Social Media Breakfast

This morning I attended the first Waterloo Region Social Media Breakfast, organized by James Howe of Communicate & Howe (@KingandOttawa for his local/political writing and @communic8nhowe for his business). The goal is to bring together local people who are active in social media or who would like to learn more about social media to network and learn from each other. Our guest speaker this morning was Joseph Thornley, CEO of Thornley Fallis, a PR and social media firm. He gave a brief presentation about social media and stressed the importance of blending the personal and the professional so that you forge real connections with others online based around common interests. If you express interest in someone’s photography, for  example, they are much more likely to be interested in the content you are producing.

As an extra added bonus, Terry Fallis, who is in town to participate in Waterloo’s One Book One Community event for his first book The Best Laid Plans, also got up to speak. He told of his journey from blog/podcast to self-published book to his subsequent signing  with McClelland & Stewart, who republished TBLP and have recently released his second book The High Road. Terry’s story is every writer’s dream, and a real example of what social media can do to get your content out to interested parties.

Social Media Breakfast will be a monthly event in Waterloo Region, alternating between Kitchener and Cambridge and Waterloo. Next month’s breakfast will feature Kneale Mann, who, as his website says is a Strategist. Writer. Speaker. Facilitator. Stay tuned to @smbwr or Eventbrite SMBWR for details.

A big thank you to the City of Kitchener for sponsoring today’s event, providing the community room at the market at no charge and the continental breakfast. Amazing muffins from one of the market vendors!

You will have noticed that many of today’s links are to Twitter feeds. If you’re not already on Twitter, perhaps you should be!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 at 11:56 and is filed under Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed, or you can trackback from your own site.