Story from the Wilmington Star News
Last night I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of fascinating ladies about social media. I joined Judy Royal, a columnist and regional reporter here at the StarNews, and Gayle Tabor, co-owner of Glynne’s Soaps and owner of BizBuzzSocial, in speaking about trends in social media and why these business women might find social media tools useful.
The group is called Island Women in Business and is for business women who work, play or live on Pleasure Island (Carolina Beach, Kure Beach and Fort Fisher). It’s a networking group that is structured with a speaker at each event and focused on developing business skills. Most of the women in attendance had used Facebook somewhat – and some even used Twitter – but they were still trying to grasp why they needed social media to promote their businesses and what social media tools can do for them.
Gayle talked about how her business has been successful through social media. She operates her business online with a blog, Web site, Facebook fan page and Twitter. I like this point she made: People buy her product through her Web site, so her Web site is the most important part of her business. BUT her Web site wouldn’t see nearly as much traffic without her presence on social media sites. Her presence on Facebook and Twitter directly drive customers to her main site to purchase product. That’s her return on investing in social media.
Judy and I talked about the basics of how these sites function. It might be a good idea to do a follow-up one-on-one session with people who aren’t familiar with social networking sites but want to learn. We talked about how to find other local people and build an audience on social networking sites. We also talked about how the StarNews uses social media in reporting and newsgathering.
Thanks again to the Island Women in Business group for having us. If anyone is interested in joining this great networking and business development group, visit the Facebook grouphere for more information.
Oh, and Gayle stuck around for a little longer to show some of the ladies some tips and tricks.
Here’s a photo of her (far right) talking about social networking sites
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