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| 3/11/2010 8:00:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| Round Rock Chamber Ambassadors director, Austin Suburban Properties Realtor and Round Rock Jelly member Nicole Boynton works on her computer Friday at Star Co. in downtown Round Rock. |
| | Social Media Terms | Follow - On Twitter, to follow someone means you will see their tweets. Followers are people who receive the updates from other Twitter users.
Geotagging - The process of adding location-based metadata to media such as photos, video or online maps. Geotagging helps users find a wide variety of businesses and services based on their location.
Hashtag - A tool to aggregate the conversation surrounding an event or theme on Twitter. Created by combining a # with a word, acronym or phrase (#word). Anyone can make one up and they're great for following information coming from a conference or event.
Link/URL shortener - Because tweets are limited to 140 characters, it's difficult to post long links. Link shorteners like tinyurl, bit.ly and is.gd take a long URL and condense it down it down to a shorter version. Clicking on the shortened link takes you to the original long link.
Re-tweet (RT) - In Twitter, a tweet that has been reposted by someone other than the original sender. Re-tweeting is usually done to pass on good information to your followers.
RSS feed - Really Simple Syndication. This allows you to subscribe to content on blogs and other Web sites and have it delivered to you through a feed without having to visit the site.
RSS reader - A Web site that aggregates information from an RSS feed in one place.
Social media - Social media is a catch-all term for the tools and platforms people use to publish, converse and share content online. It is about dialogue, not a one-sided stream of information.
Tag - Keywords attached to a blog post, bookmark, photo or other type of content so that you and others can easily find them through searches.
Tweep - A friend or contact person on Twitter.
Tweet - A post on Twitter of 140 characters or less.
Tweet-up - An organized gathering of people who use Twitter. These events are held in person and usually the Twitter users share a common interest.
Twitter handle - Your user name on Twitter (@name)
URL - Unique Resource Locator. This is the technical term for the Web site address.
Source: Sarah Page, Round Rock Jelly regular and economic development specialist for LCRA
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Group meeting regularly to talk social media, innovations
When members of Round Rock Jelly meet each Friday at Star Co., the almost three-hour session for social media enthusiasts turns into a modern-day version of the television series "Cheers" - a place where everyone knows your name.
Members of Round Rock Jelly, a group of entrepreneurs such as a Realtor, freelance writers, photographers, Web developer and even those working for Dell and municipalities such as the city of Round Rock, gather together in downtown Round Rock to catch up over lunch or coffee and learn more about social media opportunities through popular Web sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Round Rock resident and travel blogger Sheila Scarborough started Round Rock Jelly in January 2009 as a way for entrepreneurs and those who want to effectively use social media tools, who might do most of their work from home, to network with people with similar interests. Previously, Scarborough had been attending a Jelly group in south Austin at Cafe Caffeine but she wanted to either attend or start a Jelly group that met closer to Round Rock. She then looked at the national Jelly Web site and learned how to start her own Jelly group.
In 2009, members of Round Rock Jelly met at Friar Tuck's Pantry in downtown Round Rock but moved their location to Star Co. after more people began attending the function.
"It's been a gift to create a brain trust like this," Scarborough said. "Creativity can happen anywhere in Round Rock and it just so happens a lot of creativity happens on Fridays at the Jelly."
Jelly is the informal name for a casual coworking group. Coworking is the concept of entrepreneurs who usually work from home having the option of an office setting when needed. Coworking spaces, such as Conjunctured off East Seventh Street in downtown Austin, offer the amenities of an office setting such as a wireless Internet connection and access to a fax machine and copier, said Site-Now owner and Jelly regular James Laughlin. People who set up shop in a coworking environment can pay a monthly membership or a daily membership to use the office space. The word "jelly" was created after the founders of the informal coworking concept just happened to be eating jellybeans on their first meeting day.
Round Rock Jelly regulars include Scarborough, Laughlin, As You Wish Photography owner Lori Luza, City of Round Rock communications director and technology specialist Will Hampton and Brooks Bennett, entrepreneur Tristan Slominski, Austin Suburban Properties Realtor Nicole Boynton, Lower Colorado River Authority tourism and economic development expert Sarah Page, Promise Pizza co-founder Suzanne Cordiero and Dell business creative experience team director Laura Thomas.
"We're such a diverse group of people in what we do," Luza said. "This is a good way for us to get our work done and connect."
"What's great about Jelly is everyone is an expert," Slominski said. "If you work in the traditional office setting everyone has about the same knowledge level but when you are involved in a coworking setting you have so many experts in different fields right in front of you."
Scarborough said the Jelly has about one new person attend each week. Originally, she got the word about Jelly through Facebook and Twitter.
Through Round Rock Jelly, Hampton said he has received ideas on how to improve the downtown Round Rock. He serves as the project manager for the city's downtown plan.
"It's been really cool that there is a market in Round Rock for something like this," Hampton said. "It's neat to see the exchange of ideas and thoughts."
For those interested in creating a blog, Scarborough gives tips for blogging such as using an editorial calendar to plan what topics to write about, thinking through writing topics and sticking with a blog topic instead of just rambling.
Page also gives tips for people to effectively use social media programs such as Twitter. For example, Page said for users (whether they use social media for their business or personal benefit) to follow the 70-20-10 rule. Seventy percent of messages should be useful information and not about yourself, 20 percent should be dialogue and back-and-forth conversation from other friends and followers and 10 percent of messages should be about yourself or promoting your business.
"You want to earn people's trust when using social media," Page said. "Once that happens people will take notice of that 10 percent about yourself."
For more information about Round Rock Jelly visit http://wiki.workatjelly.com/JellyInRoundRock.
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