In this episode, Jeff and Richelle recap the Fourth Anniversary LNMG Meetup which took place in November at the Kingston Brewing Company and chat with Ryan Fraser, the Instigator of Awesome, about how the Awesome Foundation Kingston Chapter is using social media.

Music for this podcast is from the album “Shapeshifter” by The Ease Down [CC BY-NC-SA 2.5]

In this episode, Jeff and Naila announce the fourth anniversary meetup of the Limestone New Media Group, chat about social media for business with Richelle Little, who presented at the October 2011 meetup, and discuss the meetup hosted by the Kingston Grand Theatre where Naila had the opportunity to interview Julie Fossitt.  You don’t want to miss this one!

Music for this podcast is from the album “Shapeshifter” by The Ease Down [CC BY-NC-SA 2.5]

In this episode, Jeff and Naila give a quick update on what’s been going on with the Limestone New Media Group this summer.  The main topics of discussion are Twitter town halls and hashtag discussions – specifically using the recent #kpftownhall as an example – featuring our guest Steve Koopman from Kingston Police.

Hey everyone!  Jeff here with a quick recap of our July Meetup at the Grizzly Grill, where we held our free Social Media 101 session.  The presentation is embedded below, but it really ended up being more centered around the discussions that arose rather than the presentation, since most of the people who came out were already fairly well-acquainted with the basics of social media.  We did have some newcomers – both to LNMG and social media – which was great, and helped provide some focus to our discussions.

A lot of the best, meatiest parts of the discussion were the social media dos-and-don’ts that people chimed in with.  What do you think about auto-follow and auto-DMs?  About criticizing people or businesses in public mentions vs. taking it to DMs?  How about hashtag use – or hashtag overload?  Linking a Twitter feed to a Facebook profile?  Adding people on LinkedIn without attaching a personalized message?

The July meetup attendees were: @pascalvenier, @delilahevening, @richellelittle, @MuddyBrown, @C_Vilela, @sarahmjacobs, @EcoGeek13, @c3comm, @koopy, @livecomfortably, and organizers @gojeffcho (that’s me!) and @NailaJ.  Thanks for coming everyone, and see you again next time!

You can see the presentation below, but you’ll have to come out to take part in some of the great discussions that went on.  Will we see you at the next meetup?

In this episode Jeff and Francis discuss some of the basics, and speculate on some of the pros and cons of Google+. They also have a great interview with Joel, Twitter manager at Tango in Kingston, about their community building through social networking tools.

Thanks to the band BIG BIG Car for the use of their music.

Cross-posted from Facets of Me with permission from @Jule_E.

Apparently June 30th was social media day. To me it was a rather inconveniently placed PA Day that I got to spend with my kids. We woke up with no plans. I just had the niggling feeling mowing the lawn and cleaning my house wasn’t going to cut it as activities the kids got excited about. So I chose fun. I decided to be spontaneous.

Grass Creek Park is a little gem in the east end of Kingston that has become one of our happy places. When I was off last summer we went so often I lost count. It’s close, sandy, sunny, and free! When I told the kids to get their bathing suits on, they paused. There is a new water park here and we frequent the splash pad too so they weren’t sure what water we were headed to. When I said the mini beach they went off their pin with excitement.

As we made a pile of beach stuff, I sent out a fast tweet stating where we were going and calling for company. The response was fast and fabulous. On a day dedicated to social media and it’s ever-evolving impact on our daily lives, the fact that one tweet turned into a #beachup with old and new friends was the perfect illustration of the speed, ease, and connectivity Twitter provides. Factor in a sense of fun and a dose of spontaneity and you might also be able to argue Twitter makes you sleep well. After a day in the sun swimming, throwing kids in the water, eating, talking and laughing, I fell into bed completely spent. We didn’t go anywhere exotic or expensive. We didn’t even do anything new or different. I just put a call out on Twitter and rounded up some people for an everyday adventure. On social media day.

Notes:
- props to @livecomfortably for joining in the fun with his daughter and being my 14th IRL of June! Perfect to end the month with one more!!
- thank you @gojeffcho and @delilahevening for making fire and proving the ideal beach lunch! Special mention for correcting my mistake thinking you were joking that you can grill pizza.
- I *love* the day’s best example of spontaneity when @BugBlue came on her lunch break, looking corporate and delish, but up for the fun and some sun!!
- @AJMDaniel and I go way back. Like, 12 years or so way back. But we had never been to the beach together, and I love that we have similar puttering instincts for beach base camps!

There will be another #beachup. There were too many tweeps chiming in who wanted to come, but had prior commitments. Plus there is fun we didn’t get to, like a basketball and volleyball tourney, flying kites, more epic eating, and even bigger sandcastles to construct. But we won’t plan it too much. Spontaneity is the key ingredient.

In this episode Jeff and Francis chat about some of the social media related meetups, conferences and other events happening, and why it’s valuable to attend these–especially the upcoming LNMG meetup on Sunday, June 26 at the Kingston Brew Pub.

Thanks to the band BIG BIG Car for the use of their music.

Jeff and Francis welcome special guest co-host @NailaJ to talk about the use of social media by professional athletes, and how losing access to Facebook can impair your entire online, and offline, experience.

Thanks to the late Derek K. Miller for the use of his music.

Thanks to the band BIG BIG Car for the use of their music.

Can you believe it’s May already?  2011 is just flying by!  And with every month that passes comes with it a Limestone New Media Group meetup.  April’s meetup was at Olivea Restaurant (@OliveaKingston), and it was a fantastic time.  Naila Jinnah (@NailaJ), the lead external organizer for the World Partnership Walk in Ottawa, gave a fantastic and thorough presentation on using social media for non-profit and fundraising which led to a very informative discussion afterward amongst the attendees.

The atmosphere at the restaurant was warm and inviting, and we were very comfortable in our private area to meet new people and talk social media amongst ourselves.  Newcomers to the event included @ecogeek13, @jelyot, @KingstonPolice, @koopy, @piotr_inthought, and Diana (who did not leave a Twitter handle – she doesn’t use Twitter, but maybe she’ll start now!); friendly faces that we’re used to seeing also came out, including @Arctic_Red_Wine, @C_Vilela, @MissXiren, @Moirabrowne, @MuddyBrown, and @NailaJ.

Thanks to everyone who came out and made it such a great night!  Special thanks to Naila for her outstanding presentation and discussion facilitation.  For those of you who couldn’t make it, you can check out her slideshow.  We hope to see you at the May meetup, which we’ll be announcing as soon as we’ve finalized the details.  As always, follow us on Twitter and Facebook for the latest up-to-date information on LNMG news!

In this inaugural LNMG Podcast, hosts Jeff Cho and Francis Wooby run through a few of the plans for the podcast, the website and the group in general. They also discuss how social media really is something different for each individual.

Thanks to the band BIG BIG Car for the use of their music.

We had an interesting conversation during the March 21 LNMG meetup at The Tango. It started with Ted Hsu’s question about hashtags commonly used in tweets about Kingston.

Some folks use #kingston, although this can lead to confusion with Kingston, Jamaica, and other places sharing the name. #kingstonON is more precise, but also longer, which eats into tweet’s 140 character limit. Then there are suggestions such as #limestone that are more unique to this city, but perhaps not as intuitive to people providing and searching for information about Kingston.

An option that’s being used here, and in places all over the world, is making the local airport code a location hashtag. For us in and around the Limestone City, this would mean tagging tweets concerning Kingston with a #YGK.

The obvious benefit is that it’s short. Plus, as more Twitter users come to understand the practice, more relevant content will be collected, resulting in more fruitful searches. Airport codes are also unique, which eliminates the problem of two places sharing one hashtag.

This isn’t to say there aren’t issues, though. What happens when a city has more than one airport, such as in the case of Toronto? What about the many, many towns and smaller cities without airports? What about those who think only travel/weather/emergency information should  be tagged with airport codes?

What’s your take on this? Do you use #YGK in your tweets involving Kingston? Do you think it should be promoted as a common practice? Are there potential pitfalls with this? What are some alternatives?

Hey everyone!  We had a great time last night at Tango Martinis for the March Meetup.  Thanks again to everyone who came out, especially to all the new faces that we got to see for the first time!  The pictures are still trickling in, and to make it easier, we’ve created a Flickr Group so that you can upload all your Limestone New Media Group photos and share them with the rest of us.  It’s easy – just go to our Flickr Group, join it, and start adding your pictures.

Flickr’s not the only new addition to our web presence.  We’re also launching our Facebook Page today.  It’s yet another great place to get news and information from the Limestone New Media Group and have social media-related discussions with others in the community.  Go on, be one of the first to Like our new Page!

We’ve got other news to share with you soon, and you can be sure that Flickr and Facebook are not the only networks we’re expanding into!  Look for more exciting announcements coming in the next few weeks, including the announcement of our April Meetup.

We had a great February Meetup at Coffeeco at the Kingston Center!  We kicked off the night with a quick LNMG introduction which then moved on to a presentation and discussion on the changing voice of social media.

We got some great ideas and participation from all attendees on that topic, which mainly focused on credibility and journalistic use of social networks, particularly Twitter.

Most of us stayed long after the main event finished, having some great coffee and getting to know one another.  But it wasn’t all just coffee and social media talk.  The conversation that continued after the event was varied and engaging.  And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the excellent cake and fudge that was brought for everyone to share!

We also had a door prize draw for a small prize.  The winner was none other than newcomer @MissXiren.  Thanks for coming out, and enjoy your awesome Coffeeco mug!

I had a great time at the meetup, and I hope everyone who came out did as well.  Interested in coming out to one of our monthly meetups?  Our March Meetup is coming up on Sunday, March 20th at Tango Martinis!  Details are posted here, and you should RSVP on the Facebook Event.  Instead of a presentation like the Feb Meetup, we’ll have a guest speaker and some discussion topics.  Come on out and enjoy March Meetup and Martinis!

Are you taking advantage of the great Twitter Lists that we have set up?  If you’re not, I suggest you head over to our Resources page and see what you’re missing!  We’ve got Lists for individuals, organizations, businesses, media outlets, Queen’s accounts, events, and music.  It’s a great way to find and connect to new people that’s already been sorted for you.

It’s also something we stay on top of on a regular basis.  I routinely go through new followers every day, follow back Kingston users, and categorize them into our Lists.  Every few months, I’ll go through every List and clean them up, pruning and reorganizing as necessary.  However, the other day, I was trying to add some people to the Kingston People List, our most popular and populated one, when Twitter started throwing errors at me left, right, and center.  I was no longer able to add people to the List.

The reason?  It’s full.  The List now follows 500 active users in the Kingston community.  As a result, I’ve created the Kingston More People List, which serves as a continuation of the Kingston People List.  So all you Kingston People List followers should also head on over and follow the Kingston More People List.  It’s just more of the same you know and love – great people tweeting frequently from the Kingston area.

That’s right, you can mark your calendars for the LNMG March Meetup!  We’ll be gathering at Tango Martinis on Sunday, 20 March at 7PM.  For those of you who have never been, it’s at 331 King St. E, which is right by the corner of King and Brock.  Come on out and meet your fellow local users, whether you’re a casual, personal social media user or you’re using it professionally for businesses or organizations!

Our plan for March is to include a very brief presentation (~10-15 minutes) from a guest speaker. Instead of doing another presentation this month, we’ve opted instead to suggest discussion topics, which you can either pick up and run with, or disregard and just have a social evening.

For those who pick up on the topic of the night, we encourage you to take what you learn from conversing about it with others and share your opinions online! Tweet it, blog it, vlog it, podcast it. Point us toward it, and we’ll feature it on our site. And we’ll talk about it in our April podcast!

What are you waiting for?  Go RSVP on our Facebook Event and invite your friends.  See you on the 20th!

At our February 2011 meetup, LNMG Organizer Jeff Cho takes a few minutes to introduce the Limestone New Media Group and outline some of its recent projects as well as goals for the coming year.  Check out the video below to see what’s coming your way from the Limestone New Media Group in 2011.