Liz King Events: Social Media Event Planning Specialists

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Jenise Fryatt is the Co-Owner and Marketing Director of Icon Presentations, audio visual for events located in the Palm Springs area of Southern California. She is married with two teenagers (one has flown the coup and is at college in Canada) and has a background that includes print & broadcast journalism, PR, theater production and acting. She LOVES social media! (Before Facebook & Twitter, she founded a networking group for actors called The Desert Actors Network that relied mostly on the internet.)

Jenise – Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I am interested in the very exciting changes that are happening in the events industry. Interactive meetings seem to take into account studies that have been done concerning the way humans process information. As a mom with two kids who have gone through the public school system, I’m excited that these studies are finally being used by SOMEONE. Hopefully our education system will be next.

How did you decide that event planning was your "calling"? Can you tell me a little bit about your career path?
I sort of fell sideways into the events industry. I was studying communications with a radio/tv/film emphasis at Cal State Fullerton when I got a job as a part-time AV tech with McCune Audio Visual in Anaheim. I immediately realized that AV was a perfect fit for my then boyfriend Mike, who had been taking apart radios and TVs since he was a kid. He subsequently got a job as a full-time AV tech with a hotel AV subcontractor. I was more interested in journalism at the time, so I continued to pursue that while Mike worked his way up in AV.

In 1990, the year my daughter was born, we started Icon Presentations out of our house. Shortly after that, Tony Messina became our partner.Icon has grown tremendously since then. I have focused on the marketing end of it, and have pursued some acting opportunities on the side. But with the advent of SM marketing and the new challenges that we events industry folk have all had to face recently, I have been focusing all my energy on social media marketing.

People are just learning about the #EIR movement. Can you tell us a little more about how it came about and how it’s changing Follow Friday?
I had just discovered #eventprofs, the wonderful group of event professionals who hang out on Twitter together. I was still new, and reading everything I could find about how to engage on Twitter. #FF or #FollowFriday, a Twitter tradition in which you recommend certain of your followers using the #FF hashtag was a big thing. But some people complained that simply posting long lists of Twitter names followed by #FF was cluttering up the Twitter stream and a better way was to post individual recommendations that explained why you recommend each person.

Like most tweeps, I wanted to recommend LOTS of people, but I also wanted everyone to know why I recommended them. So I boiled down the main reasons why I follow people into three words: Engage, Inform and Retweet. The best tweeps have conversations with other tweeps (engage); post really useful info (inform) and spread great info while promoting other tweeps by retweeting.

I put out some posts saying: People who engage, inform and retweet #EIR are fun to follow. Those who yell "Buy my stuff!" are not. And then I started posting my #FF lists including the #EIR hashtag. My wonderful Twitter friend Lindsay Fultz saw it, thought it was a good idea and started spreading it. She even posted a blog on it. I was amazed. I’m still amazed. I guess a lot of people felt the way I did about Follow Friday.

What is one piece of advice you would share with young professionals who are considering our industry?
My advice would be to make friends with failure. I spent a lot of my life frustrated because I was so afraid of failing that I didn’t follow through on my ideas. The true innovators and great thinkers had to let go of this fear or at least rise above it. Now that I’m older, and have a history with risk, I understand that the potential rewards are just too great to let fear of failure keep you from acting on your ideas.

And, of course, what would you consider to be your most hilarious "event moment"?
WELL – since you asked . . . one year when I was stage managing at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, a certain Academy Award winning actor, who shall remain nameless, was scheduled to present an award. I was informed that he needed to use the restroom, but we had to inform him that he didn’t have enough time. He asked for a cup and went off to use it, in lieu of the restroom, so that he wouldn’t miss his cue. That’s dedication.

Liz

Liz King is a social media-integrated event planner and award winning blogger. As the owner of Liz King Events, she runs an innovative firm that creates dynamic branding events integrating the use of social media. Planning events from soup to nuts, she works with her team to create and sustain your event brand and enhance attendee engagement. Liz is also a co-founder of the Event Technology Showcase PlannerTech. As the owner of Liz King Events, she has been featured as a speaker at the International Association of Exhibitions and Events, National Association of Colleges and Employers, ExpoWest/Supply Expo and several other events as an expert on the topic of social media and events. She has also been featured in Connect Meetings Intelligence and Convene Magazine, among others.

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Tags: #eventprofs, events

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 4:16 pm and is filed under Event Professionals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.