A blog post coming a week late but better late than never!
CommunityCamp Berlin 2012 was already the 5th edition of the Barcamp for Community and Social Media Managers, but surprisingly I had never heard about it before this summer. I got the hint thanks to @m106 and I signed up for it without knowing what to expect. Anyway, it was for free and in Berlin we love umsonst.
The only thing I knew for sure was that everything was going to be German oriented. Practically all attendees in the Mixxt group were German and coming from all around the country for a weekend of networking. So I promised myself to leave my German shy self at home and give some steps towards my full integration in this country. 5 years overdue, I know.
The first impression on breakfast was #OMFCCB12: having sponsors such Danone and Mymuesli2go payed out and I had the time of my life. Second impression, Germans love rules and hate to break them: in a barcamp everyone is supposed to present themselves and tell what they are about. Well, 249 people did exactly that, I passed. For next year, here is my solution: all attendees tweet their topics using hashtags, creating automatically a directory of attendees sorted by topics. The 20 first to tweet, present themselves.
Right after each attendee interested in presenting a topic tells it to the crowd, if enough interest is shown by raising hands, the presenter gets a room assigned. Which gives a great feeling: you are listening and you are producing, swapping your role at least once in the weekend. Very bidirectional, very social media -ish. So I went from session to session listening about whether a Community needs Facebook, how to build a Community from scratch, other's experiences with Facebook promoted posts, Facebook KPIs, how big brands and their agencies plan their online strategy, and so on. All cool topics, learning from the good, the bad, the best.
On so called quality Sunday I decided to entertain a bit the crowd with my findings about social traveling apps and useful websites. It was the only session held in English, but it dragged enough attention to fill in the room. Attendees seemed to like it, especially Berlin Tourist who even blogged about my session ;) Also the networking part was really great, +20 new quality followers for @smonicats, who btw ended up among the Top 10 Twitterers of #ccb12 ;)
Learnings:
- Offline is essential in Social Media. We all like to discover stuff online, but when it comes to building quality relationships and get the real conversations started, we all need to see each other's face, listen to our voices, crack some laughs together.
- How many agencies can you hire to manage the most sensitive part of your relationship with your customers? Way too many.
- Events need to use more Twitter and take advantage of the #hashtag awesomeness so it is easier to contact attendees and communicate with the crowd. It's real time and it's fast, so Twitter up!
- It was the cheapest 2 day conversation German crash course of my life, it costed me -50€ and I practiced my German A LOT. So international startupers, don't miss out next year! The content depends on the attendees, next year if you come and share knowledge, maybe the Camp ends up being 30% English content!
- Berlin loves gratis too much: the #ccb13 should cost each attendee at least 5€ per day so a CM/SM employee can support the event :D (me, me, me!)
- Following the feed of an event on Twitter is awesome ;) Check #ccb12!
See you on the next #ccb13!
Pictures by MicialMedia