Lubav Earns Via Facebook

By Michael Elkin, Jewish Exponent

Face it, says Yerachmiel Galinsky of Upper Dublin: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and all other futuristic cute-named feral phenomenon have made social — and business — interaction do an about-face in the past five years.

How does he know? It’s all on his Facebook page and Twitter postings 24 hours a day.

But for Galinsky, it’s nothing personal, mainly business. For founder / CEO of Market Rocker, the Twitter teacher known to his Hebrew students at the Lubavitch Center of Montgomery County as Rabbi Rocky, the climb to business box office is more than a run up the steps.

It’s a marathon.

The featured speaker at a recent Jewish Business Network of Montgomery County meeting — where he offered website analysis and a clinic, as well as practical tips for enhancing social presence on the web via search-engine optimization — the observant Jew has observed the social-media metamorphosis firsthand.

He approached the communications revolution philosophically — naturally, since he was a philosophy major at the University of Oregon and then Brandeis University, but “I always had a focus on marketing and the business world,” he adds.

Indeed, his podcast — M-Cast — was added on to Chabad.org after the group purchased the service, and the area resident became an addition as well to the Jewish Learning Institute, teaching Torah classes on a regular basis.

What he teaches as Market Rocker is how social/business interaction has been rocked by tech-times. “As the economy changes, businesses have to get a new edge; instead of making cold calls to clients, they’re building it all on the web,” he says.

He is not alone; there are many making their presence known now as social and business media movers and shakers. After all, what can be more mainstream than Hollywood shouting “Lights! Cameras! Facebook!” as it has with the recent “The Social Network.”

But Galinsky may be in the minority of those who can link learning to LinkedIn and the Torah at alternate sessions. “It helps when my Hebrew students see somebody out there working in a hot profession; they think it’s pretty cool,” he says.

Building a business as he has done from the ground up — Market Rocker was launched two years ago — has only enhanced his commitment to his role as educator: “I am grounded in Jewish education.”

And apparently, it’s an ideal match for those who want to hit the ground running. One of his local clients, Koren Enterprises, found the entrepreneur engagingly fresh.

“My husband and I own multiple interrelated companies and are the founders of a nonprofit organization,” says the company’s Beth Coltoff Koren. “At the heart of everything we do is a strong interest in health and healing at a deep level as well as living at full potential.”

Reaching that potential was enhanced by reaching out to Market Rocker, as he helped them with search-engine optimization “and reputation management, improving our Google rankings to being on page one for 95 percent or so of our targets.”

Bull’s-eyes for businesspeople requires more than a dart-perfect dynamic; it demands trust and a track record. To that end, Michael Bader‘s bid for success is on its way to fruition.

The president of www.shipalmostanything.com, “an online auction website platform that brings individuals and [shipping] companies together,” weighs in with his opinion of Galinsky as “one of the rare treats of working with an outside vendor who’s a true mensch.”

While expounding on final figures is “premature,” he says, Bader faces facts and the fact is, he feels, his firm’s Facebook activity “is consistently above and beyond” expectations, making him game for future results.

Dealing with the changing image of business on the web is apparently a game-changer not just for those involved in the Internet, but for those with pre-conceived perceptions of the tech-talented.

Crash courses in reality are not new to Galinsky. For some, concedes the hirsute entrepreneur, hearing him on the phone or going online is one thing; seeing him in person quite another.

“To some, it’s a shock to see my beard, my kipah, my tzitzit hanging out. But I am who I am.”

Unsuspecting clients don’t reach for the escape tab, but they may shift options. “There’s the occasional joke about my appearance — from Jewish clients, too — but I politely assert to them who I am. Besides, I never take myself too seriously.”

Others do. Claims client Koren, “Prior to our working with Yerachmiel, we had not pursued Facebook as a business initiative. With his guidance, we now have a presence with a variety of social media.”

Spiritual services by cyberspace? Whereas Galinsky doesn’t envision future congregants downloading and davening Shabbat via the web, eliminating a need for the synagogue as services central, there are those working on “providing central access to the Torah” online. “It’s a new social order,” adds Market Rocker, atwitter with the changes.

And one that is no longer on the fringe; however, even that is an enticement. “That Yerachmiel is a rabbi is a plus for us,” says Koren, offering the highest of hechshers: “We felt comfortable that he answers to a ‘Higher Authority’ and would be impeccably honest and ethical,” which they have found to be true.

Above all, after all, “That’s of utmost importance in any business venture.”