Communication, Conversation & Social Media
Play2Lead’s creator Theresa Lim showed us the value and return of adding gamification to your customer engagement strategy. Learn more here: http://www.play2lead.co/ — at new sponsor, Clarence Professional Offices: http://www.clarenceprofessionaloffices.com.au/
The wonderfully gifted, inspiring & sassy Jane Huxley, MD of Pandora Australia, shared her wisdom, experience & gave wonderful advice to a room hanging on her every word!
Click here, or the image, to read all of the great posts.
A super fun night!
Social Food: Building Communities with Carmel Ruggeri Sicilian Food Tours, Sara McCleary Belly Rumbles & Cenk Baban Social Dinner Club sharing the food & social media journey.
Thank you to the great panel and everyone who came last night!
Scroll down to see the pics.
Click here to read the posts and see the pics posted via #smwomen on Storify.
For centuries people have connected, bonded, shared experiences & made memories over food.
Social Media has changed the way we connect, the things we share & removed borders.
The Panel:
CARMEL RUGGERI
Carmel Ruggeri co-owns La Casa Ristorante with her brother Tony. Her recipe for success? Tony’s skill & industry know-how, her Mother’s meatballs, traditional Italian food and service & twitter!
Initially using it to share her love and passion for great food, she started to share her intention to open an authentic Italian posto! It wasn’t long before she was tweeting Jamie Oliver and connecting with Sydney foodies! She shared her journey to open her restaurant with her online friends and we were hooked!! Not only did she connect with customers, she also connected with Australian chefs, foodies and tweeters.
Once La Casa settled to a frenetic pace, as opposed to the ridiculously crazy busy of the first 12 months, Carm started to work on her true passion, a Sicilian Food Tour; a trip through her island, Sicily. Carmel’s parents were born in the small fishing village of Scoglitti, Ragusa and such a little piece of her is there too.
“It’s been a dream of mine for so long to take a group of my fellow Australian friends through my island of Sicily and experiencing it the way I do. Sharing pure culinary local food and immersing them in the true rustic charm of Sicily. The cannoli, the cheese, the tomatoes, simple items you will never ever forget.”
And that is exactly what she delivered in May this year! Carm and her team took a group to Sicily and it was a huge success and provided much eye candy for those of us back home watching on our screens.
Carm has extended this experience to Sydney with regular Sicilian Food Tours and Regional Dinners; a place where people can meet, laugh, eat and create great memories!
Twitter: @CarmR
La Casa Website
Sicilian Food Tours
SARA McCLEARY
Sara has a deep passion for both food and travel.
With previous experience in both the food and travel industry including front-of-house in various Sydney restaurants, a sales job with a large food corporation and as a manager in one of Sydney’s leading backpacker travel agencies, I have a good insight into the real work that goes on behind the scenes to make a good meal or a great trip happen.
“I started to cook at an early stage learning from my mum, aunt and grandmother. Recently I have been rediscovering some traditional Latvian recipes and building on my love of Japanese ingredients.
I am addicted to travel. Having grown up travelling and living in both Germany and Italy my feet are always itchy and I hunger for new places to explore. I am a frequent visitor to Japan for work and have incredible memories of Manhattan. I love you NYC.
My experience in developing the blog means I am comfortable working with PR companies, brands, restaurants, hotels and the travel industry.
My blog is a full-time consuming passion.”
Sara Elsewhere
Founder and Chair of the Sydney Food Bloggers’ Meetup Group.
Co-founder and co-organiser of the Australia wide annual blogger event The Sweet Swap.
Sara has been recognised by HotelClub.com as one of Australia’s top Food & Travel Bloggers.
About Belly Rumbles
A Sydney-based food and travel blog written by Sara McCleary.
Belly Rumbles began in November 2009 after I started reading food blogs when planning a trip to New York. From humble beginnings as an online diary, Belly Rumbles has continued to grow and evolve into one of Sydney’s most consistent and well known single-voice food and travel blogs.
Over 300 Belly Rumble articles have been published to date with new original content posted 3-4 times a week. Articles categories include: recipes, restaurant reviews, product road tests and travel stories.
Belly Rumbles is attracting a growing number of engaged readers who enjoy following my adventures in food and travel.
Links
Belly Rumbles Blog: www.bellyrumbles.com
Twitter: @bellyrumbles
Instagram: @bellyrumbles
Google + : mccleary.sara@gmail.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/bellyrumbles
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=73465838
The Sweet Swap: www.thesweetswap.com
CENK BABAN
Cenk is a food lover with a passion for the Internet, emerging web technologies and trends. Combine this all together and you get Social Dinner Club; monthly dinner party where you sample different restaurants and cuisines from around the world, meet amazing chefs, find out more about the cuisine and culture, not to mention meeting new and interesting dinner club foodies!
“We’re lucky to have the best of the worlds’ cuisine in Sydney. Yet most often when we try a new cuisine, we don’t learn much about the food or the culture. We believe discovering a new cuisine should be a unique experience. Social Dinner Club is here to create this experience.”
Cenk is an online marketing consultant working with SME’s. He helps them to make the most of their online presence by providing assistance in online marketing, digital strategy and social media. He blogs regularly on his website cenkbaban.com and for trade magazines.
• Featured in the Top 10 Unique Dining Experiences in Asia Pacific
• Listed among the Top 10 Trends in Australian Retail and Hospitality
• SMH mentioned Social Dinner Club for the way Social Media is integrated to the events
• Featured for its innovative use of Social Media
• The first event Google Sydney sponsored
• Reviewed by leading industry blogs and publications
The Links:
http://www.meetup.com/socialdinnerclub/
https://www.facebook.com/socialdinnerclub
https://twitter.com/socialdinnerclb
short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tnw6O8hFAY8
*** Men welcome too!! *** A not to be missed event!!
WE ARE SUPPORTING A WONDERFUL CAUSE EVERY MONTH!!
This month you get to vote on which of these 3 worthy charities receive the entry money (less fees):
| Kids R Christmas | www.chw.edu.au |
| Miracle Babies Foundation | www.miraclebabies.org.au/ |
| MS Society | www.msaustralia.org.au |
You’re Invited to be one of 3 x 5 minute spotlights. Have you used social media, sites and tools and had success?
We would like to invite Social Media Women to submit their case study for a chance to present at the May meeting. You must be able to show that you have integrated it and had success.
Interested? Before you contact me, please make sure you have a presentation ready and send it to me with your email.
Check out the tweets from last meetup here.
Please note: Social Media Women is held on the 2nd Tuesday of every month February – November.
Register here for our September event
Date: Tuesday 17 September 2013
Time: 6:00pm – 8:30pm
Venue: The Suite @ The White Horse Hotel
381 Crown St, Surry Hills
Please note: Photographs are taken at the event. These photos are posted online & are used online & offline at the organiser’s discretion..
Thank you to our new sponsors!!
We couldn’t hold the events without them!
Inside The White Horse Surry Hills are stylishly designed meeting and drinking spaces, from a garden roof terrace to a cosy open fireplace.
Refurbished in 2013 by its new owners, this grand Surry Hills Hotel has been revitalised.
281 Crown St, Surry Hills NSW
ph: 02 8333 9999
I often get asked questions about business and social media & I know interesting talented people – so I thought I would combine them!
Using the great technology of the Google Hangout, we will be chatting every 2 weeks (more or less depending on schedules!) about different topics and findings. My partner in info this week is the gorgeous Johanna Baker-Dowdell, head of Strawberry Communications & author of Business & Baby On Board.
If you would like to join us today, Friday, you can:
These will be fortnightly chats. Same bat time: Fridays @ 11am -> Same bat channel: Google+ Hangout!
THIS WEEK WE ARE TALKING CROWD FUNDING!
Checkout the 1st Real Chat Google Hangout! @JohannaBD from Strawberry Communications: Writing & PR & I chatted about social media on Friday.
So happy to be sending Act for Kids over $300 from this month’s registrations.
Check them out, they provide free services to prevent & treat child abuse & neglect. Would be nice to never have this problem wouldn’t it?
“Act for Kids is an Australian charity working tirelessly to prevent and treat child abuse and neglect. We help kids and young people who have suffered abuse and neglect overcome their experiences through long-term intensive therapy. We also help strengthen families at risk.”
This month we had these 3 great charity options to choose at registration:
| Greenpeace | www.greenpeace.org/australia/en/ |
| ACCA – Australian Crohn’s and Colitis Association | www.crohnsandcolitis.com.au/ |
| Act for Kids – provides free services to prevent & treat child abuse & neglect. | www.actforkids.com.au |
To learn more about our Charity donations, please click here.
I received this message after this week’s Social Media Women, “Hi Nancy, I really enjoyed last night. I think it is just fab what you are doing. Very inspiring.” it’s messages like this that make my heart sing!!
I am so lucky to have the opportunity to do what I do with the gorgeous people who enjoy the group x
Hi! I have been wanting to document this story since Catriona Pollard and I started Social Media Women, so it seemed a great time to share it since we are asking you to share your story, here’s mine…
A couple of years ago, I found myself changing my business, Paper Magnolia, and working on a new business, Magnolia Solutions. I was a stationery wholesaler who was building her brand and working on customers businesses as any good wholesaler does. As much as I loved my products and my customers, I was feeling isolated from the world and not as fulfilled as I once did, I was not using my brain as much as I would have liked. I was also at the mercy of the fickle retail market.
As Magnolia Solutions grew, I was recommended to get into Twitter. My initial thought was, “No Way!!! I have a website, I have just gotten into this Facebook thing, I can’t possible do another thing…”. But as a marketer you have to keep up with what is going on and the tools at your disposal.
WELL! What I discovered was an amazing resource filled with amazing people (and lots of really not amazing people but I wanted to concentrate on the great things!) The think that impacted me the most was the true spirit of sharing and collaboration. The access to people that I would never normally have, and no I don’t mean Ashton Kutcher (for the record I don’t follow him). Initially I was just observing and learning.
By being a part of a few online communities who were connecting online but not in real life, I ‘met’ Frances Jones http://twitter.com/FrancieJones). Frances told me all about Tweet Ups and noticed that I had blogged about Gelatomassi as had Tony Hollingsworth (@hollingsworth). She kindly ‘introduced’ us and I started to watch Tony’s Tweets. Tony was tweeting about coffee mornings – now I love coffee (not so much a lover of mornings but hey!) so I investigated further!
Coffee Mornings are on in Surry Hills and in Mosman Northside Coffee Mornings (#nscm). As #nscm started later than Coffee Mornings they won it for me!! So I started watching the tweets and connecting with a couple of people. I was a little nervous turning up and checking it out but that feeling disappeared in minutes!! So I started going weekly and being part of a real online discussion and group on Twitter it was so great!! Instead of just re-tweeting I was contributing. I was also able to be part of discussions that I would not normally be part of. I even did a posterous post on my wonderful friends.
One of the people I admired in the group was Catriona Pollard, she was a canny savvy business woman with an appreciation of the important things in life. After a couple of chats I asked her if she would mind me discussing my new business and how I was setting up the services etc as I was new to all this and she had been doing it for 10 years. I am not normally so forward (until I know people a LOT better) and glad I was this time!
I quickly discovered that Catriona is EXACTLY the same person online as offline, she is genuine, giving, a true sharer of information and is an amazing collaborator. My experience is that a lot of people aren’t what they seem, so I was very pleasantly surprised!
After a short time we started meeting up and so began a great friendship. Catriona had been talking about starting a group for women in social media and then we decided to give it a go! I would not have gone on this great journey with anyone else, absolutely. Catriona and I have been having a blast and are thoroughly enjoying all that is coming our way! I am not sure that we eventually would not have met if it was not for Twitter, but we will never know!!
I have met so many great people who I now consider friends from this group and other communities.
So thank you Social Media for giving me a wonderful new friend!
So Me, formerly Social Media Women is a group that encourages inspiration, collaboration, support and confidence in social media for inspiring business people.
The group was started when having recognised the important role women play in social media we encourage women to participate more prominently in social media.
With So Me, we have created an exciting place for people to gain experience and confidence to ask questions, learn and challenge themselves to grow, evolve and aspire.
so.me, formerly: Social Media Women 