Jim Durbin: Social Media Consultant In St Louis

I left a comfortable corporate job to strike out on my own and found a new media company dedicated to improving corporate relationships to online communities.

Today I tap my social network to hire social media experts, train internal resources, execute campaigns, and serve as a sounding board to entrepreneurs seeking to understand how the online world can improve their business.

My company, Durbin Media, is a pioneer in the social media space. We've been at this since January 2006, working with small and microbusinesses, start-ups, and a few carefully chosen national companies. We primarily work on retainer for consulting and recruiting, though project work is possible if you're clear on what you're trying to achieve. In addition, Jim uses socialmediaheadhunter.com and jobsinsocialmedia.com to identify staff for internal work.

St Louis Interactive Conference Coming Up

I'm sadly going to be out of town, but the St Louis Blogger's Guild is holding an interactive festival this Saturday.

There are quite a few new business blogs in St Louis as well. Renaissance Plastic Surgery is working on boosting their profile for Breast Augmentation in St Peters, and their blog talks about the difficulty of picking out just the right keyword.

Greg Bussmann has a St Louis Social Media and Tech Report that serves as a calendar.

And Franki and I are starting to realize that true social media mastery means setting down your online reputation and letting your clients take all the credit. But we're working on getting some new writers and employers, so if you know anyone good - we're hiring at socialmediaheadhunter.com.

Moving Back To The Blogger Platform

Our business blog, brandstorming, is moving back to its location here on the Blogger Platform. The brandstorming.com domain, which has been of real value to us, is being converted into a products website for selling social media to small business.

We'll keep this name, and update the blog regularly, but it will be a new feed - and one dedicated just to Durbin Media.

So for the Durbin Media blog, you should be following http://durbinmedia.com/brandstorming, and for the small business blog, you'll be checking out http://www.brandstorming.com, which also houses our social media training store, Store.brandstorming.com.

That has series of products that we developed to round out our service offerings. For those now confused - this is what Durbin Media now represents.

1) An interactive marketing firm
2) Social Media Headhunting
3) Training DVD's for Recruiters and Small Business.

We'll be adding the Venticafe later in the year - products Franki has created, and the Social Media Headhunter will add a payrolling service for JobsinSocialMedia.com once I get the paperwork cleared.

Now if we could just get that cloning device...

Social Media Training Products

Part of our marketing strategy has been the training of recruiters in using social media. We've run blogging boot camps and personal training sessions, along with webinars and speaking events, but we've finally completed the first step in our grand vision.

Back in February, I launched Social Media Headhunter, a recruiting site I used to place social media candidates with companies. We've been building that brand, and focusing it on the social media world, adding handles for smheadhunter at sites like Twitter.

The site has just added a store where you can purchase training DVD's for LinkedIn, Facebook, and SEO. These DVD's are focused on the recruiting and staffing industry, and the quality is simply fantastic. We've set the store up on the Shopify network, authorized a gateway for credit cards, and are turning on the affiliate program with Share-A-Sale in the next few weeks.

I have over twenty titles in the works, and the delivery and process is going to blow your mind. There's nothing like this out there, and the difficulty in putting together a product like this is enough to deter competitors from competing on quality. Plus, my content rocks, and is 100% unique from my own experiences.

Franki has plans to add another store for the Venti Cafe, and we'll be launching a third store for brandstorming, covering other super secret products. Also remember this blog is no longer the main site.

The St Louis Marketing Recruiter Launches

Bob Bishop is a St Louis based marketing recruiter who just joined the blogosphere, and he's on the fast track to success (okay, he's a client who went through some training).

Seriously, though, Bob is a quick study who's picking up on social media tools as a way to connect with clients and candidates. As a retained executive search recruiter, Bob, who also goes by G. Robert Bishop, has developed a reputation for excellence, and if you ever have the chance to visits his office, be sure to check out the artwork. It's like spending time in the studio of a famous person.

Plastic Surgery Blogging

One of our clients is Renaissance Plastic Surgery in St Peters. This practice has three doctors and is known for quality control. Their challenge was to update their website, add and understand a blogging component, and lay out a basic marketing plan for newsletters, seminars, and local market advertising.

The site is up, and the look and feel is modern, but also filled with calls to action, as the primary purpose of the site is to drive phone calls and email contacts for those interested in surgical and medical spa procedures.

The Renaissance Plastic Surgery blog has been up and running since May of this year, and it's content is a mix of doctor's writing, local content, and thoughts from the staff. The blog is built on Typepad, and has several authors who take turns writing and linking to stories of interest. It is not simply a marketing ploy. The blog is designed to make the practice more aware of local matters, questions people have, and provide a platform for anything they do in the future.

Ultimately, the goal is all the same. Get more clients into the building who are already comfortable with the doctors and the staff. Humanize the process and explain the advantages of Renaissance over the competition without having to sell.

Durbin Media Projects

Just some things we're working on.

Sendouts has launched their blog on applicant tracking systems. I'm actually using their software to power my client data base for SocialMediaHeadhunter.com

TalentDrive is continuing to work on their strategy of one screen, all job boards technology. For recruiters, this is a easy way to manage your resume databases.

Renaissance Plastic Surgery is writing a blog about St Louis and their cosmetic surgery practice. If you're looking for a plastic surgeon , or considering getting some cosmetic surgery done, this is a good site to read up on their work.

Franki is still going strong at LifeinAVenti cup, a style and fashion blog, and I'm still writing on StlRecruiting. New writers have stepped in at Kansas City and Charlotte Recruiting, but Seattle is about to be used for hiring recruiters in Seattle.

And of course, our regular St Louis social media branding and marketing blog can now be found at brandstorming.com

Track Employees With GPS Software At FoxTrax Online

One of our SocialMediaHeadhunter clients is FoxTrax Online, a GPS tracking outfit that works with employers to track vehicles in real time with GPS units and software.

Many times, companies think they are in a product business, but they are really in routing business, as their success depends on knowing where their employees are and what they're doing.

Contractors can use the system to monitor when employees arrive at client sites for timecard and billing purposes.

Delivery Businesses can use the GPS software to determine best routes to save gas and time for standard deliveries.

Plumbers, HVAC, and anyone else with a truck can use the system to make sure that employees are where they said they were, when they said they were.

For more on GPS Tracking for Businesses, check out the FoxTrax site.