I had the pleasure of meeting Zac Long at a recent stay at the Marriott World Center in Orlando, FL. I was so impressed with how he was embracing social media on behalf of Marriott that I wrote a blog post about him for Jenise Fryatt when I returned. Now I've had the distinct honor of interviewing him for my blog so you can all get a little more insight into what makes him tick! Please enjoy!
Question #1: What exactly is it about social media that is attractive to people like hotel customers? Why have you been successful tying social media into attraction of new or repeat customers?
The "social" aspect of Social Media is extremely relevant in any consumer goods or services company, and even more so with travelers. The hospitality industry is all about experiences, a traveler in a new city needs a bed to sleep in, but it's the service from the likes of a Marriott or a Hilton that separates them from Mom & Pop Motel XYZ. Building on that idea from an industry perspective, from a consumer perspective having that great experience then leads to even more social interactions as the travelers return home and share those experiences.
These pictures were taken at my nephew's First birthday party! We had such a great time celebrating his eventful year! As you know, the first year of a baby's life is full of new experiences and events. We used his first birthday to highlight all of those "firsts" with all his favorite foods, pictures of all his special moments and time with the friends and family who have followed his journey over the past year.
There were probably over fifty people in attendance and each of them got to celebrate his life together. It was a very special experience - not only because of the hard work that everyone put in to make it an event built just for him, but because of the chance to honor the little guy in our life. Some people say he's a bit spoiled The pictures here were taken by David Teng Photography. I encourage you to check out his site and see my Facebook page for a bigger album!
Joey's favorite TV show is a show called Word World. It's an ingenious show where all the characters are spelled out to encourage word recognition in little children. It's a really great show! We bought large wall decals and mounted them on foam core. Then, we placed them all around the lawn. They didn't last long because Joey kept going up to them and kissing them all over!
Because Joey is 1/4 Korean, we wanted to celebrate his heritage. We set up the head table with picture books from his first year, towers of goodies to celebrate prosperity. We even had raffle cards for a little game we played towards the end!
After finding these gigantic favor balls and stuffing them with candy, toys and all kinds of fun things, the only way we could have made it better would be to build this giant gum-ball machine. Mommy and Daddy worked hard to build this and it came out just right. It was a huge hit at the party!!
A birthday party isn't complete without cake! The beautiful cake was gobbled up by the birthday boy in a matter of minutes. He loved every bite! See the Facebook page for pictures of the GORGEOUS cake!
Who doesn't love a chocolate fountain surrounded by all kinds of goodies to dip in it? We had to end the party on a sweet note and all these fruits, marshmallows, cookies and chocolate helped to do just that!
Big thanks to David Teng Photography for capturing the day in photos!
I came across this video from William Arruda at Reach Personal Branding. It's a good watch (though a little slow). Certainly an important thing to consider!
Lindsay Fultz has been an integral member of the #eventprofs community as many of you know. In an attempt to get to know Lindsay better, I asked if she would mind if I "interviewed" her and she graciously accepted. Please see her insightful interview below and feel free to connect with her and Grosh Backdrops. They are doing amazing work and Lindsay is always reliable for when you need a tweet to brighten your day or provide some great insight! Lindsay has some great points here about social media and how we as event planners can help set up our suppliers for success. Enjoy!
Question #1: Social media is obviously a large part of your job at Grosh. How has social media impacted your job in ways that you did NOT expect? What has surprised you?
Well I started off as one of two sales assistants at Grosh and I've always been the type of person that no matter what I do, I am going to do it with purpose, pride and passion. I also get bored easily so I was always looking for ways to make the consultants I assisted jobs easier and when I saw that they needed sales and the phones weren't ringing from the print advertising that Grosh had in place I saw a void and looked to fill it. I did three social media proposals and was finally given the green light.
I'm working in conjunction with a friend of mine to launch a new series of events in the fall for young singles. We're calling it the heartbreak club and I would love your vote on which you prefer. These amazing logos were designed by Vivian Jang, another friend and creative designer. Please visit her portfolio to see more samples of her work!
For those of you new to chat (or for those of you who are slower, like me), I thought it might be nice to try and condense our #eventprofs chat into bite-sized chunks. Below, I've outlined the major points in our conversation since there were a lot of great suggestions and links. I've tried to condense it all into a format that should be digestible. Please see the Eventprofs Wiki for the full archive. I'd love to hear your feedback about the format and the conversation!
Having participated in a number of student events recently where I shared a number of secrets I have as a direct result found myself inspired to put together a Business Boot Camp Series of Secrets/Tips for students. After all, our students today are the talent that will take our industry forward. My advice is that each student needs to differentiate himself/herself from the competition (which includes friends/classmates/non –student employees). Here I share my next tip –How to Start the Job Search.
Thanks to Jenise Fryatt of Icon Presentations for another great opportunity to guest blog for her! It has been so great getting to know Jenise on Twitter and seeing her huge impact on the #eventprofs world and my blog (you know her from her guest blogs on my site!). Enjoy the read, and please leave Jenise and I your comments and love!
I recently wrote a post called "My Rant: Why Your Customer Service Is Killing Your Business" where I aired my grievances about David's Bridal and many other little shops that don't understand that value of responding to their clients. After posting, I received many inquiries from event professionals and friends wondering if David's Bridal contacted me in response to my post. I have not, to date, heard anything from them.
Now, I'm not a delusional person thinking that the world is tuned into my tweets, but it did signal to me that they are not monitoring their brand. So many organizations are so focused on branding their organization - working with designers to create style guides, creating strategies for their social media accounts - that they completely forget about the brand that is being determined for them without their consent. There is one aspect of your brand that you don't have much control over and means more to your clients than anything you can plan - the image that is determined by your clients themselves.
There seems to be some debate over the merits of scheduling tweets on Twitter. Some people find it disingenuous, others say it's a lifesaver for managing time.
On a recent Twitter chat, I had a brief conversation with someone who agreed with the former opinion. What he described was a person scheduling tweets that were comments about their day or opinions on topics. I had to agree, this sounded disingenuous. After all, tweets that share your experiences or opinions are assumed to be conversation starters. But if you aren't there when someone responds, it's kind of like leaving the lights on when no one's home. A fake out.
I saw this video from a colleague, Sree Sreenivasan, who provides a great collection of social media links and tools. This video was on his website and I wanted to share it as it think it has some great information for all those social media geeks out there and even for those who still aren't sure social media is something they should care about. Please watch and share your thoughts!
I had the pleasure of meeting Zac Long at a recent stay at the Marriott World Center in Orlando, FL. I was so impressed with how he was embracing social media on behalf of Marriott that I wrote a blog post about him for Jenise Fryatt when I returned. Now I've had the distinct honor of interviewing him for my blog so you can all get a little more insight into what makes him tick! Please enjoy!
The pictures here were taken by 
