I can’t tell you how many times as a female business owner that I have been at a networking meeting and felt like the silent security guard at the door or the immigrant who doesn’t speak English when two or more men only make eye contact with each other. Guys, I am sure you have experienced the same kind of situation with a group of women.

Who gets noticed the most at business meetings and social networking events? Is it always the person who requests business cards from everyone in the room? Is it someone who has that elevator speech memorized to perfection? Is it always the politician or enterprise CEO? NOT. I firmly believe that anyone can make an impact with the right attitude about communications, attention to the discussions they lead or engage in, and have a good sense of business etiquette. With training and attention to your communications, you can make significant differences in how you are perceived in groups, whether your goal is to build new relationships for your business, pursue job interviews, or just have a good time in a community you enjoy!

If you are in Hampton Roads on March 22nd, we hope you will join us for dialogue with substance about communicating effectively in business  events. This month’s Communicate BIZ Roundtable is going to explore how to connect face-to-face and leave a positive perception of you and your brand.  How do others perceive us as entrepreneurs and professionals in our fields during those fleeting moments at events? This is not just for novice networkers or connectors. We will look at how to bring your communications to the next level while interacting at networking, social, and business events, from the visual image you portray to verbal communications, body language  and sheer business etiquette.

When: Tuesday, March 27th, 8:15 to 9:45

Location: Town Point Club, 101 W. Main Street, Norfolk

Presenters: Susan Long-Molnar, President of Managing Communications Consulting, is a communications, marketing and PR professional with 27 years experience in this market. Susan assists clients to manage face-to-face networking and is a national and regional presenter on communications topics including The Etiquette of   Business Communications. Guest Presenter: Internationally-acclaimed Image Consultant Sandy Dumont is the founder of The Image Architect. She is also a founding member of the Professional Speakers Association (U.K.), and a member of the National Speakers Association (NSA).  Sandy is past President of NSA Virginia, and Past President of the SE Virginia chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO. She consults with individuals and corporations and also conducts corporate and individual image makeover workshops.

Fee: $15 includes continental breakfast with fresh fruit, bagels, muffins, pastries and beverages.  Reservations for this month are required with pre-payment by check or credit card.

To Register: Call Susan Long-Molnar, 757-513-8633 or e-mail

susan@managingcommunications.com

Our Agenda:

8:15-8:35 Networking and Introductions

8:35-8:55 Sandy Dumont on managing your image

8:55-9:15 Susan Long-Molnar on key messages, listening and transitioning, and communications etiquette

9:15-9:30 Q/A and group discussion on setting priorities for networking

And you will receive…

? Handouts of improving and managing perception

? Door prize drawings

? List of attendees and contact information for future relationship building

? Managing Communications’ April Business Calendar with Networking Tips for specific events

Sponsored by Managing Communications Consulting, Communicate BIZ  Roundtable is a monthly seminar series for small business owners and professionals responsible for marketing, PR, sales and internal communications within their companies. We want you to join us if you are responsible for increasing revenue and/or engaging others to bring success to your organization in 2012! Monthly sessions will be facilitated by Susan Long=Molnar.

Don’t you just hate when you make a comment in LinkedIn or Facebook and the author doesn’t bother to respond? Have you noticed how dry and boring it is when you see an article to review but the person posting apparently hasn’t taken the time to read it? What are your pet peeves in social media. Please share so I can use them in our next Communicate BIZ Roundtable in Hampton Roads.

How would you rate your social media?

• Using the company’s key messages to build the brand online
• Being authentic and weaving in the personality of the company
• Using a variety of communications techniques including photos and video
• Building credibility and perception of your company with subject matter experts
• Developing engaging content and strategically creating excitement with questions, games, trivia and more

And…are you making a point to help others in some way?

This month’s Communicate BIZ Roundtable is going to explore how well you are maintaining your brand’s reputation on social media. It’s not only what you do but what you don’t do which has an impact. Find out how you and your company can maximize use of new leads and build relationships with techniques, good content, and much more.

When: Wednesday, February 22nd, 8:15 to 9:45

Location: Towne Bank, 1312 Greenbrier Parkway, Chesapeake

Presenter: Susan Long-Molnar, President of Managing Communications Consulting, a marketing and PR professional with 27 years experience in this market.

Fee: $15 includes continental breakfast (SMPS members, Hampton Roads Chamber members, and AdvantaCoach Marketing Power Lunch Chapter Members are $10) You may pay by check or credit card.

Pre-registration Required: Call Susan Long-Molnar, 757-513-8633

8:15-9:05-Networking and Introductions

9:05-9:20 What is important to fans and contacts? How will they react to what we do and not do? What content will most impact our reputation favorably?

9:20-9:30 Application—group investigation of social media communications

9:30-9:45 Getting company buy-in; Setting social media goals and Q/A

And you will receive…

?   Handouts of actionable improvements for your LinkedIn pages

?   Tips for how to engage EVERYONE  in the success of the strategic plan

?   List of attendees and contact information for future relationship building

?   15 minute complimentary phone meeting to analyze one of your pages with you.

Communicate BIZ  Roundtable is a monthly seminar series for small business owners and professionals responsible for marketing, PR, sales and internal communications within their companies. We want you in the room if you are responsible for increasing revenue and/or engaging others to bring success to your organization in 2012! Monthly sessions will be facilitated by Susan Long-Molnar, President of Managing Communications Consulting , who will often be partnering with another expert on the topic.

The Super Bowl (Wait, can I say that? I mean, legally?) looms over us like the  impending hurricane you know is coming, but all you care about are the great parties. In the case of the big game, we’re all anxiously salivating for the Doritos commercials, especially that guy and his clandestine dog from Virginia Beach. So, you think this is an article about the NFL championship game. But, not so fast. Why is the game so super? I mean, unless you are a Giants or Patriots fan.

What determines superiority? Super Man bends steel and much more. My child is rated “superior student” when she cooperates and participates in school. There are super committees and super pacs, but this is not political satire either. There are super novas (also a great song in the 90s), and as long as we’re referencing music, what is a Supertramp anyway? There are superstitions and superlatives. Some things are even supercalifragilistic (or something like that). We have celebrities that we crown as super stars. Some of those stars fall from the sky as they fall from grace. There are super computers and super conductors, but I studied English and business, so what do I know about I.T.? There are super highways, which really make the regular highways feel inferior. Some people are super sensitive, but not me. Really, I’m not!

In the 70s we had supermarkets, but for some reason that wasn’t super enough, so we created super supermarkets. They know who they are. I remember when McDonald’s advertised a meal for under a buck. Yes sir. You got a burger, fries, and a drink and change back (a penny probably). Now to get that same meal, you have to super size it. That movie already hit Redbox long ago. Oh and lest I forget super models like the babes on Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue. What makes them super? Even the Dove soap models are attractive, but super?

In my youth, you may have overheard me shout “super-decent” when Jaws devoured an unsuspecting victim. When a normal person does something heroic, they often display superhuman strength. It all sounds so super natural. Which makes me wonder, what the heck is superfly?

Super is defined by Webster’s as excellent, very great, and excessive. Ah excessive. Now we’re onto something. Did I say that this is not a story about the super bowl? Now it is, because I just googled “super”. The first 22 pages of links were all related to the super bowl. I gave up at page 23. That is what I call super-excessive.

Here’s a super idea. Let’s move the big game to Saturday or earlier on Sunday so that we can all get some super rest before returning to super reality on Monday.

Gotta run. I’m late for super; I mean supper.

Location: Towne Bank, Hilltop, 984 First Colonial Road, Virginia Beach, VA 23454

Fee: $15 includes continental breakfast (SMPS members, Hampton Roads Chamber members, and AdvantaCoach Marketing Power Lunch Chapter Members are $10)

Preregistration Required: Call Susan Long-Molnar, 757-513-8633 or respond to this e-mail.

8:15-9:05-Networking and Introductions
9:05-9:20 Analyzing Your Business Goals and Asking the Right Questions for Growth in Your Organization led by Susan Kirkpatrick
9:20-9:35 Auditing your Strategic Plan for Multi-channel strategies, results, and measurement, and managing progress
9:35-9:45 Additional Q&A overall

And you will receive…
• Samples of strategic marketing plan formats and articles to take for your reference
• Tips for how to engage EVERYONE in the success of the strategic plan
• List of attendees and contact information for future relationship building
• Chance to win a Dan Kennedy book…..
• Complimentary audit of your strategic marketing plan by Managing Communications Consulting with a one hour meeting to review the recommendations
• Free ticket to the AdvantaCoach Marketing Power Lunch

Communicate BIZ Roundtable is a monthly seminar series for small business owners and professionals responsible for marketing, PR, sales and internal communications within their companies. We want you in the room if you are responsible for increasing revenue and/or engaging others to bring success to your organization in 2012! Monthly sessions will be facilitated by Susan Long-Molnar, President of Managing Communications Consulting , who will often be partnering with another expert on the topic.

To learn more, download the Making You Marketable information sheet!

 Susan Long-Molnar, President of Managing Communications Consulting, will address social media from a public relations and reputation management standpoint in the firm’s newly launched seminar “Is Social Media Hurting or Helping Your Business?”  The seminar will be held at the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, 500 East Main Street Ste. 700, Norfolk VA Contact Sandy Sekeet on April 28^th, 7:45 a.m.-10:00. To register, e-mail l ssekeet@hrccva.com or (757) 664-2530. Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce members pay $15 and non-member $30.

 Attendees will be involved in an interactive forum to learn what impacts a company’s reputation as an aspect of branding on social networking sites, key strategies to improve online reputation, and assistance in how to communicate the value of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and blogs to others in their companies.

• Learn what impacts a company or individual’s reputation as an aspect of branding
• Evaluate your current reputation on social networking sites
• Consider strategies which will improve your social networking reputation
• Take away strategic planning for the rest of the year
• Bonus: Assist you to communicate the value of social networking within your organization.

About the Presenter:
Before transitioning Managing Communications Consulting to a full-service firm in 2002, Susan Long-Molnar served in leadership positions for three large regional operations in Hampton Roads:

• USAA’s Mid-Atlantic Corporate Communications Manager (regional public affairs, community relations, marketing, and internal communications)
• Cox Communications’ internal communications manager for Hampton Roads (during tremendous growth and acquisition of businesses)
• Director of Business Development and Marketing for Sentara Enterprises, Sentara Health System.

For six years, she also served as the Vice President, Corporate Communications/HR for Medical Laboratory Solutions, Inc. which provides hematology and chemistry equipment services to laboratories nationwide.

 Today, Managing Communications Consulting brings marketing, public relations, and internal communications solutions to clients such as Dunkin’ Donuts, Nutrient PLUS, a national fertilizer company, Strickland and Jones, P.C., MEB General Contractors, 5 Star Medical Transport and Silver Car Service, and Tower Benefit Consultants. 

 Susan is a member of the National Speakers Association Virginia Chapter, the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce Norfolk Board, is a LEAD Hampton Roads graduate and currently serves as President of Town Center Kiwanis in Virginia Beach.

 If you would like to engage Long-Molnar for a presentation at your professional association or business, please contact her directly at 757-513-8633 and visit  http://www.managingcommunications.com/training.php for information on additional presentations.

There are many options for communicating with audiences today. We can keep in contact with customers on websites such as Facebook and Twitter which provide up to the minute updates with the newest thing our brand has to offer and help to develop social relationships. These are quick and easy ways to send and receive information.

However, one thing these tools do not provide is a channel to catch and keep someone’s attention for an extended period of time. We’re always concerned with ‘cutting through the noise’ in the over saturated media market. Rather than being the loudest or the brightest, you can entice your audience to come to you by becoming a source of entertainment.

To do that most effectively follow these guidelines:                                                                                                                                                                       Be Likeable – Podcasts can be fun, and people want to listen to something that will make them feel good. You will not get listeners if your podcast is too dry, or too heavily focused on a product or service. People respond to good humor and humility.

Also, your host or hosts should be upbeat, funny, authentic, and people who sound like they know what they’re talking about.  Production values such as music, good sound quality and a well planned script can also add an air of professionalism to your show. More on this later.

Don’t come on too strong – Mention your company only once or twice during the podcast (perhaps once at the beginning and once at the end). Your podcast shouldn’t be about you, but about your audience. What do they want to know? How can you use your knowledge to fill that niche?

Don’t use jargon – It’s important that your audience knows what you are talking about. If they don’t, they will surely get frustrated and turn you off.

Here is an example of a format a health Insurer could use:                                                                                                                                                  

After an audio brand and music interlude, the hosts should introduce the show with a recurring theme, such as the health tip of the day, and proceed with news on a current issue (such as heart disease). The hosts would then provide information to the listener about measures to prevent this issue from affecting their lives by promoting health guides, their website, and any other resources they can offer for further information. The host could then close the show by reminding the listeners of the company sponsored 5k that’s coming up.

This is a brief description of how a podcast might go. In my next blog, I will discuss how to create a podcast and distribute it to the masses.

Wow! How could a word that used to mean “to stop talking” now mean “Please – tell more!” It’s easy  to blame the obvious – the media. Those who have seen the popular American teen comedy film, Mean Girls, are familiar with “the plastics,” the A-list girl clique who are the queen bees of their high school. You might recall Regina (Rachel McAdams) asking Cady (Lindsay Lohan) who had just moved from Africa, “So you’ve actually never been to a real school before? Shut up! Shut up!” Cady responds back in confusion, “I didn’t say anything.” Although this may be a comical exaggeration, this scene is not too far off from today’s high school setting.

 Stacy London the fashion expert on What Not to Wear says “Shut-up” all the time in a similar manner. Her use of the word seems to define shock or serve as a substitute to the phrase “Oh my gosh!” My favorite reference however, is in the 2011 Golden Globe winner for Best Comedy, “The Kids are Alright.” Paul (VB native, Mark Ruffalo) plays the birth father and has a tendency to sub “Shut the front door” for a more inappropriate phrase.

 On a different note, “Shut Up” is also a song by the American hip hop band The Black Eyed Peas. The 2003 single is on their album Elephunk. It’s basically the battle of the sexes put into song with the chorus consisting of the lines “shut up, just shut up shut up”. In this case, the word is used repeatedly to get a point across. Funny how a word that used to be frowned upon, is now being sung by 12-year-olds on a daily basis.

So when did the connotation of this word shift and become so casual and “fetch”? It’s hard to point fingers at an individual who coined this term; however, I think it is easy to say it was born out of the millennial generation – people born between 1982 and 2000, ages 10 to 28.

 There are several characteristics of millennials that contribute to this assumption. First of all, they are the first generation to grow up surrounded by digital media. It’s hard to find a person in this age group who doesn’t own an Ipod or have a Facebook account. In fact, many prefer chatting online to talking on the phone. IM-ing (Instant Message) is the preferred communication tool and is where people show off their knowledge of acronyms, like “DEGT”: “don’t even go there,” or “IDTS”: “I don’t think so.” Millennials are technology savvy because they have no real memory of life without computers, cell phones, or digital music.

 Typical Millennial tends to be extremely competitive, confident and optimistic. This contradicts the fact that Millennials also appear to be the most stressed-out generation in history. They seem to require constant encouragement to thrive and are not too humble to make this known. Most are social bumble bees and crave attention and recognition. This explains why most teens strive for the A-list and don’t typically fall short. They devour the popular lingo that echoes through the high school halls because everyone knows “Shut-up!” is much sassier than “No way!”

There is a time and a place for everything, and the workplace is not somewhere the word “shut-up” should be used under any context. Some people may feel it depends on the work environment of the business where they are employed. I personally would not use that language with my boss, but I see other people do. Even if the word is not used in its original context, and is instead used by its millennial definition, I still find it unnecessary and inappropriate. It is slang and has no effective use in the workplace.

  “Shut-up” is now a word with multiple meanings, and it may take a while for all the generations to understand its new meaning.

 Can you believe an entire blog was devoted to such a trivial subject?…Shut-up!

By now many people have heard the word podcast. However, what a podcast is, exactly, can prove to be a little confusing. The basic definition of a podcast, according to entepreneur.com,is “a pre-recorded audio program that’s posted to a website and is made available for download so people can listen to them (sic) on personal computers or mobile devices.”

The word podcast comes from Apple’s portable music player – iPod – and broadcast. Podcasting is a medium that can provide any type of music, entertainment and news and information. You can browse a podcasting marketplace, such as iTunes, to find podcasts on business, gardening, sports, and many other topics.

It’s essential to point out that many podcasts are not professionally produced. Many podcasters are hobbyists or amateurs who simply enjoy speaking about a chosen topic and creating a community through their show. However, professional media companies such as National Public Radio and Fox News Radio share their syndicated shows using podcasts to provide listeners with an On Demand version of their favorite shows. 

Most can afford to podcast because it requires very little overhead. To create a bare-bones podcast you only need a computer and a microphone. Simply record your voice into a free audio software program, such as audacity, and post it on a website.

From a public relations and marketing perspective, podcasting can be an excellent way to communicate with your audiences. Organizations that utilize podcasting often develop content specifically tailored for their listeners about topics of interest to drive traffic to their website, buy a product or create buzz.

Stay tuned for my next installment on podcasting when I dive into the anatomy of a podcast and how your organization can make a podcast work for you.
 

Some of the podcasts I have enjoyed and recommend are Stuff You Should Know by howstuffworks.com, Fresh Air – an NPR talk show – and The Bugle a news program featuring John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman. These can be downloaded using iTunes.

You look on your Facebook Wall and realize that somebody has taken up a lot of it with Farmville requests. Even worse, people you barely know personally have just shared their anger over some relationship gone bad or expressed something really inappropriate about their employer without “counting to ten”.

When I grew up, we had diaries…with keys. You could banter away about your day. Share the good and the ugly, in writing, and reread it as much as you wanted, often gaining a new perspective. It seems that some social media has become social journaling. There is something that feels good when we share with people we often don’t see, maybe once a month, and that we don’t even socialize with on a regular basis about the dinner out, our opinions on the outcome of a game or that we stayed at the beach all day. I think Generation Y has created the most valuable source imaginable for finding people to hang out with and bring a bar or concert more people than they could get from any advertising, On the other hand, sharing that someone has really disappointed us or that we are sick of people, leaves people of the details, free to imagine them, or worse, develop a perception which is not so favorable. That kind of communications can be very bad for business or finding a job.

What I typically hear from some clients or business associates is that it all seems a waste of time. I can see why they often have this reaction. How do we spend our time online? You have heard the old saying “what you think about the most is what you will become.” How often do you communicate your values and your goals?

It is not the end-all for building strategic relationships, but it certainly can be effective when you set goals for how you will use your pages. Are you using it to connect with people you don’t have time to call or meet with regularly? Are you hoping that you will build more referrals from your efforts? Do you want your referral sources and clients to get to know you better? Will you share details, news, and events about your business as a valuable media source? Can you build credibility by letting people know how you think, how you react to situations, how you have solved business issues? Can you expand your market by getting connected to people within a particular market segment?

Watch for a blog soon on how to Avoid Wasting Time Blogging and Socializing Online.
I would love for you to share how you have reduced your time online and still maintained a strong presence.