We have had such a great time and support from the community while putting these breakfasts together. We have met some amazing people and learned from experts and our peers on how businesses can use social media to help them with their marketing and PR.

Register early. This event will sell out!

All Star Cast of Speakers

We have an all star lineup of some of our favorite speakers from the past breakfasts and some new case studies and speakers as well. For past speakers we have invited back Heather Wasklewicz from 32north (the makers of STABILicers ice cleats), Chrystie Corns to talk about personal branding, Calvin Gilbert from Goodwill NNE, Alex Steed for his expertise in working with nonprofits and Brad Lawwill from Pierce Promotions to talk to us again about creating social media policies. For new guests we are excited to have Candace Karu from Cabot Creamery, Keith Luke from the City of Westbrook and Jeff Parsons from Q97.9.

For the full list of presenters and their presentations
check out our upcoming page.

Great Sponsors Help Make a Great Event

We are very lucky to have the support of two great sponsors who understand the vision of this special social media brunch!

The City of Westbrook

The City of Westbrook is changing right before all of our eyes. With some great additions to the business scene in downtown, Westbrook is becoming an even greater town for participating in lots of activities, shopping and dining. Westbrook has been using video to help show and tell local residents more about what they have to offer. We knew we wanted to partner with them for this event and host it in their fine city.

The Maine Marketing Association

The MMA has become a local fixture for events, seminars, Lunch N Learns and support for its members and businesses. The Social Media Breakfasts have always been to educate the community on how to market themselves online. We are fortunate to be able to team up with another local group that has the same values and goals to put on a really unique event.

Read Carl’s full recap here.

Read more about SMBME #7 on our archive page

Social Media is becoming less and less its own world and more so being integrated into marketing strategies. Unlike a print ad, radio commercial or article, social media is happening in real-time and even if you aren’t participating, that doesn’t mean people aren’t talking about your business or industry. The content is raw and unapproved which makes a lot of businesses uneasy.

To protect your brand, your staff and your businesses reputation you should consider creating social media policies. Policies protect you and let your staff and community know what is acceptable online behavior and what is not.

This month we have two local professionals, Sarah Wallace and Brad Lawwill, to talk to us about creating a social media policy, if you need one and what other organizations are doing. This is going to be a popular topic so please register early so that you are not left out when we sell out.

We hope to see you there!

Carl Natale, blogger at large on small businesses in Maine, wrote a great summary of the last breakfast where we covered using social media in the travel, tourism and recreation industries. Read his whole article here.

Social Media is a great way to reach new people online and converse with them like never possible before. For some industries Social Media has shown to be just another extension of their current marketing and business approach. The Travel, Tourism and Recreation Industries have a unique opportunity to connect with people before they make their vacation and travel plans. We are choosing to hone in on the Travel, Tourism and Recreation Industry for this month’s breakfast.

Most vacations and trips start with online research through search engines, blogs and on social media sites. We now have the ability to converse with our online network and get their opinion before we move toward booking our trip. Participating online so that you are found when people are looking for these ideas and service is imperative to your businesses growth.

This month is going to be slightly different with a short presentation on changes the travel, tourism and recreation industries have seen in the last few years and then we will have three local case studies to share with us their online and offline marketing strategy. Norm Forgey from Maine Day Trip, Heather Wasklewicz from 32north the makers of STABILicers and Darcy Liberty and Nick Lambert from Sunday River will be this months speakers.

Register today and we look forward to seeing you all at another great breakfast!

‘Tis the season for giving thanks and I have to start with thanking everyone who has helped make our breakfasts a success: MPX has been so generous to let us use their space, our raffle donations have been great and of course our presenters and attendees. This month’s topic was brought up at a breakfast and also through the contact form on our site. We think we have a good topic for this month.

Personal or Professional on social networks

Social Media has done some great things for local businesses. Some people are themselves and reap benefits by becoming online friends and sharing news about their company. Other are their company logo online and have got lots of chatter going about their company. Some other people have found a way to do both. What is the right thing to do? How do you decide what is best to get your message out?

We are going to try to demystify how to create your social media content personally, professionally and try a few things in between. Emily Brackett, president of Visible Logic, is going to talk to use about making the decision on whether to be your brand or yourself. She will give us some real life examples from different industries so that you can make the right decision. Then we have two local professionals to talk to us about how and why they chose to promote their ‘personal brand’ or their company. Chrystie Corns, President & Chief Strategist for Thirteen Thirty Marketing, will talk about her decision to be a strong personal brand and Chris Brown, VP of Bull Moose will share with us promoting a company brand on social networking sites and the benefits his company has seen from his efforts.

Register today and we look forward to seeing you all at another great breakfast!

We all know now that participating in Social Media can open up new opportunities for you and your business but how do you know if what you are doing is working? Are people hearing what you are saying? Are you connecting with new potential customers? Are you wasting your time?

This month’s Social Media Breakfast Maine we will tackle all those questions and more. We will lay out what goals you and your organization should set up and how to track your progress. We are very excited to have Monica Wright and THE Rich Brooks present for us on setting goals and measuring. We also have a local case study from Calvin Gilbert who oversees the web development and print for Goodwill Industries of Northern New England.

We think this topic will be a popular one so register early. This month’s event will be held again at MPX on outer Congress, here in Portland. MPX has been a generous sponsor and partner for these breakfasts.

We got this topic from a few people who attended the last breakfast and some who filled out the contact form. If you have a topic you would like to see covered please contact us.

If you were not able to attend our last breakfast for Non-profits the recap and presentations are on our archive page.

We’ve invited back Alex Steed to drill down more specifically how he sees social media as a tool for nonprofits. We also invited Brian Clark of Strong Fathers Maine to speak first hand about what he has seen using social media and Kaitlin LaCasse from Idealware to share her experiences with social media as well!

For more information please check out our upcoming breakfast page and register early because this topic is sure to sell out!

Kicking off a morning of great presentations was Fred Abaroa, Marketing Imagineer from Costa Vida Mexican Grill.  Fred explained how getting people to “Know” you, “Like” you, “Trust” you and “Buy” you is essential to building trust and personality, and he showed some convincing stats as to why an online personality is worth building!

Fred believes that people should recognize your name and that you should “Have an answer” for all possible questions for your industry and services. Solution based conversation is essential for trust. Do not become one of the “7 Deadly Creatures;” The Sucker, The Puker, The Topper, The Whiner, Narcissus, The Vulture and Mr. Halitosis.

Alex Steed, the second presenter, is a communication consultant for nonprofit organizations and advocacy groups. Alex explained that data mining is a means to an end, and took a neutral stance as to whether this is a “good” or “bad” thing.

Alex may be the first person to ever bring up Michel Foucault in a discussion of social media.   He used a model of power defined by information – those in trouble give confessions to others, the confessed to come up with a diagnosis, and from that diagnosis there comes a prescription (did I tell you this all happened at 8:30 in the morning?)

He demonstrated this principle in practice by revealing his “obsession” with discovering information (mostly personal!) about people in need of non-profit services.  He told a crazy criminal story about a man and a woman in a Bonnie & Clyde-esque misadventure stealing items from cars and confessing it with no short amount of drama online.  Alex was able to follow the whole thing because these real names of these people were revealed in the paper, and a few searches later he was able to find their social media profiles.

Some may call this stalking, but to a Social Marketing guru, this is client research!

Our final speaker, Franklin McMahon delivered practical tips on making your social networking profiles work effectively for your personal brand. Making your personal profile pictures look as professional as possible will benefit you.  So will making your audience the stars, interviewing people who inspire you and positioning yourself as an expert are all great tips for trust and transparency. Franklin also adds that winning over people in the middle or “on the fence” is key to succeeding in marketing your personal brand – those who love you or hate you have already made up their minds.

After the speakers delivered their valuable content, we raffled off a few copies of Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s “Trust Agents,” fired off some flying monkey and gave away free tickets to two upcoming social media events “Social Media FTW” and “The Big Conference.” Congratulations to the winners and a big Thank You to all attendees! We hope to see you at next month’s SMB Maine!

Check back here next week and we will have video and each presenters slides on our archive page.

Please contact us if you would like to see a particular topic covered at Social Media Breakfast Maine, would like to sponsor, donate an item to our raffle or be on our mailing list to hear about other upcoming breakfasts!

Thank you,
Kyle

Line up change

Unfortunately Christine is unable to attend this month’s breakfast so we have a small change in the line up. Franklin McMahon will be presenting ‘10 Secrets to Developing Your Personal Brand Online and In Person’. Franklin is an amazing resource for all things new media and social media. We are very excited to have him join us!

See you on Friday!