Danica Kombol & Ana Flores

Society Spotlight: Ana Flores

There’s a special place in heaven for women who launch blogging conferences. On the one hand, it seems easy as pie – pull together a group of super social women who love to blog, invite them for a weekend at a swanky hotel. Realistically, there’s so much more that goes into it – you have to invest your own time, energy and dollars into an idea that you hope will attract sponsors and attendees; then once you have them all there, you’ve got to keep them entertained and fed! So frankly, when I heard that my good friend Ana Flores was organizing We All Grow, an entirely new blog-conference aimed at her Latina community, I thought she’d lost her marbles!

I like to joke that Ana is your classic under-achiever. She’s a published author (having written the authoritative book on raising bi-lingual children, Bilingual is Better), the founder of the premiere Hispanic influencer community Latina Bloggers Connect, co-founder of the on-line community Spanglish Baby, has appeared on The Today Show, been featured in Parenting Magazine, and even graced the cover of a Corn Flakes Cereal box! That’s not all! She’s been heralded by sites like Babble as one of the Top 100 Mom blogs and is a doting mom to the most adorable daughter ever. So with all that “underachieving”, I’m shining the Everywhere Society Spotlight on Ana, whom I still sometimes refer to as LA Flowers, her original Twitter handle.

I recently caught up with Ana and asked her about We All Grow:

Q. What’s your inspiration for launching We All Grow?

Ana: Well Danica, as you know, you and I first met at a blogging conference. I’ve always navigated both cultures that way. Over the years, I attended so many general market blogging conferences and I took away so much from those experiences to help grow my blog and my business. I wanted to bring those same kinds of connections and the learning that takes place in the general market back to my community, the Latina blogging community. I very much so wanted to create a similar environment and provide a space where Latina bloggers can truly learn and grow their skills.

Q: How will this be different from other blogging conferences?

Ana: Truth? I’ve been grabbing inspiration from the best of the best blogging conferences for a while now. I’m hoping We All Grow will be an incredible mix of all these amazing blogging conferences I’ve attended over the years (like Blissdom and Evo, which no longer exist or Blogalicious and Mom 2.0). My plan is to take what I’ve learned from my favorite conferences and combine it with a healthy sprinkling of what we bring from our culture.

Q: What one thing do you hope bloggers who attend your conference take away from We All Grow?

Ana: I hope they walk out and say, “I have a skill set that I now understand and I’m taking this skill set with me back home to implement immediately and help me grow my blog.” I also hope they walk away and understand, “This is a business.”

Q. How do you find the time?

Ana: I’m never going to find the time. I find the right people. Because there is no more time! Finding amazing people is how I invest back in my business.

Hopefully by shining the Everywhere Society spotlight on Ana Flores, it will help her find the right people to attend and help cultivate, We All Grow. I’ll be there supporting the conference in LA come February, will you?

GSU Professor Jacob Aull

Social Media in the Classroom: An Interview with Professor Jacob Aull

We’re proud of our social media internship at Everywhere. Every semester, two to three interns are chosen to work in our offices and gain experience in our arena. We ask each intern to submit a blog post as part of their training. The following blog post was penned by Alair Hallman.

Recently I traveled with Everywhere’s Britton Edwards and Kelly Heisler to visit one of the first social media marketing classes taught at Georgia State University. While major social platforms, current trends in social media and student involvement online were bantered about in the lively discussion with students and my Everywhere colleagues, I took the opportunity to interview the professor Jacob Aull (@jakeaull) about social media education.

GSU Professor Jacob Aull

GSU Professor Jacob Aull

To give you the back story, Professor Aull also happens to be a former teacher from my days at GSU who helped to guide me down the career path of social media. His course not only inspired me and turned social media into a passion, but it also brought me to my current internship at Everywhere. It was a delight to catch up with him and get the scoop on current trends:

 

How does it feel to be a pioneer at GSU in educating students in social and digital?

It feels good, but I’m more focused on the joy of teaching and feeding off of students and helping them grow. I like social media and new technologies, but I don’t know if that’s as much of my joy as student collaboration and growth is.

 

Where do you see the future of social media in education going?

Higher education tends to be very compartmentalized, very divided — communications programs don’t talk to marketing programs. While social media has existed in communications and journalism programs for years, it has also had a role in certain CiS (Computer Information Sciences) departments, and is new to marketing education programs. As it grows, unfortunately it will probably continue to grow in this splintered fashion… ironic since social media is all about horizontal communication.

 

What is the impact of social courses on students? Is it showing better results in the professional field?

I get emails monthly from former students saying the tools and approaches I taught them in class help them get their job or do their job. So yes, I believe it helps with pro application.

 

What are some things students interested in social can do now to learn more?

Experiment. Experiment. Experiment. There are so many social channels; try as many of them as you can out. For the business aspect, I continue to reinforce the value of studying SEO and web analysis tools, latest info and practices. I still think Google+ will be a game changer – the same with big mobile apps, review directories and Pinterest.

What are your top three social/digital tools and why?

Top channels would be [1] Twitter – a fun, easy to use channel that’s great for seeing instant headlines and deciding whether or not to click through; [2] Delicious – where you can bookmark everything, organize easily and immediately Tweet all bookmarks - plus giving added SEO value; and [3] lastly LinkedIn for professional networking – this channel will continue to grow.

While social media is finding its place in the classroom, only time will tell as for its future. One thing’s for sure, social media is here to stay, and as long as it’s thriving, future generations of students will follow its path.

MacysPinterest

Catch the Fashion Frenzy on Pinterest

While many might describe Pinterest as a place for sharing recipes, finding inspiring home décor ideas or planning weddings by pinning bouquets, dresses, cakes and decorations, for me, Pinterest serves up the perfect complement to my fashion cravings.

I confess, once I found all of my favorite brands, I caught the pinning fever! Why wait for the latest issue of Vogue to come in the mail when I can create my own Style, Claws and Wedding boards?

Macy's on Pinterest

As you might know, Macy’s is one of our clients at Everywhere, and being the fashion-forward social brand, of course they’re active on Pinterest! Macy’s has 32 fabulous boards of magic. From home décor, color trends, historical stills from the Macy’s parades, to summer essentials you can probably find just about anything your heart desires. Macy’s is one of our favorite clients, so I personally live to see pictures from the events we work with like Culinary Council, Brasil and various fashion events. With that said, Macy’s gets a seat as Everywhere’s number one favorite fashion brand on Pinterest!

To celebrate fashion on Pinterest, from the hipster to the chic, here are four more fashion accounts that feed into my Pinning frenzy…

American Apparel on Pinterest

American Apparel: Looking for a taste of the sunshine state and the golden coast? American Apparel is a must-not-miss for those who enjoy the California-based retailers’ editorials. This fashion-forward brand updates 19 boards that range from their newest lines, editorials, pets, their staff and their stores – all the while staying true to their focus on 100% American-made clothing and accessories manufactured and produced in Los Angeles.

Neiman Marcus: Call me obsessed, but the street-style Pinterest Boards of Neiman Marcus, from SXSW to New York Fashion Week 2012, really call out to me. Often times the style of attendees walking the streets and attending events in high fashion are more intriguing than the runway shows themselves, particularly the way show-goers interpret and wear a designer’s collection. Take for example this summer’s neon trend, which has definitely made for much eye ogling on the street. Neiman Marcus pinned this trend with a vengeance during SXSW, taking it from the runway to the streets of Austin and finally to their Pinterest Boards.

Neiman Marcus on Pinterest

Karmaloop on Pinterest

Karmaloop: Think Rihanna, meets Madonna, meets Coachella, meets a glow stick party, and I am definitely a fan. Karmaloop Pinterest Boards represent the inspiration behind what they carry on their retail website, not only showing their latest street-wear designs for both women and men, but also highlighting how shoppers should wear their items. In addition to fashion, their boards contain graffiti and art, musical trendsetters, cool hair trends, interior design, and famous icons of the past and present.

Nasty Gal on Pinterest

Nasty Gal: If you love Karmaloop Pinterest Boards, you will definitely love Nasty Gal’s Boards as well. Nasty Gal uses Pinterest as a tool to engage with consumers on their collections and contests. I recently participated in a contest where I selected a look from Nasty Gal’s latest look book and used this to create my own Pinterest board. Although the cash prize originally motivated me, the contest truly brought out my inner editorial designer.

If you have yet to create a Pinterest account, I highly recommend it. Whether you’re an architecture fanatic, love adorable pets or get a kick out of funny post cards, Pinterest is a diamond mine waiting to be hacked.

For more ideas on inspiration, check out Everywhere’s Pinterest Boards at http://pinterest.com/everywhere/ and/or feel free to take a peek at mine at http://pinterest.com/marleisse/

Happy pinning!

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The #Digitini Experience

We’re proud of our social media internship at Everywhere. Every semester, two to three interns are chosen to work in our offices and gain experience in our arena. We ask each intern to submit a blog post as part of their training. The following blog post was penned by Courtney Goldin.

I’ve come to understand it’s the experiences you rack up in a lifetime that make for an excellent journey.

An Atlanta native, I attend college in a little town in Alabama called Auburn studying public relations – a decision that put me on a path towards a career I love and can excel in.

It just happened like that. When I landed my first internship as a college undergrad at the Everywhere offices, with it came the opportunity to return to my Atlanta roots in the Old Fourth Ward, interning with a great firm specializing in social media marketing.

I have always loved the different aspects of social media. From Pinterest, which has given me the ability to pin the things I love and want to remember on a virtual pin board and express my creativity through clothing, quotes and people that inspire me, to Twitter, which has helped me to keep up with current events and trending topics. I am excited for the chance to dive deeper and use the tools to help actual clients from a business perspective.

Everywhere has this great ability to connect, listen and tap into public trends… and of course attract the right kind of crowd to host a fabulous tweetup! The kickoff party of the summer, the Digitini, is an experience I will never forget.

Earlier this May, Everywhere hosted a Digitini tweetup honoring blogger Ananda Leeke. An inspiration to our team, Ananda founded The Digital Sisterhood, where she empowers women in social media through Digital Sisterhood Radio and #DigitalSisterhood Wednesdays on Twitter. Her social media activism and accomplishments, dedication to blogging and even her role as a Heart of Haiti ambassador have endeared her to our team as our “digital sister.”

Every detail of the event was made to perfection, from delectable strawberry, s’more and chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting from O.M.G. Cupcakes to mixing up Digitinis, concocted from a recipe of peach-flavored Ciroc, lemonade and white grape juice – I can assure you, not a single drop was wasted!

Surrounded by social media friends, influencers and local bloggers, we presented Ananda with the key to the Digital Sisterhood in Atlanta not only recognizing her accomplishments, but also exemplifying social media’s ability to forever change the way people connect, engage and empower each other through technology.

The Digitini tweetup gave me a valuable insight into the social media world, testing my social skills and giving me the opportunity to connect with people who share my passion. I look forward to the lessons and new experiences this summer internship holds. Through Digitini, I was able to take a look out of that great door and continue my adventure of possibilities.

 

Spelbots3

Why we

 

Whether traveling across the globe, across town or teaching a robot to dance, the Spelman SpelBots have made the robotics industry both interesting and fun. The SpelBots are an all-female, African-American robotics team at historically black Spelman College, in Atlanta, GA.

The SpelBots made history in 2009 when they became the first African-American all-female robotics team to qualify and win the international robotics soccer competition, RoboCup in Japan. I consider myself fortunate to have the privilege to work closely with an organization like the SpelBots who not only have made history globally, but have also made an even bigger impact on their community.

SpelBots provide hands-on robotics education and research for women and students in computer science. This is particularly important as women and African-Americans are a minority in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) industries. These phenomenal women compete locally, nationally and internationally at robotics competitions while educating and helping to introduce grade-school students about the importance of math, science and engineering.

SpelBots on Facebook

SpelBots celebrate Black History Month on Facebook

Andrew B. Williams, Ph.D, is the founder and coach of the SpelBots as well as the Director of the Humanoid Engineering and Robot Systems (HERS) Lab at Spelman College. During the past two months, Everywhere worked with the SpelBots and Dr. Williams to increase their social and digital presence on local and national levels.

Celebrating SpelBots Black History Month Socially

In celebration of Black History Month, Everywhere collaborated with SpelBots to create a social campaign featuring a different African-American woman in computing and technology each day of February on their Twitter and Facebook pages.

Honoring SpelBots on a Local Level

Helping to promote SpelBots Black History Month on a local level, our team worked with Atlanta City Council representative Keisha Lance-Bottoms to honor the SpelBots with a proclamation from the City of Atlanta deeming February 6 as “Young Black Women In Computing and STEM Day”.

SpelBots proclamation from the City of Atlanta deeming February 6 as “Young Black Women In Computing and STEM Day”

Up next for the Spelbots

The SpelBots reflect the great strides that African-Americans and women take in computing and technology. While they travel the world, they never forget their community and the importance of serving as positive, passionate and intelligent role models introducing science and technology to the next generation.

The SpelBots will hopefully make history again as they travel to Mexico City in June to compete against 27 teams in RoboCup.

 

To follow the SpelBots’ trail of success follow them on Twitter, like them on Facebook and visit their website.

 

The Starter Kit: What Every Brand Should Have Before ‘Joining the Conversation’

This deck outlines the importance of socializing your business before you jump into the “sexy” or public side of Social Media. Brands know they need to get Social, as we’ve done a pretty good job of advocating the importance of “joining the conversation.” As a result, so much of the internal Social Media dialogue is centered around the tactical. But what far too many overlook before they tweet can easily jeopardize the success of a campaign or worse, the integrity of their brand.

Have you had any experiences with socializing a brand or organization? If so, I’d love to hear your success and/or war stories!

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Everywhere Talks Blogger Relations with the DigitalSisterhood

If I had to pick my absolute favorite thing about my role as Everywhere’s Digital Outreach Manager, it’s blogger relations. I love connecting with fellow bloggers, reading their work, discovering what interests them and then finding a place where I think that they would fit into a campaign for one of our clients. Thru these efforts, I’ve had the opportunity to meet and get to know (both online and in person) some amazing women with stories as unique as their blogs.

One of those women is Everywhere friend, ‘Heart of Haiti’ ambassador & blogger Ananda Leeke, who represents a case study example of what sustainable “blogger relations” is all about. Recently, I was privileged to be a part of her weekly DigitalSisterhood radio show to talk about the work I do and offer insight to bloggers on how to create effective partnerships with brands.

Throughout the show, there were a lot of questions about what we do at Everywhere and specifically, how we approach partnerships with bloggers on behalf of our clients. I thought I would share some details about current opportunities along with some perspective on what we look for when identifying potential partners.

Why Work With Everywhere?

Our clients understand and respect the value of working with bloggers, to boost credibility, obtain user insights and to drive interest in their products. This trust in the power of blogger engagement, allows us to do some pretty innovative campaigns on their behalf. Through an ongoing ambassador program, we led a group of bloggers to Haiti to learn first hand about the Macy’s ‘Heart of Haiti’ collection. This once in a lifetime experience deepened our ambassadors’ commitment to bringing awareness to ‘Heart of Haiti’ resulting in millions of additional, earned and shared impressions for our client. For client Qualcomm in support of their mobile gift giving app SWAGG, we engaged bloggers for a series of product driven focus groups. The insights gathered from these mommy bloggers had a direct impact on new product features in subsequent releases of the app. Talk about influence!

What We Look For

Every campaign has it’s own set of criteria when it comes to identifying partner candidates, the most important being relevance. After all, it does us our clients no good to work with a blogger who’s audience has no interest in what we’re promoting. And we’re pretty certain most self respecting bloggers wouldn’t have it any other way.

While blog traffic is a factor, it’s by no means a deal breaker. We’re most interested in how engaged your community is with you and the products you’re promoting. Do your readers interact with your content through subscriptions, comments and on external social platforms? Can you demonstrate your influence and authority in a particular category? Do your readers take heed to your calls to action? We’d rather have the opportunity to speak to a small group of qualified and captive readers than millions of disinterested passers-by. And finally, are you passionate not just about a particular product but about your blog and your community? This is typically evident in the authenticity of your blog voice, the frequency of your interactions and posts and the thoughtfulness and creativity of your content.

Current Opportunities

We have ongoing opportunities to attend live cooking demos with the Macy’s Culinary Council in multiple markets, featuring chefs like Todd English and Wolfgang Puck. Also ongoing are various fashion driven events to support new apparel collections debuting at Macy’s.

Additionally, we’re in the process of assembling a new team of ‘Heart of Haiti’ ambassadors for Summer/Fall initiatives and to potentially join us on an upcoming trip to Haiti. And finally, we’re helping to launch a game changing mobile app for which we’ll be engaging tech savvy mom bloggers to help promote.

Want to Learn More?

1. Send us an email. Introduce yourself and your blog and tell us where you’re from, what your interests are and how you see yourself partnering with Everywhere.

2. Tweet us! I can be reached personally at @Brittont13 or @Beeverywhere.

3. Know that we’re working on multiple campaigns at any given time including: Fashion, Celebrity, Culinary, Cause, Technology and the list goes on! We’re also open to hearing your unique ideas for partnerships that would benefit the brands we’re currently working with.

4. And understand that we ask all bloggers to follow and abide by FTC guidelines.

Finally, we are always available to chat, offer advice and provide Social Media insights & information to help you grow your brand. If we’re not yet in touch, please feel free to tweet or email us at @beeverywhere / info@beeverywhere.tv. We look forward to connecting!

If you weren’t able to attend the May 4th DigitalSisterhood live streaming, you can listen to it at your convenience here.

 


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Ready or Not: Priming Your Organization for Social Media Success

 

I always say that one of the most challenging jobs in the world has got to be that of a Social Media Manager in an organization that hasn’t fully bought into Social (and let’s face it, most still have not). Day after day of roadblocks and dismissals, feeling disconnected and misunderstood but not empowered or “senior enough” to affect any real change.

Many brands have finally gotten to the point where they acknowledge (albeit begrudgingly) that they need “Social” but they have absolutely no idea where to fit it into their existing mix. So they hire some poor soul, often times junior level with no team support, to execute that “Social Media thing” and expect to make miracles happen from the confines of a Twitter account. When they don’t get the results that the “experts” so emphatically promised them, they’ve found one more reason to write off the space as nothing more than fluff.

The truth is, in order for Social to really net results, it requires a total organizational shift that re-defines policy, philosophy, roles and procedures. That kind of change isn’t always easy, however, if done right, it establishes a solid foundation that will inevitably save a brand time, resources and potentially even a crisis or two. Organizations must also resist the temptation to banish Social to it’s own, isolated silo. Social Media simply can’t flourish on it’s own because it’s an extension of nearly every major department inside a company. And all of these separate interests, from Customer Service to Events, need to be integrated into one cohesive Social strategy.

The brilliant Charlene Li and her team at Altimeter have developed a social readiness checklist that any business considering a move into the Social Media space should check out. Their criteria is based on the following principle:

“To be successful using social technologies, companies must prepare and align internal roles, processes, policies and stakeholders with their business objectives. Social business is a profound change that impacts all departments in an organization.”

Central to this profound change must be a renewed commitment by companies to do better by their customers. From entry level to the C-Suite, anyone acting on behalf of a brand must understand this increased responsibility to individual customer engagement. And in order to stay competitive in an increasingly real-time environment, brands have to listen and respond both quickly and appropriately. Add to that the public’s growing demand for transparency and you’re talking change that extends far beyond deciding who will maintain a Facebook page.

Ultimately letting go is a scary proposition for most brands, big or small. But the greater risk lies in a non-committal and reactionary foray into a space that by most accounts, is here to stay.

What are your thoughts on brands’ jumping into the Social space prematurely or without a thoughtful strategy? Any experience as the person charged with Social Media within an organization not quite ready to make the leap? I’d love to hear your war stories!

5 Questions To Spark a Crisis Response Plan

In my last post we touched on what’s turned out to be an already impressive year of case study worthy social media blunders. And what ultimately separates the winners & losers among brands like Aflac, Kenneth Cole & Chrysler, boils down to their post-crisis response. While I think we can all agree that brands will continue to goof, putting a solid Social Media crisis response plan on paper (something that for the record only a quarter of big brands admit they have), can only help mitigate the opportunity for a big time crisis to unleash itself.

These days crisis happens in real time. The luxury of mulling over a messaging strategy before an official press release is pushed out no longer exists. The most effective crisis plans are built for flexibility in order to accommodate the inevitable shifts & twists a message undergoes once it enters the socialsphere.

While every organization demands its own unique plan and every crisis presents a unique set of challenges, I’ve put together a basic framework, built on self-posed questions, for how to begin establishing your own preparedness plan.

First off, ask yourself…

Who are my stakeholders?

Identify the team of individuals from within your organization who will drive the implementation of your crisis plan. Below are some of the key stakeholders who will most likely play a role in your crisis response:

The Monitors: Charged with listening and closely analyzing the social web for any disconcerting mentions or changes in volume, sentiment and negative keyword associations linked to your brand.

The Decision Makers: A core team of managers who will guide the crisis through critical decision points and determine appropriate courses of actions. A crisis isn’t a crisis until this group says it is.

The Message Architects: Those individuals, who will assemble official statements for social media channels, “standardized” responses to individual inquiries and determine the time, place and manner of your messaging strategy.

The Mouthpieces: Will there be an official spokesperson for social media channels? How will this person / team deploy messaging and in what contexts? Keep in mind, your company’s “official” spokesperson may not necessarily be the right fit to speak to your social media communities.

The Final Sign-Off: Will Legal or the C-Suite need to give a final sign off before messaging goes live? Devise a strategy to obtain these in the most efficient way possible. Organizations may need to re-assess these approval processes to accommodate the real time nature that is social media.

Once you’ve got your stakeholders ID’d, it’s time to establish an action plan. Thinking through this process is a great exercise in and of itself as it will help you fine tune the roles and responsibilities of your Social team and challenge your organization to embrace the kind of agility that Social Media demands.

What type of crisis is this?

Yes, there are more than one. And while you may decide to go even more granular in your classifications, typically a crisis falls in to one of these two categories. It’s advised that you create a unique action plan for each.

Foreseeable: A crisis where internal stakeholders are notified in advance and have the opportunity to own the original messaging via an official company statement i.e. press release, media alert, etc. An example of this would be a product safety recall. A Foreseeable Crisis won’t typically start via Social Media, but certainly may still catch a fire there.

Abrupt: Where the messaging originates from a third party source i.e. inflammatory blog posts, spreading of misinformation, slanderous word-of-mouth campaigns or any other unforeseen event that threatens the public perception of a brand.

When will we message?

If PR is deploying an official statement, how will the Social Media alert be timed against this? Have you identified any Social benchmarks that will effectively serve as your indication that a crisis is bubbling? Timing your deployment is critical and in many ways a fine line. You don’t want to be overzealous and draw attention to a crisis before it’s warranted however you certainly want to avoid missing the window of opportunity to own your own message. Plan for close monitoring and analysis along with hour-by-hour consults with your core team.

Where will we message?

It’s generally recommended that a crisis be dealt with across all of a brand’s official channels. If the goal is to communicate a message, avoiding certain contexts out of fear of the response, can be perceived as deceitful or at minimum, lacking transparency. And bear in mind that once a crisis has legs, it will find it’s way into these networks regardless. You’re better off maintaining some stake in your message before it takes on a life of it’s own. Also, determine if you will reply to each individual inquiry and if not, how you will gauge which messages warrant responses.

And finally, will you address external mentions such as blog posts publically (in the comment section) and at what point an exchange should be taken off line?

How will we message?

Once your “official” statement has been deployed, it’s important to determine a protocol for how and when to respond to your communities. Consider the individual make-up of these networks as you’re developing your messaging. Your Facebook community may be more consumer focused vs. your Twitter account that might speak to more of an industry and/or journalistic audience. Communicate authentically and leave the spin to the PR pros.

While crisis planning is critical, and arguably even more so for social media, the truth is, in a world of citizen journalists and self appointed experts, you’ll never please everyone. The end goal for any crisis strategy is to leverage your communities to quell a potential disaster. Take responsibility, exercise transparency, speak authentically and LISTEN. Your brand may just be better for it.