The St. Louis Innovation Camp offered five different tracks including Innovation, Start-up Management, Start-up Tech, Funding and Marketing. The marketing classes focused on traditional media with a heavier leaning towards new media. The participants seemed to be all a-twitter about social networking in particular, and that was further evidenced by the fact that the winner of the Innovator’s Cup was Ryan and David Bell for their company Twaitter @twaitter, a site for managing Twitter accounts and posts. The focus revolved around:
Customer Service as Marketing by Dan Curran @manvsagency
Managing Your Online Presence by David Strom @dstrom
Marketing Blocking and Tackling by Wes Morgan @wesmorgan
Driving Adoption by Viral Loops by Josh Jeffryes @jjeffryes
Using Social Media to Find Jobs and Employees by Mark Cummata @triumphcio
Creating a Winning Social Media Strategy by Scott Bishop @thescottbishop
Shine On by Dixie Gillaspie @dixiedynamite
Here is my takeaway from the engaging presentations:
- Traditional media still has an important role to play in marketing
- Sales tend to increase when customers can interact with businesses
- It’s essential to narrow social networking to the most effective tools
- Social metrics go up when content loops from and to the originator
- Building synergistic relationships is about connecting online and off
- It’s all trial and error
NEXT: The Wander of Innovation – St. Louis Innovation Camp
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars. – Les Brown
Last week was networking on speed. One of the joys of living in a large metropolitan area is the choice of events that occur on a regular basis. On Tuesday, the GO! Network Entrepreneur group met at St. Patrick Center to focus on the valuable resources that are available to people who are interested in starting their own businesses. GO! Network @gonetworkstl was created with the purpose of helping people transition to their next opportunity in a career or start-up, and several members are on the fast track to entrepreneurial enterprises.
Araka was the meeting place for the Wednesday Lunch & Learn hosted by David Siteman Garland @therisetothetop. Between the tasty chicken wrap and a melt-in-your-mouth chocolate hazelnut bar, we heard about Business Secrets from Brad Beracha, owner of Araka @arakarestaurant and Miso @misolounge in Clayton. Mark Sawyier from OffCampus Media @offcampusmedia shared his Emerging Marketing Strategies for the New Consumer, and David presented a variety of options for Maximizing Online Video. That evening was a gathering at Miso Lounge for the new St. Louis Women in Media LinkedIn group started by Melody Meiners @CosmosGirl. The participants were treated with a lively, interactive panel discussion on the different ways social media is used in business.
I learned about most of these activities from social media posts on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The energy and excitement that is happening all around the St. Louis area is accelerating!
NEXT: St. Louis Innovation Camp Recap
There are no speed limits on the road to excellence. - David W. Johnson
