Today I am announcing something special and totally unique on this blog.
On Wednesday, June 23 at 2:30pm EST I will be hosting a LIVE chat with Suzanne Gerety of DanceStudioOwner.com and Marc Kirschner of TenduTV right here on Dance Advantage.
We will be chatting about a topic that is important to all three of us: Social Smarts
Have you noticed all the social media advice coming from every direction?
A lot of people offer it for free. Others want you to pay for it. But either way it can be tough, when you are the new kid on the block, to know who to trust and from whom to take guidance. Even as three participants who have been “socializing” online for a relatively long time, Suzanne, Marc, and I can give no definitive answers about what will help you reach your unique goals online.
Therefore, our purpose for this chat is not to tell you how you should be approaching or growing your presence via social media.
Instead, we want to share with you how we ourselves filter the incoming information and “expert” advice that pervades the Internet and the online dance community so that you might make smart choices in your very own decisions and feel confident in your approach as you grow your presence online.
Why this trio?
Suzanne, Marc, and I all “met” on Twitter around the same time in early 2008. Though Twitter had been around since ’06 it didn’t really make its mark until 2007. When I joined, I did so because bloggers were some of the early adopters of the platform and recommended it. No one else I knew used Twitter. It took practically another year before I was really even finding potential readers (dance teachers, students, parents) who were using it. But, I was very fortunate to connect with a few other dance bloggers and industry leaders, and even more fortunate to become friends with a handful of folks that were not only experts in their field but really great people.
“By the end of 2007, about 500,000 tweets per quarter were posted. By the end of 2008, 100 million tweets per quarter were posted. By the end of 2009, 2 billion tweets per quarter were posted. In the first quarter of 2010, 4 billion tweets per quarter were posted.” – Twitter (Wikipedia)
Fast forward.
The web is now a very social place. In fact, my Facebook story is not all that different from Twitter. I joined there in 2006, a while before my friends were and long before businesses were utilizing it publicly. In the last six months alone I’ve observed a flood of dance companies, studios, businesses, websites, and yes readers joining the fray on both Twitter and Facebook. So while Marc, Suzanne, and I have not necessarily been around from the beginning of it all, it is fair to say that we’ve been witnesses and participants for quite a bit of the social media explosion — more experienced than someone just starting perhaps, but still learning, using, and occasionally relying on advice from others when determining how to make the most of social media.
The three of us share a passion for dance and for using social media to contribute to and strengthen the dance community. Yet we approach social media with varying goals and perspectives, based on our different roles. In this way, I feel we three are a useful cross section of the dance community’s social media consumers.
We are happy to share with you what we’ve encountered and learned along the way.
We hope you’ll join us as I moderate and guide a Q&A with Suzanne and Marc and then open it up to questions from you!
We’ll see you Wednesday, June 23 at 2:30pm EST!
Nichelle Suzanne is a writer specializing in dance and online content. She is also a dance instructor with over 20 years experience teaching in dance studios, community programs, and colleges. She began Dance Advantage in 2008, equipped with a passion for movement education and an intuitive sense that a blog could bring dancers together. As a Houston-based dance writer, Nichelle covers dance performance for Dance Source Houston, Arts+Culture Texas, and other publications. She is a leader in social media within the dance community and has presented on blogging for dance organizations, including Dance/USA. Nichelle provides web consulting and writing services for dancers, dance schools and studios, and those beyond the dance world. Read Nichelle’s posts.
