Blog Revival and a Revelation

The past 6 months have been crazy. But they’ve also been…likeable (for lack of a better term.) The minute I was hired full time this blog went down the tubes. But I think that 6 months later, I’m finally ready to revive it. You have to understand that I didn’t give up on blogging…I was just thrown into the whirlwind of having a real life so quickly that I didn’t know how to manage my time (I’ll admit that in the spirit of transparency.) In fact, about 5 weeks ago I wrote a blog that I totally intended on posting, but legitimately just did not have the time too. 

So what have I been up to that has made me this non-blogging crazy-person might you ask? Oh well ya know, just planning a conference (that just so happened to be crazy successful), promoting a NYT Best-Selling book (fingers crossed), and making the world generally more likeable. You know…things that most normal 23 year old does right? Oh wait…

I’m lucky. And I know it. Tons have things have gone right for me in the past 8 or 9 months when one thing right before went horribly wrong. And I owe my life to social media. #seriously

I ‘ve continually been asking myself over the past month or so “how did I get here?” I think I’ve always had the sense of wanting to connect with the virtual world as part of my bones. So here’s my revalation…

Wayyyyyyyyy back in January of 2004, there was blizzard. I was bored. I created a LiveJournal. I had no idea what I was doing besides posting my love for John Mayer, pretending I was the greatest thing since sliced bread (I sort of am…), and recapping each day of high school drama (really intriguing stuff, I swear.) But then I started joining communities. Mostly John Mayer related but others such as ones for the San Diego Padres,  Will and Grace lovers,  bands like Snow Partol, and Jimmy Fallon fans. It was in that Jimmy Fallon community that I met my first online friend, Cristi. Cristi was from Florida and we were convinced that we were the same person just on different ends of the country. Over the years Cristi and I have kept in touch but we’ve never met but to this day I still feel as though we have this crazy connection…all because of the Internet After Cristi there were tons more. I met two of my best friends on MySpace the summer before St. John’s in a St. John’s Group. And between then and now, I’ve been transformed in a social media fiend.  The Cristi’s of my life are in the double if not triple digits thanks to Twitter and all these connections I have…I could not be more grateful for.

So over the past month when at times I’ve been so confused as to how I am where I am now, doing what I’m doing…it really shouldn’t be that confusing at all. I should have seen this coming all along. Maybe if my mom had let me get an AIM screen-name before I was a sophomore in high school I’d own a company by now.  KIDDING. But really though social media has transformed my life, in so many good ways.

And with that, my revelation mixed in with a little “after 6 months I finally know what I’m doing” has led to my blog revival.

And since I owe my life to it…

social media #FTW

#TeamCoco Takes Over the People of Earth...Social Media Style

The year was 2010. The month was January. The People of Earth were taking sides. You were either Team Coco or Team…Leno (which was pretty much non-existent). Team Coco banded together to exclaim “I’m with Coco” in anyway they could, mostly on the Internet. The battle for the NBC Late Night TV airwaves was something that any Conan fan, young or old, newbie or diehard, was emotionally invested in. To say it bluntly, NBC was screwing Conan. He had the coveted host of The Tonight Show spot for less than 7 months and now NBC was turning around and taking that away from him. Actually, worse than that, they wanted to move The Tonight Show to Midnight to make room for Jay Leno’s lameness at 11:30.  But let’s not dwell on the horribleness that is NBC and focus on the good that came out of a pretty horrible situation. Enter Team Coco as a social media phenomenon. People of Earth, behold the stages of the Team Coco evolution!

1. Birth of Team Coco.

While NBC and Conan were duking it out, on Twitter something incredible was happening. Whether it was #TeamCoco or #ImWithCoco, Conan fans were coming out of the woodwork on the Twitter streams expressing their love for Conan through these hashtags and many more. But what wasn’t so obvious then as it is now, #TeamCoco was much more than just a hashtag. It was a social media revolution in the making. As any Coco fan would know, there was even an image to go along with the uprising. Fans made this image their Facebook profile pic (I did), their Twitter avatar (I did), and even made t-shirts (I should have). Creator Mike Mitchell created the icon for what would become the Team Coco revolution. (See left.)

2. Conan joins Twitter! (And follows one person…@LovelyButton)

A few weeks after Conan made the announcement that we would be parting ways with NBC ($33 million richer), he joined Twitter and created @ConanOBrien. Conan joining Twitter was a revolution in itself…in just 24 hours he gained 300,000 followers. Coco would tweet on a daily basis, mostly about how he was spending his time now that he was unemployed. More importantly though, Conan used his Twitter to make two major announcements to Team Coco: 1. The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour announced on March 11^th; 2. His return to TV would be on November 8^th on TBS.  Enter excitement across the nation from Team Coco fans.

3. The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour.

So as you may or may not know, part of Conan’s settlement with NBC was that he would not be allowed to have a comedy show on television until after September 1^st.  He did appear on television in a 60 Minutes special on May 2^nd where we got a behind the scenes look at how Conan was spending his life after NBC but that was by no means the Conan any of us were used to.  The tour was exactly what the Team Coco fans needed and wanted, a chance to see the man live and in their hometowns. As soon as Coco announced the tour in one of his tweets, tickets started selling out in minutes. Naturally, I was able to snatch up some of these tickets myself to see Conan live in Connecticut at Mohegan Sun. Okay so Conan announces the tour on Twitter and tickets sell out, but is that the only role that social media plays in this? Absolutely not. At every Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour show, a hashtag was displayed on the big screens so that people at the show could tweet about it AND use the unique hashtag. For example, the hashtag for my show in CT was #conanecticut. Brilliant. Not to mention flipping awesome.

4. At last, teamcoco.com!

In conjunction with the live tour, teamcoco.com was created and started off as basically just a blog where all things regarding Conan were posted.  Teamcoco.com was in addition to the twitter account (@TeamCoco) and the Facebook page that were created as a home base for the Team Coco masses. Teamcoco.com really exploded more recently though which leads us to…

5. September 2010 = TBS HYPE!

Here’s where the masterminds behind Team Coco (the brand) got smart…all you social media junkies get ready because here comes the Team Coco climax…

BOOM!

The Conan Blimp! complete with Foursquare check in capabilities AND a snazzy badge.

BANG!

The #LiveCocoCam! 24 hours worth of streaming live footage from the Team Coco Headquarters featuring a dancing taco, 80’s aerobics, and a staring contest.

WOOSH!

Fan of the Week every Friday! On Thursdays, one fan was randomly chosen from the hundreds that would comment on a post on the Team Coco Facebook fan page. And for those of us who aren't lucky enough to be chosen, we all have equal chance of being on the teamcoco.com Fan Wall!

ZING!

FREE CONAN T-SHIRTS! In the 10 days leading up to Conan’s premiere on TBS, Team Coco gave out 1,000 free shirts per day to the first 1,000 people who entered a code that was posted on the @TeamCoco Twitter and Facebook page into the free tshirt portion of Teamcoco.com. (These bad boys were gone in a matter of seconds every day...but I managed to get one! Anyone else?)

BAM!

#ConanShowZero! One week before the TBS debut, Team Coco presented a livestream of what is hopefully the fabulous late night on TBS genius that is to come.

So as I sit here about 24 hours before the premiere of Conan on TBS I receive a mobile Twitter message on my iPhone from from @TeamCoco that reads: “Well those nine months just FLEW BY, didn't they? Conan on TBS. Monday @ 11/10c. #conanreturns.”

Actually (for me at least), it’s been a LONG 9 months without Conan on my TV screen every night, HOWEVER…with the help of the social media presence from Team Coco I’ve most certainly been able to get by.

socialmedia (& #TEAMCOCO!) #FTW!!!


-M

My “Conan on TBS premiere” expectations include the following: a kickass theme song; THE BEARD! (please Conan, don’t shave your beard!); LOTS of string dancing; awkward moments with Andy Richter; a shout out to #TeamCoco?; Conan's guitar playing; tons and tons and TONS of awesomeness (obviously). Please comment on my blog with likes/dislikes, agreements/disagreements, and your favorite part of Team Coco in the social media world and stay tuned for another Conan blog at the end of this week! I myself am a semi-long time Conan O'Brien fan...you can check out my previous "social media" tributes to him here and here. Enjoy :)

Speaking of Social Media Changing the World...

Forget all of social media trying to make the world a better place...Twitter is tackling this on it's own today with TwitChange. Is it your dream for your favorite celebrity on Twitter to follow you or tweet you back? Well, starting today and for the next 9 days you can bid on eBay to make this dream come true. Celebrities such as @JustinBieber, @JoeJonas, @KimKardashian, @RyanSeacrest, and @TonyHawk (and the list goes on!) are all in on the using Twitter for charity action. @EvaLongoria seems to be the spokesperson for the whole auction which started this afternoon. All of the proceeds for this auction will be going to ahomeinHaiti.org which according to the website is a project to build a brand new orphanage and school for disabled children in Haiti. There are four ways to get in touch with your favorite celebrity through TwitChange: be followed by them, get re-tweeted by them, get mentioned by them, or get the ultimate package and have all three happen! 

Just after a few hours of bidding, the ultimate package for @alyssa_milano is up to $3,050. TwitChange truly exemplifies how powerful social media can be, as I spoke about in my previous post. People are willing to pay over $3,000 to just get recognized by a celebrity on Twitter. Who knows what the amounts will be like when the bidding ends on September 25th. This is a brilliant idea by all celebrities involved and a great use of a social media fad in order to do some good for humanity. The influence of social media, specifically Twitter in this instance, will never cease to amaze.

@SocialMedia #FTW!

-M

7 Reasons to Embrace the Awesomeness of Social Media

1. You can connect with the entire world.
Just a few months ago, Facebook reached 500 million users. That means that there are 499,999,999 other people out there for you to meet via the Internet. Pretty incredible if you ask me. And the fact that you can interact with these people from the comfort of your own home is even more fascinating. You could be the laziest person on Earth, but social media makes you one of the most powerful purely because the world is at your fingertips with an Internet connection and a few logins & passwords. Social media is a revolution and more likely than not, you are part of it. Check out this video full of social media facts...some of which might scare you.


2. Consistency!
Social media will always be there for you. And most likely you will always be able to find some way to have social media make you happy as well. You could be angry at all of your friends but then you login to Twitter and you see a happy inspirational tweet from @RevRunWisdom and you feel instantaneously better (hopefully). Social media has taken over the world in full force and it's never going to go away, at least not anytime soon (see YouTube video from point #1).


3. Acts as a news source.
Don't have a TV nearby? No problem if you have Facebook or Twitter. On most days, I use Twitter as a source for what's going on in the world just by looking at the trending topics. Of course they're not always accurate...but at least I know what the big gossip topics of the day are. A lot of times, Twitter trends might not even make any sense to you. Use whatthetrend.com to figure out what all those confusing hashtags might mean. Even Facebook statuses are useful to get your news from. Most times, if a big event is going on in your area or in the world, your friends will update their Facebook statuses to reflect this.


4. Reach your consumers and give us free stuff.
"Like this status and be entered to get a free coffee." "RT this and get 10% off your next purchase of shoes." "Check-in here and get free chips!" From an advertising/PR and marketing point of view, it should be pretty clear for brands and companies that social media is where it's at for most of their consumers nowadays.  FourSquare is really revolutionizing this idea with its check-ins. (If you don't have FourSquare on your smartphone, get it. You will not be disappointed. Maybe this blog post on awesome check-in benefits will intrigue you.) Social media also provides a simple way to get a message out to not just pre-existing consumers, but the entire world. Brands are really catching on to the whole "give free things away and offer great deals" portion of social media and we, the consumers, are doing nothing but benefitting from it.




5. Celebrity stalking without even trying.
Hey. We didn't ask celebrities to share every little thing about their lives on Twitter, some of them just chose to. Are we complaining? Well, some of us are. But the majority of the population loves the fact that they can know what @LadyGaga ate for breakfast and what @OGochocinco is doing on the sidelines of a Bengals game. However, celebrities getting involved with social media (mainly Twitter) can be really toxic for their image...just ask @JohnCMayer. Nonetheless the celebrities will keep tweeting and you can find most of your favorites at celebritytweet.com (your #1 source to stalking celebrities via Twitter).


6. The ULTIMATE word of mouth.
With the simple update of a Facebook status or a tweet on Twitter, your friends and followers will know what's up with you. Need someone to go out with on a Friday night? Status update and tweet. Want people to read your new blog post? (What I'll be doing in a few minutes...) Status update and tweet. You can get any information out to your friends in just a matter of seconds. Fundraising for a charity? Running in a contest? Friends of mine have created Twitter pages just for specific fundraising or contest purposes and gained hundreds of followers to support them. If you have a cause or contest that you need supported, turn to social media, the best word of mouth around...it's the easiest way to get yourself recognized! Speaking of word of mouth, did you know that awards are given out for effective word of mouth marketing? Well, they're called the WOMMY Awards and this year a new category has been added for no other than...social media.


7. GET DISCOVERED through networking!
You never know where that dorky kid from middle school is now. He could be the connection to your next great job. Social media gives you the ability to find this kid on Facebook or LinkedIn just by entering what school you went to or what town you lived in. By creating a solid social media network, you can connect with people who can give you your next big break in the world. You could land a job with a tweet. The MTV TJ search is a perfect example. Contestants had to gain the most votes by promoting themselves through Twitter in order to become MTV's first ever Twitter-Jockey (TJ). With social media the possibilities and opportunities are endless. If you make a good name for yourself on the Internet, you never know where it might get you! 


@SocialMedia #FTW!


-M