Scott Allender will be presenting a session on Social Media for Business at the upcoming Look at Me Seminar. We sat down with Scott and asked him a few questions about his upcoming presentation, as well as a few personal questions about what he’s up to.
I see you are speaking on social media. Why do you think this is an important topic for businesses in St Louis?
Social Media is a new way to market yourself and your business. With all of the turmoil in the world of business, it’s more important than ever to market your business. I think what St. Louis business needs to recognize about Social Media is that regardless of what platform you use, social media can provide a significant boost to your business.
These social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc) take a ton of time. Do you think it’s cost effective for a business to use these?
Any effort spent working within a social media platform is time well spent, provided you understand that you need a plan and thought-out metrics to measure your success.
Do you think that using social media will increase revenue, or just build a fan base, or both/other?
Absolutely you can use social media to increase revenue because essentially social media is a new platform to reach your potential audience. What makes social media unique is that it offers the ability for your target audience a way to interact back with you one-on-one. While it’s possible to achieve a single goal (increase revenue or build a fan base), why not attempt both? The more people walk away from a positive interaction with your company, the more likely you’ll have a bigger fan base and more sales.
Why do you think so many St. Louis businesses don’t take advantage of social media?
I think the vast majority of business leaders are trying to understand how social media is different from every other fad that started in the last several years. I like to think that one way to better understand what’s going on is to compare today’s shifts to when television started to supplant radio as the main marketing vehicle. With television taking over, image became the primary means of marketing. In the era of social media/marketing, it’s providing an efficient and positive interaction quickly.
As an individual, do you see yourself patronizing businesses simply because you saw them on Twitter/Facebook?
Absolutely! Any business that can adequately grab my attention on social media platform knows how to market to me personally. I’m kind of flattered when a company I have little experience with reaches out to me and provides a good reason for me to buy.
Tell us a bit about your background
I have been working in the IT industry for nearly 10 years now, primarily in the Microsoft World. I was an independent consultant for two years, and very quickly realized the power of positive branding, especially through the internet. After two years, I worked with another consulting firm, and finally wound up at TricorBraun, one of the largest packaging distributors in the world. Working at TricorBraun has allowed me numerous opportunities to explore social media and it’s impact for businesses.
What cool projects are you working on right now?
Every project I work on is cool! I’m in the middle of trying to complete an open source module for the DotNetNuke project in my spare time, and at TricorBraun, I’m building a customer extranet that will include various aspects of social media.
