Presenting Social Media 101: 101 Basic Tips and Trends on Social Media

“If water is information, then social media is like indoor plumbing. Are you thirsty to learn more?” 

Please join me next week in Walkerton as I present Social Media 101: 101 Basic Trends and Tips of Social Media. Details below. 

Walkerton Area Chamber of Commerce Meeting

DATE: Thursday April 26, 2012

PLACE: American Legion (302 Kentucky Street, Walkerton, IN 46574)

TIME: 11:30 am Lunch begins, 11:45 am – 1:00 pm Speaker Presentation 

TOPIC: Social Media 101: 101 Tips on Social Media, Ways to promote your business

SPEAKER: Andrea Cook, The Midas Center 

COST: $5.00 Member/$10.00 Non-Member

RSVP: Walkerton Area Chamber of Commerce

PHONE: 574-586-3100

2012 Cowork Conference Final Squeeze

Close to 300 leaders represented the global cowork movement as they met for the Global Coworking Unconference Conference, GCUC or juicy conference, in Austin, Texas in early March to collaborate as only cowork members, owners and visionaries can.

What is working? What is not? And what we can do together as a unified cowork-industry? All seemed to be a running theme throughout the various conference sessions during the day-long conference. While many attendees left the central meeting room sporadically throughout the day, others joined the unconference track for sub meetings and informal discussions on a varieity of topics.

Some of the main takeaways throughout the main session included tips on technology, best practices surrounding security and community growth, floor plan design and inspiration on how to engage with municipalities and other community partnerships. 

Located at the AT&T Convention Center, the space offered the best BBQ lunch and cookies bigger than my head. Near the close of the event, the leaders who participated in the unconference tracks presented on a few of the juiciest of the 15 -  20 topics presented on throughout the day. 

Attendees volunteered to present on the most popular items that included: 

1. Regional Alliances

As one member joins a cowork space and trust is established, that member is then approved to travel and partake in other collaborative work spaces that are in alliance with one another. Examples include a special alliance of Seattle cowork spaces, LEXC (League of Extraordinary Cowork Spaces) and global efforts such as Jellyweek. Some cowork spaces see one another as competitors, others are open to the idea and welcome the partnerships. 

2. Childcare

A Seattle cowork space owner wants to open childcare. Although she thinks “it is the best idea ever” she asked the group at large. Iris Kavanagh, founder of NextSpace and curator of the unconference track responded to the question, “We’re launching a pilot program in one of our California spaces and we will share our results with the community later this year.”

3. Tech Tool

Technology can manage community growth but it cannot be soley responsible to growing community.

This is a truism I personally see in media and marketing today too.  

4. Event Trends

Events are a great tool for a fertile cowork community. Some of the events cowork owners are using include lunch and learns where local professionals are invited to present to the community. Of course, food is a great incentive to bring local people into the events. Some are evolving the lunch and learns into actual workshops and education, changing the model as a classroom model. 

5. Icky Comments

Like any healthy family, there will be conflicts. One of the less attractive tasks of the cowork owners and community managers is conflict resolution within the community. Some suggestions to the occasional challenges? Be clear from the get go. Set and manage expectations. 

6. Ebb and Flow 

The rise and fall of members ares challenging to manage from a financial and moral position. Member retention strategies like good events, clear policies, marketing and recruitment programs are strongly recommended. Some cowork spaces offer celebrations when members leave, remembering that one of the reasons cowork members leave is because they’ve outgrown the space and are growing into the next level of business success. 

7. Expansion Plans

Think you are ready to grow? Be sure and have a contingency plan. Growing too fast can be difficult to your pocket book and your community.

Dave Walker, owner of Conjuctured in Austin talks to room (Dave’s roommate, Justin Timberlake twin sitting in crowd)

Liz Elam closed the conference giving the state of the cowork movement address. She shared the genesis of the cowork conference that started as a series of annual meetups in 2008 through 2010 in Berlin at Loosecubes. At this 2012 conference, there were 280 attendees who traveled as far as Australia, Hawaii and Europe. 

What does the future of cowork look like? Liz shared she’d like to see the hyphen dropped from the term co-working in every city and eventually she’d like to not have to explain what coworking is each time she talked about it. She encourage the crowd to stick with the core values and invited them all to the Texas Tailgate Tent party sponsored by Turnstone. 

The conference and unconference members gave Liz and the volunteers a standing ovation and filling the room with a spirit renewal and gratitude. Coworking is the place to be in 2012 and it is only going to get better in the next several months. As I ventured away from the enlightenment of this vibrant cowork community, I rolled into the South By Southwest conference and found myself talking up the cowork trend to anyone who would listen. 

Kyle Coolbroth, owner of CoCo Minneapolis I’m hoping to stay connected with the cowork leaders. I am fortunate to have met so many genuine professional thinkers, community developers and independent leaders through the cowork movement. It can only get better. 

The Perfect Cowork Space Search

Now that you are convinced that coworking may be a good fit for you and your professional needs, where can you find the best cowork space that fits your stlye, spirit and price tag?

With cowork spaces popping up all over the world, certainly there is a cowork space close to where you need to work, meet, collaborate during your next meeting, event or work day. Since no two spaces are alike, and since coworking is a relatively new industry, it can be difficult to find “coworking” in that big smelly yellow book called the Yellow Pages. You could Google your way, but since you are looking for the best cowork space and not necessarily the best SEO service hired by a cowork space, here are some great tools to search for that perfect space.  

Coworking WIKI (led by Rock Star Jacob Sayles)

Liquidspace

Loosecubes

Deskwanted

Desktime

#GCUC Cowork Speaker Spotlight: Benjamin Dyett

As we march closer to March 9th’s Global Conference Unconference Conference (a.k.a. GCUC, or juicy cowork conf) in Austin, Texas, the speaker list brightly glows with brilliance. Thought leaders, game changers, trail blazers and community builders of the new world order of coworking will tread the lands from the four corners of the world to meet together all in the name of coworking. 

Although I will be at the conference covering the event live as an event correspondent, I can’t help but review the speaker list and share some tidbits on some of the people and places that have sparked an special interest to me. As you may have read from our Cowork Collection posts, you know I am fascinated about the emerging trend of coworking. Since becoming an independent professional in 1999 and starting my own cowork space in Indiana in 2010, I am on a mission to meet professional pioneers who are not only upping the ante but who are creating the game. 

One of the stars lined up to speak at the GCUC this year is Benjamin Dyett. He’s slated to speak on a panel titled, How to Design, Build and Grow your Space for Collaboration on Friday morning. Dyett will represent his New York City cowork space, GRIND. Other companies represented during this panel discussion include Blankspaces (see NOV feature in our Cowork Collection >), Gensler and Cambridge Co-working Center. 

You may wonder why this speaker fascinates me and here’s why: Dyett puts the new into innovation. Dyette writes his own blueprint for his destiny. He once was a corporate attorney until he experienced a revelation that led to a revolution. In the 90s, Dyett officially dropped out of the confinements of corporate cubicles. As he embarked his journey as an independent, he worked from home from time to time, he sat in the corner at a friend’s office. He then realized that the time he was using to find the right space for his daily grind was getting in the way of a successful outcome from his grind. He became a change agent for the future of the work place. 

With the help of some friends, he created GRIND, a platform for working in a whole new way, outside the traditional system and floorplan. Speaking of floorplans, Dyett is not an architect, by trade. Though the other companies represented during this discussion are all cutting edge architects including Gensler who designed the workspace for NextSpace and the founder-slash-architect Jerome Chang who owns Blankspaces, Dyett is less like a traditional brick and mortar designer and more like an innovative solutions architect. 

2012 #GCUC, March 9, Austin, TXAlthough I have not had the privilege to visit GRIND in person, yet, I did take a glance of GRIND’s “kick-aes-thetics (that is my clean version of sounding hip, though some would disagree that is sounds very hip) web site” and I strongly believe that Dyett’s work space design deserves the right to speak on the subject. GRIND’s overall floorplan is much like the spirit in the room: wide open and brightly lit. Clean, easy, simple, no-nonsense professionalism. Resourcefully designed, down to the furnishings and flooring with special products selected for their earth-friendly materials. Pure design for collaboration and community. That, and it is sweet! Whatever this guy has to say, I’m confident it will be delicious and juicy for #GCUC attendees who thirst for tips on coworking success.   

Stay tuned as I share more tidbits and fun facts on Dyett and the juicy cowork conference. You can sign up to get live updates of my coverage from Austin’s Global Coworking Unconference Conference - and SXSW by the way, or follow me on Twitter @andreacook . 

Do you have a subject matter or topic you would like covered live? Learn more >

F.U. Advertising Case Study

Want to know more about my F.U. Advertising experiment? 

In just 60 days with less than $60, I reached over 60,000 highly targetted users. Now, that is Facebook Uncomplicated Advertising. And this is my case study… 

 

With all of the tech tools and the business advice out there, it can be difficult to filter the noise and find simple techniques to meet your goals. 

If you are tired of tossing your advertising dollars out the door and would like to learn more about the benefits of social media marketing and advertising, then I’d like to share a case study with you. 

Less than two months ago, I launched a Facebook page for my cowork business. Search for “Cowork Space” on Facebook and click like if you want to see this experiment grow.  

60K Reach with $60 in 60 Days.

The 60 day experiment has provided a lot of great results in brand awareness and lead generation as well as an easy and clean communication channel for me to inform my members and prospects or leads. With my free Facebook page, I’ve been able to create an online presence that has allowed my search results to grow and provide a one-stop shop to direct parties to visit from all of my printed communication materials. This online page is simple to add content like links, photos, videos and event details. I’ve also created an ad campaign in less than four hours that ran for four days and it generated traffic beyond my expectations. The experience has been great and the best part? I’m able to monitor the results and share the data with you today! 

In a nutshell, the benefits from my Facebook page for my business are:

- Ease and convenience

- No cost for an online web presence

- Low cost for high traffic advertising

- Hyper-focused targeting capabilities 

- Detailed tracking and analytics

Just a Facebook Page.

The main purpose of my Facebook page is to share information, photos, event invitations and deals/discounts. This costs me nothing but time and discpline. I aimed to add a post once every 2 - 5 days. My marketing goal for TMC Cowork Space is to educate others on the benefits of coworking and to attract new members to purchase passes. 

What is a Waste of Time and Money?

Has the Facebook page brought in any revenue to justify my investment? Two of the most recent local advertising efforts I can compare to the Facebook activites include:

- Billboard advertising ($2400 for one image/message in one location for one year, no tracking)

- Newspaper advertising (costs as low as $200 a day for a paper that can only provide the number of papers printed, it cannot measure if the 5000 papers were opened, or the time spent looking at the printed page, or if the reader reacted with an eyebrow raise or told his friends… in other words, costs are high, difficult to target, no tracking)

The only measurement I can use to analyze my billboard and newspaper advertising would be my checking account. Costs and time are very high. Results? ZERO. 

The Numbers Make Sense.

Here are some of the results I have received from launching my Facebook page less than two months ago:

- One Facebook page, photos and content updates weekly, free.

- 56 fans, free.

- Weekly posts on my business have received 3,590 views, or 7,178 eyeballs, free. 

- 86 people have checked-in using Facebook on their mobile devices. This doesn’t include the number of check-ins and exposure from other mobile tools. Cost? Just free passes that get new members to walk in the door. And free coffee mugs that further spread the Cowork Space name in the local community. Cost for this added exposure? Pretty free. 

- 4 Day Ad Campaign that reached over 50,000 people a day within a 20 mile radius of my business cost $52 and was created in less than two hours. See the graph below.

Want to Learn More About Facebook Uncomplicated Advertising?

Contact Andrea Cook to learn more about educational opportunities like coaching and training programs or see if full service media and advertising management is a good fit for you.