The Lebanon Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with Sinclair Community College Workforce Development is is offering a three-part Spring Speaker Series and I'm presenting the first topic "Social Media Marketing For Businesses" on Thursday March 22nd from 8-10AM at Work Force One (300 E Silver Street, Lebanon).
Topics to be covered:
What is social media marketing?
How does social media marketing differ from traditional marketing?
Pros and Cons of social media marketing strategies
Social media marketing best practices and case studies
Tickets are $39 or $100 for the series and you can get additional details and register via this link: http://www.cvent.com/d/zcqlyc
Beginning on Tuesday November 29th, I will be teaching a series of web marketing certification classes for the Sinclair Community College Workforce Development department. This series is geared to business owners, entrepreneurs and marketing professionals in the Dayton area interested in learning more about online marketing.
Here is a short video of Hope Arthur from Sinclair interviewing me about the series.
Here is a link to the video on YouTube: http://youtu.be/IX3NKm3ECKw
This series of three half-day classes is designed to give attendees a solid foundation of knowledge of online marketing principles for professional development and web skills that can be applied to their business or non-profit organization's marketing program. The sessions are meant to be taken as a group, but you can choose to take individual classes as well. Everyone who attends all three classes will receive a Web Marketing certification from Sinclair.
The classes will be held from 8:30 to noon at Miami Valley Research Park in Kettering on three consecutive Tuesdays with the following topics:
Tuesday, November 29: Class #1 - Creating an Effective Online Marketing Strategy
Tuesday, December 6: Class #2 - Increasing Your Website Traffic & Customer Interactions
Tuesday, December 13: Class #3 - Promoting Your Business Effectively Through Online Advertising
Click Here to get a more detailed outline of the sessions and to register online.
These will be small classes (class size is capped at 24) so there will be plenty of opportunity to ask questions about the material being presented and how you can apply what is being covered to your business. Baffled by SEO? Don't know where to start with Google Analytics? Not sure how Facebook or Twitter can help your business? This is the series for you!
If you're interested, sign up now as the classes are starting to fill up. If you have further questions, you can contact Sinclair Workforce Development at 937-252-9787.
Joanne Westwood of Westwood Virtual Associates and I are teaching a one-day Small Business Online Marketing Seminar this Friday at Indiana Wesleyan University in West Chester. Topics include:
Facebook Marketing
Social Media
Business Blogging
Online Video
Email Marketing
Website Conversion
Search Engine Optimization
Online Advertising
Google Analytics
This is a small class (capped at 20 attendees) in which Joanne and I will be walking folks through many of the most important elements of online marketing for small businesses. Joanne will be teaching the morning session from 9:00-noon, there will be a lunch break from noon to 1:00, and then I'll be teaching from 1:00 to 4:00.
If you are a small business owner, entrepreneur or marketer looking to get a hands-on "crash course" in the basics of online marketing, this is the event to attend. This is an "introductory" level course and prior marketing knowledge or education is not necessary, so if you're intimidated by these topics, don't be. We're here to help!
The price is $149 for either three-hour session or $249 for both sessions. Additional details and secure online registration through Eventbrite is available at: http://nov18class.eventbrite.com/
My friend Krista Neher, CEO of Boot Camp Digital as well as an international speaker and leading authority on social media is the speaker at this Friday's New Media Dayton event where her topic will be "Building a Social Media Plan The Gets REAL Results".
Below is a description of Krista's presentation from New Media Dayton. The New Media Dayton (#NMDayton) event is this Friday April 8th from 9:30 to 10:30 at Far Hills Community Church, 5800 Clyo Road in Centerville. Register for the New Media Dayton event and see a list of attendees.
Here's a link to purchase Krista's book "Social Media Field Guide" on Amazon.com:
Building a Social Media plan that gets REAL Results
With the explosion of social media, many businesses are rushing in without taking the time to build a strategic plan that will really get results. Most businesses fumble around in social media and don’t get the results they want.
An average person on Facebook is connected to 190 people/pages/groups/events. There are 30 million blogs and only 60 million blog readers. If you want to break through the clutter you need a plan - just showing up isn't good enough anymore. This presentation covers the 8 steps to build a social media plan that works and focuses on how to actually drive your business with social media.
We’ll cover the biggest mistakes that businesses make in social media and how to avoid them.
Krista is a bestselling author, international speaker and leading authority on social media, and is currently the CEO of Boot Camp Digital (www.bootcampdigital.com), a leading provider of social media marketing training and consulting solutions.
Krista is a social media pioneer; creating one of the first successful corporate Twitter strategies and corporate blogs – long before “social media” was even a recognized term.
After spending nearly 6 years at Procter and Gamble working on some of the biggest and most successful product launches, Krista went on to become the Vice President of Marketing at an internet start-up. Krista started Boot Camp Digital in 2008 and has created training programs for hundreds of advertising agencies, marketing departments and small and medium business owners in social media marketing.
Krista (www.kristaneher.com) is also the Managing Director and curriculum creator for the Institute for Social Media at Cincinnati State, author of the Social Media Field Guide and is currently working on a text book on social media marketing.
Last week I met with Andrea Dale of To The Point Marketing who includes LinkedIn consulting for small business owners as one of her services and she went over what she sees as the top three mistakes small business owners make on LinkedIn.
Here is a video clip of our conversation (the YouTube link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nsNi8m4ftw and below is the text of Andrea's article. If you'd like to speak with Andrea about her LinkedIn consulting services her number is 513-561-2642.
The Top Three Mistakes Small Business Owners Make on LinkedIn (and how to fix ‘em!)
By Andrea Dale, Marketing Coach & LinkedIn Business Development Expert
1) Seeking and accepting LinkedIn invitations, without encouraging conversations and meetings.
Create an opportunity for worthwhile meetings and conversations by seeking the "why" behind requests to link. Most LinkedIn members use the “standard” invite to reach out, which doesn’t tell you anything. Instead ask for (and offer up) why you want to connect. Use the answer to “why do you want to connect?” as the basis for a follow-up conversation or meeting.
Make the most of your activities on LinkedIn by proactively attracting and seeking specific types of connections based on your goals. Based on your goals, you, a small business owner, should seek certain types of connections with a plan to “court” those connections with relevant status updates, LinkedIn emails, and conversation requests.
Keeping track of your current first-degree LinkedIn network. Actually reviewing your connections with your goals in mind keeps you from wasting time courting those you don’t know or who aren’t appropriate to your goals. By analyzing your actual connections small business owners on LinkedIn can determine their next steps such as following:
a) Are a high percentage of your connections, desired and worthy of your attention? If not, proactively begin changing that with who you invite and accept.
b) Which first-degree connections have you not spoken or interacted with? When a high percentage of first-degree contacts are unknown to you (and are also a desired contact), begin reaching out to a certain number per week for conversations.
2) Not creating a cohesive, concise and complete LinkedIn profile for both SEO and prospects.
Create a summary that makes clear who you work with, what you offer according to the needs of your prospects, and why they need to work with you, in under 300 words.
Give that profile an identity (and help others recognize you) with a pleasant business photo.
Create a headline stating who you work with, and the top benefit you bring your clients. For example, instead of the headline, “highly experienced CPA,” say “Helping business owners swiftly complete and keep more of their taxes."
3) Weekly random vs. planned actions on LinkedIn, due to not setting goals (strategic) and not determining how (tactics) they will reach those goals.
Yes, you want more clients...What are the steps on LinkedIn leading to more clients? Determine those steps based on your current marketing activities and ideal clients, for example:
a) When you do lots of in-person local networking, show that with LinkedIn Events, send event suggestions to your network and talk about those events on your status updates.
b) Do you have an active blog or electronic newsletter? Use that content for updates, "share" links to that content with your LinkedIn groups, and promote your newsletter on your Profile.
c) Speakers, promote your engagements on LinkedIn events, put PowerPoint slides on your profile and seek testimonials of your speaking for your profile.
Establish and complete a list of weekly LinkedIn tasks and track the results of those tasks, each month.
Recognize that being on LinkedIn doesn't lead to business…Meetings and conversations deriving from LinkedIn lead to business. With that in mind, encourage that next “let’s talk” step with your actions on LinkedIn, whether you're in groups, accepting invitations or posting status updates.
Recently I met with Dan Marshall, the President of email management software firm ListRocket to learn more about their product. In this video Dan and I discuss the benefits of using an email list management product like ListRocket and Dan reviews some of the more unique features of ListRocket, including the integration of social media management tools.
A couple of the cool features of ListRocket are the ability to post messages directly to social media platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn from the tool and track the interactions with the message via an IP-based geographical map so users can easily see where in the world their respondents are.
There are multiple pricing levels based on the volume of messages sent in a month and free trial accounts that enable a user to send up to 100 messages per month while testing out the system are available. To learn more or sign up for a free trial account visit http://www.listrocket.com
Here is a link to the video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR99Cq1juIQ
A couple of weeks ago I caught up with my friend Chuck Proudfit of Skillsource over breakfast and after our meal I interviewed Chuck.
In the interview, Chuck discussed one of his clients who has recently launched a social media effort for his business but has found it to be a big challenge. Not only is there the issue of managing the various social media accounts and finding the resources in time and manpower the commitment needs to be successful, but also how can small businesses measure the effectiveness of social media marketing when there were no goals established before "diving in"?
Here is the clip and a link to the video on YouTube:
Chuck's company Skillsource of Cincinnati was founded in 1995 and is a company of Business Builders committed to building sales, building profits and building people. Skillsource provides small business consulting including the design of comprehensive business plans that deliver compelling business results. To learn more visit www.skillsource.com or call Chuck at 513-459-7464.
Registration is now open for the second annual SummitUp event which this year will be held at the Sinclair Community College Ponitz Center in downtown Dayton.
This year SummitUp will feature keynotes from my old boss back in my PlanetFeedback.com days Pete Blackshaw, John Moore, Steve Lance and Brian Solis. There will also be breakout sessions on a variety of social media topics by local Cincinnati & Dayton social media experts including including Kevin Dugan, Kendra Ramirez, Michael Rubin, David Esrati, Debba Haupert and Krista Neher.
Not only will there be A TON of great social media content and networking opportunities, but also included are a continental breakfast, lunch AND books from 3 of the keynote speakers. The event is only $139 for members of the presenting organizations and $179 for non-members, so it is an event where you really do get a lot for the money.
I attended last year's event and thought it was excellent, so I am happy to promote this year's event and encourage folks to attend. Check out the schedule and other info at http://www.summitup.org/ and follow the Register Now link there to register.
A new media thought leader is speaking in Dayton next week and hopefully you can make this as it should be a really good presentation. I know I am really looking forward to it.
Former Forrester researcher, Founder of Altimeter Group and author of the Book Groundswell Charlene Li will be speaking on Thursday, May 13th at the National Composite Center in Kettering on the topic "Creating a Coherent Social Networking Strategy."
A couple of weeks ago after the Cincinnati AMA Interactive SIG at Web Media Tools I sat down with my friend Michelle Beckham-Corbin of C3: Creating Connections Consulting to have Michelle tell me about her social media consulting firm based in Cincinnati. Here is the video clip.
Recent Comments