RSVP here for BMPR August: http://twtvite.com/bmpraugust

Doctors have all the confidence in the world when they’re treating patients, but bring up social media… and suddenly they feel a little woozy. Never fear: BMPR has remedy. Right here in San Antonio and South Texas we have well-known surgeons, health care consultants and communication professionals who use Twitter, Facebook, and WordPress in a way that engages their patients, community and peers in a compelling and ethical style. Join us Thursday, August 26th (RSVP link above) as these four experts share their trials and successes with social media in the health care industry:

Dr. Chrysopoulo

Dr. Minas Chrysopoulo

Surgeon PRMA of South Texas

On Twitter: @mchrysopoulo

Raised and educated in London, England, Dr. Minas Chrysopoulo — known as “Dr. C” — is one of “America’s Top Surgeons.” He is a board certified plastic surgeon whose specialty is advanced breast reconstruction techniques following a mastectomy –includng the DIEP flap, which makes use of a patient’s own skin and fat. When not working (or zipping around in his mini Cooper), Dr C enjoys spending time with his wife and daughter, playing tennis, and feeding his social media addiction by blogging, facebooking and tweeting. You can also follow Dr C on Facebook, or by reading his blog.

Reed Smith

Reed Smith

Consulting Strategist, Social Media and Hospitals

On Twitter: @reedsmith

Reed Smith is a consulting strategist and thought leader focused on the integration of social computing into hospitals. Much of his work focuses on incorporating interactive elements into current online strategies within hospitals and healthcare organizations. Reed’s hospital experience includes time as a hospital marketing director, and overseeing product develop for the Texas Hospital Association where he created a social media guide for hospitals, assembling best practices and case studies from organizations across the country, that is now offered by many of the state hospital associations. Prior to healthcare Reed has spent time working in both telecommunications and professional sports. You can learn more about by visiting http://iamreedsmith.com or reading his profile on LinkedIn. Reed has presented at SXSW Interactive (’10), Sharing Exchanging Social Health 2010, Texas Hospital Association Social Media Conference (’09), and more.

Abby Lowe

Abby Lowe

Senior Communications Specialist CHRISTUS Health

@ChristusHealth / @AbbyLowe

Abby Lowe is senior communications specialist for CHRISTUS Health based in Irving, Texas. The CHRISTUS system is made up of 40 hospitals in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, New Mexico, Utah, Georgia and Mexico. That includes San Antonio’s Own CHRISTUS Santa Rosa. Abby has spearheaded efforts to bring the hospitals of CHRISTUS into the social media sphere, but as some of us know, not everybody gets it.

Nancy P. Johnson

Nancy Preyor-Johnson

Online Communications Coordinator

Methodist Healthcare-SanAntonio

On Twitter: @SAHealth210 /  @NancyPJohnson

Nancy is a former newspaper journalist who tells Methodist Healthcare-San Antonio’s story of “Serving Humanity to Honor God” through social media. Her journalistic approach focuses on fresh content. Often, she’s manning video and digital cameras while helping the media and public learn about this city’s largest healthcare system.

We’re thankful to have such an amazing community at BMPR. Each month we have incredible speakers that share their knowledge with the room. You may or may not know that BMPR is strictly volunteer work. Holiday Inn has been a fantastic partner. They currently provide us a fixed inclusive cost per meal of $13. They go out of their way to sponsor the room, the a/v equipment and their wait staff. This is amazingly generous and we’re all thankful! As we all know, budgets are tightening and Holiday Inn is unable to cover the cost of the lunches for the speakers. So we want your input. We can opt to stay where we are at $13 per meal and not cover the speaker lunches or we can raise the price to $15 per meal and the speakers can be covered. Because BMPR is about the community, we need your input. Please vote below and let us know your thoughts.

Did you miss Ryan Kelly of Pear Analytics presentation on SEO or his new beard? Either way, 210tv.com caught it on video and you can see it here!

Susan Price of Firecat Studio shared her SEO knowledge with us in July. Check out her presentation if you missed it. Thanks to 210tv.com for the video!

Relive the excitement of Matt Egan of Image Freedom’s SEO Presentation from July’s BMPR again and again thanks to Rafael Nieves at 210TV.com!

With your help we had an amazing July BMPR! What an event, it was so full, @holidayinnsa graciously opened up another room for the additional crowd and added tables. It’s no surprise, though, because we had the fantastic @imagefreedom, @firecatsue and @pearanalytics come and present on SEO for each of us. Additionally, Mark from Time Warner Cable presented on the virtues of 4G and gave away TWO 4G devices. @txsundwn and @taylorhenson were the lucky winners. Did you miss some of the greatness or need a quick recap? Not a problem! @rnieves of 210tv saved the day by livestreaming AND filming the event. Check out the slides below! Videos of the event will be coming soon.

Matthew Egan – Image Freedom

Susan Price – Fire Cat Studio

Ryan Kelly – Pear Analytics

For those of you that prefer to be a little nerdier than the rest, here are this month’s Tips and Tools:

Join us again in August and bring a friend!

RSVP here: http://twtvite.com/BMPRJuly

You’ve heard all the SEO noise out there: Is SEO a skillful art? Or is it more like that bad joke your creepy Uncle Wade brings up at family picnics? This month’s BMPR speakers will help you answer those questions and the one that matters most: So what? Time Warner’s wireless gurus will school us on the company’s new WiFi product and — hold on to your seats — have two giveaways .

Susan Price

Susan Price:

Susan Price (@firecatsue) is CEO and Chief Web Strategist at Firecat Studio. She says one of the payoffs of running a social media strategy is that it makes you more findable through Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Susan will cover 10 quick tactics – low hanging fruit – that you can put to work right away to get some social media love without paying for it.
Firecat Studio  a San Antonio-based interactive agency that delivers digital strategy, website design and development, email campaigns and social media campaigns for businesses and organizations large and small.  Susan has been co-creating the business web since 1993. Her clients include USAA, the Fiesta Commission of San Antonio, Texas State University, the San Antonio River Foundation, and Mutual of Omaha. http://firecatstudio.com

Matthew Egan

Matthew Egan:

Matthew Egan is the President of San Antonio SEO firm Image Freedom. He’s going to breakdown the Anatomy of an Optimized Site. What is a keyword? Where should I put my keywords?  How come one web site is higher on Google than another?  What is a backlink and why does it matter?  Matthew will be discussing these introductory SEO topics with a holistic approach towards total site optimization.

At Image Freedom, Matthew optimizes business websites so they appear as close to #1 on Google as possible.  Image Freedom believes that through an amazing web presence and engaging site content your business site can achieve any sales goal. www.imagefreedom.com

Ryan Kelly

Ryan Kelly

Ryan Kelly is the founder and CEO of Pear Analytics. At BMPR, Ryan will talk specifically about how to drive more targeted traffic to your website. In addition, he’ll perform a live demo of the Pear Analytics product to help improve the searchability of your website.Pear Analytics is a technology startup based in San Antonio, Texas.  Pear Analytics builds tools and software to help marketers, startups, small businesses, and other web professionals drive more traffic to their website. The company’s focus for the software is page analysis, which helps a site owner identify things that drive incremental traffic to their website. www.pearanalytics.com

Mark Langseth

Mark Langseth, Time Warner Cable’s Texas Region senior manager of Wireless will join us to talk about the company’s new Intelli Go Mobile Hot Spot, the dual mode (3G/4G) mobile hotspot device that can provide WiFi connectivity to five devices simultaneously. What’s more, Mark and Time Warner have arranged for fun giveaway to a BMPR attendee and one runner up. So bring your lucky rabbit’s foot. http://www.timewarnercable.com/

From the outside looking in, social media can look like a bunch of spoiled brats playing with their high-tech toys, oblivious to the world around them.

Sometimes, that’s true. But mostly, that’s the exception.

The majority of people engaged in social networks use it as a way to sincerely  connect with their community. Here at BMPR (Business, Media and PR Tweetup) sole entrepreneurs have hooked up with big companies, event planning professionals have teamed up with public relations firms, web designers have found jobs, parents working from home have partnered with each other.

You name it, BMPR has it: Bankers, chefs, small business coaches, students, television producers, solar advocates, hotels, journalists, librarians, food banks, professors, realtors, graphic artists, baristas and more. It is a free, creative community where we share ideas and encourage one another.

This weekend 15 BMPR members will be taking that social media energy to the National Council of La Raza‘s 2010 Annual Conference in San Antonio. #NCLRconf

As part of NCLR’s National Latino Family Expo — the largest Hispanic consumer show in the country (it’s FREE and open to general public) — BMPR will be offering free clinics on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

You’ll find us based out of the Technology and Environment/El Futuro Pavilion, where laptops are set up for conference goers to plop down and get hands-on instruction. There will also be teams of roving social media reporters,  interviewing Expo visitors and uploading videos, podcasts and livestreams on NCLR’s YouTube channel.

NCLR is the largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the nation. Since 1968, it has worked tirelessly to improve opportunities available for Hispanic Americans. At the conference and Expo, people can attend free seminars on health, art, careers, education, personal finance and get advice on citizenship and immigration, as well as learn how to recycle common household technology and more.

Social media is a perfect fit with NCLR’s mission because these are free tools that anyone can use to collect information, connect with the community, and improve both their personal and professionals lives. With access to a library computer, any mom and pop shop can tweet their specials, homebound senior citizens can friend neighbors and former colleagues around the world, high school students can search YouTube for science fair ideas and university lectures.

Mostly, though, social media gives everyone a voice.

In the last two years, strangers from all over the world shared their knowledge, opinions and resources as they used Twitter and Facebook to rally around events and issues such as the tsunami in Haiti,the Gulf oil spill, health care reform, the recession, the Olympics and the World Cup.

There is nothing more liberating and powerful than meeting new people, sharing new ideas and hearing opinions different from your own. And that’s why these BMPR people are there to help out — not because they’re a bunch of social media know-it-alls, but because they’ve all experienced a major shift in their lives by using these tools. And they want that for others.

Come out and join us at NCLR this weekend. Here’s to the BMPR NCLR team: @alanweinkrantz @bigredintejas @NOWcastSA @christinechapa @colleenpence @lettergirl @kathybabb @lalorek @luissandovaljr @nanpalmero @nancypjohnson @norafrost @woodseanm @smartwoman and @sbiediger1 oh, and me @writeontime. (Many thanks to my partner in crime based in Washington, D.C. @andinarvaez who helped coordinate NCLR and BMPR.)

What’s hotter than a habanero? BMPR in July.

We’ve got two Tweetups to cool you off: One to work your brain and one to flex your fun muscles.

For your brain:

Thursday, July 22nd: Noon to 1:30 at the Holiday Inn “SEO What?!”

Join us as web analytics experts Ryan Kelly (Founder/CEO Pear Analytics); Susan Price (CEO of Firecat Studio); and Matthew C. Eagan (CEO of ImageFreedom) get to the heart of what’s important with SEO (search engine optimization). How can you make SEO and web analytics work without feeling like you’re selling your soul?

RSVP here: http://twtvite.com/BMPRJuly

For fun:

Thursday, July 29th at Nelson Wolff Stadium at 7 p.m.

Trade those business jackets for chanclas and join all your favorite BMPR people for a night out at the San Antonio Missions. Mostly, we’ll just hang out, but bring your smartphones for a few social media games. Important note: You must purchase tickets in advance by July 26th ($9.50) by calling Josh at 554-1521. It’s Dollar Night — so snacks and beer are…. wait for it…. $1. We only have 60 seats available.

RSVP here: http://twtvite.com/BMPRbaseball

Pamela Price then joined us to share how she turned her passion for victory gardens into the very popular and successful blog, “Red, White & Grew.” Pamela admitted she was not the most technologically savvy (her notes were on a steno pad), but she offered valuable insight on how the lack of Nan Palmero-like tech knowledge should not keep one from blogging what they feel passionate about.

Our final blogger was the vivacious Dawn Cole, she of the popular and hilarious “Not Going Postal.” She overcame her nervousness about speaking to a room full of social media knuckleheads and did a hilarious job, aided by the following presentation: