Patrick Powers

Fellow bloggers Kanna Taylor and Erin Eschen already posted great recaps of the Social Media Club St. Louis’ panel on higher education last week — that’s not what this blog post is about. This post is about those questions asked but not answered. The panel discussion lasted more than an hour and a half and [...]

It’s often said but always worth repeating: the key to social media success is to be a human being. Such was the sentiment on Thursday during a panel of social media experts put together by the George Herbert Walker School of Business & Technology at Webster University. The panel offered some great insights on how [...]

There are scores of social media “experts” out there offering to sell you the secrets of SEO or promising ways to pile on the Facebook friends. Scott Stratten isn’t one of them. He just wants you to be awesome. Stratten, author of “UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging,” on Tuesday was the guest speaker at Social [...]

Webster University’s George Herbert Walker School of Business & Technology  is putting together a panel of local experts for a Dec. 2 discussion on social media and how to use it in bettering your business — whether that “business” is in a corporate, entrepreneurial or personal branding environment. The event is free and it’s stocked [...]

If you’re never attended a Social Media Club St. Louis event, the Nov. 16 event may be a good time to start. The SMCSTL later this month will be bringing in marketing entrepreneur and public speaker Scott Stratten. Stratten is a well-regarded social media consultant and best-selling author of “UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging.” Formerly [...]

When you’re a marketing or communications professional and a dozen or so national experts host a conference in your backyard, you should probably go. But if you can’t, Twitter might be the next best thing to being there. It’s how I “attended” the 2010 HighEdWeb Conference last week and how I gleaned plenty of great [...]

Don’t worry, this blog isn’t about to become a job board. However, there’s a certain position now open for which I have a high level of personal investment. Webster University is looking for a Chief Communications Officer and Associate Vice President for Strategic Communications and Marketing. It’s a large title for the person who would [...]

The social media scene in St. Louis is a pretty active one with scores of individuals doing some incredible work. Sure, I could list some of those individuals here but I’d hate to inadvertently leave someone off or appear to be sucking up to those I listed. We’ll save it for another post. Instead, this [...]

The following post was originally written for the St. Louis Social Media & Tech Report. The small St. Louis County municipality where I live spent more than $30,000 in August 2008 to purchase and install an electronic sign outside the police station. The purpose was to provide a place for news and events pertinent to [...]

While most people care about the information they choose to share online, they don’t care too much about Facebook’s move to make more of that information public — at least not enough to ditch the social media network altogether. This care-but-don’t-care attitude was the general sentiment at a great Social Media Club of St. Louis [...]