team on at least four times. On two of those occasions, we troubleshooted and scheduled an appointment via Twitter. I never had to call or email. Now that’s a way to keep my business.

4) Think like they do
It’s not good enough to throw your thoughts out there, you have to find out what people are saying, what words they are saying it with and look for those conversations. Chris brought up an example of a hosting company that wanted to find new clients online. Rather than searching for “hosting” or “web hosting” they looked for phrases like “server is down.” Whenever that phrase was used, the company would reply with an offer for three free months of web hosting. New clients came rolling in.

5) Winning is table stakes for the next game
This is a point that I felt like Chris couldn’t stress enough. The implications were multi-fold: A) Never start from nothing. B) Build off of and on previous successes. Why is this important? If you don’t connect with your followers on a personal level, they won’t care to follow you when you move on to the next game.

Finally, I’d like to leave you with some things he said that stood out and were helpful:

• Why don’t kids use Twitter? They already have a social life.
• Be everywhere—create and maintain bonds
• If you sit still in business, you’ll get stuck in business
• Structure yourself to always be in front of opportunities so you can give them away

There were so many other great things said. If you want to hear it all, I encourage you to buy the DVD and his book. Between the two, you’ll be set.

Thanks Chris for coming to Nashville. This was very helpful!

Did any of the above change your social media paradigm?