Wildfire Effect (WE) Social Media and Transmedia Consulting

It is no secret that Vancouver’s Social Media Meetup 3rd Tues (ironically always on a Thursday) http://www.meetup.com/third-tuesday-vancouver/ is my favorite of the meetup groups.  Tonight was no exception with CC Chapman’s very down to earth talk about the difference between Content (which he states is “not rocket science”) and GOOD CONTENT (which he eludes may be more difficult to launch then a trip to MARS.)

Wordcloud from everyones comments(Twitter and Meetup)

For those tuning in from Twitter – Thanks and if you haven’t checked out Twitter Search: the hashtags for great quotes from @cc_chapmen are #contentrules and #3tyvr or goto http://is.gd/CLqgOA for Raul Pacheco-Vega ’s live blog

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What really stood out for me was that CC Chapmen brought his key points home by using them to tell his story.   He kept the content human with small gestures like walking into the audience with the mike to address questions -responding respectfully- as if he was addressing friends that had just left a movie theatre.  Yeah you know the feeling.   He used his great skills at putting us at easy by asking the audience ( a crowd of social media consultants, managers and marketers) to add to the responses- in a sense- Crowdsoursing the crowd.

Here are the points that stood out for me.  Please pic up his book [HOW? http://www.cc-chapman.com/ to learn his 11 rules. My favorite take-home lessons:

• Good content is hard, how to make it engaging is the hard part.
• Good=inform about the problem to get their biz not your biz.
• Plan (using an editorial calender)  to "Stoke the campfire" with content not "burn" it bright, then out "with a hopes of viral campaigns"
• Consultants of the world -  Please, ask -why are you doing it?
• Follow the lead of greats that take the time to follow up on social media with two things in mind, 1- use @reply's and hastags to respond to all that attend even if the event was not your event and take the time to know who you are addressing [right digitaldads] and what terminology is being used.
• Be human – respond in a timely manner like the real person you, with the opinions that you are happy to hold, consequences and all.  [posting on the internet is forever and filled with people that may take it out of context]
• Pls get the rights always- photos, music, ask an Indy artist to contribute and attribute, attribute attribute.

• Create a social media policy (be it 3 pages like Coca Cola or 50 like the military) and trust your employees to abide to free them to tell the stories that engage.

[disclaimer: this is my favorite one]

• Ask yourself.  How are YOU going to tell it the story? How will you help the audience engage with the story? How will you envoke emotion with the story? All GOOD content tells a story.

[disclaimer: CC Chapman's favorite one]

• Focus on:  1- creating the strategy asking how and why and which measures, 2-Have fun with it,  by embracing your strengths and 3- BE HUMAN about it.

As you can imagine the Q & A – with a room full of social media consultants, managers and marketers was as engaging as the speaker.  I’ll post this Wildfire of content, tips and tactics (that one was for you, Raul[updated, Jan24.2011]) in another post so PLEASE comment below with your contact info or email sm@wildeffect and I will email you when it is up.