An Average Joe in San Antonio

For about a year now, there has been a group of Marketing and PR professionals that have been promoting the use of Social Media tools not only for businesses, but also for individuals and nonprofit organizations here in San Antonio.  They go by the name of The BMPR (Business Media and Public Relations) and offer an open invitation for anyone to attend the monthly meetings to “learn more about the exciting technologies and applications of social media, meet new people and connect with peers.”

I had been following Donna Tuttle, one of the founders of The BMPR, for about a year now on Twitter when I did a random search for “San Antonio” and found something interesting that she posted.  From seeing her tweets, I had been aware of this organization but just could never make a meeting.  I was finally able to be in attendance this past June which had a focus on blogging.

Now, for any of you folks who are like me and are as technical as a blue dry erase marker and about as PR savvy as BP in the current Gulf Crisis, a meeting with techies and PR professionals might be intimidating.  Let me allay your concerns as all the people were incredibly friendly as easy to talk with.  If they have a topic that is of interest to you or your business, I would highly encourage you to attend.

As far as the meeting went, I was able to learn a lot from some folks who are quite good at the craft of blogging.  I basically do this blog for fun and enjoy it nothing more than recording some of the places that I enjoy eating at in hopes that I can drive hungry folks to them.  I think I scored in like the 43^rd percentile of SAT II Writing, so I know my abilities as a writer are inane, but it is fun none-the-less to get to post ideas.  That being said, here are some things that I learned from meeting on blogging:

• Get a Little Technical – Be sure to insert Google Analytics into your blog and submit it to Feedburner; if you don’t know how to do this or are afraid, just bake some cookies as ask your technical friend as it won’t take him/her very long; it is fun to see who visits your blog and how they go there
• Fill Up Your CUP – Change, Understand audience, Post updates regularly; I will try to get better at this
• PINE is More Than a Longing for a Tree – Plan (have goals and focus), Interest (provide valuable content), Niche (rich focused content), Expert (get credibility)
• Use Grammar and Spell Check – To paraphrase Dawn, a speaker at the event, “ee cummings could use grammar and spelling however he liked; he’s a literary genius and you are not.” Yeah, I got to get better at this

For multimedia files on what was presented at the June BMPR meeting, be sure to check out the June BMPR Wrap Up + Tips and Tricks.

I think that they presented some valuable information and I got to learn a lot.  While I have employed some of them (the analytics pieces), plan to use some in the future (especially CUP), there will be some I ignore (notably the “Niche” in PINE as I realize that I am not a professional and want to sometimes talk about more things than just food or food in San Antonio).

Next time they have a topic that interests you, be sure to go check them out!

Website: http://thebmpr.com