This City’s Social Media Day

Last Wednesday, June 30 was (according to Mashable.com) Social Media Day across the U.S., and around the world. In fact, Victoria and Vancouver, B.C. officially recognized June 30 as Social Media Day. From Antwerp to Thailand, Australia, Brazil, India and beyond, the whole world seemed to embrace and celebrate how social media has changed and enriched our lives.

Some cities held giant cocktail parties and meet-ups. Others organized contests, discussions, fundraisers, and in Cleveland, they even paraded an alpaca around town promoting.

Here in Burlington, VT, population approximately 40,000, we organized a series of events that ideally would have something fun to entertain everyone. I set up and branded a Facebook Fan page for the events, and along with Anna Palmer (@winwinapps), and the generosity of local businesses, we cobbled together a “treasure hunt”, 6 tweet ups around town, and set up a system for nominating and then voting for our local favorite social media-savvy King, Queen, Business and Nonprofit Organization.

The Big Event for the day took place at Bluebird Tavern, where the treasure hunt winners collected their (awesome) prizes, and the unveiling of the King, Queen, Biz and Org. More than 400 people voted for their favorite social people and organizations, far more than anticipated. The winners included Seven Days reporter Shay Totten @ShayTotten, Nicole Ravlin @PMGNicole, Small Dog Electronics @hellosmalldog, and Vermont Public Radio @VPRnet.

The day wrapped up in a casual but delicious after-party at 156 Bistro (@156bistro). That final tweet up was ‘crashed’ by Vermont political (and very social) candidates Matt Dunne (governor) (@MattDunneVT) and Phil Baruth (senator) (@Baruth2010) – what a surprise! The newly crowned Queen, Nicole Ravlin made an appearance to collect her prize and, well, we closed the place down.

Stats

Organizing this event took some time, but thanks to the generosity of the participating businesses, very little cash – less than $100 and half of that was for specially made King and Queen prizes. All in all, the day’s events generated:

1. publicity for 14 businesses
2. over 3,600 visits to the Facebook Fan page
3. well over 1,700 unique visitors to the voting form
4. 400+ votes
5. more than $1,000 worth of giveaways
6. a little press
7. a very busy tweet steam for Burlington’s own #BTV hashtag and #BTVSMD for the event.

During the nomination period, we asked for a little information about how locals are using which social media tools, when, and why. Here are the results of the poll: