2012 Stevie Executive of the Year Award-Winner

Designated Editor wins 2012 Stevie Award Female Executive of the Year – Business Services – 10 or Less Employees

Suzanne McDonald 2012 Stevie Award Winner

Thrilled to be in New York for the awards ceremony, baby-bump and all, about six weeks before Elise was born. 2012 was a great year, personally and professionally!

Here’s why Designated Editor won 2012 a Stevie Executive of the Year

Make no mistake: most small and medium businesses don’t know enough about Social Media to make educated decisions.  As a result, they hire companies whose expertise is the “Social Media Game”:  exorbitant retainers for standardized reports; “pushing” only what they know rather than being effective and generously giving what is needed; or providing rarely utilized “platforms,” driven by ” machines” when an educated human is needed.

And then there is Suzanne McDonald, a revolutionary in the Social Media arena, whose business – Designated Editor – has fast become the go-to company for Social Media in New England.

Ex-journalist and visionary who predicted print’s demise and dove headlong into New Media, McDonald is one of few if not the only pro in the region who is a TRUE expert on all aspects – from Google+, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to  WordPress, Websites, blogger outreach/strategy, content development/strategy, SEO, events, press and newsletters to integrated marketing/branding.  A teacher at heart (McDonald designed and taught the University of Rhode Island’s first Social Media Strategies course), McDonald studies New Media the way a star pupil does, sharing her vast expertise with a diverse client base so that they, too, become pros – all for far less than the “big guns.”

Why? Because McDonald alone among so-called “techies” knows that “Social” involves far more than “Media.”  “For business growth, face-to-face trumps Social Media; mastering both – and the interplay between the two – is critical.”

Mid- 2011 to mid-2012 was Suzanne McDonald’s banner year. It was then that Suzanne McDonald’s “techie” forum, Newport Interactive Marketers became a regional household word – 700 members “off the bat”; speakers who normally receive $5000-plus fees agree to show up, for free, just to be in the company of McDonald and her following; and a powerful reputation for being one of the only techie forums that attracts 50% women.

McDonald’s Workshops, inaugurated in the same banner year, are also a magnet for businesswomen. McDonald knows user-oriented technology better than anyone, but she also knows that this female following often comes to “reinvent” themselves. In McDonald they have someone who makes them feel comfortable.

For instance, the company with 44 wheelchair ramp franchises:  To boost their business, McDonald chose to craft stories – yes, this former journalist is a brilliant writer and editor, too – focusing on an Iraqi war veteran, a stroke victim, a young disabled couple. As per McDonald’s POV, not as an opportunity for corporate braggadocio, but for readers to identify with. “Nobody cares about the company,” says McDonald. “The reader, the human being, is all.”