This weekend, Jacqui and I will be attending the National ProStart Invitational in Baltimore. If you are not familiar, ProStart is a two-year career building program for high school students who are interested in culinary arts and restaurant management. After covering their social media for the past year, I have become a big fan of this program! In the last decade, education has been focused on the importance of high school students attending a 4 year university and while I fully support this, it is just as important to give those interested in the restaurant industry the correct platform to grow. The students learn skills and techniques, are provided with mentors, and even have the opportunity to apply for several scholarships.

So you might ask what a social media marketing firm will be doing at this type of national event? Since social media is all about immediate exposure, we wil be covering the entire event as it happens. Live twitter updates,  live streaming of the competition, photography of the dishes, and every nitty gritty detail down to what each team is making and when. This is all done not only to engage the attendees of the event, but more importantly to give those parents, students, and supporters a chance to live the event without actually having to fly out to Baltimore. This aspect of social media is significant because it cannot be done through any other platform as immediate as social media can. You cannot buy a radio advertisement slot and announce who the winner of the competition is, or run a newspaper ad featuring what dish your state team decided to make last minute. Social media is what is here and now! Tune in to our updates & you can feel like you’re there living the competition! “Like” ProStart on Facebook or follow them on Twitter and come virtually hang out with us in Baltimore this weekend!