As Pete Fasano said after  last night’s Social Media Club Atlanta monthly meeting, “We may have outgrown the back room at Manuel’s Tavern.” 

Tony Conway and Jeannie Ericson

One of our biggest crowds yet came to hear Jeannie Ericson of Public Broadcasting Atlanta and Tony Conway of Atlanta Children’s Shelter talk about their efforts to build community via social networks and the internal and external investments required for their initiatives. The event was sponsored by Lens on Atlanta,  an internet destination where members of Metro Atlanta can connect with each other and with regional leadership to find answers, solve problems, create positive change, and connect and create communities.

Clockwise Amani Channel, Stacy Williams and Grayson Daughters

Several leaders in Atlanta’s social media community were on hand including Sherry Heyl, Amani Channel, Grayson Daughters, and Stacy Williams.

Check out Michelle Batten’s excellent summary of the conversation. But if I could boil the discussion down to one point, it would be Tony’s rhetorical question “Why should a children’s shelter in a church basement be on Facebook?  The same reason why Fortune 500 companies do – growth.  

Both Jeannine and Tony talked about mapping efforts back to the communications goals, managing limited dollars, sustaining efforts after a particular campaign finishes, and connecting with the community.

Let me get back to you.

Last night Social Media Club Atlanta held its monthly meeting.  The topic:  ”Brand + Consumers: Dating and Mating in the Social Arena” It was part one of our Summer 2009 “Social Media Love Affair” three-part program series. Thanks to Jon Gatrell and the Mountain Social Media Summit for sponsoring the event.

Jon Caddell, Michelle Batten, Diane Deseta and yours truly

We are seeking insights from local industry brand leaders about brand/consumer social media relationships within their respective industries. Our first speaker in the series was Jon Caddell, digital advertising director at ING.

The crowd was intimate and engaged.  Jon candidly shared his experiences of being a social media advocate and the importance of taking incremental steps given the conservative nature of of ING’s business.  The discussion centered on building trust (especially in this economy), changing internal culture, and using a data driven approach. He worked closely with an analytics team to adjust key performance indicators to account for social media metrics in facilitating buy-in.  He shared with us his successes with Linkedin and Facebook revealing that they got higher click throughs than traditional banner advertising because their use of social media was culturally relevant to their audience. These initial results are helping pave the way for more social media initiatives.

In the crowd was Kristin Foster soon to be Kristin Parrish.  She just moved to Atlanta from Washington, DC and works for Ogilvy PR’s John Bell doing social media.  I also met Jessica Murray who helps lead up Social Media Club Nashville.

But perhaps the best audience takeaway came from Patrick Jones who summed up how best to use social media – “Think big, start small and scale fast.”

Let me get back to you.

While most of Atlanta was watching Florida play Oklahoma in the BCS Championship Game last night, 30 social media stalwarts attended the January meeting of the Social Media Club Atlanta at Manuel’s Tavern. So above the shouts and groans from fans sitting in the next room, we played Online Identity and Buzzword Bingo. Led by Amber Rhea, we discussed

- Is your online identity different from your real life identity?

- What does it mean to “manage your online identity?”

- Are there any off-limits topics on blogs? Who decides?

- Rethinking the personal/professional dichotomy and tearing down the walls of compartmentalization yea or nay?

Each time someone said a buzzword in his or her answer, we got to put down a bean over that buzzword. The Goal: The first person who had five buzzwords in a row would win.

Here were some social media buzzwords:

Hyperlocal
Whuffie
Social capital
Online reputation
Thought leader
Expert
Relationship building
Conversation
Integrity
Personal brand
Transparency
Credibility
Beta
Overshare
Authenticity
Peer influence mapping
Microblogging
Evangelist
Netroots
Viral
Crowdsourcing
User-generated
Long tail

The winner was a blogger known as JBrotherLove.

The winning string of buzzwords: Authenticity, Transparency, Personal brand, Conversation, Credibility

And yes, I got home in time to watch Florida beat Oklahoma, but my real concern is the Giants vs Eagles on Sunday.

Let me get back to you.