Ask a New Yorker: Let’s jump right in. What’s the newest most cutting edge thing in social media right now?
Hilary: Seesmic.com, this is the latest and greatest social networking site. It’s all video driven, you ask a question on the internet and you are taped through your camera on your computer. Again you ask a question to the audience, to the community at large and you’ll get a ton of people responding to you. It is so cool. It really is the next wave where Facebook is going. It’s the next wave.
Ask a New Yorker: Who are you?
Hilary: I’m Hilary Topper. I’m president and CEO of HJMT Communications. Were a full service public relations, social media, and event planning, graphic design firm and are located here in Manhattan. We also have an office Westbury and Rochester.
Ask a New Yorker: What is an E350? And what do you listen to while driving to work?
Hilary: An E350 is a Mercedes and I listen to Alt Nation-I love new music.
Ask a New Yorker: What’s your signature dinner or the one that your family enjoys the most?
Hilary: Sushi…. I love Nobu!
Ask a New Yorker: I read that you play golf. How often do you play?
Hilary: Once or twice a week in the season!
Ask a New Yorker: What were your favorite 70’s TV Shows?
Hilary: Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family — I loved David Cassidy….
Ask a New Yorker: Were you ever a girl scout? And what’s the equivalent in the Girls Scouts to Eagle Boy Scout?
Hilary: (Laughter) It’s called the Gold Award. No, I wasn’t the recipient of a gold award. I went through about Jr level. I guess I was about 12 or 13 when I ended my career. But I’ve been volunteering. I still volunteer. I’m an adult girl scout. I pay my membership. I support their causes.
Ask a New Yorker: Do you still sell the Girl Scout cookies?
Hilary: No, I personally don’t but you could buy Girl Scout cookies through Girls Scouts of Nassau County. What’s really cool about the Girl Scouts is that they just came out with a new cookie. The cookie is called café Deleche, inspired by the classic confections of Latin America. It’s a vanilla cookie with caramel. So what we did, is we asked bloggers across the internet to review this cookie and give credit to the Girl Scouts of Nassau County. As a result we had like 10-15 bloggers write about this cookie. It was really cool. I was excited about that and they sold lot of cookies.
Ask a New Yorker: I read in your blog about a trip to the Met and a very insightful tour of Egypt, what was that about?
Hilary: The Entrepreneur’s Assocoatation of New York consists of about 400 members. They organized this tour. One of the members is Josh Roggaloff, who is very knowledgable in Egyptians hieroglyphics. So he gave us this tour at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I went with my family and got to learn a lot about Egyptian life in the early days and it was really interesting. Joshua Rockoff is the CEO of Strike Interactive. So if you ever want to get in touch with him I’m sure he would give a private tour.
Ask a New Yorker: So what did you learn about Hieroglyphics?
Hilary: What I learned from him is that hieroglyphics don’t run from one direction down or up or side to side. They are sometimes diagonal. Every line runs a different direction. You detect this from a hand signal.
Ask a New Yorker: What do you think of Ask a New Yorker?
Hilary: I think it’s a great concept. I think there’s a lot of potential there. I really do, both in terms of partnerships and just in terms of interviewing interesting New Yorkers. I think you going to meet a lot of interesting people.
Ask a New Yorker: Please share more about your understanding of social media.
Hilary: I think bloggers and everyday people are more important these days in news media. News Media used to be years ago when you had your product or service in the newspaper, you knew that your product or service would sell like wild fire. Today it’s the bloggers. It’s people like you making a difference. You’ve got something here in terms of your voice.
Ask a New Yorker: What else is Hilary Topper up to?
Hilary: I wrote a book on social media called Everything You Wanted to Know About Social Media But Were Afraid to Ask. It’s discusses how to grow your business using social media. We’re looking to publish the book within the next two months.
Ask a New Yorker: Last question: what’s your favorite expression…or one that you use often?
Hilary: “It’s all good….”
Ask a New Yorker: It is all good! I look forward to reading your book. Thank you for your time.
