A social media presence is becoming more and more vital to a company’s success, and the Social Media Breakfast Red Deer has helped local businesses with 49 events.
This Thursday, SMBRD will host its 50th event at the Scott Block Theatre, 4816 50th Ave., from 8 to 10 a.m. Brenda Sargeant, SMBRD Team Lead, said the next one is full and has a waitlist.
The first breakfast was held in 2012 and Sargeant joined the committee at the second event.
“It started out big, but for quite some time it was hard to get 20 or 30 people out to it,” said Sargeant. “Now we’re up to more than 100 people. This week we have 150 people coming and 27 on the waitlist.”
Sargeant said the primary purpose of the event is business networking. Business owners, non-profits and government employees have frequented the event.
“Part of it is how to market their business better,” said Sargeant. “We have speakers come in and talk from various backgrounds. It can be social media marketing, marketing in general, communication and how to get your message out there better.”
The most recent breakfast featured a panel of teens discussing how they use social media and how they perceive marketing through social media.
“It was well received,” she said. “It was about how the teens work with social media and how they react to businesses marketing to them and what gets their attention.
“It was a super interesting perspective.”
This Thursday, Mike Morrison, founder of SocialWest — the largest social media conference on the Prairies and the second most influential Twitter account in Calgary after the city’s mayor Naheed Nenshi.
Sargeant said one of her favourite takaways from the event has been the collaborations between attendees. People talk about what they learn and talk about working together with the new knowledge.
The event is free to attend and is held on the third Thursday of every month. Ticket registration opens two weeks before the event date.
For more information visit www.smbrd.ca.
mcrawford@reddeeradvocate.com