The Power of Social Media in My Life

Storytime.

This is a story about starting a blog or two a few years ago then hopping on Twitter in 2008 without knowing for sure what the outcome would be.

I'm going to refer to some folks by their Twitter handle because Twitter was instrumental in this story.

2003, I started a blog after watching my kids Rachael @greenglasshero , Josh @gandhizero and Tiffany @phanniejay start blogs.

All four of us stopped blogging but the next year I launched two blogs, one a personal site, and the other a work related site.

ScLoHo's Really? http://www.sclohoreally.com/, the personal site now features a Fort Wayne area website of the day every morning at 6am to promote the city I live in, and then an update at 4:08pm every afternoon, with what ever I want to feature. Saturday nights I feature a Classic Music Video.

ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom http://www.sclohocollectivewisdom.com/ information on Marketing, Media, Advertising and Sales; is updated 3 times a day, 7 days a week, which sounds pretty industrious, but the concept is that every article features Wisdom from others (that's where the Collective comes from), with a few words of introduction or commentary from me.

My wife suggested I write a book on Marketing, but instead I simply started another site, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo http://www.scloho.info/ . The self-imposed rule here is that the words are all mine, which separates it from Collective Wisdom. I update it Tuesday mornings at 7am.

Then at the end of 2010, I contemplated, planned and launched this website, ScLoHo's Social Media Adventure http://www.sclohosocialmediaadventure.com/ which is updated 5 days a week at noon.

During all of this time, I never received any significant financial reward for all of this activity. My paying gig has been working for a group of local radio stations as a sales person and manager.

The past few years I have been invited to give presentations, seminars, been interviewed and have written articles about marketing and even spoke to a college class a few times about Social Media & Branding.

All of this was simply a creative outlet for me. There was no master plan except I needed a way to share ideas that I felt passionate about.

At the end of 2008 I started a Twitter account and after playing around with it, made some connections both locally and worldwide which have now opened doors.

Chad Pollitt @CPollittIU and Amy Stark @AmyStark who both have ties/roots to Fort Wayne were there in my beginning Twitter Days and then Kevin Mullett @KMullett became a friend who I grew to respect.

In January 2011, Kevin revived the Fort Wayne Social Media Breakfast @SMBFW and asked me to be one of the panelist along with Heather Schoegler @HSchoegler; Lee Hershberger @LeePings; and Randy Clark @RandyClarkTKO .

I had known Heather for a couple years and Lee & Randy for a few months, but this was the first time I met Lee & Randy face to face.

Fast forward to April 21, 2011.

Randy Clark, who is in Indianapolis, invited various social media friends to a monthly gathering in Indy for the past couple of months and I planned my regular radio station sales rep life to be in Indy for business during the day and meet with Randy and friends that evening for what is now called a FriendUp.

At the meeting at the downtown Scotty's Brewhouse @BrewHouse we are eating fried pickles and other goodies and the 5 of us are all answering the question Randy asks, "What do you need/want & how can we help each other?"

I decided to go last and listen to what the others were saying. My answer was that I would like to explore leaving the radio world and earn my living in the social media or web world, but I was not willing to leave Fort Wayne. That evening was my 8th anniversary at the radio stations, and with the exception of a couple of the air staff, I have been there longer than anyone else.

Everyone's "wish list" was complied in an email, then posted on a private website, so others who had attended Randy's previous FriendUps could join in.

Kevin Mullett saw what I said and contacted me with the message, "We need to talk".

Kevin has done multiple things over the years and his current title is Director of Product Development for Cirrus ABS @CirrusABS . And so we had lunch.

Which lead to more questions on my part so we had lunch again.

It was after this second lunch where I learned more precisely what Kevin had in mind and I went from curious to excited about the possibility of changing employers and direction with my career.

A week later, I met with Matt Nickols, the founder of Cirrus ABS over lunch and was offered a position with his company.

June 1st, another meeting, (this time without food!) to discuss details, review a formal offer and accept with a start date of June 20, 2011.

What struck me was, there was no formal application process, no resume I gave them, no job posting that I saw anywhere, this was all due to the cumulation of my 7+ years of social media involvement, and the connections that I made via Twitter.

But it wasn't just the connections, it was the relationships that were built.

My returning to the world of radio advertising in 2003 was sort of a default.

My real passion is to help businesses (and people) connect and be successful with what I know about marketing, advertising, sales and a bit of psychology.

In other words, build meaningful, profitable relationships.

Since radio was my chosen "fall back career" since I was a teenager, that's why I've worked in that arena the past 8 years.

Now I'll get to use my passions with a new, growing media with a strong leader in all things web related and continue to help businesses (and people) connect and be successful.

My thanks to all that I've mentioned and many others too.

You can continue to contact me at Scott@ScLoHo.net as the transition begins.

(All of my own websites will continue too.)