Filmmaker Nico Holthaus is joining the Music Maker Foundation in their effort to preserve the musical traditions of the South by directly supporting poor and slighted musicians who make it, ensuring their voices will not be silenced by poverty and time.

Nico Holthaus

Nico is a prolithic, Arizona based, documentary filmmaker whose work has bought him award winning critical acclaim, fame, and controversy.  All of these  as a documentarian doing his craft skillfully should.

When you purchase either the  movie, Mill Ave, Inc. or The Avenue, for just $20⁰⁰ plus shipping, 20% of your purchase price will be donated to Music Maker.  I strongly encourage you to purchase both movies, since you’ll receive a discount and even more as a bonus!

Purchase Here

About the Films

Mill Ave, Inc.

In the mid to late 90’s Tempe AZ was a hotbed of creative talent. Mill Ave, Inc. is a documentary that started with video footage of bands and venues along Mill Ave , when it became apparent that a lot of these venues would be closing their doors. It seems there was not one singular cause for the disintegration of Mill’s culture and liveliness that people everywhere had come to enjoy.

Or was there?

The Avenue

The Avenue is a documentary film based in Tucson, AZ. 4th avenue was threatened with gentrification, much like Mill Ave in Tempe, AZ. Winner of Best of Arizona at the Arizona International film festival.

By purchasing these films, you will not only have some terrific, eye-opening, quality entertainment.  You will make an impact on historical the historical musical history that is the south.

Read more & purchase

Kara works with legal marketers and small to mid-size business to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

You can reach her at 917-856-5410

The New York Times’ John Biggs has poseed an important question…

How much is a Tweet worth and how much does a Twtitter follower cost?

Noah Kravitz, a writer, worked for PhoneDog, a cell phone marketing company.  While there, he wrote for the company’s blog and acquired more than 17,000 Twitter followers. He left his job after 4-years and was intially told that he could keep his Twitter account and was requested to “tweet on their behalf from time to time and I said sure, as we were parting on good terms.”

twitter.com/phonedog_noah and the site Noah's last post directs you to have been "disconnected" for now...

I am among a fast growing number of marketing professionals who are building our reputations as online journalists via their blog and social media platforms.  In doing so, we are building our influence among our audience, and any employer interested in doing so for their company, will bring on professionals who are demonstrating their skills.

The “proof’s in the pudding” so to speak, and transparent actions speak much louder than words.  So, of course any savvy hiring manager will want to be on the lookout for the skill-set.

This being said, John’s statement below truly hit home…

… in a world where social media’s influence can mean the difference between a lucrative sale and another fruitless cold call, social media accounts at companies have taken on added significance.

The outcome of this case is going to set a precidence. Particularly, because more and more marketing and sales professionals are being hired because of their savvyness using Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and other social media platforms, and the number of followers they have acquired.

As employers, you’ll want to stay concious of what you’re paying your employees to do.  After all, if they’re being paid to sit in a seat and make calls, then their interactions on social media (and the followers they generate) — are personal.  They are not connected to the business you pay them to perform.

Transparency in business practices has never been more important.  So, specicifity in job descriptions and fair compensation from the outset will alleviate a multitude of problems later — not to mention the negative public relations impact a lawsuit against an ex-employee in good standing has on your company.

Similarly, if you are an employee of a firm and requested to blog and use social media as an addendum to the duties you were originally signed on to do, make sure the stipulations for doing so are in writing!! Expressing your professional opinion, ie: publicising your expertise on the company’s behalf, your writing skill, and the audience you attain, and the time it takes to create are all valuable skills that you should be compensated for.

Other articles you may be interested in:

Legal Marketing and Small Business on Facebook

Social Media and MeetUps Keep Legal Marketers Connected

FourSquare – A Fun and Innovative Tool For Legal Marketers

Kara works with legal marketers and small to mid-size business to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

You can reach her at 917-856-5410

You may already realize that I relocated from New York City to Phoenix, Arizona and I am very proud to announce my new position as a Rainmaker Advisor with a remarkable legal marketing company, Stephen Fairley’s Rainmaker Institute.

Over the last 3 years, I’ve talked with literally hundreds of solo practitioners and partners in small law firms who were faced with the need to manage their firms as successful business enterprise.  Unfortunately, my do-it-yourself seminars were not products in high demand from lawyers who already worked 60-80 hour work-weeks.

One, cold Saturday evening in mid-January, after returning from an annual visit with my mother in Arizona, I was writing a press release in my apartment office. That was the moment I decided it was time for a dramatic change in my life.

So, I bought myself and my cat a plane ticket, started taking pictures of my belongings for Craig’s List and posted an announcement of my impending departure.

Shortly after I published my relocation announcement, I received this Direct Message from Stephen Fairley on Twitter.

In April of 2009, I wrote this article for Stephen’s magazine, The Rainmaker Advisor, “7 Essential Tools You Need to Manage Your Law Firm’s Online Reputation & Position Yourself as an Expert”, so I was acutely aware of The Rainmaker Institute’s dedication to excellence and integrity.

I am excited to say that going forward, all of the legal marketing business I conduct will be through The Rainmaker Institute in my position as a Rainmaker Advisor.

For the last 12 years, the programs Stephen developed have helped more than 7,000 attorneys create successful and sustainable law practices, with over 22 of the largest state and local bar associations having sponsored his live law firm marketing seminars & Rainmaker Retreats to their members.

This white paper on How to Market Your Articles is specifically for lawyers. It is a sample of the exemplary free information we make available on a regular basis, so be sure to connect!

Keep me posted on your accomplishments and let me know if I can help.

Kara works with  small to mid-size business and  legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy.  This new design provides a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

You can reach her at 917-856-5410

After 22 wonderful years in New York City, Kara Smith, the principal and founder of Karasma Media is relocating to Phoenix, Arizona.   As of Sunday, January 30th,  I will be operating out of Phoenix and support New York clients and travel to NY City and other locations from there.

In addition to operating Karasma Media, I’m actively searching for a position as a marketing/communications/social media manager and adjunct college teacher and will be getting my certification to tutor elementary & secondary English once I arrive in Arizona.

My mother is 82-years old and very active and I want to enjoy this very special time of our lives together.   We’d been talking about my moving there fore several years, and during my last Christmas visit, I saw that now was the time to migrate West…   I also met a very special man whose family is close to ours, so this move is the beginning of new adventures for me on multiple levels!

If you have friends & colleagues in the area who may be able to assist in my “life-recreation, please do to connect us!

Kara works with  small to mid-size business and  legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy.  This new design provides a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

You can reach her at 917-856-5410

I received word today that three graduate research I published on The Social Science Research Network (SSRN ), made their 2010 Top Ten Lists.

*UPDATE: I received an e-mail from Gregg Gordon, the President of SSRN early the morning of January 4th, containing the following text:

We apologize for sending you one or more incorrect email messages last week. While testing some new functionality, our servers sent “Top Ten” emails to the top one hundred downloaded papers in certain ejournals instead of the top ten.

Oh well… I made the top-20 in two categories, and the top 50 in others…

My papers:

“A Semiotic Analysis of the African American Character Ben in the Film Night of the Living Dead, in Relation to Literary Media Theory“

• Listed on SSRN’s Top Ten download list for AFAM Subject Matter eJournals, Film eJournal – Forthcoming, HRN African-American Studies Research Network, HRN Performing, Visual, & Fine Arts Research Network, Literary Theory & Criticism eJournal and PVFA Subject Matter eJournals. Downloaded 126 times

“Jazz Interpolation and Improvisation: George and Ira Gershwin’s Fascinating Rhythm as Recorded by Ella Fitzgerald and Dianne Reeves”

• Listed on SSRN’s Top Ten Download List for Music eJournal – Forthcoming.   Downloaded 64 times

“African-American Media Images of Death and Mourning”

• Listed on SSRN’s Top Ten download list for AFAM Subject Matter eJournals and HRN African-American Studies Research Network. Downloaded 76 times

I’ve begun a job search for a college level teaching position in communications based in Arizona, where my mother lives; specifically at Arizona University West Campus
and The University of Phoenix.

Being in SSRN’s top-10, three times is very exciting news, as I build this new leg of my career, and it is exhilarating to receive affirmation that my work is being read.

However, in today’s world of on-line research availability, I can’t help wondering how many people are plagiarizing, and how many professors aren’t catching the students doing so — for a multitude of reasons.

I would very much like to hear other published professionals and educators about this issue and safe guards/software you utilize to offset it.

I’ll be keeping a leg of Karasma Media here in New York to continue to service clients here, and traveling as needed. We’re launching a new platform in February, so stay tuned!

Kara works small to mid-size business and  legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

You can reach her at 917-856-5410

After our presentations on Social Media Marketing at the Harlem Book Fair this year, AALBC.com’s Troy Johnson and I received quite a few requests for hard copies of the slides, so we uploaded them to Slide share.

I highly recommend using Slide Share to legal marketers, because the platform interacts with online data in a similar manner to YouTube, and can enable the information you provide to go viral very quickly.

The 4 slide presentations we shared with our participants were fairly high-level in nature, simply because we only had an hour to cover the content of each section.  If you’re a legal marketer or business owner just getting started in social media, they’re designed to provide you with an initial “look-see”.

I look forward to your thoughts!

Other articles you may be interested in:

The Amsterdam News Covers AALBC.com & Karasma Media Social Media Marketing Workshops

Update to Legal Marketers – Tweets are Embeddable as of May 4th 2010

A Great Legal Marketing Firm Tool to Optimize Twitter

Legal Marketers: Responding to social media inquiries is more important than you think

Legal Marketing Ethics in A Web 3.0 World

Kara works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

You can reach her at 917-856-5410

On Saturday, July 17th,  Troy Johnson of AALBC.com (The African American Literature Book Club) has invited me  to co-host Publishing YOU-niversity, includes four, 1-hour, standalone workshops on social media marketing for authors and small to mid-size organizations.

Attendees will be provided with a foundation for using a website, Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to promote themselves and their businesses.

Every web interaction has the power to influence a potential client’s decision to purchase your book, product or service.   So, if your website does not provide an informative and satisfying experience and you don’t engage your visitors through social media, then they will find an author who is interested enough to have a dialog with their audience and a business who’s interested in what they have to say.

We’ll be discussing how social media can help convert your online visitors to viable business prospects and customers after interacting with your website.

Register today for:

1. Using a Website to Generate Business
2. How to Use Facebook to Build Your Personal and Professional Brand
3. What is Twitter All About?
4. Social Media Beyond Facebook and Twitter

Location:

Thurgood Marshall Academy (Classroom 211)
214 West 135th Street
New York, NY 10030

Participants who enroll in ALL FOUR workshops will receive a complementary “Jumpstart Your Social Media” Booklet

Troy is a technology expert and industry leader in marketing books on the World Wide Web. Mr. Johnson is the founder and webmaster of AALBC.com LLC.   AALBC.com was launched in 1998, and is now the largest and most frequently visited web site dedicated to books by and about black people.

He has been recognized in articles that have appeared in Publishers Weekly, Essence Magazine, The New York Times, The Amsterdam News, Black Issues Book Review and Black Enterprise.  Troy has also appeared on numerous radio and television programs including C-Span2’s Book TV and The Black Family Channel’s Literary Living; and in 2005 was named one of the 50 Most Powerful African Americans in Publishing by Black Issues Book Review magazine.

At this point, any public relations person stating that they possess a level of expertise using tools of social media, should have the level of this skillset illustrated in their online presence.  Personally, I’ve garnered numerous speaking engagements and broadcast coverage for both myself and my clients, using a combination of social media outreach and traditional PR.

You can see some of the coverage here:

Fox 5 News, Newsweek’s Online Magazine, 10/10 Wins, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, NY 1, Harlem Torch Magazine, and Black Enterprise Online.

More About The Harlem Book Fair

The Book Fair was founded in 1999 by QBR/The Black Book Review as a community event and forum for African American readers to discover and celebrate their history and culture through books.

It is now a week long event and the country’s largest community gathering of African American readers and book lovers. It has evolved into a national brand that is expanding into new markets each year. The Harlem Book Fair now draws over 50,000 attendees, and 15 million viewers via C-SPAN’s Book TV. Last year, the Book Fair was broadcast live in Europe and Asia for the first time.

The 2010 Harlem Book Fair spans two avenue-long blocks on West 135th Street with tents, pavilions of books, food, and cultural concessions. Fair space has more than doubled since its inception.

View the Press Release

Other articles you may be interested in:

Should European in-house lawyers be allowed to be members of the bar – Legal pros using social connect internationally

Update to Legal Marketers – Tweets are Embeddable as of May 4th 2010

Alain L. Locke Elementary School – P.S. 208 Featured in Brazilian Newspaper

A Real-Time Social Web Clock Watcher for Curious Legal Marketers

Legal Marketers: Responding to social media inquiries is more important than you think

Kara works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

You can reach her at 917-856-5410

Join us for a young people’s slumber party and movie screening under the stars!

Saturday, June 26th at 8:30 pm

Bring Your Blanket or Lawn Chair and Join Us for

Madagascar

Marcus Garvey Park Lawn

Located on Madison Avenue side of Park between
122nd & 124th St.

Free Admission and Limited Refreshments.

Raindate:  Wednesday, June 30th

Storyline:  At New York’s Central Park Zoo, a lion, a zebra, a giraffe, and a hippo are best friends and stars of the show.
Runtime:  86 Minutes

This event is co-sponsored by   Karasma Media, The Mt. Morris Park Community Improvement Association, Dark Green Joe, Maysles Cinema and Target

Kara works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

You can reach her at 917-856-5410

At a Meet-up I attended recently hosted by Adrian Dayton @adriendayton asked what I thought about the online platform FourSquare and its viability and value for legal marketers. At the time, I’d only done some minimal dabbling with it so I said, “The jury’s still out on this one…”

Over the last 8-days though, I’ve been using it and am very impressed with the added interaction, both business and personal, it’s been providing.

The platform works via GPS, and I can see it added value already when it comes to doing what we say we’re doing and actually showing “Proof with The Pudding’!  It’s  an entirely new level of authenticity!

The SanFrancisco Chronicle reported that FourSquare “Check-Ins” grew more than 50% in the last month…

That’s up 50% from 600,000 just a month ago, and more than double the 400,000 checkins per day it was doing in March, just three months ago.

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on this!

Other articles you may be interested in:

Update to Legal Marketers – Tweets are Embeddable as of May 4th 2010

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the Influence of Legal Marketers

Facebook’s “LIKE” Button – Are you a pro or con legal pro?

A Real-Time Social Web Clock Watcher for Curious Legal Marketers

Legal Marketers: Responding to social media inquiries is more important than you think

Kara works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

You can reach her at 917-856-5410

As legal marketers, we  play an extremely important role in spearheading the development of corporate strategy for our organizations and in the responding to the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) agenda in play.

Yesterday, I attended Good Business 2010 in New York City, hosted by the Better Business Bureau. Speakers included Michael Holland, Edelman; Exec. VP and Group Head, Corporate Social Responsibility, NY; Deborah Holmes Ernst & Young, LLP, Global Corporate Responsibility Leader; and Robin Reibel, of the Macy’s Group V.P, Media Relations Cause Marketing, and Visitors Services.

One of the highlights of the conference was a front-of-the-room conversation between NY Times Advertising Columnist, Stuart Elliott,
and Christopher Graves, the CEO of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, who I had the opportunity to speak with briefly afterward.

For me, one of the most important points Chris emphasized was,

“Never forget, the emotional human being on the other side”.

Some of my key takeaways:

• In order to be sustainable, the social concerns of a firm and the human beings behind a legal organization need to be demonstrated, particularly since we see the strong influence that that “the company behind the product” has on the brands all of us consumers purchase.

• CSR has been one of the key themes of the new Millennium and involves companies operating their businesses in ways that meet their stakeholders’ expectations about economic, legal, ethical and environmental and social performance.

• People are more likely to buy and rate the products from a company that they perceive as having a good reputation.

Social Media plays an important role in delivering CSR for legal brands, particularly through :

Information: Address both the services your legal marketing organization offers and the concerns of its audience

Blog Content: Needs to be appropriately targeted, ethical, accurate and culturally enriching and acceptable;

Pricing: Be sensitive to client needs ie: moving away from hourly billing,  and value, as well as operating your firm as a profitable business;

Selling: Avoid perceptions of misleading and pressuring customers and staying within compliance of ABA and jurisdiction regulations

Customer Service: Stay cognizant of your audience’s needs and concerns is key, as well as effective with resolving disputes.

Chris also mentioned this scenario I thought you might get a kick out of.  Nestle’s grossly mishandled Greenpeace’s outrage via Facbook ver their supporting companies that destroy rainforests in order to produce the palm oil that Nestle purchases from them.

While it’s highly unlikely that any orangutans will be attacking your legal marketing org any time soon, keeping the “Beasts at-Bay” with CSR in mind is sound business advice.

Other articles you may be interested in:

As the Legal Marketing Industry Shifts – We Can Differentiate By Making A Difference

Legal Marketers and Bloggers: The FTC’s New Regulations for Endorsements and Testimonials are Effective December 1, 2009 – FTC Toolkit Keeps You Informed

20 Tips for Legal Marketers Looking to Make Some Meaningful Changes In Their Business

Legal Marketing Ethics in A Web 3.0 World

Kara works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

You can reach her at 917-856-5410