Welcome to Social Media

How Social Media Changed My Life

May 30th, 2009

Kevin Lockett

My life changed in January 2008.

That's when I attended a forum at the University of Akron featuring David Tapscott, the author of “Wikinomics”. In the course of an hour, I learned about social media and found a new career.

In some ways, I think I have always been a social media person. My parents always had newspapers around the house, while TV was my best friend. In college, I studied public relations, but I was heavily involved with radio and the newspaper.

While working at Cleveland.com in 2000, I was in awe of the techies because they had the know-how to actually do the things that I pondered in my head. By 2008, social network tools like Blogger allowed me to turn my ideas into a reality.

After seeing Mr. Tapscott's speech, I immersed myself in social media and read books like David Meerman Scotts' “New Rules For Marketing and PR”.

In February 2008, I attended a seminar where I met Michelle Veronsky, author of the blog Foodie Critic, (who was a great help to me) and Matt Dickman, who introduced me to Twitter.

I took this information and used their advice for a social media campaign for Lock 3 Park, the downtown entertainment venue for the City of Akron.

From April to September, I was a social media maven—with the focus of Steve Jobs and the swagger of Jay-Z.

I created a blog called lock3live.blogspot.com, where I previewed performances, posted pictures on Flickr, created viral contests and uploaded behind the scenes interviews via YouTube. I used Twitter to remind Tweeps about shows and MySpace to interact with performers.

However, social media became real to me when a woman walked up to me and said “Thank You”. The woman recognized me from the Lock 3 Park tour video I had uploaded to YouTube.

Originally from Akron, the woman had moved to Dayton years before Lock 3 Park was built. She decided to come after watching the tour link her sister had sent from YouTube.

This is the power of social media.

While measuring tools, like Google Analytics, are a great way to measure online traffic, you don't always know if your social media efforts are really making an impact. But when you see the results in person, as I did when meeting the woman who had traveled from Dayton, the results are made real.

While winning the Emerging Leader Award from The Summit Awards for my Lock 3 Park campaign was great, there's nothing more satisfying than hearing someone say “Thank You” for your work.

That's the true meaning of SOCIAL Media.

Kevin Lockett is a social media consultant in Akron, Ohio. In late 2008 he successfully used Facebook in a social media awareness campaign to help bring back canceled stations on Sirius XM radio. Recently, Mr. Lockett launched Hirejam.com, a Web site dedicated to green jobs in the State of Ohio. Kevin can be found on a variety of services including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and email.

Topics: Introduction

Tags: Flickr, marketing, MySpace, Technology and Applications, Twitter, YouTube

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