I was thrilled to spend most of this past year working with Colorado Rocky Mountain School as a consultant. Modern Day Media helped the school take a deep dive into their digital marketing including a thorough analysis of social media, e-newsletter efforts and website.

CRMS is a private college-preparatory school for grades 9-12 located in Carbondale. It offers an outstanding education for both boarding and day students with a small student body and an emphasis on the outdoor classroom and alternative mountain sports including rock-climbing, kayaking and telemark skiing. The faculty and staff truly care about the kids and give each and every one of them the support to become the best version of themselves.

We reviewed and analyzed their audiences, engagement levels, Google Analytics and online advertising to see how they were connecting and which methods provided them with the best return on investment. I really enjoyed the work and look forward to seeing the fruits of our analysis pay off as new marketing initiatives in the next few years!

There has been a recent wave of consolidation in the real estate industry in the Roaring Fork Valley. Some big names (Douglas Elliman, Berkshire Hathaway) have moved into the market and have either gobbled up existing agencies outright or are busy recruiting talent to join them.

How does a smaller agency compete against such firms? This is precisely the question posed by my most recent client, Frank McSwain, at Roaring Fork Realty. My answer to him is that sometimes size can be a disadvantage if it gets in the way of building the one to one relationships that lead to success. Who would you rather work with, assistants or the brokers themselves?

Frank and his business partner Jack Gausnell have well over 30 years of executive-level business experience between them in a variety of different fields. When it comes to business and understanding what works they’re much more advanced and savvy than many of their colleagues in the local real estate market. That perspective and understanding is just one of the elements I want to focus on as I work with them to promote their business.

A whole lot of people out here know Frank and his good work. He was instrumental in leading a successful $15,000,000 capital campaign for Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs which resulted in the brand-new, state-of-the-art Callaway-Young Cancer Center.

They say that people are known for their actions, not their words, and Frank’s good work precedes him wherever he goes. He is one of the warmest people you’ll ever meet and I’m thrilled to be working with him. When he starts to work for clients he goes all out.  He’ll spend the time to really get to know them first, then move heaven and earth to find them a place to live and a community to connect to.

Does size matter in real estate? Only when it comes to the size of your heart shown in the quality of the work you do.

I recently worked with a client on legacy issue that resulted in an infection that took two websites hosted on the same domain offline. It was a messy situation caused by an insecure plugin and it taught me an important lesson that can be summed up quite simply: Backups Matter!

Having regular backups of your WordPress site can make all the difference when things go wrong. The difference between hours and days of downtime when your site is unreachable and unusable. In working through all this, I’ve come across two cost effective options for clients that get the job done simply and effectively.

In general I’ve had good luck and solid customer support from GoDaddy. They offer competitive pricing on hosting and when it comes to backups they’ll handle the whole process if you add a tool called Site Backup to your hosting plan for only $2 per month. With Site Backup, GoDaddy backs up your site automatically every day and will help you to restore it in the event something goes wrong.

The other option is a WordPress plugin called UpdraftPlus. Updraft Plus is a free plugin that allows you to easily backup both the WordPress Files and database either to a local FTP folder or on one of several cloud based storage sites including Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive and others. Make sure you have checked the size of the files that comprise your site to ensure you have enough online storage space before starting your backups.

Time and time again we hear about the importance of backups when using both local and remote files, sites and applications. The worst time to discover this lesson is when it’s too late. Happy backups are the best remedy. Do you know if your site is backed up? Are you certain you can restore a prior copy easily? Now might be the time to know for sure.

My longtime real estate and vacation rental client Gareth Williams and I are working together on a new remarketing campaign using a wide variety of online advertising tools; some from Facebook, some from Google. It’s good to be able to keep pace with the Google changes to the industry that have helped online marketing campaigns gather better information about their audiences. Their algorithm updates have also reduced the effectiveness of black (or grey) hat fly-by-night SEO companies trying to make a quick buck using crappy SEO tactics. They no longer work.

I’m hoping to use the knowledge I’m gaining working with Gareth with other clients including:

• How to build lists and target audiences using Facebook
• How to deploy remarketing tags on WordPress sites
• How to drive traffic to landing pages using Mailchimp email marketing
• How to capture those visitors and build specific ad campaigns just for them

Gareth’s got a wide range of top-end vacation rental properties available this winter season in Aspen including inventory at the Ritz Carlton Aspen Highlands, the St. Regis Aspen, the Hyatt Grand Aspen and more. Visit him at gwillproperties.com for more information and stay tuned for the release of his new domain and new site!

I’m having a great time working with two of my favorite clients, Tom and Terri Newland. Tom and Terri own Newland Project Resources, Inc., a Roaring Fork Valley land use planning and management business that has worked on projects both large and small for 25 years.

Tom and Terri were well overdue for a new website, one that had a clean, up to date design and showcased both their excellent work and their engaging personality. It’s still in test mode but I’m looking forward to sharing it with everyone very soon.

The best part about being in business is the opportunity to connect with people and create new relationships that will hopefully outlast the length of time you’re working together. It’s been an absolute pleasure working with them. I certainly feel like Tom and Terri are much more than just clients, they’re now friends.

It started with a simple idea, why can’t businesses and entrepreneurs connect with their audience directly? Why do they have to settle for distribution channels that may or may not generate a return for their money? Why not tell your own story and engage with your customers, fans and friends? Social media has become revolutionary by giving businesses this very chance. It offers direct connection, unfiltered communication and direct feedback for any business regardless of size.

As I sat in my kitchen talking to my family about a name my business, my daughter’s first suggestion struck home immediately. Modern Day Media. It encompasses everything I’ve been working on for the past several years, from non-profit to for-profit, from individual professionals to large coop utilities.

Nothing since the advent of television has been as groundbreaking as the proliferation of new connected technology social media channels. We now access information and keep in touch to a degree that’s unprecedented in our history.

But where do you start? It’s almost overwhelming the choices that are available now not to mention learning the strategies for each one. This is where Modern Day Media comes in. We specialize in helping businesses make sense of it all and delivering the content that gets people to sit up and take notice. Give us a call, we’d love the chance to work with you.

There’s an old adage, give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll feed himself for the rest of his life. Learning and using technology is no different. It’s just a set of tools that help people perform work. Depending upon what you want to accomplish, these tools can make things a lot easier.

What are the tools? Computers that connect to the internet are the most fundamental ones. Smartphones and tablets are the main other ones. Having a pen and paper will allow you to write but not share what you’ve written (unless you take a photograph and share that). Websites, social media platforms and messaging software are the “tools” that reside either online or locally as software on your computer.

What do you want to accomplish? So much of what people and businesses do these days revolves around information. We consume it, deliver it and share it. An entire new paradigm has grown around this concept. While face to face and phone calls are still vitally important, they’re not the only ways we communicate anymore. Are they still the best, it depends on the circumstance and the information you wish to share.

Sharing information and insight can lead to connections that will drive business. Empowerment is two things: mastering the tools that let you communicate and developing the messages (information and insight) that you wish to convey. I’d prefer to teach people to fish over the alternative any day.

I’m really enjoying working with Meridian Jewelers in Aspen on their social media marketing. Meridian is owned by Robin and Kenny Smith and features some of Aspen’s finest jewelry and timepieces like this beautiful A. Lange & Sohne Tourbillon Pour le Mérite watch. Have a look at what it can do here! Like and follow them on their Facebook page!

I’m very excited to introduce Modern Day Media to the world at large. After well more than a decade working in marketing for a wide variety of businesses mostly here in the Roaring Fork Valley in Colorado, I’m launching MDM to help clients solve the new media puzzle!

Modern Day Media picks up where Post Time Media leaves off, giving small businesses the tools and insights they need to master social media marketing and build sustainable communities of fans, followers and customers. I wish to thank my business partner, colleague and friend Michael Conniff, the Isaacson School for New Media and my many friends and past clients for helping me reach this exciting moment. The future looks bright!