A longtime writer with 20 years of experience in social media consulting, marketing and journalism. As a consultant with a background in the newsroom, I have advised and created content for a wide variety of sites and publishers, helping them build their popularity on the Internet. I have worked as a web editor for NBCBayArea, a social media manager for Village Voice Media as well as an online marketing strategist for multiple companies, including Venturebeat, IGN and MySpace.
As Senior Account Manager at Viralheat, I worked with customers of the social media monitoring and engagement tool to teach them how to get the most out of the product. I also helped the sales and Marketing/PR teams.
Before this I worked with digital marketing agency Hasai. My team there leveraged social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to help direct millions of page views a month to clients. We worked on PR and marketing solutions for startups and other companies that drove traffic and built buzz.
As the social media manager for Village Voice Media in 2009 and 2010, I helped drive traffic by the millions to the sites owned by America’s largest alternative weekly newspaper company. I also trained editorial and marketing groups in best practices in social media.
I began my social media career while working at a major-market NBC TV affiliate web site, nbcbayarea.com - using my extensive newsroom experience and burgeoning social media knowledge to help bring traffic to the site. This wasn't even my primary job though. A a web editor I gauged performance, charted improvements, incorporated video, slideshows and reporter blogs.
Specialties: Speaking and Presenting, Social Media, Marketing, Startup Strategy, Promotions, Infographics, Viral Marketing, Analytics, Facebook, Twitter, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Site Design, Technology, Business, Political news, Web site analysis
Writer @ I focus on entrepreneurial advice, startup trends, as well as marketing strategy. From June 2014 to Present (1 year 7 months) San Francisco Bay AreaFreelance Writer @ I write about technology trends and how they affect workers. From March 2015 to Present (10 months) San Francisco Bay AreaColumnist @ I write about startups, small business, social media and entrepreneurship for Inc. From July 2014 to Present (1 year 6 months) San Francisco Bay AreaFreelance Contributor @ Generate stories for USAToday.com/tech. I cover entrepreneurship, small business, social media and general business trends. From April 2014 to Present (1 year 9 months) San Francisco Bay AreaReporter @ Generate original stories for SAP's Innovation blog. I cover content marketing, SEO, social media, and general business trends. From March 2014 to Present (1 year 10 months) San Francisco Bay AreaBoard of Advisors @ Work with multiple startups to develop marketing plans. From March 2014 to Present (1 year 10 months) San Francisco Bay AreaPartner @ Dealflow is a startup and SMB "accelerator/operator" providing heavy lifting, traction and funding. We work with: 1) pre-revenue and early stage companies to get them to $100k/mo in revenue then funded, 2) early stage investors and 3) Dealflow Partners who are domain specific experts that live and breathe startups and the concept of connecting the dots. From February 2014 to Present (1 year 11 months) San Francisco Bay AreaAdvisor @ - Advised on PR/marketing strategy. From August 2013 to Present (2 years 5 months) San Francisco Bay AreaFreelance Writer/Reporter, Social Media Advisor (until 2012) @ • Wrote stories pertaining to the social media space
• Worked with Venturebeat reporters, business development and staff to optimize social media practices in order to better achieve site’s business goals
• Helped employees improve online marketing strategies through training sessions, presentations and product demonstrations From August 2010 to Present (5 years 5 months) San Francisco Bay AreaCEO @ • Built own consulting firm from scratch, managing more than $10k/month in clients
• Provided expert analysis, structural planning and optimization options to monetize social media bookmarking
• Planned ongoing site marketing strategies, analyzed analytics as well as delivered ongoing client education through training and presentations
• Boosted partner monthly visitor referrals by more than 100% through social media campaigns and content marketing strategy improvements From June 2010 to Present (5 years 7 months) Advisor @ • Designed custom strategies to bring tens of thousands of visitors to StartupGrind.com sites and client content
• Worked with staff to create marketing strategies using training sessions, presentations and demonstrations
• Advised Founder Derek Anderson on social media, product development and general strategy. From October 2009 to Present (6 years 3 months) Writer @ You can read my FastCompany articles here: http://www.fastcompany.com/user/john-boitnott From January 2014 to March 2014 (3 months) VP Business Development @ From June 2013 to February 2014 (9 months) San Francisco Bay AreaSenior Account Manager @ - Developed and executed highly effective sales pitches to win tens of thousands of dollars from agencies, universities as well as healthcare, technology and financial companies.
- Advised hundreds of Viralheat customers (agencies, brands and individuals) on developing social media strategy as well as teaching them how to use Viralheat's monitoring, analytics and engagement software.
- Developed deep insight into a wide variety of social media tools that make up one of the hottest spaces in tech.
- Worked with company marketing and PR teams to access well-known influencers and reporters to write for and about Viralheat. Helped recruit new writers for company blog, wrote my own posts and traffic to them all. Coverage I pitched for Viralheat included: TNW: http://tnw.co/Vsqqoj - SM Examiner http://bit.ly/12rDBvk
- Represented Viralheat as a speaker at multiple startup/social media events around the Bay Area and Sacramento. From October 2012 to May 2013 (8 months) Vice President, Business Development @ • Developed and executed highly effective sales pitches to win over $150k with clients like Venturebeat, IGN, eBay, Salesforce, Google Analytics, Tagged and Badgeville
• Worked with clients to create custom marketing plans and goal-oriented campaigns using content marketing, infographics, SEO and social media channels
• Leveraged my status as a social media power user to help drive client’s branding through personal interviews, speaking engagements and social media programs
• Improved client monthly visitor statistics by more than 100% through social media campaigns and content optimization by tracking analytics From February 2011 to October 2012 (1 year 9 months) Social Media Strategist @ • Ran social media for 15+ VVM newspaper web sites (20 sites total incl. national blogs)
• Allocated budget for VVM’s social media marketing strategies totaling several thousand dollars per month
• Advised over 45 employees on how to improve Twitter and Facebook community interaction through a series of self-generated audits
• Increased unique visitor referrals to Village Volice Media sites by more than 100% over the course of one year on the job through social media strategies utilizing Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon and others; brought 3 million page views per month to VVM sites From April 2009 to July 2010 (1 year 4 months) Web Editor at NBCBayArea.com, Broadcast News Writer @ • Wrote dozens of stories every day for NBC web sites on wide array of subjects including politics, business, crime, weather, sports and many others.
• Helped create, manage and promote all sections of nbcbayarea.com.
• Founded, ran original Twitter and Facebook accounts for nbcbayarea.com.
• Wrote news stories that appeared on all newscasts. From May 2006 to April 2009 (3 years) Broadcast News Producer, Writer @ • Wrote and produced weekend early and evening shows; Also produced weekday morning show
• Responsible for determining news content for shows
• Coordinated team of anchors, reporters, writers, photographers, graphic artists, and production staff
• Executed live broadcasts in control room; led on-the-fly breaking news coverage
• Wrote stories for all TV news broadcasts at KPIX From 2005 to 2006 (1 year) News Writer @ Wrote for all KRON news shows. From 2005 to 2006 (1 year) TV Reporter, Radio News Anchor @ • Generated, researched story ideas and reported live in the field for KEYT news broadcasts.
• Conducted interviews, wrote stories and edited them in the field
• Reported news stories on air in the form of “live-shots” on location
• Wrote and anchored live news cut-ins on KEYT’s radio station
• Conducted live interviews on the air with politicians, celebrities and newsmakers
• Produced radio morning show for four years, creating music and news related segments that helped give the show the 4th highest Arbitron ratings among more than 20 stations in the Santa Barbara area
• Served as PSA Director of radio station for five years, producing community calendar segments, promotional station advertisements and public service announcements From March 1998 to March 2005 (7 years 1 month) News Writer, Producer, Editor, Intern @ • Wrote, produced KEYT news broadcasts
• Edited Stories for news broadcasts
• Operated camera and teleprompter for newscasts
• Generated stories and coordinated reporter schedules From 1994 to 1998 (4 years) Santa Barbara, California Area
Masters, Education @ University of California, Santa Barbara From 1997 to 1998 BA, Communications @ University of California, Santa Barbara From 1992 to 1997 St. Ignatius College Prep From 1988 to 1992 John Boitnott is skilled in: Viral Marketing, Social Promotion, Guerrilla Marketing, Buzz Marketing, Blog Marketing, Online Publicity, Marketing Partnerships, Viral Video, Social Media Marketing, Article Marketing, Website Monetization, Social Bookmarking, Social Networking Websites, Social Media, Web Analytics
Websites:
http://http;//jboitnott.com/about,
http://jboitnott.com,
http://www.crunchbase.com/person/john-boitnott