I thoroughly enjoyed an inspired talk by Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) last night on his new book The Thank You Economy. I also treasured the opportunity for a brief chat with him about social media marketing and social commerce. Some of the points that Gary made last night:
Bryan Elliott (@BryanElliott) visiting my Chapman University MBA class in Internet & Social Media Marketing and sharing his take on social media marketing today as well as his intriguing story about first building a community in the Action Sports Industry and then broadening his reach with LinkedOC.com through which he has been able to accomplish such impressive feats such as hosting marketing godfather Seth Godin here in Orange County.
On March 2nd, 2011, marketing superstar and best-selling author Seth Godin honored his Orange County fans with a return visit to a Linked OC event and the venue this time was brand new and beautiful Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall; inspiring to see what landmarks Swedish immigrants can leave behind! It was also gratifying to see that many of my students were able to make it for this terrific event. A special thanks to the host of the evening, Bryan Elliott, who made this happen and for recognizing our Chapman University volunteers from the stage. Many thanks also to the many students of mine who volunteered at the event! Finally, thanks to Seth Godin for an excellent talk on his latest book, “Poke the Box” and for encouraging us all to take more initiatives! For some more of my pictures from the event, please click here and for many professional pictures from the event, please check out Pixel That Photography!
On February 10, I delivered the keynote address titled “Social Media Marketing-A Primer for Executives” for the BRACE (Business Retention Attraction Creation & Expansion) Program at the City of Cypress. It was a great opportunity to interact with executives from over 30 large Cypress businesses who attended the event. Thanks to Economic Development Manager Bill Manis for setting up the event and thanks to Mayor Pro Tem Doug Bailey and Mayor Prakash Narain, M.D. for the warm welcome!
David O. Sacks, Founder/CEO at Yammer, Inc., and at Geni, Inc. and former COO of PayPal, generously shared insights on technology startups and social media marketing in the MBA class of Marketing Professor Niklas Myhr at Chapman University. Best IT startups have a viral component to them like all three he has been involved with. Buying eyeballs with ads quickly gets very expensive. Beware feature creep, launch once you have a “minimum viable product” and get the snowball rolling!