Toluu

Nothin' but SocNET

chatting about social networking

My Mom was my Twitter hookSeptember 26

Mom turned 71 today. Happy Birthday, Mom!

It's a miracle she is with us. Last year my mom was having brain surgery on her birthday to remove a cancerous tumor which had mastitized from her stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer that she battled 6 years prior.

My mom is the reason I got hooked on Twitter. So Mom had a huge brain tumor that was growing quickly. My siblings, father, aunt and uncle huddled around my mom for over a week at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis. We needed to get the constantly changing news out to all our family, friends and co-workers on our mom's hourly, daily status change.

I asked everyone that knew Mom and could get on the web to follow me on Twitter. In 140 characters or less, I kept everyone in the know about what the doctors were saying, tests that were being ran and next steps. It was simple, instantaneous and a hell of a lot easier and far less stressful than a phone tree!

And here's the interesting thing with Twitter and my "mom-cancer-status" tweets, strangers started following me. People that had worked on drugs my mom was taking, doctors, nurses, techs - cancer survivors, brain cancer survivors even - and lots of well wishers. It was profound. We were blown away! All the followers brought us unexpected emotional lift and became a much needed sounding board for us during this endeavor.

Using Twitter in your Social Media OutreachJuly 31

At @BarbaraKB's prompting, I responded to Jeremiah Owyang's post on Exxon Mobil's plunge into using Twitter in their social media outreach plan. I'm going to broaden up my original comment here:

In any form of communication, there's a difference between an individual responding as an individual and an individual responding as a company's representative. In social media, the socnet nuances are there and the community will help you course correct. For your benefit, please go in eyes wide open with a baseline understanding. There are several blogs that give great advice on social media outreach.

And here's my thoughts on Twitter, please add your thoughts as well:

First and foremost, if you are going extend your Social Media Outreach to Twitter please remember it's a medium for conversation. No shouting or you will only hear your own echo or if you truly mess up, lots of flogging. It's a conversation that needs

KC tweetupJune 2

(photo courtesy of @riebschlager)

Kansas City twitterers got together for our maiden happy hour (in Twitterspeak "tweetup") last Friday night. Having conversed over Twitter for months, Friday evening's tweetup was the first time for most of us to meet each other IRL.

It all started with the following tweet from @QueenofSpain:




After a few more tweets looking for a sponsor, Barkley came through. And a week later, we were enjoying each other's company at the first KC tweetup! Mark Logan (@mlogan) and Celeste Lindell (@average_jane) hosted the

Saying Thank You - The Gratitude CampaignMay 4

The Gratitude Campaign, is Scott's quick way to show thanks to any service person you come across:



Pass on The Gratitude Campaign to your friends and family!

SNCR's NewComm ForumMay 1

I'm starting this post out with a little background so the theme of it has some teeth to it. I've been in online marketing for 14 years (gulp, yep, ONE FOUR...no lie.)

I know that dates me, but I wanted to illustrate my years (along with blood, sweat, tears and bounced paychecks) invested in this industry, to let you know that I've had the time to attend several Internet, Web Marketing, and Tech conferences from Internet World to iMedia Summit to ad:tech to ITEC, etc.

And ya know, a conference, is a conference, is a conference with an exhibit hall and parties and some interesting keynotes. Lots of business cards exchanged, some information is relevant, some not - a good excuse to get out of the office and network. Overall for me, I haven't come across a must attend conference. They all kinda blend together.

At the beginning of this year, I spoke with an industry friend, Rick Murray, about my social-media-conference-with-a-slightly-different-lens search: more research based and a focus on conversation not marketing per se. He suggested I check out "snicker," explaining it's an acronym S N C R for a New Comm organization.

And that's how I ended up at last week's Society of New Communications Research's (SNCR) (again, pronounced Snicker) NewComm Fo