Social Media – the new way to do business

If facebook were a country, it would be the forth largest in the world. 1/3 of Amazon’s sales are for the Kindle. If a customer has a bad experience they can instantly tweet it to hundreds or thousands of followers – now that sounds like a powerful medium.

My boss is a big proponent for the power of social media and other applications for the Web. She sent me this moving video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

It’s amazing. With only 18% of TV commercials resulting in positive ROI I’m shocked companies continue spending millions on such an inferior media.

24 out of 25 major newspapers are seeing a major decline in readership. Here’s a thought for you – publish your paper to the Kindle!!!

Only a small handful of companies are even tracking what’s being said about their company on social media, much less using it to their advantage. Something needs to be done here. Use this recession to your advantage and step into the 21st century.

Finally, a conference I can afford.

A few weeks ago I finally found a conference I want to go to that I can afford. It’s called The Book Academy, a conference for writers & readers, here at UVU, and it only cost me $40! Plus it pays for breakfast & lunch! So many times I hear of a great conference that I would absolutely love to go to, but it costs upwards of $200 and more! I can’t believe what these people are charging. Are their costs really that high?

Anyway, this sounds like it will be a really great conference. Of course I wanted to go to about 3/4 of the available workshops, but obviously that’s not going to work. Luckily my boss is going to come too so we’re splitting up the list of workshops we want to go to and then exchanging notes afterwards. That way I can get the information from more workshops than I might otherwise. (I wish they’d sell or give the transcripts and presentations from all the workshops after the conference.)

Either way, this ought to be a great conference. I’m so glad I could go. I sure wish more conferences were affordable (okay, so the term affordable is subjective, but it takes much less to save up $40 compared to $200).