Social Media Event

As a follow up to the Social Media in Small Business blurb I sent out earlier. Click here. It was a great evening of discussion, thought and questions.  We want to first thank Women in Design for organizing the event to fit in along with the rest of Architecture Week for AIAHR. Also for Hudson's Building Boutique for being host for the event. There were approximately 50 in attendance to hear just a bit about the benefits of social media marketing and how they can become involved in better utilizing the tools that are already in place out there.

Patrick Matterson with AECOM started off the discussion by presenting a video on social media and its growth in the marketing industry showing how dynamic and important it can be for your businesses. He was the moderator for the panel.

Pratik Kothari from Techark Solutions spoke on the use of mobile apps and how the community is more and more turning to mobile devices over PCs or Macs. The community is on the move and solicits information accordingly. When asked in the audience who had a smart phone nearly everyone raised their hands.

Andrew Craven with Lyall Design Architects spoke about the interaction with certain custom Facebook uses requiring interaction and feedback by others. The interaction with all types of social media has been the essence of what "social" is all about. The sharing and borrowing information from others freely.

Eugene Thompson with Ionic DeZign Studios spoke on the use of blogging for the small business and how even the basic writer can utilize the simple blog platforms to reach many of the audiences out there. By combining the other venues such as Linked-in, Facebook, Twitter etc. one article can become a full broadcast ultimately being recognized during Google searches.

LaTonya Whitaker with H&A Architects and Engineers out of Richmond expressed her ideas of utilizing the social media to track and follow the trends that are surfacing by examining Google Analytics. The information provided on the Internet can create opportunities for business when seeing what possibilities are occurring and the return on good content.  Nothing replaces good content.

The event seemed successful and hopefully encouraged others to find their tools within the social media realm to further their connections and advance their uses of social media to create an awareness of themselves, their firms and their products or services. Should anyone have questions for any of us, we hope you will contact us and share your thoughts.