New club fuses corporate, creative, social ideas to benefit community

Pioneers and founders of the new Social Media Club San Antonio, Jennifer Navarrete and Luis Sandoval Jr., will host the city's second meeting to talk about best practices in social media at 6 p.m Thursday in Room 025 of Nail Technical Center.

The San Antonio chapter began after befriending the Austin chapter to create community awareness, Navarrete said.

In 2005, she created the San Antonio Podcasting group from which the user-generated conference PodCamp was developed. She also co-hosts the Morning BrewCast Internet radio/podcast show at mbrewcast.wordpress.com.

The Social Media Club, whose slogan reads, "If you get it, share it," is meant to be a central meeting place where the creative class, the corporate world and the social world work together and exchange ideas that benefit the community, Navarrete said.

"We want San Antonio to have this connected community," she said.

Communications Professional Luis Sandoval Jr., who keeps blog updates about social media at www.dailyslackr.com, said students are already part of the new media and some might not even know it.

"What social media does, and what it has always been able to do, is it puts a human face on their (users) interaction," Sandoval said.

With new media applications such as Facebook, Twitter and instant messengers, both Navarrete and Sandoval agree that there is a "right and wrong way" to use them, which can lead to a good or bad reputation for individuals and businesses.

"When you're in social media, you are what they call transparent, which means there's nothing to hide. You can't lie to social media and if you try to, you are going to be discovered very quickly," Sandoval said.

College students are encouraged to "take it to the next level," Sandoval said, referring to marketing themselves when searching for jobs.

Navarrete said that today more companies are recognizing how social media experience has a "business value" to their employee and that college students should recognize it as well.

"The thing that could get you fired a few years ago could be the thing that gets you hired now," she said.

Community speakers will discuss these and other aspects of social media as an open platform during the next free meeting open to the general public.

For more information, visit sanantonio.socialmediaclub.org.