Blogs For Business

By now all of my readers should know that I attended a two day (by the time I was finished) social media event put on by the Phoenix, AZ Chapter of SCORE and well-attended by small business owners, curious about this social media revolution we seem to be in the midst of.

Day one of this informative seminar began with registration, networking and book signing, Ron Safko’s Social Media Bible or what soon was nicknamed by the attendees as, Everthing You Ever Wanted To Know About Social Media But Were Afraid To Ask or The 800- word  social media gorilla, whatever!  READ THIS BOOK! It’s a great way to get better acquainted with social media and it’s full of great information and resources and written in an easy to understand style.

What I didn’t know as I returned the following morning for day two’s one-on-one sessions was that today’s sessions would be even better than yesterday! This was the day that we would be able to speak to each panelist whose connection or company was represented at the event.

OMG, wait till you hear what I was able to accomplish at the one-on-one sessions today, my head is spinning. I’m
going to Ping this post out to all my social media accounts so I can share all the resources I gathered with my followers and friends online. I have some very talented friends out there and Brian at BlogEngage is just one of them. He hosts this blog on his own WordPress platform! If you want to engage with some talented and generous bloggers, his website is a good place to start.

I was more than happy to circle the room after the seminar was over to spread some LiveLuv (same principal as commentluv only a lot less effective),  to compliment the staff of the Phoenix Chapter of SCORE and all the wonderful, friendly and talented people at the East Valley Institute of Technology and congratulate them for pulling off one of the “best bang for my buck social media workshops that I have ever participated in.”

The SCORE people in Phoenix really GET the social media thing, and not only did they ace their presentation of a very tricky subject -  what can social media do for small business, but they pulled it off in the <em>very style they were advocating via their topic,  a style that we have become accustomed to, casual but honest, thanks to people like my friends at BlogEngage.

The presentation was conducted in a state-of -the art facility at the East Valley Institute of Technology in Mesa,
Arizona. It was a well-organized and well thought out presentation, professionally delivered but in a laid back
manner, and in a  manner conducive to learning. They were informative without being boring, and had I been an owner of a restaurant, a plumbing company, an insurance agent, realtor or ANY kind of retailer I would have rushed back to my office to try my hand at it before I forgot what I learned.

And why so excited you ask?, because somebody <em>finally</em> finally put on a program that offered definitive proof that social media works! Even better for me,  I discovered in the last two days that I am not alone, there are actually respected business people out there that are telling us, as small business owners,  hello! we NEED this stuff.

Social Media is legit now, there are still those people out there that have to tell us about their great workout or their cute puppy but more people, especially business people are discovering it as a great marketing tool. Social media marketing is such a hot a topic and deservedly so, people such as Carolyn Warner say so, and in Arizona that’s all the reason I need to run, not walk, to sign up for anything she feels will help the small business person.

As a small business person myself and one who has been blogging now for almost five years, I can understand the frustrations of business owners who feel already way too overloaded with so many daily tasks, they ask ‘how could I possibly take on any more?’  I built a website when they told me I had to and it didn’t do me much good, I don’t even know if I would know who I could call to make any updates! Sad isn’t it? Now I have to make a blog, then I have to take it out there and promote it, eeek!

Relax would ya, take a deep breath, let it out slowly and repeat after me, social media is good, it’s not as hard as you think it is and it will be around a long, long, time. So rest easy, take your time, think quality over quantity when you post an article and remember, we are all just lab rats in this experiment  in social media campaign, Arizona leads the charge.

So I am officially crediting this seminar for actually accomplishing what most can’t when the subject is social media and that is – I got it! Not only will I make the time to use social media, but I plan to enjoy it. I am chomping at the bit to explore all the killer resources I uncovered at this event, some you will shave the opportunity to try out yourself. They will be listed at the end of my post.

As a business owners, these social media event attendees can breathe a sigh of relief, they no longer have the feeling that the world is passing them by. No more lost sleep over thinking  each day they were losing the battle of keeping up with technology, now they are one of us.

Let’s ask SCORE to invite us all back next year for a follow up event. See where each of us has positioned our company the most effectively in the socialmediasphere! Lets hear some networking success stories .

Cont. on Monday