All good businesses have an abundance of internal wisdom—knowledge that could be "THE ANSWER" for both existing and potential customers. When your market is looking for solutions you can provide, it's your job to train them to look to you first. But before they can, you need to know how to get internal wisdom out.

Be the Voice^SM will help you do both.

This interactive seminar will teach your organization how to develop thought leadership through proper and efficient use of new media technologies. Let your audience discover your wisdom by delivering highly sought after answers to those looking to solve pressing business challenges. Tools like managed email, blogs, Web 2.0 applications, podcasts, social networks, online video, widgets, mobile content, and virtual worlds are ideal platforms for content creation and communication with your audience.

The Be the Voice^SM seminar is available both as a one-day comprehensive overview and also in a two-day format that includes a hands-on workshop.

First day - Full overview of the communications landscape

• Overview - Reviewing the entire sphere of new media communication tools.
• Stake your claim - Where should you and your business be communicating.
• Be transparent - The do's and don'ts of online communications.
• Influencers - How to be an influencer, how to find other influencers, and how to communicate with them.
• Negative press - Proper and improper ways to react online.
• Build traffic - Search engine optimization (SEO) basics, social bookmarking, and building influence on social networks (Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, LinkedIn, and more).
• The fallacy of “viral” marketing – Plan to build an audience. Don’t plan to win the lottery.
• Multimedia content creation - Podcasting and video production tips.
• Cross produce - How to efficiently produce and participate with multiple media and communications tools.
• New media and traditional media - Proactively merge the physical offline world with your online world.
• Managing your campaign - Tracking results and modifying communications on the fly.
• Web 2.0 tools – Best applications to achieve your content creation and distribution goals cheaply and efficiently.
• Next steps - What you and your business should do next.

Second day (for two day seminars only) - Workshops

• Creating your online voice and identity.
• Building a blog.
• Creating a podcast.
• Video production for the Web.
• Developing a mobile content campaign.
• Finding your supporters and detractors.
• Developing your social networks.
• Tracking and managing everything efficiently.
• Set up systems to measure your success.

Half day seminars are also available. Please contact Spark Media Solutions for programming and pricing at info@sparkmediasolutions.com or 415-794-9135.

Expert bio

Be the Voice^SM was developed by David Spark, founder of Spark Media Solutions, a traditional and new media custom publishing organization that provides the editorial guidance to turn businesses into the number one voice in their respective industries. As a twelve year veteran technology journalist and industry analyst, Spark has written for and appeared in more than 25 media outlets including eWEEK, PC World, PC Computing, Wired News, TechTV, and KQED in San Francisco. He can be heard every week on Green 960 in San Francisco in his technology segment, The Spark Minute. David’s background both as an award-winning stand-up comic and a comedy writer for Chicago’s famous Second City corporate communications troupe assure you that your time spent in the seminar will be lively and engaging in addition to informative and useful.