Several attendees requested a copy of my slide presentation, so I’ve posted it here.  Thanks for inviting me!

Here’s what I have coming up:

September 24, 2009: Present on using Social Media for marketing at a workshop organized by the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Fredericksburg area Small Business Development Center (SBDC).  The workshop will be from 8:30am until 10:30am at the Stafford (Virginia) Campus of the University of Mary Washington.

October 1, 2009: Present at a meeting of the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce about using social media, social networking, and SEO for web marketing.  The presentation will be from 3:30pm until 5:30pm (with a reception to follow) at the Village Bank headquarters in Midlothian, VA.

October 8, 2009: Present on how to market your website at another workshop organized by the SBA and Fredericksburg SBDC.  The workshop will be from 8:30am until 10:30am at the Stafford (Virginia) Campus of the University of Mary Washington.

Keep an eye on this blog and my Twitter stream, as I expect to have registration details in the next few days.

If you’re interested in having me speak to your group about public relations, social media, SEO, or any number of other topics, please contact me!

• July 14: I’ll conduct a private workshop on using Facebook and Twitter at a local Realty firm
• July 22: I’ll teach two classes on this day for the Richmond Association of REALTORS®. At 10am, I’ll teach Facebook for beginners.  At 1pm, I’ll repeat last month’s class on Facebook and Twitter for REALTORS®.  More information will be posted in the coming days at the RAR education site.
• July 24: I’ll be manning a discussion table at the Strategic Leadership and Social Media for Social Good Conference at the University of Richmond’s Jepson School of Business.  The table topic will be podcasts and web videos.  The conference is for decision-makers in nonprofit and government organizations.  Registration information is available here.

I spoke this week at the July edition of the monthly New Media Seminars, organized by Advertising and New Media firm Madison + Main.  I recorded my portion of the half-day workshop, and included it in the latest episode of my small business advice podcast, Startup BizCast.  My topic was “How Social Media Changed Everything in PR”.

You can listen in the player below, or find out how to subscribe via iTunes, RSS, or other podcast directories by visiting the Startup BizCast blog.

The class will cover how REALTORS® can use Facebook and Twitter to find new clients, specifically those first time home buyers.  Social networking is showing immense growth among users who are more than 30 years old, but a large percentage of the users are still 20-somethings, an age group that is most likely to fall into that “first time home buyer” category.

Click here to download a PDF flyer about the class!

I’m very excited about this seminar, as REALTORS® are a natural fit for social networking. They’re salespeople, which means the successful ones have a lot of personality and know how to talk with people, which, after all, is what social networking is all about!

The seminar is on Wednesday, June 24 from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. at RAR’s Three Chopt Road location, and is open to everyone.  The cost is $25, or $10 for RAR members.  If you’re able to attend, please stop me afterward to say “hi!”

Registration and directions can be found on the TRES website (which I built) by clicking here!

Blatantly promotional note: If you’re interested in setting up a seminar for your employees or organization, please contact me! I’ve presented to numerous associations and other audiences on how businesses (non-profit and for profit) can utilize media relations, social media, and social networking.  I’d love to talk with you about what I can teach your group!

The seminar once again covered all things new media and social media, and how businesses can use these new tools to promote themselves. There were sessions that introduced the concept of social media, how to optimize your site for the search engines, and how to get noticed in the social media universe.  I reprised my earlier presentation on how social media has changed PR, and how it can be used as a PR tool.  That’s me in the picture, in the middle of talking about how social media has changed the way PR professionals build relationships with reporters.

Thanks to Dave Saunders (@madmain) and Madison+Main for inviting me.  The next iteration of the seminars will be held in Virginia Beach, so if you live in the Tidewater area, be sure to attend!

I’ve been talking about my speaking engagements quite a bit lately on this blog, to the point where I wonder if I should find somewhere else on the EndGame PR site to post the information!  The reason is that I’ve had an unprecedented number of opportunities to present at events lately.  It’s very exciting for me to be able to share information about social media and PR with business leaders and entrepreneurs.  Another of these opportunities is coming up later this month — the latest New Media Seminars!  I’ve been invited back by the event’s organizers, Madison+Main Advertising and New Media.

The New Media Seminars are a series of half-day workshops that cover everything related to social media, social networking, and even search engine optimization (SEO).  I will present on how social media and social networking have changed the face of PR forever.

The workshop is on May 26 from 10am until 2pm at the Holiday Inn Select – Koger Center.  For more information, visit the New Media Seminars website.

If you’re able to attend, stop by to say hello!

This time around, I pared down my presentation to include only social media, social networking, and SEO.  Based on the questions received the first time around, I think these are the topics that interested the group the most.  The majority of the questions I received were about SEO and how to use social networking sites.

I’d like to thank the SBA and SBDC for inviting me back.  I had a wonderful time!

On May 12, I’ll present as part of a workshop entitled E-Commerce In a Down Economy.  My talk will cover many of the same topics that I discussed in April, except I’ll skip the traditional PR tactics like media relations and focus more on social media and SEO.

The seminar runs from 8:30 a.m. until 10:30 a.m. at the Albemarle County Office Building.  Admission is FREE, but seating is limited to around 50, and those seats fill up fast.

For more information, check out this PDF document from the SBA.

My presentation was titled “How Social Media Changed Everything in PR”.  I discussed how things were done a decade ago in PR, and explained how to use the Social Media tactics that have come about to replace them.  Visitors of this blog will recognize the theme, as I wrote a blog post on a similar topic a little more than a month ago.

Thanks to Dave and Madison + Main for inviting me.  I not only enjoyed presenting, but I learned a few things at the same time!

PS – I have to apologize to Edward Baldwin, one of the attendees at today’s event.  I stole his line off of Twitter and used it for the headline of this blog post.  I loved it, so I had to take it. :)

My presentation today focused on strategies that small business owners can use, potentially without outside help, to promote their businesses.  These strategies included traditional media relations, SEO, social media, social networking, and blogger relations.  The response from the attendees was outstanding, and they had dozens of outstanding questions.  There were so many questions, in fact, that my hour-long presentation ended up taking an hour-and-a-half!

I’m told the feedback to the organizers after the event was outstanding, so much so that I’ve been asked to come back for an encore next month.  I’ll post more details on that as soon as I have them.

Thanks to Bob from the SBA and Nora from the SBDC for inviting me.  I had a great time!

I had a great time last night talking Twitter and Facebook with the Virginia Pro chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).  I was invited, along with Dave Park from Media General (that’s us in the picture — I’m the one in the tie), to visit their meeting at Capital Ale House to participate in a roundtable discussion on how journalists can use social media and social networking sites.

Here’s a minor recap of the discussion:

• Most of the journalists in attendance understand the value of using Twitter, Facebook, and blogging to promote their work and their media organizations, but the issue is time. With the cutbacks at media organizations, it’s hard to do the primary work that needs to be done.
• There’s a problem keeping your personal life on Facebook and (to a lesser extent) Twitter separate from your work life. My suggestion on Twitter is to have multiple accounts – one for work and one for personal. On Facebook, I think the solution is to create a page for your organization, and all reporters would have administrative priviledges so they can post news items there.
• There was a great deal of debate about citizen journalism, particularly when it comes to photos taken at breaking news scenes such as January’s plane crash into the Hudson River.  The first images from that scene were posted on Flickr and Twitter before ever being seen by the traditional media.  My opinion is that we can never again expect that the first images to come from a scene like that will be from professional journalists.  That day is gone. The role of traditional media in these cases will be to first acquire images and information from citizen journalists, and second to have a reporter and professional photojournalist on scene for more in-depth reporting and follow-up.
• There’s concern about how to manage posting “volume” on social networking sites.  There were some who worried about posting every single article from an organization on Facebook and/or Twitter and potentially irritating friends/followers with a flood of links.  I don’t think posting every single article is the answer. Breaking news and links to big stories should be posted, along with “inside” or “background” information on stories that were published that day or are about to be published.

I’d like to thank the SPJ chapter for inviting me. I had a great time and it was a great discussion.

Wednesday, April 22: Society of Professional Journalists (Virginia Pro Chapter)
I’ll be part of a roundtable discussion called “Tweeting the Future”, on how journalists and media outlets can better use social media.  More information is available in this calendar listing on Richmond.com. The discussion will be part of the organization’s monthly meeting, and is closed except to members and guests. If you’re an SPJ member or know someone who is, try to be there!

Location: Capital Ale House (623 East Main Street, Richmond VA)
Time: 7 p.m.

Tuesday, April 28: American Recovery & Entrepreneurship Workshops
Organized by the U.S. Small Business Administration and The Thomas Jefferson Partnership, along with the Central Virginia Small Business Development Center, this is the first in a series of seminars that focus on helping small businesses survive and thrive. The title of the seminar is “Marketing your Business in an Economic Downturn”. I’ll be discussing different PR and marketing strategies that small business owners can use, including traditional media relations and social media.  The seminar is FREE, but space is limited. For more information, call 434-295-8198.

Location: Albermarle County Office Building (1600 5th Street Extended , Charlottesville Va)
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.

Wednesday, April 29: New Media Seminars
I posted about this event previously. You can read more HERE.  To recap, this is the latest in a series of new media seminars organized by Madison+Main.  I’ll be discussing how social media has changed public relations in the last 10 years, and how businesses can use Social Media PR techniques. For more information, including registration and cost, visit the New Media Seminars website.  Registration closes on Friday, April 24!

Location: Holiday Inn — Koger Center (1021 Koger Center Boulevard, Richmond, VA)
Time: 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The seminar series is organized by Madison + Main, an advertising and new media firm that does great work.  If you’re able to make it, please stop by and say hi!

Here’s the pertinent information:

What: New Media Seminar – Richmond
When: April 29, 2009 from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.
Where: Holiday Inn Select – 1021 Koger Center Boulevard, Richmond, VA 23235
Visit the New Media Seminars site for more information and to purchase tickets

The day started with a luncheon where I was seated (I think intentionally) next to Karine Joly. Karine is a very interesting French Canadian woman who manages a blog about higher education and launched her own social networking site for college educators. We spent quite a while talking about my PR/SEO PR business, podcast production service, and Startup BizCast. We also discussed how she ended up in the US writing about US educational institutions.

After we’d eaten, we were treated to a presentation by Dan Heath, author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.” Karine was armed with her laptop and a video camera, and I didn’t take any notes at all. So, as you may guess, she’s able to blog a bit more coherently on what was said. I’ll send you over to her blog for more, in her post titled VCCS Conference: How to make your marketing messages and ad campaigns stick.

My speaking opportunity was in a breakout session called “Pitching Stories that Stick”. It was designed for the PR and public information officers in the group. I was part of a roundtable Q&A that included Andrea Burney from Danville Community College, Jennifer Wishon from the Richmond bureau of Roanoke, VA television station WDBJ, and Laura Bland, the online content coordinator for the Charlottesville Daily Progress newspaper.

Our discussion was supposed to cover how to pitch stories to the media, but while it covered that fairly well, we also wandered slightly off of the reservation (sort of my fault, but mostly directed by our moderator) to talk about how social media like blogging, podcasts, and vidcasts can be used to promote your institution.

The most interesting comment of the roundtable session was from Ms. Bland, who disagreed with my statement that one strategy for getting news coverage is to build personal relationships by meeting with reporters in your area. Ms. Bland said that at newspapers, since the beat system is dead/dying and reporters are so busy covering so many different stories, it’s pointless to ask for those kinds of meetings. She suggested instead talking to the managing editors. I didn’t argue with her during the session but I stand by my initial statement. In my experience, calling the managing editor of a larger newspaper isn’t going to get you very far. If you get a response at all, you’ll likely be directed to a section editor. Additionally, while dealing with editors can be useful, there’s nothing like having a reporter fighting to get some print for your story. It is more difficult to build relationships with the climate in newspaper newsrooms, but it’s still worthwhile. There is one case where I would call a managing editor — when you’re talking about a small community newspaper. At those publications, the managing editor is also a primary reporter.

To wrap up this long post, I want to thank VCCS for inviting me. I even enjoyed the two hour drive from Richmond to Staunton. I don’t get to see the Blue Ridge Mountains much anymore and, since I grew up looking at them from my front yard, I do miss them sometimes.