In a world where Twitter can tank the economy, LinkedIn can reveal your professional relevance, and Facebook can tell you what your customers care about, it’s clear that social media has major implications for small business owners, who have little margin for error when it comes to making real-time decisions about their business. And yet, they are the segment of the economy least able to spend time digging through the growing body of information for instructions on how to use social media effectively. That’s where Ric Dragon comes in.
Dragon has made a name for himself with small business owners for the common sense approach he brings to organizing the various types of social media, a process he likens to “cat-herding.”
Dragon advocates creating a whole-systems approach to social media, by taking a look at your company’s goals, and then creating a voice that will influence your customers. In his book Social Marketology (McGraw-Hill 2012) he lays out a step-by-step process that will turn any mom-and-pop shop into a consummate social media strategist, and he will offer this same information at next week’s “Local Lift,” a training and networking event taking place May 22, 2013 at the TEC-SMART Facility in Malta.
Hosted by Local First of the Capital Region, Local Lift will include training seminars, workshops, and one-on-one consulting services, designed around member needs. This year’s event will offer special focus on social media, because small businesses in the region have expressed so much confusion about how to do it right. The event will include a specially designed track Strategy & Marketing, as well as tracks on Finance & Insurance and Business Planning & Sustainability.
Designed to answer social media and technology questions, the Strategy & Marketing track will also include Shem Cohen, Principal of Change Events, Inc. (www.changeevents.com), Robert Jake Gibbs, CEO of Imaginer Communications (www.imaginerny.com), and Wendy Kahn, Account Executive at WTEN. The track will be rounded out by Val Balga, co-founder of GoToGuide.net who will provide a hands-on Facebook and Twitter lab.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013 from 9am-3pm at Hudson Valley Community College’s TEC-SMART, 345 Hermes Road, Malta, NY. For more information or to register, please visit our website: www.locallift.org Tickets are $25 in advance, $35 at the door, and $10 for students. Lunch included.
Local First of the Capital Region is a 501c6 nonprofit organization in Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga, and Schenectady Counties in New York State. Our members and supporters are committed to building a strong locally owned, independent sector of the economy. We work actively to ensure the participation of businesses from all neighborhoods and communities in the Capital District. Local First is an affiliate of BALLE and AMIBA.
