Rhode Island Nexus

Out of an abundance of caution relating to the current weather conditions and predicted historic flooding throughout Rhode Island, this event has been cancelled. If you have any questions or would like to register for next month's roundtable, please contact Sherri Lynn Carrera at 278-9174 or scarrera@riedc.com.

The purpose is to provide a confidential board of peer advisors with the objective of supporting business owners and managers of micro businesses. The ultimate purpose is to ensure business success by providing timely help and advice to meet the challenges of managing/owning a business in the State of Rhode Island.

The ECC Micro Business Roundtable wants to engage the small business community around the state in a continuing dialogue to identify opportunities and actions to make Rhode Island  the most small-business-friendly state it can be. 

Speak with other business owners and discuss your day-to-day successes and issues on a monthly basis. 

Event is free, registration is required 

Due to the current weather conditions, this event has been cancelled.

In this free two-hour workshop, attendees will learn how to use the world’s most popular social networking site, Facebook, and micro-blogging tool, Twitter, to carry out an effective marketing strategy for their small business. 

The workshop will be conducted in three parts:  The first part will explain why content, not technology, is the key to building connections and driving sales and how to develop a winning content strategy.  The second part will cover the business uses of Facebook, including the development of a “Fan” page for an organization and promoting it.  The third part will provide an overview of Twitter-for-business uses, how to set up third party Twitter management applications such as TweetDeck and provide examples of best practices.

Prerequisite:  
This is an intermediate-advanced level workshop, which will move at a steady pace.  In order to get the most out of this workshop, attendees should have at the minimum a personal Facebook account and a Twitter account (both are free) and be familiar with the basic uses of each platform.  During the workshop, attendees will be accessing their accounts via a computer terminal, which will be provided for a limited number of attendees, or a personal laptop, should they choose to bring their own computer.

What will be covered:

Overview
• Why content is more important than the medium
• How to develop a content strategy

Facebook
• The difference between Facebook Profiles, Pages and Groups and when to use them
• How to set up a Page
• How to communicate with Fans
• Evaluate a business Page using Facebook Insights
• Case studies

Twitter
• Overview of Twitter uses
• Common pitfalls to avoid
• How to discover jobs, contracts, employees
• Best practices for CEOs, business owners
• How to use TweetDeck
• Searching Twitter for opportunities