Clip: Social Studies

Metroland // 11.04.09 // Newsfront profiling the popular Social Media Breakfast – Tech Valley series

Breakfast series draws large audiences and attention to the topic of social media

SMB-TV is the brainchild of communications professional Amy Mengel

On the morning of Friday, Oct. 30, 150 people gathered at the Sunmark Federal Credit Union head office in Latham for the third event of the Social Media Breakfast—Tech Valley series. Attendees networked, ate bagels and compulsively updated their Twitter feeds. At this breakfast meeting, a Blackberry in one hand was as common as a cup of coffee in the other.

Social media is a term used to refer to social networking Web sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, as well as communication tools like blogs, search engines and forums.

The Social Media Breakfast series, founded by Bryan Person in Boston in 2007, was brought to the Capital Region this year by communications and public relations professional Amy Mengel. The first event was held in June, and since then the series has grown to become one of the most popular Social Media Breakfast series in the country, drawing people from a variety of industries.

“It seems like there’s been a real variety of backgrounds of people who have attended,” said Mengel. “We have people from state agencies, from small businesses, from academia, young professionals, old professionals, and they’re groups of people that may not necessarily have otherwise overlapped. It’s been really neat to see people who all have this interest in learning about social media but are from very diverse backgrounds get together at these events and network and share stories.”

Mengel said that she feels that there are a variety of reasons why the series has become so popular.

“I think that social media in general is a very popular topic right now as more companies and organizations begin to adopt social media internally, and as more people just start using social-media platforms personally,” she said. “I also think that there’s not really another event like it in this area. In some other cities where there are Social Media Breakfasts, there are also a lot of other similar events and conferences, and people have more to choose from.”

The grassroots popularity of the series is, in itself, a testament to the potential impact of social media.

“We’ve only promoted the event using social-media tools,” said Mengel. “I haven’t bought any advertising, and I haven’t really reached out, from a PR perspective, to traditional media channels. It’s promoted through Twitter, LinkedIn and we have a Facebook group, and the registration site that we use, EventBrite, allows for some integration with other social-media Web sites.”

The first event featured a more general overview of social media, while subsequent events have been more focused on specific aspects of social media. Mengel selects topics and panelists based on feedback from event attendees.

“After the second event, I sent out a survey to the attendees and the two topics that came back that people really wanted to hear about were social-media monitoring and measurement—which is why we had Aaron Newman last week—and also, how to build a successful blog, and how companies can use blogs.”

The next event, taking place on Dec. 4, will focus on blogging and will feature panelists Christina Gleason from Phenomenal Content, Lara Kulpa from Ginkgo Consulting, and Amanda Magee from Trampoline Design Studios, and will be moderated by Greg Dahlmann from All Over Albany.

“It’s easy to say ‘I wish we had this’ or ‘why don’t we have that here?’, and I really credit Amy for taking the initiative to do something about it,” said Dahlmann. “People are looking for answers, and I think a lot of people probably see something like this as an opportunity to get a better sense of what’s going on.”

The event will be sponsored by the communications department at the College of Saint Rose.

“Speaking for myself only, I have learned of many new Web sites and tools for using and analyzing social media and/or its effectiveness in particular communications/business situations” said Karen McGrath, a professor at Saint Rose who attends Social Media Breakfast events. “I have also been able to network with colleagues in the field and hope to continue to do so.”

Although the event is free, advanced registration is required, and it’s important to register early as previous events have sold out. Information about the series is available at smbtv.eventbrite.com.

Related posts:

1. Clip: Shoutin’ Rosebuds shout it out at Social Justice Center Professor Nester introducing students Mary Catherine Owen, Jonathan A....

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.