Social Networking World Forum and Mobile Social Networking World Forum

www.socialnetworking-forum.com and www.socialnetworking-forum.com/mobile-forum

 

9th and 10th March 09

 

Olympia, London

 

FREE exhibtion and networking pass now available - www.socialnetworking-forum.com/register/free-exhibition.html 

 

 

Discussion about what events and opportunities are interesting and relevant to a sponsor and community alike

 

This is the place to discuss new ideas, opportunities and sponsorship propositions for The Tuttle Club. If this gets very busy, we'll move it to our googlegroup. Please add your name and the date next to your comment and use another colour or font if you wish so we can track the conversation better.

 

Social consulting

Luke Razzell came up with this idea too - for me it belongs more in the consulting field but I'll leave it here for now.

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Concept

SMC attendees who work as consultants may be able to persuade their social-media friendly clients to sponsor a SMC, in exchange for which they get to use the 2nd floor space with the consultant as appropriate. The unique value proposition to the client is that they get to lure other SMC people upstairs for their nefarious ends. Then if we're excited by what they're up to, we'll probably shoot our mouths on and, whoops, free PR for said company.

 

Practicalities

We could put a calendar up on the wiki, or link to one, and individual consultants could book in clients directly. So Lloyd doesn't have to do all the work, as he does at the moment. We need to think about responsibility for making sure client follows through and pays up, though—would the client deal directly with Alastair, or would it go through the consultant.

 

++++++++++++++++++

 

[hello Lloyd & the SMC crew - I volunteer to work closely with anyone else interested in this bit of the 'things to do'. I'm back in action w/c 21/4 and will pull together a few more thoughts and leave them here ahead of the SMC that Friday for discussion. I think the one pager for the who, what, where, why, etc should be done first to help secure sponsors for the current SMC format, as well as a more in-depth ROI focused proposal for a 'big' sponsor or sponsors further down the line. It's key that whatever happens sponsorship-wise though, the spirit of the SMC isn't overpowered and the sponsor is really well suited to what everyone wants to do - as I'm sure everyone will agree ;) Jonathan - @jopkins ]

 

[As a potential sponsor I would like to see much more on the different levels of sponsorship you can come in at. You have a blanket price at the moment which isn't really that great to companies that have different needs. If we sponsored something at Tuttle we would be "preaching to the converted" as virtually everyone there has MOO cards - which is great and we absolutely love you guys for it - but I'd like to see how we could reach Tuttler's friends & families & their clients.

 

There may be more companies interested in just coming in with "membership offers" rather than sponsoring a whole morning.

 

I fully understand you saying that people need to "join in to get the real benefit", even though I can't go to Fridays I see many of you at other events and again I'd like to see more things at evenings as you'd then be more likely to get some companies coming on board who can't afford to take a morning off work for something they don't quite understand.

 

Bascially, I think I'm saying you need greater flexibility of package - Cheers Mecca from MOO.com]

 

[Helen Keegan 010508 The Tuttle Club is a bigger vision of which the regular Friday morning drop-in is a small part. We are already running other events and are most definitely open to new suggestions that sponsors are interested in getting involved in. Our primary focus is in doing stuff our community wants to do and if the community favour a Friday morning event, so be it. We're keen to do more but it all takes time, money and sponsors. Don't forget, we also have wide virtual coverage which is also sponsorable. Let's chat about the kind of thing you're interested in sponsoring Mecca.]

 

SMC in the evenings sounds like an idea. I would like to attend every Friday morning but can't because of other commitments. Having an evening option as well as Friday mornings would give more flexbility and allow SMC to reach new people, which seems like a good thing. Social media (and SMC, of course) has the potential to change things for the better and the best way to do that is to start mixing with people who don't know what it's about!

 

I'd like to see themed evening events done in a way that would bring in people beyond the usual crowd - make them a showcase for SMCs musicians, for example. That would be attractive to sponsors like Moo. But for them to be successful you'd need to be clear about what SMC stood for and what it was trying to do that made it different from other social networks. Maybe that's a conversation we need to have - what direction is SMC heading in and what are we trying to do? pippa@ministryoflove.co.uk

 

[Helen Keegan 010508 The vision is to create a physical (and take advantage of virtual) platform (which will eventually be our own home we hope) where folks can co-work or hotdesk, run networking events or training courses, have meetings, drink coffee, demo stuff, chat and hang out with like-minded folk, explore social media in its widest context, see a film screening, run a brainstorm, manage a focus group and whole lot more besides.

 

The starting point of that is to create and build our community to make sure that they have input into the bigger vision of what the 'physical' platform may look like and to make sure that whatever we create is what our community wants so that it will be sustainable financially and add value to our community. It's an experiment in co-creation of something big that's not just web-related. And we are most definitely *still* prototyping and will be for some time. The Friday morning drop-in is one of those prototypes. On Friday mornings we're offering a place to hang out, do some work (using the free wifi), do some networking (or not), organise a focus group or round table discussion. All this takes time and effort and money and support from friends, community members and sponsors is most gratefully received in whatever format that is offered - practical, moral, financial.]

 

Good ideas. Evening SMCs would definitely help in reaching a wider crowd beyond the 'freeformers' of the SMC that find it easier to make time on a Friday morning. Mecca - would be great to know if you had anything in mind re taking it beyond reaching Tuttlers themselves. I've been thinking about all sort of ways we could help SMC help itself through its members (eg blog badges, discounts etc) and it would be good to get as much input as possible from across the board.

 

The other thing I think SMC could do is work out a way of illustrating and securing sponsorship using social media. Some text on a wiki isn't that inspiring for me (and I have a pretty good idea about what SMC is about ;)) Rob said he wasn't up for another website but I actually think a bit more of a slick online presence is needed - esp. as larger non-start-up brands are sought after. Remember though this is WIP so there's still lots to do and talk about. Jonathan - @jopkins

 

[Helen Keegan 010508 We have the Tuttle Club blog too which is slicker than the wiki and we have the facebook group. At some point a full-on website will be what's required. And if the demand is there and we have the finance to do it, then I'm guessing we'll do it! I like the idea of blog badges - it's pretty neat. Evening events are all possible but we will be competing with a lot of other stuff. And whatever time of day you do, we'll never please all of the people all of the time. The reason we have the session on Friday mornings is because it's not a networking event, it's a place to hang out and work if you want to. Offers of help to do all/some of this most gratefully received.]

 

I think you should stop calling it SMC. Social Media Café is the brand and SMC sounds like some large corporate organisation, which couldn't be further from the truth. Could it? mark@marquewing.co.uk

 

Good point - I've changed the title of this section as that is the most glaring use of the offending three letters. Guess it's just a bit of LOL/laugh out loud style laziness/shorthand but agreed, 'Social Media Corporation/SMC' is not what the Social Media Café is all about and we shouldn't be doing anything to give the wrong impression/take-out. @jopkins

 

[Helen Keegan 010508 I prefer The Tuttle Club as a brand - more memorable, a bit quirky and doesn't sound as scary to a non-social-media-type as Social Media Cafe. It's also much more google friendly. I think it can also be portrayed visually in a more creative and interesting way than Social Media Cafe. That said, we can't stop folks calling us what they will - I still call Snickers 'Marathon'!]

 

JOB OPPORTUNITIES

 

Hi guys, I've got an opportunity for someone social media savvy to take an online-PR-type position in a new, venture backed start-up. It will be 2-3 days a week to start with and could also involve some equity. Can't say too much on here but if you're interested, or know any anyone who could be, email me details at josh@inetworkmarketing.co.uk and I'll pass them along. Thanks!

 

Joshua March blog twitter