Photo credit Real Portrait Images (Yippee), George Gavanas (Giving You The Boot)

It was such a busy week in Twitterville! A Billion Dollars! Major Woot! But there was both good and bad. So I think its best to categorize here. Woot vs. Giving You The Boot!

Hyperlocal Twitter accounts such as @sohonews10012, @suffolktime, @dinehuntington and the best yet The City of San Francisco implements @sf311, 311 on twitter. Woot!

Giving You The Boot! Rolf Twitter Worm and malware. Just as we are so cautious with our email, we need to be on Twitter.

Woot! The launch of oneforty the twitter outfitter store.  Laura Fitton, author of Twitter for Dummies and owner of Pistachio Consulting releases beta version of this “better way to discover twitter apps”  store.  Currently invitation only but if you would like to check it out, Mashable has got you covered.

Giving You The Boot! Mention tweets that tell me “how to make money on twitter”

Woot! #140 The Twitter Conference attendees and participants. To all of those who kept us in the loop while we were back in the office, thanks! Tony Robbins key takeaways, Pee Wee Herman comeback and oneforty announcement, awesome!

Giving You The Boot! To those of you who spammed us abusing the #140 hashtag

Woot! To Mashable, hats off to a credible social media source where CNN has editor Ben Parr as a guest expert to explain safety on Twitter.

Giving You The Boot! To those of you who create havoc in the twitter world where we have to be concerned about whats behind those tiny urls.

Woot! To TweetDeck for their awesome updates. Love the directory and auto shorten url feature on desktop. Full Facebook integration rocks!

Giving You The Boot! All those Twitter iphone apps that came and went, well I guess you guys gave yourselves the boot.

Woot! Those awesome cupcake folks who tweet us their location everyday, @cupcakestop, are in the finals of the NYC Vendys!

Giving you…nah, I am going to end on a good note here… thats all from me folks.

Please your comments, additions are welcome.

I wanted to brief my readers on this as I received this DM just minutes ago.  I just deleted it. Thankfully I did not click on the link as I found it strange. Just as in email, one needs to be careful with what they click on in Twitter.  Mashable has the initial scoop on the worm here.

Photo Credit: Real Portrait Images

That is an image of Adam Hirsch, COO of Mashable and creator of the Summer For Social Good conference and online charity sponsored by Zappos and MailChimp. Over 400 attendees filled those seats at the 92nd Street Y auditorium and with donations still coming in topping $30,000, Adam was a great builder. Both an educational day and a day of giving, all proceeds went to four charities: Livestrong, WWF, Oxfam and The Humane Society. As an attendee, it was quite an enlightening experience and somewhat spiritual. The room was filled with giving people, and those who wanted to learn how to effectively raise awareness and funds for the non-profits.

An example of build it and they will come is Drew. Tomorrow is 9/9/09. Neat huh? Well tomorrow is also a day of blame. The event, Blame-a-Thon is organized by Drew Olanoff, one of the speakers from last month’s Summer for Social Good Conference. Drew was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma on May 20, 2009 and ever since then has been blaming everything on his cancer. Then it became a community blaming random things on drew’s cancer. “I am a geek so I started a website”. Blamedrewscancer.com is now partnered with Livestrong, a Lance Armstrong Foundation and has succeeded in getting big corporate attention with the Taco Bell truck being the first to donate $1 for the first 1,000 tweets with the dedicated hashtag #blamedrewscancer. They are now partnering with Drew on tomorrow’s blame-a-thon.

Presentations throughout the day included an engaging keynote speech by Randi Zuckerberg, Marketing Director, Facebook. I know, this blog is called TwitterCoach, but ever since FB integrated a Twitter feed on their fan pages, I feel I can get away with sharing their story. And boy did Randi have quite the announcement to share, the launch of charities on Facebook. Now you can purchase a donation to a charity of choice for someone’s birthday. They launched the gift shop, with virtual real charity gifts for Project Red, Kiva, Toms and WWF. If all goes well, they could open to all.

There was so much wonderful insight in the non-profit arena but I realize this is a blog post not a book. I will try to mention the key shout outs in good ole twitter style:

“If you have a voice or a platform you have a responsibility to voice your word” Randi Zuckerberg Facebook

“Our CEO is a twitter addict and we have 6 people out of 25 dedicated to social media.”…”We have buy in and resources to leverage social media. Our CEO visited Michael Vick in prison, we let the conversation happen but made sure it was taking place under our roof.. We were prepared for the twitterstorm” Carrie Lewis The Humane Society

“The more people that are engaging, the more leaders will feel pressure to do the right thing”… “Why social media?…best way to reach supporters, quickly trend people checking Facebook and Twitter more often than email” Andy Ridley of EarthHour

So build it, because they will come. No fear, no shame, don’t be afraid to tell your story and to ask for support. Lastly, it feels good to be a part of something, it was a Summer for Social Good, it was damn good!

Drew’s cancer is pissed, make it more pissed on 9/9/09. Raffle tickets are available for those who cannot physically attend blame-a-thon.

Summer may be over, but social good is still accepting donations

To join the conversation and to see what others had to say about the event, you can search #socialgood

To find out more about these charities and the social good conference, visit the Mashable event site here

Images of the presenters, attendees, cocktail reception and Adam’s shocking feel good proposal can be viewed on Real Portrait Images Facebook Fan Page

One month ago, I received a call from my cousin who left a message as, “give me a call when you get this message”. You know that call, in that tone, for certain it is not going to be good news. When we finally connected, he said the words “Karen has breast cancer”(my other cousin).

A disease that has killed not only her mother but also grandmother before the age of 45, it was undoubtedly alarming to hear. With a good report from pathology showing stage I, she thankfully is doing ok after having surgery. Chemotherapy will be the next step. It is surely clear to me that after over 30 years from her mother’s death, we need to “Run Breast Cancer Out of Town”, the subtitle to the September 13th Susan G Komen NYC Race for the Cure 5k.

Komen for the Cure as well as many non-for-profit charities can be found on Twitter, helping organizations gain not only substantial donations but also raising awareness and supporting the community. Ashton Kutchner’s victory over CNN battling to reach 1 million followers, lead to his high profile donation of 10,000 mosquito nets to help prevent malaria deaths in Africa. Hugh Jackman’s “tell me in 140 characters or less why I should donate to your charity of choice” told the world that “Charity Water” helps bring clean water to developing countries and “Operation of Hope”, provides surgical procedures to children in developing countries with facial deformities. He couldn’t decide on one in particular, so he split the 100k donation giving to both charities.

As the “Summer for Social Good” comes to an end, I share with you my story as well as a list of other charities that I support. What charities are you supporting and why? Please feel free to add to the list in the comment section, help spread the word and help your community.

Livestrong (Lance Armstrong Foundation for Cancer)
@livestrong
Proud of their strong and engaged community, the twitter account lets you know of latest blogs, twitpics from events and offers support messages from the enormous community. They will certainly retweet your message like this one from this Sunday Morning:

RT @lorenarojas just landed 4 the @livestrong Cancer Summit! Watch out Cancer this week you get weaker!

You can even get your Livestrong Band to wrap around your avatar to show your support.

Komen for the Cure:
@komenforthecure
The global leader dedicated to fighting breast cancer. Join me/support me Running Breast Cancer Out of Town

Thanks to Lululemon Athletica for their support in supplying me with athletic wear for the Race for the Cure 5k

Operation Smile:
@operationsmile
I learned about Operation Smile at a Pre-Conference Reception for the May 2009 TWTRCON conference. The organization helps children who have cleft lips, cleft palates and other facial deformities and has a presence in 51 countries. Twitter updates include event listings, blog postings and general news about the organization.

Summer for Social Good by Mashable:
@socialgood
Four Critical Causes, Four Charities, One World
Tickets are still available for this Friday’s Social Good Conference in NYC, I will be there. If you cannot attend, they are also accepting donations. The fund supports Livestrong, Oxfam America (supporting the hungry in America), The Humane Society and WWF(raising global awareness to ensure a sustainable future on earth). Tweet to support! More details here.

Soles 4 Souls:
@soles4souls
After putting in way too many miles from training and running the NYC ½ Marathon, I went to my favorite local store “Runners Edge” in Farmingdale NY to buy a new pair of sneaks. Right there by the new sneakers was a box to donate your “soles for souls”, giving to those who desperately need footwear. Donation sites and events are listed here on their website.

Russell Refuge:
Fan on Facebook
Lastly a quick mention to Russell Refuge and their social media efforts. I adopted my sweet Jakey from this organization a couple of months ago. Russell Refuge accepts Jack Russells when they have no where else to go and helps place them in proper loving homes. Although they do not have a Twitter account as of yet, they have a fan page on Facebook.

Good Saturday morning to you all!

I was cordially invited by Hilary Topper, President and CEO of HJMT Communications, to be a guest blogger on her blog site www.hilarytopper.com. I invite you all to check out my posting “I Get Sports Info from Jack Welch and Breaking News from Perez Hilton on her site here.

Comments and your Twitter stories are welcome

Thanks

Constance

As the years go by, I am sure I will be asked “Where were you when you heard Michael Jackson died?”..on twitter

My mom would share stories of where she was when she heard JFK and Elvis died. I will never forget listening to the radio on the way to the beach when I found out Jerry Garcia died. Growing up in the 80’s I cannot forget the magical memories of watching Thriller on MTV, a revolutionary way of sharing music through short film. Now, June 25, 2009 as I was funneling through some tweets, I see Perez Hilton reporting “Michael Jackson suffers heart attack, rushed to Los Angeles hospital!” The tweets continue as reported from many different personalities when Perez Hilton then broke out the TMZ report that he was dead. Andy Roddick, the tennis star who was in Wimbledon tweets: “regardless of what u think of him he was completely revolutionary and will be missed” Within a couple of minutes, every minute my tweetdeck would report 100 new search findings for Michael Jackson. Then Perez Hilton changes his avatar to a black and white photo of Michael Jackson.
…and it continues, as people battle confirmed and unconfirmed reports

Where was I when I found out…it is all here

It was a day of I did it my way, yes the old Sinatra tune is playing in my head as I type on the plane home back from TWTRCON SF09. I was one of the lucky ones to be selected to go standby. They accepted a lower registration fee from me, helping me make the trip to where Twitter was born, San Francisco.

I heard things like twitter is like a phone, we don’t have to train people how to use the phone. However we need to have programs in place to get a desired outcome from using the phone. You can use phone for a social conversation, as well as for a telemarketing campaign.

Other key takeaways from the Sunday event include a surpriser for most, MCHammer. He was articulate and shared a twitter success story by being authentic. “I have watched who I am in the magazines for 20 years, I don’t know that guy!” Taking back control with help from @adventuregirl, Hammer has 700,000 followers and has his own ideas of the future of Twitter like actors themselves advertising their upcoming movies on Twitter, saving the industry millions of advertising dollars.

Twitter stories were told including the Kogi BBQ truck that utilizes Twitter to let their customers know when and where they will be as they drive through the streets of LA. Now they have BBQ truck groupies who have developed a culture for themselves which all began on Twitter! Charities such as the one that piggybacked the TWTRCON conference, Operation Smile, have promising results from viral messages going throughout Twitterville. A Twitter user panel offered tips and shared how they found Twitter to be successful. These included having a strong personality behind your Twitter account, being a utility, and going in with an objective and measuring your results.

It was a conference that we created. We were asked to write down what we would like to talk about during lunch on a white board. As attendees we participated throughout the event as there was much time dedicated to Question and Answer whether you wanted to get on the mic or tweet your question to technologizer who was monitoring the twtrcon twitter account. The sessions weren’t about powerpoint presentations, the whole event was a long conversation as the speakers for the most part sat in lounge chairs as if they were in their own living rooms. Even Steve Rubel, built out the future of Twitter with what he called mind mapping. Steve showed how Twitter can act as an OS or Ecosystem building out the tree using the audience’s input. We voted for the 6 vendors that we wanted to hear from. And in true Twitter style they only had 140 seconds to pitch us their product. I was happy to get my CoTweet account as it is in Beta and they release the version to select few.

What I found most interesting when recapping the day is that everyone has an opportunity to make their own story. Everyone has an opportunity to be a success or become more successful with Twitter. Whether that means being a good citizen alerting a large group of an earthquake that happened or solving a big challenge at their company like KogiBBQ, Twitter empowers everyone to do good and others to share the story around the world.

To see video coverage of the TWTRCON SF 09 Conference, check out TWOOTING

There will always be customers. As human beings it is our nature to want to grow, prosper and enjoy life. We will always need services, products and education and will always yearn for more. So post recession times can be seen through rose colored glasses. Once consumer confidence is back to normal, businesses have the opportunity to flourish. The question is how do we convey marketing messages to this new consumer?

I say new consumer because throughout this recession certain things have happened. Not only did newspaper subscription decline so much that many have gone belly up, but Twitter traffic now surpasses NYT and WSJ. Direct Marketers will be eliminating or drastically minimizing budgets for Free Standing Inserts (FSI) as well as print ads as readership goes down. Online banner ads on the web versions have lost their value as well. The new consumer wants to engage and feel proud they are a customer. They want to be a fan and announce to the world they stand behind your product and are happy to pass the good news on to others.

Direct mail will certainly feel the heat as well, as consumers will want to know about what you have to offer in 140 characters or less. And they want to know immediately. By the time a mail piece goes through design; copywriters; editors; marketing; upper management for approval; printing quotes; printing process; blue line proofs; etc, it is a month or months too late. Micro-sites, landing pages that can be created on the fly will prevail. E-brochures will also be part of this “new” movement. All of this can quickly go viral by links passing through the social networks, passed on by the best marketers of them all, the loyal customer.

The future of Pay Per Click? Well, the consumer is getting smarter. It appears that they want to know a company is top ranked organically to feel a part of the “Best Practices” club. Unless sponsored links are morphed into a community message, this will lose its ROI factor as well.

The marketing role will be redefined to match the new consumer. It’s all coming together, no fail whale on the horizon. T-shirt companies are already capitalizing on the moment. Will you?

It is now one week later from the time I toured Zappos’ corporate office and frankly I am sitting here beating myself up for taking way too long to write this blog. But the truth is it was such an overwhelming experience that one blog post couldn’t do justice to capture all that Zappos’ culture has to offer. So the best way to put my thoughts down in writing was to jot down the experience as I witnessed it. Below are some short blurbs in the traditional twitter sense, 140 characters or less:

Twitter success story, Zappos to Keynote #DPFC, Yes Tony the CEO answers his DM’s!

My Twitter conversation with Tony back in January came to fruition in April at #DPFC

From one of Tony’s presentations: heard about Zappos Corp office tour, in Vegas for #DPFC so we jumped at the chance to witness the WOW

Zappos logo covered Escalade picked us up employees were hanging outside in Zappos running gear headed over to run in corporate challenge

Our tour guide Tim worked in the finance division, every employee gets certified to be a tour guide

First Stop: Help Desk where we get a visitor badge to go on the ball of name badges at the end of the tour

Second Stop, Zappos Library: Get to take a business book on our way out(I chose The Long Tail)

Tim gave me a Zappos flag to hold we began our tour of all the depts., marketing, legal, customer service, financial, etc. It was a mini parade

Departments would greet us with their signature welcoming of cow bell ringing, cheerleader pom-poms and other ways, no matter what

There are very few offices at Zappos, one of them is the life coaches, decorated with polaroids of all guests on his wall, throne and crowns

The Zappos Coach, Dr. Vik, helps any employee with their career path

Dr. Vik, gives every guest a gift along with a Polaroid of themselves in the throne, a day planner and his DVD Taking it to the Next Level

Oh a stop at the Tiki Bar, blender and all, ready for 5pm

At HR, Employee App asks “If you were a super hero, who would you be and why?

Meet the Monkeys, Fred (no title) Mossler, Tony and Alfred (COO/CFO) with Monkeys in their cubicle office space

Along with the library book, we were each given a copy of their culture book and a great Zappos Messenger bag

If visiting Vegas, or in Vegas, the Zappos Tour is a must experience for everyone!

Tony, great job and thanks for opening your house up to the world

I had so many titles for this blog post, “Will You Be Late to the Party?”, “Accident Waiting To Happen”, “Being the Number One Viral Marketing Video Does Not Equal Success”, “How Much Worse Can It Be For Dominos? Employees Contaminating Food and one was a Sex Offender” . But I had to choose, and I chose to address Tom Davenport, Blogger of “Is Twitter For Serious Marketers.”

It was a busy week for viral messages, but ones that companies would never want to happen.

1) Dominos. Just created their very own twitter account, April 15th, TWO DAYS after the debacle involving two employees sharing a rather grotesque video of how they handle food at work. Dominos’ first posting can be found at: “#dominos video.- The pair was fired & criminal complaints filed. There are warrants for their arrest. http://bit.ly/12MX3n – please RT!”

Spokesman Tim McIntyre of Domino’s provided a statement on the situation, “Any idiot with a webcam and an internet connection can attempt to undo all that’s right about the brand,” Hmmm? Perhaps this is why smart companies are joining the social media conversation early and empowering their staff to positively represent their company to prevent occurrences like this from happening. After the fact statements like the President of Dominos on YouTube, have comments posted below such as:

“Sorry Mr. Dominos President. After that video it will be hard to eat out ANYWHERE but I will always think of Dominoes and my cheese being up someone’s nose.”

“I used to eat Dominos at least once a week. Not anymore. I can’t even look at a Dominos corporate logo without feeling queasy.”

Addressing the incident on the Today Show isn’t enough damage control for this one. Viral messages on Twitter such as “I don’t care what dominos does…never eating it again” seem to prevail.

2) Amazon or shall I say, #Amazonfail From Advertising Age: “By far the biggest issue most of the angry Twitterers had was that Amazon didn’t respond until late Sunday and, when it did, the vague answer it offered to CNet referred to the problem as a “glitch in the system” that was being fixed. This didn’t satisfy the masses who had already spent the better part of Easter getting fired up. The next response from Amazon came Monday night, when it issued a statement calling the incident an “embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error.”

Almost 24 hours later came the response. Why so late? They are one of, if not the biggest ecommerce e-tail stores out there. I just quickly looked up Amazon and I have no idea if they have an authentic Twitter account to this date. @amazondeals is listed in twibs, but all they do is list discounted items.

Social Media is not to be ignored, nor should you think that your company or persona is immune. Reputation Management and Social Media Strategy will be on the top of many company’s lists to implement in the near future if it has not been done so already. We learn from mistakes, Dominos will go down in the history books as “The Consequences of Not Taking Social Media Seriously”. Companies like Zappos, where they clearly take employee management and customer service to the next level will be the winners. “Happy Employees=Happy Customers is their motto. Whole Foods is another company that I would say stands out from the crowd and is doing a great job of listening to their customer chatter and responding quickly. I have seen them reply immediately to customer complaints, questions and suggestions such as “@laurenoboy Let your store know directly what you’d like to see. Every store decides its offerings in large part b/c of local demand.” They are a Twitterolemodels!