 Speaker Bio/Recent Speaking Activities
Biography
Aaron Strout is currently Vice President of Social Media at Mzinga, a Burlington, Massachusetts-based provider of online communities and social networks for businesses. In his role, Aaron focuses on blogging, podcasting, webinars, blogger relations, and evangelizing the benefits of social networks for business. In addition to his knowledge of the interactive and new media landscape, Aaron has more than 15 years of online marketing and advertising experience, with a strong background in integrated and online marketing.
In his previous role, Aaron was the chief marketing officer at Shared Insights, one of Mzinga’s predecessor companies. Prior to this, Aaron worked at Fidelity Investments in their retail division, with a focus on online and acquisition marketing. Aaron’s work at Fidelity revolved around Web strategy & marketing, as well as the development of interactive and print campaigns, including direct mail, e-mail, banner & print ads, and event marketing.
At Mzinga, Aaron is an active contributor to the world of new media outside of his professional life. Alongside his personal blog, Big Papelbon, focused on the exploits of his beloved Boston sports teams, Aaron maintains a social media-related blog titled, Citizen Marketer. Aaron also conducts a weekly podcast series titled, The We Show. The series features community authors, practioners and thought leaders that are shaping today's social media landscape.
Aaron is also a founding member and former president of the Boston Interactive Media Association (BIMA). In addition, he is a member and former board member of the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITX). While at MITX, Aaron was responsible for a quarterly “Technology in Finance” breakfast that matched speakers from financial services, top analyst firms such as Forrester, and select technology providers. Aaron often moderated these panels and was responsible for working with a team to provide speakers, sponsors, and promotion of the events. Last but not least, Aaron was recently elected an interim board member for the prestigious Social Media Club. He will be part of a team responsible for creating standards around social media and community.
Aaron graduated with a BA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and is an alumnus of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
Speaking experience- MITX Event - July 15, 2008 (video)
Social
Media: Lead Generation: The Business of Using Blogs, Podcasts, Message Boards
and Facebook
- Enterprise 2.0 Conference - June 11, 2008
Social Network Shootout
- IMC USA - May 22, 2008
Social Networking & Web 2.0
- ACORD/LOMA - May 14, 2008 (video - click on "Social Media Panel Discussion)
We are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business
- Community 2.0 Conference – May 13, 2008
Marketing of, to, and through Online Communities
- Social Media Breakfast, Boston - May 1, 2008 (video)
Hiring in a 2.0 World
- Milken Institute Global Conference, April 29, 2008
Social Networking for Companies: A Hands On Guide (Conducted w/ Mzinga Chairman, Barry Libert)
- ForumOne Communications Online Business Community Forum - April 15, 2008
Community Value and Revenue Techniques
- United Nations Meets Web 2.0 – March 24, 2008
Social Networks and ICT Entrepreneurs
- MarketingProfs B2B Virtual Conference – March, 2007
What data can we now collect on customers, and what does that mean for evolving security and privacy issues?
- WebGuild Web 2.0 Conference – January 29, 2008
- Social Media Club – June 21, 2007:
Making the Business Case for Social Media – Measuring the ROI of Social Media Programs
- NetFinance Forum – May, 2006
E-mail best practices roundtable
- Forrester Finance Forum – June, 2005
Designing a Great Web Experience
Aaron’s Areas of Expertise
- Social Media for Business
- Successful Social Networkings
- Enterprise Twitter Strategies
- Crowdsourcing for Business
- Building Business Communities
- Blogging/podcasting Best Practices
Other Sample Abstracts for Presentations
We Are Smarter Than Me: Unleashing the Power of Your Crowd - Case studies for companies that are successfully using crowdsourcing
- Writing a wiki book with 3,500 contributors – the good, the bad and the ugly
- Partnering with your community to market your product.
- Taking best practices from the book and applying them to your business
In this presentation, Aaron will discuss several case studies of companies that are successfully tapping into their internal and external “crowds.” Aaron will also discuss the We Are Smarter Than Me book project, including how the project came together, the lessons learned along the way, and how to apply some of the best practices we collected to today’s businesses.
Corporate Blogging and Podcasting
- Who should blog and how should they get started?
- How to turn podcasts into a marketing machine.
- Creating content once and using it in multiple ways.
Today’s companies are struggling to figure out how to best use new media like blogs and podcasts to improve their bottom line. During this presentation, Aaron will talk about how to create a corporate blogging strategy, ways to reuse existing content and ideas on how to use new media to drive ROI in your company.
Using Facebook, Twitter and Social Bookmarking to Improve Your Business
- How to create a Facebook strategy for your company.
- New strategies like Twitter and to use them to build your brand.
- Why you can’t afford not to use del.icio.us.
During this session, Aaron will talk about how companies are using social networks like Facebook along with tools like Twitter and social bookmarking to improve their business with little to no money. He will also evaluate the best ways to train employees on these new technologies and where you should go to keep up with the latest trends.
Feel free to contact me at aaron @ Mzinga DOT com.
Fri, May 16 2008 |
