Women in Consulting SFO September Meeting September 23, 2009

Women in Consulting (WIC) San Francisco
September 2009 Meeting
Do You Tweet? Tips, Tools, Tricks to make Twitter work for your consulting business.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009, 5:30 – 7:30 pm PST
Early online registration closes Monday, September 21, 2009, 5 pm

Practically everyone knows about Twitter, but not all consultants are sold on it as a business tool. Are you wondering whether you are using Twitter wisely? Are you unsure whether it is a suitable strategy for your consulting business? Do you fear putting in a lot of effort for little return? Would you like to gain better results from Twitter with less effort?

Our September San Francisco meeting features three panelists whose tweets are integrated with their business strategy and whose followers track them avidly.

When Cathy Curtis first started tweeting as @curtisfinancial in early 2009, there were very few Financial Advisors using Twitter, so she was a pioneer in the industry. Now she shares tweets with a growing community of financial planners. Cathy, a Certified Financial Planner, is the owner of Curtis Financial Planning, an independent, fee-only financial planning and investment advisory firm based in Oakland. Her tweets about personal finance have led to speaking engagements, blogging opportunities, quotes in major newspapers (WSJ) and referral partnerships. They drive traffic to her website http://www.curtisfinancialplanning.com and her blog “Of Independent Means” (http://blog.curtisfinancialplanning.com/). She has also hired (virtually) several people she discovered on Twitter, from copywriters to bookkeepers. Cathy believes that Twitter opens up whole new worlds and should be in just about every business owner’s repertoire of marketing tools.

Nancy Friedman is chief wordworker at Wordworking, where she develops names, taglines, titles, and brand vocabulary for clients with budgets. She scoffed publicly at Twitter when she first learned about it in 2007, then recanted after an April 2008 WIC-SF meeting that convinced her of the service’s potential. She has been an active and enthusiastic Twitter advocate ever since, and has written about the Twitter effect—and about Twitter’s weaknesses—in her blog, Fritinancy. Nancy has about 2,000 Twitter followers and offers customized one-on-one Twitter tutoring to individuals and organizations.

Irene Koehler, the founder of AlmostSavvy.com, has a passion for helping businesses and professionals improve their online reputation while creating a virtual identity that best represents their persona and brand. In today's fast paced online world, everyone - potential and current clients, employers, employees - is googling us to find out more about us. We are only as good as our online reputation says we are, so it is critical to take concrete steps to build an easily searchable and positive presence online. While it may sound like everyone else is blogging or using Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, these are just tools, producing results only when used strategically. Irene has a particular talent for working with those in the early stages of learning how to best use social media, a.k.a. those who are AlmostSavvy.

Panelists will speak from their experience, offer tips, and answer questions about how Twitter can be part of your marketing social media strategies. They'll tell us what has worked – and not worked – for them and share what they have learned.

WIC San Francisco's theme for 2009 is Learning from and with Each Other. Bring your questions, your ideas, plenty of business cards, and your desire to learn and to share your knowledge.

LOCATION
Sir Francis Drake Hotel, Second Floor, 450 Powell St. San Francisco, CA
The Sir Francis Drake Hotel is on Powell Street below Sutter Street, close to both the Union Square and Sutter Stockton garages and convenient to Powell Street BART/Muni station.
Visit their website at http://www.sirfrancisdrake.com/ for map and directions

COST
Preregistration is strongly encouraged in order to ensure that we have enough room and food for everyone. Walk-ins will be accepted as long as there is space available.

* WIC Members: $20 preregistration, $25 at the door
* Non-WIC Members: $25 preregistration, $30 at the door
* Price includes meeting and light appetizers

REGISTER EARLY! Advanced online reservations for this event close on the Monday prior to the event at 5 pm.

Registration and Cancellation Policy
All requests for cancellations and refunds must be sent by the Monday prior to the event by 12 noon to [email protected]. After that time, no refunds will be issued.

Official Website: http://www.kintera.org/AutoGen//register/ECReg.asp?ievent=319066