Last week I was explaining to Eric the concept of Social Media Breakfast | Singapore. And I made the mistake of saying one of the perks was “networking”. To put things in perspective, coming from a business school that does nothing but try to set up the business world equivalent of blind dates, “networking” is sort of a dirty word in our circle.
I think the big problem is the way the school packages these “networking” sessions and teaches us about networking. They put it in such a way that it should be beneficial, you should come with an agenda, you should plant seeds that are meant to be reaped later. But that’s such a turnoff to us.
To switch explanations, I gave Eric the “gamer” analogy (we’re both pretty avid gamers): Imagine going to a gaming conference and meeting many, many other people who are into the latest games, talking about that secret combination that gets you to the hidden level, or talking about the next coolest game to be released.
In a lot of ways I think events like Social Media Breakfast | Singapore, and the other plethora of social media events do serve the “networking” function, but most of the time I don’t think of it in that context. It’s people coming together with passion to talk about, geek out over and share their love and experiences with social media. Networking just becomes increasing your social circle of people interested in the same niche, and if personal experience is anything to go by, there’s seldom the element of going into it with an agenda and getting something back in the future.
I don’t know if your experiences with networking are different from ours, but I would love to hear it or any other networking analogies that work!
Saturday’s conversations at SMB3 was about blogger outreach programmes (the theme was set way before I received the email) and I think it’s apt. I’ve had conversations with people from various companies asking “How do you decide who to invite?” or “How do you decide who are influencers?” or “How do you quantify influence” and such questions. Clearly who the companies are associated with is a key priority by people both on the agency and the client side. The trust issues in the local blogosphere just means that companies who dare to venture into it, need to take note of some things.
First to the companies: It’s scary but this is not new. Any decision from which newspaper you associate yourself with to which celebrity endorses your product, runs the risk of external events happening and aversely affecting your company by association. Be cautious, not scared.
Here are a few steps you might want to take when deciding who to reach out to or associate your brand with:
1) Credibility & reputation over reach
Reach is an old metric. It doesn’t matter that a blogger (or for that matter, a publication) can reach tens of thousand of people, if no one takes that particular source of information seriously. In fact, associating yourself with a blogger who has a bad reputation that reaches out to tens of thousands online, may do more damage than good to your brand. In essence, you’re much better off finding a fledgling blogger with a solid reputation and small following, and allow the following to grow.
2) Follow the blogger for a decent amount of time
Seeing as how a blogger is viewed in the community can change literally overnight, it would be prudent to follow their blog for awhile before deciding if he or she is a good fit. A couple of good product reviews doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Consistency is the key.
3) See how he/she deals with conflicts
Issues and conflicts pop up every now and then, the important thing is to see how the blogger deals with it. It could range from name calling and personal attacks to open honest discussions resulting in agreeing to disagree. I don’t need to tell you which is preferred.
4) What does the community say?
Ultimately, I find this to be the true litmus test. It’s not really about what the blogger posts, but the community’s reaction to it. What they say in the comments, what they say in the forums, what they say in outbound links. It’s the easy and lazy way to just read a blogger’s content and gauge, but doing proper research means looking at what others say too.
These are just four points that came off the top of my head, I’m sure there are more so feel free to add on in the comments!
Geek Goddess TV has a new episode out, featuring Social Media Breakfast: Singapore 2 with myself, Sheylara and Derrick being interviewed. If you’ve never attended one of the SMBs before, this is a great video to find out what we’re all about!
I’m glad with the recent hoohah surrounding Podfire, they’ve just stuck to what they do best, create content for the web and being picked up around the web as well. Good way to put Singapore’s social media scene on the web.
Little teaser for Social Media Breakfast: Singapore 3 - We have the venue locked down, and it’s an awesome one. Here’s a hint: Not only will you be attending breakfast, but will get free access to one of Singapore’s attractions as well. Let the guessing begin!
It was really nice to see yesterday that of the 10 most popular posts on ping.sg, three were about SMB:S2, even though it was three days after the event!
As always, I think it’s great to have a central “collection” point for all the media generated around the event, so here’s the rundown:
Video: Social Media Breakfast 2.0 by Miccheng (ps another video on Geek Goddess TV should be out June 4th!)
As much as I think SMB:S2 definitely did better than the first, there are a couple of things that bug me:
1) Retention metrics
2) RSVP-ing
Retention Metrics
I ran through the name list from the last SMB and looked for overlaps with today and it showed that only 17 out of 34 people who came for the first SMB, also came for the second. A 50% attrition rate is pretty scary, especially when the feedback we got from the first one seemed largely positive.
RSVP-ing
A rough count on the Facebook page shows that about 24 of the 62 people who said “yes” to coming, did not appear in the end. That’s about 38%. Luckily this was offset partially by people who said “maybe” but came in the end, as well as people who aren’t on Facebook who came, but the point is: someone has to pay for the food/venue. We’ve been lucky enough to have a great sponsor in Caleb for the last two rounds, but not turning up means we’re potentially wasting money by over-ordering.
I have a few solutions to this:
1) Stop mass-catering. ie each person pays for him/herself, which could end up in the region of $20/person including drinks and venue charges.
2) Make the event invitation-only with a combination of registrations and/or white/black listing.
3) Take the amount of “yes” RSVPs on the Facebook event page and cut down by 30% to save cost, but run the risk of running out of food.
Feedback
So in light of this I’d like to hear feedback from both those who came and those who didn’t. Was there a problem with the timing? Location? Just didn’t feel like coming? Overslept? No value to be gotten out of it? I’m curious to know so that you can help us improve the event.
If you did come yesterday, do you want more or the same, or something different? What would make you come back again? What wouldn’t make you come back again? Is there a “fatigue” developing due to the high number of events (this week alone had three or four). Post anonymously if you must, but frank and honest feedback/constructive criticism will definitely help myself and the other co-organisers hold a better event in the future.
I know there are people who are really into building the community (you know who you are!) and I thank you for supporting us, your feedback will definitely be welcome too! If the results show that we’re the only people who’ll take SMB seriously, perhaps we’ll need to work around that.
