Chris aka @RizzoTees on Twitter by Tojosan, on Flickr

Chris Reimer introduces us to his new blog, The Basement Entrepreneur, with this statement:

My name is Chris Reimer, and in a mad fit of personal branding hubris, I dubbed myself “The Basement Entrepreneur.”

So what is a basement entrepreneur? In Chris’ words:

• We’re the guys and gals starting Internet-based businesses in our basements.
• We saved and borrowed almost enough money to actually start the business of our dreams.
• We run our businesses off Macbook Pros in coffee shops. (or a PC if you’re a big baby about Apples.)
• As David Siteman Garland once told me, we “MacGyver” everything in our businesses just to get by.
• We “get” Social Media, and how it’s disrupting everything you think you knew about finding new customers and taking care of the ones you have.
• We band together to help each other, instead of building insular walls around our businesses.
• We work our f**king face off, as @garyvee would say, because we love what we do, not because someone tells us to.

Chris isn’t some guy you’ve read about in Millionaire or on the cover of Cigar Aficionado, there’s no GQ cover yet either. Chris is a real guy, a husband, father, working class guy and he works his tail off.

Rizzo Tees is a his personal business and has become synonymous with Chris himself. It’s a bit edgy and yet a hit with real people. I’ve purchased a few tees there already. Let me say he’s quick and friendly on customer service, getting the goods out, and engaging with those that show some interest.

Engagement. Big word but Chris isn’t that type of guy. He’s the type that swaps stories with you, asks about your kids, and buzzes your news out to the world. Along the way he might recruit you to model one of his tee designs.  Heck, he’s followed the Threadless model and begun outsourcing his new tee ideas to the world. A bold move for a small businesses man.

Social networking doesn’t scare Chris. He’s not afraid to make conversation on and off the net, attending and participating in social media and networking events around St. Louis. He’s a strong contributor to the St. Louis Social Media Club.  His take on things, coming not from a marketing and PR background, brings fresh insight to social networking and business.

I tip my hat to Chris aka RizzoTees. Bring it on bud!

Visit The Basement Entrepreneur today and see what an up and coming success looks like.

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• Startup Weekend – St. Louis (toddrjordan.com)
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Social Media Club St. Louis holds Legal/Ethics Panel; Networking Happy Hour event.

RSVP here.

The event, held on July 16th, has some great local panelists. It’s also taking place at a fun St. Louis location.  Here’s some specifics.

Social Media has raised these and other legal questions that need answers. Come see a panel of lawyers and online personalities answer these questions Thursday, July 16th at Moulin. Whether you consider yourself a Twitter pro or work at a company exploring social media for business, be sure to stop by and pick the brains of those who know.

The Social Media Club of St. Louis‘ Monthly Meetup will offer networking, socializing and a panel discussion about Social Media and Law. The evening begins on the 1st floor with a cash bar(no credit cards) and drink specials at 5:30pm, followed by a panel discussion at 6:00pm.

What: SMCSTL Monthly Meetup – Legal & Ethical Social Media Issues
When: Thursday, July 16th at 5:30pm
Where: Moulin Events – Chouteau Room(1st floor)

Moderator: Matt Homann – @matthomann, lawyer, entrepreneur & blogger

Panelists:

Dana Loesch – @dloesch, blogger, host of The Dana Show on 97.1FM Talk

Eric Kayira – intellectual property, entertainment, new media attorney

Dennis Kennedy - @denniskennedy, attorney for MasterCard, blogger

Rex Gradeless – @rex7, published law student, blogger

It has been almost a month since this blog launched, with much help, guidance, and contribution from Todd Jordan. Todd and I both share a vision of St. Louis as a thriving social networking community, one of benefit to many, and this blog was seen as a means to facilitate and encourage the realization of that vision by promoting and reporting on local social media news, events and groups.

So shares Greg Bussmann, aka @execbp, about the launch of St. Louis Social Media Report. It’s been a great first month from my point of view as well.

Greg goes on to share this:
We picked a great month to get started, as the last month has seen lots of big events around town such as the Girls Guide To the Galaxy relaunch party, the Social Media Club St. Louis Small Business event, some Bring a Tweep to Lunch tweet-ups, and many others. We have lots more in store for you and the future looks bright for St. Louis.

He’s not kidding about a great month. Tweetups every week. Relaunch parties. Networking events. Heck, even Shock City Studios got in on the act.

Updating and informing are critical to the site’s continued success.  Help out by contributing event news, commentary on events already behind us, and other social networking and media news you happen upon.

It’s an exciting time for St. Louis and social media. Can’t wait to see you out there.

Social Media is the buzzword that has defined the last couple of years in media and internet trends. The St. Louis area has a growing contingent of social media professionals and casual users, and the Social Media Club’s St. Louis chapter brings these hobbyists and professionals together to network, learn and chat about the technologies, practices and fun that is to be had in this virtual field.

Following on the heels of last month’s relaunch event, which gathered almost 150 Social Media types, the next Social Media Club of St. Louis’ Third Thursday Tangents Meetup is scheduled for 5:30pm June 18 at The Pepper Lounge in Downtown St. Louis. This month’s event will offer networking and socializing in one room and a panel discussion about Small Business and Social Media in the other. Come for the 1/2 price drink and appetizer specials – stay for the socializing or the panel; whatever is your pleasure.

What: SMCSTL Third Thursday Tangents Meetup

When: Thursday, June 18 at 5:30pm

Where:The Pepper Lounge(2005 Locust St.)

The entrepreneurs on this month’s panel have experience effectively engaging in social media for a variety of reasons – from knowledge sharing to growing their customer base. We will also be taking questions via twitter that are appended with the tag #smcstl, and we will be streaming the discussion as well – more details and a link to that coming soon!

Bring a friend or two, or three, and join us for the SMCSTL’s Third Thursday Tangents Meetup and enjoy some good friends, networking, conversation and drinks. You don’t have to be a member to attend, and the event is free for everyone.

For more details on this month’s event, and to RSVP please go to smcstl1.eventbrite.com.

You can download the press release for publication here - social media club st. louis june press release.

The Beacon, a local St. Louis paper, spotlights the Social Media Club St. Louis. The club, hot on the heals of its relaunch, gets some good press here by Elia Powers.

Elia shares some insights into the new crew of the club. You can read about their first starts in social media, what they do online and find links to their own haunts.

The Social Media Club is all about spreading knowledge, increasing connections, and getting folks involved in social media. Monthly events are already being scheduled. Looking forward, there will be speakers, and the events will be held at a variety of St. Louis venues.

St. Louis is town full of clubs, restaurants and other businesses that are locally owned and operated, and the Social Media Club will spread the wealth around to many of these throughout the year. From sourcing name tags and banners out to finding great places to host events.

If you’ve got something you’d like to share or spotlight and you’re a local St. Louis business, let the team know.

It’s madness, sheer and utter madness. What’s that you say? Social networking and media are finally getting some action and I’m complaining? Yep! It’s overloading my personal bandwidth. How about the rest of you St. Louis?

My big goal in the social networking and social media arena, for 2009, is to get St. Louis on the map. It’s not about being the biggest city, the one with the most casinos, or where rib aficionados rave about coming. It’s about St. Louis losing the ’small town’ tag and being seen as real scene for blogging, video blogging, and other social networking and media goodness.

It isn’t happening over night, but this upcoming month might have you believing otherwise. Let’s look at just a handful of items from the upcoming weeks.

June 5th – Bring a Tweep to Lunch – 11:30 AM
June 11th – Feraro’s Pizza Tweetup – 6 PM
June 11th – Girls Guide to the Galaxy Relaunch Party 5:30 PM
June 13th – St. Louis Bloggers of BlogHer meetup – TBD

And wait, there’s at least one more scheduled…
June 18th – Social Media Club St. Louis evening event – TBD

The list above doesn’t even cover a couple of other impromptu events that will occur and others that are less well publicized. WOW.

Ground work is already being laid for an Interactive Festival, another large SMC STL event, and a regular series of Friday lunch tweetups.

If St. Louis is not on the map by December 31st, then some isn’t paying attention.

What’s your event for June? Don’t have one? Find out more about one of the events above them and RSVP today.

Social Media Club St. Louis held their first meeting. For me, it held some surprises.  Two of them stick out for me.  The main surprise was the attendance of several people working professionally with online media, including blogging. There were only a few of us in attendance that don’t make part of our living with our work online.  One gentleman even works for our local paper’s online segment.

My expectation that it would have been others with just an interest in social media or those that spend that have a small revenue stream from online activities. It’s exciting to see though the involvement in St. Louis of so many companies with a strong interest in things like blogs, and other social media and networking tools, such as Twitter. Mentioned in my earlier post though, very few of those in attendance were familiar with more than a couple of social media outlets personally.

This leads me to the second big surprise for this St. Louis crowd, what they considered their big social media and networking site. It wasn’t Facebook or MySpace that came out in front.  It wasn’t LinkedIn, though several people mentioned using it. StumbleUpon was the favorite online community.  Knowing St. Louis folks though, it shouldn’t be a surprise.

StumbleUpon is at first glance all about nominating links or stumbling them.  Essentially a StumbleUpon (SU) user can give a page a thumbs up that they like.  More visitors to that site that use SU can also vote it up.  This helps a page get noticed, because those that are added to the StumbleUpon database and get the most votes, will be ’stumbled upon’ most often by StumbleUpon toolbar users.

So how does this factor in for St. Louis?  St. Louis is all about neighborhoods and tight net groups.  Behind SU’s toolbar and voting, it’s all about the small and interwoven community.  People can build personal blogs there, and even a sense of brand. The pages they recommend are seen by others in the groups they belong to on SU.  The social media types folks in St. Louis have really taken to that sense of close net community and sharing.  SU really provides a great way to share and focus that sharing upon your favorite sites about a place as well.  This helps create a whole group of users that really highlight blogs and websites of and about St. Louis.  A large part of that is a focus on the St. Louis local music scene.

Wrapping up the thoughts here, I really shouldn’t have been surprised about what I found at the Social Media Club gathering. It’s given me insight into what directions I should be moving in online and what tools people are finding the most community driven.

What about social media gurus and neophytes in your neighborhood? Do you know what online communities your neighbors use? Does it matter? Should you care?  Perhaps so if you really value your local area’s presence online.

I walked in to Kaldi’s in Kirkwood and immediately found the group of clubbies. They were right inside the door and already chatting. Tables had been rounded up, chairs brought around and folks where already exchanging emails and blog links. My kind of people.

Soon a group of five turned to ten and then over a dozen were on hand. Relocating was not an option. As an aside, you could tell the regular coffee drinkers; they were quick to visit the counter and get seated back with their steaming cups.

Everyone there was involved in blogging in some way. I’ve linked there here, courtesy of Brandstorming. Note that only one blog link is provided for each person, though several of us have more than one blog.

Jim Durbin: Brandstorming.com
Franki Durbin: Life In A Venti Cup
Tanner Hobin: TannerHobin
Andrew Nagy: Andrewnagy.net
Kurt Greenbaum – stltoday.com/vstl
Kristen Munson – socialmediamom.com
Justin Schmidt – justinspeak.com
Lisa Young – jedimom.net
Melody Cissell – news-bitch.com
Reem Abeidoh – www.reemabeidoh.com
Don Krutewicz – donkrutewicz
Angeline Soon – twitter.com/s00nami
Ryan Suther
Howard McAuliffe- StlDevelops.com

A couple of these folks are becoming more than just acquaintances by now, but there rest were all new faces to me. Unfamiliar faces didn’t put a damper on the conversation though. It was nonstop talking from minute one and out to the cars. We did the typical go around the room bit, but that is not to discount it as of no value. Introducing ourselves really lead to more conversations and connections, and talks of investing in each other.

I mentioned in a post earlier today that I wasn’t sure what my take away for new contacts would be, but let me assure you, this group was all worthy of my attention. Each brought a different perspective and attitude to the table. (tables – 8 of them) It will be difficult to pass up adding all of these new faces and inputs to my daily feeds.

I don’t have my pictures up yet, but when I do, they’ll be at my Flickr account and tagged with smcstl.

Please check out the blogs above and give them some love. Also, let us know about your local social media club meetups.

Yours,

Todd

The first official meeting of the St. Louis Social Media Club if February 23rd in Kirkwood.  Please visit the page and leave a comment if you can attend.

A date of Feb. 23rd, 2008 has been set for the first meeting of the SMC of St. Louis.  The site is http://smcstl.com/. If you are interested in attending, please follow the link and vote on the location.