This Baltimore expat is launching Jacksonville Innovation Week

Tim Savage, a self-titled “data nerd,” is also a bit of a renaissance man — he’s a photographer, recruiter, business owner, social media expert, emcee for Pull the Ripcord…. Oh, and now add event organizer to that list. He’s launching the first-ever Jacksonville Innovation Week next month. 
He was inspired by Baltimore Innovation Week and is working with JaxCoE, a Jacksonville nonprofit that supports entrepreneurs. The organization has an established relationship with the city and the “ecosystem of innovators,” Savage said.
Kate Stewart, executive director of Jaxcoe, is helping out with the logistics and curation of Jacksonville Innovation Week and is the “actionary” to his “visionary” for the event, Savage said.
“I wanted to expand the vision,” he said. “[It’s about] finding the spirit and what’s going on [in the city]. There’s never a dull moment.”
But first, on Tuesday, Savage will return to Baltimore to talk social media strategies at Baltimore Innovation Week 2016 presented by 14 West’s media conference and, as he puts it, he’ll be “Snapchatting the crap out of the freakin’ thing.”
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Savage, who left Baltimore for St. Augustine, Fla., to be closer to family and for what he described as the city’s cool music scene, will also be photographing several BIW events, so don’t be surprised if you see him popping up elsewhere. (He also spoke at BIW 2015’s Future of Digital Marketing conference.)
Savage founded 16 Agency, which works with companies and teaches them how to optimize their social media usage. He started working with social media especially centered around hip hop in the early 2000’s and tried his hand at launching a social media network in 2006 (it died the next year). By 2013, he was doing recruiting and social media marketing.
“The scene was humming around all levels,” he said.”It was a real easy thing to build in.”
Savage works with clients to increase their social media aptitude by helping them invest in growing their presence, using the right kind of photos and utilizing tools like Clickmeter to track website traffic.
“I want to see people understand they can do more in their social media,” Savage said. “Make the content go as far as it can, breathe and stretch out, and then it’s real and gets the reach it’s supposed to get. … The hard part is you have to figure out what you’re putting out there and get it moving.”
Challenges with social media include:

• Making content “emotionally affecting.”
• Avoiding “the sink” where a Facebook post or a Tweet moves further down people’s timelines and is less likely to be seen.
• The “Snapchat scenario,” which Savage said is when “you can’t track anything but your gut tells you you’re doing something.”