The first meeting of the Maui Social Media Users Group (SMUG) was held Thursday evening with a full capacity crowd attending despite torrential rains and flooding hours before the event.
We had great participation from all in attendance. The excitement was palpable as everyone was eager to learn more or get started in social media.
We had come prepared with set of topics for discussion by the panel, but it turned out that the audience had so many great questions and comments that we didn’t have time to address them all. A lot of people took advantage of social media during the session and tweeted questions and comments for discussion. Sadly we ran out of time and couldn’t address them all.
Addressing a request to post attendees’ names or Twitter handles so that people could connect with each other, panelist Peter Liu has collected the tweets from last night on TweetDoc. Go to http://www.tweetdoc.org/View/8057/mauismug-tweets to see a collection of tweets from last night’s meeting as well as the Twitter handles of those doing the tweeting.
Moving forward, we’d like to encourage all who attended to provide us with feedback on what you’d like to see from Maui SMUG in the future. Should we hold the meeting monthly? Quarterly? Do you have ideas on topics of discussion? Would you like to see a repeat of the panel-type format or would you like to have a presenter present a topic each meeting? Give us your feedback by commenting here, posting on the MauiSMUG Facebook page wall or by tweeting and incorporating the #mauismug hash tag.
Also, don’t forget, we’ve got several individual workshops on social media coming up, including Peter’s social media 101, Twitter and Facebook. Go to the High Tech Maui workshops page for a listing of upcoming workshops and links to register for these events.
It was indeed a success!
One suggestion I have for the next meeting is that we should have a “break-out” as part of the event. Break into groups in the second half of the session. Then have a facilitator in each group. Kinda like breaking into a “birds of the same feather” table or divide according to what they are there for: want to learn more about: Twitter. Blog, Posterous, etc. just want to network, etc, etc. That way, more individual questions can be addressed.
Great suggestion Liza. Thanks!
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I saw three distinct groups at the event—the beginners (“Why tweet?”), the intermediates (“How do I get more followers?”) and the advanced (“Which plugin does that?”). I like Liza’s breakout idea, but I think it would be more effective if it was along the lines of these three groups instead of specific tools.
There’s been a suggestion on Twitter, that we have a workshop for experienced social media users. If you’re an experienced social media user on Maui, what topics would interest you? Post here or on Facebook.com/mauismug.
Thanks for the meeting. I definitely would like to see the group split into advanced vs beginners. I’ve helped a few fellow business owners with starting on FB and I find that How-To step by step works best for them rather than an open forum of questioning. There’s no point going over all the capabilities when people are having trouble understanding how to even open an account and do the baby steps needed to get started.
As far as an advanced group, I think a roundtable then break out groups would be a great format to share specific tactics and tools, tech news, case studies, success stories, or cautionary tales.