Entries Tagged 'SMB Tech Valley' ↓

Social Media Breakfast continues to grow rapidly in New York’s Tech Valley (Albany, Schenectady, Troy, Saratoga Springs). The fourth breakfast is scheduled for Dec. 4 and all 150 seats were filled within a few days of registration opening.

December’s event features a panel on Building a Successful Blog. Panelists will discuss what makes a blog successful, when/if ghostwriting is appropriate, how to attract readers to a blog, what kind of content to write about, whether a blog is right for every organization and where blogging fits into an overall social media strategy.

The panel consists of:

Lara Kulpa, Ginkgo Consulting

Lara Kulpa is a displaced zookeeper. No, really… that’s what she went to college for. However, she’s had an affinity for computers, programming and design since her first Commodore 64. She held positions at two internet marketing firms before launching her solo career. Blogging since before they called it that, Lara now owns Ginkgo Consulting, a web development company. One of her largest clients is Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net. Lara and Darren have been working together for nearly three years. She’s the community admin for ProBlogger.com, a membership community geared towards bloggers of all experience levels, that just launched at the end of September 2009. Lara is also the Assistant Editor for TwiTip.com, a blog by Darren about Twitter tips, tricks, and tools.

Christina Gleason, Phenomenal Content

Christina Gleason is a copywriter, blogger, and founder of Phenomenal Content LLC. Phenomenal Content provides quality Web content for businesses both large and small. As a former Google quality rater, Christina ensures that all content written for her clients follows ethical SEO standards to serve the needs of the end user, her clients’ potential customers. For her own part, Christina is also a member of the mommy blogging community with Cutest Kid Ever. Christina and her staff of phenomenal writers provide a variety of businesses with ghostwritten blog posts each month. She will discuss the risks and benefits associated with hiring a ghost blogger for your organization as well as how to hire a blogger.

Amanda Magee, Trampoline Design Studio

Amanda Magee is a founding member of Trampoline Design, an 8-person marketing and communications agency in Glens Falls, New York. She came to the social media arena by seeking scrapbooking asylum back in 2004 as a new mom. Five years and two kids later, she juggles personal and professional blogs, company tweets and everything in between.

SMBTV #4 will be held at the American Red Cross of Northeastern New York headquarters building on Everett Road in Albany. We’re also coordinating a blood drive in conjunction with this event.

Greg Dahlmann, Uptown/Downtown Media

Greg Dahlmann is the co-founder of All Over Albany, a daily site focused on conversational information about the Capital Region. Before starting AOA he was a health and science reporter for public radio.

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Thank you to our sponsor, The College of Saint Rose Communications Department, for making SMBTV #4 possible, and to Annmarie Lanesey of MZA Multimedia for providing live-streaming services.

For more on SMBTV, join the Facebook group or follow @smbtv on Twitter. Sign-up for the waiting list should seats become available, or join us on UStream Dec. 4 at 8 a.m. ET to watch the event!

Social Media Breakfast continues to grow in New York’s Capital Region. The next event is scheduled for Friday, October 30, 2009 from 8 a.m – 10 a.m. at Sunmark Federal Credit Union headquarters in Latham. The event is FREE, thanks to sponsorship from readMedia and bagels from 99.5 The River, but attendees must register as seats are limited.

Social Media Measurement: The Why and How

Featuring guest speaker Aaron Newman of Techrigy, an Alterian Company

Aaron Newman founded Techrigy in Rochester, N.Y. Its software product, SM2, monitors social media conversations and provides visibility to what people are saying about brands and companies on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and more. SM2 has been recognized by Mashable, TechCrunch, and Forrester Research as one of the leading social media monitoring services available. Techrigy was acquired by Alterian in July of this year.

Aaron will talk to our group about why social media measurement is important and how to do it effectively. He’ll discuss the differences between monitoring, measurement and analysis and the distinction between qualitative and quantitative measures of social media. Aaron will also share strategies around getting the most value out of social media participation for your organization.

The event will be live-streamed online courtesy of MZA Multimedia.

Sponsorship

Easy, effective press-release distribution to get your hyper-local content to exactly the right media outlets. Be Newsworthy.

About SMBTV

Social Media Breakfast Tech Valley is organized by Amy Mengel. Follow @smbtv on Twitter for updates or join the Facebook group. Twitter hashtag: #smbtv.

More than 80 participants filled the Capital Repertory Theater in downtown Albany last Friday, August 28, for the area’s second Social Media Breakfast. Justin Levy was the featured speaker and shared a social media case study, detailing how he used social media to increase revenues at his restaurant, Caminito Argentinian Steakhouse. Levy also shared several examples from his work at New Marketing Labs.

The theater provided a fun, intimate venue for SMBTV and the hair salon set of the group’s current production, Shear Madness, served as probably the most unique backdrop for a social media breakfast:

Justin spoke about the importance of listening to customers and monitoring what’s being said about your organization online. He described how he’s interacted with restaurant customers via Twitter to make sure they were having an exceptional experience. Justin also detailed how he launched and grew the Prime Cuts blog and why he chose to create a more general, cooking-focused blog than one that merely recapped the goings-on at the restaurant.

During the Q&A session, moderated by Amy Mengel, attendees asked Justin for his thoughts on ghost-blogging, managing blog comments, tools for measuring and monitoring social media mentions and what’s the right balance of platforms and tools for an organization to use.

Check the Twitter transcript to catch attendees’ impressions of SMBTV. The event was streamed live thanks to MZA Multimedia (archived recording can be found here). Our sponsor was once again SUNY Cobleskill.

Tech Valley’s next Social Media Breakfast will likely be in October. Follow @smbtv for details and join the Facebook Group for pictures and recaps of the event.

New York’s Tech Valley (Albany, Schenectady, Troy, Saratoga Springs) will hold its second Social Media Breakfast on Friday, August 28, 2009 from 8 a.m – 10 a.m. at Capital Reperatory Theater in downtown Albany. The event is sponsored by SUNY Cobleskill. Registration is required as seats are limited.

Social Media Case Study:
The what, how and why of a social media campaign

Featuring guest speaker Justin R. Levy of Caminito Argentinian Steakhouse and New Marketing Labs.

Justin R. Levy lives and breathes social media. (Seriously. He got married earlier this year and live-tweeted his own wedding!) Justin is the general manager of New Marketing Labs, a new media agency and home to the Inbound Marketing Summit, Inbound Marketing Bootcamp and other educational events.

Levy is also a partner and general manager of Caminit0 Argentinian Steakhouse in Northampton, Mass. After buying into Caminito, Justin immediately cut the traditional marketing budget by approximately 80 percent and began implementing a social media strategy he had developed. Prior to this the restaurant was barely profitable. Immediately following the implementation of his social media strategy, Justin began to see sales steadily increase at a rate of 22-35 percent each month over the same month in 2007. Other accomplishments included obtaining over 7,500 results in Google for the restaurant in just an eight-month period and five positive reviews from food critics.

Justin will share his success story with us at Social Media Breakfast. He’ll break down the social media tactics he used, which include blogging, Yelp and YouTube, and walk through how he has integrated them into the restaurant’s overall operating strategy – and how he measures the results! Justin will present for about an hour and then take questions from the audience for the second half of the event.

The breakfast will be held at the Capital Repertory Theater (@CapitalRepNY). All in attendance will be entered into a drawing to win a pair of tickets to Capital Rep’s current production, Shear Madness.

Sponsorship

SMB-TV #1 is generously sponsored by SUNY Cobleskill – interdisciplinary and experiential learning at a polytechnic college that produces informed and empowered graduates who are responsibly engaged global citizens.

Social Media Breakfast was brought to Tech Valley in 2009 by Amy Mengel.

New York’s Tech Valley (Albany, Schenectady, Troy, Saratoga Springs) held its inaugural Social Media Breakfast on Friday, June 19, where more than 60 social media enthusiasts gathered to learn from a panel of talented speakers. The discussion was moderated by Amy Mengel and featured Mike Germano of Carrot Creative, Rhea Drysdale from Outspoken Media and Stuart Foster from The Lost Jacket.

View from the panelist's table, from Mike Germano

The conversation focused on creative ways of using different social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, strategies for promoting local businesses through social media, and discussing the potential of mobile apps in reaching audiences. Attendees came from a variety of backgrounds, including higher education, state government, software, travel and hospitality, PR and advertising agencies, law and theater. Many attendees live-tweeted the event with the #smbtv hashtag (transcript here).

Generous sponsorship from AllOverAlbany.com and SUNY Cobleskill made the event possible. The event drew a huge amount of interest and the available seats were sold-old in under three days. A larger venue is in the works for the second event, which will be held in August. Those interested in attending are encouraged to follow @smbtv on Twitter or join the Facebook group for updates. You can also contact SMB-TV founder Amy Mengel if you have questions, ideas, speaker opportunities or potential venues for future Social Media Breakfasts in Tech Valley.