Hello social media club friends. Happy new year! We hope you had a wonderful holiday season!

We’re excited to get rolling again with SMCUV! We will be holding an important planning meeting THIS THURSDAY, JANUARY 7TH, AT 7:00PM, at the BELLE MONET CLUBHOUSE in PLEASANT GROVE. The address is: 581 South 2220 West, Pleasant Grove. Thanks to Seth Jenks (@sethjenks) for arranging this place for us to meet. The Tahitian Noni folks decided not to be so accommodating any more and wanted to start charging us to meet there. Too bad.

WE NEED YOUR HELP! We feel like the success of our club will depend on how many people we can get to participate in planning and carrying out club activities. Many hands make light work! So, if you think you can carve out a little time this year to help, please come to the meeting and get on one of our committees! We got some decent traction in 2009… As you know, we only started early last year. But, we would like to get a ton more traction in ’10!

So, PLEASE JOIN US FOR OUR PLANNING MEETING ON THURSDAY!

If you have any questions, contact me, @jack_hadley . See you then! Or, questions about the location of the meeting to @sethjenks.

Click here for >MAP LINK

We’re helping plan a Social Media Club of Salt Lake City, Utah Valley, and Cache Valley Holiday Party & Toy Drive for December 17th! And you’re invited!

> HERE IS THE LINK to the details on the SMCSLC site!

See you there!

We have decided to NOT hold our Utah Valley Social Media Meeting this Thursday, November 5th! Please pass along the word! We want to support the Utah Social Media Awards event on Friday. Last minute news… There are still a few tickets available if you would like to go. Click >HERE for details! 

It’s NOT too late to attend the world’s first-ever awards event recognizing excellence in social media! Tickets are on sale until Friday, October 30!

Why attend? How about networking opportunities with like-minded people, a keynote by David Bradford, the CEO of Fusion-io, and meeting the best social media users in the state? Plus a great dinner, great company and an overall great time!

When making your purchase, please be aware that we will NOT be sending out printed tickets. Just come to the registration table and tell us your name – you’ll be on the list.

Get your tickets now, before you hear about the USMAs on everyone else’s blog, Twitter, Facebook….

Thanks to all who attended our meeting last night! We had around 50 people with great discussions and conversations. Thank you to the folks at Tahitian Noni for letting us use their awesome space again. Big thanks to our three presenters, Nate Bagley, Nate Kartchner, and Seth Jenks. Also, thanks to CostaVidaFred (@costavidafred) for his attendance and support.

Utah’s First Awards Program, Focused Exclusively on Social Media, Set For Friday, November 6th!

The three Social Media Clubs of Utah announce the creation of the Utah Social Media Awards — the state’s first awards program designed to recognize excellence in social media practitioners and practices throughout Utah.

The USMAs, as we are affectionately calling them, have been in the works now since the beginning of the year. For those of you who haven’t yet heard about this new awards program first-hand, we have created an informative site!

Be sure to get your tickets NOW for this upcoming, fun event!

NEXT MEETING:

Targeting Your Niche & Managing Your Reputation With Social Media

Thursday, October 1st – Mingling Begins at 6:30, Presentation at 7:00
We will be meeting in the same building as last month, but in a different room, at The Tahitian Noni building in Provo (address and map link below)

We are excited to be learning about some great tools and methods to help create an effective corporate social media account to target your niche market and manage your reputation.

Let’s face it, we all know what Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Youtube are by now. It’s time to learn how to use them effectively as a business. We’ll be sharing with you some of our favorite tools and platforms to manage your social media profiles, evaluate your online presence, find the people talking about your products, services and brand online, and engage them in an effective manner, and track your success!

We’ll also be discussing strategies to help you turn negative online publicity into positive opportunities for your company. Part of this includes learning to use your friends and employees to help creating a positive buzz around your business that others will actually want to talk about.

It’s time to step up your marketing. You know it can be done using social media… we’ll show you how.

Our three awesome social media pulpiteers on this month’s panel are:

NATE BAGLEY

Social Media Coordinator Dude at OrangeSoda. Nate has been working in the SEM industry for about 3 years. In that time, he has mastered the art of paid search, and worked on OrangeSoda’s SEO team while coordinating their social media efforts. He has helped develop search and social media strategies for companies such as Red Mango,Furniture Warehouse, and Maakoa. He recently abnegated his position at OrangeSoda to pursue his personal interests of world domination and flirting with mom bloggers on the Twitter. (atomfly.com)

SETH JENKS

Worker of all things Search and Social at APX Alarm. Seth has an irrefutable reputation for being awesome. After getting his start in social media as the online marketing director at Advent Creative in Cache Valley, Utah, he helped develop (along with @marshallt) the social media and SEO strategy for the Ogden Standard Examiner, to cope with the shifting industry. Seth has had the pleasure of working with and consulting for business all over the nation on the topics of SEO and social media. Seth was also a guest speaker at the University of Colorado with the infamous Gwen Bell of Kirtsy fame, and currently resides in his exclusive, private chateau in Pleasant Grove, Utah.

NATE KARTCHNER

Social Media Evangelist for Mozy. Nathan (aka @jazzcat), a graduate of BYU, has been involved the internet marketing industry for over 5 years. He is well versed in paid search, SEO, affiliate marketing, and social media strategies. Before managing social media at Mozy, he was the Internet Marketing Manager at Sewell Direct. He was recently featured as a panelist at the Digital Marketing World Fall 2009 Virtual Conference as a corporate Twitter expert due to his successes with the @Mozy twitter account. He was recently married and is planning to buy a puppy. (natekartchner.com)

Thursday, October 1st – Mingling Begins at 6:30, Presentation at 7:00
We will be meeting in the same building as last month, but in a different room, at The Tahitian Noni building in Provo

Jack went down to Tahitian Noni to check out the room and to reserve it. If you want to see the room, here is a quick vid he shot:

Map and address: http://bit.ly/BZsgl

Thursday, September 3 is the next SMCUV event.

We are excited to have George Wright of the “Will It Blend” viral phenomenom as our presenter this month.

George has a proven track record of delivering strategic thinking, brand awareness and marketing strategy to drive strategic, sustainable, corporate growth.  These new strategies and tactics can be adapted and implemented by other companies without a large financial investment.

During his career, George has produced several award-winning campaigns and is the recipient of multiple awards, including a Clio, the .net Award , Silver Anvil, Golden Spike Award, YouTube Awards short list, and 2007 Best of Broadband and two Gold Communicator awards.

In addition to being a thought leader on the social media and viral marketing, George has demonstrated that YouTube and other social media sites can be harnessed to achieve corporate purposes.

Described by Entrepreneur.com as one of the 13 best marketing ideas of “all time”, George Wright’s Will it Blend? viral marketing campaign has changed the face and the future of online marketing.  Seen by more than 200 million people on the Internet and reported on by traditional media outlets like the Today Show, the Tonight Show, the History Channel, The Big Idea, etc.  Will it Blend? continues to deliver unprecedented corporate awareness through social media channels.  This new form of marketing has delivered a 700 percent increase in sales for Blendtec, a small Utah based blender manufacturer, with an initial investment of $50.

Thursday, September 3rd at 7:00, we will be meeting at The Noni building in Provo

Map and address: http://bit.ly/BZsgl

The slides from August’s presentation by Cary Snowden are available here.