Rick Galan knows LinkedIn

We all know we should be using LinkedIn, right? We know that it’s a powerful business tool and something that we should be using regularly, but if you’re like most of us you use it infrequently and never feel like you’re getting everything out of it that you could. That is why the SMCSLC is happy to bring you Mr. Rick Galan. He knows LinkedIn inside and out, and will be giving us a presentation covering the myriad facets of this amazing business tool. He will be covering the how’s, why’s, shortcuts and what’s’ new with LinkedIn.

The event will be held at the Grand America and the cost for this event is just $10. Your $10 gets you the Grand America lunch buffet (usually $17) and the presentation by Rick. Seating is limited and the $10 price is only good for a limited time. The day before the event the price jumps to a still very modest $20. So tell your boss you’re taking a long lunch and get signed up today. You can bring your boss too!

Grand America's Lunch Buffet

Grand America's Garden Cafe

Grand America's Garden Cafe Patio

Presentation Abstract:

You have a Facebook page and Twitter account. Maybe you’re even using YouTube, Foursquare, Groupon or other social media outlets. But how many of those visitors are you converting in to customers? Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is how you turn more visitors into customers without increasing your marketing spend. Josh Summerhays and Robert Brady will lay out the basics of CRO and then show you how to apply those principles to your social media efforts to improve your bottom line.

Further DEETS:

WHO:  SMCSLC and SMCUV members and would-be members

WHAT:  July Meeting:  Conversion Rate Optimization

WHEN:  Thursday, July 29, 6 p.m.

WHERE:  Salsa Leedos, 9155 South Redwood Road, West Jordan in the UT.  There will be a “Make Yer Own” taco setup for the very low price of $7.50.

WHY:  Because we could all use some help and some new ideas for turning some of these crazy social platforms into more solid business and networking leads.

Questions?  Contact Brian Seethaler, 2010 SMCSLC Programming Director, via Twitter (@seethaler) or Facebook (facebook.com/seethaler).

The Good

The first thing about the iPhone 4 that struck me was the heft of the unit. The new model weighs just two grams more (137 grams) when compared to the previous generation iPhone 3GS (135 grams) but the new iPhone has a more solid feel.  With a flat glass front and back and a stainless steel band circling the outside of the phone—the iPhone 4’s assorted antennas—there is a satisfying denseness to it.

The display is where the iPhone 4 really stands out.  The ‘retina’ display is truly beautiful. With a resolution of 960×640 pixels in a display measuring 3.5 inches diagonally the iPhone 4 display comes in at 326 ppi. (For a great technical and physiological discussion of whether the iPhone 4 is truly a ‘retina’ display go here)  Text on the iPhone is incredibly crisp and uncluttered.

The page scrolling is smooth and the phone is very responsive. The updated iPhone operating system—renamed iOS 4—has been updated with new features that really leverage the new hardware.

FaceTime is a new feature that allows you to have a two-way video call with another person using the new forward-facing camera. The caveat being that the other person also has to have an iPhone 4 and that you both have to be on a WiFi network. I’ve yet to try this feature as I hate talking on the regular non-video phone and I have no friends.

The iPhone 4 also will record video at 720p HD using either the front or rear-facing 5-megapixel camera. Apple offers a mobile iMovie app ($4.99) giving you the ability to edit your video on the phone. You can make cuts, add clips, add transitions and even add your own soundtrack from your iPhone’s music library. You still have the ability to export your clips and edit them on a PC or Mac so the iMovie app is not a necessity.

The iMovie timeline view

Bowing to pressure from customers and industry pundits Apple has finally added multitasking to the iOS. Honestly, this is one of those features that, as an owner of every generation of iPhone, I wonder how I lived without. Pressing the home button twice brings up a taskbar-like tray of running apps, allowing you to scroll through a list of running apps and gives you the ability switch to or kill another app. It’s really handy to be able to switch from Angry Birds to YouTube for hint videos without having to start either app from scratch.

iOS 4's Multitasking bar

The Bad

Apple touted the move of the iPhone’s antennas to the outside of the phone case as a bold move, intended to improve reception, a welcome thought for many users suffering under the anemic AT&T network. This move of the antenna however, has highlighted a problem plaguing some users. Holding the phone as you normally would, with the left hand covering a significant portion of the antenna, can cause the phone’s signal to degrade, even to the point of dropping calls. I have yet to see this on my iPhone, regardless of how I hold it. Your mileage on this may vary and is easily remedied with the use of a case to isolate the phone from your evil, signal-killing hands.

Conclusion

I drank the Apple kool-aid long ago so I feel pretty biased. I love this phone, as I loved its brothers before it. My advice, if you’re looking for a smart phone, is to find someone with every model of phone you’re thinking of buying and evaluate them yourself. And then just go buy the iPhone.

It really is a great drunk dial/tweet/Facebook your friends at 4 A.M. smart phone.

The result of a failed 1972 East-German experiment in eugenics, Ryan Shaw dreamed of a career as a professional skate-boarder. Unfortunately, on Easter Sunday of 1988 in downtown SLC those dreams were torn asunder, much like the ligaments in his ankle. He now does programming for Rio Tinto, makes fun of people, and sometimes cries at television shows. You probably should NOT follow him on Twitter.

Haiti’s Kids 5K & 1K Fun Run

Saturday, July 10, 2010, Sugarhouse Park, Salt Lake City, Utah

Join us for a 5K race and 1K fun run to raise money for Zion’s Children Haiti, a non-profit organization that sponsors education for children in Haiti.  Online registration is available through July 9, 2010 and can be done at www.zionschildrenhaiti.org with a minimum donation of $20.  Kids 12 and under can register for $7.  After July 2nd, registration can be done in person on the day of the race with a minimum donation of $25 for adults and $10 for kids 12 and under.  Registration and warm-up area will be at Sugarhouse Park in the Big Field Pavilion.  Registrants will receive a t-shirt and raffle ticket.

Race Day Schedule

8:00 am:  Registration – Sugarhouse Park Big Field Pavilion

8:30 am:  1 kilometer fun run

9:30 am:  5 kilometer race

11:00 am: Awards and raffle

Corporate sponsorship is available.  With a $300 corporate sponsorship, your business will have its logo printed on the back of our t-shirts and any print advertisement. Also, we will list your company on our Facebook page and website.   Raffle prize donations are also welcome.

Zion’s Children Haiti sponsors education for children who live in Gonaives, Haiti.  90% of the schools in Haiti are non-public and fewer than 30% of children in Haiti reach the 6^th grade.  Zion’s Children Haiti’s mission is to partner with Haitians to create a better future for their children.

Contact:

Andy Bedingfield, Zion’s Children Haiti

info@zionschildrenhaiti.org, zionschildrenhaiti.org, (435)671-8929

At USANA Health Sciences we like to say that social media is tailor-made for direct sellers and the network marketing industry. As you know, direct selling first and foremost is about connecting, networking, and developing relationships with potential customers. Selling is secondary. It’s virtually impossible to build a successful business without first fostering relationships.

When USANA launched its social media efforts in 2008, one of the first tasks involved identifying social media platforms on which to focus. With dozens of social media sites out there we knew we couldn’t devote the time and resources necessary to create and maintain worthwhile communities on all of them.

We surveyed our field and learned two things: First, nearly 88% of respondents wanted USANA to create a social media training program. And second, the vast majority favored three platforms — Facebook, Twitter, and blogging. So we got rolling on a training system and concentrated our efforts in those three areas, aiming to build a strong following on each of them.

We surpassed the 20,000-fan mark on our corporate Facebook page this past month, and we have another 4,000 or so interacting on our two specialty pages — USANA Athletes and Rev3 Energy. Our page-view counts are also growing, signifying that they’re not fan-and-forget type pages. Our blog, What’s Up, USANA?, is a popular spot to read the latest USANA news, and it acts as a hub for distributor-driven information, which is then re-broadcast via Facebook and Twitter. It received more than 150,000 page views in its first year.

But how do we use these tools to help our associates? After all, isn’t that what it’s all about? Our goals as a direct selling company may be a bit different than those of individual direct sellers, but I think many of the key points are the same:

1.    Education: Through features such as our online video tutorial, Social Media 101, and our twice-monthly blog-based Social Media Tips, we try to offer examples showing how social media can work for our associates. For instance, we recently explained how to join and engage in Twitter conversations and how to utilize social media to generate and maintain excitement for business-building events. We believe that teaching our field to interact properly on social media — i.e. avoiding the sell-first mentality — not only helps their business succeed, but it also benefits our entire industry.

2.    Community: USANA distributors enjoy interacting with their peers, learning from leaders, and connecting with the corporate office. We’ve found Facebook to be the perfect platform for this. We manage three pages where distributors post comments or questions that are then acknowledged or answered by fellow associates or our social media team. It’s a great place to share knowledge, offer encouragement, and recognize successes.

3.    Resources: What’s Up, USANA? is updated several times a week with USANA-centric posts designed to educate the field, create talking points, and publicize the great things our company and its distributors are doing. It’s just over a year old, but we’re at the point where readers are submitting ideas for future posts. We notice our associates re-posting the content, as well as tweeting and sharing the information on Facebook. It’s truly becoming an interactive community, which is exactly what we wanted to have happen.

We understand social media is constantly evolving, but we believe that the basic principles of connecting and building relationships won’t change. By creating a solid foundation for utilizing these tools properly, we expect social media will help our company and our industry continue to grow.

Tim Haran is the Manager of Social Media Content at USANA Health Sciences, a manufacturer of high-quality nutritional supplements in Salt Lake City, Utah. A former journalist, Tim started as an all-purpose writer at USANA in 2007 before moving to the newly created social media/public relations department in late 2008. Since then, he’s overseen the company’s day-to-day social media initiatives and is the primary contributor to the award-winning What’s Up, USANA? blog.

Embracing social media and developing relevant content and strategy is what every hotel should strive toward, but don’t take our word for it. According to Travel Weekly’s April 2010 article on Social Media, “Social media use among travelers continues to grow faster than the travel industry itself. Unique monthly visitors to social travel sites rose 34% between the first half of 2008, and the last half of 2009 to 15.9 million.”

With the emergence of social media, the hotel industry worldwide has been trying to keep pace with this new medium and stay connected to their customers. Major hotel brands all over the world are Facebooking, Blogging, Tweeting and setting up their own YouTube channels in an effort to engage with their clientele, provide customer service and generate brand exposure. User generated content is now a valuable strategy for businesses big and small to attract customers. Hotels review sites such as TripAdvisor, Yelp, Expedia, ect.. play an important role in online engagement. Our hotels are able to track reviews, take note of relevant comments and make specific changes and responses directly to our guests online. More and more travelers are going strictly online to book their trip, and they often rely strictly on online reviews to choose the hotel for their destination.

This is exactly the reason why The Grand America Hotels & Resorts started using social media in May of 2009. Our company has always viewed personalized customer service as a standard and we greatly value these new free and innovative platforms available to connect us with our customers. Getting involved with the local community is also a priority for us. Social media has made it easier for The Grand America Hotels & Resorts to get the word out about our events and promotions, such as. . complimentary events open to the public like our First Annual Grand Holiday Festival , which we will hold again this year, http://www.grandamerica.com/promotions/holiday-events/ and our Spa Open House http://www.grandamerica.com/promotions/spa-open-house/ . These events are designed to welcome Utah residents to our hotels and showcase our efforts to contribute to the great city we live in.

Here are a few examples of how The Grand America Hotel is taking advantage of both Twitter and Facebook in order to connect, engage and learn from our current and prospective guests:

• Growing a relevant fan base. With Twitter in particular, we spend a lot of time staying involved with local residents and meeting planners.
• Listening to what folks are saying. You would not believe how much you will learn about your audience and their needs by listening to what they have to say. If you are listening to and noticing common complaints, take that information back to the source and fix it. That is good customer service.
• Participate in a genuine manner. Everyone can see right through marketing jargon. Social media as a platform for customer service and engagement will fail if you aren’t authentically engaging your audience. We take time to maintain a true dialogue with our fans and followers.
• Offer incentive and value. We regularly reward our faithful fans and followers by offering specials, promotions, contests and giveaways.
• Help current and prospective guests. During a recent Omniture(link) conference at The Grand America Hotel, with roughly 1700 guests in attendance, I was able to provide attendees with information about our facilities and amenities and to offer assistance with reservations via Twitter.

As we all know, social media is not going away any time soon. At our hotels, we look forward to taking advantage of its tools and finding new ways to use its capabilities to add our personal touch to every guest’s experience!

The summer vacation is a staple of many people’s annual calendars. An entire industry is dedicated to this time-honored tradition and all travel. Related industries including publishing (travel guides, maps, magazines), government and nonprofits (convention and visitor bureaus, visitor centers), business (airlines, hotels, restaurants, attractions) and countless other affiliated groups. It was only a matter of time before this began transitioning to a web 2.0 platform.

Today, a central player in travel planning, TripAdvisor, announced plans to integrate its content with Facebook, providing instant interactivity to its offerings. According to Adam Medros, vice president for global product at TripAdvisor, “the collective wisdom of the crowds is enhanced by the wisdom of friends, allowing travelers to get incredibly relevant and personalized travel advice from the people they know best and trust most—their friends.”

Many people already search online reviews before traveling, but a review from a trusted friend is immediately more credible and useful. The travel industry will doubtless continue to find ways to encourage travelers to share the good and the bad things we learn while visiting new places.

Erica Brown is the Director of Communications for Thanksgiving Point, a nonprofit destination in Lehi, Utah which includes the Museum of Ancient Life, Thanksgiving Point Gardens, Farm Country, Emporium shopping and Harvest Restaurant. Follow Erica on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.com.

Event capacity is 200 people.  Evite registration required for entrance.  Suggested donation of $5 at the door.  See further details below.

WHO:  SMCSLC members, families, and friends.

WHAT:  2010 SMCSLC Summer bash at the Salt Lake Art Center: miniature golf, food, beverages, music.

WHEN:  Thursday, June 24, 7 to 9:30 p.m.

WHERE:  Salt Lake Art Center, 20 S. West Temple (Next to Symphony Hall), SLC in the UT (parking is available at the Marriott on W. Temple and at the Plaza Hotel on N. Temple).

WHY:  The Salt Lake Art Center has made CONTEMPORARY MASTERS:  ARTIST-DESIGNED MINIATURE GOLF available for the exclusive use of SMCSLC.  This is our chance to have these 18 mini golf holes designed by 18 different artists to ourselves for two hours.  Bring you kids, your friends, your in laws, but be sure to sign up by clicking the link below.  Registration will be required for entry to the party.

Questions?  Contact Brian Seethaler, 2010 SMCSLC Programming Director, via Twitter (@seethaler) or Facebook (facebook.com/seethaler).

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER WITH EVENTBRITE!!

Unlike other disciplines, anyone can write. From our earliest days learning the A-B-C’s to writing papers in college, we are groomed with the skill to communicate via words on a written page.

Contrast this to designing a web site, complete with database programming and beautifully styled CSS. Or running complex pivot tables in massive Excel spreadsheets. These are not things most of us can do. I know for me personally, I’m hopeless in front of an Indesign document and struggle with even the most basic graphic design.

Writing is different.

We all know good writing. We all certainly know bad writing. As a blogger, paying attention to the craft of writing is crucial to your success.

Whether it’s Twitter, your company’s Facebook profile or your personal blog, some simple writing tactics can make your writing more effective and your efforts more rewarding.

• Forget grammar

The first thing I tell anyone who asks me how they can improve their writing is to forget grammar. What?!? they usually scream. Yep, forget grammar. Leave the self-professed grammar cops to contemplate their own lives. All too often, writers put so much emphasis on the mechanics they make it impossible to actually say something. The fact is if you don’t have anything to say, it doesn’t matter if every comma is correct, each period is in place and your subjects and verbs agree perfectly.

• Have something to say

Instead, focus on your content. Message is key. In the case of informational blogs, does your post offer new insights to the subject? For personal or story blogs, is your post consistent to your theme? Does it support your voice? Whether your blog is funny, informative or centered on the common slices of life we all share, consistency gives your readers the confidence they need to know that every post is something they want to read and will keep them coming back time and again.

• Brevity is good.

• Know your audience

The first rule for any good marketing campaign is to know your audience. Who are they? What do they want to know? Why do they want to know it? When do they read your blog? What’s their favorite color? What ice cream do they eat with which cake? The answers give you the tools you need to create a dialog with your readers.

• Optimize

If you’re web savvy, you know to write for search engines, but remember, it’s humans who read your posts. Those same keywords can be very useful for those who want to skim. Pepper your article with these keywords to allow readers to read at their chosen level.

Finally, don’t stop writing. While everybody can write, it takes hard work, diligence, perseverance and lots of letters on a page to write well. Don’t give up and keep trying.

Brady Dangel is a Senior Copywriter at RedEnvelope in San Diego, California, and is a 12-year veteran of marketing and advertising.

Join Today’s Mama and Mom it Forward for Evo’10—a conference that blends workshops, networking, parties and the wind-in-your-hair relaxation that can only be found by spending summertime in the mountains.

Who: Bloggers, businesses and social media junkies of all levels.

What: Participate in hands-on tutorials and workshops, thoughtful discussions and keynote panels.  Network and party with the friends and brands you love.

When: June 24-26, 2010

Where: The Canyons Resort in Park City, Utah

Why: Experts will take you, step-by-step, through their processes as you follow along on your own projects. Get ready to explore blogging, photography, PR, marketing, writing and more.

Learning, camaraderie, fresh mountain air…it’s like summer camp for bloggers.

To register use the code UTAHLOCALS to save $150 off your conference admission.

Speakers

Agenda

Registration