Wild Web Woman Shelly Kramer is the Co-Founder of V3 Integrated Marketing

As promised, we are continuing with the second part with our Wild Web Woman Wednesday Interview with Shelly Kramer (@ShellyKramer), Twitter Queen and Co-founder of V3 Integrated Marketing. Enjoy!

Missed the first part? Read it here!

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11. How do you indulge yourself (every once in a while!) to stay healthy and balanced?
I love making time to get an adjustment by my favorite chiropractor (am totally a wellness freak that way).  I also love diving into a good book, which, with 3 1/2 year old twins, doesn’t happen as often as I would like.

12. What are the top three most vital marketing ingredients that have helped you become the professional you are today?
The ability to understand how important strategic thinking is to delivering great results for clients, the confidence to stand up for good ideas, even if it means debating with a client, who is the ultimate decision maker, and always being your real self – fake never works.

13. Where do you find inspiration to continue growing your business?
I love what I do. Every minute of every day. I am truly living a dream life and I never forget how fortunate I am. I’ve owned my own full service agency now for 15 years, I work from home because I choose to, collaborate with amazing people from all over the world. Add to that the fact that I have a terrific husband, fabulous kids and a business partner that I respect and adore.  And don’t make the mistake of thinking that it’s all been easy – there have been lots of lean times and times when it seemed like every day was a struggle.  But, I never lost sight of the fact that if I had confidence in myself that was really all that it would take. And that confidence,ultimately, paid off.

14. When you are faced with a setback or an enormous business challenge, what do you do to keep moving forward?
Push up my sleeves and power through it.  I also have a number of people whom I consider mentors and talking with them and listening to their thoughts and opinions often helps me make sure I’m on the right track – or helps me to get there.

15. Who is your personal role model? What about this person do you truly admire and aspire to?
My mother.  She taught all 4 of her children to be survivors and always feels as if that’s her greatest accomplishment and gift to us.  As a result, I’m a survivor.  I never give up.  I never say no. I always know that if I think on it long enough and work hard enough, I can make it happen.  And that’s all because of my amazing mother.

16. What has been your biggest achievement recently that you are proud of?
Launching a new site for our business two months ago that is already showing up #1 in search. Woo*flipping*hoo. Love it.

17. What is your ideal work outfit?  (We work in our PJs whenever we can, what about you?)
Jeans and the shirt I slept in the night before.

18. What are your goals for this upcoming year?
To double my business income.  Already looks as if we’re going to be there.  Another Woo*flippin*hoo to that

19. How do you think social media will evolve in 2010?
Wow. So much is going on – and that’s not going to change any time soon. Google Wave and Sidewiki are already changing things up in an amazing manner.  I think that people will only continue to get more and more involved in and dependent on social mediums and that the businesses and brands who are paying attention to that and participating will, as a result, reap some tremendous benefits.  The one true thing about social mediums is that you can always count on change. What is “big” today probably won’t be “big” tomorrow. So, having a personality and a business that is adaptable and well-suited for and genuinely 
excited about change is key to success in the businesses that we are in.  I love change – and can’t wait to see what will change in this glorious world in which we live in the coming year.

20. What do you think is the most challenging part about being a female entrepreneur? How do you overcome this challenge?
Juggling. Juggling kids, husband, home, dogs, clients, new biz development and all the rest that we juggle on a day to day business. I also think that women really need to step up and say “hey dudes, we know just as much as you do about this stuff, so get on out of the way.” Sometimes that doesn’t happen as often as it should.

21. What is the ONE web marketing best practice that you would share with other Web Marketing Therapy readers.
Make sure your website is designed to work for you.  There are a lot of components to that, but doing that, in my opinion (there it is again) is the number one thing you can do to grow your business and to do good things for your clients and their businesses.

*For more information about the Wild Web Woman Shelly Kramer, visit her blog!

Wild Web Woman Shelly Kramer is the Co-Founder of V3 Integrated Marketing

At Web Marketing Therapy we cannot get enough of successful and inspirational women who rock the social web and are committed to doing great work!

The Wild Web Women are HUGE fans of Shelly Kramer (@ShellyKramer)–she’s a social media expert and marketing maven (although she would deny it, because she eats a ton of humble pie)!! Twitter Queen and Co-founder of V3 Integrated Marketing, Shelly’s authentic and personable approach, savvy web skills and total web domination make her an ultimate Wild Web Woman!

Shelly was kind enough to share her story and provide some amazing insight regarding this wild web. Read on for your dose of inspiration!

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1. Why did you choose your current career and how did you get started?
I started my career in marketing in 1989 (aack, I’m old) because I’d decided not to go to law school and
the headhunter with whom I was working decided she had the “perfect” job for me.  It was working with a guy who had a horrible personality, who couldn’t find anyone to put up with him, but who was a marketing genius. I like a challenge – and love it when I hear that there’s an opportunity that no one else can handle. Got the job, of course  You can’t find two more disparate fields than advertising and the legal field, but I instantly knew my left brain self had found a fantastic home.

2. If you had to describe yourself in three words, what would they be?
Direct, Tenacious, Thoughtful

3. What online social media platform are you most addicted to? (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Linkedin…etc).
Today, I prefer Twitter. I also love Digg and Delicious, as I’m an information junkie and they quench my thirst for knowledge. I used to like LinkedIn – but that was before the economy tanked and it became, in my opinion, a place for people to look for jobs and pitch themselves rather than congregate, share and learn.

4. You are a major player in the social media sandbox! You are always engaging with thousands of people and providing new, fresh content. How do you balance it (work, family, personal time, social media)?
I balance those things like any other working person does.  Sometimes poorly, and occasionally well. Information is what fuels my ability to do a great job for my clients, so when I’m catching up on great articles, blog posts, etc.,it is a necessary part of my day-to-day responsibilities. And being able to so easily share that information via social media is a pleasure. I also love people, so interacting with them, whether in the social media realm or some other kind of online communication or in the “real world” in face to face communications, is something I love.  I am a communicator at heart, so I am very blessed to have chosen a career path that is specifically suited to both my personality and my skill set.  And I’m also very aware that that doesn’t happen to too many people.  As such, I continually remind myself that I am truly living a dream.  Makes the juggling process more palatable!

5. As far as utilizing social media tools to communicate your business to your clients, what are some of the challenges and what are some of the benefits to your business?
The challenges are typically related to both time and appropriateness.  I’m a freak about not promoting myself and my business in the social media realm – other than posting a link to a blog post from time to time.  And I’ve found that that lack of interest in self-promotion is very obvious to others.  In fact, it often makes me more attractive to people who ultimately seek me out and inquire about putting my services to work for them – because they know that I am adverse to pimping myself and they like that.  There’s a certain sense of self-confidence that rings true when someone isn’t standing on a hilltop shouting about how great they are and people are ultimately drawn to confidence.  The other challenge is, of course, time. There never seems to be enough hours in a day, but thankfully, I have a personality that thrives in a bit of chaos, so it makes popping in and out of the real world versus the online world easier to juggle and manage.

6. What are some of the valuable mistakes you have made in the past regarding online marketing/social media marketing and what have you learned from these past setbacks?
I should have started blogging sooner, but always put my own “work” on the back burner. I also waited a long time to dive into the social media realm, but I don’t really consider that a mistake – just that I missed out on a lot of new friendships, potential collaborators, etc., by not getting started sooner.

7. Please share a professional phobia or obsession….confession session!
I loathe people who claim to be something they are not.  Like today, when all the “social media experts” have climbed out of the woodwork, taking people’s money and making wild, unsupportable claims about all they can do for them. I am obsessed with treating people right and respecting the money they are able to allocate to marketing.  So, when I run across charlatans who are just in the business to grab a quick buck from an ill-informed, unsuspecting small business owner it makes me crazy.I want to publicly denounce them every time I run across them, but hold myself back. I am a freak about doing the right thing for people.

8. What is your favorite word or phrase?  Why?
I have been told that I say “in my opinion” too often, so that must be one of them! But I am always trying to make it clear when I communicate that I’m not saying “my way is the only way,” rather, I’m saying, “this is what I believe to be true and I respect your opinion, too.”

9. What do you believe successful “Wild Web Woman” traits are?
I think successful traits of WWW are being honest and true to self and to the world. Admitting that we’re human, therefore, not perfect, and that we’re usually all women operating in a crazy world, with lots of responsibilities, in addition to busy careers.  I think another trait of WWW is the ability to reach out to other women, support and encourage them whenever possible, lend a hand, an ear or a shoulder when needed, and build strong, nurturing relationships.  Women who are the most successful don’t view other women as competitors, but as great collaborators.  I think that’s always something worth remembering.

10. Do you have a personal mantra that you would like to share with other Web Marketing Therapy readers?
Be real. It’s the only you, and the best you, that you’ve got.

*For More Social Media and Web Marketing Insight Check Out Part Two of Shelly Kramer’s Interview!