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What I Learned at Social Media Camp
Earlier this month, I attended Social Media Camp in Victoria. This was my very first time attending and wow, so much valuable information!
I also had the opportunity to hang out with some members of the Cowichan Valley Social Media Club, including Brenda Burch from Social Media is Simple, Suelle Stewart from Suelle Stewart Creative, Beverlee Caron from Duncan Christian School, and Megan Fleming from Love Thy Age. This was also a great time to network and I met the lovely Celeste Walmsley from Modern Marketing Advantage who convinced all of us to take a “selfie” photos ( while we were having lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory) and post on Twitter for a chance to win with LegArt and Tigh Na Mara resort ( I also bought some leggings from LegArt—they are so comfortable!)
My selfie from the first day of Social Media Camp and me and Celeste with our "selfie"
Here’s a quick look at some of the presentations that stood out for me and some of my key takeaways from the conference.
I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation from Jordan Bower. His topic was Corporate Intimacy: a Challenge to Brand Storytellers. He asked the audience, “What is a story?” And received many great responses - it’s a sequence of events, it's perspective, emotions, narrative, it has a plot, characters and conflict and so on. He discussed how “A story is a relationship between the storyteller and the audience” and gave some great examples of dilemma, metaphor and emotional literacy. You may think, “What has this got to do with social media? Well, everything! Being able to tell a story and doing it in the right voice is very important when you are trying to create your brand and “tell your story”. Here’s a slideshow with some of what he discussed.
The other presentation that piqued my curiosity – Sell Your Story on Snapchat by Sunny Lenarduzzi Now you may be thinking like me--- Snapchat for business? Isn’t it for teenagers and for sending “interesting” photos to your significant other?? (Lol apparently not.) Sunny showed an example of Taco Bell telling its story and suggests that other businesses can generate buzz, make sales, drive traffic, educate about products and much more with a SnapChat story. While I find this interesting I’m not sure if this would work for the type of business that I’m in. In fact, I posted a video about my experience at Social Media Camp and posed the Snapchat question—do you use Snapchat for business? Take a look and let me know your thoughts! ( I have pinned the video on my Facebook page)
There was so much more to the conference, from a wonderful presentation from Juhli Selby on Managing The Time You Spend on Social Media ( I feel very blessed to have met her,too! She’s so pleasant and down to earth) to finding out how to increase your Twitter followers.
But if I had to name the top 3 takeaways from Social Media Camp:
- Be consistent in your Social Media marketing. Unfortunately you can’t post once a month and then be disappointed when your engagement results are low. On the other hand, don’t post every 5 minutes and fill other people’s newsfeeds with “stuff”. That’s just annoying, IMO.
- Use We vs them. Understand what your customers want to know then add value by educating. Your FAQ’s are a great way to create content
- Be authentic. Don’t be afraid to show yourself. You are human after all! And people tend to want to do business with people they like, know and trust
I will be presenting more of my Social Media Camp takeaways at the June 15th Meet Your Neighbours lunch meeting at the Travelodge Silverbridge Inn in Duncan. Please join me starting at 11:45am. Hope to see you then!