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DESERT PATROL Amy Jo Martin is the Twitter tutor (and more) to CEOs, bloggers, even Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Digital Royalty, Martin's one-of-a-kind company, which helps individuals and brands of all sizes and types across the globe to build, measure, and better utilize their presence online. "I started working with Shaquille O'Neal because I was really the only one there who knew about social media and how it could be used," says Martin, who at the time was the director of digital media and research for O'Neal's then-team, the Phoenix Suns. Her side gig was such a success that four years later, the best-selling author of Renegades Write the Rules relocated her social media education business (and its seven-figure revenue) to Downtown Las Vegas, thanks to a major investment from her friend and mentor Tony Hsieh, Wanderlust: CEO of Zappos. "We're definitely im"I went to eight mersed in the changing culture there," she schools before I was in sixth says. The digital executive was so sure of grade. My father's Hsieh's vision for Downtown that she job constantly jumped at the opportunity to be one of the transferred us to first to move her tech business there. different small Past Digital Royalty clients include more towns." than 300 UFC fighters from Vegas's Be prepared: Ultimate Fighting Championship. Her star "I have an extra battery for my student? WWE's Dwayne "The Rock" MacBook Air Johnson. "We worked together to come up that has 20 hours with ways to make him more accessible to of energy. And fans," Martin says. "Then he just soared, at any time I and he does an amazing job." probably have seven or eight Meanwhile, Digital Royalty is already adapters or leaving its footprints beyond Las Vegas. chargers in The company's new arm, Digital Royalty my purse." University, allows the 33-year-old entrepreneur and her staff to share the power of social communication through online classes, whether the students are mommy bloggers or CEOs of major corporations. And now Digital Royalty's Buy One, Give One program is allowing students to fly high, too. For every online class purchased, the company donates a class to a Teach for America teacher in the Las Vegas area, who can then further spread knowledge of the AUTHOR AND SOCIAL MEDIA MAVEN AMY JO MARTIN benefits of social communication. The company is takCELEBRATES ONE YEAR PIONEERING THE UPCOMING WAVE ing its vision to higher education as well, working with OF DOWNTOWN TECH. BY AARON RASMUSSEN universities to implement a program leading to a certificate or minor in social media. Martin, who boasts more than 1.2 million Twitter my Jo Martin admits she's been extremely inquisitive since she followers, says her digital success comes from her "willingness to get was young, and that sense of wonder has paid off big for her as an comfortable with being uncomfortable," and her goal is to get those entrepreneur. "My addiction to curiosity," she says, "was a lot of unaccustomed to or unfamiliar with new trends in social communication to follow her lead. "We joke around the office that a lot of people suffer the genesis of experimenting with digital down the road." But it was a curious basketball star's desire to try out a new social plat- from an allergy to innovation, but it's entirely true," she says. "It's our form called Twitter in 2008 that sparked the idea for what would become philosophy and our mission to help others overcome those 'allergies.'" V INSIGHT A 66 PHOTOGRAPHY BY LEILA NAVIDI digital renegade VEGASMAGAZINE.COM 066_V_SP_DesertPatrol_MAY/JUNE_13.indd 66 4/19/13 10:29 AM