Today I present to you evidence of social media’s value.
Earlier this month the Somnu Team attended the first annual Healthcare Advocate Summit in Galveston, Texas. There we met a handful of healthcare professionals & other professionals working with the summit. An individual we met that I want to highlight today is Jeff Holmes. Jeff, alongside his wife, was creating content in the form of a professional headshot booth & other photos/videos of the Healthcare Advocate Summit (HAS) itself.
While we were at HAS, we didn’t speak much to each other as both Jeff & his wife were very busy accomplishing the tasks that they had. The Somnu Team was also busy doing the same. Long story short, the summit was a huge success and Jeff & his wife, & the Somnu Team created great content to be shared online (watch our YouTube video).
A few days after the event I received (or I sent) a connection request to Jeff Holmes. I initially didn’t recognize the name & I didn’t recognize the company that he had on his LinkedIn MX, but I looked at his profile picture and recognized him as being the photographer from HAS. So naturally I accepted the connection. About a week after our connection, I was on LinkedIn and I saw that Jeff had
posted a link regarding the upcoming Money Experience Summit taking place at Snowbird, Utah. I had never heard of this conference before, but it seemed professionally relevant, and what’s not to love about Snowbird? Since Somnu works with FinTech startup iBank, and because I had just gotten home from an incredible conference experience, I was curious as to what the Money Experience Summit was. So I clicked on the link and watched their marketing video.
Let me fill you in on iBank real quick... iBank is a mobile personal financial management app that merges traditional banking with aspects of social media. The app is literally meant to help you associate spending money with memorable experiences. Read that last sentence again, what two words stick out to you? “MONEY with memorable EXPERIENCES”. As you can tell I instantly was intrigued by Jeff’s post about the MONEY EXPERIENCE Summit. iBank fit into this summit like peas and carrots (Forrest Gump reference).
I instantly DM’d the link that Jeff posted to iBank CEO Trey Markel. Within 10 minutes Trey told me that we were going, to start planning a content strategy with Spencer Cook, and to look for Airbnb’s and other accommodations. Let me remind you; the Money Experience Summit was happening in less than 14 days from this point. Spencer & I were amped! We had a great taste in our mouths coming out of HAS 2021 (albeit a little stressed from all the content editing needing to be done but still very hyped - Thank you Hannah Nelson for helping hold down the Somnu fort as we went to MXS2021).
All said & done the three of us Trey, Spencer, & myself attended the MXS2021 and had an incredible experience. We pitched iBank to investors & interested users, Trey pitched Centrex Software (his other company) to potential customers, and Somnu received a healthy amount of exposure as well. The conference benefited because they had three more attendees, the Snowbird resort benefited because they filled a suite, and a host of other businesses benefited because we travelled to SLC, UT to attend the Money Experience Summit. The only people who may have not benefited were the ones who may have seen us dancing at the National Parks & Goo Goo Dolls concerts… and for that we are sorry.
That said, all of this happened because of Jeff’s LinkedIn post – a single LinkedIn post that I happened to see after connecting nearly a week earlier. This alone showcases the immense value of being active & engaged on social media platforms. It is as simple as sharing one piece of information and having it trickle to just one other person. It is a domino effect that has the ability to reach hundreds, if not thousands of potential customers, or in this particular case, event attendees. Want to learn how to market your event? Check out our previous blog post!
Social media platforms offer individuals & businesses the ability to create a new & direct communication channel with current & prospective customers. This wasn’t available 10 years ago. Here at Somnu we like to explain social media as a website that your
customers are viewing & engaging with every single day. Save for social media platforms & Google, there are very few other websites whose customers are visiting & engaging with their pages every single day.
As a business, having an active presence on social media allows you to engage easily and strategically with your customers and clients EVERY SINGLE DAY. Social media provides a platform for you to update the most pressing information that your customer base may need to know. It is not a matter of “Do you have a social media presence?” but rather “How are you engaging with your customers on social media?” If you cannot answer the latter, it is time to make some changes.
Social media is an incredibly powerful tool. It may be a single LinkedIn post that changes everything. The value of social platforms cannot be stated highly enough. If you want to learn more about how to grow your social media platform read this article.
You can start to engage with your customers daily, or you can have Somnu Medias manage your social media (and other digital marketing tasks) for you!
Written by Peter Markel on October 5, 2021