Tag Archives: santa monica

Maximize Your Social Media This Season

Social Media Week extends season

It’s been about a month since Social Media Week LA and I’m still absorbing an astounding amount of information. Because I couldn’t physically be in more than one place at once at the event I had to choose which panels to attend in-person. Fortunately, there was another option available. I signed up on my livestream account to receive an email whenever an archived SMW panel became available. Wallah! Now I can watch any of the presentations I missed, on demand.

Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey

The coolest thing about using Livestream is that you can connect with your friends and watch streams from anywhere and from anyone (musicians, vloggers, subject matter gurus, etc.). Essentially you’ll be everywhere at once, just not at the same time! Now that’s some wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.

I’m enjoying an archived stream on Beauty Bosses and Fashion Founders as I write this.

Beyond Fashion

SMCLA Presents Beyond Fashion: How Brands Build Community and Sales 10/21

Beyond Fashion: How Brands Build Community and Sales Tues., 10/21

The Social Media fashion fun continues with a Social Media Club LA event on Tuesday, Oct 21, at General Assembly, in Santa Monica. Check out the details and RSVP here: bit.ly/SMCLAoctober

 


SMWLA Highlights: What’s Good?

For this week  I purposely haven’t scheduled more than two panels to attend each day. If there were others I stumbled upon outside of that then I just went with the flow. It has turned out wonderfully.

SMWLA Panel 9/23

Erik Deutsch (PRSA-LA moderates a panel with Michael Slate (KPFK Pacifica Radio), Stacey Leasca (LA Times Social Media Editor), Chris Schauble (KTLA 5 Morning News Anchor)

I started Tuesday afternoon at the Broad Stage for the “From Headlines to Hashtags” panel. I enjoyed the venue’s air conditioning after walking a few blocks there from where I parked.1 After lunch I dropped into a fantastic masterclass for”Using Your Camera Phone to Take Pro Photos” by @LanBui of Bui Bros fame.

I live-tweeted as much as the available wi-fi connections would let me. That was fun because as much as the live conversation happens in the room, online there’s a broader conversation happening that is always fun to explore later. The hashtags for the day were #SMWNews, #SMCLA, and #SMWLA. Search those terms Twitter and Instagram and you’ll see what I mean.

First visit to Philz Coffee newest location in Santa Monica!

First visit to Philz Coffee’s newest location in Santa Monica on Tuesday! Photo by Lindsay M.

After the last panel I meandered down the street with Lindsay from the SMCLA board to grab a snack at Philz Coffee. The drinks are fully customized to ensure you won’t be disappointed. For instance, when you order a drink– in my case a chai latte– you’re asked to specify how sweet (not sweetened, medium sweet, or sweet) and how spicy (mild, medium, spicy) you want it, in addition to the size and whether you want cream. I don’t think they actually asked me to specify what type of milk (not lactose intolerant so I don’t care) but I was still tickled with the choices to make a cup of spicy black deliciousness. I’ll definitely stop by there again.


1. Santa Monica’s parking situation is fodder for an entirely new post but I’m not going to get into it here.


Social Media Week LA Livestream + My Top Picks

Turns out there’s a livestream of Tuesday’s SMCLA noon panel. If you missed it live, you can watch it now… or later. For those attending Social Media Week LA either in person or online via livestream, here are my top event picks for the rest of the week.

Wednesday 9/24

  1. Working from Home: Trisha Hershberger Shows you How to Shoot
    PST: 1:00 pm – 1:30 pm
    Trisha Hershberger, Host on SourceFed (Streamy Award Winner Series of the Year 2013), will present on video producing via Nokia Lumia and Microsoft.
  2. Working from Home: Jason Okuma Shows You How to Run your Business
    PST: 3:30 pm – 4:00 pm
    Jason Okuma, Founder and CEO of JATI, Inc. and VP of Business Development at PMBC Group, will teach you how he runs his business and blogs on the go using his Lumia.

Thursday 9/25

  1. Growing Up Social: A Conversation with Hello Giggles
    PST: 10:30 am – 11:30 am
  2. TZ Tech Crawl SMWLA Edition
    Where: Lobby – The Broad Stage
    PST: 6:00 pm – 11:00 pm
    This is your chance to tour of some of the hottest LA Tech companies located in Santa Monica. Why not stop by for a beverage, snack, game, drop off a resume, to see the office space or just kick back?
    6:00 pm SMWLA HQ at The Broad Stage
    6:30 pm Famous Birthdays
    7:00 pm Pursecase
    7:30 pm Pivotal Labs
    8:00 pm Agent Ace

Friday 9/26

  1. Travel in the Age of Social
    PST: 11:00 am – 12 noon
    Join top tech travelers Ann Tran, Ted Nguyen and Sam Sabri to discuss the best way to capture your trips’ memories as they happen and share them with your audience. We’ll also share tech tips and techniques for maximizing your fun while abroad and ways to protect your memories should you experience a tech catastrophe or theft.
  2. Working from Home: Monica Olivas Teaches you how to Blog on the Run
    PST: 1:30 pm – 2:00 pm
    Monica will discuss how her Nokia Lumia enables her to blog and produce content while on the go. She’ll focus on OneNote, OneDrive, Instagram and Fitbit.

Social Media Week is Here!

Social Media Week is happening in LA and quite a few other cities this week. Now’s the time to fill your schedule with panels, workshops, parties, and other events to connect with other and learn best practices in the industry. Are you in Los Angeles and would you like to join the fun?

Register here: http://socialmediaweek.org/losangeles/attend/

Get 25% off your pass using the code SMClubLA!

Social Media Club LA members can email socialmediaclubla at gmail dot com with the subject line “SMC member SMWLA pass!” to receive a free LA HQ pass (while they last)! All passes claimed!

Social Media Week LA Highlights

 Monday 9/22

What’s the Difference Between Community Management and Social Media Management? 

Format: Google+ Hangout SMW London Presentation by Dan Spicer
Talk is now archived and available here on YouTube.

 Tuesday 9/23

SMCLA News Graphic 9/23

From Hashtags to Headlines: How Social Media is Transforming Mainstream News Coverage

This SMCLA event is co-hosted by PRSA-LA and sponsored by PR Newswire

Starts at 12 noon, featuring LA-based News and Social Media experts.

Format: Panel hosted at The Broad Stage (Main Stage) in Santa Monica.
This panel will examine how traditional news can survive and thrive amid this shift to the real time web. Speakers are Chris Schauble (Anchor, KTLA 5), Stacey Leasca (Social Media Editor, The LA Times), and Michael Slate (Producer and Host, KPFK 90.7 FM).

This should also be available as a livestream but I’ll be attending this one in person. Can’t wait!

Check the SMWLA schedule for more great topics! Are you attending any Social Media Week events? Let me know in a comment.


3 Things You Need for a Successful Kickstarter Campaign

I was invited to a Girls In Tech LA event a few weeks ago at Red Bull HQ, in Santa Monica. It was an amazing opportunity to check out the latest tech product showcases (like an Oculus Rift demo!) and to enjoy a panel of women who provided encouraging tips and best practices for those, particularly women, who are interested in STEM entrepreneurship. I learned some valuable things which I’ll share below plus I met a lot of smart and motivated people interested in the challenges of starting something new.

Girls in Tech LA event

Girls in Tech LA evening of awesome at Red Bull HQ in Santa Monica

Out of three panelists, including execs from Disney and Vizio, Julie Uhrman, CEO of Ouya, a company that created an open-source (Android) gaming console, took the floor for about 15 minutes and unleashed a slew of knowledge that was utterly mind-blowing. She told the fascinating story of her foray into founding a company that ultimately allowed independent game designers to get their games made for TV sets to market, and talked about using Kickstarter to achieve the funding needed.

Now I’ll share the three important tips she shared with attendees on how to complete a successful campaign on Kickstarter. I have never run a campaign on that platform myself, but she did and raised almost $1 million to boot!

Tip #1 – Be authentic/genuine. Be a real person before being a marketer. Relationships are key to being successful here. They are formed making memorable connections with people, and not by beating people over the head with your marketing message. Let people know why they should care instead of only telling them that they should.

Tip #2 – Be concise. Most people are not going to watch a 10-minute Kickstarter video with you rambling on about some non-existent project they care/know nothing about, so get to the point within the first 15 seconds!

Tip #3 – Form a community. You don’t want to do this alone. You’ll need an army of dedicated helpers and support. Save some perks to release partway through your campaign to get more people excited to be a part of your campaign. Even after the allotted time has passed, your effort doesn’t end because you’ve been funded. It’s just the first step to getting your product/project released. Now you have new customers who have just given you their hard-earned money. You have people that you can form great relationships with who will be glad to hear about your progress and help you spread the word about your forthcoming project.

Sounds simple doesn’t it? The reality is that it isn’t easy. Running a successful campaign is like a marathon, not a sprint. You’ll need endurance to get to the finish line, but it’ll be worth it.

I hope you’re encouraged by the tips above if you’re looking to do a Kickstarter (or one of the 100 other crowd-sourcing fundraiser sites). If you do one that gets funded feel free to share your tips below! Oh, I also live-tweeted this event. You can check that out on my Twitter @SoCalMad (Feb 18) or by following the Twitter hashtags #gitla2014 or #girlsintechla.


Doing it right: LA Luxury Chocolate Salon

Raspberry truffle elements

After my fourth year attending the 6th Annual Los Angeles Luxury Chocolate Salon held this year in the Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, CA, I’ve learned a few things to maximize the tasting experience. Read this and you’ll benefit too.

4 tips for maximum enjoyment at a chocolate tasting

1) Stay hydrated! (2009)
2) Take a break and eat something (else) for lunch. (2010)
3) Bring your own bottle of water and a reusable bag. (2011)
4) Be selective in your consumption. (2012)

I took the above photo in a chocolate maker’s workshop. The container shows most of the elements that make up a delicious raspberry truffle. By tasting each ingredient separately I, as the taster, learned to appreciate all the nuances in the truffle and can now enjoy this and other truffles on a deeper level. The complete truffle is the red item in the bottom row, center.

By following tip #4 I didn’t get as fatigued of eating chocolate by the end because with a container in hand from the aforementioned workshop I was able to consume the most interesting samples first, asking myself whether I would regret NOT trying a sample. If yes I’d eat it immediately and if no I’d save it in the box for later. That made a world of difference!

If you get the chance to sample fine chocolates with unique flavors (lavender chocolate!) and in various forms– including toffee, caramel and things that pair well with chocolate– take it! My fun day also included a short walk over to the Santa Monica Pier and Santa Monica Place (outdoor mall with food court). View the Flickr page from Oct. 6th for a few more photos and let me know how your next chocolate tasting experience goes.


this is winter in L.A.

Santa Monica Beach1Santa Monica Beach2Santa Monica Beach3Santa Monica Beach4

Goodnight, today. See you tomorrow.

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