Yesterday afternoon I took part in my second panel event with the Central Ohio Restaurant Association. The first time I participated it was alongside a group of other food bloggers, and while I do some food-blog-like activities, I felt a little bit out of place. Yesterday I was on an all-encompassing “media” panel, so again I felt a little bit out of place. I guess that’s what happens when you’re a jack of all trades? You feel like you’ve got one foot in every topic, but never quite in the same place as everyone else?
Anyway, the event was a lot of fun, and I was honored to be on the panel with everyone else. I try to keep what I have to say limited to easily understandable bits of information, but what I’d really love to do is have a five-hour Q&A session with all of these wonderful local business owners and really help them all figure out the different aspects of online marketing that they’re looking to better understand.
Of course, that’s not the best use of my time, and it’s not the best use of their time either. One restaurant owner mentioned that they’ve already got 10 jobs to do every day, and marketing and twittering and blogging and facebooking were not things they could easily add to their schedule. And while some freelance PR & marketing & advertising firms have online media services in their lineups, I think there is room for a smaller scale level of services aimed at those types of businesses. Leaving this meeting really got me thinking about new ways to help fill in those gaps, and I’m going to be spending the next week or so fleshing out some ideas.
So I can’t help but laugh a little bit at myself right now. I come home from an event where I set out to help answer other people’s questions, and I’ve wound up raising a dozen new questions for myself to figure out on my own.