Cerritos College

Cerritos College CACT Hosts Social Media Workshop

The Center for Applied Competitive Technologies (CACT) hosted a Social Media and Social Networking Workshop on Friday, October 2.  Over 20 individuals including CACT Directors from community colleges throughout the state attended the event.  Featured speaker was Rebekah King, principal of ReBiz Works in Irvine, specializes in social media marketing and training.  Her clients include Rock.com Inc. in Laguna Hills, Advanced Litho Printing & Bindery and Western Digital Corp., both in Lake Forest.

During the two and a half hour workshop, King went over the most popular social media sites including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and blogs and how each site can serve to market business and programs. What started as common personal communication tools to help people stay connected has become a very effective and affordable way to market the different services a business or an individual has to offer to the public.  In addition to having the ability to join different online groups and networks for common interests and general information updates, businesses can use the resources available to recruit for various company needs, according to King.

The purpose of the workshop was to provide training on the new ways of marketing and communicating on a business level – specifically, how to keep the lines of communication open between the 12 CACT centers throughout California.  This new avenue provides a creative and sensible approach to staying connected and conducting business as usual without exhausting a travel budget that may no longer be available due to the budget cut across the state.

Currently, the Economic Development department is using LinkedIn to recruit trainers for on-site customized training programs.   As simple as creating a profile and doing a general search for the existing need, a new network of trainers becomes obtainable. The CACT centers also plan to create college profiles that would enable each CACT center to view the pool of instructors and trainers.

As the popularity of these different communication sites increases and the budgets decrease, the new and affordable way to market to the world is just a few clicks away.