Haiku for Sarah Evans

: Haikus relax you and Journchat gets you wound up! from Crestock Creative Photos

Perhaps we should rename this portion of my blog, “Contests From The Woman Who Can’t Turn Down A Dare.”

I mentioned #journchat in my favorite Twitter chats post several months ago and along with it #journchat founder Sarah Evans. I’ve chatted online with Sarah a few times both during #journchat and at other non-#journchat times and I’ve always been amazed at how knowledgeable and genuinely nice she is. But this isn’t a post about Sarah. I got an email from Liz Pope, Media and Research Manager at Sevans Strategy, who read my blog and double dared me to enter the contest to join Sarah during a special edition of #journchat live from the NBC News Studios in NYC on August 9, 2010. The contest and #journchat are sponsored by Cision who makes public relations software – you’ll see why you need to know what Cision is in just a few lines.

I enjoy #journchat because PR is not something I learned in school or something I’ve done often in my 22+ years of advertising and marketing experience. I’ve only worked on the edges of doing public relations activities, but I think that with social media becoming more important in many companies’ marketing strategy, public relations lessons go a long way toward teaching the right things to do in social media. Companies need to treat everyone as if they were a journalist, because with social media they are!

Soooo…since I can’t seem to be able to turn down a double dare, here’s my Haiku for Liz Pope and Sarah Evans:

Smart Sarah Evans
Journchat NBC Thrilling
Cision software too?

I’ll be in NYC for Affiliate Summit East 2010 the following week, so I’m not sure that either my boss or my family would appreciate me heading up there twice in the same week! With that said, I did think the contest was a great idea and hopefully if Sarah is still around from the 14th to the 18th when I’m in New York, I’d love to connect!

I’m looking forward to meeting with so many of my affiliate friends during #ASE10 – will you be there? Drop me a note, or post a comment below letting me know when you’re there and let’s set something up! Want to attend #ASE10 but don’t have a pass? I have ONE Gold Pass that I’m happy to give (at no charge) to the first person who asks for it – either via a comment below, or by sending me an @ or DM on Twitter, but don’t wait too late because I hear #ASE10 will be sold out soon and then my Gold Pass offer expires.

Top 12 Twitter Chats by Day – What are your Favorites?

In addition to being a “webinar connoisseur” I stay on top of best practices and new industry developments by attending Twitter chats. A Twitter chat is a conversation on Twitter that is held on a certain day/time and contains a specific hashtag so that people can follow along. Word of mouth about the chat spreads when followers of the people attending the chats see the hashtag and join the conversation as well. If you see a chat that interests you, set up a Twitter search or use a program like TweetDeck, Seesmic, or WhatTheHashtag to follow along.

Many marketing, public relations, and social media industry leaders spend time each week participating in these chats. You can often find Beth Harte from Marketing Profs, Mack Collier from The Viral Garden, Sarah Evans from PRSarahEvans.com, Valeria Maltoni from Conversation Agent, and many others on Twitter chats. It’s an easy way to learn from your peers, experts in the field, and basically anyone who is interested about a certain topic.

My Top 12 Twitter Chats By Day

Here are the 12 Twitter chats that I try to attend as often as my schedule allows (all times Eastern). Please note that there are several that overlap on Tuesday and Wednesday night – you’ll either have to multi-task and view all of them at once or pick the topic that looks most interesting that evening.

Monday

8P-11P #JournChat (chat with public relations professionals, bloggers, journalists)

Tuesday

12N-1P #SocialMedia (social media for business) This chat is designated by a specific #SM?? hashtag – each week increments by 1 see HashtagSocialMedia for more details.
8P-9P #SMBiz (small business networking)
8P-9P #PR20Chat (the latest in public relations)
9P-10P #EventProfs (social media and events)

Wednesday

11A-12N #BrandChat (personal branding)
1P-2:30P #SMChat (social media and communities)
8P-9P #IMCChat (Integrated Marketing Communications conversations)
8P-9P #SmallBizChat (small business tips & advice, especially new small businesses)

Thursday

4P-5P #MrktChat (travel and tourism marketing – lots of ski resorts represented here)

Friday

12N-1P #KaizenBlog (using Kaizen techniques for continuous improvement in social media)

Saturday

Take a break – it’s the weekend for crying out loud! (If you’re really bored, you can review the chats that you multi-tasked on Wednesday night…)

Sunday

9-10P #BlogChat (how to make your blog better)

Do you attend any of these chats? Which ones do you find the most interesting? Do you know of a great Twitter chat that I have missed? I’m always looking for new conversations to join, so please leave a comment below and let me know!