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Dee and I got out and shared a bit of social media advise with the nice folks form ECOBIA here is the story from the Times Reporter:

Social Media Touted as New Path to Business Success
By Lee Morrison
The Times-Reporter
Posted Oct 27, 2009 @ 10:59 PM

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Area housing contractors heard Tuesday about how to build their business through social media via the Internet.

Dee Mock, co-owner of Technology Workgroup of Dover, discussed “Social Media – What It Means for Your Business” during a meeting of the East Central Ohio Building Industry Assn. in the Pro’s Table at New Philadelphia.

“It’s a new age. We need to explore all options,” said Loris Miller, association president. The owner of Signature Builders of Berlin said housing starts have picked up nationally after the market plunged from its peak in 2005.

“From talking with other builders locally, there’s a lot of interest and a lot of estimates being done, but as far as the actual number of starts, it’s still pretty slow right now,” Miller said.

Miller said he’s on Facebook and has had people ask to become a friend so that they can see photos of his projects that he’s posted on his page.

Mock and her husband, Michael, started Technology Workgroup in 2004. The Web site design company helps with social media for clients including the county Chamber of Commerce’s Digital Portal of Tuscarawas County, Tusco Display, the United Way and the Muskingum Lakes Chapter of the Red Cross.

“As opposed to traditional marketing where the focus was on the product, Web 2.0 marketing focuses on the promoter,” she said. “People don’t care about the product until they can trust, and eventually care about, you and your business. Your audience doesn’t buy your product; they buy you, accept and trust your brand, then give you their business.”

She said it’s the art of listening, learning and sharing.

Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are the three most widely used social media platforms. Facebook is so large that if it were a country it would rank eighth in the world with a population of more than 150 million users – and that was in January. Its fastest growing demographic is women over age 55.

Mock said the Five C’s of social media involve conversation, collaboration, community, comment and cooperate. Such interaction with others can help promote a business, organization or product.

Technology Workgroup personnel “are social media enthusiasts and evangelists,” she said. “We believe there are no experts; this is still too new, and we are all learning most aptly together. On the other hand there are opportunities and measurable results that social media offers that can be extremely beneficial to companies of all sizes.”

As for housing trends, the value of new residential construction for all of Tuscarawas County in 2008 totaled $31,102,171, according to county Auditor Matt Judy. For 2007, the amount was $41,405,628. The statistics, the most recent available, do not include number of units.

Meanwhile, the value of new and renovated commercial building projects through Sept. 30, 2009, was $40,819,000. That’s down about 35 percent from the high of $77,032,000 for the same time period in 2007. The value through Sept. 30, 2008, was $34,209,000. The projects are throughout Tuscarawas and Holmes counties, which are overseen by the East Central Ohio Building Authority at Dover.

Michael Mock
www.technologyworkgroup.com