Hello all! Remember us?

Good! :) It has been far too long. Thanks to everyone who participated in #UTALK. We met a lot of great people and the overwhelming sentiment was that you all wanted a live social media event; a chance to engage in the social media community in the SLC/Utah Valley Region.

Well we've been hard at work. And we're excited to announce #UVUSOCIAL is coming to Utah Valley University Nov 16th from 7-8:30pm. The event is FREE and open to the public.

Cory Edwards, Director of Social Media  Corporate Reputation at Dell Computers, will be speaking on Social Media Branding. Event Details

Connect

Follow @uvusocial and help us spread the word with hashtag #uvusocial.

Students in the Communication Department @ UVU have been hard at work on this event. the UVU PRSSA is hosting the event and students in Dr. Kushin's (@mjkushin) Social Media Class are running all #UVUSOCIAL social media promotion. Connect with them:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• uvusocial.posterous.com

While we're sorry we haven't done any #UTALK since the semester has started up - we are hopeful that you will join us for this awesome FREE event with a local social media expert!

Media / Bloggers / Local Companies & Organizations

Although the event is just over two weeks away - it isn't to late to participate or help us spread the word!  Share us and please contact mkushin@uvu.edu with any inquiries!

Hey all - we've decided to take a temporary hiatus from the weekly Twitter chat!

We would like to take UTalk "to the next level" so everyone involved can get the most out of their participation. A number of people have expressed also wanting to get more out of our time together in recent chats. With summer a slow time for online interaction given people are on vacation and out enjoy the weather, we feel now is the best time to step back and retool some things. @vegor and @mjkushin will be meeting next Monday to brainstorm and begin formulating some plans.

Of course, your input is always welcome. Feel free to contact either one of us. We may just be contacting you :) We'll keep you posted on where things are headed right here on our blog.

We thank you all so much for your passion, your support and your participation.

After a week off, last week we chose a somewhat out of the blue topic that we thought would be fun. We decided to talk about the relationship between social media and celebrity.  It turns out, your love of celebrity, or your love of celebrity on social media, was much lower than we anticipated. It was our 11th Twitter chat and summer is now in full swing.

At the end of our talk last week, some people brought up trying to take what we've got going and bringing it to the next level. Things have been rather busy for @mjkushin and @vegor these last few weeks. We are hoping as things slow down here soon, we can begin pursuing some of those avenues. In the meantime, we would love to be in contact with anyone who is interested or has ideas. A good conversation is invaluable. As always, the channels of communication are open. You can contact us via email, Twitter or on our Facebook page.

Transcript & Diigo Chatmarks

Here is a PDF copy of the #UTalk11 Twitter chat transcript for anyone who missed last Thursday's chat!

There was only 1 link shared this past week. For those of you who would like to see last week's link or the links from any of our previous chats, you can of check out or Chatmarks on our Diigo page. See tags for UTalk011 or 6-16-11 for last Thursday's chat.

If you have any topic recommendations, feel free to email them to us (utalkutah@gmail.com)! We'll have something up soon! :) See you Thursday and tell all your Twitter friends!

As Google Tasks reads when it reconnects, "And... we're back!"

After a week off hiatus, #Utalk, Utah's social media Twitter chat, is back.With summer upon us, and considering the very serious topic of social movements and social media from our last chat, we figured we'd pick something fun and light-hearted for this week. So we've decided to do:

Social media and celebrity. We'll be talking about the various ways in which social media impacts celebrity - from Justin Bieber (did I spell that right?) to athletes, and yes, the crowd favorite - all those famous people who get themselves into trouble. It is a quirky topic but one we should be able to have some fun with!

Now we have to admit, this is a tough topic. We'd love any help you can give us for questions to help direct the convo. What are you interested in? What aspects of celebrity should we focus on and would be most helpful to you? Submit them to us anytime before the chat, the earlier the better :) We'll select some questions for the chat and give those people a shout out during the chat and in our post-chat review.

To submit, simply click submit weekly chat question or the link at the top of the page.

This week's Topic

This week will be social media and privacy issues.

When: Thursday, June 16, 6-7pm MST.

Where: Tweetchat.com and follow hashtag: #UTalk or by following #UTalk on twitter.com/search

The Post-chat Review

Remember, after the chat we'll post a chat review including a list of links shared during the chat, and any other useful additions. (We're still trying to find a sharp way to present the transcript - any suggestions?)

If you aren't already, begin following @UTalkmod to stay current. And help spread the word, invite friends, and tweet this post!

In case you missed it, here's the post-chat review from the last chat we held, UTalk 10

 

image: Some rights reserved by Storm Crypt.

Hey all! We regret to inform you that we will not be hosting #UTalk, your favorite social media twitter chat, this week. @vegor and @mjkushin have both been very busy yesterday and today with a number of matters we've had to attend to. We felt we wouldn't have the time to properly choose a topic and prepare questions. We are sorry for the late notice, however it has been very crazy these last few days!

We've got a couple ideas in the works for topics next week. But if you have any ideas please shoot them our way via email, on Facebook, or on Twitter.

Don't worry, we'll be back next week for #UTalk 11. For now, enjoy the nice weather we've having!

In case you missed the post chat review from last week, you can see it here.

Btw, we are totally stoked to finally have a Facebook vanity URL now (http://facebook.com/utalkutah). Thanks to everyone who liked our page. We reached 31 so we can now see our Facebook stats too! If you haven't checked us out on Facebook, please do!

 

Above photo by: by bluecinderella

We've completed our 10th Twitter chat! Last Thursday UTalk 10 we discussed online activism. With the beginning of the election season not too far away, and the recent social uprisings in the Middle East, there has been an increased focus on social media.

It was very interesting to see how UTalkers respond and react to online campaigns seeking their involvement. Many felt that their involvement in such movements tends to max out before getting to deep. A number of participants commented that they tend to only "like" a campaign rather than get involved. For those causes they really feel passionate about, they will go beyond to get the word out and otherwise support the cause such as through donations. A really interesting topic that will continue to be relevant as we head into 2012!

Facebook

Recently, we began a campaign to increase our "Likes" for our UTalk Twitter Chat Facebook page.

Our campaign has been a success. We've got enough likes to get our own vanity URL: http://www.facebook.com/utalkutah

We are up to 29 "Likes" - an increase of 16 from when we started. That still doesn't get us to the needed 30 individual likes before we can see our stats. All we need is 1 more! Please like our page if you haven't yet done so! One of us (@mjkushin) is teaching a social media class this upcoming Fall at Utah Valley University, and would like to be able to use the Facebook insights stats as an example in class. Thanks!

Transcript & Diigo Chatmarks

Here is a PDF copy of the #UTalk10 Twitter chat transcript for anyone who missed last Thursday's chat!

There were a handful of interesting links shared this past week. For those of you who would like to see any of the links from the chat, as always, you can of check out or Chatmarks on our Diigo page. See tags for UTalk010 or 6-2-11 for Thursday's chat.

If you have any topic recommendations, feel free to email them to us (utalkutah@gmail.com)! We'll have something up soon! :) See you Thursday and tell all your Twitter friends!

This Thursday's edition of #UTalk (number 10 by the way...double digits everyone!) will focus on Social Media as a platform for change. It seems like everyday we are asked to "Like" one cause or another. From the coordinated riots in Egypt to the campaign to have Betty White host Saturday Night Live, Facebook and Twitter activism is making headlines. But does joining a cause just mean clicking the Like Button? Is this really activism, or a very lazy way to feel you have done your part? How do companies and governments handle things when the Social Masses rally against them? We will talk about this and a whole lot more this Thursday at 6 PM. Just follow the #UTalk hashtag on tweetchat.com.

Last Thursday for UTalk 09 Uah Twitter Chat we talked about social media and the news industry. We had an interesting chat on the dynamic ways the news industry is changing and how we get our news is changing. We also discussed a bit about how the change to the news industry is impacting the public relations field. It will be very interesting to see these two interdependent fields, journalism and PR, continue to adapt with the continued evolutions in media technology.

Well it is summer! We hope you had a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend.We took the day off and so are posting our post chat review today! We hope you are enjoying the warmer days but will continue to join us in the evening every Thursday for our Twitter chat.

We haven't yet decided what our topic will be this Thursday. We'll be discussing it soon and would love to hear any ideas you have. You can always email them to us (utalkutah@gmail.com) or Tweet them to us! We will see you soon for the pre-chat post!

Transcript & Diigo Chatmarks

We still don't have a good solution to the transcript dilemma - but here is a PDF copy of the #UTalk09 Twitter chat transcript for anyone who missed last Thursday's chat.

Like last week, there weren't many links shared this past week. But for those of you who would like to see any of the links from the chat, you can of check out or Chatmarks on our Diigo page. See tags for UTalk009 or 5-26-11 for Thursday's chat. If you have any topic recommendations, feel free to email them to us (utalkutah@gmail.com)!

Facebook

We sent out a Tweet two weeks ago encouraging people to "Like" our UTalk Twitter Chat Facebook page. We got 10 more likes and are up to 23! But that doesn't get us to the needed 30 individual likes before we can see our stats. Please like our page if you haven't yet done so! One of us (@mjkushin) is teaching a social media class this upcoming Fall at Utah Valley University, and would like to be able to use the Facebook insights stats as an example in class. Thanks!

 

We've got 2 months under our belt of #UTalk twitter chats! That's 8 successful weeks of social media discussion because of your continued participation! Thanks to everyone who has participated! If you haven't yet, it is never to late to jump into the fun. It is super easy and we have a lively and friendly bunch.

Last Thursday for UTalk 08 we talked about privacy issues online as an extension of the previous week's chat about mobile social media. We had a lively discussion with some great advice on how to best protect oneself when online. A major focus of the conversation was staying on top of what is posted about you online - e.g., Googleing yourself. A few participants had some great advice to set up Google Alerts of your name to monitor when new stuff appears online about you. This passive means of monitoring is an easy tool for "reputation management." We encouraged everyone to search themselves on one sight that's fairly in depth: cvgadget.com and a number of participants mentioned finding things about themselves they didn't know were online!

Transcript & Diigo Chatmarks

We still don't have a good solution to the transcript dilemma - but here is a PDF copy of the #UTalk 08 Twitter chat transcript for anyone who missed last Thursday's chat.

There weren't many links shared this past week given the topic. But for those of you who would like to see any of the links from the chat, you can of check out or Chatmarks on our Diigo page. See tags for UTalk008 or 5-19-11 for Thursday's chat. We hope to see you this Thursday for a whole new topic. If you have any topic recommendations, feel free to email them to us (utalkutah@gmail.com)!

Facebook

We sent out a Tweet last week encouraging people to "Like" our UTalk Twitter Chat Facebook page. If you haven't already done so, please do. We need 30 individual likes before we can see our stats. One of us (@mjkushin) is teaching a social media class this upcoming Fall at Utah Valley University, and would like to be able to use the Facebook insights stats as an example in class. Thanks!