At the end of 2010 I decided to write Marketing Melodie in 2010: A Year in Review. I have a habit of discrediting many of my accomplishments because I feel like I can always do more. Writing this really allows me to appreciate and be grateful for everything that I have done rather than focus on what I haven’t. Just like I did for 2010 here’s a year in review of 2011 highlighting noteworthy events, clients, blog posts, friends, accomplishments, adventures and amazing opportunities.

*JANUARY*

While marketing is my expertise and passion, I have another passion; YOGA! I’m very grateful for one of my clients this year, La Jolla Yoga Center. Creating marketing campaigns and strategies for a yoga studio I love definitely makes me happy.  I trained their team on using social media to grow their business and helped them get set up on Facebook and Twitter. They’re definitely doing a great job connecting with yogis on social media!

I’ve been practicing yoga for a few years and really wanted to strengthen my practice and take it to the next level. I contemplated getting my yoga teaching certification for a while. It’s a huge time commitment and I was really on the fence. Well I made the decision to go ahead with yoga teacher training and can now say, if you are ever on the fence, DO IT! I am so happy I completed my Yoga Teacher Training and wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. I began my training in January and completed my 200 RYT Vinyasa Yoga Teacher Training at the inspirational La Jolla Yoga Center, located right on the beach! I met so many amazing new friends, learned so much about myself and really took my yoga practice to the next level.

*FEBRUARY*

I hosted the 2^nd event in my Digital Media Dinners series. The topic: Social Media Branding. This was a great milestone because it officially turned Digital Media Dinners into a series rather than a one off event.  I taught strategies on how to strengthen people’s brand across various social networks including review sites such as Yelp, group buying sites such as Groupon and location based sites such as Foursquare. I incorporated a variety of sites because marketing and social media is growing beyond just Facebook and Twitter.

*MARCH*

Since I learn and receive so much from my online and social media community, I really want to give back. I did this by hosting Twestival San Diego. This event is hosted all over the nation using social media for social good by connecting communities offline on a single day to highlight a great cause and have a fun event. It’s entirely promoted via social media. Twestival San Diego was hosted at the Keating Hotel and all proceeds benefited the San Diego After School All Stars.

Me and a few other lovely Yogis were featured on KUSI demonstrating Bootcamp for Yogis run by my fellow yoga teacher trainee, Body By Mags. Check out the video below where I get my 5 minutes of fame while I’m smiling through holding a yoga tough pose and demonstrating yoga boot camp moves (Warrior has got nothing on me!).

VIDEO: Yoga Boot Camp Video

I successfully pulled my second April Fool’s Joke on Social Media! Everyone decided to wish me a Happy Birthday on April Fool’s this year!

The first annual Foursquare Day celebration took place in 2010 and I hosted Foursquare Day Hong Kong. This year I was in my home town, San Diego and had the opportunity to host Foursquare Day San Diego for my community at R Gang Eatery. Check in specials, complimentary wine, cocktails, delicious comfort food with an upscale twist, friends, badges and a good time was had! Foursquare Day on 4/16 (Yep that’s 4 squared which equals 16) is officially, my favorite geek Holiday!

Oh not to mention, I met my first Celebrity Chef, Rich Sweeney @ChefRicSweeney from Season 5 of Top Chef who is also the head of R Gang Eatery. You can read all about my addiction to food porn and cooking shows here.

*MAY*

I was interviewed by the San Diego Reader on using LinkedIn for Job Seekers. I shared my insight, advice and was gratefulto have my article published both in their paper and online! You can read the full article here.

Another Geek Holiday takes place in May! Star Wars day on May 4^th! May the Fourth be with you! I celebrated with some fun posts on Social Media!

*JUNE*

I really want to help others with yoga passion so I hosted my first yoga event: Yoga For the Busy Body at Hera Hub! I really want to provide an opportunity for other busy professionals and entrepreneurs to have a chance to experience the benefits of yoga while teaching them poses they can do on their own despite their busy lives. That’s exactly what I accomplished at this event.

*JULY*

I was cast in a Microsoft Commercial!  It was such an amazing experience to work a full day on set as talent! You can read all about how I was casted in the Microsoft Commercial and then watch my commercial when it finally aired below!

VIDEO: Marketing Melodie’s Microsoft Commercial

VIDEO: Digital Media Dinners- How To Build your Social Media Community 

I attended BlogHer for the first time as it was hosted right here in America’s Finest City. I connected with inspirational bloggers from all across the nation. It was great talking to so many people about their passions and seeing  them creatively share it with others through their writing. I had a good time at the conference itself, attending workshops, checking out the booths, the networking events, parties and left with more swag than I knew what to do with!

Oh and I met another Celebrity Chef, Brian Markaley in the Season Final of Top Chef Season 3. He was hosting a BlogHer party!

 *SEPTEMBER* 

Marketing Melodie is growing quickly! I sent out a call for interns and bring Allison Schummer @AllisonSchummer on board to help me!

Allison recently graduated from SDSU and I give her my highest recommendation to anyone who’s hiring as she’s currently on the market for a new job!

San Diegans experience a MAJOR BLACKOUT! But we united and got through it while making new friends! We proved that even during a black out social media still shines!

*OCTOBER*

Fall is in the air (even though it’s always sunny in San Diego) which means time for a new fall wardrobe! I attended one of my favorite tweetups ever, an Epic event at the Nordstrom Rack Plaza Bonita Grand Opening. I’m a very lucky person, I always win things and that night I won a pair of Designer Hudson Jeans.

In 2009 I said to the universe that I want  to meet my favorite author, Keith Ferrazzi. I finally met him 2 years later in San Diego at the Entrepreneur Challenge Fall Kickoff Event at UCSD. He autographed both my books and I learned some awesome networking tips from meeting Keith Ferrazzi.

The Nerds United! I tweeted and connected with amazing new friends  from the Talk Nerdy To Me Lover community by hosting @JenFriel and the #nerdsunite crew in San Diego. We had a fun night at the Tilted Kilt San Diego and a nerdy sleepover!

You can read all about the things that make me a nerd here.

*NOVEMBER*

After completing a successful Digital Media Dinners series, I hosted my first Digital Media Now Seminar- Personal Branding on Social Media at Pangea Bakery Cafe. Attendees learned how to make their personal brand cohesive with their business brand.

I was honored with an opportunity to speak to NATAS- National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences at their Social Media Workshop. Teaching television professionals how to use Social Media in their industry.

Thanks to the luxury car company, Infiniti and Social Media I enjoyed an amazing afternoon at the San Diego Bay Wine and Food Festival. I also met my 3rd celebrity chef this year, Sam The Cooking Guy!

*DECEMBER* 

I hosted my first Digital Media Now Webinar on How To Integrat Social Media Into Your Marketing. It gave me a chance to share my knowledge with people who can’t always be available and in San Diego to attend an in person seminar. While there were challenges to work out with my first webinar, I received great feedback and plan to host additional Digital Media Now Webinars in 2012!

I celebrated my Birthday on my lucky day, December 13^th (It’s clearly not on April 1^st). In the photo below I’m dressed as a Monster, holding a class with an M and Minty Wonderland and Mozart cupcakes. Yep M THEME PARTY!

I began my new venture at National University. I was hired as a Course Developer and Adjunt Professor at National University. My first class starts in January where I’m teaching a marketing class on Interactive Strategies.

Wow a lot has happened in 2012! If you read this entire post or even part of it, THANK YOU!  As I reflect on 2011 I just can’t help but smile and be grateful for everyone and everything in my life right now. I am truly blessed and so excited to ring in 2012!

And Social Media only fuels my addiction. Recently I was even given the opportunity to enjoy samples from over 170 Wine & Spirit Purveyors  and 70 of San Diego’s Top Chefs thanks to both Social Media and Infiniti!  If I was me in another life, Marketing Melodie would be Chef Melodie! I love to cook and I am obsessed with food porn. I love looking at the delicious food you’re putting in your body! It makes my mouth water!

 How am I satisfying my Food Porn craving? Take a look!

Social Media Updates- I’ll start with my own community. Anyone who posts what they’re eating for lunch should be banned if there’s no accompanying photo! Stop teasing me by posting about how delicious your meal is, unless you’re going to give me a glimpse! When I check Facebook updates my eyes automatically gravitate toward food photos. I can’t help it, they turn my senses on! I occasionally post food porn photos myself!

Food Blogs- Images trump text in blog posts, which is why I love reading food blogs. The good ones are full of food porn and luckily there’s an abundance of food bloggers out there!

Hear me YELP!- Yelp is great for so many reasons. I’m able to find new spots to check out and it also gives me the opportunity to share the places and restaurants that I love. One of my favorite parts of Yelp is the food photos users post! I get a glimpse of so many different dishes from one restaurant by other consumers which means these photos are authentic, real and delicious!

Lovely Ladies at a Yelp Elite Party!

Reading!- Just like social media updates about food without photos should be banned, cookbooks without photos shouldn’t even be published! I love flipping through cookbooks, reading the recipes then looking at photos of the final product. My favorite food book is a MUST for your coffee table. It’s called, Everything I Ate: A Year in the Life of My Mouth. Tucker Shaw documents every single thing he eats in a year through photos! I’m so intrigued by this book! It’s like an adult picture book. He lives in New York so I definitely want to visit some of the restaurants he dines at next time I’m in the city!

 Food Shows Galore!- All of my favorite shows have food in them! I love watching Iron Chef, Top Chef, Man vs Food, Cupcake Wars and more! I could watch Food Network and the Cooking Channel all day! My dream (and I’m putting it out there to the universe) is to be a guest judge on a food show! I also have a bucket list of restaurants that have been featured on shows I want to dine at.

I’m coming near the end of my confession. I must say this post took me longer than normal to write.  I also must admit that Food Network has been playing in background this entire time. Oh and I took a break to finish cooking a Butternut Squash Casserole that was in the oven and of course I’ve been eating the entire time I’ve been writing this post too! Happy Eating everyone!

As a Marketing Professional, one of the most effective Marketing tools  I use to build my community and generate new business is professional speaking. It’s not a secret,  I’ve already shared with everyone how I grow my business through professional speaking. It provides you with more credibility, it’s a strong marketing tool and speaking also inspires others. Speaking is something everyone has an chance to learn! To provide you with even more assistance on being an effective speaker for your industry, I even compiled Social Media Tips for professional speakers. I highly recommend checking out the resources I created, they will definitely help you get started!

Speaking to NATAS is a great chance for me to connect with people who work in television and share my knowledge on how to create a cohesive online presence with traditional media. Time sure flies with social media! Almost 3 years ago I wrote the post Traditional Media Companies- It’s time to Go Digital Media. Years later I’m happy to see that many traditional media companies have successfully integrated social media  to engage, interact and compel their audience to continue viewing them as a credible resource!

I’m really looking forward to meeting all the industry leaders in television this Thursday and continuing to share social media and professional speaking tips with all of my readers! If you’d like to hire me to speak at your next event, I’m happy to come and share my insight and knowledge!

I often get asked by many people how I come across so many unique, exciting and once in a life time opportunities such as getting invited as a guest of honor to speak at tech conferences in Hong Kong and Beirut, Lebanon where I was also able to tour both places for over a week,  tweeting my way to front row seats to watch my favorite baseball team, the San Diego Padres and even creating and teaching my very own marketing class to students at Platt College! My honest answer: I attract these opportunities into my life by being HONEST and AUTHENTIC on SOCIAL MEDIA! This is what I encourage, educate and strive to inspire companies to do every single day to grow their business. I’m living proof that it works! Yes I’m walking my own walk! Here’s the story….

The casting director found my Yelp review for the Microsoft Store. They recognized that my Yelp reviews were honest and authentic. They did some research and also discovered that I’m a tech savvy, social media socialite, which happened to be the exact personality type  they were seeking for this commercial. I went in for an interview, where they also asked me to bring a friend who could be my sidekick in the commercial. I posted an update on my Facebook to see if any of my girlfriends use Microsoft products and ended up bringing the lovely Megan Looney, model, journalist, traveler and a good friend from high school with me to the interview. Soon after the interview, we received calls that we were officially hired for the commercial!

The shoot date was set on 4th of July weekend. In addition to paying us as talent, the night before they treated us to a full spa day at Se San Diego. Massage, manicure, pedicure, the works! to really get us relaxed and dolled up for our big day. I absolutely LOVE spa treatments so this was an added bonus I was happy to accept.

Bright and early the next morning, Megan and I arrive a the Microsoft Store in Fashion Valley and boy was I overwhelmed! There were over 100 people there from the directors, employees, extras for the commercial, etc. We were sent to wardrobe, hair and makeup. I’ve never had so much makeup on in my life. But the lovely Meagan Brown Owner of Artistry of Makeup did an amazing job and the whole staff was so sweet that we had a great time chatting and getting ready together.

Finally we receive instructions from the director and begin filming. Wow! creating a short commercial is such hard work, I now have the utmost respect for people who work in show business. It was a full day of filming and while it was exhausting, we had a blast doing it! We spent the first half of the day filming at he Microsoft Store in Fashion Valley.

 Then we took a lunch break and met up in La Jolla for the second half of the shoot. Filming in La Jolla was amazing, it was such a gorgeous view and I just love being out on the beach during sunset! We even drove around in my car and got some footage there. The sun soon began to set and after a very full day, THAT’S A WRAP! We concluded the shoot and after thanking everyone for providing me with this opportunity, I went on my way home. The filming took place in July and in Auguest I hadn’t heard anything about the commercial coming out.

Then one day I received a Facebook message from a Microsoft employee:

Now I’m really curious to see my own commercial. I wasn’t able to get a hold of it quite yet. Then during the San Diego Film Festival  September 29 – October 3 I was delighted to see posts/tweets from my friends who saw my commercial on the big screens! 

Well that’s the story of my one day in the life of  being “talent”! And once again I say, THAT’S A WRAP! Wait, what!? You want to see the commercial? The director recently sent me an email letting me know that they have permission to distribute the commercial now but they’re still waiting for the correct file they can send me. So the SUSPENSE continues! I have yet to see the commercial but the first thing I plan to do when I get the file is to share it with all of you. Stay tuned!

Thanks to the infinite power of Social Media within 10 minutes I had a list of over 30 movies featuring a Journalist as a main character. Movies on the list include: All The Presidents Men, True Crime, Almost Famous, the mysterious Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Insider, Shattered Glass, Good Night and Good Luck, State of Play, the fashionable Devil Wears Prada, the indestructible Super Man and the list goes on.

The high response rate to my question made it crystal clear that “traditional” media jobs are extremely popular and even sexy on the big screens.  But as technology continues to evolve and the occupation “Journalist” (in the traditional sense of writing for a newspaper ) continues to diminish as a position companies are seeking, having a “Journalist” in a new age movie doesn’t match up with current trends. This became evident to me in the past week as I’ve had the privilege of watching two sneak previews, both featuring Social Media: Catfish and The Social Network.

The rest of this post isn’t a spoiler. I’ll be sharing some of my insight and observations after watching two movies that feature Social Media as the main component.

Catfish-  This documentary is about a photographer, Nev who lives in New York. An eight-year-old girl, Abby from rural Michigan contacts him and asks permission to draw one of his photographs that appeared in a newspaper. He receives her remarkable painting and starts a friendship and online correspondence with Abby’s family. This is just the beginning of an online mystery. The main topics brought to my attention were online persona’s versus real life and online security. We often don’t think twice about who we’re corresponding with online and take everyone for face value. But the internet can be a dangerous tool that allows us to create different personas, use different photos to identify ourselves and hide from our real identity through a computer screen. For many people, our online persona is a true reflection of our personality, but not for everyone. Nev’s correspondence turns into a mystery that brings up the questions of online security. He doesn’t think twice about disclosing secrets, personal information and even developing a romantic connection with someone he’s never met met until things start getting fishy one clue at a time.

The Social Network- The deep rooted desire for humans to have connections with others is fed through online social networks. The Social Network is a story about Facebook, formerly called The Facebook’s creation and evolution into today’s powerful tool that most of us can’t live without. This movie brought back memories to me for the early days of Facebook in 2004. The “mini-feed” that used to annoy everyone showed up on the big screen, now we can’t live without the feed of current information about 500 of our closest friends. The movie portrays the crucial moment when “Relationship Status” was invented which now allows us to find out if there may be a chance with the hot guy or girl we just met. “Can I have your number?” is so 1990’s, we all know the real pick up line is “Can I add you on Facebook?”  The Social Network is a true story and drama that perfectly depicts the rapid growth of technology, how our lives are so quickly transformed by the digital age and the viral power of the internet.

Seeing Social Media on the big screen continues to validate it’s importance in our every day lives.  While traditional media jobs were so prominent in a significant number of movies, my prediction for the future of movies is that occupations of featured characters will center more around technology jobs, the internet and more specifically Social Media.

Have you seen other movies that feature Social Media?

Being a Marketing professional I’ve always undestood how PR works hand in hand with marketing. PR is essentially the practice of managing the communication between your organization and the public to gain more exposure and target new audiences.  However, the days of submitting a traditional press release and hoping it gets picked up by a magazine writer or television station with significant lag time in publishing your news is over. PR has taken on a whole new spin with the embracement of social media.

While social media continues to experience exponential growth, there’s no doubt that having your company featured on TV or a news article published is still an exciting accomplishment. Thus while on TV for my FashionPlate I realized what a huge accomplishment it was for their company; definitely something that deserves recognition beyond 3 minutes. With Social Media, we can now optimize our PR appearances and turn them into a more personal marketing campaign. A successful PR program mixes traditional PR strategies with innovative social media practices so I’ve created a list of ideas on how to make your PR go social:

1. Teaser Posts: Create some excitement about your upcoming appearance. Whether it’s a mention in a magazine, a radio interview or television appearance, let your community know exactly when and where they can see your company in the media! Post anticipating tweets and Facebook updates a few days out. Ideally your posts will generate some retweets and shares thus making more people aware of your upcoming appearance.

2. Interactive Promotion: Turn your teaser posts into a fun promotion that encourages your community to not only share your PR news to their social networks but also reward them for actually viewing your PR appearance. This can be done through asking your community a question on Twitter where the answer can only be found through viewing your PR exposure. Those who reply with the correct answer can be rewarded with a prize.

3. Blog post follow up: After your PR appearance, draft up a quick blog post with information about your feature. If it’s a TV clip, see if you can obtain a file of the clip to host on your own YouTube and embed in your blog post.  If you don’t have rights to the clip, create a link to it. If it’s a radio appearance, see if you can get an audio of your airtime.  If it’s an article, link to the online version of the article.  Make sure to thank the media graciously for your appearance.

4. Social Media shoutouts- When thanking the media in you blog posts, Twitter updates and Facebook updates make sure to make connect back to everyone else’s social networks. This significantly increases the chances that your partners and the media outlets will repost your information. You’re recognizing others by their social media handles and everyone loves to be recognized. For example in the MyFashion Plate segment all the outfits were from Nordstrom. In a tweet I would make sure NBC and Nordstrom are both refered to by their Twitter name “All outfits featured on our @nbcsandiego segment are from @nordstrom“.

5. Media Section- Create a media section on your website that showcases all of your appearances. This is a great way to strengthen the credibility of your brand, show off your great media accomplishments and have a hub that visibly organizes everything. You can place links of all your Social Media press releases here too.  (See below).

6. Social Media Press Releases- When creating a press release, your social media version should be customized for the web. Social Media press releases have sharing features, a specific tweet that readers can post, links within the press release etc. PitchEngine is a useful site I’ve found that’s a Social Media Press Release Builder. Here is a good example of a Social Media Press Release for Playlistify created by Press Doc, another great resource to write, edit and publish your own social media release online and share it with journalists, bloggers and your clients. Notice how Playlistify’s Social Media press release has a visible Share button on the top right and links to resource on their own website plus partner websites.

So if my Marketing career doesn’t work out, it’s good to know I can fall back on my modeling career . Know examples of companies that do a great job with Public Relations on Social Media? Please share in the comments below.

*MyFashion Plate’s TV appearance was booked by their Public Relations company, RKPR a San Diego PR company that does an amazing job at connecting their clients to the media.

Many people have been calling me a Twitter Expert. I don’t consider myself an expert and there are still negative associations with people who call themselves a Social Media Expert. I do however have a lot of experience on the social network. I have executed many social media campaigns utilizing Twitter and built up my own brand and online persona using Twitter but I still have so much to learn! Technology is changing by the minute. What may have worked yesterday could be history today so it’s important to always stays ahead of evolving technology to ensure you surpasse industry standards.

Dating is a big part of building relationships which is where the correlation with Social Media comes in. Social media campaigns focus on building relationships and community around a brand. Social media is used to establish connections and engage with your consumer. I’ll refrain from giving dating tips in this post (PHEW). You can turn to DeAnna for that but I do want to give a few simple tips in building customer relationships through Twitter.

1. Listen- Be an active listener on Twitter. Listen to what your community is saying. Listen to what your community wants.  Many of us have poor listening skills. Before we finish hearing what the other person is saying we stop listening and start to formulate our response. This prevents us from really understanding what the other person’s needs are. Before you start blasting out promotions, make sure it’s what your customers want.

2. Show You Care- Now that we’ve got our listening skills fine-tuned take action to show you really care about your community’s needs. Listening allows you to provide useful content and information that your followers want. Perhaps there were complaints about your product being too expensive? How about offering a discount to Twitter followers? Perhaps your followers had many suggestions. How about posting changes on Twitter your company made through customer suggestions?

3. Count On You- By listening and showing you care, your followers will begin to believe you’re a leader. Make sure you’re proactive in keeping this reputation. Be the first to post industry news and unique information. Be an authority and useful resource in your field. When a situation comes up where your service is needed your company will be top of mind because your followers already know they can count on you.

There you have it, three simple ways to build good customer relationships on Twitter. If you have any other tips, please leave them in the comments below. If you’d like to find out more how to enhance your customer relationships through Twitter and other Social Media networks please don’t hesitate to contact me.