Social Media Boot Camp with Sarah Evans

Today, I attended a Social Media Boot Camp with Sarah Evans and Social: IRL. It was incredible. Sarah Evans is a PR and new media consultant at Sevans Strategy and a guest writer for Mashable, a prestigious social media blog. She also has her own blog at PRsarahevans.com and is a "social media freak", and her Twitter is @PRsarahevans and leads a Twitter chat called #journchat.

Photo here

 Here are my 7 Social Media Tips from her today:

1. Hone in your passion when blogging. If you care about what you are writing about, it will show.
2. Twitter is all about the "re-tweet". Always leave room for others to "re-tweet" your tweet.
3. Always create a Facebook Fan page for business NOT a personal profile page.
4. Every moment is a PR moment. "Tweet" about news breaking news you experience such as earthquakes, and journalists may come to you.
5. Make Social Media Releases that are SHAREABLE with strategic time releases.
6. Blog headlines are for search engines, and "Tweets" make it attractive to click on.
7. Do not "pitch" Bloggers, but partner with them and establish relationships instead.

It was a great event, and I left with lots of ideas and networking opportunities. The Coffee Ethic even catered the event, so I baked the muffins for the event. Coffee and Community really did collide for me today! I also got to spend lots of time with my classmates and my former internship supervisor, Lindsey Neddenriep. My fellow Bear Communications member Doug and I came up with some great ideas for Urban District Alliance. I appreciated Ben Smith of Social: IRL to bringing such a reputable social media guru to Springfield, MO.

Extra tip from Sarah: Share a little "link love" with others. Link others and sometimes they will link you back. It's about the relationships you create online and continue offline.

Do you all have any tips for Social Media and PR users?