Asheville's Free Social Media School - May 10th - All About Blogging!

Okay, we are back on track after we got a "surprise" visit from the President of the United States. Of all the places to choose from, he decides to go to the same venue where we were supposed to hold the last social media school. We have rescheduled and we are now having the next class on Blogging, and it will be on Monday, May 10th at the Grove Park Inn (in the Elaine's Piano Bar area) from 5:00 pm - 7:30 pm. (Note to self: Afterwards we will be going upstairs to the Great Hall Bar area to mingle, listen to some music. Food and Drinks are also available until 9:30 pm)

You are going to hear from many local blog pioneers and experts including Jen from Blog Asheville, Anne from Edgy Mama, Felicia from Go Graham Go, Jason from Ashvegas, and of course me... Gary, the main contributor on the AskAsheville blog and I also build blogs for many businesses. Justin from Social Village will also be there to team up with G Social Media!

Blogging has changed the online community greatly in the Asheville area and around the world. Find out how these bloggers use it to create a strong network. Also, learn how you can use it to increase your visibilty and raise your voice online. You can email me, or RSVP on Facebook. See you there. Thanks!!

***PS: The next Asheville Free Social Media School after this one is May 27th. This will be the make-up class on Video Social Media. Same place, same time! But the "After-Party" will be staying down at Elaine's Piano Bar! Then on Friday, June 18th... we are going to have our 1st Asheville Social Media City Crawl where we meet at a location, discuss some of the ways social media can be used, and the take a tour of Downtown Asheville together, learning how to use new media. Lots and lots of fun to have and connections to be made. We are going to have a blast!!

Class #4 - Free Asheville Social Media School on Videos - May 27th

This event was originally planned for April 23rd, but the Presidential family was in town so it was postponed. The new date for this event is May 27, 2010 at Elaine's Piano at the Grove Park Inn. Video taking, making, editing, uploading and marketing.

In Asheville North Carolina in a few weeks, Social Media School takes a nice topic on.. when we talk about using video production and marketing to truly advance your business or person in this new media society. The class is going to be held at the Grove Park Inn 290 Macon Ave Asheville NC 28804 on May 27, 2010 from 5 pm - 7:30 pm with some music and an after party beginning around 8pm. RSVP on Facebook or email me.

Your words are worth something, but add a picture to those words and I heard it is worth 10,000. Add a video to the mix and WOW, you can really get your message across to a whole new audience. Videos are and important part of your social media package and strategy. Who doesn't like movies? And who does not like to watch a short movie about the topic they are interested in? Businesses who have not taken advantage of the YouTube and Vimeo scene are already behind in their efforts. Learn what to do to pick up your pace and get effectively involved.

G Social Media will be teaching along with Asheville Video Productions, Bourne Media, Rev Pictures, and PSAV. This is an important class that you do not want to miss. I know I will be there! Lol.

Social Village comes to Free Asheville Social Media School

Asheville's Justin Brackett from Social Village will be teaching a part of the Free Asheville Social Media School on March 23rd at the Garage at Biltmore with Trey Pennington and GSocialMedia.

“People are drawn to an epic story; they want to be a part of something that they feel is bigger than they are. Everyone is telling their epic story every day. Now with Social Media everyone has the opportunity to tell their story to the world and to invite them to join in."

Justin Brackett is an up and coming social media guru. He has emerged into the Social Media world, surprising his peers with his knowledge and understanding of how Social Media is the next tool to change the world.

Social Village, Justin's company: partners with passionate and driven people, tribes of dedicated individuals who lend their time, talent, and money to help improve the world we share. The goal is to help share their story: to clearly fascinate an audience with the needs, the passions, and the actions that can be used to do greatness on a local or global scale.

Justin is making his mark on a world that desires life change. His experiences with the business world, the non-profit sector, and witnessing life change interpersonally gives him a unique position in the Social Media landscape. If you would like to know more, ask him. He really likes to tell about the epic he finds himself experiencing.

THANKS for helping with Asheville Social Media School - Class #1

First of all we would like to thank the Downtown Market in Asheville North Carolina for giving us the space to hold this 1st event. Josiah Hyatt, Pepper Parris, and the many vendors allowed us to make this class possible. Oh... and thanks for the raffle items!

Local Guys Movers of Asheville were also on the scene helping out in any way possible, make sure we had the chairs set up properly, and they were very helpful to everyone there. Their whole crew was wonderful. Thank you.

David Bonyun of Asheville Video Productions did a great job taking video of the event and we are going to have some clips for you really soon. Thank you for your video production work in Asheville NC!

Rev. Jeffrey A. Hober of Cornerstone Church gave us the 125 chairs for the social media event last night and we want to thank him and his congregation for helping us out.

Thanks to Maria Aponte of Hi Tech Systems in AVL let us use that wonderful Panasonic projector to show our presentations and was helpful throughout the night in so many other ways.

Jay Kirk of PSAV Presentation Services in AVL helped us out with the speaker system to go with the projector and a few other gadgets. Also thanks for helping us get back online when we had a glitch in the system!

Thx to Amanda Ballew of More Space Place Custom Closets and Murphy Beds in Asheville NC for providing the literature and paper needs, and also for helping moderate this whole event.

Bill Nixdorf of PaleoSun Web Design showed us a great presentation of how the search engines meter people, human behavior, and index websites. Thank you

Christopher Smith of Asheville Discount Card was very helpful from the moment he showed up on the scene. From helping move chairs, to getting things in order while we had to run and get some copies and more. Thx!

Thanks to Asheville Maid Katie Crisp for helping us with the registration, raffle tickets and making sure everyone had everything they needed.

Thank you to Polly McDaniel from the Asheville Citizen Times for coming to this event and talking about the newspaper, social media, and the local WNCLINC efforts!

Thanks to Jose Ibarra of Applied Solutions for presenting the push for Google to come to Asheville North Carolina. You can find more info about it on Google AVL.

Ryan Izon of Mother and Son Bistro in North Asheville / Woodfin donated gift certificate for a special occasion cake to the raffle items and also spoke about his business etc. Thank you.

Sandy Eha of Rolf Experience in AVL spoke about her business and also donated a gift certificate for a free Rolf session during the raffle.

Thank you to George Zhouf of Jump Wedding Photography in Asheville for dropping in and taking a photo shoot of the Asheville Social Media School event.

Al Lorenzo assisted the event by getting the cloth up to shoot the projections onto. Al is a General Contractor in the Asheville area 828-201-6581.

It took all of us working together to make this event a great success. Thank you so much to everyone; the people who helped and the people who attended the free Asheville Social Media School.

Asheville Social Media - Free School Coming Soon!

I have initiated a social media school in Asheville North Carolina beginning on February 25, 2010 and it is going to continue indefinitely in the months to come. Each class will provide important information to help you understand, initiate, and use social media effectively. Some people are simply coming to the classes for information. Some are coming to learn how to aggressively use it for their businesses and promotions. While some want to learn how to get started, others may want to make sure their marketing company is up to par. Many businesses are led into a weak form of social media because the media companies that are leading them do not completely understand it themselves. But all of us like to say "we know it all and have it covered." This is many times not the case. We are going to try to help everyone from the common social media and social networking user, to companies that are trying to assist their clients with new media.

The Asheville social media class dates for the next few months will be February 25th, March 23rd, April 23rd, and May 10th from 5pm-7pm, with social hours after on some of these days. We have a nice curriculum planned for all of these dates with great information and guest speakers coming in. We are going to answer any and every question you have concerning Social Media, Websites, Marketing, and Social Networking. You are going to be trained on how to start social media for fun, for your business, and keep it simple. More maintenance means more of your time, or more of your money if you are hiring someone to do your social media. We show you how to eliminate a lot of this time or expense by connecting your social media together properly.

These Asheville classes are going to be fun fun for everyone. We are planning several outdoor activities and even a social media retreat for the Summer of 2010. We are going to be meeting several businesses in the Western North Carolina area and learning how they connected with their audience before, and how they are currently connecting. You will learn effective change. We are going to learn how to make connections with businesses ourselves and how to extract the important information we need from anyone. We are going to learn some simple lessons that we should have learned in the playground as children... to big corporate business strategy. All of your social media needs will be covered in this free school in Asheville NC.

The 1st Class on February 25th will be at the Downtown Market at 45 South French Broad Ave Asheville NC 28801 from 5pm - 7pm and there will be some great food and drinks available for a small cost ($4 - $5) from the vendors. It is located right down the street from the Asheville Federal Building, across from United Way.

You can email me to reserve a free spot by clicking HERE or you can visit the Facebook event page.