So it’s now official, on February 8th, 2012 at 5:30pm I’ll be giving a talk for CPRS Vancouver on Identifying Online Influencers and How to Engage Them. This isn’t my first every “speaking” gig, but this is the first time I’ll be doing this on my own and not part of a panel.

The synopsis of my talk is as follows:

Social Media has significantly grown over the past few years. With a growing number of social media tools and networks there are also a growing number of people who will express their opinions and have conversations with others via these new channels. As a result, there will be some individuals whose voices will resonate louder than others and whose opinions will be heard by a larger group of people. Identifying these core people, or influencers, has become more crucial for brands and/or causes.

Gus Fosarolli, Senior Client Relations Manager at Marketwire, will offer practical tips to help you identify influencers and learn how to leverage them in support of your cause or brand.

What makes me an authority at speaking on this topic? I’ve been using social media for several years now. I’ve seen social tools grow over the past 4 years and I’ve seen some tools fall on the waste side. I work with many PR and Marketing professionals and I understand how important it is for them to understand the power of the online influencer.

I hope you will be able to attend and listen to me speak. I’m very excited about presenting and hope I will give everyone very valuable information that they can use.

Social Media Week kicks off today around the world with 12 cities hosting events including Vancouver. This is the first time that Vancouver will be hosting the event and it will be the only Canadian city participating this time.

Our good friends at Socialized have put together an amazing week which will included a Blogging Summit, a Real Estate Summit, A Social Media for Lawyers event, An Agency Mash-up, Social Good Summit, A Mining Tweetup and Leading Women in Social Media Mash-up to name a few. This week will be full of learning and gaining best practices as we all move forward with social media.

As part of working with Marketwire and Sysomos, we will be part of the week long event sharing what we’ve learned through out our years and helping kick off the week with the opening party this evening at Ceilis Irish Pub by providing you with a few appies. So look out for me at the event!

So follow along through out the week on Twitter – #SMWVan or @SMWVan for more details.

In social media, we are always told to be transparent and authentic, but are we truly that? This question has been on my back of my mind for sometime now and I thought it was time to write down some of my thoughts on the matter.

Working for a company that deals with Public Relations, Investor Relations, communicators and marketers that work at some big brand named companies, I usually have to think twice about what I comment when it comes to their brands. Some of my clients follow me on Twitter, some are friends on Facebook, some even are on Google+. Do I post my dislike on social networks for a bad experience I’ve had without hurting my relationship with my client? Am I not being transparent or authentic if I say nothing online?

Also a last year I had to rush back to Toronto as my mother had suffered a stroke. I didn’t really say much publically about the matter and had fought long and hard to even write a blog post about it. Should I have kept it to myself and not said anything? Though some of my closest friends from online knew what was going on I struggled to get a post out, but I thought it would have been good for my own healing after that stressful time.

We’ve also heard about people being fired from their jobs for posting comments about their dislike about their job conditions or fellow co-workers. I for one keep those comments private and I don’t personally think they should every be shared publicaly. I also make it know who I work for and never hide that fact.

At the end of the day I think it’s important to know yourself and know how much you want to share publically. Once you established these boundaries for yourself I think you can truly say you are being transparent and authentic to the level you are most comfortable with online.

Do you think you are transparent and authentic? Do you think that there is a boundary as to how much you should actually make public?

Our good friends over on Twitter last night changed the way you and I receive notifications when we have new followers or have a new direct message (DM).

This morning over on Twitter, people didn’t seem to be too pleased with the change. Granted I’m only seeing this coming from the Vancouver tweeps and not really anyone else. I for one actually like the new enhanced notification emails. The HTML emails include the person’s avatar photo, plus show you how many followers, how many they are following and how many tweets they have sent out. I like that everything is there for me to see if I should actually click the new follower and see their stream. I see it often that many will just try to follow as many people as they can and yet have nothing posted on their stream (this of course is a whole other story).

What surprised me was to see who many people are not liking it. We who use social media tools, and strive to get others to use them and taut the benefits, are always quick to jump in and complain when something is changed. We’ve seen this when Facebook changed their layout (I for one like the newer layout as well).

Social Media tools are so new still and they are always evolving and changing. If they don’t evolve, we will venture into something else that does. We should be encouraging change, and change that enhances the experience.

My good friend Raul with the help of Isabella will be hosting the first ever Mental Heath Camp in Vancouver tomorrow at Workspace (400 – 21 Water Street).

Mental Health Camp arose from a session during Northern Voices where Todd Mafin, Isabella Mori and Airdrie Miller participated where they tried to shine light on the stigma surrounding mental illness and how social media can help you cope.  As it was a great success, Raul and Isabella had suggested this be its own conference/camp and as such Mental Health Camp was created.

The camp will try to answer some of the following questions:

• How can blogging help decrease the stigma of mental health?
• How does someone with a mental illness navigate the waters of anonymity in the transparent world of social media?
• How is the journaling that happens in blogging similar to or different from journaling for healing?
• How can social media participants with mental health issues help each other?

I personally don’t suffer from any mental illness, but I will be helping support the camp and volunteering my time during the event. You can check out the schedule here.

The event is free by donation and open to all.

Looking over Twitter today, a new player popped up on the search stream (Magpie).  What is Magpie you ask? Well Magpie uses your Twitter account to allow advertisers to send out tweets based on keyword searches you create when setting up your account with Magpie.  The advertiser then can send out their advertisement to all those who have signed up and match a specific keyword. As they state on their website “convert your tweets into bling-bling”

Now Twitter is there to engage your followers and not necessarily to advertise products from companies you might not care about or even know who they are.  Yes you can argue what is the difference between having Google Ads on your blog or ads on your RSS Feeds with Twitter advertising through Magpie?  Are you still in control as to which advertisement you can pick for Magpie? That doesn’t look like the case. I for one don’t even have Google Ads on my blog.

Some folks on Twitter have stated that if they get a Magpie related tweet from someone, they will automatically unfollow them. I’m inclined to have to agree with them. I don’t wish to have 1 Magpie tweet for every 5 of my tweets out there.  Yes Magpie says I could make a hefty amount (almost 870 Euro a month), but I think that will quickly drop as some of my followers would stop following me.

What are your views on the “new bird” in town?

Today is BlogDay.

BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. On that day Bloggers will recommend other blogs to their blog visitors.
With the goal in mind, on this day every blogger will post a recommendation of 5 new blogs. This way, all blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, previously unknown blogs.

I was trying to find some blogs that I read and thought I share:

The Boy Genius Report: If you want to know what is coming out before the official announcement, this is the best place to go. Focusing on the cell phone market, they manage to be informative and yet have a sense of humour.

Digital Shot: Awesome blog about photography as well as reviews on some cameras.  Love the tutorials on specific photo subjects.

Underexposed: from CNet, this blog deals with specifics of photography; whether it be about cameras, software, or just techniques, this is a good read for the photo enthusiast.

Drinks After Dark: A blog about cocktails, wines, liquor and all things in between.  A good friend of mine writes for them and I have gain some great knowledge to some of the tasty treats available.

Ruminations from Paul Dryer: Paul Dryer is a former co-worker from another office and he has some great postings on all things PR and Social Media base. You might not always agree with him, but he engages a conversation.

Enjoy the read and Happy BlogDay everyone!

Last night was a fairly informal Third Tuesday, as it was held on a Wednesday night and we had no speaker, yet as always it managed to bring out a lot of people.  Since it was held at Steamworks in Gastown, we had a cap of 35 people.  I’m sure if we didn’t have a cap, more would have attended.

It was great to see the usual faces, Tanya, Monica, Colleen, Arieanna & Ianvi, Tris, John & his wife, David to name a few, a few faces were missing, Raul, Rebecca. I also got to meet some new people and chat with people face to face that I’ve only chatted with online.  I also got to meet Joesph Thornley who started Third Tuesday and was in town for the meet up.

I have to say the change of format was refreshing.  It allowed for more interaction and networking than the usual events.  Granted the set up of the tables prevented from seeing others in the group as I had my back to 2/3 of the group. All in all, hats off to Tanya on organizing a great event as usual.  I’m looking forward to more in the coming months and proud to be a part of such a great group of people!

The other day I put my name in for the Social Media Club’s 42 interim board member, and you can now vote for me at their site.

I believe we need some more Canadian representation, with currently only one other Canadian – Megan Cole.

The Social Media Club helps to

bring together journalists, publishers, communications professionals, artists, amateur media creators, citizen journalists, teachers, students, tool makers, and other interested collaborators. Essentially the people who create and consume media who have an interest in seeing the ‘media industry’ evolve for everyone’s benefit. We are more than just USERS, we are the reason the tools exist – we are the people who communicate our thoughts and ideas near and far.

I look forward to seeing this club grow. We have some great people in the Social Media scene in Canada and I hope to bring them all together and grow as a community with your support.

What a crazy week this will be for Social Media enthusiast or Tech junkies.

To start off tonight is Third Tuesday Vancouver which will host Darren Barefoot at the Century House Restaurant & Bar on Richards Street. Darren will discuss how to get top bloggers attention in this growing market place. I’ll hopefully be attending depending on how busy work gets here.

Tomorrow night will be Launch Party 4 Vancouver at Republic on Granville Street. This will showcase some new tech start up companies as well as having a Start Up Career Fair. I might venture out to this event as I have some pals that are techies and will be attending the event. Techvibes also has some other events on their blog.

Thursday will Cossette Communications – Covergence 2008 on Granville Island. I’m registered for this event for work, but I hope to learn a few “tricks of the trade” so to speak.

Other events this week include Vidfest which celebrates digital media in Vancouver.

Last but not least, Buzzbishop broke the news first this morning to the Vancouver crowd, the Apple Store will finally be open in Pacific Centre Mall on Saturday May 24th at 10am.

I hope I haven’t forgotten any events this week. Just let me know.