Austin Social Media » austin social media

September #BATHH was a blast, here’s who attended:

Hillary Till — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 01:13:18 +0000

What is #BATHH?

#BATHH stands for “Big Ass Twitter Happy Hour” because not only has it grown into a large monthly event, but we primarily use Twitter as the promotional tool. Not everyone that attends is on Twitter but we let them in anyway because we’re super nice people. We all get off of the computers for a night and grab a beer together downtown.

There’s no guest speaker, there’s no raffle, there’s no cover and there’s no sales pitch- it’s an organically grown social event where people let their hair down. There are business cards swapped, but the point is to connect on a more intimate friendly level with locals (isn’t that how business flows best anyhow? You know it is).

Follow all September attendees with one click:

If you met some new people and can’t remember their names (either because you’re bad with names, their tag was illegible or the mojitos were extra strong that night), you don’t have to remember, it’s all here! For everyone who was a good boy or girl and signed in at the registration table, we’ve published a list of everyone that attended and with one click, you can follow everyone on Twitter that went to the September #BATHH. Easy, no?

If you were in attendance but don’t see your name on the alphabetized list, let us know by telling @newmedialab on Twitter… if we missed you, it’s not personal, we probably just couldn’t read someone’s writing!

Pictures from #BATHH

This month, we had two really talented photographers workin’ it, workin’ it: @MitchAhrens and @AnnieRayDotNet.

**CLICK HERE for photobooth pictures by Annie Ray.
**CLICK HERE for candid photography by Mitch Ahrens.

To see pictures from #BATHH events of the past, click here.

Save the date: the next #BATHH is on October 21st at 6:30pm; the location will be announced here soon, so click the orange “NewMediaLab RSS” button to subscribe to this blog in your feed reader or come back next week to find out where we’ll #BATHH!

Picture above courtesy of Mitch Ahrens, taken at the August #BATHH.

#BATHH pictures throughout the ages

Lani Rosales — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:04:11 +0000

August 2010 at Union Park (Candid shots by @MitchAhrens and Photo Booth by @AnnieRayDotNet)
July 2010 at Union Park (by @MitchAhrens)
June 2010 at Union Park (by @AnnieRayDotNet)
May 2010 at Union Park (by @AnnieRayDotNet)
April 2010 at Kung Fu Saloon (by @AshleyAndreano)
March 2010 at Frank for SXSWi- Korey Howell’s booth and Annie Ray’s booth (by @AnnieRayDotNet and @@KoreyHowell)

There are lots of pictures of past events, but this is about when we got a little more organized about it and started doing photo booths. If you have pictures of your favorite #BATHH event, be sure to share them in the comments below!

This post will be updated each month with new links to new pictures, feel free to bookmark.

February Twitter Happy Hour – #BATHH

Lani Rosales — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:00:54 +0000

Austin’s Twitter Happy Hour

This month’s Twitter Happy Hour was held at The Ginger Man on 3rd Street in downtown Austin and despite the rain, the bouncer (is that the right word to use these days?) said there were nearly 300 people in the door, about 20 of which weren’t affiliated with the Twitter Happy Hour. Parking was insane and the rain and cold were very un-Austin, but several hundred people still showed up, proving that although we LOVE the Ginger Man, we’ve outgrown the venue.

Follow everyone that was there with one click!

Want to follow everyone that went to the event? Even if you didn’t go, no worries, the point is for networking and that can be done online too! Click here to follow all of the attendees that actually signed in (and shame on the massive number of people that did NOT). If you were there but either I couldn’t read your name or you were stubborn and didn’t sign in, leave your name in the comments here and we’ll add you to the list so people can find you.

A special thanks to those who volunteered at the sign in table: @kimhollenshead, @terribishop, @tiffclemons, @memaples, @lorriemeyer, and @baddmom.

If you’re looking to build your network in Austin, click here to follow everyone that RSVPd, even those that said no.

When is the next #BATHH???

Mark your calendars, because we’re going to kick off SXSWi with a huge “Welcome to Austin” party for the geeks who get into town for the conference the night before. Save the date: March 11th for the March #BATHH (big ass twitter happy hour) at Frank’s starting at 6:00pm.

Top 100 Austinites in Social Media- Nominations Are Open

Lani Rosales — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:32:17 +0000

It’s nomination time!

It’s that time of year folks where we compile our Top 100 People in Social Media in Austin to show over and over again that the best talent in the world is here in Austin which is why we are the Live Social Media Capital of the World!!!

This year so that we don’t miss anyone, we’re opening the list up and taking nominations- this can be you or an individual that you look up to for their use of social media. This is not a list of people who are necessarily social media practitioners (although a category will be devoted to that), but to people that use social media as part of their business in innovative ways.

Please take a moment to nominate anyone in Austin that deserves to be on the list. It’s completely anonymous, we can’t even see your IP address with this form, so be honest!

After the list of 100 is published, you’ll be able to follow all of them on Twitter with one click, so stay tuned for the final 100!!

November Tweetup in Austin

Lani Rosales — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:31:29 +0000

Austin Tweetup

This month’s Tweetup was held at the Ginger Man down on 3rd street and it was a BLAST! The count was around 200 people that came for last night’s tweetup and we were able to wrangle 110 of those people into writing down their twitter handle.

Below is the list of 100+ Austin Tweeps to follow that came out to Ginger Man last night, and if you want to follow them ALL by clicking one button, click here (you’ll love this, we promise)!

100+ Austin Tweeps happy houred!!

Last night’s hosts were @bennrosales and @laniar, and here are the 110 others that @kim_hollenshead and @terribishop convinced to write their names down at sign in:

Who’s missing?

Because some people were too cool for school and refused to wear a name tag or sign in, there are about 100 people missing from the list above, so let us know if you or a friend of yours is not on the list above and we’ll add them. OR, if you converted someone into signing up for Twitter and they’re new, let’s add them too! lol

Thanks for coming out last night, everyone- it was a lot of fun and we look forward to seeing you all again soon!

Image courtesy of @sumina and other pictures can be found in @loriluza’s flickr stream.

Austin Haunted Houses Using Social Media

Lani Rosales — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:41:31 +0000

Top Two

The most popular, well produced haunted houses in central Texas are implementing social media campaigns to attract and scare the crap out of people:

Mansion of Terror’s social media campaign is the brain child of David Neff who plays a role in the horror show as well; my favorite of their many productions and campaigns is the trailer for their new “Death Asylum” (click here to see the video and get all worked up before you head out to go see the Mansion of Terror). What Mansion of Terror has done that is unique is actively reaching out to individual bloggers and tweeps in an effort not only to brand themselves but to increase their traffic rather than blanket promote. Mansion of Terror hosted a Tweet Up that ended in the group going to the Mansion of Terror at a discount which is quite an innovative way to reach out to Austinites.

Connect with Mansion of Terror: Twitter | Facebook | Website

House of Torment is promoted by Wyatt Brand out of Austin and they too can be found on Twitter and Facebook. They have been actively promoting their haunted house creatively, for example, they ran a campaign offering free giveaways to the best scary story told on Twitter or Facebook which received a great response level. House of Torment’s Twitter handle gets people involved by offering factoids and contests rather than simply promoting their cast repetitively.

Connect with House of Torment: Twitter | Facebook | Website

Mansion of Terror- SCARRRRYYYY

Located just north of La Frontera in Round Rock, the Mansion of Terror has been named #1 haunted house in the nation by Lions Gate Films (can you say Saw I-VI? yeah that Lions Gate Films). We went last year and took our daughter as her first haunted house experience and now she is hooked and all other haunted houses don’t scare her.

This year, (SPOILER ALERT) our family of four unanimously decided that the Mansion of Terror’s Death Asylum was the scariest haunted house ever in history. Little B (age 12), Little T (age 18), Benn (NML CEO) and I had the following thoughts:

Little B: “The Mansion of Terror Death Asylum was the scariest because it was so dark and it was easy to get lost.” She declares that this year’s haunted house takeaway memory will be “being chased around the room with writing” (which you’ll have to go see to know what she’s talking about).

Little T: “Mansion of Terror was the scariest because we had a lot of time to walk through it and get scared. The Death Asylum had more realistic characters and the scariest moment was when they came out of the dark and scared us.” He noted that his most memorable moment this season will be “being lost and chased around. Oh, and the shooting blood” (again, you’ll have to visit to see what he means).

Benn declared the Asylum scariest because “it was dark, they had great timing, it was very difficult to navigate and suspense built perfectly. It wasn’t a straight through run, you didn’t know where to go or where to run to, so it was truly terrifying.” His most memorable moment was “walking through the Asylum corridor and body parts hanging from the ceiling felt like real people touching you.”

I declared it the scariest based on what others said because I chickened out and didn’t go in. Don’t you judge me, I went last year and KNEW how terrifying it was!

House of Torment- CREEEPY

Before getting out of the car at House of Torment, my stomach flipped because not only am I scared of haunted houses, the creepy characters really get my heart palpitating. When we pulled up, the kids were delighted because there were cast members out front chasing down those waiting to enter (and we’re not talking low budget Frankensteins, we’re talking chain holding bleeding freak shows). Again, I was too scared to go in, so I made friends with the outdoor staff that were in plain clothes, but here is what the family had to say:

Little B said, “the scariest character was the guy in the pig mask. He was creepy and in your face and the snout on the mask was close to you and there was nowhere to go. They had a sideways room and you had to use one of the rails to pull yourself up, that was really scary. The best costume was the pumpkin head guy.”

Little T said his most memorable moment was the “underwear guy in the House of Torment because he was so creepy and funny but in a really scary way. I wanted him to get away from me.”

Benn noted that the cast of House of Torment was convincingly one big crazy family and that the scariest character of all Austin haunted houses was “the large, sweaty, imposing man in whitey tighties because he was unusual yet realistic and fit what I imagine to be a great horror story because he looked like a real murderer, like he could honestly be crazy person in real life.” Benn also said that the House of Torment was “very artistic, clean and realistic.”

Making plans for the weekend:

If you’re making plans for the weekend, we want you to get into the halloween spirit by visiting these haunted houses- you won’t regret it. Check out their social media efforts and connect with them and get all scared before you head out the door, then when you get home, come tell us about YOUR scariest haunted house moment in Austin!

Hubspot’s Top 50 Austin Twits- Follow With One Click

Lani Rosales — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:00:16 +0000

Easy as pie

So, I’m not sure why pie is easy, but it is and so is this… Hubspot.com has a grader tool to judge your performance on Twitter via an algorithm and although it seems bots have been rewarded and placed at the top of the list, the top people per location changes every day (you can check Austin by clicking here).

Want to follow 50 twitter users in Austin that Hubspot considers to be at the top of the game? Click here to follow all 50 (and yes, the list changes constantly, so this is just a snapshot in time)… seriously, one click and you follow them all through TweepML (which allows you to sign in with OAuth).

There are a LOT of people missing from the list, so tell us in comments who YOU would add!

Austin Internet Marketers Group Wrapup

Lani Rosales — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:41:49 +0000

AIMM

Last week, we spoke at the Austin Internet Marketers Meetup at Dave & Buster’s and had a blast! The group was very diverse which always makes for a great educational event, especially in the question & answer portion. We noted that we would share our presentation for those interested and in true Murphy’s Law fashion, all of the images in the presentation are corrupted, so in lieu of the presentation, we’ll break it down into a few parts for those who didn’t make it out last week!

Part One: Benn’s Presentation

Part Two: Social Media Primer

Benn showed this video in his presentation to drive home the point that social media and online social networking is not a fad, it’s a shift in communication:

Part Three: 14 Social Media Case Studies

We shared seven failures and seven successes in social media campaigns and while not everyone can implement every single campaign, it should be noted that most of these efforts that succeeded cost little to nothing and all and required creativity and some man hours.

Pizza Hut Twitter Intern- this was a big fat failure. Pizza Hut ran an ad for this position stating that “the successful applicant will speak fluent OMG and LOL and correctly use the terms DM, RT and #.” On the surface it seemed harmless, but the Twitter community was outraged because the implication was that an intern with texting capabilities should be the face of a marketing effort and Pizza Hut proved not to understand the culture of Twitter and belittled and offended it.

Burger King Whopper Sacrifice- campaign also failed. This was a facebook application Burger King developed that asked, “what would you do for a Whopper? Would you insult an elected official? Do a naked handstand? Turn your back on a friendship?” The application sent anyone who was willing to unfriend someone on Facebook a coupon for a free Whopper which led to Facebook users to be angered, asking “my friendship is worth $3.00 in the eyes of Burger King?” The average Facebook user has 100 “friends” and it is common to selectively connect with real life friends, so Burger King took it on the chin for not understanding that culture.

CNN vs. Ashton Kutcher raced to 1 million Twitter followers. Ashton took out a billboard, CNN promoted the race on their broadcasts and Twitter users got upset. Although the winner was to donate to charity, it became a way for celebrities to game the system, degrading all of the hard work it took for normal users without their megaphone to garner their following. Ashton came out and said, “I’m more important than the news” when he won which upset many because as traditional media struggles, celebrities continue to be worshiped. The bottom line though is that social media is bigger than CNN and Ashton and the outrage online was loud.

House, MD on Fox failed last year when one of their lead characters (Kutner) left the show suddenly to pursue a position in the Obama camp, so Fox had to kill him off and they chose suicide. The way the character was killed was fine, but Fox took advantage of the death and made an online memorial encouraging people to go visit and leave comments to the fictitious character. The web community was outraged and called it an insensitive exploitation of such a delicate matter so they could garner web traffic. Viral website fail.

Motrin ran an ad in fall 2008 that said that moms who do “babywearing” (wearing the baby on their chest in a harness) need Motrin because “let’s face it, kids can be heavy” which sent mommy bloggers into a rage. Mom bloggers revolted saying it implied mothers resented their children and to this day, new blogs and videos are being made in protest of the ad despite Motrin’s fast public apology and removal of ads. The loser in this situation could have been Motrin, but unfortunately is the mom bloggers as they painted themselves as an irrational lynch mob, counter to the collaborative, forgiving community that is blogging.

Skittles turned skittles.com into a search of twitter for the word “skittles” which was a great effort to do something innovative and transparent and show their confidence in their brand, but it turned into an echo chamber of “omg i love skittles” and eventually devolved into “omg i wish they had [insert bad word here] flavored skittles.” There was no community behind the website, nothing to share and it rewarded gaming the system because people wanted their usernames to be featured on the site and all they had to do is say “skittles” in a tweet. The Twitter community was mad and annoyed because of the manipulators that emerged by saying “skittles” in every single tweet they created.

Titleist created a website about a fictional golfer and the adventures the golfer went on. The idea was good but the execution was poor, there was no community, no incentives for anyone to share the content (much less buy Titleist products) and the content was boring. The failure was not in the website but in how it was promoted in that Titleist didn’t reach out anywhere online or to bloggers, instead chose to promote the site on television during major tournaments online. So, they relied on old media to support their new media efforts and never cross pollinated which left a stain on their marketing team.

SUCCESSES:

Starbucks Ice Cream Giveaway on Facebook was a hit. In July, Starbucks said that they would give out 20,000 pints of their ice cream to people who added their starbucks facebook application to their profile. They ended up giving out 280,000 coupons (yes, we got ours and have already eaten the ice cream which was awesome) and since have remained in the top 15 Facebook Pages with over 3.7 million fans and growing at an average of 3.41% weekly. The fan page continues to be highly interactive with polls and giveaways, but most importantly, they encourage a dialogue once they pull you in which is their success.

Blendtec won audiences over with a very simple video series called “Will it Blend?” where their lab technician in a super cool lab coat put various items including electronics (even an iPhone before they were released on the market) to prove the power of their product. The videos were viral because it was fun, shocking and barely believable. Another smart move was to send a blender to Seth Godin who asked “Will my newly published book blend?” and video taped himself blending his book. The content was not only easy to share but fun to share as it was an unlikely suspect, proving that *anything* can be popular online with some creativity behind it.

Moonfruit ran a twitter contest that asked users to tweet #moonfruit making them automatically eligible to win a Macbook Pro. Moonfruit is simply a local web developer that gave away one Macbook Pro each day for 7 days, choosing random winners that had said “#moonfruit” on Twitter. They made a big splash because they weren’t well known before the contest but have become a national name. The reason this effort won over Skittles is because it wasn’t purely a system gaming, there was a community backing it, a giveaway and they explicitly asked people not to game the system and asked bots to not run scripts… they actually added value.

Mountain Dew selected a small online community to tap into for market research AND free promotions with very little money. “12 seconds to choose the new Mountain Dew flavor” debuted on 12seconds.tv which was a site that hadn’t garnered much popularity at that time; they asked users to film what they thought should be the newest Mountain Dew flavor and chose 50 winners from the 12 second submissions and sent them limited edition boxes with seven flavors inside, fancy shot glasses and a flip camera to record their taste test and narrow it down to three flavors. Mountain Dew called it “crowd source soda,” which is how Mountain Dew Voltage was born!

Ben & Jerry’s took a simple approach in celebrating their new “Flipped Out Sundaes” by making a facebook application that allowed you to type in text and it would “flip out” the text and allow it to be copied and pasted anywhere (like a facebook status update for example). It was simple and lighthearted, but flipped out text began appearing all over the place online and when people said, “what IS that?” the answer was “Ben & Jerry’s flipped out text, go check it out” with a link to the app. Brilliant!

FrozenPeaFund.com made a splash in the very early days of Twitter and was the source of the first mass avatar-altering project. Frozen Pea Fund was born when Susan Reynolds was diagnosed with breast cancer, discovered that a bag of frozen peas was the only relief for her pain and she co-founded a breast cancer foundation. On Fridays, twitter users were encouraged to change their avatar to a “peavatar” featuring frozen peas somewhere in their picture, thus raising awareness of the non profit group. It was a success because it changed the culture of Twitter by having others focus on a cause which now seems common but it wasn’t originally part of the culture.

Kraft Foods is running a “Share a Little Comfort” campaign where all users have to do is click a button on their website to donate a box of macaroni to Feed America. After clicking “donate,” users can share with their twitter or facebook friends that they just made Kraft donate mac and encourage them to do the same. They get web traffic, press, mentions online and Feed America gets one MILLION boxes of macaroni!

We enjoyed meeting so many people at the Austin Internet Marketers Meetup which meets on on the first Wednesday night of every month and plan on going again!

Tweetup September 3rd #umu

Lani Rosales — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:07:06 +0000

Ubiquity Marketing Tweetup

This is a free event happening after the Ubiquity Marketing unSummit (where Benn & I will be speaking) and is open to EVERYONE, especially those who could not attend the conference (for whatever bizarre reason).

A non-monetary donation is required, details are below. Donations benefit Capital Area Food Bank & Mobile Loaves and Fishes.

Details: September 3, 2009, 6:30pm – 10:00pm at Shoreline Grill Conference Area and Patio (overlooking Lady Bird Lake). Underground Parking available at 98 San Jacinto on the Brazos Side.

Hosted by Jason Stoddard and Chris Brogan. Come hang with out with Chris and the rest of the Ubiquity Marketing unSummit crew.

Cash bar will be available (because Aaron, Kyle, Benn and Lani will need it after their panel together).

Fraternity is not Free… while we convene, others in our extended community need to be lifted up. Let’s do more than our part. Please bring 2 cans of non-perishable food items (protein preferred) AND/OR 2 pairs of new, white socks, AND/OR 2 bottles of water.

RSVP BY CLICKING HERE NOW.

Social Media Training in Austin- September Classes

Lani Rosales — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:48:24 +0000

Get a leg up in your business

Twitter, Blogging, Facebook and LinkedIn are quickly growing and becoming staples in the marketing world. Has your boss told you to start using social media or are you hoping to learn how to implement these tools for your own business? We offer intimate, seminar style teaching in downtown Austin with intro and advanced levels.

Class Schedule:

Wednesday, September 09, 10:00am-12:00pm Linked-In Basics (Level 1) **sold out**
Wednesday, September 09, 3:00pm-5:00pm Blogging Basics (Level 1) **sold out**
Friday, September 11, 10:00am-12:00pm Facebook Basics (Level 1)**sold out**
Friday, September 11, 3:00pm-5:00pm Twitter Basics (Level 1)**sold out**
Wednesday, September 16, 10:00am-12:00pm Linked-In Marketing (Level 2)
Wednesday, September 16, 3:00pm-5:00pm Blog Marketing (Level 2)
Friday, September 18, 10:00am-12:00pm Facebook Marketing (Level 2)
Friday, September18, 3:00pm-5:00pm Twitter Marketing (Level 2)

To learn about each course, click here and register before seating fills up; let our collective years of experience help you avoid the learning curve in social media.

If you have any questions, feel free to email us at austinlabs at gmail dot com.