Melissa Baumann, Search Engine Marketing Manager for Ciniva Systems was a featured speaker for the AIGA January event.  AIGA is a national organization of design professionals, with a mission of promoting the highest level of creative excellence and professionalism in the communication arts as a strategic tool for business and as a cultural force.  Events hosted by the Hampton Roads chapter have featured best selling authors like Scott Belsky and national award winning artists.

For this particular event, AIGA Hampton Roads assembled a panel of speakers and reached out to Melissa Baumann to speak with graphic designers and creative professionals. Through various events and projects, Ms. Baumann has built a reputation as a search engine pro, creative copy writer, and marketing expert. The panel, which included a local photographer, old-school public relations pro, an inbound linking expert and the owner of a local search engine optimization company was meant to reveal to graphic designers to the benefits of posting and promoting on the web as well as reaching out to more traditional media as part of an overall marketing push.

The AIGA event, hosted at the Fred Huette Center in Norfolk sold out and filled the aisles – with many members requesting a video of the event after RSVPs closed. Moderated by AIGA president, Mara Lubell, questions ranged from the broad “how do I find my voice online?” to the narrow “does it make a difference what words are framing a graphic portfolio?” With no less than ten years of experience helping folks build websites, Baumann was no stranger to making the complicated accessible and understandable. During the panel discussion, Baumann tapped into her unique ability of taking challenging functionality and search algorithms and translating it into client-friendly language – and brought the house down with her humorous action items.  
AIGA president Mara Lubell described Baumann this way; “Informative, engaging and entertaining as hell, Melissa Baumann was an invaluable resource on our Shameless Self Promotion panel. She offers a wealth of information and is genuinely enjoyable to learn from. We probably could create an event just around her expertise alone!”

 The following day, many of Baumann’s quips lit up the social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and member blogs. More than one member lamented that the two hour panel was just too short for all the questions that arose, “we hated for the night to end. We need a second session!”  Baumann has already been approached with requests for additional speaking engagements and SEO consulting services.

AIGA has made a videotape of the night’s panel discussion available to members and is currently planning a follow up event based on the overwhelming success of this initial outing.