Driving Business IRL with Social Media Event Recap

Thanks for coming out to see us!

April 20th, we were lucky enough to be joined by 3 awesome speakers and 45 attendees at Rooster on Grand to speak about how local businesses use social media to drive in-person sales.

Our board secretary, Matthew Hibbard, MC'ed this event with Mandy Estrella of Mayo Ketchup, Amanda Helman of Golden Gems, and Molly Hitzeman of Hi-Pointe–all of whom shared some amazing social media tips such as:

Make yourself shareable. Golden Gems has an Instagrammable storefront and is friendly to people taking pictures in and around the store. This really helps with sharing and awareness.

Focus on your photography. Molly from Hi-Pointe advised us to:

  • Use portrait mode.

  • Don’t zoom while shooting. Crop instead.

  • Make use of depth of field.

  • Keep that lens clean.

  • Take it easy on the filters.

  • Natural light and ring lights are your friend.

  • And, try flipping your phone upside down before taking the pictures. It helps you get a better angle on smaller items like food.

If you have multiple audiences, consider creating multiple accounts/profiles. Mandy Estrella of Mayo Ketchup serves up unique menus that can sometimes only be found once or at one location. If you offer things or speak on topics that might not be right for your whole audience, consider separating your personal and professional accounts so that you can use a different voice without alienating a portion of your audience. Or if your business services 2 different groups, think about whether or not those 2 groups deserve 2 different kinds of messaging.

In addition to this, we had a ton of great networking, and after not seeing so many folks for so long, it was nice to start seeing everyone in person again.

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