Social media allows us to do so much more than even a few years ago. It allows us to interact with people and businesses otherwise inaccessible. For me, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook are weekly play places and my fun turned into my internship. When I started on Twitter a few years ago, I followed a few of the local SEM and SEO companies who I was interested in working for. One of those was Anvil Media in Portland, OR. Their president and founder, Kent Lewis, was another person I started following and interacting with. I was using these tools to hopefully help me in the future, which it turned out, they did.

This all couldn’t have happened without some help from some friends, another part of social media. Kristy Bolsinger, from RealNetworks, came and talked with my marketing class at Willamette. I friend-ed her on Twitter and she infected me with Foursquare Fever. At that point I had a different marketing internship for a company who created cockpit awareness hardware and software. They had a tough first quarter and decided not to have an intern. I launched into action and the friendship that Kristy and I had really helped. She helped with boosting my resume and sent it off to a few people she knows, including Kent Lewis. She also told me to get involved with SEMpdx.

SEMpdx is an amazing networking and business organization. I wrote about my meeting with them Best of SEMpdx so I won’t go into that.

What I didn’t talk about was meeting Kent Lewis and introducing myself to him. I had asked him about what to wear on Twitter before the meeting, which he suggested “pants”. It was a great conversation starter! After talking with him I got connected with Hallie Jansen from Anvil, had a meeting and the rest is history. You’re looking at the Anvil intern. Without the friendships that I cultivated on Twitter and my enthusiasm for SEM, SEO and social media it could have never happened, but I am so glad it did.

THANKS INTERNET!!!

Being extremely interested in social media and search engine marketing, it was suggested that I check out SEMpdx, which is a local organization “whose mission is to inform and educate area businesses on the benefits of SEM to bottom line revenue.” They have a great deal for students and my membership only set me back $25, which was more than worth it for last nights event alone. I am learning SEM on my own and hearing some experts was really helpful. Some of it was outside my beginner knowledge, but here are my takeaways from the night:

1. If you can, create your own URL shortener for your business so you don’t lose the link juice from using someone else’s.




2. Increasing your website traffic alone is not the end game. Without increasing conversions you’re missing the boat.




3. You can’t just use a loud speaker and spout your message online. You have to find WHERE your customers or target market is online and go play. Become an active voice in the space and the followers, leads and love will find you.




4. New blogs for the feed:

• Search Engine Land
• Marketing Sherpa
• Emarketer
• Marketing Charts

I want to thank the four panelists for sharing their knowledge and time. Their twitter accounts are @kentjlewis @matthewjbrown @annekennedy @audette if you want to find them.

In my marketing strategy class we started a simulation that our entire class is competing in. We get to research fake products that have different dimensions and satisfy five different segments that the software outlines. This is already proving useful in giving us an opportunity to see how our decisions as managers effects our company’s bottom line. Not only that, but the decisions that we make are weighted against our competition to make it even more real. This term is chopped full of fun software and simulations that will give me way more insight into business, marketing and management. I love grad school!

In late February, the finance class I’m taking at Atkinson Graduate School of Management(Willamette) started a stock market simulation. I have learned a lot and enjoyed this simulation extensively. The first day I acted on a dumb, uneducated guess on a few stocks that had risen over 5% that day. Within a week, I had lost almost $100,000 of my initial $1,000,000. Since then, I have been reading a good amount(and listening to my finance professor) and am now profitable over 25%. Over that same period the S&P is up 9% and overall the market is up almost 500 points. It has been a good time for investors even with joblessness and the threat of Greece’s economy failing. Now of course it is much easier investing fake dollars and as my professor said, “It takes a large fortune to make a small one.” I look forward to earning my spot in our economy and having the ability to invest my real money.

Recently, Kristy Bolsinger came and gave an awesome talk to my MBA marketing strategies class. For most professors it seems to be difficult to get real world experience in this field while teaching and with it being such a new field they normally have dropped the ball. Kristy rocked it and I just saw she is speaking in Portland again on Monday at Social Fresh Portland. I wish I could go, but I have four classes that day! Anyways, while explaining social media to the class she asked if anyone was on Foursquare. No one in the class new what she was talking about, but I checked it out on my phone. I’m now addicted!

Foursquare is a location based service (LBS) that allows you to follow your friends and compete to become the mayor of your favorite spots and give other users things to do and advise. I have now infected a few of my friends and the game is on. In looking up Kristy, she posted an entire article about her LBS Addiction on Wednesday. I’m afraid to try another one, but Gowalla looks sweet! In fact, I just downloaded it to my Droid.

If you are on either site search me and get connected!

Now the best part about using these applications is the funny look on people face when you explain the app. “Why would you want someone to know where you are at ALL TIMES?” My question normally back is why wouldn’t you? It comes down to what social media is about. Sharing yourself. If someone wants to stalk me, guess what…The internet already lets you do that. Now throw in some competitive edges and I’m all about it. Not stalking, but sharing for the betterment of human kind. As of now I am the mayor of 5 places and have 8 badges, but my empire is growing. Why isn’t yours?