Anything worth doing: lessons from Social Media Camp

More than 450 people attended Victoria’s first ever Social Media Camp on October 3, 2010. Crowds gathered inside the lobby of the Victoria Conference Centre before 8am, anxious to get started with the great panel of speakers, connect in real life with virtual friends, meet new ones and learn.

From n00bs to self proclaimed “Jedi’s”, the skill and experience level of campers varied greatly. But everyone was more than happy to help one another out, answering simple or difficult questions, creating accounts and sharing insights into existing ones. Here is a list of lessons I took away from my time at Social Media Camp.

Lesson #1: Social media is NOT for everyone

Keynote speaker Scott Stratton kindly informed us, “Social Media doesn’t change anything, it only amplifies what already exists. If you suck, you just suck harder.”

Yes, social media is a flat form that anyone can access. But not everyone should. If you don’t have the will or the time to commit to social media, don’t get in the game. If you can’t engage appropriately in a timely manner, you might not be ready for social media.

Non-profit organizations may want to tread slowly when it comes to social media for a different reason. Ask why you want to be involved with social media and if the answer is “everyone else is doing it”, you should probably reconsider your strategy. Unless “everyone else” includes your major donors.

Although social media can be a powerful tool for advocacy to raise awareness around a cause or issue, it is not a replacement - or competition - for traditional, face-to-face relationships with clients and donors. If your mission involves providing programs, your #1 priority must be delivering and fundraising for those programs. In an industry where staff are already wearing more hats than they can often handle, adding social media to the day’s task list may be misplacing your energies.

If non-profit organizations are going to try anything, they should start with a great website. In an era when Google has replaced phone books, your website is likely the first point of contact a client, employee or funder will have with your organization. Make your first impression a great one.

Invest money into building a great site and spend time keeping it relevant. If the time comes when you are ready for social media, do it well or don’t do it at all.

Lesson #2: Try everything. Then chose what’s right for you and stick with it.

Here’s where Yoda was wrong. When it comes to social media, you can try as many tricks and tools as you want to. Heck, try them all! But once you have tried them, select a few that suit you and use them well.

Keynote speaker Julien Smith hammered home this point. “Everything you learned today, you have to try it... if you don’t, they [your competitors] will”.

It’s ok to make mistakes - with the short attention span of social media, no one will remember. Unless you are a celebrity the world already loves to poke fun at - like George Bush or Sarah Palin. That being said, don’t put anything online you wouldn’t be comfortable with your mother - or your employer, present or future - seeing.

The importance of selecting social media tools that work for you was a common theme throughout the day. But you will probably exhaust yourself if you don’t narrow it down to a few select choices that suit your needs and personality. Not only that, if you try to use all the tools, you probably won’t use any of them well (more on that in Lesson #3).

So go ahead and jump in, try it out. But really try it out. Figure out what works for you & disable any inactive accounts.

Once you have tried, do or do not. If you’re not going to be there and be present, don’t be there at all.

Lesson #3: It’s all about content

We’ve all heard it before and on Sunday we heard it again and again... and again. Content is king. The only content worth producing is awesome content. If you’re going to do it, do it exceptionally, not acceptionally. The best SEO is great content. Write content people want to see.

If you want people to care about you and what you’re saying - and if you don’t, why are you online?- then say something great. This will help build your brand, your reputation, your credibility, your following and your SEO. If people like what you have to say, they will share it. It’s better to say nothing at all than to say something meh.

If you had the misfortune of missing this event, don’t worry - organizers Chris Burdge and Paul Holmes are already talking about another - even bigger - event for next year. And if you want to catch the buzz around this event, tune in to the twitter hashtag #smcv10 for comments, videos and blog posts about this year’s event.

Photo credit: Wendy Hamilton