Get To The Grapes

Don’t miss the National Latina Business Women’s Association’s 4th Annual Helping Build the Latina Woman Business Conference today at the Sheraton Grand Sacramento Hotel.  The conference starts at 8:00 a.m. and ends at 4:30 p.m.  The afternoon session (starting at 2:00 p.m.) includes a panel of three marketing professionals who will share insight and information on “How to get Explosive Results from the Use of Social Media.” The panel includes:

Lindsay Myers, Senior SEO Consultant/METRO SEO
Tammy Burleson, President & CEO/Why Not Web
Debi Hammond, President & CEO/Merlot Marketing

Want more information or interested in attending?

Click on Agenda or Registration for more information.

You can’t say ‘restaurant’ in Sacramento without saying Paragary’s. The two have gone hand in hand for longer than I have been alive, and Paragary’s Restaurant Group (PRG) latest foray into the restaurant business is simply swinging!

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With winter right around the corner, the Today Show featured a segment on ‘How to update your fire place,’ and of course, we had the perfect product for the segment! Our client, Eldorado Stone was the featured highlight with a hearth as the backdrop for Meredith and George.  The segment shared some great ideas for updating that old fire place.  Our favorite? The architectural stone veneer, of course!

Watch the segment: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/33653115#33653115

Need more inspiration? Check out the images below or visit Eldorado Stone’s Walkthrough.

According to a new study from Performics and analytics from ROI Research, 46 percent of social media users have recommended or talked about a product or brand on Facebook, and 44 percent have done the same on Twitter.

With more than 3,000 responses to an online survey of social network users, 30 percent said they have learned about a new product, service or brand from a social networking site, and 25 percent have gone directly to an online retailer or ecommerce site after learning about a new product or brand.  Twenty-five percent have recommended a product or brand to friends through social networking sites while 20 percent have discussed them on social networking sites after seeing an ad elsewhere. 

Want to engage your target audience?

Twenty-seven percent reported being receptive to invitations to events, special offers or promotions received through social networking sites. 

Just like with any public relations or advertising campaign, a social media program needs to be based in strategy and provided the resources needed to succeed.  But the real question is for those companies out there who still wonder if social media is just a fad.   They continue to hesitate to truly get involved or invest the time and resources to get involved successfully.  Well, if those companies wait for much more evidence, that ‘bandwagon’ will be long gone…. Full article at BrandWeek.

This story is taken from Sacbee / Business / Bob Shallit: Published Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Sacramento’s Merlot Marketing continues to rake in contracts to promote upscale home products. The latest deal: an agreement to represent PR-111, a Brazilian manufacturer of exotic and sustainable hardwood flooring.

Merlot execs recently flew to Miami to pitch their ideas for the account and apparently wowed BR-111′s president with proposals to stage product showcases in crowded venues such as Times Square – and to build “floating” glass ceilings above the displays that visitors could walk on and then gaze down at the flooring.

As company president Debi Hammond recalls it, BR-111′s Ricardo Moraes at first found the ideas a little, uh, wild.

In a heavy accent, he inquired: “So exactly what do you guys ‘grow’ in Sacramento?” Implying that the Merlot team might be smoking what it was growing.

Hammond replied that wine sometimes stimulates ideas at the company. Never anything stronger.

The team left on a high note, so to speak, with what Hammond calls a “very big account.”

For the Original Story: http://www.sacbee.com/shallit/story/2300988.html or back columns: www.sacbee.com/shallit