Posts by Paull Young
CEO Rob Key will appear on a ‘Buzz Monitoring‘ panel at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose on Thursday 23 August.
As The Economist said in March 2006: “The direct, unfiltered, brutally honest nature of much online discussion is gold dust to big companies that want to spot trends, or find out what customers really think of them.” Listening to the online conversation can give companies a powerful competitive advantage and this session will help share tips and techniques for monitoring buzz online.
What
Search Engine Strategies 2007 Conference and Expo – ‘Buzz Monitoring‘ panel
Who
Rob Key, CEO, Converseon
Chris Sherman, Co-Chair, SES San Jose
Andy Beal, Consultant, Editor, Author, MarketingPilgrim.com
Jonathan Ashton, Director of SEO, Agency.com
When
Thursday, 23 August, 2007
12:30pm-1:45pm
Where
San Jose Convention Center
San Jose, California
On the weekend Seth Godin said “The art of marketing is not finding more money to do more marketing. It’s figuring out how to tell a story that spreads with the resources you’ve got”, in doing so he unwittingly summed up the Second Chance Trees American Express Members Project campaign.
Our goal here was to utilize social media to raise awareness (and votes) for the Second Chance Trees project. The tricky part: no budget and virtually no time.
After a week of online chatter, the results look like this:
- The Second Chance Trees machinima video has risen to the top of 4,120,000 Google search results for the term ‘American Express Members project‘, while a related image in the Converseon Flickr account ranks third.
- CNN featured the project prominently with their Future Summit program
- The machinima video has been viewed over 2,600 times and received six ’5 star’ ratings on YouTube
- There have been over 100 blog posts referencing Second Chance Trees, including leading Second Life, Environmental, PR/Marketing and SEO blogs
- Second Chance Trees Island has had its most successful week to date, with the planting of over 140 endangered rainforest trees
When reviewing those figures, it’s important remember that this all happened in 7 days on a shoestring budget.
Unfortunately, despite all the buzz we fell short of recording enough votes to make the final 25. However, the similarly titled ‘One Million Trees – Global Reforestation’ project gained several hundred votes over the past week. While some of those may have been confused by the difficult voting process at the American Express site, it’s good to see an identical reforestation effort (even without the innovative educational experience offered by Second Life) moving forward on the back of popular opinion.
To all our supporters who voted, blogged, commented, viewed or planted – thank you very much for taking the time to support a good social media cause. While we might no longer be in the running for the $5 million American Express Members Project, we are committed to the Second Chance Trees project for the long term and we’ll continue to look for corporate sponsors and other methods to expand the projects influence.
Be sure to continue to support your favorite American Express Members Project!
Social media has the power to change the world. People can connect around the world in ways that were never possible before. Geography is no longer a barrier to meaningful relationships and individuals everywhere now have the power to share their voice with the world.
We would like your help to put this power into action. With a few moments of your time you can help take a step towards planting millions of trees in endangered rainforest regions and providing a powerful example of social media in action in the process.
First, please watch this machinima video, filmed at Second Chance Trees Island:
As explained in the video, our non-profit partner Plant It 2020 has been chosen as the fulfilling organization for one of the 50 finalists in the American Express Members Project, with a first prize of $5 million up for grabs. If successful, the
Second Chance Trees project would be able to plant millions of trees in endangered rainforest regions throughout the world.
Here’s the trick: We only have until this Sunday July 15 to get as many votes as possible in order to make it to the final 25. We’ve got a long way to go at the moment so each and every vote is extremely valuable. Time is of the essence – so please help us now!
Second Chance Trees is the only Members Project finalist based in Second Life. It is also the only finalist with a strong social media focus. By supporting Second Chance Trees you can not only help to plant millions of trees, you also make a statement for the power of social media. We are using social media to promote our social media cause – if successful, this would form a powerful demonstrative example of the power of social media to create positive societal change.
How You Can Help
Most importantly, you can help by voting for the Virtual Forests Project. If you are a US-based American Express cardholder please click here to register and vote.
(Note: Please follow the direct link above and be sure to vote for the ‘Virtual Forest Project. One Million Trees. Easy.‘ concept. There is a similar initiative on the site that has been confusing some people)
Once you have voted, you can lend your support using all the social media tools at your disposal:
- Share the machinima video – embed it on your blog or social network page or email it to a friend
- Blog about it – You can get more information from our social media release or by emailing me at pyoung@converseon.com
- Visit Second Chance Trees Island in Second Life and plant your own tree
- Embed the Members Project widgets on your blog or social network page
- Add Second Chance Trees as a friend in Flickr or MySpace
- Tell your friends wherever they may be – Facebook, Twitter or any of the other myriad social media venues out there
- Remember email – we’ve all got friends who are yet to climb aboard the social media bandwagon, send them an email pointing out the project and they might get enthused!
- Learn more at the Second Chance Trees website
Please leave a comment below letting us know how you’ve supported Second Chance Trees and it will be our pleasure to plant a tree in the honor of each and every one of you.
Join the conversation.
Three simple words that form an important mantra for us here at Converseon. It’s a simple statement of what we hope we can help others do and it’s also something we aim to do ourselves.
We embrace the conversation. We love (yes, love) social media and the power it gives people to create meaningful relationships. We are excited about how much everyone stands to learn from getting involved in the online conversation.
With this blog we aim to allow every member of the Converseon team to join the conversation. We also look forward to hearing from you and anyone else out there who is interested in who we are, what we do and the passion that drives our company.
If you’d like to learn more about us, please check out the Converseon website. To get more of a feel for our personality please take a look at our Converseon Twitter stream or our Converseon Flickr account.
So what are you waiting for? Join the conversation.
