MarketingMel

Why should people care about social media? Allow me to introduce you to three real people whose stories bring social media marketing to life.

1- Making Money: Meet Laura

People are growing their businesses using social media.  Take Laura, the printer I met on twitter as an example. She runs VPG Printing in San Diego and she is both a printer and a graphic designer. Laura tells me that she gets 1 to 2 new customers per week (including me) through actively working her social media channels and connections. Her “USP” is that she provides excellent customer service and the warm “human” touch to all of her customers and she makes a point to thank people. She also has excellent quality work and charges a reasonable price. Through the relationships she forms using social media, Laura is building her business, one customer at a time

2-  Turning Negatives into Positives: Meet Eric

Eric the Charter Man makes a living rebuilding a brand. Eric tweets under the name UMatter2Charter from his office in St. Louis. Since February when he started reaching out to customers through twitter, online forums and discussion groups, he has seen Charter’s negative comments move to the positive column in significant numbers. (One of his success metrics is number of positive posts about his company.) Furthermore he’s added three more communications specialists to his staff in order to keep up with all of the social media work. Eric is using Social Media  to recreate the Charter brand, one customer at a time.

3- Finding a Job: Meet Allison

In this economy people are reaching out to old friends and making new ones in order to expand their job networks. Allison, one of my former MBA school colleagues, connected with me on LinkedIn right about the time I became aware of a marketing position opening at a local tech firm. Allison had all the right credentials and she’s now been happily on the job for a year. Using social media she reached out to her school colleagues, one friend at a time.

Three real stories from three real people who are thriving using the new social media marketing model. What’s your story? How have you successfully used Social Media Marketing?

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Josh Smith, WJHL-TV

Many, many thanks to Josh Smith, anchorman at WJHL-TV for his resounding endorsement of me as a social media and personal branding thought leader. He titles his blog post “Social Media Love or Hate.”  Josh is exactly right that social media is about connecting with people on a personal level. In Josh’s case, even viewers who have never met him feel like they know him because  he visits their living rooms each day. (You’re at the Miller residence every morning on the big screen Josh!)

Yesterday I met with David Cate of  the Kingsport Times News online publication, GoTriCities.  We both envisioned a time when e-mail will go away altogether. (We can only hope, right?)  That’s because there are now faster, more efficient ways to connect with people. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are three good examples.

Today one on one connections and conversations along with genuineness and authenticity are the ingredients of true communications. Gone is the corporate wall.  To paraphrase President Reagan, “Tear Down that wall Mr. CEO!”  People want to connect with people.  It’s that simple.

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The following is the invitation sent out by the Tri-Cities Ad Club for their upcoming luncheon. Looking forward to being on the same tag team with David Cate! (BTW, if David can have snow capped mountains behind him, I can be at the beach!)

“Join us for a one-two-punch luncheon, featuring two speakers who will talk about using social media marketing strategies in today’s online world. David Cate, the Interactive Media Director for Kingsport Publishing Corporation and The GoTriCities Network, will share how GoTriCities is captivating an audience that includes more than 250,000 unique visitors each month and reveal the results of this strategy that is re-shaping the business and social culture in the Tri-Cities.

Mary Ellen Miller, MBA, president and CEO of MarketingMel, will address ways to grow your brand using social media, including twitter.

Thursday, May 21, 2009 Lunch – 11:45 a.m.; Presentation – 12 p.m.; Networking – 1 p.m. Bank of Tennessee 100 Med Tech Pkwy, 3rd Floor Johnson City, Tennessee

RSVP to Sarah Clevinger at sclevinger(at)bankoftennessee.com by May 15. This event is free for members; $25 for non-members, and $10 for students. Please remember if you RSVP and cannot attend, send someone in your place. Non-members will be charged $25 to cover the cost of food.”

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Dave Hogan and Carl Swann

Many thanks to Carl Swann, Dave Hogan and Bob Lawrence for the lively conversation about social media this morning on AM 910 WJCW Tri-Cities Talk Radio. In case you missed the show, which is called “Thinking out Loud,”  here is the podcast. We compared and discussed LinkedIn, Facebook and twitter with a little MySpace thrown in as well for the music lovers.

I love the medium of radio. It’s where I began my professional communications career and I always feel at home on the air.  My first station was WENY Elmira/Horseheads, NY. The station was in an old house and garage combo. Radio-in the house, TV-in the garage. We used to dust the snow from our lapels as we ran from one medium to the other. But it was always live radio that inspired the most creativity. You had to paint word pictures, just as we did today.

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