CleanTech LA Social Media Panel - The Day After

Yesterday, Tuesday September 21^st, a group of six sustainability professionals (ahem, “geeks”) gathered at the Deaton Auditorium in Downtown Los Angeles to discuss how social media can affect the growing field of clean technology. As part of Social Media Week, this event is one of many across Los Angeles to focus on the burgeoning social and professional uses of Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, YouFace, etc…

Panel and Social Media Week information

The panelists included Stan Holt and Nikhil Jain, President/COO and Founder/CEO of OnGreen; Deep Patel, Founder/CEO of GoGreenSolar.com; Vincent Williams, Director of New Media for PGA Green; Erik Steeb, the LA Chair for Cleantech Open; and Chathri Munasinghe, Director of New Media at Opportunity Green.

(From Left) Deep Patel, Nikhil Jain, Chathri Munasinghe, Erik Steeb, Vincent Williams, and moderator Stan Holt

The discussion began with some impressive facts outlined by Stan Holt, the moderator for the panel. Did you know that a whopping 98% of Generation Y has joined a social network? Or that 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations about a product/services, versus only 14% who trust an advertisement? Fascinatingly, if Facebook were its own country, it would be the world’s 4^th largest (by population)! (Stats via Erik Qualman, “Socialnomics”) Yet where is the representation of effective social media campaigns in the green economy?

What followed this introduction was an engaging and informative hour long discussion ranging from how companies can brand their hashtags (#thankstovincentwilliams) to how GoGreenSolar.com was able to tap into Price is Right (see video below!).

Along the way, the panelists threw out a bevy of important, and possibly underutilized, social media resources. A brief summary is found below:

• twellow – The Twitter Yellow Pages. Search by key term like “clean tech” “business” “green”. Great place to find people in your sector or common interests
• wefollow – People can add THREE tags of the top three things they represent. ie “music” “los angeles” “drummer”. Great place to find people in your sector or common interests
• klout – Klout Score is the measurement of your overall online influence. The scores range from 0 to 100 with higher scores representing a wider and stronger sphere of influence.
• bit.ly – Shorten links and also provides stats on how many people clicked your link and when and from what channels.
• twtvite – Create twitter invites for your local meetup
• Hootsuite – Scheduling Tweets, FB, Linkedin and Ping.FM updates. Assign team members the ability to post to social sites without giving master passwords or admin access on each site directly.
• Onlywire – Syndicates your articles across the web to 30+ platforms. Gets your content on Google in minutes. Great for creating tons of backlinks.
• Ping.fm - Syndicates your social media posts to micro blogging platforms across the web. Ping is geared toward propagating updates rather than articles.
• Ustream - Free live streaming platform. They offer streaming software on the android, iphone, mac and pc platforms.
• OAuth – API with LI, TW and FB for your sites
• Google Toolbar – Provides easy access to networks such as LI, FB and Twitter
• Social Oomph – Lets you add multiple social networking accounts and schedule tweets
• AddThis – Put this button on your sites so users can share quickly on their favorite social networks
• Quantcast – Measure your audience demographics

Arguably one of the most valuable sections of the panel was the Q&A with the audience. Did you miss the panel? Do you have questions for the panelists? Use their twitter handles (linked to each name above!) to find out more information! Also, don’t miss each of the panelists’ upcoming green events…we’ve included handy 140-character messages below that you can tweet out about each:

• Don’t miss @oppgreen, 9/22 – 9/24 right here in LA! Register here –>
  http://ow.ly/2Isrt
  Use promo code “COM_P50_CTLA” for 50% off!
• @OnGreenit demo day fast approaching! On 9/28, network with #cleanenergy professionals –>
  http://ow.ly/2IstV
  RSVP to JDam[at]OnGreen.com
• 10/12 – 10/14 is @SolarPwrIntl in LA! Friends of #CTLA can use promo code “PTNMBRSPI10” to get 15% off registration –>
  http://ow.ly/2Isyc
  
• Oct 8 is the CA Regional Judging & Awards Ceremony for @CleanTechOpen, don’t miss exciting new #cleantech companies!
  http://ow.ly/2IsDi
  
• Mark your calendars! @PGA_Green Seminar “Saving Green by Being Green” is Sat, November 13, 2010! Check
  http://ow.ly/2IsHt
  for more info!

Hope this information was as useful to you as it was for us! We’ll see you around the ‘net…

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