Shelly Kramer and I love marketing. We are card carrying geeks who love to obsess and learn about all kinds of different businesses. Some people knit or make bird houses—Shelly and I get fired up about figuring out efficient and effective marketing strategies, tactics and plans.
The Kansas City Chamber of Commerce offers a popular educational series, Business Brain Food and Brain Food Over Lunch for business owners and executives. Shelly and I spoke to a group as a part of the Brain Food series last Wednesday and it was amazing.
We made a presentation to a group of 20 over coffee on the subject of Social Media ROI and we really enjoyed the session. The businesses represented in the Brain Food session ranged from waste management to law firms to non-profit organizations and more. It was enlightening for Shelly and I to hear from so many different kinds of businesses and we came away from our presentation very inspired.
One of my favorite business and marketing resources is the American Express Open Forum.
American Express Open Forum
American Express has assembled some of the top marketing and business gurus on the planet in one place—and small business owners and marketers should use Open Forum as a resource. Even if you don’t have an AMEX account, you can comment on AMEX Open Forum blog posts and participate in the community by registering as guest via your Linked In account.
The experts featured on this blog are very grounded, and they communicate in an engaging way. The advice is easy-to-read, and there’s not the usual “business lingo” that is common on so many blogs.
Some of my favorite experts write for Open Forum, so that’s how I got hooked. I like advice from business gurus who communicate like “real people”: Guy Kawasaki, Chris Brogan, John Jantsch are must reads for me. Guy, Chris and John regularly write for this blog and Open Forum is part of my regular routine.
For example, Gregory Go wrote an excellent article on American Express Open Forum about local marketing. Go’s article, Forget the Phonebook: 3 Local Marketing Initiatives with Higher ROIs is one of the BEST explanations on how small business owners can use the web instead of the phone book. Read the article over on American Express Open Forum.
Here are a few of the many articles you should read:
Shira Levine’s How to Write a Winning Press Release: A Step-by-Step Guide
Mary Ann Reilly’s 4 Key Trends for Marketing in Real Time
How the GSA Can Help You Tap into $40 Billion by Michelle Thompson Dolberry
Whether you are the CEO of an established corporation or a small business owner or a marketing geek, you’ll find valuable information on American Express Open Forum.
Are you hooked on Open Forum? What are some of your favorite and free resources? Talk to us! We’re featuring Free Resources for Business this week, so stay tuned. Wednesday we’ll feature another great resource that is FREE, the Library. It’s that place with all the books.
PS: If you want to see the V3 presentation, the recorded webinar of our presentation should be up soon. Visit the KC Chamber of Commerce website for more information or you can visit our V3 Slideshare account and view our Social Media ROI presentation.
