Both sides made excellent points, and indeed were not far apart in their positions. The debate seemed more like fun than anything else. But there were some differences. Chris argued that social media use must start and end with analytics, meaning that you know your baseline before you run a campaign, you monitor the clicks, and the transfer of clicks to an increase in sales. You must figure in the time spent by yourself or employees as a value and be looking for a return on that value. Alan, on the other hand, sees value in increased exposure and an increased awareness by the public/market of your company and/or product. Marketing is dead, says he. Nonsense, says Chris. Social media builds on traditional marketing.

One extremely valuable point that Chris raised was about knowing who your customers are and not straying too far from your base. Chasing after smaller markets and neglecting your base will only lead to trouble. He also said that if your customer demographic is not using social media, it’s not smart to try and reach them that way. Lots to think about.

For his part, Alan Quarry believes the roles have changed. No longer is there a place for top-down marketing in which a company makes a product and sells it to the consumer without including the consumer in that experience. By which he means more than ever the consumer is a participant in the process, a partner, a member of the team. Involving your customers and forging relationships with them on social media platforms is crucial to success in today’s world, he says. Equally important is internal branding, team-building within companies rather than a traditional hierarchical approach.

Questions raised over breakfast and on Twitter centred around social media use for organizations that don’t necessarily sell a product, such as not-for-profits, municipal services, charities, and so on. How can we apply these tenets to our audiences? One answer is that you need to know your audience, of course, and to clearly articulate your goals. And next month’s Social Media Breakfast will focus on not-for-profit organizations and expand on their particular issues. Watch their website for details.

As a member of the academic community and also engaged in selling a product, we as an academic publisher also need to think about who our core audience is and use our time appropriately. As more and more academics move to a social media platform and use twitter, blogs, and personal pages to disseminate research to their audience, we need to be in that space as well. The trick of course is to balance that with tried and true methods of reaching people in ways they have come to expect. We thank the organizers and speakers this morning for providing some tools to explore these channels further.

Team Unicorn (Alan Quarry) won the debate, by the way, but it was a narrow victory. There was certainly value on both sides of the floor.

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The first Canadian conference will be held at The Tannery in Kitchener, a repurposed heritage building that now houses Google, Desire@Learn, Communitech, and numerous smaller start-ups in the region. It’s a happening place and a fitting place to hold this ground-breaking event. There is a Call for Speakers out now, and with 10-minute rule on talks it looks to be a day that moves as fast as your Twitter feed.

Not convinced yet? Follow the #140confON hashtag on Twitter and keep up to date on speakers and meetups as they happen. Me, I’ve got my ticket already and am looking forward to showing off what Waterloo Region is up to.

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Paul Heinbecker

Cupcakes!

Terry Copp

Wilfrid Laurier University is celebrating its 100th year in 2011, and many celebrations with the Laurier100 theme are happening around campus. Last week, WLU Press and the Laurier Bookstore teamed up to celebrate Laurier authors, whether faculty, staff, alumni or otherwise connected to our institution.

In the morning we featured two members of the faculty, Thomas O. Hueglin, author of numeral scholarly books on political science and recent author of We All Giggled, a memoir about his family roots in Germany; and Tanis MacDonald, author of four books of poetry, including her latest, Rue the Day. The readings were interesting and enjoyed by all who attended.

In the afternoon we featured two fiction authors, Andrew Kauman, Laurier alumnus, who read from The Waterproof Bible and his latest, The Tiny Wife, and Roy MacSkimming, author of Laurier in Love.

And lastly, in the evening we focused on politics and history. Paul Heinbecker, Director of the Laurier Centre for Global Relations, talked about his latest book on Canadian foreign policy, Getting Back in the Game, and Terry Copp, Director of the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies, read from Cinderella Army, his latest book about Canadian troops in the Second World War, and showed clips from the upcoming Battlefield Guide on the First World War.

It was a fantastic day. Thanks to all who came out and enjoyed our Purple and Gold cupcakes and helped to celebrate the 100th anniversary of this great university. Be sure to check out the centennial website for more celebrations throughout the year.

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All this talk about community got me thinking about Edna Staebler, the author and subject of a few of our books. A well-known writer from Kitchener-Waterloo, Edna certainly understood about community. Everyone who ever met her became her friend and many became regular visitors at her (later) home on Sunfish lake. When she was preparing to write the famous Food That Really Schmecks cookbook, she moved in with a Mennonite family so that she could absorb their culture and become part of the community. Those relationships endured for the rest of her life. The cookbook is filled with stories of family and friends and almost every recipe talks about how she first experienced the food, and who she was with.

A few years ago, when WLU Press was publishing Edna’s diaries, she granted us the rights to the first cookbook, which had long been out of print, with the stipulation that it would always be “in print.” Although it sold thousands and thousands the first time around in the late 1960s and ’70s, we’ve had great success with this edition, mainly because the next generation wants their own copy, not having been able to pry it away from their mothers’ kitchens.

I can’t help thinking that if Edna was alive today she’d have over a thousand friends on Facebook and as many followers on Twitter, and she’d faithfully follow back. In that spirit, WLU Press will donate two copies of Food That Really Schmecks at the next Social Media Breakfast for the door prizes. If you’re in Waterloo Region and you haven’t already registered, perhaps you should.

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As an extra added bonus, Terry Fallis, who is in town to participate in Waterloo’s One Book One Community event for his first book The Best Laid Plans, also got up to speak. He told of his journey from blog/podcast to self-published book to his subsequent signing  with McClelland & Stewart, who republished TBLP and have recently released his second book The High Road. Terry’s story is every writer’s dream, and a real example of what social media can do to get your content out to interested parties.

Social Media Breakfast will be a monthly event in Waterloo Region, alternating between Kitchener and Cambridge and Waterloo. Next month’s breakfast will feature Kneale Mann, who, as his website says is a Strategist. Writer. Speaker. Facilitator. Stay tuned to @smbwr or Eventbrite SMBWR for details.

A big thank you to the City of Kitchener for sponsoring today’s event, providing the community room at the market at no charge and the continental breakfast. Amazing muffins from one of the market vendors!

You will have noticed that many of today’s links are to Twitter feeds. If you’re not already on Twitter, perhaps you should be!

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The end of June brings the American Library Association conference in Washington, and Lisa Quinn, an acquisitions editor with WLUP, will be staffing our booth. Libraries are major buyers of our books and we look forward to showing off our new titles to the thousands of conference attendees.

Last but certainly not least, please stop by the launch of Covering Niagara: Studies in Local Popular Culture if you can. It is being held on Monday, June 21 at 3pm at Pond Inlet, Brock University, St. Catharines. Editors Joan Nicks and Barry Keith Grant will be on hand to sign books, which can be purchased at the event. Refreshments will be served and there is a cash bar. We hope you can make it.

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Robert Markle (1936–1990) was an infamous figure on the Canadian cultural scene for almost three decades. His paintings and drawings celebrating the female nude were deemed obscene by Ontario courts in 1965, and Markle defended them on national television, emphasizing what he considered a crucial distinction between eroticism and pornography. That story and many others are told in this book, based on Markle’s copious personal notes and interviews with family and friends, including Markle’s close friends Patrick Watson and Gordon Lightfoot.

Please join us if you can!

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