Is social media working? “We have new people coming to events all the time, people who are not members or on any of our mailing lists. All of our sectors are growing as is SARTA’s membership. We are expanding beyond the Sacramento region,” says Laura Good, director of operations for the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance (SARTA).
One of Laura’s favorite stories illustrates her point. She recently tweeted about telemedicine. A CEO of a telemedicine start-up in Utah tweeted back. She and he began e-mailing. Laura introduced him to an angel investor. The angel investor put the CEO in touch with a telemedicine company in Sacramento and the two companies are now collaborating.
Laura Good is a textbook example of how to engage your company in social media. I needed to find out about SARTA. Finding SARTA’s website was no problem, but understanding the organization and its benefits to me was another matter. So I joined SARTA’s Facebook fan page and connected to SARTA on LinkedIn and Twitter. Within weeks, I became a member of SARTA, have attended numerous events, and made great connections. All because of Laura Good.
Laura’s first involvement in social media was many years ago with MySpace, connecting with classmates for a high school reunion. Then came Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Like all nonprofits, SARTA has limited funds … which meant no staff or budget for marketing. So Laura decided to see what she could do. Many status updates, posts, discussions, connections and tweets later, Laura is an expert in this arena, keeping members (the medical, technology, business and venture capital community) engaged, and SARTA’s website refreshed and up-to-date. How much time does she spend? Laura said she tried a lot of strategies, and what works best is devoting a half hour a day to social media.
There you have it: the textbook explanation of how to engage in social media. Thanks to Placemaking Group’s Sacramento PR Vice President, Jan Burch for this post.
Laura is director of operations for SARTA and in charge of its MedStart program and Leadership Series. If you are looking for a place to connect with young, vibrant companies check out SARTA’s web site, Facebook fan page or LinkedIn groups.
If you’re wanting to learn more about social media and marketing, Laura recommends attending the Sacramento Chapter of the Social Club. Check them out on LinkedIn or Facebook.
This does show that social media is helpful, because the majority of people around the world use some form of communication on the internet each day, that it has become the most central location to get in touch with people. Although, I have heard recently that there are viruses that facebook and twitter users should be concerned about obtaining. So, is this something that social media users should think twice about before reaching out their company on the internet?
WOW!!! Well this is amazing. This was a great example about what you can do through the internet if you do things correctly. Now in society many people are using the web more frequently than ever so its great that company’s can promote their events/products/ services through the web in a more efficient and low cost way. It’s just great to see how people can built these business relationships by a single blog/discussion/status/ etc. I believe that going to the web and posting things is a great way to advertise because many people look at it and they can respond instantly to something that grabs their attention.It’s the best method to get your service/product/cause/business/ etc around the world.
this article is very interesting in that it shows how helpful social media is and can be. I also find that a large amount of people rely on and use social media and other informational websites on a daily basis.
i am only a facebook user but like twitter and myspace, facebook allows its users to constantly update their status’ as a way to inform their friends and others of what is going on in their lives or in their company. I can’t even imagine my life without social medias because i find that i rely so heavily on social media on a personal and social level.
So as i just mentioned on the previous comment, it seems that Laura Good has been using Social media and she seems to be doing good in life with that. I’m one of those people that relies on social media so this is definitely be beneficial on my part. Social Media is definitely is a step forward into succeeding in the world someday. Great stuff!
Melissa–all online activity exposes us to the possible threat of viruses. With applications like Twitter & Facebook, the most common type of threat is a “phishing scam” — a communication that tricks you into going to another site via a link and then cons you into giving up your credentials (user ID & password). Anyone using the internet needs to be aware and alert of viruses, worms, phishing scams. My personal opinion is that Facebook & Twitter pose the same level of threat as email, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t still leverage them as a communication tool.