If you have been reading about communication and marketing tools over the past couple of years you are aware of the proliferation of new devices and platforms for marketing to and establishing community with existing and prospective customers.  Studies continue to show that growing numbers of people are adopting the use of social networking and micro-blogging platforms for personal use and to “follow” or “fan” their favorite businesses.  Social media will continue to grow and offer businesses perhaps the greatest value in time and investment to reach customers and successfully track the results of their efforts.  Read this: your business needs a presence in social media. As growing number

There have been recent reports online regarding the use of social media by small businesses.  As fast as social media has gained in popularity, businesses have expanded their use of it.  It appears as though most social media users are okay with this.   Many businesses have given it a try while others have found too difficult a platform.  Some local perspective about Sacramento Press readers and thieir expectations on social media would be valuable to the local business community.  Please, share your perspective with us.  What do you like from the small businesses you follow?  Who locally is doing a great job using social networking?  What advice do you have for those considering

Three local non-profit organizations were featured in a Sacramento Social Media Club panel on Tuesday evening hosted by the Sacramento State College of Continuing Education. The panel included Celia Cortez, Projects and Event Manager for the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; Jordan Blair, Board Member for River City Food Bank; and Jon Benorden, Program Coordinator for the Center for AIDS Research, Education and Service (CARES). Lesley Miller, Media Director for 3Fold Communication, also sat on the panel. Moderator Josh Morgan, principal at Morgan/Dorado and program director for the Sacramento Social Media Club, focused the discussion on how non-profits are using social media to educ

The City of West Sacramento announces a modification underway in the traffic flow parallel to City Hall, 1110 West Capitol Avenue as part of the West Capitol Avenue Streetscape construction project. All eastbound vehicle and bicycle traffic is shifted to a single south lane on West Capitol Avenue. Westbound vehicles and bicycles will continue using the north side of West Capitol. All pedestrian access continues on the north side of the street, as West Capitol's south sidewalk remains closed, and the closure of Merkley Avenue from West Capitol Avenue to approximately 600 feet south stays in effect. The two Yolobus eastbound transfer stations at Merkley Avenue and Jefferson Boulevard have

The City of West Sacramento has announced their Mimi-Grant Program for community service organizations with a great program idea needing additional funding. The City's "Community Mini-Grant Program" provides funds annually to help qualifying West Sacramento non-profit organizations with special funding needs. This year, thirty thousand dollars is available to non-profit organization applicants that can demonstrate a viable need that benefits West Sacramento and its residents. Applications for the mini-grant program must be submitted by Sept. 25, 2009, to the Parks & Recreation Department, 1110 West Capitol Ave., West Sacramento, CA 95691. Once all of the applications are in, they will

In a combined press release, Tony's Fine Foods and the City of West Sacramento have announced a major expansion of Tony's headquarters and food distribution facilities in West Sacramento. The expansion will accommodate an expanding customer base and new product lines, as well as business acquisitions generating significant growth in market share for the 75-year old, family-owned company. The company will invest about $15 million to construct a new 77,000 square foot building to house a new freezer and automated distribution warehouse, and renovate existing warehouse and office space. The expansion will increase the West Sacramento company's workforce to 365 fulltime employees, an increase

In May of 2009, The Cunningham Report stated that while container volumes are plummeting at West Coast ports, the Port of West Sacramento - which does not have container facilities - is enjoying a bumper year for rice exports. Port Manager Mike Luken said that the port is enjoying its best year for bagged rice exports in 15 years. This year, the port expects to export some 339,000 metric tons of bagged rice, which is about double what the port usually handles during the fall-to-fall rice export season. The rice is moving primarily to Japan and Korea, where demand increased significantly this season. Kirk Messick, vice president of Sacramento-based Farmers Rice, says the Korean demand st

Does your career or business need a marketing makeover? Executive coach Laura Perez (www.epiphanycoaching.net) shares eight of her marketing makeover “treatments” from her career coaching sessions and seminars: 1) Know Your C.O.B.S. Before you market yourself, be clear on what you want - the Career you want, the Opportunities that are available, the kind of Boss you want to work for, and the Salary you are willing to accept. 2) Be a Problem Solver. Clearly understand and communicate how you can solve problems. Laura says: “Today’s companies want problem solvers, money savers and out of the box thinkers”. Make sure your resume conveys that. 3) Conduct Informational Interviews. Interview ot

The Sacramento Press is giving away two ipod shuffles. Here are the rules of the game. 1. Read the article on the Crocker Art Museum's new wing by Suzanne Hurt posted here on sacramentopress.com 06/05/09. 2. Join the conversation by posting a comment on the article. 3. Invite your friends who are not yet community contributers to sign up for sacramentopress.com [free]. You can use email, phone calls, twitter, facebook or any other social network to ask people to sign up and to vote for you. The votes can be from any community contributer new or old but recruiting helps. One vote per community contributer. 4. Now ask them post a comment in the same article and use your sacramentopress.

 Final batch of photos from The Sacramento Press Tweetup.

 Photos taken at The Sacramento Press and Entreprini Tweetup.

Photos taken at The Sacramento Press and Entreprini Tweetup.  

We have a position at SacPress called a "shucker" that is part of our marketing department. There seems to be lots of questions about what it is they do so I would like to answer a few questions. Does the biker ride their own bike? No we customize the bicycle and trailer. We work closely with Signs By Tomorrow building custom wraps and marketing panels for each specific bike.  Do they get paid to ride the bike? Yes, but riding is only part of the job. Shuckers also interact with the public while answering questions and introducing people to SacPress. They also communicate with our editorial staff and report breaking news. What kind of trailer is that? It is a B.O.B trailer  How many mi

Today 2500-3000 people attended Earth Fest at the Sacramento Zoo in perfect Spring weather. " I think its activity creating activity, the animals are a huge draw but when you add all the live music and vendors its great for families" said Marisa Hicks Sacramento Zoo Marketing Coordinator. We gave out 750 reusable grocery bags, stickers and postcards to the public by spinning are gameshow inspired prize wheel. Our booth was visited by the Zoo's very own mascot, Gus the green tree frog, who with one spin walked away with a SacPress bag. It was great to meet so many enthusiastic kids, parents and visitors so excited about the special events put on at the Sacramento Zoo. The next first Satur

We will be updating this storyline at The Sacramento Zoo during Earth Fest today from 9:00-4:00. Sign up to become a community contributer and recieve a free reusabe SacPress grocery bag. You can also follow our day on Twitter @sacramentopress We started with a 5:00 AM wake up call and began staging the materials in the office to be loaded up and sent over to the Zoo. The Zoo is projecting about 5,000 people will attend, should be a great day to ride your bike or bring your family down to be part of this great event.  

This Second Saturday we set up shop at Bike Kitchen for the evening of Mochii yogurt, cold beers, good people and a super fun band, The Poplollys! We did a little meet and greet, gave away our reusable grocery bags, stickers and fantastic Mochii yogurt from our friend Marc Otero! Its is very interesting to hear people talk about there experience with the site just four months after launch. I met a few community contributers and a couple familiar faces from the local media world. With the weather teasing like its Spring people were out and about this Second Saturday and I hope you stopped by and said hello!  

The Sterling Hotel on 13th and H Street was filled with enthusiasm, entrepreneurial energy and estrogen, Tuesday, March 10. A group from the Sacramento Press was fortunate enough to attend the monthly Accelerated Networking Dinner for eWomenNetwork. It was the first networking dinner any of us had attended. Upon checking in, participants received their name tags and were encouraged to mingle among the other business professionals. Two ballet dancers from the Sacramento Ballet performed while the attendees were getting set up and mingling. Ron Cunningham, artistic director of the ballet, gave a speech about the upcoming events the ballet has planned (30 more for the rest of the season)

We have broken a milestone on twitter.com, 1000 people following our every tweet! If you are wondering how that compares to others go to twitter.com and search for "Sacramento". We are the number one tweet and in the second position are the Sacramento Kings with nearly half the followers. This is not a quick article to boast our accomplishments, I write about how we market this company to the Sacramento community and twitter is a very important tool in our department. We use lots of social networking sites to reach out to our readers but as twitter grows its numbers its becoming a very unique tool. We use it to push content out, begin conversations, recruit readers and writers, hold conte

So I was riding my bike down 19th and as I passed the Safeway I noticed a spoke card on the rear wheel of a bike that was locked to a small tree. Seems pretty normal, but in my world its a bit more interesting. We created green stickers a little while back, and a few of the people who work at sacpress have them on their bikes like spoke cards, just for fun. So to see this extend outside of our small staff is so neat! The interesting part is I have know idea who this bike belonged to, a complete win in my world. As we use the "bicycle" more and more in our marketing its fun to see the cycling community embrace what it is we are doing.