Note: I now work full-time for Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp and no longer take on consulting work. However, I thought I'd leave this page up since it helps describe my background and how I think about social media projects.
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There's nothing more powerful in marketing than a great story... And all too many companies find that a great product, tool or service is just not enough to get noticed in today's crowded online environment.
As the chief storyteller of 4realz Consulting, I'm fortunate to spend the bulk of my time working with people to create and share memorable stories that take advantage of the power of social networking tools to spread their message. I like to think that I help create stories that will not only resonate with the intended audience, but inspire (dare I say "compel") readers to share the story with their friends (I call this FOF Marketing).
In general, there are three ways I help companies tell better stories:
Internet Marketing Strategy: for companies looking to understand how they can better user tools like blogs, facebook and Twitter to market their business
Social Media Implementation: for companies that looking for help in creating appropriate and targeted content
Project Management: for companies looking for help in developing tools, websites, plugins and more.
Internet Marketing Strategy and Social Media Implementation
Some selected projects that highlight the type of work I can do for internet companies:
Ventura County Star: Worked with advertising, marketing, and editorial team to develop and implement a social media strategy for this regional newspaper. This included training their staff (journalists & editors) on using social media for both publishing and crowd sourcing news, as well as using my team write blog posts and update their social media accounts. With some fairly simple tweaks to their tactics, we were able to substantially increase the amount of traffic they get form social networks including more than quadrupling the traffic they got from Twitter in the first month.
Participant Media: Worked closely with their marketing staff to develop live video chat conversations with directors, actors, authors, etc as a way to build buzz for their movies like (Oscar-award winning) The Cove and Food Inc. While we had many incredible events, one in particular generated over 242,000 video views during the one-hour interview!
Relocation.com: Worked closely with the developers to build out the Relocation.com blog (including developing numerous custom WordPress widgets) and then developing a content strategy around outreach to real estate bloggers and celebrity content that addressed their main interest: better SEO.
HomeQuest: Worked closely with the executive team to create a roadmap for their IDX and CRM tools that would take advantage of the latest social media tools and technologies.
National Association of REALTORS and Inman News: Developed half-day workshops featured at annual events that was dedicated to teaching real estate professionals how they could better integrate WordPress into their internet marketing plans.
REALTOR.com/Top Producer: While the Director of Interactive Marketing at Move, I worked closely with the development team to build out a blogging platform (based on WordPress Multi-User) and then managed the growth of the community to more than 7,000 real estate bloggers within the first year.
Funk Ventures/CyberRain: Worked closely with executives from Funk Ventures and CyberRain (a Funk Ventures investment) to develop blogging and social media strategies that would generate substantial buzz. Outreach efforts included writing "buzz" articles that drove huge influxes of traffic by successfully hitting the homepage of sites like Reddit.
Project Management
In addition to working closely with numerous clients to develop WordPress-based websites, two larger development projects I've managed include:
Center for REALTOR Technology (at NAR): Built a process and tool that's designed to help crowd-source neighborhood definitions based and then define them to census block data... As part of the contract, we also ran the process on 5 metro areas and came away with the cleanest neighborhood definitions yet! You can learn more about this project and download all relevant files on the Neighborhood Block Builder Google Group page.
Hilton Hotels: Developed a document and photo sharing tool that allowed their design team to access ideas ("tear sheets") in a web-based environment and built in filtering, searching, sorting and tagging features to greatly simplify how they shared documents. This project was built on top of WordPress' media tools.
Personal Projects
In addition to consulting, I'm a frequent speaker at national real estate events as well as run three companies that support my consulting projects:
Spinnio: Marketing and technology solution that uses live video and chat betweens stars and their fans to generate huge buzz events around movie launches. Just some of the studies and companies who've used Spinnio include: Participant Media (The Cove), Whole Foods, (Food Inc), Magnolia Pictures (Humpday), Inman News (Real Estate Connect) and Mpower Pictures (The Stoning of Soraya M)
Rain City Guide: One of the first business blogs, the RCG community is not only the leading source of real estate information for the Seattle market, but continues to be extremely influential to real estate professionals all over the country
BuzzRE Events: One day educational seminars for real estate professionals that bring together some of the best speakers in real estate with a comprehensive and structured program so attendees can walk away with the strategic insights they need to improve their business
Start-up Advisor
In addition, I've helped numerous startups develop stories that will both resonate with investors and consumers. Currently, I'm an advisor to:
Project X: Stealth social network targeting entertainment professionals
How can I help you?
Feel free to call me any time at (818) 714-1026 or fill in the form below:
What others are saying?
Ben Kuo, Founder of SoCalTech: “Dustin is one of the folks who really 'gets it' in terms of anything technology or social media. He is an invaluable resource and fountain of knowledge, always ahead of the curve, and is a go getter who gets things done. He's an asset to any effort he gets involved in!”Paul Chaney, Social Media Consultant, Trainer and Speaker and Author of The Digital Handshake“Simply stated, Dustin Luther is a visionary. He was a real estate blogger before real estate blogging was cool. His influence had a tremendous impact on the growth and development of blogging and other forms of social media in the real estate industry. Not only that, Dustin is articulate, knowledgeable, opinionated, witty...everything that's required of a great blogger. And that's what Dustin is at heart, a blogger. I'm proud to recommend him based on that merit alone.”Tony Pinto, Technology Consultant: “Dustin IS social media. By following and working alongside Dustin, I have grown my social media knowledge and my business in ways I never would have imagined. His imagination and creativity know no boundaries. I've never met a more humble and approachable "genius." Most people with his level of expertise wouldn't give the rest of us the time of day. Dustin is truly someone special to have in your arsenal. I highly recommend that you bring Dustin into your world TODAY. You won't be sorry!”Bill Loudon, Principal at DKS Associates: “Dustin worked under my direction on a number of transportation planing efforts that required complex computer model systems. In every effort, Dustin exhibited exceptional creativity and command of the computer systems and software. The computer models and data systems that he developed in our planning efforts helped produce the technical analyses needed for effective decision making and in many cases are still being used by our company and by our clients.”You’ll be able to see many more recommendations from industry leaders after you connect with me on LinkedIn!
Ben Kuo, Founder of SoCalTech: “Dustin is one of the folks who really 'gets it' in terms of anything technology or social media. He is an invaluable resource and fountain of knowledge, always ahead of the curve, and is a go getter who gets things done. He's an asset to any effort he gets involved in!”
Paul Chaney, Social Media Consultant, Trainer and Speaker and Author of The Digital Handshake
“Simply stated, Dustin Luther is a visionary. He was a real estate blogger before real estate blogging was cool. His influence had a tremendous impact on the growth and development of blogging and other forms of social media in the real estate industry. Not only that, Dustin is articulate, knowledgeable, opinionated, witty...everything that's required of a great blogger. And that's what Dustin is at heart, a blogger. I'm proud to recommend him based on that merit alone.”
Tony Pinto, Technology Consultant: “Dustin IS social media. By following and working alongside Dustin, I have grown my social media knowledge and my business in ways I never would have imagined. His imagination and creativity know no boundaries. I've never met a more humble and approachable "genius." Most people with his level of expertise wouldn't give the rest of us the time of day. Dustin is truly someone special to have in your arsenal. I highly recommend that you bring Dustin into your world TODAY. You won't be sorry!”
Bill Loudon, Principal at DKS Associates: “Dustin worked under my direction on a number of transportation planing efforts that required complex computer model systems. In every effort, Dustin exhibited exceptional creativity and command of the computer systems and software. The computer models and data systems that he developed in our planning efforts helped produce the technical analyses needed for effective decision making and in many cases are still being used by our company and by our clients.”
You’ll be able to see many more recommendations from industry leaders after you connect with me on LinkedIn!
