“All brands are media companies, with their own audience, content and distribution strategies. For publishers, that’s an incredible opportunity to add value.”

Tonia has a passion for all things media, and more than 25 years of experience in the media and tech industries. Tonia founded Modern Media in 2002 with the mission to help media companies and marketers innovate in a changing market. Today, Modern Media works with clients such as The Wall Street Journal, UBM TechWeb and BizBash  to develop brand strategies, promotional campaigns and new product extensions.

Tonia and the Modern Media team also produce The Realtime Report (TheRealtimeReport.com) and The Realtime Conferences (formerly TWTRCON), the first conference and web site focused entirely on the business use of the social, mobile and realtime web. At a series of five events in New York, Washington, DC and San Francisco, Tonia hosted media innovators such as Martha Stewart, MC Hammer and Craig Newmark as well as social media executives from brands such as Ford, Intuit, Dell, SAP, JetBlue, Virgin America and Southwest Airlines and business technology leaders. Tonia regularly blogs about bottom-line case studies and social media statistics for The Realtime Report, speaks at industry events and has been quoted on the business impact of social media by news outlets such as The New York Times and NPR.

Before founding Modern Media, Tonia was Vice President, Marketing at Ziff Davis Media, overseeing research, marketing and promotional activities for six of the company’s brands. Prior to joining Ziff Davis, she was Vice President, Marketing and Sales at CMP Media, where she developed and led integrated sales and marketing programs for the company’s Business Technology Group. From 1994 to 1999, Tonia was Associate Publisher, Marketing for InformationWeek , where she developed and managed marketing and sales strategies, and created multi-million dollar events, online and newsletter brand extensions.

Tonia grew up in Germany and Belgium and now lives in Montauk, New York.

You can follow Tonia on Twitter at twitter.com/tonia_ries.

“Tonia is the best, most intuitive and intelligent marketing mind I’ve ever worked with. She has an understanding of the nuances of B2B that rivals anyone.”

– Evan Schuman, Editor, Storefront Backtalk

Speaking Engagements

• Online Marketing Summit, October 23, 2012, San Francisco.
• Host, The Digiday Sammy Awards Gala, September 19, 2011, New York.
• Panelist, Social Media Marketing Online Forum, Nation’s Restaurant News, September 2011, webinar.
• Insights Zone Interview, Re:think 2011, Advertising Research Federation, March 2011, New York.

Recent Press Mentions

• In Social Media, Worlds Are Colliding, by Stephanie Grayson for Yahoo! Finance, April 8, 2013.
• Walmart’s Local Fiasco, by Evan Schuman for StorefrontBacktalk, September 20, 2012.
• Have You Friended Your Favorite Cause?, by Alan Greenblatt for NPR.org, May 4, 2012.
• How Teenagers Learned To Hate Joseph Kony, by Alan Greenblatt for NPR.org, March 9, 2012.
• When Sites Drag the Unwitting Across the Web, by Somini Sengupta for The New York Times, November 14, 2011.
• You Do Have Time to Tweet, by Eve Gumpel for Women Centric, April 17, 2011.
• KGO Newstalk’s Consumer Talk with Michael Finney, “Tonia Ries, Producer of TWTRCON, gave tips on how to use Twitter to grow your business,” October 30, 2010.

Recent Publications

Tonia blogs on a regular basis for Modern Media and for The Realtime Report, and is the author of The Realtime Report’s Guide to Influence Measurement Tools.

She has also published articles in:

• The Big Book of Social Media: Case Studies, Stories, Perspectives, edited by Bob Fine. “Social Media: What’s Next?” (Conclusion), 2010.
• The Social Media Monthly, regular contributor from August, 2011 through January, 2012.