Speaking Social Strategy

I am honored to be speaking at two business organizations and teaching several classes on social media marketing strategy for SF State University’s College of Extended Learning’s Social Media Marketing Program over the next month. If you’re looking to learn a little more about social media marketing and how to develop a winning strategy, I hope you’ll consider joining me at one of the following events:

On Tuesday, May 22, I speak at the NorCal BMA, Business Marketing Association’s Marketing Roundtable in Palo Alto. The topic is Strategic Thinking for Social Media Marketing and should start your Tuesday off nicely since it will be jam-packed with juicy worms for those early birds.

The Introduction to Social Media Marketing: The Power of Community class starts on June 4th and usually sells out, so make sure you register soon. The classes are on the evening of Monday June 4th and June 11th and all day on Saturday June 16th. We cover social media marketing basics, what it means to be a community manager, developing your social media strategy and successful and failed implementations of social media marketing.  This class is part of the Social Media Marketing Certificate program and is the kick-off course for students seeking a certificate, but it’s most definitely open to everyone.

On Thursday June 7th I will be presenting at WIC (Women In Consulting).  This is a four-hour workshop on how to Master the Art of  Strategic Social Media Marketing for consultants marketing their own businesses as well as marketing consultants, implementing marketing strategy for their clients. I’m excited to be collaborating with Women In Consulting as the organization has several veteran marketers and consultant members and is a great opportunity for in person social networking.

On Wednesday June 13th, we kick off the Social Media Marketing Intensive: Strategies, Campaigns and Measurement at SF State’s downtown campus in San Francisco. This is a three-day workshop including Day 1: Strategic Social Media Marketing, Day 2: Social Media Campaigns: Best Practices, and Day 3: Social Media Metrics and Performance Measurement. I teach Day 1 and the supremely talented and my co-advisor of the Social Media Marketing program, Avery Horzewski is teaching Day 2. Then we tag-teach the Measurement class on Day 3. It should be a fun and collaborative intensive lens into social media marketing, how to develop your strategy, campaign building best practices and tips for measuring your social media marketing efforts for constant improvement.

I’m very excited to have all of these engagements and looking forward to discussing ways to keep your audiences engaged. Since the topic is social media, it’s sure to be fun for all and well, super social.

Are you planning to attend any of the presentations or classes? If so, do you have anything specific you are hoping to learn? Please let us know by commenting below. Thanks!

Social Media Marketing Certificate Program

I’m very honored to be on the faculty with several highly accomplished people in the new Social Media Marketing Certificate Program that is starting next week at SF State’s College of Extended Learning. I planted the seed for this program two years ago and worked with Linda Popky of Leverage 2 Market and Lauren Vanett of SF State to get it going, so I’m very excited about the launch.

I’m teaching the intro course which is Introduction to Social Media: The Power of Community,  followed by George Kao‘s tools class called: Masting Social Media: 3 Essential Tools for the Business Professional in which students will understand how to use these three tools for effective business networking online. This course will greatly benefit small business owners, life and business coaches, independent business and marketing consultants, authors and speakers.  George is an excellent business and marketing coach with a track record for empowering people on the best tools and strategies in social media.

Then in March, Avery Horzewski of Ave Consulting will be teaching Engaging Your Community: Creating an Effective Social Media Campaign in which students will learn learn the essential do’s and don’ts for planning and executing effective social media campaigns that keep your community engaged and committed. Avery is also the president of Women in Consulting and Program Advisor for the SF State Social Media Program. She regularly speaks on social media, its impact on business, and implementation best practices and has a very impressive client list.

Our Social Media in the Real World: Successful Applications of Social Media Strategies will be taught by Jennifer Neely Lindsay of The A-List fame on Blogtalkradio in between visits to the middle east for training sessions she has scheduled there. Jennifer’s course will provide a closer look at the strategies and planning used by effective social media practitioners within organizations. Case studies and hands-on projects will reveal which strategies are most effective and why. You’ll learn to think strategically and adjust your plan to changes in the community conversation.

In the summer, we’ll be adding a Mobile Social course about social media marketing on mobile devices taught by Mario Tapia of Mobile Mondays Silicon Valley, as well as a capstone course with Linda Popky of Leverage 2 Market Associates titled Integrating Social Media into the Overall Marketing Strategy.

Our goal is to provide participants with a foundation in the new evolving world of social media tools and strategies that they can immediately apply in the workplace. It is sure to be fun and I’m excited to learn a lot from the students too.

For more information please visit the Social Media Marketing course pages.

For the Joy of Teaching

Last night I taught a Marketing with Search Engines class for Classes for Causes.  The class was held to benefit Symphony Parnassus and I raised $64 for the orchestra.  Classes for Causes is a non-profit dedicated to connecting people to raise money and awareness for various causes through teaching and learning.  Anyone can teach a class about anything they want and the money they earn in tuition is donated to the charity of the instructor’s choice.

There were just two students, so it was very intimate and actually just perfect.  Most people would cancel or postpone a class if only two people signed up, but not me, I guess I just love the experience of teaching too much.  It was such a pleasure to have time for each student to participate, ask as many questions as they wanted and really understand the concepts of the subject.  Teaching that way is a lot more like consulting than giving a lecture.  It’s a conversation which sparks ideas and nurtures the learning process.  When learning is fun, you learn more and digestion of the knowledge is easier.

I am extrememly grateful for the interest my students have in the subject matter and confidence in my ability to help them learn.  It is an honor to teach and a pleasure to learn from my students.  Thank you Aimee and Brian.  I can’t wait to see what you do with your new found Marketing with Search knowledge.

Being a Teacher Means
Being a Student

I am teaching my Internet Marketing Now: New Tools and Trends class at San Francisco State University’s College of Extended Learning in the Integrated Marketing Program.  (If that is not a mouthful I don’t know what is.) The course name is soon to be changed to Social Media and More because since it began a couple of years ago the material has morphed into being more social media than anything else, because that is what is most popular online today.

When you work on the Internet, the trends change so rapidly that was “it” six months ago is now “old” and the new is really H O T, “hot”!

I watched a rather long video today from a marketer I have stumbled upon before on Twitter called Jonathan Bud.  He is certainly confident, exudes confidence and loves himself, and that is all totally fine.  There is nothing wrong with it.  You may want to hate him for it, but you can’t, because he just seems so genuine.

One of the things he says near the end of the video is to become a master marketer, you must become a student of marketing.  Follow other marketers, make note of what they do, study successful marketing campaigns and case studies and have lots of fun with it.  I like to study other marketers and really admire people like Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, Rand Fishkin, Danny Sullivan and more.  There is always something to learn and I feel like I am a perpetual student.

This is humbling and I also learn from my students when I teach.  One of the assignments in the Internet Marketing Now: New Tools and Trends class is to blog everyday for the duration of the class.  I ask my students to do this and I promise to do it too.  It sounds easy, but it’s not as easy as it sounds.  The challenge is good and I believe the exercise helps students understand what being a blogger is like and what kinds of things you need to do to make it.  I am always inspired by my students with this exercise.  There are so many great writers out there and so much potential.  Follow your dreams.  Do what you want to do and don’t let anyone ever tell you you can’t, because by golly, if you believe you can, yes you CAN.