I was recently tapped to get involved with the Bootup Garage – “a new space dedicated to startup founders and technology hackers.” Initially, they wanted me to get involved as a Mentor – but I thought, why not host a series of social marketing talks instead.

Social Marketing Kung Fu

Titled Social Marketing Kung Fu – the series went through four for belt levels.

White Belt: Marketing Tactics – January 26/2011

Startups need a great story and they need to understand their audience, so they can effectively reach, connect and learn from them.

Dave Olson is a master storyteller, Community Marketing Director for Hootsuite, and has been helping startups tell their stories on the Internet since 1996.  On January 26, Dave will kick off a series of social marketing talks at Bootup Garage to help startup founders learn the art of effectively creating, telling and spreading their story.

Check out this summary Bootup put together on the event – including notes. A few notes I’ve put together can be found on my Tumblr.

Yellow Belt: Listening Everywhere – March 30/2011

Dave Olson’s first SMKF talk at Bootup was jam packed with a bunch of practical nuggets to help founders get started including the importance of listening in building your social marketing strategy.

On March 30th, get ready to earn your social marketing yellow belt! Dave O is coming back to Bootup to explain just what it means to “listen everywhere” and show us how we can use social media dashboards to connect with customers, build communities, and keep our ears on the competition.

Session notes on Tumblr.

Purple Belt: Release Day – April 27/2011

On April 27, Dave O will be back at Bootup to follow up on his Yellow Belt, “Listening Everywhere” workshop and share the steps to a successful Launch including:

• outreach to media
• positioning and messaging
• amplifying coverage and
• building on the success for your product launch.

Bootup also put together this summary. Find more notes on my Tumblr.

Green Belt: Building a Posse – June 29/2011

This session tackled the subject of Building a Posse.

Customers are part of your culture. By inviting them to participate in your campaigns and community, you can speed progress, gain candid market insight, and have some fun. In this seminar, Dave will share tips about wrangling your passionate users to help with specific tasks for mutual benefit. Tips and tactics will include: understanding motivations, providing rewards, and organizing disappearing task teams while avoiding “cat herding” and conflicts.

Find my notes from the talk on my Tumblr.

A Little on the Bootup Garage

From the Bootup website:

The Bootup Garage is a new space dedicated to startup founders and technology hackers. Our goal is to create a space for startup founders to come together and work in an open and supportive environment, encouraging collaboration and networking that will improve and accelerate the development of new technology companies in British Columbia.

This isn’t just a workspace – it’s a club dedicated to helping founders accelerate their work.  In addition to providing a space to talk and hack, we’re rounding up all of the mentors and investors we’ve worked with over the past two years, and convinced them to each hold regular office hours in the Garage, during which you can tap into their experience and networks to improve your project and accelerate your work.  Check out the schedule of mentor office hours, and if you’re a Garage Member, you can schedule a chat with any of them.

Reactions

Mike Edwards, SMKF Attendee, on the White Belt session:

Dave O’s talk was great. I have already implemented some of the strategies with my companies. Dave O is a wealth of information – entertaining with great practical application…..I can feel a book coming…

Janis Behan, Bootup Community Advocate, on the Purple Belt session:

Dave is always a joy to listen to – I’ve seen him speak at a few different conferences – so I was eager to hear what he had to say in session number three: Social Marketing Kung Fu, Purple Belt – Release Day. His talks are always full of interesting tidbits and useful information, and this one was definitely no different.