San Antonio Social Media by Social Media Mentoring » Social Media

San Antonio Companies: Compete in Social Media Madness

admin — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 02:18:22 +0000

Does your social media-savvy company have what it takes? The San Antonio Business Journal is betting that San Antonio has lots of companies that fit the “most social” bill.

“The San Antonio Business Journal’s Social Madness contest (presented by Capital One Spark Business) measures the growth of a company’s social media presence as it competes in a tournament-style challenge,” said Donna Tuttle, projects editor at The San Antonio Business Journal. “Companies will compete in 43 U.S. cities, with local winners squaring off in a national challenge. Three overall champions get the right to designate a $7,500 donation to the charity of their choice.”

San Antonio companies must be nominated by May 15. In June, competitors go head-to-head with other San Antonio companies and three winners, one from each category (small, medium, large), walk away with the local honors. The winners from that bracket go on to compete in July with the other nationally selected companies.

Said Tuttle, “San Antonio long has been on the forefront of social media. We had a strong group of early adopters, who generously shared their knowledge with the community as early as 2006. While our city sometimes gets dissed for its casual and familial spirit, it is exactly that which has created such a rich social media community.”

I think she’s right. San Antonio’s definitely got the social media chops to Go! All! The! Way!

Nominate your company today!

San Antonio: January 2012 Social Media Events

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:32:20 +0000

Here’s a quick look at the social media events happening in San Antonio this January:

Sunday, January 15, 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., FoodieMamas Brunch at The Monterey, #foodiemamas and #samoms

Wednesday, January 25, 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m., PrISM (Professional Interest in Social Media) Meetup: Identifying and Managing Social Media Risks, #prismSA

Check back often for updates to this list. Is your San Antonio social media event missing? Leave the info in comments (or send a DM to @colleenpence) and I’ll add it.

[Photo credit: SXC]

San Antonio: October and November 2011 Social Media Events

admin — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 01:27:23 +0000

Here’s a quick look at the social media events happening in San Antonio this October and November:

Wednesday, October 26, Social Media Breakfast San Antonio: Sinking Your Teeth into Social Media & Customer Service, #SMBSA

Wednesday, October 26, PrISM (Professional Interest in Social Media) Meetup, #prismSA

Friday, October 28, ActionCamp San Antonio: a full-day unconference for nonprofits, educators, and anyone wanting to learn and share about social media, #actionsa

Friday, November 4, Firecat Studio Coworking/Brownbag Friday Nov. 4: Design Thinking

Thursday, November 10, BMPR (Business, Media, PR Tweetup) Breakfast Along the River, #riobmpr

Saturday, November 12, San Antonio Moms on Twitter: Meet Me at Morgan’s Wonderland Tweetup, #samomsatmw

Wednesday, November 16, Social Media Breakfast San Antonio: A Feast for the Eyes, Mind, Body, and Soul, #smbsa

Wednesday, November 23, PrISM (Professional Interest in Social Media) Meetup, #prismSA

Check back often for updates to this list. Is your San Antonio social media event missing? Leave the info in comments (or send a DM to @colleenpence) and I’ll add it.

[photo credit: SXC]

San Antonio: August and September 2011 Social Media Events

admin — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 03:53:16 +0000

Here’s a quick look at the social media events happening in San Antonio this August and September:

Wednesday, August 24, Social Media Breakfast San Antonio: Tourism and Social Media, #smbsa

Wednesday, August 24, PrISM (Professional Interest in Social Media) Meetup, #prismSA

Friday, August 26, Restaurant Week Downtown Tweetup, #dtrestaurantweek

Tuesday, August 30, Q Up for a Cause – Back to School Bash with Haven for Hope, #QupCause

Wednesday, September 7, Action Breakfast for Nonprofits: Beyond Words (video, photography, podcasting), #actionsa

Wednesday, September 28, Social Media Breakfast: Google + and Facebook Timeline, #smbsa

Wednesday, September 28, PrISM (Professional Interest in Social Media) Meetup, Blogging Tools, #prismSA

Wednesday, September 28, Tweetbabes Book Swap and Book Club, #tweetbabes

Check back often for updates to this list. Is your San Antonio social media event missing? Leave the info in comments (or send a DM to @colleenpence) and I’ll add it.

San Antonio: March 2011 Social Media Events

admin — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 13:40:21 +0000

photo credit: SXC

March is a busy month. Spring works hard to get our attention with her increasingly lovely weather and beautifully blooming blossoms. But she has competition for our affections. We find ourselves beckoned to that technology smorgasbord up north. Yes, it’s that time of year: South by Southwest (SXSW) has arrived! And although many of us will be making our annual trek to pay homage to all things Interactive, San Antonio has several spectacular social media events of its own this month.

Check back often for updates to this list. Is your San Antonio social media event missing? Leave the info in comments (or send a DM to @colleenpence) and I’ll add it.

Wednesday, March 2, Action Breakfast, free Social Media for Nonprofits workshop: Social Media Monitoring

Wednesday, March 2, San Antonio’s Unofficial SXSWi Tweetup, #sxswiSA

Friday, March 4, Firecat First Friday Coworking & Brownbag – Project Collaboration Portals, #Firecat

Thursday, March 10, Free coworking at C4Workspace (every 2nd Thursday of each month)

Friday, March 11 – Tuesday, March 15, SXSWi (OK, so it’s not in San Antonio but it’s so close it might as well be!), #sxsw

Saturday, March 12 – Social Media Club San Antonio will participate in the Social Media Club Global Member Meeting in Austin (during SXSW), #smcsa

Wednesday, March 16 – Social Media Breakfast: SXSWi recap, #smbsa

Saturday, March 19 – BMPR Big Bird, SeaWorld Texas, #BMPR

Monday, March 28, Tweetbabes Book Club: Water for Elephants, #tweetbabes

Thursday, March 31, BMPR (Business/Media/PR Tweetup): Rackspace, #BMPR

Quick, easy (and free!) ways to add interactivity to your Facebook Page

admin — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 19:39:52 +0000

Hy.ly - Simple Social Apps

With more and more businesses using Facebook as part of their marketing strategy, it’s no longer enough just to post on your wall. Businesses are not only competing to get fans. They’re also vying to keep the attention of the fans they’ve got. Fans expect benefits or they won’t stick around to make an impact on your bottom line. But how, as a business, can you affordably add bells and whistles to your Page?

Check out Hy.ly. CEO Munish Gandhi and his team of developers are on a mission to make it easy and cost-effective for small businesses to find new customers using their attractive and highly functional Facebook applications.

The best part about Hy.ly? Right now their Facebook apps are free!

After using Hy.ly’s Welcome tab, Coupon, and Sweepstakes apps for clients–with great results–I contacted Munish via Facebook to learn more about his up-and-coming company that’s helping small businesses engage with their Facebook fans in a big way.

*****

COLLEEN: How did Hy.ly start?

MUNISH: I am a serial entrepreneur. Hy.ly was founded to simplify Social Media for business. Before Hy.ly, I co-founded Clickable with David Kidder. Clickable simplifies online advertising for business and is backed by some of the Internet’s most successful venture-capital firms and private investors: FirstMark Capital, Union Square Ventures and Founders Fund.

COLLEEN: Hy.ly’s focus today is on Facebook customization but I recently read an article mentioning Hy.ly’s Twitter/ CRM-like tool to help businesses harness the Twitter platform for customer service. Is Hy.ly still working on that service?

Hy.ly CEO Munish Gandhi

MUNISH: Yes, Hy.ly actually has a (secret) sophisticated Customer Care for Twitter offering that is still under active use. We have disabled new signups until we redesign it to fit our new Facebook-centric architecture.

Our passion has always been to develop simple, elegant and affordable solutions for a small business. As we improved the sophistication of the Customer Care solution, we realized we were moving further away from our passion. We decided to stop accepting new signups, go back to our passion, and develop simple tools for small businesses to get more leads.

COLLEEN: How long have you been offering Facebook customization through Hy.ly?

MUNISH: The Welcome Tab app was our first app and it was released in November of 2010.

COLLEEN: Do you see Hy.ly competing directly with Wildfire and other 3rd party Facebook application developers? What does Hy.ly do better than those other 3rd party applications?

MUNISH: At Hy.ly, we are strong advocates of small business. We believe that simplicity, elegance and affordability are key to winning the hearts and minds of the small business owner. Our apps embody these values: They are simple to use, they personify elegance, and they are affordable for businesses of all sizes.

COLLEEN: I love Hy.ly’s entry marketing strategy: get users to spread the word about your apps by allowing them to accumulate points every time they “like” one of your apps (or potential future apps) on Facebook or when they log in to their Hy.ly account or promote their Hy.ly-created Facebook tabs. How did you come up with this strategy? Will you eventually move Hy.ly to a paid-only model or will you continue to allow users to accumulate Hy.ly points to “pay” to use your services?

Hy.ly's Coupon app for Facebook

MUNISH: I have always been fascinated by gamification of the Web. I wanted to design a game where our message of Simple Social Apps for Small Business is spread virally rather than an expensive marketing effort. We will continue to offer the game model for free use of the apps. [However,] as time goes by, not all our apps will remain free.

COLLEEN: How can you offer features such as the ability to require sweepstakes entrants to “like” a Page to be able to enter the sweepstakes when other third-party application developers charge at least $5,000 to implement the same functionality?

MUNISH: Creating affordable apps for small business is in our DNA. Even though there are other companies out there charging $5,000, we wanted to remain true to our DNA and offer affordable solutions.

COLLEEN: I was fortunate to meet you on Twitter and connect with you on Facebook so when I had questions while using Hy.ly apps you responded quickly. But does Hy.ly offer a Help section and/or tech support via your website? What’s your tech support model as Hy.ly grows?

MUNISH: Hy.ly does not have a Help section. Our customers can reach us on Hy.ly’s Facebook Page, Hy.ly’s Twitter account or by email at help@hy.ly. As we grow we will build out our tech support area and, maybe, offer it as a paid service.

COLLEEN: Where does Hy.ly go from here? Will you offer Facebook customization only or do you plan to branch out into other social networks or other projects?

MUNISH: We will continue to build out our offerings and, for now, we will continue to focus on Facebook.

COLLEEN: You’ve been creating and launching Facebook apps like crazy these last few months. First came your Welcome Tab app and then the Coupon app. Next you launched the Sweepstakes, Tweetshow, and Scheduler apps. What apps are on the horizon?

MUNISH: We have a few new apps on the horizon:

A Photo Contest app: This app is ready to use. Please send us an email (help@hy.ly) if you would like to try out the app for free.
A Welcome Tab “Portfolio” app for artists, models, creative designers, and photographers to display their work in a portfolio
A dashboard of metrics for people to measure their Facebook efforts.

COLLEEN: Thanks for sharing more about Hy.ly with Social Media Mentoring readers, Munish. We’re excited to see what Hy.ly does next.

MUNISH: Thank you!

San Antonio: July 2010 Social Media Events

admin — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 03:26:11 +0000

As the long, hot, lovely days of summer pass leisurely by you might think that social media is taking a summer vacation this month like so many hard-working Americans. But you’d be wrong! There are plenty of great social media events in San Antonio this July to keep your skills sharp and your networking social. And who knows? In the midst of all that learning and networking you may even take in a ball game or become a Guitar Hero. It’s all in a day’s (social media) work, isn’t it?

Is your San Antonio social media event missing from this list? Leave the info in comments and I’ll add it.

Friday, July 2, 2010
Firecat Studios First Friday Coworking and Brown Bag Lunch
Location: 918 Nolan St., Suite 104, San Antonio, TX 78202
Details: Firecat First Friday Guitar Hero + Rock Band Challenge
RSVP: http://fff1007.eventbrite.com/

Thursday, July 8, 2010
Free Coworking Day at C4 Workspace
Location: 108 King William, San Antonio, Texas 78204
Details: Discover the beauty of coworking! Highspeed internet, printer/fax, coffee, meeting space, telephone rooms & more. Free parking all day. Next door to “Filling Station,” reviewed in San Antonio Express-News Sunday, Jan 31st, as darn good food.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Beer Ice Cream Fiesta Tweetup
6:45 p.m. – 8:45 p.m.
Location: Freetail Brewing, 4035 N Loop 1604 W. Suite 105
Topic: Free Tail Brewing makes the finest beer ice cream this side of the Pecos River. Yes, it is ice cream made with Freetail beer. They’re making us a special batch for this, so show up, k?
RSVP: http://twtvite.com/beericecream/

Thursday, July 22, 2010
BMPR – The San Antonio Business / Media / PR Tweetup
12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Location: Holiday Inn Airport, 77 NE Loop 410, San Antonio, Texas, 78216
Topic: “SEO What?!” Join us as web analytics experts Ryan Kelly (Founder/CEO Pear Analytics); Susan Price (CEO of Firecat Studio); and Matthew C. Eagan (CEO of ImageFreedom) get to the heart of what’s important with SEO (search engine optimization). How can you make SEO and web analytics work without feeling like you’re selling your soul?
RSVP: http://twtvite.com/BMPRJuly/3

Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Social Media Breakfast San Antonio
7:30 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.
Location: Madhatters, 320 Beauregard Street San Antonio, TX 78204
Topic: TBA
RSVP: TBA
SMBSA Facebook Fan Page: http://facebook.com/smbsa

Thursday, July 29, 2010
BMPR (The San Antonio Business / Media / PR Tweetup)
7:00 p.m.
Location: Nelson Wolff Stadium, 5757 Hwy 90 West, San Antonio, TX 78227
Details: Trade those business jackets for chanclas and join all your favorite BMPR people for a night out at the San Antonio Missions. Mostly, we’ll just hang out, but bring your smartphones for a few social media games. Important note: You must purchase tickets in advance by July 26th ($9.50) by calling Josh at 554-1521. It’s Dollar Night — so snacks and beer are…. wait for it…. $1. We only have 60 seats available.
RSVP: http://twtvite.com/BMPRbaseball

[photo credit: SXC]

San Antonio: May Social Media Events

admin — Wed, 05 May 2010 02:17:01 +0000

They say April showers bring May flowers. But the month of May, in addition to yielding miles and miles of Texas wildflowers, also provides a colorful variety of social media events in San Antonio. Get your social calendars out. It’s going to be a busy month!

Is your San Antonio social media event missing from this list? Leave the info in comments and I’ll add it.

Wednesday, May 5 & 13, 2010
Free Coworking Day at C4 Workspace
Location: 108 King William, San Antonio, Texas 78204
Details: Discover the beauty of coworking! Highspeed internet, printer/fax, coffee, meeting space, telephone rooms & more. Free parking all day. Next door to “Filling Station,” reviewed in San Antonio Express-News Sunday, Jan 31st, as darn good food.

Friday, May 7, 2010
Firecat Studios First Friday Coworking and Brown Bag Lunch
Location: 918 Nolan St., Suite 104, San Antonio, TX 78202
Details: Digital Ethics – Civil Behavior in Social Media, Email, Websites, Blogs, etc.
RSVP: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/663157522

Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Social Media Breakfast San Antonio
7:30 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.
Location: The Egg & I, 16668 San Pedro Avenue, San Antonio, TX 78232-2242
Topic: Social Media Breakfast founder Bryan Person joins us to lead a discussion on “What have we learned about Facebook?” We’ll talk about the massive force Facebook has become and what all the implications mean for marketers/brands and users. Are the interests of those groups mutual? Join the discussion!
RSVP: http://tweetvite.com/event/smbsa0510
SMBSA Facebook Fan Page: http://facebook.com/smbsa

Thursday, May 20, 2010
BMPR (The San Antonio Business / Media / PR Tweetup)
First-ever evening BMPR!
6:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
Location: The Gatsby, 18730 Stone Oak Parkway, Suite 108
Topic: Ready for our first-ever Evening BMPR? We’ve got the double the goodness for you: The 2010 Bumper Awards for San Antonio’s Social Media Peeps and a great lineup of speakers about Social Media and Entertainment / Leisure.
RSVP: http://twtvite.com/MayBMPR

Friday, May 21, 2010 – THIS EVENT MOVED TO JUNE 18
Social Media Club San Antonio’s first-ever social media bowling tournament!
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Location: TBA
Topic: Grab three of your fave social media friends to form a team for our first-ever social media San Antonio bowling tournament. Sponsored by Kick Apps. (http://www.kickapps.com/)
RSVP: TBA

Saturday, May 22, 2010
PodCamp San Antonio 4
9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Location: Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club, 618 N.W. Loop 410, Suite 312, San Antonio, TX 78216
Topic: Podcamp San Antonio is an UnConference being held May 22, 2010 in San Antonio, Texas. It’s an “UnConference”, meaning that it’s a conference organized in an ad-hoc manner for everyone to attend and participate in. There are no keynote speakers or rigidly defined schedules. Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join.
RSVP: http://www.podcampsanantonio.org/

Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Anti-Sex in the City 2 Tweet Dudes Bowling Night
7:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Location: Bandera Bowl, 6700 Huebner Road. San Antonio, TX 78238-2142
Topic: If you like umbrellas in your drink. You are not invited. If your beverage of choice contains the colors red, yellow, purple, orange or any combination thereof. You are not invited. If you do not pee standing up. You are not invited. If you do not know more about Football than Nan Palmero. You are not invited. If there is less hair on your chest than on your head. You are not invited!
RSVP: http://twtvite.com/tdbowling

Thursday, May 27, 2010
San Antonio Lighthouse for the Blind Tweetup / Lunch / Tour
11:45 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Location: San Antonio Lighthouse for the Blind, 2305 Roosevelt Ave.
Topic: We welcome you to visit the San Antonio Lighthouse for the Blind and see what we are all about! Our next Open House is Thursday, May 27 from 11:45- 1:00. Come and be inspired.
RSVP: Call Nicole to RSVP 210-531-1532 or email nhoyt@salighthouse.org by Monday, May 24. (Lunch Provided). Let ‘em know you are a Tweetup friend. http://twtvite.com/SALBLunch

Thursday, May 27, 2010
Tweetbabes: Sex & the City 2
Meeting around 6:30 p.m. Movie starts at 7:30 p.m.
Location: Regal Northwoods Theater, 17640 Henderson Pass San Antonio, TX 78232-1500
Topic: Join the Tweetbabes for the opening night of Sex and the City 2. This is a casual, come-as-you-are tweetup (but feel free to bring your inner Samantha!). We’ll meet around 6:30 p.m. at the Regal Northwoods Theater to attend the 7:30 pm show. Buy your ticket(s) early to reserve your seat.See you and your Manolo’s there!
RSVP: http://tweetbabes.ning.com/events/sex-and-the-city-2-opening

Thursday, May 27, 2010
San Antonio tweetup
5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Location: Lion and Rose Pub, 842 NW Loop 410 # 115, San Antonio, TX 78216-5613
Created by: @kr8tr

Friday, May 28, 2010
National Burger Day, @SmashBurgerSA & @SAFoodBank tweetup
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Location: Friday, May 28, 2010 is National Burger Day and San Antonio Smashburger is celebrating with the San Antonio Food Bank. This is what’s going on that day at the Potranco & 151 location: 11 a.m. Celebrity Smash with Eric Cooper, Executive Director of the San Antonio Food Bank. 11 a.m.-Noon The first 25 people who rsvp and bring a canned good will receive a free Smashburger. During the month of May, which is National Burger month, Smashburger has partnered with the San Antonio Food Bank and is collecting canned goods at all four San Antonio locations. Also, for every Texas Smashburger sold, $1 will be donated to the S.A. Food Bank. Every $1 donated equals seven meals for a family.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/denisemattox/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

Sharing. Exchanging. Social Health.

admin — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:48:48 +0000

On Thursday I attended #SXSH – Sharing. Exchanging. Social Health. The day-long event included speakers and panel discussions about healthcare and social media. Several San Antonians attended this unconference to share and learn more about leveraging social media in various healthcare business.

Alan Weinkrantz asked me to guest post on the MySA.com blog he shares with Nan Palmero. They’re covering what San Antonians are doing this week at South by Southwest. You can read my guest post here.

Welcome, San Antonio Medical Group Management Association

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:46:07 +0000

Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today at the San Antonio Medical Group Management Association’s Annual Education Conference. Below are the sites and articles I shared today for your reference.

RESOURCES:

A survey released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project reports that 61 percent of Americans go online for health information, and the majority of them have turned to user-generated health information.

South by Social Health (SXSH), a gathering of those working in healthcare and using social media, will be held on Thursday, March 11, 2010 in Austin, Texas. Here’s a description from the official site:

SXSH is a day-long international social health un-conference encompassing all aspects of healthcare. The event will have structured, previously announced presentations in the style of a TED conference, as well as an “un-conference” portion — similar to PodCamp or HealthCamp — where topics are decided by the participants. Cost to attend is $25.

There is an #hcsm chat every Sunday night at 8pm CST on Twitter

Dr. Anas Younes on Twitter

Dr. Anas Younes on Facebook

Dr. Anas Younes’ blog

SPediatrics on Twitter

Spediatrics on Facebook

Spediatrics’ blog

Dr. Kevin Pho on Twitter

Dr. Kevin Pho on Facebook

Dr. Kevin Pho’s blog

Christus Health on Twitter

Christus Health on Facebook