On October 18, Mediabistro brings you Social Media Marketing Boot Camp, an interactive online event and workshop. The event includes keynote speakers, practical how-to sessions, and strategic assignments to provide a dynamic training on social media. By the end of eight weeks, you will create an integrated strategic plan, using various social media platforms, to build an engaged audience and convert traffic into sales.

Early bird rates are available today. Save $100 when you sign up before they end tomorrow, September 20.

Our speakers include:

Michael Bepko, Global Online Community Manager, Whole Foods

Brian Carter, Author, LinkedIn For Business

Keidra Chaney, Digital Content Strategist, The Web Farm

Lauren Cucinotta, Branding + Editorial Manager, TEDx

Jennifer Dubrow, Global Social Business Transformation Leader, Inside Sales, IBM

Frank Eliason, Senior Vice President of Social Media, Citibank

Jim Hopkinson, Digital Marketing Strategist + Blogger, The Hopkinson Report

Barbara Pantuso, Director of Product Strategy, Huge

Dr. Jay Parkinson, Pediatrician and Social Entreprenuer

Andrew Patterson, Director of New Media, MLB Advanced Media

Dave Pickett, Social Media Editor, University of Chicago

Amy Porterfield, Author, Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies

Brian Ries, Senior Editor, Social Media, Newsweek & The Daily Beast

Jennifer Rubio, Social Media Marketing Manager, Warby Parker

Steven Tristan Young, Director, Acquisition Marketing and Brand Awareness, Seamless.com

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In a recent Shots magazine profile of New York marketing agency Campfire, the firm’s partner and chief creative officer Michael Monello confirmed that he is still applying lessons learned from The Blair Witch Project to the launch of HBO shows like Game of Thrones and True Blood.

“One of the reasons The Blair Witch Project worked was due to the fact we were fans and part of the culture and community, and we understood what was driving it… So I think for Campfire, a key philosophy is making something that we believe will work in the absence of media – that there’s a reason people want to experience this.”

Monello is one of the virtual speakers scheduled for Mediabistro’s latest Social Media Marketing Boot Camp online conference and workshop, which starts Thursday June 7. Over eight weeks, you’ll get to hear from leading social media innovators as you deploy a complete social media marketing strategy across Facebook, Twitter and other popular social media platforms. Your social media strategy will include content management, brand building and data analysis.

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As noted in a recent “Media Decoder” item, former MTV and Viacom head honcho Tom Freston’s current efforts at USC Cinema School are not the first time he has been involved with Afghanistan. But already, the summer intensive is on track to be more successful than his late 1970s clothing company.

Two students were trained in 2011 and another pair are due to arrive on campus shortly for seven weeks of training overseen by program head David Weitzner (pictured). From Michael Cieply‘s report:

Kept under wraps until now because of security concerns, the program, entering its second year, enrolls two Afghan students annually for a crash course in the cinema school’s summer program.

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Last summer, we reported about the temporary move from New York to Los Angeles of New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean. A snappy Twitter exchange (or two) later, we are now happy to herald her participation in Mediabistro’s upcoming online Literary Festival & Workshops, running July 16 through August 1.

Orlean is one of several high-profile speakers set to provide literary wisdom and guidance:

Susan Orlean  Author Journalist, The New Yorker

Constance Hale  Author, Sin & Syntax

Rebecca Skloot  Author, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Jason Boog  Publishing Editor GalleyCat, Mediabistro

Sarah Fine  Author and Child Psychologist

Jason Allen Ashlock  Literary Agent and President Movable Type Management

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USC grad Randal Kleiser (Grease, The Blue Lagoon) continues to spread the word about the phenomenal instructional DVD he put together a few years ago about his late teacher Nina Foch. As well he should.

Underwritten by George Lucas, the DVD was culled from around 100 hours of footage shot by Kleiser during Foch’s USC course about acting and filmmaking. Following a recent speech at Athens’ Michael Cacoyannis Foundation that focused heavily on the DVD, Kleiser talked to greekreporter.com about the Oscar nominee for Executive Suite and Emmy nominee for Lou Grant:

“Nina Foch was the best teacher I ever had and I knew her teachings had to be recorded for future generations. Even as she continued acting in film and television, her passion for teaching lasted for over forty years.”

“Her course was immensely popular because she developed her own unique style drawing from her experiences studying with Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler and Uta Hagen, as well as, the directors, Vincente Minnelli, Stanley Kubrick, Cecil B. DeMille and Otto Preminger. She taught a generation of filmmakers including John McTiernan, Amy Heckerling, Ed Zwick, Ron Underwood and many others. Nina went from being my teacher, to my mentor, to my good friend.”

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The beauty of online learning is of course that the wisdom can be sourced from anywhere. Recent graduates of mediabistro’s Social Media Marketing Boot Camp include Michelle Nadon, president and CEO of Toronto firm Media Intelligence, and Gregg Jaden, CEO of LA Web design specialists Broadwave Studios:

“I would recommend this program to anyone who wants an edge in social media,” suggests Jaden. “The varying perspectives of each speaker helps simplify key points to focus on for social strategies. Mediabistro and its representatives were awesome! Additionally, they provided essential back-end communication tools for a solid user experience.”

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Mediabistro is offering a new class this spring: Writing for Reality Television.

How does one actually “write” for reality TV? As is now well known, unscripted TV relies heavily on writers and segment producers for everything from formatting and pitching to voice-overs and host intros.

Reality TV is a broad genre that includes totally scripted comedies, documentary style dramas, competitions and niche cultural curiosities. Knowing where the opportunities are and how you fit in is the first step to narrow down what you will write and who it is for.

Taught by Colleen Kluttz, who has worked in the story department for ABC’sThe Bachelor and Bravo’s Real Housewives of New Jersey, the March 13-April 24 track will cover:

• Structure and formatting for reality TV, from ½ hour to hour long shows
• The importance of casting and character development
• Editing reality and how to write storylines in post production
• How to write for the type of show you want to make
• How to turn your pitch into a sizzle reel

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This weekend, Peter Fox (pictured) will be teaching another one of his two-day “Inside Track” screenwriting workshops at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, New Jersey. The one-time Hollywood script reader and doctor has been in this sideline business for over a decade now, and though he has never taken a film through to the screen, he did help push along Air Force One.

Ahead of the February 4-5 $279 event, Fox chatted with Gannett’s MyCentralJersey.com. Among other things, he recalled how the spark for his seminars practice turned out to be an LA event put on in the 1980s by the story structure field’s most celebrated name, Robert McKee:

“It was such a let down,” Fox said while calling from his Connecticut home. “McKee wouldn’t field any questions, and well, it just wasn’t a pleasant experience. But that experience made me realize that I could compete with this guy. I remember thinking, ‘I’m going to eat his lunch.’”

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The line-up of speakers for mediabistro.com’s upcoming online workshop “Social Media Marketing Boot Camp” is once again full of recognizable names. Among those participating are Morin Oluwole, responsible for strategic partner development at Facebook, and Anthony DeRosa, social media editor at Reuters.

The video presentations made by these and other industry experts, with interactive Q&A, can be watched live each week and accessed anytime thereafter by course registrants. This virtual learning track runs February 16 through April 5, and costs $499. However, if you register by tomorrow, January 18, you’ll receive $100 off the course fee for a discounted total of $399. Members of mediabistro.com’s AvantGuild are entitled to the even lower early-bird rate of $374.

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Following similar stints in 2010 and 2011 by, respectively, Leslie Wayne of the New York Times and CNN’s Susan Lisovicz, NBCLA producer-editor Sharon Bernstein has been named Arizona State University’s newest Donald W. Reynolds visiting professor in business journalism. She will teach at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in the spring.

Bernstein rejoined NBC (she started her career at St. Louis affiliate KSDK-TV) after the termination of a long and illustrious career at the LA Times, where she contributed to the paper’s Pulitzer prize-winning coverage of the 1998 North Hollywood bank shootout and 2004 California wildfires. From this week’s ASU announcement:

“We’re delighted to have an editor and reporter of Sharon’s caliber to share her knowledge of business journalism with our Cronkite students,” said Andrew Leckey, president of the Reynolds Center and the Reynolds Chair at Cronkite. “Throughout her career at the Los Angeles Times, she exhibited the professionalism and investigative curiosity so important in cutting through to today’s economic realities for the reader.”

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