My, how time flies! Many of you may not know the history of Social Media Club Nashville (SMCNash), so here’s a little walk down memory lane to catch you up:

Social Media Club Nashville was co-founded April 2009 by Georgia Cross and Jessica Murray, as a result of meeting at Dave Delaney’s Geek Breakfast.  At the time, there were many tech and marketing groups and organizations, but not any specifically targeted to social media.  Upon some research, there were Social Media Clubs in other cities, operating under the umbrella of what is our parent organization, the global Social Media Club non-profit organization.

The Nashville chapter was born with a program planned and promoted that started a series of free monthly programs that SMCNash offers to the Nashville community.  Our very own Jessica Murray has since moved on to become the global community manager for Social Media Club, linking all SMC chapters across the world (and yes, still very active in helping SMCNash as we expand our local following.)

Past programs and events include:

- Social media trends and topics in a variety of industries:  Healthcare, non-profits, real estate, and more.

- Marketing and social media trends in email marketing, SEO, SXSW recaps, Intellectual Property laws, LinkedIn, and more.

- Case studies of Nashville companies using social media, such as Nashville Predators, The Tennessean, The Frist Center, Tasti-D-Lite, Nissan, the Southern Showcase Home, and more.

- Social Media books events from Chris Brogan, John Morgan, and (shhhh… a little hint…there are more to come!)

SMCNash is also friendly to other groups and happily support and promote BarCamp Nashville, PodCamp Nashville, Digital Nashville, Industry Collective’s Murmuration, Nashcocktail, CentreSource Mixers, Nashville Technology Council events, and many more.

Social Media Club Nashville leadership now includes Georgia Cross, Leah Mackey, Christine Taylor, and many, many others that give their time to planning and coordinating bring educational programs and networking opportunities to businesses in the Nashville area.

SMCNash has grown to a community of over 700 in our Facebook Group and over 1,500 followers of @SMCNash on Twitter.  As our community grows and we have more and more events, we have experienced some “growing pains” that has led to challenges; securing event space to accommodate large crowds, just to name one.  However, as we grow, this is a great problem to be faced with! 

In order to take advantage of sponsorship, donation, and affiliate opportunities to keep SMCNash programs going, we are encouraging our community members to consider becoming an “official” member of Social Media Club.  There are a variety of professional, educator, student, non-profit, small business, and corporate sponsorship levels available.  Every new membership gets the chapter one step closer to achieving the quota to obtain an official Non-Profit status.

In addition to becoming more involved in SMCNash, there are fabulous benefits to becoming a Professional SMC member, such as:

-       Save $ with discounts on national social media conferences

-       Expand your network with access to membership listings of other SMC members, opportunity to be listed in the speakers directory

-       Exclusive offers and member-only events

-       PR opportunities to highlight your work/services in monthly newsletters and to publish in the Social Media Club Observer and Social Media Club Journal

-       It looks good on your resume and/or website!

Ready….Set….Join Now!  -> Details for each membership level are provided on the membership page here: https://socialmediaclub.org/membership

SMCNash thanks you and looks forward to providing you with many more networking and educational programs this year!

Thanks,

Georgia, Leah, Christine and the rest of your fellow Nashville chapter members