Susan Carol, a nationally accredited public relations professional who has specialized in equipment leasing and finance for more than 20 years, will speak at the NEFA National Equipment Finance Summit next month on how finance companies can integrate a social media strategy with business development and marketing objectives.

Innovate, Inspire, Grow & Prosper is the theme of the NEFA event, March 17-19, in Scottsdale, AZ at the Hotel Valley Ho. The social media session on Saturday, March 19, will address that theme in an interactive discussion, and will focus on how to use social media effectively for business purposes. The session will cover overcoming common objections, monitoring online conversations, engaging the right audience, and managing potential risks. “The biggest risk right now is ignoring the power that online engagement has for expanding business relationships and supporting reputation management,” said Carol.

Carol will recommend ways to minimize the labor involved, and she will cite business-to-business examples where leasing industry executives are already involved in social media and already seeing benefit from it.

“We invited Susan to present at the Financing Summit because she has experience specific to our industry and knowledge concerning the industry’s progress in adopting social media tools,” said Gerry Egan, Executive Director of NEFA.

In a related matter, Stuart Papavassiliou, senior editor of the Monitor will join Lisa Rafter of World Leasing News and Kit Menkin of LeasingNews.org at the upcoming NEFA Summit in a session entitled Meet the Media designed to give summit attendees direct access to the editors of the leading industry media channels.

Papavassiliou said, “I’m delighted to join both Lisa and Kit in this session designed to give our readers a sense of how our respective media channels operate. While we cover the same ‘beat’ so to speak, this provides a great opportunity to discuss where each of us sees coverage of the industry is headed. I look forward to a spirited discussion on the workings of the publishing side of the equipment leasing and finance industry coupled with the opportunity to meet with our collective constituents.”