Social Media Club Orlando Mini Conference #SMCORL Part 1
Social Media Club Orlando hosted a mini conference this past weekend at Rollins College in conjunction with 2011 Florida DrupalCamp. This event was offered for a low cost of $10! What a great deal! It included lunch, snack, and a t-shirt along with a wealth of knowledge, tips, and networking. The event was hosted on the beautiful Rollins College campus in the heart of Winter Park, Florida. The hashtag for the event was #smcorl .
Check-in!
First up on my agenda was Jeremy Hilton @jeremyhilton, VP of Media at MindComet discussing Location Based Marketing (LBM). You probably have heard of the big players in the games, such as Facebook Places, Four Square and Gowalla.
As of 11/2010 about 4% Americans use location-based services to check-in, which makes it a great opportunities for businesses to figure out how to work this to their advantage as a marketing tool, since almost all are connected via social media.
LBM services can be used to:
- Inform (Find out what places are around you)
- Connect (Find out who’s using your services)
- Promote (Shared via Social Media)
- Offer Deals (Coupons, Mayor Specials)
- Create Competition (Badges)

Four Square
What’s Four Square all about? Watch this video http://www.howcast.com/videos/386406-How-To-Unlock-Your-World-With-Foursquare
Easy to use Dashboard for Metrics (stats)
Gowalla
My favorite check-in app is Gowalla currently – I like the interface, trip options, and just seems simple.
What’s Gowalla all about? Get a quick tour http://gowalla.com/
Facebook Places
Facebook Places – Check-in via Facebook – Coupons, Charity, and more – Downside doesn’t integrate nicely with Twitter.
Heat Tracker
Heat Tracker was an app discussed for location-based marketing powered by Four Square. Rollins is hot today due to check-in galore. What’s hot in near you?
What uses do you see educational institutions using LBM services?
One use by the University of Florida is to have a guided campus tour with key locations around campus to check-in at to complete your trip on Gowalla. Check this trip out http://gowalla.com/trips/471
A second use would be for events conducted by Student Activities or other organizations on campus to promote events happening on campus, while students check-in they most likely are positing this to Facebook or Twitter for other fellow students to see.
A third use would be for marketing to use a tool to continue spreading information about the campus via visitors, students, and staff social media networks.
Businesses are using it to conduct charitable donation with check-ins which in turn promote it through publishing your check-in to your social media connections. One of the 1st charity based Facebook Places deals I have seen was McDonald’s for a $1 donation to the Ronald McDonald House.
Location Based Marketing efforts will continue to grow as the advancement in mobile devices continue. Who will win the LBM services market or will there be a new player in town soon?
Yelp!
Next up on my agenda was Colleen Burns @ColleenBurns Orlando Community Manager at Yelp discussing Yelp’s Community Management Efforts @yelporlando . Yelp is a great source of information for reviews on business in your area http://www.yelp.com/orlando-fl
Colleen discussed her role as Community Manager; which includes working with local businesses, hosting elite events, visiting the local community areas and more…
One of the area she discussed: Inside the Mind of a Community Manager (Social Studies Blog) http://bit.ly/ibN46q could be applied to a variety of roles involving social media at different organizations. What parts do you play in your organization? Are you the Pinata, Cheerleader, or Traffic Cop?
Right after Colleen gave away a bunch of free Yelp swag Peter Murphy @Peter_Murphy, Host at Orlando LIVEÂ discussed a little about Value, Intangibles You Need for Your Website. Top 10 most valuable attributes a website can possess: 1-Usability 2-Simplicity 3-Relevance 4-Interactivity 5-Community 6-Â Consumer Reports/Reviews 7-Domain Name 8- Content/Videos 9-Establish Purpose 10-Passion
Peter tried to keep the crowd please by letting us go early for the lunch line, which is always a mad rush at any conference.
I’ll continue my journey after lunch in Part 2 of this blog series. Come back for more soon!
This will include a session on social media in local government, social media in small businesses, social media in the news (Orlando Sentinel & WESH), and Orange County Library use of social media.
Find out more about SMC Orlando through Facebook http://www.facebook.com/SMCOrlando or Twitter @SMCOrlando
Twitter: @professorjosh
Facebook: Professor Josh’s Tech Corner http://bit.ly/9h867j
Thanks for sharing this, Josh! Hilton’s class was great. I missed Colleen’s and Peter’s talks, though, so I’m happy to have the recap! Instead, I went to Dustin’s Gamification class, where he talked about using games to incentivize people. He pointed out that people respond to certain goals that are set for them, like that progress bar in LinkedIn. Members of your audience may change their behavior (e.g., go to your store, read your book, retweet you) in order to gain some seemingly insignificant reward (e.g., a Gowalla badge or miles in an iPhone running app). Sometimes the reward is just NOT losing! 🙂
I look forward to your recaps of other classes!
Sounds like another great session! I hate choosing sessions at a conference, you always seems to miss out but Social Media can at least help you get some idea happened at other sessions. Would have love to seen some of the presentations posted on SlideShare afterward. Trips & Badges are a great idea to us in Gowalla, Disney is playing up this big time! I love the Nike+ App on my iPhone: blogged about that before http://wp.me/p10Pdu-4W But has added some cool new features even since then.