Several of our members went. I had the incredible honor of being on a panel with Dave Woodson, Steve Dalton, Cheryl Watterson, Duke Long, Amy Stark, and Will Hardison .

The two days spent in Indianapolis were worth every penny! It was  packed with people from all over talking, sharing, teaching, preaching, and in some cases, ranting. But we all walked away with smiles and a better understanding of our emerging fields.

One of the people I had the pleasure to meet, and was grateful to hear present was Douglas Karr:

Author of Corporate Blogging for Dummies, Founder of the Marketing Technology Blog, Co-Founder of Smaller Indiana. Douglas is an online marketing and technology expert with a couple decades of experience. His agency, DK New Media, was started a year ago and works with clients to grow their inbound marketing strategies and lower their acquisition and retention costs. Clients include the ChaCha, the Indinapolis Colts, HHGregg, Webtrends and many other companies.

He was funny, witty, charming, and packed full of knowledge. I spoke with him after his event when he was signing books. He recognized that I was affiliated with our club. He mentioned that he has been previously asked, but that the dates had not worked out. Well, we got out our planners and decided to give it another go!

 I am pleased to announce two things:

• Douglas Karr will be our next speaker for The Social Media Club of Evansville September 20^th.
• The “tweet-up” originally scheduled for that date is being moved to Sept 10^th and will be held at @GTPie

#SWeetUP

A BIG Thank you to John at the Grand Traverse Pie Company ( @GTPie )for hooking us up with a special:

A FREE Slice of PIE

(with the purchase of lunch and a drink)

Please RSVP if you plan to attend this informal, get together where you can take the relationships you have made online (and at the Social Media Club) and  make them stronger.

Building better relationships is, after all, one of the best parts of being online!

Brian Bennett is the owner of Social Life Marketing, a local social media company that represents over 40 local, Midwestern and national clients…with a Facebook fan base of over 150,000 people.

Brian graduated from the University of Southern Indiana with a degree in Advertising and PR. He was a director of advertising for a multi-state retailer and worked for AT&T Advertising for 10 years. He has received 5 national and 2 midwest awards for graphic design as well as 3 summer league men’s softball championship trophies.

Learn the ups and downs about social media, the do’s the don’ts and maybe a few secret tips of the trade about what your business should really be doing with social media. Come enjoy this one of a kind, dynamic  speaker and leave with a fresh approach to your social media presence.

We tried to bring Krista to you in May, but a travel snag prevented her from getting to Evansville on time, and she has graciously offered to join us for our July meeting.

Krista has over 10 years of marketing experience with 5 years of digital and social media marketing. Krista learned brand building at one of the world’s best marketers – P&G – where she worked on some of the biggest brand initiatives. After leaving P&G Krista was the VP of Marketing for internet start-up Photrade which effectively grew to 40,000 users 4 months after launch leveraging Social Media marketing. Krista is now the CEO of Boot Camp Digital, which specializes in social media and internet marketing consulting, training and execution.

Krista Neher is a sought after speaker due to her educational and informative style combined with her energy and enthusiasm. In addition to keynotes and public speaking opportunities, Krista is a trainer who has provided training to corporations and individuals including Fortune 500 companies. Krista also blogs at The Marketess, where she covers the marketing industry.

As we do every month, we’ll gather for a social mingle at 6PM upstairs at Ri Ra Irish Restaurant and Pub in Evansville, and the formal presentation will get underway at 6:30, wrapping up by 8PM. After that, some of us will move downstairs to enjoy company, and perhaps a meal. There is also table service during the meeting, so you don’t have to wait if it’s been a long stretch since lunchtime. Please register for this FREE event on EventBrite so that we can make sure enough seats are available. We’ll see you then!

Social media has changed our lives. It has not only changed the way we communicate, but the way we connect with one another, consume our news, conduct our work, organize our lives, and much more. So why not celebrate. This event is sponsored by Bar Louie

Step 1

Become a registered user on our website, http://smcevansville.org.

To Register you can visit the “MEMBERS” page and click the “Register” link at the top or click the “Register” link at the bottom of the right side column.

On the registration page you will be prompted for a username and and email address. Enter that information and click the “Register” button. Then a password will be emailed to the provided email address.

Step 2

Sign in to your profile on smcevansville.org.

Return to the website, after you receive your password via email, and sign in to your user profile. Enter your username and email address in the appropriate fields on the “User Login” section  and click Login. The “User Login” section is at the bottom of the right side column.

Step 3

Enter the social networking information you would like to share.

The info that is displayed in the members directory are the Website, Twitter Handle, Facebook URL, and LinkedIn URL fields.

The Website fields is located in the Contact Info grouping on your user profile page (as shown below)

The Twitter Handle, Facebook URL, and LinkedIn URL fields are located in the Extra profile information grouping (as shown below).

Once you have the desired information entered click the “Update Profile” button.

UPDATE

The avatar used on this website is pulled from gravatar.com. Please register at gravatar.com to link an avatar to your member profile on smcevansville.org.

That’s it! You information will now appear in the “MEMBERS” section of the website. Happy sharing to all!

What do pros really think?  How do they use it with their businesses?

Mark Monday, June 21, 6 p.m. RiRa’s on your calendar now for the Social Media Club of Evansville.  A panel of local pros who walk the walk, post the status, and tweet the Twitter will answer questions.

USI alum and active member of #smcedu, Brooks T. Cooper will moderate your questions to the panel.  You can Submit your questions now in 3 different ways:

-Comment on the blog post.

-Twitter question with #smcevv hashtag.

-Post the question on our Facebook wall.

Join the conversation! See you June 21!

Panel Member bios:

Saundra Hadley is an event engineer and owner of planning…forever events in Evansville, Indiana since 2003. Her team creates memorable, unique and the unexpected at weddings and corporate events in the Tri State area. She also gives wedding planning tips as the Fox 7 Wedding Planner on AM Evansville, a weekly segment since 2006.

Saundra has extensive knowledge regarding social media and online advertising and uses the power of the Internet to promote her business, brand and gain more clients. She has blogged since 2006 and uses Facebook, LinkedIn and twitter to network.@planningforever (over 4,000 followers) and @saundrahadley(for her sales training to event professionals).

Dave Huffman is currently the Inbound Marketing Strategist for the Ohio Illinois Center for Broadcasting where they have used social media to unite a community of students spread out over 6 campuses and 3 states and bring in a more informed ready to buy prospect, as well as pull in and nurture along some early funnel leads.

All told, Dave has used Social Media in a variety of sectors including  Entertainment, Broadcasting, and Education.  He also blogs regularly on business and marketing in the music industry at TheIndieLaunchPad.com.  Connect with Dave on Twitter @davemhuffman.

Dana Nelson is a social media strategist, consultant and trainer. She owns @DanaMNelson in Evansville, Indiana.  She is founding co-chair of the Social Media Club of Evansville, founding co-chair of Evansville Girl Geek Dinners, and founder of Linkedin to Learn.

She has used social media in her professional life to build the computer consulting company that she previously owned, to connect with the 4-H Technology club, and to help connect and build the community of Evansville as a whole.  She has help a number of local businesses both large and small develop and deploy social media policy, goals, and strategies. She speaks on the topic regularly at both public and private events, and conducts regular training on the best practices of social media. Her goal is to foster awareness of the power of social media to build stronger businesses and better communities, one relationship and conversation at a time. Connect with Dana on Twitter @DanaMNelson

As we do every month, we’ll gather for a social mingle at 6PM upstairs at Ri Ra Irish Restaurant and Pub in Evansville, and the formal presentation will get underway at 6:30, wrapping up by 8PM. After that, some of us will move downstairs to enjoy company, and perhaps a meal. There is also table service during the meeting, so you don’t have to wait if it’s been a long stretch since lunchtime.

Don’t forget to leave your questions!

Instead, we created a forum event where the topic of discussion was “Social Media and Privacy–Where Do You Draw the Line?” The discussion was engaging and active–sometimes hyper-active, and the result was at the end of the night, nobody was ready to stop talking. We stumbled upon a very good recipe for engaging the members at our meetings and a new format for some of our presentations.

Out of this meeting, expect to see a few changes in the club. We will continue to bring guest speakers to join us, and we will plan to bring Krista to Evansville as soon as we work out the date. But we’ll also develop more opportunities where you have a voice as well, and can share your insights through forums like last night’s meeting.

We will also add a Member’s area to the website, where those who would like to be listed can have their name, and social media accounts listed for connecting with others.

The last change will be a form on the website where you can submit topic ideas, questions, and comments about the meetings, that won’t be published automatically to the website. You can make suggestions or ask questions in private, or you can submit comments to posts here, on Twitter, or on Facebook. It’s your call.

Thank you to everyone who attended last night’s Social Media Club of Evansville event. It was a huge success, and in some ways, our best one yet!

Krista has over 10 years of marketing experience with 5 years of digital and social media marketing. Krista learned brand building at one of the world’s best marketers – P&G – where she worked on some of the biggest brand initiatives. After leaving P&G Krista was the VP of Marketing for internet start-up Photrade which effectively grew to 40,000 users 4 months after launch leveraging Social Media marketing. Krista is now the CEO of Boot Camp Digital, which specializes in social media and internet marketing consulting, training and execution.

Krista Neher is a sought after speaker due to her educational and informative style combined with her energy and enthusiasm. In addition to keynotes and public speaking opportunities, Krista is a trainer who has provided training to corporations and individuals including Fortune 500 companies. Krista also blogs at The Marketess, where she covers the marketing industry.

As we do every month, we’ll gather for a social mingle at 6PM upstairs at Ri Ra Irish Restaurant and Pub in Evansville, and the formal presentation will get underway at 6:30, wrapping up by 8PM. After that, some of us will move downstairs to enjoy company, and perhaps a meal. There is also table service during the meeting, so you don’t have to wait if it’s been a long stretch since lunchtime.  Please register for this FREE event on EventBrite so that we can make sure enough seats are available. We’ll see you then!

If you do, just let us know. On top of organizing our monthly meetups, the Social Media Club of Evansville wants to help promote the use of Social Media.

Send us a note and we’ll help spread the word through Social Media (what else?).  You can comment on our Blog or connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.