A fantastic example of a "hyper local" media organization with power, connectivity, and networking opportunities is Bay Area Business Woman aka BABW. Owned and operated by the wonderful Debra Costner, BABW is a small combination print media-online media organization billed as "Your Trusted Source For News, Trends, & Lifestyle Issues."

Along with my business partner Susan Hanshaw, I attended my first BABW event "Women Workin It, A Community Building Event" I was one of only 3 men in an audience of 75 women business owners. Here were my take aways:

Duel Platform

BABW provides readers a duel platform of print news and online news bringing the freshest information to the Northern California area. They leverage this coverage into a monthly community event supporting women entrepreneurs, networking, and bringing the latest information to the audience

Speakers

Edith Yeong: presented a succinct and precise talk on Web 2.0, Google placement, and beginning keyword strategies. Edith authors sfentrepreneur.com aka San Francisco Entrepreneur a very powerful social networking site as well as her blog edithyeung.com Dream Think Act

Dale Marie Golden: V.P Alta Alliance Bank presented 6 Keys to Financial Success a great reminder in the midst of the recent bank meltdowns.

Value to You

1. Viral Marketing: as a woman business owner and Realtor, media organizations focussed on local events and life that provide event networking platforms are a fantastic method of viral marketing your message

2. Venue to Speak: this is an opportunity to offer your speaking services, practice your public presentations skills, and create more viral marketing opportunities

3. Exhibit: Tables were a reasonable $140. Costner's great idea is to provide all attendees with a sign up sheet asking everyone to visit each vendor table for those people's signatures. At the end of the night, each sheet was gathered and one person was awarded with a nice prize

Our Results: This Could Be You

1. Contacts: We were exhibitors with Susan's book on display. We sold a number of copies, met 5 great contacts and 16 between us. 

   a.) 2 contacts have high potential as speaking or workshop partners

   b.) I was offered a blog coaching position

2. Speaking: Debra Costner owner-editor of BABW offerred Susan a guest speaking opportunity in Q4 at one of her big events-we accepted immediately

3. Book Review: I met Debra Costner at a PWI event in June. I approached her and asked her to review Susan's work. The results? BABW has just completed a feature book review due out in their August edition on Susan and her work. According to Debra the review was excellent-she wrote the piece herself!