Mar

2010

As part of networking and being a marketer, I feel it’s always good to get an inside look at the leaders of Networking. I was intrigued to see that Sven Johnston was the Founder of We Are Orange County, which through a grass roots approach, had LinkedIn create a separate location for Orange County, CA rather than being lumped in with Greater Los Angeles.

Sven Johnston

We Are Orange County!™ (WAOC™) is a networking group that was established on May 20th 2009. Some of the Group’s accomplishments include:
• Grew the group to more than 3000 members in less than 5 months.
• Designed and executed a successful social & traditional media campaign to convince LinkedIn to give Orange County its own regional location code in less than 6 months.
• Managed to get the group published in multiple articles including the Orange County Business Journal, Orange County Register, and multiple blogs.

So who is Sven Johnston and where did he come from? Sven was born down under in Australia and than moved to Germany at an early age only to return back to his birthplace in his twenties. Sven began his career in the import/export industry back in Germany, before relocating back to Australia. In Australia he was involved in International sales for several years before making his last major move to California. Most of Sven’s business contacts and professional network was spread throughout the globe prior to his Orange County move and he identified the need to build connections closer in proximity.

He first started to visit local networking groups in Orange County and built up his presence. As a result, Sven became more involved with LinkedIn and saw the power of networking and social media come alive.

Through his network contacts and experience with LinkedIn, Sven began to notice that many residents of the OC wanted a separate location instead of being lumped with Greater Los Angeles. For example, some of the frustration included recruiters contacting potential candidates for a an opportunity in Burbank and the person being contacted would be located in Irvine. I don’t know about you, but I would never drive that distance, especially at rush hour!

Sven then led the charge to create We Are Orange County! and began petitioning LinkedIn to separate Orange County out from Greater Los Angeles. After numerous debates/discussions with LinkedIn and developing a petition with over 1,000 passionate Orange County residents, this challenge was overcome. LinkedIn gave Orange County it’s own location. How did Sven accomplish this? Sven used a combination of Word-of-Mouth Marketing at Networking events, Social Media and good PR coverage with local Orange County newspapers/media.

As a result of all the developments of 2009 Sven is now involved in Business Development & Consulting for the Online Marketing & Technology industry as well as teaching and organizing events.

At the end of our meeting, I asked Sven, why do you network? What’s your motivation? Sven replied with, “Networking is part of long term relationship building, planting the seed for future projects and is good Karma.”

Sven has extreme passion for Social Media and is available for consulting opportunities. Please visit his website www.SvenJohnston.com for links to featured articles, video interviews and opportunities to connect with him.

Click here to see some footage from the Orange County Connectors™ January Event.

Posted by Deepak Gupta.

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