SEQUIM — The simple concept behind Facebook.com is making connections, and two Sequim entrepreneurs hope to engage and market the business community using the social media giant.
Renne Emiko Brock-Richmond, a Sequim artist who helped organize Sequim’s First Friday Art Walk, and Arthur Buhrer, a Sequim mortgage lender, talked about Sequim Business Friends and Followers on Facebook at the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commmerce luncheon Tuesday.
The site can be found at www.facebook.com/sequimbff. As of late Tuesday afternoon, it had 122 people who “liked” it, the universal Facebook thumbs-up.
While Buhrer told more than 75 attending the luncheon at SunLand Golf & Country Club that the site has a phenomenal following — about a half-billion members, with 50 percent of them logging in daily — Brock-Richmond said the reason for the Facebook page was to encourage connections with Sequim businesses.
Such a branding approach will create a supportive community through active participation and social media tools, she said.
She recommends that Sequim businesses not only sign up for Facebook, but log in and post information about their businesses each day.
“It’s all about engagement,” said Brock-Richmond, a Peninsula College art instructor.
“You have a sphere of influences that can influence our community.”
She and Buhrer encourage Sequim businesses to work together, using social media to recommend one business to another or to potential customers.
Social media is about building relations, they said.
Rather than being the face of an individual on Facebook, she said, “you can be the entity” behind promoting your business.
Some of the key words in their message: interaction, participate, listen, respond, socialize.
Also promoted during their presentation was the use of Google on several fronts.
“I know Google is a better spell-check than Microsoft Word,” Buhrer said.
Buhrer said the younger generation is using the Internet 10 times more than their older counterparts.
The presentation called for a Google online business presence at “Google Places,” basic information about a business that shows up when a customer does a Google search for the business’ name.
Google Analytics tells you who on the Web is looking at your website and from where, and Google Social allows you to connect to Facebook, Twitter and Flikr accounts, the two presenters said.
Also announced Tuesday was the Sequim Tech & Media Fair at 9 a.m. Saturday, March 19, at Sequim High School, 601 N. Sequim Ave.
Sequim PC Users Group and Sequim High School Future Business Leaders of America are sponsoring the event, which can be previewed at www.sequim-techfair.com.
The event will have at least 25 exhibitors and 16 seminars.
Some seminars include “Sequim High School Multimedia & Visual Design”; “The Future of Social Media and Virtual Worlds — Immersive 3D Web Environments, Experiences and Education”; “Learn How Online Banking Can Simplify Your Finances and Benefit You” with Christy Rookard, general manager of First Federal North Sequim Avenue branch; “Home Video Making with Microsoft Live Movie Maker”; “Digital Photography”; and “Sequim High School Student One-on-One Help With Texting & Networking Challenges.”
Tuesday’s luncheon, sponsored by KSQM-FM 91.5 public radio, focused on technology and media in the Sequim area.
Jeff Bankston, KSQM general manager, made a pitch for donations that will help the station match a grant needed to build a 150-foot Blue Mountain Road-area booster tower so that the station can extend its broadcast reach and boost power from 700 to 2,400 watts.
“We’re going to go booming into Port Angeles and Port Townsend,” he said, boosting power about four-fold.
The station needs to raise about $25,000 in matching funds to secure federal grant dollars, he said.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
