At out last Social Media Breakfast, Using Social Media for Marketing and PR, Ross Lasley, one of our speakers, shared this golf analogy with us. A lot of people are concerned that social media can’t be used for business. Social media is fun and for some reason work cannot be fun. If you are participating in an activity for your job AND you are having a bit of fun, something is very wrong.
Social Media is all essence fun. You connect with your friends, family, coworkers or other people you have met on this wild journey you call life. You CAN use it for business too and there is nothing wrong with that!
Ross told us to think about all the people who claim they gets lots of work done when they play golf. Sure, they are making deals, forming stronger relationships and shaking hands but they are also having fun too. Isn’t that like what we do on sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn? but we do these things virtually?
So maybe social media is like golf!
For more information about previous breakfasts, presenters slides and bios please check out our archive page.
Social media has changed how a lot of us work, what we demand for information and the way we find businesses and people we want to do business with. Whether you are participating or not, people are researching you, your business, your work history and your network before they talk to you. How does this change how we recruit the best candidates for positions or how we look for our next job opportunities?
This month we get to pick the brains of Barbara Hart of Hire Well and Shawn McGowan from jobsinme.com on what changes they have seen with the recruiting and job searching processes from social media. If you aren’t looking for a job right now or looking to fill a position right now this is still an important breakfast for you. Down the road you will be faced with these decisions so you should try to understand this changing process now.
Need some more food for thought? Have you thought about what people researching you or your company think about what they find? What does your digital image say about you? Are you or your company sending the right message?
I really like this video of business expert and author Tim Sanders and I have shown it at multiple presentations. Is your company Facebook status worthy?
We really hope you can make it to this month’s breakfast. Sign up here. It is going to be a good one!
We chose to do this month’s Social Media Breakfast on getting your content found with social media and SEO. As more and more businesses are figuring out this whole social media thing, the landscape is getting a bit more crowded. What are you doing to make sure that your content is being found when people are looking for answers, products and solutions?
We invited some of our favorite SEO experts to come and chat with us about how SEO works and how you can use that knowledge to optimize your content and social media profiles and updates.
People are using the internet and their online network to research products, services and companies. The best way to be found when people are searching is to optimize your content. This means targeting keywords, having keyword dense content, being an authority and having relationships with other people in and around your industry online.
Search engines are regularly adding Tweets, LinkedIn profiles and Facebook pages to search engine results. Instead of just ranking for your website you can own your search terms by optimizing more of your online profile – you just need to know how.
We hope you can make it to our upcoming breakfast. If not, stay tuned for the slides and notes on our archive page after the event.
There is a lot to be said for being creative and surrounding yourself with creative people. The week before each Social Media Breakfast we meet with the speakers and go over logistics and their presentations.
This is a great opportunity for the speakers to get more comfortable and possibly get to know each other better as well. This week I met with Jaica, Chris and Dave to discuss our upcoming breakfast. This particular breakfast is about creating different kinds of content for your audience in customers so these are three pretty creative folks.
When I met with them a few things stood out to me:
This was the first breakfast where all three speakers knew each other very well
All three of them were Mac users
I possibly took away more from the meeting than they did
I consider myself pretty creative. In my “real job”, I am fortunate enough to share a space with other creative (and smart, I must say) people. But in a 45 minute meeting with our next three speakers, my brain opened some different channels.
Because of Chris, I found a better way to do a presentation I am in doing in Colorado next month. Jaica gave me a really cool website for connecting with other “foodies” and got the gears turning on some video ideas I want to do with a client. Dave got me thinking about not depending on words and text so much and trying some new things with images and illustrations.
All this from a short meeting to discuss logistics. Just got me to thinking, there is a lot to be said for stepping outside your workspace, your brain, your co-workers, your network and see how other people do things. This has a lot to with with the tone and goals of these breakfasts. I think we can learn so much from our friends, neighbors and other businesses about how they are using social media.
I hope all of you enjoy the breakfast tomorrow and you are prepared to think about new ways of connecting with your audience and customers!
We had so much fun at last month’s Social Media Brunch. Thank you to all who attended and helped make it a success! We are excited to get back to MPX this month to tackle some new topics.
This month we are going to explore types of content you can create to promote your business. Having a Facebook fan page, a Twitter account and a LinkedIn group won’t get you very far if you have nothing to share with those networks. We have invited some of our favorite local creative types to open our minds up and explore new content possibilities and share with us what has worked for them and what hasn’t.
Chris Cavallari is going to step out from behind the video camera and talk to us about creating video content for social networks and your business. Dave Weinberg is going to share with us his learning experience creating cellphoneSketchpad. Finally, Jaica Kinsman from Guiding Stars will show us the types of content they are producing for their audience and focusing on education over marketing their business.
What: Social Media Breakfast – Making Creative and Educational Content for Your Customers and Audience When: April 23rd 7:30 – 10:00 AM Where:MPX map to location
We are very excited to announce our very special March Social Media Breakfast. March 26th from 8:30am – Noon we are having a Best Of/Thank You Social Media BRUNCH at the Frog and Turtle in Westbrook Maine.
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.
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.
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.
Carl Natale needed a full weekend to process all the information we threw at him at last weeks breakfast. Sarah Wallace and Brad Lawwill did a really great job covering why having a social media policy is important and how to get started. Carl wrote another really great recap of the morning and included both presenters slides.
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.
The travel/tourism/recreation industry is one of the best fits for social media. Why? Because social media is just a new extension of word of mouth marketing. Destinations are sold by hearing people’s stories and testimonials. What better way to share you message than letting your customers do the talking for you?
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!
We chose to do this month’s Social Media Breakfast on getting your content found with social media and SEO. As more and more businesses are figuring out this whole social media thing, the landscape is getting a bit more crowded. What are you doing to make sure that your content is being found when people are looking for answers, products and solutions?
There is a lot to be said for being creative and surrounding yourself with creative people. The week before each Social Media Breakfast we meet with the speakers and go over logistics and their presentations. 
