Toby's Blog

A Tiny Snowflake "Twit" Creates A Social Media Miracle

Toby Bloomberg (Bloomberg Marketing/Diva Marketing) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 23:16:19 -0600

Do you believe in people miracles? Especially today, perhaps you're popping by after the last package has been opened or the last cookie eaten. I'd like to tell you a, as CK (@ckEpiphany) calls it, a social media Xmas miracle story. If you still have room a steamy hot chocolate or spiced cider along with a cookie or two would be lovely to indulge in right now. Hot chocolate and cider to me are cozy type of drinks and this is a cozy type of story.

Connie Reese tells the story best of how a tiny snowflake twit grew into a green pea snowball of love. A green pea snowball .. how odd you may say but true stories are often stranger than fiction. Our story includes invisible people, a big scare, a brave woman and the spirit of kindness from so many.

Chapter One By Connie Reece (@conniereece)

A friend I’ve never met in person is scared. Very scared. Susan Reynolds (@susanreynods) is having a mastectomy tomorrow. She found the lump on December 5, went to the doctor the next day, and was immediately sent to a diagnostic radiologist. Big words, big fear: Invasive Lobular Carcinoma.

You can read about Susan’s journey through the cancer experience in her new blog, Boobs on Ice. The story I want to share is how a community of so-called invisible friends rallied around Susan to support, comfort and cheer her up–and somewhere along the way turned it into a fight–and a fund–against cancer.

It started on Twitter, where Susan is the self-proclaimed nana; she’s also a power networker with hundreds of followers. When she posted a new avatar–a photo of a package of frozen peas tucked inside her camisole to relieve the pain from multiple biopsies–she joked about putting her boob on ice. Her friends continued the joke.

On the Friday before Xmas Susan's surgery was a success. Joyous twits flew across the globe.

Chapter Two The Peavatars

Then came Ann Miller (@annohio) who changed her avatar on Twitter to a package of peas. Within a twit Twitter was a wash in green peas. Of course the peavatars must have a Flickr Peavatar Group. When last checked Frozen Pea Friday had almost 300 PPPs!

Chapter Three Frozen Pea Fund

One of social media's strengths is the evolution of ideas. Cathleen Rittereiser (@cathleenritt)'s suggestion went from simply friends-helping-friends to a challenge to raise money for cancer research. In honor of Susan, the Frozen Pea Fund was launched. In the first 15 hours $3,493 was raised from 118 peaple on 3 continents.

FrozenPeaFund launched in under one week w/ no budget, no biz plan, no mtkg plan .. just a handful of volunteers who understand social media - Connie Reece (@conniereece)

Chapter Four Lessons Learned and Questions To Ponder

As in any really good story there are lessons that we take with us. Frozen Peas teaches us lessons from a belief in the goodness of people to the power of micro blogging. What made this work was a sense of community. A sense of belonging. It was a tiny snowflake message that grew into a green pea snowball of love.

Jonathan Trenn (@jtrenn) insightful observation - We weren't being consumers. We were just being people. Spontaneous caring.

Could a company accomplish as much as quickly with a formal strategy? Could a not for profit make a similar impact? Can Spontaneous caring occur as a social media marketing strategy? What happens if say, Birds Eye was part of a community would you feel the same? Would you embrace this type of marketing initiative if the American Cancer Society was behind it?

Chapter Five It's Personal

I must tell you I don't know Susan. But we have dear friends in common who through hundreds of twits connected me to Susan's world. Her fight touched my heart for you see my sister fought a brave battle with breast cancer. Her name was Susan too.

You are fabulous, thanks so much for encouragement, smiles, support. You really make me feel like this is a team effort. Susan Reynolds (@susanreynods)

Chapter Six The Community Fundraising Challenge

CK words "community" fundraising are spot on. The Frozen Pea Fund is growing quickly .. organically. Perhaps the time has come to dream bigger. The Peavatar Group is now challenging corporations to join in the fight.

Birds Eye Jolly Green Giant how about matching funds with what the community raises?

We will not apeas cancer!

Blog title inspired by a twit from Drew McLellan * Drew's post on Marketing Profs is wonderful and these are too!

Note: Cross posted on Diva Marketing

The Un-conference - An Improvisation In Learning

Toby Bloomberg (Bloomberg Marketing/Diva Marketing) — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 03:12:11 -0500

This post is dedicated to Colleen Kulikowski in thanks to her post on active/rain about BlogOrlando. There were several comments on Colleen's post about the formate of an "unconference." I wanted to share a couple of lessons that I learned from turning a traditional workshop format into a less formal structure. To me an unconference is like an improvisation versus a three act play. For this type of format it to work the "actors"/presenters" should:

Be skilled in moderating a discussion

Have a good knowledge of the subject

Be open to taking a few risks and able to go with (and enjoy) the flow of the conversation

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of speaking at the Healthcare Blogging Summit in Chicago. I joined Elisa Camahort, BlogHer and Carol Krishner, Dollar Philanthropy, in presenting a 2-hour workshop type session on how to develop a blog strategy. However, after attending sessions before ours we realized the participants were not beginners when it came to blogs and social media. In fact, many were writing their own blogs, a few had begun sophisticated communities and everyone knew what RSS was all about. Needless to say, we were in big trouble .. with a Capital T.

What do you do when you know that the material you prepared is not appropriate for the audience? That was the challenge that Carol, Elisa and I faced. Over lunch we quickly revised our approach. Our goal was always to be of service to the people who were attending our session. We agreed to take our cue from social media itself: we would be transparent, honest, authentic and let our passion for the topic come through.

We introduced our session with what we thought we had learned about the participants .. that they were not novices when it came to blogs. They agreed. Then we took a deep breath and told them what we had originally planned .. that our presentation was created to help develop a blog strategy but we felt our materials were, for the most part, too elementary for them. We told them we would make the PowerPoint presentation available on our blogs, however, we felt we needed to change direction.

Then we did something very bloggy .. we asked what the participants wanted to talk about, what they needed to help with their work with blogs and social media. Keep in mind that unlike BlogOrlando which was positioned as an unconference, expectations had been set that The Healthcare Blogging Summit would be a traditional conference.

It was a leap of fate and a leap of trust that all could feel comfortable working for 2-hours in what would amount to a very unstructured environment. Something magical happened. Together we set a new agreed upon course based on the questions and interests that the people in the session presented to us. During our conversation, when it was appropriate we did refer to some of our slides. Topics ranged from a debate about ghost blogging to an extended discussion on how to use Myface to demonstrating Twitter.

Something else happened. We had fun and we learned together. However, without the engagement of the attendees this type of workshop can not succeed. Also, if you are sharing the "stage" with other speakers it's critical that egos be set aside and the focus and conversation be directed towards the outcome of providing information that is of value to the attendees.

Next time you have to develop a training program for your employees give the improv-unconference a try. Let me know how it worked.

Lessons Learned

Don't be afraid to change direction if what you planned doesn't work or is not appropriate.

The more you know about your audience the better your can prepare (that information was not available to us).
Involve participants in the learning process. Stop and ask their opinions let discussion naturally occur.

It helps if you are working with people who are passionate and knowledgeable about the topic.

Happy to share the PowerPoint with you; if you'd a copy there is a link on Diva Marketing .. at the end of the post.

Corner Grocery Store Relationships

Toby Bloomberg (Bloomberg Marketing/Diva Marketing) — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:14:14 -0500

Thanks to Colleen Kulikowski and Laurie Manny for the invitation to join the Active Rain community. After my experience judging the Laurie Manny contest and the warm welcome from so many people I thought it would be fun to see what life was life behind the lovely gates of your community.

Connie assured me that it was okay to share a few of Diva Marketing's evergreen posts, so for your reading pleasure here is one of my favorites that was inspired by a dear friend of mine .. and Active Rain's Paul Chaney. Hope you enjoy it.

Corner Grocery Store Relationships

There are many reasons why blogs are the new darlings of interactive marketing: to support branding and customer communications, to create awareness and customer loyalty. PR is a big deal too. While to others if sales is not part of the game why play? Well...divas blogs are being used for commerce in the same way as websites.

Smart guys like Robert Scoble and Shel Israel and are writing books about blogs and how to use them. C-levels are jumping on the blog band wagon to show the world that they're just one of the guys/or gals.

All those reasons and more are valid; but for this diva there is one more that underscores all. In a world that spins too fast, to even know your next door neighbor, blogs help recreate the corner grocery store relationship.

Paul Chaney tells me that he likes to read blogs written by women because they frequently put strategies in the context of "stories" that are easy to understand and easy to remember. So for Paul - here's my corner grocery store story.

When I was a little girl growing up in Boston, I use to love going grocery shopping with my grandma. We would visit the green-grocer, the butcher, the fishmonger and my favorite, the baker.

They knew my grandma well. And why wouldn't they? She shopping with them for many years. They knew she had five children and grandchildren she adored. They knew family dinners at Ida Marder's home meant lots of food and that meant lots of purchases.

Grandma wanted only the best and sometimes "special" which was better than best! So the green-grocer would often put aside produce or the butcher would save a cut of beef or a chicken for her. If Grandma didn't think the chicken was up to her standard...she was not shy about letting the butcher know it was not acceptable. And then advising him what to do about it. "Next time don't get one so old."

When we went to the bakery the lady behind the high counter would reach over and give me a cookie. Always. My did I feel special! And I was special in her eyes. I was the granddaughter of one of her customers. She knew that if I was happy then Grandma was happy. Even if Grandma's favorites weren't readily available she wasn't going to the baker down the street. She was "brand loyal."

And Grandma knew them too. She knew their simches (joys) and their tsoris (sorrows). If I were to say to Grandma, "You must have a pretty good relationship with the butcher to know about his daughter's operation." She would have said to me, "What relationship? They talk and I listen."

So it was. Customers and grocers both talked and listened. Customers and grocers both learned from each other what was important. Customers and grocers both cared.

Blogging helps recreate some of that corner grocery store relationship. How? By letting your customers and prospects in on the humanism of the people who are your company. By allowing customers and prospects to participate in the process of doing business. By encouraging conversations.

However, blogging is not always safe or easy. When you open comments you allow people the ability to tell you that your chicken may be too old. Unlike a letter or email or a phone call the next customer in line hears. You have to be on your toes to listen and to respond. That takes time and resources.

Even if you don't open comments on your blog, with the faster than a speeding bullet aspect of communication on the internet, it doesn't really matter. If your chicken is old your customer and prospects will get word. It only takes a click to send an email to your 527 favorite friends and relatives.

A group of smart guys who wrote the cluetrain manifesto say the markets are conversations. I like to remember markets are people. With blogs we can begin to do that again.