The extraordinary skills and efforts of several local personalities combined to try and make the event a success. And was it? As ever, that depends on your definition of success!

It’s true we didn’t unlock the Super Swarm badge which was the main aim of the event. However, we did get well over 100 people checking in, we did meet some of those lovely people and we did persuade Wetherspoons to offer fabulous discounts to everyone who joined us.

We even got support from two of the people who organised the London Super Swarm that took place just two days before our own event.

Considering the size of Cheltenham and the fact that we were competing with Literature Festival events I think the Super Swarm team did a pretty good job.

Special thanks and credit to: Adrian, Andy B, Andy T, Chris, Holly, and Jonathan for their organisation and support. Further thanks to Emily who helped scour the streets for victims participants on the day and Julian for making the fab video.

Cheltenham is getting a great reputation for social media related events – long may it continue!

Are you saying too much online?

This is a guest post by Ian Randall

How many posts per day are too much? How can you find the valuable content from amongst the noise? These questions are becoming more relevant with the continued growth of social media and services. Facebook, Foursquare, Yelp, Posterous, Twitter -all great examples at the cutting edge of the technology that’s changing how we communicate and interact with each other, and all capable of cross-posting between them.

A Google search shows widely differing opinions on how much is too much. It does seem to be a very personal thing as everyone’s needs are different. Personally, I have no products to sell and no customers to attract. I am purely a consumer of all this digital content so if someone is monopolising my timeline or continually reposting the same things I’m afraid that’s as easy to fix as clicking ‘unfollow’.

Would you follow a person on Foursquare if all the information is replicated on Twitter? Would you follow someone on Twitter if every tweet is republished to Facebook? There is so much new content out there to filter through, can you really spend your time reading and dealing with duplication? There is a real danger that anything of value you have to say can become swamped in the noise generated by everything else, and unfortunately the message becomes lost.

The answer lies with careful curation. This blog has already touched on the subject of using separate accounts for personal and professional tweets, that’s a great start. If I’m interested in your business, products or services I may not really care what you had for tea. If I’m interested in you personally then I’ll follow that account as well (unless they RT every tweet from the other account).

It’s really exciting to see the growth of these services in Gloucestershire, and some of the novel ways to take advantage of this new technology has been great to see. I’m excited for the future of what these can bring, but this is dependent on finding a way to be able to filter out what is relevant to me and what gives me personal value. Maybe this will become a feature of the next generation of these services, but it will become increasingly important as the amount of data grows.

Ultimately, those who post too much, those who just replicate from other sources and create noise become like the loud obnoxious guy at the party. They may think they’re the centre of attention, but the real and interesting conversation is going on in a corner, away from them and their noise where others can hear themselves think. And just like that, the conversation has passed them by.

If you’d like to sumbmit a guest blog post email csmc@cheltsocialmediacafe.org.uk or tweet us a short pitch! We like to support local interests and new technological or social media ventures so don’t be shy.

You can join us from 6pm for cake, drinks and chatter or come along at 5.30pm to see Jonathan Pollinger talk about the business benefits of using Foursquare.

We’re open to everyone – so long as you have an interest in social media and you’re happy to spend a few hours being sociable without giving any sales pitches! So far we’ve met lots of interesting, intelligent, charming and useful people so why not come along and be one of them?

Got any questions? You can post them here as a comment and someone will get back to you! Alternatively, talk to us on Twitter or Facebook.

It’s an upcoming social media platform with lots of potential so if you don’t know much about it now, maybe you should?

Jonathan is holding a taster workshop to teach local business people about the benefits of using Foursquare. The taster session will run from 5.30 to 6pm on the 9^th July 2010 at Pepper Crescent and it’s absolutely free to attend!

This means you can learn a bit about how to gain local recognition and attract new customers before joining the fun at our next café event from 6-8pm!

A follow up workshop called ‘Get more customers with Foursquare’ is planned for the 15^th July between 10am and 12pm at the Exmouth Arms and you can book your tickets here.

We’d appreciate it if café regulars could tweet about the workshops and mention them to anyone you think might be interested.

About Jonathan:

Jonathan advises people on how to get the most out of social media for their business. He regularly runs workshops on a variety of social media topics and often attends networking events like our Social Media Cafe and DigiTalks. You can find him on Twitter @jonnop and @jpfestival or visit his website at www.intranetfuture.com