It’s been a little while since I posted an update on what we here in the World Company social media department are working on.

It’s an exciting time for us with far more going on than I can share in a single blog post, but here are a few highlights.

Free State Social is just a little over a month away! We’re looking forward to hosting this event in Lawrence and bringing in a lineup of
speakers to rival social media events in New York, L.A. or San Francisco. Check out the list of businesses and organizations registered to attend the conference. We’ve got banks, healthcare, marketing, public relations, locally owned businesses, national corporations, non-profits, local government, higher education, and more.

Since we’re here in Lawrence, how could basketball not be high on our project list at this time of year?! During the Big 12 Tournament, our social media, KUsports and marketing staff set up shop at the Kansas City Power & Light District for the duration of the tournament. We’ll be posting a separate blog about this soon, lots to share. It was a great example of how social media can be used to boost online engagement and to create valuable offline real-world interactions.

Talking of basketball, we’re very happy to welcome the Kansas City Wizards as sponsor of our KUsports social media coverage of the NCAA Tournament. Not just a great promotional opportunity for the Wizards, but also a chance for our KUsports fans to get a special discount on tickets for the Wizards March 27 home opener against D.C. United. Check out our @KUsports
and @CraveLawrence Twitter accounts and you’ll see the promotion and get the special link for those discounted tickets.

The client services side of the social media department also continues to grow, including a trip to Toronto to consult for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Just this week we’ve started experimenting with QR codes. QR (Quick Response) codes are a type of bar code that can be scanned by a camera phone and will cause the phone’s browser to launch and redirect to a specific URL. You can read more about QR codes in this Wikipedia post. We created a QR code linking to our latest NCAA Tournament coverage and we’ll watch to see if people are interested in using it. If you have other suggestions let us know. We’re looking at future opportunities in print and online.

Our niche news site development is under way with the launch of WellCommons, making us the first news organization to fully integrate social media tools with journalism, and creating a place where members of our community participate equally in the community’s news, information and conversation using the same tools as our journalists. Our internal development team has created some very cool new social tools and applications that provide exciting new opportunities for covering breaking news, community events, and other real-time stories. More to come on that soon.

Finally, I’ve given in to pressure from various co-workers and starting Monday will no longer be wearing suits to work. Now that I work full time in social media, I apparently need to dress the part, so starting Monday jeans it is! David Ryan, in our internal dev team, has been trying to push me this direction for a while now, though I’m not sure I can pull off the “online” look quite as uniquely as he does. When I asked Jane Stevens, our Director of Media Strategies, if I should really go the casual route for work the “yes” came without hesitation. When I told my social media partner-in-crime Whitney what I was planning I’m honestly not sure she believed me. And when I asked Michelle, my wonderfully patient girlfriend, if she agreed with this new direction, she pointed out that she has been telling me for some time that the casual look works much better on me anyway. At least the clothes shes picked out for me that is. After five months dating, I guess I should just accept she’s always right.

Lot’s happening, lots more to come! As always, any feedback is greatly appreciated. You can reach us at socialmedia @ ljworld dot com.

Ben