In fact, if you are unemployed and unable to afford the relatively small registration fee (all tickets are under $50 for the day and include lunch), you can request a special code to get in free by emailing socialmediaclub@gmail.com.  It’s part of a broader initiative of Social Media Club that we think of as our job stimulus program.

Social Media Camp will include “Open Space” sessions that will be determined by participants on the day of the event in the spirit of BarCamp, but uniquely, will also feature a day-long series of pre-planned sessions teaching important social media skills on topics such as:

• Introduction to Social Media
• Social Media Job Search
• Building a Digital Identity
• Managing Reputation Online
• The LinkedIn Profile / Resume
• Privacy and Safety
• Copyright and Creative Commons Licensing
• Hosting your own Radio Program (podcasting)
• Starting a Blog
• Commenting about your Company
• Finding your People / Community
• Don’t Just Search, FIND!
• Better Crap Detection

Social Media Camp San Diego will feature sessions from local social media professionals such as Becky Carroll (local NBC news Social Media reporter and professor of Social Media at UCSD), educator Steve Eisenberg and internationally renowned experts who are in town for a big conference that week.

We are especially excited to announce that Social Media Camp will be hosted at Sony Electronic’s magnificent LEED certified building on their campus in the Rancho Bernardo neighborhood of North San Diego. Social Media Club has been working together with Sony Electronic’s Social Media team over the last year hosting events in Silicon Valley and this is an extension of that growing relationship. Being able to work so closely with a large organization such as Sony Electronics demonstrates how far social media has truly come.

Social Media Club’s founders, Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells, will be in town for Social Media Camp as they are also hosting the Social Media Masters workshop the day before this camp in connection with the Online Marketing Summit 2011 conference being held downtown at the Westin Gaslamp. If you are a business professional looking to leverage Social Media for marketing and want to get a more in-depth training from industry leaders, you may be interested in attending. (Use discount code SMC20 for a 20% discount on this marketing conference and workshop).

Social Media Camp Tickets / Registration

As we did with our prior Social Media Camp last year in San Francisco, we have a unique ticket pricing plan that benefits those who learn about this first. The first five tickets are only $5, the next 10 tickets are $10, the next 15 are $15 dollars, and so on. The tickets are non-refundable and non-exchangeable. We have room for about 240 people at Sony Electronics. If you order online the most you will pay is $40. If there are any tickets left, you may be able to get a ticket for $50 at the door. If you are unemployed, please send us an email to socialmediaclub@gmail.com and we will supply you with a special code to secure your ticket for free.

Get your tickets today on Eventbrite!

Volunteers

We need several more volunteers, not only for our Social Media Camp to help work the registration tables etc, but also for our local Social Media Club chapter, which is just now getting underway. In fact, we will be hosting an SMC San Diego Tweetup with the local chapter on Wednesday February 9 to just get together socially and meet each other. Now it seems we will also be finalizing plans for the camp too. If you would like to volunteer to help us run Social Media Camp, please send an email to Jessica@socialmediaclub.org.

We also need local social media professionals to lead the Social Media Skills sessions listed above. If you are interested or able to donate your time and expertise to this worthy effort, please complete the application form and someone will be back to you within the next week. Of course, teachers and other volunteers will get in free.

As with all “Camps”, everyone who comes is expected to contribute something, either in the form of a session offered or advice rendered. This event will be no exception. Thanks to Sony Electronic’s gracious offer of hosting us and supporting this important effort, we will have three (3) other beautfiul rooms with projectors in which to offer up presentations/conversations on topics of your choosing. So if you have expertise you want to share, a problem you want to discuss with the community, a new project which needs more resources or any other activity you think is appropriate for our community, register for Social Media Camp today and come prepared to lead a session yourself.

Sponsors

In the BarCamp tradition, we are keeping sponsorship for Social Media Camp pretty simple.  For only $300, sponsors will get recognition here on the site, their logos and links on the site, named recognition in the printed program guide, three (3) registrations for the Camp and of course, the chance to be seen as a leading supporter of the local Social Media Club community. You can purchase this sponsorship on the Eventbrite registration page.

We are also looking for one ‘premium’ sponsor to cover the cost of lunch for $3,000 which will receive all the standard sponsor benefits plus the opportunity to speak for a few minutes during the morning presentation and special signage during lunch. For more details about the Lunch Sponsorship, please contact kristie@socialmediaclub.org

About Social Media Club

Social Media Club is a Not for Profit Membership association (501c6) for the Social Media industry organized for the purpose of promoting media literacy, sharing knowledge, creating a path to professionalism, promoting industry standards and discussing important questions of Social Media’s impact on society. As the world’s largest association of Social Media professionals, Social Media Club has a global presence in 200+ cities and reaches in excess of 200,000 people around the globe.

Social Media Club’s mantra is “If you get it, share it.”  This one-day educational and networking event is a manifestation of this higher ideal.

Why Social Media Camp?

In all corners of the world, at every level of society and business, people are talking about social media and how its adoption by average everyday people and organization’s large and small, is changing the world of work, and even the very nature of our daily lives.  In many corners of the HR world, the rising importance of the web, social networking and social media has seasoned professionals looking to acquire what they call ‘new world skills’. New World in this case is a reference to the new world created when the web, and social media in particular, is an integral part of everyday living and working. To us, it’s about being social though media, and it is completely natural. For many, it not only requires specific functional/technical skills, but also a new way of thinking… a new way of being.

Background / Event Description

Our first Social Media Camp was held in NYC in 2009 and last year it served as the kickoff event of Social Media Week in San Francisco in early February, 2010. There is another Social Media Camp being offered by Social Media Club in New York on February 9, 2011 hosted at the Roger Smith Hotel.

Social Media Camp is one part unconference / Barcamp and one part single track conference/workshop/training. It is an event where teachers are students, and everyone learns from each other. It is an opportunity for the local social media community to gather with one another,improve their professional skills and work to strengthen their networks and further their personal passions.

From the main stage we will offer a set of courses on these New World work skills, Social Media skills. Our intended audience is the unemployed and underemployed and we will provide them with the knowledge they need to better understand and use social media as part of their work and their everyday life. Topics like protecting your privacy, finding a job, establishing your digital identity, responsible participation on behalf of an employer, creating an online magazine or personal journal and how to spot potential fraud so others can’t take advantage of us.

We will be starting next Thursday June 4, 2009 at 9am at the Roger Smith Hotel.  We have a few rooms available and will be mostly running Social Media Camp in a traditional Open Space / BarCamp format, with one additional ‘introductory’ track intended for people looking to learn the social media basics for use in their job search, for use in their marketing efforts and for generally joining the conversation about how to use social media for their organization.

For those of you unfamiliar with Open Space and BarCamp, the premise is that the majority of the day’s agenda / schedule will be created by participants, the morning of the ‘camp’.  We will be taking time in the morning, from 930am until about 1015am to introduce ourselves to each other and to discuss the topics that will fill our day together.  If you have something you would like to teach or something you would like to learn, you can add it in the comments below on this post.  We will be collecting them and also adding them to the wiki and/or you can add them there yourself if you would like.

Social Media Camp Schedule

• 9-930 Arrive, Get Settled, Meet People
• 930-1015 Social Media Camp Kickoff, Introductions, Creating the Schedule of Sessions
• 1015 – 1100 First Session, 2 rooms open for scheduling
• 1115-1200 Second Session, 2 rooms open for scheduling
• Noon – 1pm Lunch Provided at Roger Smith Hotel
• 100-145 Third Session, 3 rooms open for scheduling
• 2-245 Fourth Session, 3 rooms open for scheduling
• 3-345 Fifth Session, 3 rooms open for scheduling
• 4-445 Final Session, 3 rooms open for scheduling
• 445 – 515 Wrap Up, Close Day Together

We are still looking for people to help lead the creation of the Social Media 101 Curriculum we are also offering at this Social Media Camp.  We will be shooting video of these sessions especially to make available to the SBA and other local New York focused government and non-profit organizations to help more people learn the key insights for applying social media tools effectively to help their small business, to help them find jobs through new job skills and pretty much anyone who wants to figure out what this social media discussion is all about.

Our Social Media 101 Track, which will be happening in addition to the many sessions being offered by leading Social Media Professionals will include sessions on

• Introduction to Social Media – What it is, What it isn’t; Social Media Principles; Tags, Conversation, Community, Social Networks and why this shift in technology is important for all organizations (and employees to understand)
• Creating a digital identity, building a personal brand – Before you can engage in these conversations, how do you portray yourself in your profiles? Where should you make profiles? How do you want to be perceived
• Social media tools, services and networks – Highlighting the key services and software that are at the heart of the online social universe, we will discuss Twitter, WordPress, Flickr, Digg, Disqus, Lijit, FaceBook, Linkedin and much more
• Using Social Media for Job Searches (Job Seekers & Employers) – At this time, your presence online, or lack thereof, is speaking volumes about you to potential employers (and vice versa).  In this session we will discuss how social media is changing the job search process and what you can do to stand out as well as what you can do to find the right person if you are hiring.
• Marketing Through Social Media – In this session, through case studies and practical examples, we will discuss how Social Media is being used to develop better customer relationships, reach new markets, cultivate word of mouth and create better search engine optimization of your web site.  Specific and practically applied tactics will be discussed and your questions will be answered.
• Small Group Consultations – At the end of the day, during the last session, several social media professionals from New York and beyond will sit down in smaller groups with participants to answer questions and help you apply what you have learned to your specific business challenge.

Given that the educational sessions we will be offering are similar to what we would normally put together in a $300+ workshop, we hope to see a bunch of people jumping into social media through Social Media Camp, which only costs $25 to attend.  Please register today so we now how many lunch’s, t-shirts etc… we need to secure.  Better still, if you have a friend who needs to learn the basics of Social Media, send them this link and have them join us for this great day of social media sessions.