“Uptown Goes Downtown”
By: Diane Dean-Epps

The Social Media Club hosted a social media shindig like no other on September 11th at Drexel University when Uptown Studios owner, Tina Reynolds, brought her posse along to show us how social media is done right. 

I knew we were in for some serious fun when Tina began by taking the audience’s picture of us taking her picture.  Talk about framing your presentation.  You think that’s creative?  She ended the event by taking video of us all doing the wave. 

If the matching tee-shirts that I espied initially didn’t clue me in as to their branding expertise, then the program that followed surely cinched the deal.  (At first I thought I’d missed the “wear a black tee-shirt” memo, but as I got closer the text wasn’t so blurry and I figured it out.)

The program was called, “Visualizing Social Media:  A Picture Worth 1,000 Likes” and this wasn’t just one of those snappy titles designed to garner your attention.  The valuable content was the real deal, chock full of real-life ways for real people to access social media for their businesses’ benefit, no matter which industry neighborhood they dwell in. 

And speaking of likes, in addition to liking the program I liked every one of these folks who exuded creativity and knowledge.  They deserve a personal shout out in the form of their names:  Tina Reynolds, Kate Moore, Steve Knau, Cris Weber, Anton Weaver, Leidhra Johnson, Brent Stromberg, and Sarah Barkawi.

There were so many great tips lavished upon us, but one I’d like to note goes to branding with images. We were asked to think about the relationship between the cover and profile photos on Facebook when we choose them for our business page.  Have you ever thought about tying in your logo with the cover shot?  And not just once either.  Change it up weekly, so people come back to check you out and see what’s new.  Be creative, have fun, and show the personality of your business.   

As generous with their marketing ideas as they were with their good humor, the Uptown Studios staff reminded us to tie in brand with every message.  We were provided with a bounty of free sites such as www.lunametrics.com for social media cheat sheets and Gimp for photograph editing, but they also had solid Intel on ways to capitalize upon software we may be using already.  For example, did you know Instagram can be a tab on Facebook?  Heck, I just learned what Instagram was and that’s because my teenager conducts daily technology tutorials in our home which are usually preceded by a long-suffering sigh. 

Facebook ads were demystified as we learned you can start and stop ads, monitor them efficiently, and determine if you’re getting results in real-time.  In short, you can launch a highly effective campaign for a small amount of dough. 

Although I happily heard about and wrote down useful websites I was also happy to hear about my old friend the “rule of thirds” which Uptown applied to both a plan of action and to framing your shots.  We learned that image-based posts and campaigns will get you more “likes” and you’ve got to caption ‘em up. 

The room had such a feel-good vibe I ventured out of my chrysalis of non-confidence when I tentatively tweeted a few times throughout the night.  (Thank you, Laura, for the retweets, they served as pats on the head for me and I felt emboldened to continue this practice.)

Uptown’s zippy, all-inconclusive format rolled out like a high-dollar dinner show and let me tell you it was a steal for $15.00.  This engaging AND informative format had me feeling as though I was having coffee with each Uptowner and they were sharing trade secrets with me.  (In point of fact I didn’t have coffee in my hand, but rather an extremely large burrito generously provided by our fabulous food sponsor of the night, Chipotle.  Thank you, Chipotle!  Oh, and Nicole I hope you were able to get that rice out of your hair.)

I think there were roughly 60 people in the room and I figure after this event Uptown Studios received about 60 resumes…oh, wait, I didn’t count myself…61.