Social Media Marketing event to be held Thursday, March 25th at the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas benefiting scholarships for the College of Mass Communications at Texas Tech University, for the enrichment of young professionals and established business owners alike.

• Keynote Speaker Brett Tabke – CEO/Founder of Webmasterworld.com and the famous Pubcon internet marketing conferences.

• Nick Bombersbach, Director of Digital Marketing and Customer Experience for JCPenney, is responsible for developing and executing JCPenney’s digital and eCommerce strategy. Hear how JCPenney has found a way to effectively incorporate Social Media and Digital Marketing in their marketing strategy.

• Christi Day and Alice Wilson – Social Media specialists for Southwest Airlines who are in charge of the daily social media strategy for the airline.

• Tony Wright, with more than ten years of hands-on and strategic experience in interactive marketing and a background in traditional and interactive public relations and journalism, has spent his career building search engine marketing teams. Wright is a sought after speaker at industry events designed to create or enhance interactive advertising and search engine marketing.

• Sam Bradley, Ph.D., assistant professor of advertising is a front runner in Social Media Analysis whose research focuses on current trends in social media.
  

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• Tom Johnson, Ph.D., is the Formby Regents Professor in Convergent Media. Both professors will discuss the importance of integrating social media trends into classroom instruction and conducting analytical research of the effects of social media.

Event Costs (proceeds benefit scholarships for the College of Mass Communications at Texas Tech University)

$1,000 table sponsorships available for a table of 8

$100 per person or $75 for young professionals (under 30)

Get more details and order a ticket here.

Urban Interact, Inc. announced today the launch of the first annual Social Business Boot Camp, to help companies and individuals shape up their social media efforts to better support their business objectives, to be held Thursday, March 4, 2010 at the Aloft Hotel in Downtown Dallas, TX. The camp’s pre-registration has been a big success. There are a limited number of seats remaining at www.SocialBusinessBootCamp.com/NBCF .

The headline social media speakers at the first annual Social Business Boot Camp include Ori Bengal, a.k.a. “Couch Surfing Ori,” the event M.C. , speaking on Getting Out There, From a Guy Who Is Really Out There. Ori is an Interactive Adventurist who has consulted with a virtual who’s who of social media rock stars and business elite. Rick Burnes, Inbound Marketing Manager at HubSpot, will present Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs, an Amazon Best Seller, and Shama Kabani, President of The Marketing Zen Group, will discuss her book, The Zen of Social Media Marketing, available in stores April 2010. Both books will be provided to workshop attendees. Event sponsors include LinkedIn, Food Beyond the Box, Million Vodka, SticViews, Support Big D, and Urban Interact, which is also producing the event. You meet Ori and Shama along with the whole day workshop by registering here: www.SocialBusinessBootCamp.com/NBCF.

“It isn’t a question of if companies will begin to use social media marketing, but when,” said Shama Kabani. “The Social Business Boot Camp will set a high benchmark for other social media events,” continued Kabani.

Additional segments include: Personal Branding, Developing an Effective Social Media Policy for Your Company, and an open forum discussion lead by an all-star Social Media Business Panel. The panel will feature leading-edge companies who will share how they are leveraging social media to support their initiatives and will answer audience questions for real-time advice from some of the most knowledgeable marketing and social media experts in Dallas. For a full list of speakers, topics, and day’s agenda go here. The social media workshops will be followed by a Social Networking Happy Hour where attendees can mingle with other like-minded professionals, entrepreneurs, business owners, HR, recruiters, sales professionals, marketers, journalists, bloggers, PR professionals and other social media enthusiasts.

“We’re so proud to be a part of this event. A portion of every ticket sold will be donated to National Breast Cancer Foundation, which helps a very deserving charity while benefiting our local business community,” said Beverly K. Garvin, CEO of Urban Interact, Inc.

The event is expected to sell out, but General Admission, VIP, and Happy Hour Only tickets can be purchased here, and package deals on sets of five and ten tickets are available.

About Urban Interact:

Headquartered in Dallas, TX, Urban Interact develops unique online marketing strategies that intrigue, inform and inspire website visitors to engage with brands to deliver profitable, long-term results through interactive web presence, inbound marketing strategies, social media solutions, loyalty programs, and branding. The company’s tagline, Attract * Engage * Convert * Repeat!™, is not only how they market the company, it’s the “secret sauce,” and is the driving force behind the success of each client project. For more information, visit http://www.UrbanInteract.com

New Meetup.com group, SMB Social Media Networking, organized by Dallas social media speaker J. R. Atkins, held a Happy Hour networking event last night at Trece to bring like-minded small-medium-sized business owners together for brainstorming on the latest techniques and opportunities.  This  casual event  environment of small- and-medium-business leaders helped facilitate mingling and discussions  on how business owners are using social media.  Corner6 Labs, an Irving-based social media marketing firm sponsored the event and gave away two prizes: the opportunity for a guest blog post on the Corner6 Blog, and a free SEO analysis on the winner’s website. Corner6 representative Travis Blythe was quite the character and co-MC. He wore a lab coat in-line with his company’s branding, and asked attendees to sign it with his/her twitter handle and their thoughts on where social media was headed in 2010. If you are a social media enthusiastic, entrepreneur, or small business owner, I recommend checking out  this group by joining them at their events and receiving their updates via their Meetup.com group.

Neil Lemons is the founder of the Social Media Dallas News site and the lead SEM Strategist at The Marketing Zen Group, a social media marketing company offering website design, SEO, and pay-per-click. Check out their latest articles about using social media as a marketing tool.

The folks over at Social Media Club Dallas have done it again. They are consistently bringing together to hear social media best practices from agencies, corporate marketers, and professional consultants.

This month’s social media expert speaker is Aaron Strout. Here are a few of the details before I tell you about Aaron.

Social Media Club’s February’s Agenda:

1. Welcome and intro to speaker - Jessica Nunez @NunezPR

2. Featured Speaker - Aaron Strout, CMO of Powered, Inc.

3. Sponsor Introduction - TBD

4. Post Event Tweetup at Bengal Coast

About our Speaker

Aaron Strout @AaronStrout
Chief Marketing Officer
Powered

Aaron Strout @aaronstrout

As the head of marketing at social media agency, Powered,

Social Media & Powered Company Voice Aaron Strout’s Bio

Aaron focuses not only on day to day marketing activities but also provides a social voice for the company. In this role, Aaron continues with his speaking, blogging, podcasting and social networking activities with an eye toward creating awareness and lead generation for the company. Prior to joining Powered, Aaron was the Vice President of Social Media at Mzinga, a Burlington, Massachusetts-based provider of online communities and social networks for businesses. In this role, Aaron focused on tapping into the power of social media for business.

In addition to his knowledge of the interactive and new media landscape, Aaron has more than 15 years of online marketing and advertising experience, with a strong background in integrated and online marketing. Before joining Mzinga, Aaron worked at Fidelity Investments in their retail division, with a focus on online and acquisition marketing. Aaron’s work at Fidelity revolved around Web strategy & marketing, as well as the development of interactive and print campaigns, including direct mail, e-mail, banner & print ads, and event marketing.

Aaron is a founding member and former president of (BIMA) and a member and former board member of the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITX). Aaron is an interim board member for the prestigious Social Media Club. He will be part of a team responsible for creating standards around social media and community. He also sits on the advisory board for BuzzGain (recently acquired by Meltwater News), SavvyAuntie.com, Dialog and the Social Media Marketing Institute. For details on signing up to hear Aaron speak, sign up here.

Dallas Police started a fan page on Facebook Tuesday and already have over 400 fans. Posting items such as community watch info and news, as well as pictures of police cars and other sites, Dallas PD has joined the ranks of other government entities participating in social media. They are also on Twitter and have a YouTube Channel, in which they occasionally upload crime video like our own Dallas version of COPS.

Do you think this is necessary? Should every government entity “get social?”

Read the article.

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Dallas Police Department Sharing Information Through Social Media

The Dallas Morning News recently reported an amazing statistic. The largest percentage increase in Internet use since 2005 has been in the 70-to-75 age group. This was according to a Pew Internet and American Life Project survey. The survey found that 45 percent of that age bracket is online, compared with 26 percent in 2005. In a touching story about Virgil Heidbrink, an 85 year-old former sales manager and public speaker who now lives in a senior living community, they explained how many senior living facilities in Austin and Dallas are forming virtual social media communities before the facilities are built and residents take occupancy. Many are also implementing programs for training seniors on social media.

Heidbrink spends three to four hours a day in the blogosphere – that virtual neighborhood of the Internet where he writes his blog and answers readers’ e-mail. A computer coach has helped the resident at the Edgemere retirement community in Dallas build and maintain his website.

Read the Dallas Morning News Senior Social Media article.