Social breaks into Meatspace: the first Social Success #Mic Up

Social media is great but sometimes you have to get out from behind the iPad and actually meet people. Weird idea, but it just might catch on.

So last night, Martha and I attended the first ever Social Success MicUp event run by Salesforce.com and Radian6. I was one of the five speakers and Martha was one of the hecklers, shouting abuse (in German) from the cheap seats.

It’s a simple idea: the Salesforce team asked people on Twitter to share a social media best-practice tip or secret. They then chose five and asked them to present at the live event, held at The Hospital Club in London. The evening was kept moving along by MC David Keene, Salesforce CMO in the UK.

The drinks flowed. The banter was bandied. And the Tweet Wall showed the live Twitter action around the #MicUp hashtag.

Here’s a taste of the five, five-minute talks:

Gabrielle Peters – a social-savvy pro talked about Serendipity and how a random tweet got picked up and ended up taking her to NASA for the final Space Shuttle launch, plus a meeting with Will.i.am and further adventures. With a special, insider story about the tire tread of the Mars lander.
@GabrielleNYC

Jeremy Waite – Head of Digital Strategy at TGB Digital gave a great talk on the difference between speaking to your customers and building a community. And how great content needs to inform, inspire, educate or entertain — or all four (and nothing else).
@jeremywaite

Doug Kessler – (me) – talked about building tiny communities of like-minded people on Path, an alternative to the massive social networks.
@dougkessler

Phil Campbell – social media early adopter, talked about personal branding and how he sold his premium domain name to Twitter for a small fortiune (and how he really, really needed to pee).
@philcampbell

Kirstie Heneghan  – a senior marketer at 3M talked about remaining social when conducting business in social channels. And creative ways to engage people without shoving your message down their throats.
@kjhen2010

What did we learn?

• That the UK social media scene is buzzing with smart, fun, creative people
• That getting away from the desk and actually meeting up is worth the effort
• That Salesforce and Radian6 are pretty enlightened for putting on this event without ONCE plugging their products
• That five minutes is a great length of time to give speakers
• That crowdsourcing content works!

Thanks for a stimulating evening, Salesforce and Radian 6 people.