Alleviating Social Media Fears

Bill LaBerge and I attended the quarterly meeting of the Vermont Wood Manufacturers Association Friday.. It started at The Brandon Inn with the business meeting in the morning. From there we adjourned to the former Brandon training center for a tour of the design center and new woodshop of The McKernon Group, longtime luxury home builders in the area ... It was a very impressive facility and the people we met there were very friendly and informative ... They fed us a nice lunch and set us up for the real reason I went to the meeting.

The afternoon session featured a presentation by Rachel Carter, who owns a public relations firm in Charlotte, Vermont. Rachel's mission is to provide Vermont businesses with "individualized public relations programs encompassing the power of social media and the ingenuity of grassroots marketing." It was, overall, a fascinating and well done presentation. She started with the basics, LinkedIn and Facebook, and went on to cover things like blogging, search engines, free online listing and analysis sites and Twitter, the micro blogging site. I've resisted some of this stuff so far, but after listening to Rachel, I think I will sloooowly integrate as much of it as I can into my
online marketing program and see how it goes ... All it seems to take is time and some interest in the process. I already have a blog. I'm already personally on Facebook and I've had some fun with both of those ... LinkedIn ... I can do that ... Twitter??? The thought makes me kind of cringe a little, but I'll check it out and see what's up with that. Who knows. I think Bill Gates is Twittering now. My first computer had a 40 MB hard drive and cost $3500. We've come a long way from there ... Onward ...