Mary Ellen Miller, President and Founder of MarketingMel was honored to be on the founding board of the Tri-Cities Public Relations Society of America (PRSA.) Now she is once again involved in PRSA leadership. Miller was elected a director at large at the board meeting January 27th. “I remember sitting with Bob Feagins, Dr. King from ETSU and several others at Meadowview in Kingsport hashing out our initial plans for PRSA,” said Miller. “I am glad to be back and I look forward to working with Dr. King and his PR students again along with President Rachel Horton and all the other professional communicators on the PRSA board.” follow me on Twitter
It was a year of firsts and opportunity for MarketingMel. I got to achieve what so many people only dream of: the launch of my own business. As people, including me, streamed out the doors of my former employer last February I did what my father taught me long ago. “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”
The company name was easy to decide on. I had already established MarketingMel’s handle on twitter. Mel has been my nickname for years. Thus, MarketingMel, the PR firm was born.
In creating your own company you tend to dig into the tool chest and find any and all tools that you used in the past. For me one of those tools was television broadcasting. Thanks to Neal Boling, the news director at WJHL 11 connects who sought out my input for TV news stories on social media including twitter and Facebook. Some fantastic clients believed in me and I want to say a special thanks to Dan Eldridge, John Bullington and Todd Mussard, CPA. Each of those business professionals believed in me and what I could do for them in providing public relations, personal branding, marketing and social media consulting. Thanks also to the CCC, a group of consultants who cheered me on every step of the way. Dave McAuley at The Summit Leadership Foundation, my office away from the home office was also there providing fantastic conference and meeting room space for me.
I thank God for the blessing of being able to start a thriving business in a down economy and I look forward to what the New Year holds. Here’s wishing each of you the very best in 2010. follow me on Twitter
I just ran across this fantastic post from kuno creative. As a public relations professional, my original fascination with twitter was being able to watch news unfold and to see the latest trends on search.twitter.com. Now Google Real-Time Search is synthesizing information across platforms in one easy feed that pulls and updates from all social media. John McTigue’s article is well worth reading and the questions he poses about Google Real-Time search’s impact on SEO are noteworthy. Be sure you do what he suggests and go to http://google.com/trends and search on Tiger Woods to see a very current example of this real-time search at work. follow me on Twitter
Watch this video for some great Social Media Marketing tidbits from Michael Stelzner: Social Media Marketing helps to close business. And, top Social Media Marketing tools are in this order, twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Recently I gave a talk at the Kingsport Times News Women’s Expo at Meadowview called “Is twitter the new black?” I freely admit that title is not my own creation. Rather, I had seen it on a couple of blogs including that of The Times editor Jennifer Howze who says the following:
“Forget about ‘the new black.’ For many women I know, Twitter is the new e-mail. It’s more immediate, feels more like a personal conversation, and unlike your overflowing Outlook inbox you can control whose messages make it on to your screen.”
As someone who has been very active on twitter for over a year I quite agree! Email seems like a bit of a dinosaur in the face of a quick DM to catch someone’s attention. And as Howze says instead of a monologue to monologue conversation, twitter lets you be part of an online sharing of great links, photos, fabulous friends and more.
Recently I attended a local chamber breakfast when several people (tweeps) whom I had never met in person came up to me following the event. Each of them said, “There’s MarketingMel. Hey, MarketingMel! I follow you on twitter.” Ah, the power of social media in action.
So, is twitter the new black? When it comes to personal branding, you might say it’s even better. follow me on Twitter
MarketingMel points out JC Penney's Facebook fan page
Since the company launch last spring MarketingMel has been extremely busy assisting clients with their public relations, social networking, marketing and media relations strategies. The firm’s most recent endeavor was a joint venture with my former n-tara colleague Tim McLeod. Together we created a web site for Dan Eldridge, who is a candidate for Washington County TN Mayor. Please visit the site and circle back here to let me know your thoughts. Of course any web site is evolutionary and we’ll be adding more photos and new videos after the launch announcement Tuesday.
I began my career as a broadcaster and it’s strange how life goes full circle. I just signed a contract with Northeast State to do voiceover work for training videos that will be used by Eastman Chemical Company operators. This project is funded under an agreement with the State of Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development . Thanks to Kyle Long who asked me to audition for that project.
I’ve worked closely with former Board Chairman of the Tennessee Appraisal Commission, John Bullington, on publicizing a very specific issue pertaining to the appraisers and the Home Valuation Code of Conduct or HVCC. We got tremendous coverage, including pickups on Reuters, Fox News, Yahoo Finance, etc.
I’ve also worked with Todd Mussard, CPA to help him with his social networking, advising him on his web site, twitter and LinkedIn strategies and I secured a speaking engagement for him in front of a targeted group of professionals.
Lots of public speaking engagements have been on the docket including the talk on social networking as seen in the photo at the Times-News Women’s Expo last week. I’ll write more about those in an upcoming post. follow me on Twitter
Women’s Expo 2009 is this Saturday and Sunday at Meadowview. I am honored to be in the company of some distinguished speakers. I will be presenting during the portion called “Tips, Tools & Resources for Competing in Today’s Environment.” Here’s the line up of topics:
10 am:
Social Networking and Hot to Use it in Today’s Market, MarketingMel 10:30 am
What Opportunities Are There For Me to Start my Own Business and How do I do it?
Bob Justice, Tennessee Small Business Development Center
11:00 am
How do I find the Financial Resources to Obtain the Training Necessary for Jobs in the New Economy?
Marquita Tittle, Coordinator Career Development Services Center, Northeast State Community College
11:30 am
Educational Opportunities for You Today
Dr. Linda Garceau, Dean, School of Business and Technology, ETSU
1:00 pm
Keeping Up My Self Esteem and Positive Attitude When Things are Changing, (Company Sold, Grieving Process) Lottie Ryans, Regional Vice President, CenturyLink (formerly Embarq)
1:30 pm
Life After Layoff: First Steps
Cindy Martin-Hensley, Director of Planning and Program Development, Alliance for Business and Training
3:00 pm
The On-Line World-How do I Make Myself Stand Out?
Carol D. Trahan- Owner, Spherion Recruiting and Staffing
Seating is limited. Call 423-245-2878 to reserve your seat today.
Tickets for the Women’s expo are $5 advance, $7 at the door. Children 12 and under are free. Show hours: Saturday 10am-6 pm, Sunday 1 pm-6pm follow me on Twitter
This is an amusing video and worth watching to see what one of the industry thought leaders, Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, has to say about Cloud Computing. follow me on Twitter
David Letterman’s recent public indiscretions got me thinking about my own career as a public relations professional. As long as there are people in the world those of us in the public relations profession will have job security. All humans stumble, but some just happen to do it much more publicly than others. So to use Dave’s own top ten list: Here is why there will always be a need for PR people.
10- Politicians and political candidates will keep running for office
9- Companies will want to engage with and not run from their customers
8- Executives will need to know how to look/speak and talk on camera
7- CEOs will need someone to see the long term strategy not just the short term dollars
6- Individuals and companies will seek out new ways of communicating with their customers via the next great twitter, Facebook etc.
5- Public officials will stub their toes and have to make public mea culpas
4- Companies will need a crisis communications plan in place in order to thwart disasters
3- Someone will have to advise the reigning emperor that he is not wearing clothes
2- (Speaking of no clothes) Late night talk show hosts and movie stars will be unable to keep their pants zipped
And the number one reason there will always be PR people:
1- Oprah will keep feeding the media machine full of sobbing apologies and the public will continue its thirst for more
Here is an excellent social media and convergence video. Traditional advertising is dying and, as one who used to work in that trade, I must say I’m not sad to see it go. So glad for the connecting and relationship building that inbound marketing and social networking provides. Thanks to my friend Jeff Brunson of Basic Approach for sharing this video with me. What do you think of it? As the video asks, “are you ready for the future?”
