Groundhog Day in March?

April 7, 2011

Our resident pair of Canadian Geese who raised a brood of 8 stroll across the pond.

March 15, 2012

What appears to be the same pair of geese, return to their summer home.

Do you ever have deja-vu?

Didn't you just ask me that?

Photo Courtesy of Al Scherwinski

What's The Secret To Facebook Success?

In October 2011, Mashable reported that Facebook had as many users as the entire Internet did back in 2004, the year Facebook was founded. With over 800 million active users, it's safe to say if you are reading this post, chances are, you're among the majority. Businesses and organizations have been quick to realize that Facebook provides a way to reach out to potential customers via a fluid and interactive site unlike a static web site. But what is the secret to a successful page? It might surprise you to learn that the secret to success on Facebook really is no secret at all.

Make It Fun!!

If you have ever visited a boring web site, you know what I am talking about. A web site landing page that is heavy on copy, light on photos and color is not engaging and won't hold a visitors attention long enough for them to discover what a terrific product you have. What do you think are the odds of visitors returning for a second visit? The same holds true for Facebook - a page that is interesting and engaging gives fans a reason to come back to your page. 

The secret here is that your competition on Facebook is not necessarily your direct competitors. Facebook, blog and websites with a high energy "wow factor" that offer up-to-date information and feedback are the sites that compete for your fans attention.

Create a Community

One of the reason's Facebook has become the 'go to' place is it allows individuals, organizations and businesses to create a feeling of belonging to a community. Sounds great but how do you create a community for your business?

A real estate company might pose the question, "What is your fondest memory that involves either your childhood home or a favorite family member?" A hardware store could engage their fans by posting a close-up photo of a tool and ask their fans if they can identify the tool. The first person to respond with the correct answer might receive a $10.00 coupon off their next purchase of $50.00 or more.

The secret to starting a fan community? All you need to do is to post regular and relevant content to your wall that prompts a discussion. Don't let it overwhelm you but you need to show up and post several times a week and you should spend at least 30 minutes a day reading your fan's posts and visiting their sites. 

Other factors you need to consider ...

Can You See Me?

Check your page settings. Your content needs to be visible so others can see your videos and photographs, stories and questions.

Pay No Attention To That Man Behind The Curtain

Show your personality! Be active on your Facebook page by sharing your opinions and responding to your fans' comments. It shows you as welcoming and warm, all of which contributes to a sense of community.

What Do You Think?

The adage "the most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said" is another secret behind your Facebook success. People love to share but especially so on social media. Encourage your fans and followers to share: if you are a shop that caters to the outdoor market, ask your fans to share a photograph of themselves engaging in their favorite outdoor activity (biking, fishing, camping), ask them to share their personal stories. The secret here is to listen, comment and compliment.

Making Special Deals and Discounts Truly Special

Offering special deals and discounts to just your Facebook fans is guaranteed to generate buzz, get people engaged on your page and keep your fans returning to your page. Rewarding your fans with offers and discounts that are regularly updated will be appreciated, creating loyalty within your community.

You can design a tab specifically for contests, games or quiz, which will make it easy to find and allow you to promote a contest or quiz on your fan's wall posts.

The added benefit to you is Facebook contests are a great way to capture data, including email and physical addresses for re-marketing.

You Like Me! You Really Really Like Me!

In an effort to differentiate between personal and business pages, people who "like" your business page are called a fan. All too often, business owners take this term far too literal, convinced that the reason anyone would "like" their page is because, well, they like you. In truth, a fan is just a term Facebook uses for a customer or potential customer. Your goal should be to secure their business but first you need to convince potential customers that you are prepared to support your product and provide first class customer service. You do this by engaging your customers, responding to their posts and asking for feedback.

They're Just Not Into You

Your Facebook page should not be all about you. If your page updates are all about what you are doing, how fabulous your company is with a reoccurring sales pitch, your fans are going to quickly lose interest. It's doubtful that anyone will want to share your sales pitch with their Facebook friends.

Engage your followers in a dialogue. Focus your status updates whenever possible with content that is relevant and newsy: emerging trends, new products etc. Fun and compelling status updates are exactly the type of information Facebook users tend to "like" and share with their friends.

Crunching The Numbers

Finally, the truth is, the business with the most amount of fans at the end of the day is not necessarily the winner. The number of Facebook fans and Twitter followers has been referred to by marketers as vanity metrics. Businesses tend to give creditability to their Facebook likes as if they held the same value as customers or sales which isn't a true indicator of Facebook success.

Many businesses set up a Facebook fan page and look to their fan growth rate as the primary success metric. But their number of fans isn't giving them the "big picture." 

Sure it's great to think thousands of Facebook users are seeing your content but instead of collecting hundreds of fans, you should be tracking and measuring how much and often your fans are actually engaged with your content by the number of times your posts are "liked", shared and tagged. Regular sharing between a number of fans demonstrates more engagement than a high number of fans who only leave one post and never return. (Think Starbucks and Coca Cola as prime examples of massive Facebook groups with low levels of engagement.)

The goal is not to be good at Facebook. The goal is to be good at business because of Facebook.

In a future post we'll discuss how to measure your Facebook success. Until then, don't throw in the social media towel if your page has a small number of fans. If your fans are engaging with you, responding to your updates in a way that fits in with your marketing plan and social media goals, you are doing fine.

Spectra Print Clients Prepare for the Upcoming Sport Show Season

It's that time of the year when the topics being discussed center around the upcoming run to the Super Bowl, the weird and wacky weather playing havoc with our ice fishing and the start of the sports show season. For our Canadian friends this is the time of the year when they head south of the border to talk fishing and hunting.

For the past few months the pre-press and press departments at Spectra Print have been busy assisting clients with their marketing and promotional material. With the first of the All Canada Shows scheduled to open in a few hours, we wish all the exhibitors on the sports show circuit a successful season.

Spectra Print is pleased to announce the addition of four new accounts to the dozens of our Canadian outdoor accounts: Showalter's Fly-In Outposts, Nestor Falls Fly-In Outposts, Oak Lake Lodge and Arctic Lodges.

Spectra Print has been a proud sponsor of the All Canada Show for the past several years. Working with Jennifer Young and the staff at All Canada Show, we know first hand the hard work and effort that goes on behind the scenes; it really does take an entire village to make All Canada Show such a success. The 2012 show season kicks off in St Louis, Missouri, January 6-8. The entire All Canada Show schedule can be found here.

As one of the sponsors of All Canada Show, Spectra Print will be again be an exhibitor at the shows and will be be tweeting the event as well as live blogging from the Chicago and Minneapolis shows. We will be posting #hashtags on our Facebook page so you can join in the conversation.

Avoid Filler Language in Presentations

Presenters often use the phrase “Does that make sense?” to gauge audience understanding. But this can convey a speaker’s uncertainty and signals that the audience might not comprehend or appreciate the content. To be an effective speaker, eliminate useless words and phrases like this one. Since you often include them unconsciously, record your next speech (try the voice record function on your smart phone). Play it back and listen for where you added fillers. Repeat this process several times and soon enough you’ll start correcting yourself. And if you want to check whether your material is getting through, try the more concrete “Do you have any questions?” instead.

Adapted from "Never Ask 'Does That Make Sense?'" by Jerry Weissman.

Source: http://hbr.org/tip?date=111811

Dropbox Allows Anyone to Utilize Cloud Technology

There are times when I just can't help myself. A large number of the accounts that I follow on Twitter either have the word "tech" in their name, share the latest inroads in technology or exist only to make my life more fun … make that easier thanks to today's technology. Some have been nothing more than a flash in the pan but others have become the things I cannot live without.

One of my favorites is Dropbox, an online storage utility that allows you to make your files accessible from virtually anywhere there is an Internet connection. Dropbox has allowed me to enjoy my love of family history without having to email information to myself or keeping track of what flash drive I was using when I made that last trip to the court house.

Here's how it works. After installing the application and connecting to the server, Dropbox works like any other folder on your computer or mobile device allowing you drag and drop to move files around. Any files or folders that are uploaded to Dropbox, either by you or someone you are sharing the files with, are immediately synchronized in your account. As if that isn't enough of a wow factor, Dropbox keeps track of every change that is made to the contents of your storage, instantly updating to all the computers that are linked to the account. You can even undelete files that you may have accidentally erased.

But where Dropbox moves to the front of your list of  "favorite go-to" is the way it allows you to share whatever you want with other people. Every individual folder can be shared with other people and every member of a shared folder will be able to add, edit and delete the contents but will not have access to anything outside of that specific folder. 

There is also a public folder that allows you to share files with non-Dropbox users through the use of a hyperlink.

Oh …. did I mention that Dropbox is free for Windows and Mac? You can share 2GB of your files for free or upgrade to Dropbox Pro for 50GB of storage.

Refer a friend to Dropbox and you and your friend can get an additional 250 MB of storage.

As with any cloud-based service, Dropbox is a great source for storing non-confidential content. The following video demonstrates how easy it is to use Dropbox. Who knows? It may be your next "cannot live without." 

Is This Your Social Media Sign?

A few weeks ago I was discussing the endless advantages social media could offer my friend's volunteer woman's organization: why they needed to be involved and why my friend should convince the organizations "CEO."

"Yup, I can see the benefits and opportunities and it will work for us but only if our leader is smart enough to get it - otherwise social media is more of a liability."

Now that is an interesting observation. Unfortunately, it's the truth.

Every business, regardless of its niche, can find value in social media but that doesn't mean social media is for everyone or that everyone should be engaged.

So … how do you know? If you answer yes to any of these questions: jog, don't walk, away from social media.

You have no social skills. Social media is about people. If you never had friends as a child and you can't deal with people then maybe social media isn't for you. If you don't like to talk to people, get someone else to handle your social media services. Your customers will thank you for it.

You have no sense of humor and can't handle criticism. If you can't laugh at yourself then you don't belong on the Internet. Success in social media means being able to embrace the weird and quirky. You need to show your fun side to get people to like you. You don't want to be seen as the dweeb of the Internet - it will target you as someone who can virtually have their lunch stolen.

Just add water! If your definition of social media is creating a blog or an account on Facebook and then kicking back and waiting for the leads and conversations to pour in, social media is not for you. If you are not going to create a marketing plan and dedicate resources to that plan then don't waste your time setting up social media accounts.

You think social media is the new way to sell. If you don't think it's necessary to create a relationship with someone before you sell them on your company or product, social media is definitely not for you. To be successful at social media, you have to hear what is being said about your company or your brand; that means listening before you speak. How will you know what to give people if you don't know what they want? We've all been target marketed by our friends which is acceptable in the world of social media. However, shouting your message to a room full of strangers is not.

And speaking of Selling …. If you are shouting your sales message, not listening to your audience, chances are you consider success in social media as a numbers game. Your goal is to have 3,000 followers on Twitter, 10,000 Facebook fans and enough RSS subscribers to match your telephone number (including the area code.) If you are this person then you think the higher the number, the more successful you look. Savvy people on social media need only spend a few minutes looking at your list of followers or fans to determine if you have garnered followers because of meaningful content or just casting a net out into the social media waters. It does not make you look like you know what you're doing and it just annoys everyone else.

Pay No Attention To That Man Behind The Curtain. When Toto unmasked the great and powerful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy realized he was incapable of granting her wish to return home to Kansas. Companies who succeed in social media are the ones who don't hide behind the curtain and who bring relevant content, conversation and media to the party. Don't hire someone to blog as your company president or use Twitter to push your RSS feed: that's using social media to be a tool and you're missing the point.

Your Social Media Strategy is Twitter. Twitter is a social media tool. So are blogs and Facebook. They are useless unless you have a strategy about how to use them. You don't decide to enter a marathon and expect to be able to run 15K when the day of the race arrives without any preparation (see "Just Add Water" above.) Social media is not Twitter but Twitter can be used to accomplish your marketing strategy.

Social Media for Printers: Ready, Set, Blog!

Social Media for Printers: Ready, Set, Blog!