Carri Bugbee

Carri Bugbee is the proprietor of Big Deal PR, a virtual agency that manages campaigns and projects in digital marketing, PR 2.0, community management, advertising, and special events (real or virtual). Bugbee has 20+ years experience in traditional public relations and advertising, but in recent years has embraced online marketing with a vengeance. She incorporates tools and tactics such as Twitter, Facebook, community building, SEM, blogging and YouTube to help businesses enhance their visibility, build better customer relationships and boost sales.

In February 2009, Bugbee received a Shorty Award in advertising for being an outstanding content producer on Twitter. She won for tweeting (anonymously) and garnering thousands of loyal followers as Peggy Olson, a character from the AMC hit drama, "Mad Men."  In addition to tweeting for several Mad Men characters, she’s ramped up 30+ Twitter accounts for clients, non-profit organizations, community-building, music, special events, entertainment, personal and research purposes.

Bugbee has been (or will be) speaking at numerous conferences about social media methodologies in 2009, including the Cool Twitter Conference (Seattle keynote, L.A. and Chicago), South by Southwest Interactive, The 140 Characters Conference, O’Reilly Twitter Bootcamp, OnHollywood (by AlwaysOn), WebVisions, Innotech, Communicopia, the American Marketing Association Roundtable, and the Oregon International Chapter of Business Communicators Awards Show. She is also teaching a class in social media at Portland State University fall term 2009.

As leader of Portland Social Media Club, she launched and co-produced the Pacific Northwest’s first annual SoMe Awards to honor excellence in social media. She also provides marketing support for the Portland Creative Conference and Cre8Camp, which she helped launch in 2008.

While Bugbee has been self-employed for 15 years, she started her marketing career working for industry heavy-weights Wieden + Kennedy and Hill & Knowlton.

Where I grew up

Eugene, Oregon

Places I've lived

Honolulu, On the road (seriously, I toured all over the country singing and dancing in a show group)

Companies I've worked for

Hill & Knowlton, Wieden + Kennedy, KMTR-TV (NBC affiliate)

Schools I've attended

University of Oregon (B.A. in Journalism with emphases in advertising and PR), Mt. Hood Community College (jazz studies), Search Engine Academy (SEO & PPC training)