Author Archives: Victoria Dunmire

CNN and Social Networking

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I attended the AiMA event this past Wednesday and Andy Mitchell, VP of Digital and Development Marketing at CNN Worldwide was the speaker. He was responsible for the “I just saw it on CNN.com” campaign and the multiple initiatives involving Facebook for the 2008 Presidential Elections. Andy admitted that their 1st attempt with Facebook Connect for the Debates was not a success: they only gave 2 weeks to build up and so it did not work for this high-profile event.

CNN learned from this mistake and worked with Facebook to drive traffic to Facebook.com/CNN for the Jan. 20th inauguration. This was a HUGE deal because CNN was sending traffic away from their own site and to Facebook in order to build RSVPs for the stream. Andy went on to explain that being where the audience was, being a part of the news feeds, going viral, and building a reputation for being real on the social networks was MORE important than getting lots of hits on the CNN website.

You heard it from a big-wig at CNN, guys!!! This is EXACTLY what social networking is about…building these relationships, being where your target audience is and helping them/giving them what they need or want…

And those who are still skeptical about social networking: the 1st CNN and Facebook venture failed. The 2nd one for Inauguration? CNN beat the record 700,000 RSVPs for streams and ended up with over 1 million. There were over 2 Million Facebook Status updates on January 20th. Its SO important to get into social media, and according to Andy Mitchell, know that you are going to make mistakes, but that if you are committed to being a part of it, you can make it work. This was a GREAT event, thanks AiMA!

The Diversified Group Presents: Tweet-Up Networking Event

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Come out and meet all your Twitter followers at this fun, Hawaiian-themed networking event, Sat. Aug 1 from 8pm-Midnight at the all-new 5 Seasons Brewery in Midtown.

Hosted by the following members of The Diversified Group, Victoria Dunmire of V. Marketing, Tara Holland of Word of Mouth ATL, Erica Eashlock of Beyond the Standard Media and Oge Ekeh of Single in Atlanta, this event features a great indoor/outdoor space for you to mingle with your “Followers” and learn more about Twitter. Tropical-themed appetizers, beer tastings of the handcrafted brews at 5 Seasons, a special DJ and abundant, safe parking complete the setting for what promises to be a fantastic night out!

Click this link for more details and find out how to pre-register Networking Event: Tweet-Up Luau Party!

Under-Utilized in LinkedIn: Groups

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LinkedIn

LinkedIn has many uses for businesses, from promotion and PR to targeting potential customers. One feature of LinkedIn that I find to be still under-used are Groups. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of people have joined Groups, but they are not using them to their full potential.

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Atlanta Chicks Tweet-Up Networking Event

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I attended the Atlanta Chix Tweet-up last night at the St. Regis Hotel in Buckhead. We were on the patio of Paces 88 Restaurant and I snapped a few photos which I am displaying here. It was a fantastic evening and I met so many amazing women who are doing great and interesting things in both their personal and professional lives. I am looking forward to many more events like this!!!

Paces 88 Restaurant Patio…beautiful spot!

Hosted By (R-L): Stephanie Lloyd, Stephanie Frost and Rachel Rose

The Atlanta Chix Tweet-up attendees!

Me and Rachel

The Layoffs we dont see…

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Article in the NYTimes today about unannounced layoffs and the WARN act… Companies are laying white-collar workers off in smaller numbers so they can do say without giving them notice. We as workers have no rights left in this country anymore. I think all this is appalling. Companies are using this as an excuse to cut workers, reduce pay, benefits, retirement, etc. and they wont ever bring it back once the recession is over. And yes, I am SICK of helping companies that arent hiring Americans anymore.

The unemployment figure in this country is a JOKE. You mean to tell me that we were losing over 600,000 jobs per week in Feb, but somehow we only lost 690,000 for the whole month? Where did we create those other jobs? yeah right, those other people are probably no longer collecting unemployment. And what about the part time workers and the ultimate small businesses…the self-employed. they are never counted if they are out of work. Our unemployment rate has got to be at about 20% at least.

These companies are snakes…how do they think they are going to survive if Americans can no longer buy their stuff? you think those “middle class” workers in China and India will buy the cars, computers, ipods, etc? Hate to break it to you, but the media is stretching it a bit…the middle class in those countries is still insanely small (1 or 2%) and most arent able to buy the stuff.

Thats one of the reasons automakers pay their workers more (even the foreign ones that come here do this) so that their workers can actually buy the things they make. If this fails to be the case in this country, ie. we all work at Wal-Mart for $8 an hour, this country as we know it is finished and we are headed for third world status.

I’m ready for a worker revolution. How can we do it?

A Great Idea

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I am all about people thinking creatively and outside-the-box, especially right now. We need all the creative ideas we can get about how to stimulate our economy.

I was delighted to read about such an idea in the New York Times today. Ruth Y. Goldway, a member of the United States Postal Regulatory Commission, laid out a way to use some of the stimulus money to fit all the postal vehicles to electric. Although this may not be a new idea, she expanded by saying that the customers could plug their own vehicles in at their community offices when they mail parcels, etc. Great idea!

Additionally, she correctly identified that “Green jobs — outfitting buildings, converting trucks — would be created in neighborhoods nationwide. Converting just its 142,000 standard delivery trucks would reduce gasoline consumption by up to 68 million gallons a year and save the Postal Service millions of dollars.” Saving the Postal Service money would be a wise move, since mail delivery has seen some decreases.

This is the kind of change I was thinking about. This is the kind of change I can believe in.

Stimulus, Shimulus…Do It Right

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So the stimulus is in trouble. I’m not surprised in the least. There’s too much stuff in this bill in the first place. I attribute this to Democrats not being able to spend on anything for eight years, but this is not the time to cram everything in. So here are the 4 parts that I believe should be the TOTAL stimulus bill of right now.

Break the stimulus into the following parts:

1. Repairing bridges, roads, etc. throughout the country. Hire those laid-off autoworkers, hire engineers and project managers.

2. Give an enormous amount of money to green industry…solar panels, wind power and mass transportation. don’t just give enough for states to keep their existing transit systems…give them more to make the expansion they need due to increased ridership.

3. Restructure the electrical grid. Help fund and give contracts to companies like Better Place, which will send a message to Detroit that there WILL be an infrastructure in place to support the Chevy Volt and other cars when they come out. Oil will only go up.

4. Increase unemployment benefits and let the unemployed go onto Medicare for a time. Find a way to help those who are self-employed and independent contractors…many of whom are illegally paid in this fashion and suffer from extraordinarily high taxes.

This is ALL that should be in this bill. Of course, education reform and health care, etc. are important. My fear is that if we only do half of what is needed in these areas in this bill, when we try to do more, the Republicans will scream “We already spent money on these programs” and we’ll never get it done right.

Democrats, save some bargaining room. Health Care and Education should be addressed later (even in a few months, just to separate from this current bill) and if you dont spend anything on them now, you will have a better place to argue from when you need complete spending to do them right.

Also, let’s get this thing done without the Republicans. Obama needs to stand up to them more…they were not voted in. We wanted a bold, daring stimulus-and this is not it-this is a hodgepodge. It looks like a pot-luck dinner when we wanted and needed 5-star dining. We dont want more tax cuts or credits, either.