ABSTRACT
Kim Garst is CEO of Boom Social in Tampa, Florida. Her blog (https://kimgarst.com) was among the Social Media Examiner’s top sites, and Forbes has called her a social media power influencer. On Twitter, Garst has more than 200,000 followers, and she follows more than 150,000, yet she attempts to respond and thank all engaging with her content. She has posted more than 170,000 tweets. Social media “has invaded the very core of the way we communicate,” Garst said at the 2012 IBM Global Summit in Orlando. “It affords you the opportunity to connect with people you would never in the ordinary course of life connect to.” In search of online business opportunities for more than two decades, Garst sees social media as the direction ahead. She added Pinterest to her list of key sites, with traffic second only to Twitter. Clients interested in personal or company branding also need to be on Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn for marketing purposes. These sites are increasingly visual, so photographs, graphics and video are very important to be effective within social media. Test engagement with various approaches to see which content is “sticky” on specific sites. Live video sites, such as Spreecast (https://spreecast.com) offer the lure of video connected to real-time chat and engagement. This is a potentially powerful combination as a way to promote ideas, products and services. The mobile new media environment presents distinct challenges and opportunities for each communicator and medium.
