Laura Roeder focuses on helping small business with training programs such as Creating Fame, Your Backstage Pass to Twitter and her book, Facebook Fame. She has spoken on social media marketing, personal branding, and marketing technology at South by Southwest Interactive,
Blogher, and other national conferences.
1. How did you get your start in the industry?
I started my business making websites for local businesses. I would always talked to my clients about how to drive traffic to their site, what the purpose of their site was, and how to convert visitors. To me that was the fun stuff, creating the site was what I actually got paid for. When social media started becoming really interesting to businesses in 2008/2009, more and more people kept telling me that businesses would pay just to learn about social media.
Turns out they were right!
2. What is the biggest challenge facing your industry?
Many small businesses don’t understand the value of social media – they view it as an “extra” instead of a core tool in their communications, marketing, and customer service strategy. Social media isn’t tech, it’s talking.
3. What is the secret to your social media success?
Stop trying to game the system and remember that you’re talking to human beings! I just chat with people that I find interesting and try to be helpful. That combined with consistently putting out great content week in and week out for years.
4. What do you think is the future of social media?
The web will continue to become more personalized, especially with google plus in play. It’s more useful to users to see search that’s relevant to them, and when google masters social networking that will be our new reality.
5. What advice would you give to someone who is just starting out?
Don’t worry so much about getting it “right”, just dive in and start talking to people. There’s one rule that will never steer you wrong – if you wouldn’t say it person, don’t say it online!
6. Where can we find you on the web/on Twitter/Facebook/etc.?
