Why is this feature great? Fact: Only 16% of Facebook users see the updates you post on your business page. The rest of the time you’ve got to hope and pray to the FB Gods that your posts are getting seen, or really track what times of day you’re getting the best reach. Now with a click of a button you can promote a status update just keep in mind that budget you set is a lifetime budget not a daily budget. You also can target by location just like a sponsored story or ad. Which is really convenient especially if your National and only want to run a regional post.

Unlike Facebook ads which primarily is used to gain and attract new people, promoted posts will really give brands the opportunity to engage with their fans, and because of this I really hope they use this carefully.  I use my Facebook for personal use like anyone outside of the digital marketing industry. And seeing things froma user perspective I really don’t want to see annoying sponsored links about some sale. Or if you’re a big retailer please do not sponsor the same sales that you send to my email Everyday~ remain nameless. I haven’t tried this out yet, but looking forward to experimenting soon.

How are you going to use promoted posts?

Ciao~

Tanesha White

It’s good to sit back and reflect on that, but it can be hard with out a checklist to follow. I recommend Marshall Goldsmiths, 20 habits to avoid. It’s funny looking at this list and actually hearing complaints from close friends about bosses that exhibit A LOT of these traits and it makes you wonder how they got where they are.  But anyway, I hope this list is helpful for you to do your own brand tune up. And by no means think you should only do this every once in while, but reflect on it everyday if you can. Remember it takes about 21 days of consistency before something turns into habit so you want to catch a bad one and break it right away!

1. Winning too much: the need to win at all costs and in all situations – when it matters, when it doesn’t, and when it’s totally beside the point.

2. Adding value: the overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion.

3. Passing judgment: the need to rate others and impose our standards on them.

4. Making destructive comments: the needless sarcasms and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty.

5. Starting with “No,” “But,” or “However”: the overuse of these negative qualifiers which secretly say to everyone, “I’m right. You’re wrong.”

6. Telling the world how smart you are: the need to show people we’re smarter than they think we are.

7. Speaking when angry: using emotional volatility as a management tool.

8. Negativity, or “Let me explain why that won’t work”: the need to share our negative thoughts even when we weren’t asked.

9. Withholding information: the refusal to share information in order to maintain an advantage over others.

10. Failing to give proper recognition: the inability to praise and reward.

11. Claiming credit that we don’t deserve: the most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success.

12. Making excuses: the need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it.

13. Clinging to the past: the need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else.

14. Playing favorites: failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly.

15. Refusing to express regret: the inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we’re wrong, or recognize how our actions affect others.

16. Not listening: the most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues.

17. Failing to express gratitude: the most basic form of bad manners.

18. Punishing the messenger: the misguided need to attack the innocent who are usually only trying to help us.

19. Passing the buck: the need to blame everyone but ourselves.

20. An excessive need to be “me”: exalting our faults as virtues simply because they”re who we are.

Ciao~

Tanesha White

The offers allow you to put a special promotion or coupon.

But, not only that it allows you to set an date and also gives you the option to set limits on the number of redemption’s. I am in love with this feature already, because until now you really only had the option of using a third party in order to get these features, trust me I know!

I was able to experiment with creating some excitement around a “grouponish” like deal a few months back. Using a third party that would allow us to publish coupons and would show that they printed a coupon from our page on their wall, and also encouraged sharing. After playing with this offers feature I see that businesses will be to use this at there wim, to really drive engagement and virality.

It’s very simple to use and as fast as posting a status update. In order to cure my curiosity I  used a popular coupon that we send in monthly newsletters. I didn’t screenshot the before picture, so since I already clicked on “get offer,” it now says “resend” offer.

The first time you click the offer it gives a quick message letting you know that the offer is being sent to your email address (the one linked to your FB account.

Then of course like any other million apps out there it encourages you to post your activity to your wall. Almost instantly the coupon is in my email ready to be printed or presented over my iphone for redemption. I love the instant gratifying world we live in!

Now when I refer to this as a “grouponish” feature, as a consumer we love getting the deal of the day being able to try a new resturant or taking an outing spending next to none. But, on the business side of things advertising a highly discounted item or service and then taking 50% off of that already discounted deal doesn’t always make sense for the bottom line.  So now small businesses can really get creative with these offers, maybe allow 50% off a hot item to a limited number of people in a short time frame, the possibilities are endless. Get creative add some facebook ads to the mix, this a chance to really drive excitement, and to reconnect with out of touch fans. But, like any other advertisement just be sure to let your staff know the deal is out there and how consumers will present it.

I’m pretty sure I know how big brands are going to use this feature, and I’m sure fans will be a lot more attentive to what kinds of deals they can get or perhaps free coffee…

Ciao~

Tanesha White

So why put your business and brand in social networks? Because that’s where your customers are! Don’t worry I know you’ve read all the blogs about the value and what it can do, blah blah blah… Really the down to it action plan is really quite simple and any small business can put to work without having foot the bill for an agency. To be honest if you do not have a point person in house you should not even think about outsourcing your social media management.

1. Create a Linkedin Page for your company. This one easy to overlook because you may not get your arms around how to really use it.  (this is an entirely different subject)

• Create and fill in your page THOROUGHLY, yes don’t leave any blanks.
• Make great use of the product page, I love this feature you can put pictures and descriptions on what you have to offer.
• Add videos- I would suggest video testimonials if you’re B2c and a “why by for B2B.
• Lastly, and maybe the most difficult get all of your employees to link correctly to your company page. Some may have create a linkedin page and just forgot about it and may have entered the business name different from what your official business name is. It may just take some time showing people how to edit. But it’s simply click edit profile> current position>change company name. Once they start typing in the business name it should auto populate and voala you have employees linked to your company page.

Even if you decide not to do anything with your Linkedin Page doesn’t mean other people won’t consumers today expect companies to have a social presence everywhere. And with Linkedin being a professional social network one should have a business page.

2. Decide on the social network that you would like to start with. For argument sake let’s already assume you’ve created a Facebook page. But like many small businesses maybe you’ve posted once or twice a month to a fan club of 101. Don’t worry like I said this was simple.

3. Create a moderation policy and a social media policy if you don’t already have this. The moderation policy is something that would go on your Facebook page (i suggest to put it at the bottom of your welcome page) these are basically the rules for your fans to post on your company page. If someone breaks a rule you can refer them to your policy. The social media policy is for internal use within your business. It’s just a guideline of your expectations on how employees are using social media in house, and the use of your company name etc..

4. Find your Social Champions! By this I mean, find the people within each of your departments who have passion in what they do and can raddle off the top of there head everything exciting happening that week. Get at least a weeks worth of topics from all of your departments. If they have a hard time of thinking of things ask them to find blogs that specifically pertain to there expertise. Now you pretty much have a social calendar of postings that can last a full month.

Depending on your level of trust and relationship with your employees you make the call on whether or to give admin access directly to them for more spontaneous posts or not.  Typically just have your point person load up your post schedules using hootsuite, or any other third party ware and you’re good to go. So now that lonely person that was originally sent out to do this task of (community manager) now has a solid calendar of social content, but now can also sprinkly in breaking news, or occasional blogs.

5. Now that you have a wall that shows consistent posts being updated and people interacting with the page (rule get your employees engaged with your page!) The quickest way to build up your fanbase is to get your customer base. If you have a crm simply export your contact to a csv file and use Facebooks “invite email contacts” option. Don’t forget to and invite to your friends to Like your page and get your employees to do this as well.

4. Don’t get overwhelmed! Once you’ve got a great simple that works great for your business don’t try to move too quickly in wanting to create landing pages, and dissecting your analytics too fast. It’s really easy to get info overloaded with the over saturation of social content-which is a necessary evil because it keeps freaking changing and a new network pops up every minute!

5. Invest in your education. Take the time to listen in on webinars and maybe attend a conference every 6 months. It may be hard to imagine but there are people just like you going through the same shift and it’s always nice to connect with similar and more advanced companies that can show you the ropes.

Good luck,

Tanesha

The biggest mistake I see businesses make is getting gungho that they finally have a solid digital marketing strategy and have incorporated social media into the mix successfully, but treat it as though it’s on pilot drive and fail to revisit their digital storefront exposure. This is how companies can really appear to be, well…. dumb. For example if your agency is managing your social community, and they’re posting and advertising contests to get fans engaged, but internally no one in your company knows what’s going on. How does that make the business look?

Social Media has allowed us to get information out to the masses in seconds. This makes it even more important for companies to have that internal communication. So many businesses treat digital as a separate thing that’s just kind of out there, (especially the car business).  Really if you follow this rule of the thumb: If it’s on the internet chances are someone saw it! So if you do have that “digital quarterback” in house or at least an internal liaison for your outside relationships be sure the strategy is thought out first and all communication has been spread through out the company before posting it first!

Have you come across this before?

Ciao~

Your Diva @taneshawhite

Like I mentioned last week,

The two biggest obstacles to overcome is:

• Motivation
• Eating RIGHT

I mentioned different social networks and Facebook ideas to connect with like minded individuals to keep motivated aka, virtual workout partners. So needless to say the “motivation” piece was thoroughly covered! The biggest challenge and most important obstacle is “eating right.” I recently pinned this saying to my pinboard last week, and this has been a great motivation for me in really watching my calorie intake on a daily basis:

I know what you’re thinking, calorie counting… seriously?? Well Weight Watchers isn’t successful for no reason! All they did was interpret  calories into points which, is by default easier for people to understand. Well I’m here to tell you I’ve found a great app that can take all of the guess work out for you.

I recently downloaded the “My Fitness Pal” from iTunes and I have to say I’m really impressed. You basically enter in all of your information such as, height, weight, measurements, and your goals. This cool app allows you to keep a diary and will show you your progress mtd. It allows you to log all your meals, and activity on daily basis. What I love about this is that it has an extensive library of foods and activities ranging from work out routines and equipment used to just everyday house work. You can select the duration and it gives you an approximate number of calories that you burned. The food library not only has all the foods you can cook from home, it also  has foods on there from every restaurant you can think of and it even allows you to scan a barcode and logs instantly.  A great way to use this is if you’re indecisive on what to eat, because you can plug the food in and you might actually change your mind once seeing how many calories are in it –goodbye delicious frappe:-( I’ve tried numerous apps similar to this but, in my opinion this is superior and it’s free!

Now if you’re like me spending an hour on the eliptical is enough to bore you to tears. So to help spice up the workout I have always been a fan of the ” Nike Training for Women app.” This app has some great work out routines ranging from 15 to 45 minutes.  I really like how it categorizes by:

Beginner to Advanced

Cardio to Strength training

So if you’re late missing a class, just pick your workout and jam to your favorite Pandora playlist and get in the zone! What apps or social sites do you use?

Ciao,

@taneshawhite

]]> http://digiknows.com/2012/04/16/use-social-media-and-apps-to-your-advantage-to-stay-fit-part-ii/feed/ 0 theautomotivediva1 Calories http://digiknows.com/2012/04/11/use-social-media-and-apps-to-your-advantage-to-stay-fit-part-i/ http://digiknows.com/2012/04/11/use-social-media-and-apps-to-your-advantage-to-stay-fit-part-i/#comments Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:50:38 +0000 Tanesha White http://digiknows.com/?p=576 ]]> Even though I absolutely love what I do, I hate that it requires me to sit for long periods of time. But, this is very common in today’s business world and well, it is what is. Mix that with grazing over high carb food left over from meetings, and donuts in the breakroom is an excellent mix for an Obesity Martini. To read more on how to change those eating habits check out this article: Occupational Hazard: Is Your Job Making You Fat?

My focus is on how you can use technology for your fitness goals. Being a busy professional, wife, and mother of kids that have their own active agendas as a woman it can be overwhelming to put yourself first. And by no means is that an excuse and it doesn’t have to be with all this technology at our finger tips, Literally.

The two biggest obstacles to overcome is:

• Motivation
• Eating RIGHT

Are you a FB junkie and just a social butterfly in general? Then use social networks to your advantage for motivation. It’s pretty much like having a workout partner, but you can have hundreds of them and can interact throughout the day. For Example:

Start a group or event on Facebook: This is a great way to get more engagement with your friends, and acquaintances. You can make your topics fun, like a No Fast Food challenge, or Goals for doing Exercises through out your day. Post to the event or group how you’re feeling or how you’re progressing and the great thing is that you will have tons of supporters to help you reach your goals.

Pin your motivators: Of course you have seen all the buzz about this cool social sharing network of pictures called Pinterest. But, have you used it yet or you are but haven’t found the point of it yet? It’s said that you can change your mood just by visualizing something that makes you happy. I remember having a picture of an Aston Martin Vanquish in my car taped the sun visor, it always motivated to work hard and yes one day have one. But I digress, Pinterest works the same way.

Create a pinboard just for your inspiration about getting fit. If your like me, I get overwhelmed with content jarble, so pinning a pic from a website is so much easier to recall the information. See my “I Work Out” Pinboard, now how could I possible think of eating a big mac looking at her awesome abs??

Join A Fitness Specific Network Or forum:  In all honesty you can do a simple search for “fitness forums” and you will get tons of sites to choose from. To prevent information overload have an idea of what kind of information you’re wanting from these places such as, specific exercises, food plans, and supplement questions. There are tons of Fitness guru’s on these sites that can really get you on track. A good one to visit is Bodybuilding.com.

Hash All about it:  If you’re a Twitter user then definitely use this for motivation. Create a hashtag and be sure to tweet it out to your audience and also spread the word in all your other networks. For example #beFit2012 could be hash that everyone wanting to get involved can tweet there activity. Now just save the search on hootsuite, boxcar, or any other platform and receive notifications on your tag throughout your day so you don’t miss a beat.

All the motivation is out there, no longer do you have to sulk because you can’t find a work out buddy. Before eating that french fry refer to these networks for advice or just an extra push.  In part 2 I will share some mobile apps that can keep you on the right track to eating right so stay tuned!

Cia0~

@taneshawhite

Now, this sense of power and running things in the workplace has of course taken years of being consistent with your:

positive attitude for every person you encounter

under promising and over delivering what you say

getting things done and coining yourself as the go to person

Being the go-getter and asking for what you want and setting expectations

But, have you taken a look at your brand online? The internet brings great power, social media can bring devastation especially your choice of pictures! It’s kind of funny finding the inspiration to write this. It started with my husband showing me the profiles of recruiters that have contacted him on linked in. LOL, I couldn’t believe some of the pictures these women had as their profile. Finger in the mouth here, wind blowing through your hair there…. Too funny. Did these ladies not get the memo that Linkedin is not Myspace 01? 

So I would think this would be a no brainer, if you want to be taken seriously on the professional level present yourself that way in a professional network. Now when it comes to using Facebook and twitter have you ever searched for your name? Do you realize that your posting can rank in the search engines such as, google, Yahoo, and Bing? These are marketing techniques us digital marketers use to our advantage, but in the civilian world this could come back to bite you. Recruiters perform searches on potential candidates all the time, do you really want to leave a negative impression before getting a chance to speak with them? Even if you think you’ve got your privacy buttoned up on Facebook remember nothing is a 100%.

Have you come across some funny Linkedin pics?

Ciao~