For me, there's nothing like the buzz of a Trade Show!! Had great fun attending the Seattle Gift Show with my mother yesterday. Loaded up the car and blazed a trail for the Market Center on 4th Ave. Spent the morning listening to a seminar with Chris N. of Amazon Services, connecting with other small biz owners, talking with several Reps, & even trying a few chocolate samples. Mmmmm.....
After a quick lunch break, our adventure then continued up-town at the Convention Center. This was my 3rd visit to the show and Mom's first. There was a noticeable drop in vendors. Hallways weren't as long and pressed together, and there seemed to be an awful lot of out-of-state vendors exhibiting. We took quick floor tour, then took some time to visit with a few vendors I'd met over the years. Was glad to see they were doing well & making quite a few orders!
Before too long, there boomed a large voice over the loud-speaker -- "The next seminar is about to begin in 5 minutes in the back of the North Hall." Lynn Barret of CreativeBusiness Consulting Group did a fantastic job with her presentation 'Are you Tubing, Facebooking and Flickring your way to Retail Success?' She explained the 4 P's & 4 C's of marketing and dove into her objectives - components of social media marketing! A.K.A. taking advantage of "user-generated content" on places like blogs, E-zines, networking groups, podcasts, etc. Found it very informative & inspiring; definitely time well-spent. And guess what the bonus was? She offered a free 30 minute session for attending the seminar that afternoon. Wahoo!
Just a few of my networks:
Today I woke up & thought - I love being a small business owner. Let the creative juices flow......
Cheers!
P.S. -- If you'd like to be part of my social networking group, drop me a line so we can connect!
