HSM at the Shmooze in her signature colour
Monday night was the MetroImma Shmooze. It was fabulous. We shmoozed all about social media. This was my first time as a panelist, and my first time speaking in public (other than at my sons’ barmitzvahs). I was nervous but as soon as we all started contributing I forgot to think about my nerves. Social Media is a subject close to my heart – and I enjoyed talking about it.
I was a co-panelist along with the many-hat-wearing Jodi Samuels, founder of MetroImma, Ken Krimstein – author and cartoonist of “Kvetch as Kvetch Can” (and owner of an awesome iPad that I totally covet), and the most amazing and wonderful Chaviva Galatz – blogger and social media enthusiast.
Our panel discussion was moderated by the incredible Stephanie Grayson-Zane – who did such a great job that I wish to hire her for any event I ever put together or even to moderate “discussions” between my kids!! (Mazel tov on your new nephew!)
We talked about how we use social media to further our brands, engaging with our audience, who that target audience is, how we balance our real lives with our online activities, as well as many other aspects of social media. We took some questions from the audience as well. We all contributed to the discussion, and hopefully were able to educate people about the benefits of social media.
It was wonderful to meet up with people I had met before, but also to put faces to names of people I have only met online, and to make new connections. Social Media is all well and good when you are in front of the computer all day long, but you need to have face to face time too – it’s just as important as the tweeting and blogging.
The best quote of the night was from Stephanie – “Never Twitter When You’re Bitter”. Words to live by.
Thanks to MetroImma and Primetime Parenting for organizing yet another great event and thanks for asking me to be a panelist. Looking forward to the next one.
In the Pink 
Thank you for speaking at the event! I really enjoyed it as an audience member. Looking forward to brainstorming mini tweet-ups in the future and larger events.
“We talked about how we use social media to further our brands,”
Oh, I see that the social media have become a quite interesting tool for the advertisers.
They have a cheap & efficient way of promoting their products: they ask bloggers, for example, to organise a contest where readers or bloggers can win one of their products. Of course, giving away one product for free is much cheaper for them than paying a campaign…
On another blog, I saw an even more efficient and cheap way of advertising: You give away one product (in this case a tallit) among the bloggers who write a story about your tallit on their blog. This way, they have a great multipliying effect, aimed at an interested audience that would potentially buy the product, and it costs them almost nothing.
What I don’t really understand is why the bloggers don’t see through this…
On the contrary, bloggers know exactly what is going on. When they do a giveaway they usually receive the product itself to keep. And it’s not just “Jewish” bloggers or “mommy” bloggers – beauty and fashion bloggers are notorious for this as well. As someone who has arranged a bunch of giveaways in the past, and probably more in the future, bloggers seem to be thrilled to do it and are honest when they can’t/don’t want to for whatever reason.
But back to the panel, it was about the bloggers building themselves as a brand, which I really enjoyed and hope Hadassah will come out with a book soon, pls G-d!
i have to be disciplined and sit down and write this book….. that’s my project for 2011!!