Delaware supports Detroit!

I have to tell you, I'm pretty excited about this!

Jeff Pulver, international social media leader and creator of the 140 Conferences, visited Delaware in June. D uring that visit, Mr. Pulver talked about how the city of Detroit is trying to do what Delaware is doing with social media, connecting business, government, non-profits, arts, and education in a way that encourages a flow of information, ideas, and support.

On Wednesday, Oct. 20, Jeff Pulver hosted the 140 Conference in Detroit.
During the afternoon session, Jeff introduced Delaware's own Maya Paveza (Nationally recognized leader in Social Media and Real Estate), and Maya introduced the people of Detroit to some of the Delaware Social Media Community via video.

The video features messages from:

- Governor Jack Markell
- Kim Kostes of the Food Bank of Delaware
- Steve Roettger and Wes Garnett of the COin Loft
- State Representative Tom Kovach
- Rodney Jordan of Armor Graphics
- Rebecca Faber, President of the World Trade Center Delaware
- Brian Sowards of the Delaware Film Initiative
- Laurie Bick of Community Matters
- Rick Jensen, WDEL talk show host
- Greg Gurev of MySherpa and president of the Technology Forum of Delaware
- Jayla Boire of The Right Idea



I just want to say "Thanks!" to all who made this possible - Delaware is continuing to come together as a stronger community than ever before to make great things happen!

Great Video Resources

Just watch these:

Delaware goes to PodCamp Philly!

In October of 2009, I believe there were four of us from Delaware who attended PodCamp Philly - this year, we had many more!

And we had an incredible time!

Felicia Pullam (@FPullam) and I (@kengrantde) had the privilege of leading a session on the Delaware Social Media Initiative - and Maya Paveza (@MayaREguru) led two sessions over the weekend!

Oh, and Steve Lubetkin (@podcaststeve) did an awesome interview with Felicia and me, check it out by clicking here.

So, this event was absolutely incredible - all of us walked away with new insights, great information, new friends, and ready for more!

Huge Thanks to Whitney Hoffman, Gloria Bell, Lynette Young, and everyone who make PodCamp Philly so great! Oh, and be sure to check out great photos by clicking here!

So, here's some video from the session Felicia and I did as well as a collection of some other photos taken by our Delaware people:

More impressive confirmations

Recently, the good people at Netprospex issued a Social Media Report, offering a comprehensive look at the business usage of social media in the U.S. and in a wide variety of fields.

The report ranks cities in the U.S. where businesses are most active on Twitter - here's a look at their methodology:

We first grouped business people into geographic areas based on the locations of their companies. We then calculated a Twitter Score based on the average number of Twitter accounts, tweets, number of followers, and number of users following.

A high twitter score means there is a large percentage of business people within that city using Twitter.

I am very proud to report that Wilmington, Delaware is #10 on that list!

Click here to check out the full report.

Things I've learned over 10,000 tweets

As I write this, I have posted 9,967 "tweets" or messages on twitter.

I've been on Twitter since January of 2009 (thanks to Whitney Hoffman!) - and some of you are reading this thinking, "yea, I hit 10,000 tweets ages ago" (I'm looking at you, Maya) and others are thinking, "Wow, don't you have a life?" (you know who you are).

As I cross this little milestone, I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on the lessons I've learned so far in the twitterverse.

• Most people really do want to help others
• Most people are kind, generous, and care about their community
• You Can't Fake The Funk!
• Transparency can be a truly beautiful and good thing
• Most politicians, corporate drones, and bureaucrats have an intense fear of social media
• The exceptions to the point above are the kinds of people I really want running things
• I can learn more about breaking news from 5 minutes on twitter than 30 minutes of TV News
• Almost every experience is better when sharing it with friends
• I am unbelievably fortunate to have gotten to know SO MANY wonderful people and I am so very grateful to have all of you in my life!

These are just some thoughts off the top of my head - care to share anything you've learned?

General Information about why the social part is important

Science continues to show us how inter-connected we are naturally, and how important it can be for us to approach this with some intentionality.

Know this, I am incredibly proud of the patch we're creating here in Delaware in this social media quilt.

Just interesting statistics (a fairly narcissistic post)

One of the amazing things about this whole interwebs thing is how measurable everything is - I have a theory that these measurement tools are causing some sleepless nights for "traditional" marketing types. It used to be easy, tell someone that the billboard will mean 10 gazillion "impressions" - mix that with the television ad, the radio ad, and the full page newspaper ad and you'll have 230 mega-gajillion impressions!

NOTE: I am a firm believer in the above mentioned forms of advertising, and I have several friends in the advertising field - these communication tools are effective and useful - I just think some have taken advantage of the fact that you can't *really* measure how many people are "impressed" with these "impressions."

So, here's the thing - you can actually track how effective your message is here - you know how many people are watching your Youtube videos - or visiting your blog - and even how many people are clicking on the links you post on twitter.

While I do an occasional check to see how many people are clicking on the links I include on twitter, I'm normally just looking at a week's worth of traffic and, until now, haven't really stepped back to get a larger perspective, like this:

OK, so this counts the number of links I provided that were clicked on by others.

NOTE: This DOES NOT track links I've retweeted from others - ONLY those tweets that I originated with links shortened through Hootsuite.

So, since the beginning of this year, 4,869 people have clicked on a link I've offered up into the twittersphere - to be honest, I have no idea how that compares with others, all I know is that it indicates that others are engaging with me at some level, and for that I am both appreciative and humbled.

Now, a couple of quick observations about the most popular messages:

• The most popular topic was the social media wedding (thank you, Chris and Elizabeth, for making this so much fun!) - those were messages #3, #6, and #10 on the list for a grand total of 197 clicks
• It looks like people like fun - the most popular message was about a bunch of characters walking around the University of Delaware
• People like Community - #2 on the list was a link to the Community Shoe Drive at BellaVista in Pike Creek, #4 was about the Greater Newark Network meeting, and #5 and #7 are all about getting the word out about how great Delaware is.

Another observation - until I looked at this chart, I honestly had no idea how many people had been clicking on these links to get information. Chances are, you don't know the kind of impact you're having - if you're active in the Delaware Social Media Community, please keep it up - if you are not yet engaging, please do, you'll never know how many people you will inform, encourage, entertain, and engage with!