Power Breakfast Series Draws 500+ Biz Leaders to Learn about Internet Marketing « Talk, Inc

Internet Marketing Services, Wilmington NC

Power Breakfast Series Draws 500+ Biz Leaders to Learn about Internet Marketing

March 18th, 2009 by Debbie Elliott

Greater Wilmington Business hit another homerun this morning with its Power Breakfast Series on Leveraging the Power of the Internet. More than 500 business leaders gathered to learn from six local business owners, myself included. Brett Martin, owner of Castle Branch; Fred Meyers, owner of Queensboro Shirt Company and Chip Mahan, owner of Live Oak Bank had compelling insights on how they have effectively used the Internet to grow their businesses.

Justin Queen of Blu Zeus and Mike Duncan of Sage Island brought the web developers’ perspective into the discussion. I spoke on the impact of Social Media on today’s business arena and how it is changing the balance of power in marketing communications and putting it into the hands of consumers and business people online.

If you weren’t able to attend, check Greater Wilmington Business’ website at www.wilmingtonbiz.net for an article detailing the discussion.

Some points on social media to remember:

Social media has changed the balance of power — people are using online technologies like Facebook, blogs, etc. to get the things they need from each other rather than from traditional institutions like corporations
Social media involves two primary elements — people and technology. Concentrate on the relationships first; technology second
If you’re thinking about adopting social media into your marketing mix, use the POST method (courtesy of Forrester Research): People, Objectives, Strategies and Technology.

PEOPLE — Understand where and if your customers are engaging in social media
OBJECTIVES - What are your goals?
STRATEGIES - Determine what methodologies to use to achieve your objectives
TECHNOLOGY - What applications should you use? Blog, Social Network? Wiki?

Social media is all about conversations with people. So keep people first and foremost in your planning. Who are your customers? Where are they online? What information is important to them? How do they like to access this information?

Thanks again to Greater Wilmington Business for hosting the series. Publisher Rob Kaiser and his entire staff have done a wonderful job with this quarterly series and I look forward to the next one. Every local business owner should try to attend. But sign up early. He’s sold out each breakfast!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 4:17 pm and is filed under Marketing, Public Relations, Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.