Orange Juice

Twitter and Facebook for business: an introductory workshop

Do you want to know how to use Twitter? Should you use Twitter for business? How can it help you and not overwhelm you? We’ll address these issues in our introductory workshop for users just getting into Twitter and Facebook for business.

This workshop will give a basic overview of Twitter and some great tools to help you leverage its power to keep your finger on the pulse of your industry, and monitor what people may be saying about your company or industry. We will also introduce you to common Twitter etiquette and suggested best practices.

Even if you have a small business you can effectively use Twitter as a personal tool to network with others and engage in meaningful conversations.

Facebook is a great tool for connecting with old friends, but did you know that it can be an effective way to spread word about your business or organization?

At this workshop we will show you how to set up your business most effectively on Facebook, and introduce you to other tools to get the word out about your business to local users on Facebook.

We will also briefly discuss other social tools to assist you in managing multiple accounts, as well as what people are saying about your business on the internet.

Cost to attend is $50 and seating is limited. Register today!

First workshop- 10am-1:00pm  on May 12th  sold out

Second workshop- 10am-1:00pm on May 27th 

Offices of Serif Group and Inbox Orange

207 East Reynolds Road, Suite 210, Lexington, KY 40517

The last hour will be a casual and informal lunch conversation. Lunch will be provided by Corky’s Ribs and BBQ.

Advertising & graphic design agency, Serif Group, has office space available. The office is located on the second floor of 207 East Reynolds Road, Suite 210—between Nicholasville Road and Lansdowne Drive.

Amenities include: conference room, contemporary décor, utilities included, convenient location, a spacious, free parking lot, lots of sunlight, kitchen area, and a private office space. See photos on our Facebook page.

It would be an ideal location for an independent professional looking to move out of their home. Rent is affordable and includes utilities. For more information, contact Jackie or call 859-271-0701.

I’m amazed at how my TV-viewing habits have changed over the years. Our first TiVo box opened up new life for us in a way that was more fulfilling than our current cable provider-issued DVR box, but that’s another story. We can now watch Survivor in 40 minutes instead of 1 hour. The Office in just over 20 minutes instead of 30. That’s a lot of extra minutes gained for housework, reading, or more realistically, surfing the web.

But what does this say about people who are supposed to watch TV for the commercials? We’re advertising agency owners, ferpetesake! However, the other night we spotted a commercial that was actually worth stopping for: the new H&R Block “Second Look” spot. The guy with one eye was too “eye-catching” to pass up.

Upon devoting 30 seconds of our lives to it, Bill and I agreed that it was great. Just what is needed these days to cut through the clutter of TV advertising. It’s not enough to sound intriguing, you must have intriguing visuals to get viewers to stop fast-forwarding.

What do you think about that spot? Disgusted like these folks? Or did it get your attention, too?

I’m not a big text person, so when I received one the other day I was curious to find out who it was. It was AT&T texting me about American Idol Season 8. Funny, I didn’t ever remember signing up to receive text alerts from American Idol or AT&T. With economic pressures mounting look out for companies Spamming via text. Although some would argue that the AT&T message was not Spam because it was free, it did ruffle some feathers.

As an email marketer, I fight the uphill perception battle that Email marketing is Spam. I figured the best way to combat this perception is to learn about SPAM and try to help others understand what they can do to fight it.

What do we do with all of the junk we get? If your Spam filter isn’t catching everything these sites may help:

Spam information resources:

Federal Trade Commission

Spamcop.net

The Spamhaus Project

Spambusters.org

Abuse.net

Spamresource.com

Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group

Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email

International Mail Consortium

Spamlaws.com

Email Sender Provider Coalition

Conference on Email and Anti-Spam

Get Net Wise

Melon Stork

Spam Blockers or Services

Spam Assassin

S-Mail

Blue Bottle

Join us for an Orange Open House at the offices of Serif Group and Inbox Orange to celebrate the first anniversary of Inbox Orange, an email marketing firm.  Please drop in and visit on Wednesday, January 7, 2009 from 4-7 p.m. We will enjoy catering by Corky’s, drinks, and networking—and don’t forget to grab a swag bag of goodies provided by our clients before you leave! Click here for a map and driving directions. 

One more thing …

In keeping with the Christmas spirit. If you live in the Lexington area the local Ronald McDonald House needs your help. As you may or may not have heard, the Ronald McDonald House had a flood in their house due to a leaking fire sprinkler system on Monday. As a result, many, many gifts collected for sick and hospitalized children were ruined.  If you would like to help the Ronald McDonald House out in this critical time of need, they have asked for folks to help the House with either gift cards to stores like Kroger and Wal Mart or to simply consider making a financial contribution. There was quite a bit of damage to the room they had the toys in and they will also need to replace some or all of their board room furniture.

How does a busy person stay up to date with Facebook, blogging, Twittering (tweets) and discovering new media trends? I am not exactly sure, but I can tell you that is isn’t easy. Between working on Serif Group, Baby publictions and Inbox Orange projects and building my knowledge base about the ever-changing landscape of new-media marketing I find it difficult to even type this very blog update. I preach to others how blogging is a great way to reach your customers and become a ‘thought leader’ in your industry, but I can’t seem to follow my own advice. (See this article about blogging)

Last week I finally signed up for Myspace-though I have yet to make it mine. On Facebook my friend list grows, but my status updates don’t. I even have my status updates on Facebook linked to Twitter to make it easier. But, to this day, I have 28 followers on Twitter but only a total of 29 updates-EVER.

Not only is Myspace on hold, but so is Delicious and StumpleUpon. I’d even love to explore Ning a bit more, but can’t find the time to stay up on my Google Analytics & Adsense accounts let alone my Commision Junction account.

Work smarter is an option, but I’m looking for anyone with other ideas. Are you experiencing the same problem? Is it just that time of year? Let me know what you think. Which social media tools do you find not worth the effort? Which ones do you swear by?

Whenever I get some downtime I’ll finish reading the 4 books that I have lined up to read and then maybe, just maybe I’ll add some more contacts to LinkedIn.

Dang, Shaun Ring made us look GOOD!

We were so excited about having a story about us in last week’s issue of Business Lexington. We couldn’t believe it when we got our copy in the mail and saw that our photo was featured on the cover and the table of contents! Talking about exposure that money can’t buy. Bill and I are grateful for the opportunity to work and live in such a wonderful community. Thank you Smiley Pete Publishing, Kathie Stamps and Shaun Ring Photography. (BTW, the week before the story came out Shaun ran a very creative promotion using Twitter and Facebook which resulted in our professional photos. I highly recommend you check him out as his photography is just as outside-the-box as his marketing.)

I guess this is the lazy way of blogging rather than coming up with interesting stuff on my own, I share with you some of the good stuff I have found around the web.

1) Before we can read, we know what a logo represents. It shows how powerful a good logo can be. Track some of them through the ages here: Evolution of Logos

2) Have you or your company gone digital yet? A good short article on the benefits of investing in digital rather than traditional. Going Digital

3) Need to find a logo to use: Brands of the World

4) Newspapers in decline. Nothing new, but worth mentioning. Bye-bye old media.

Barack Obama is a taco salad. Oh Yeah, well … John McCain is a nacho.

This according to a new web strategy by Qdoba. Tastebud politics is a great new viral tool by the folks at Qdoba. After seeing this, I wanted to send it to all my friends, because after all if you can talk to your friends about what’s going on in politics and not end up debating about healthcare or the economy its a good thing, right? Now Qdoba turns that debate into nachos and quesadillas.

Remember back in the day (1997) when we were all a little less net savvy and we would get the email telling us about how Bill Gates would give you $1000 for sending that email to as many people as possible. Even though I am proud to say that I didn’t bite on that one, enough people did to make it a classic example of how a message can spread virally.

Many people took notice of how effective this strategy would work in the land of the internet. Many others trying to duplicate this viral strategy sent out all sorts of bogus messages telling of great news or tall tales, and luckily today we have snopes.com to determine which of these is true.

Web powerhouses such as hotmail.com, myspace and facebook have grown dramatically from viral methods. Much like a virus spreads, one person tells two, those two tell two or three more and so on, before long without an FCC regulated medium, hundreds if not thousands (or millions in some cases) have heard the message.

Seth Godin calls it interuption marketing and Steve Yastrow calls it ‘Brute Force Branding” Steve was a speaker this morning at the ExactTarget conference. He is the author of two books, the latest being “We. The Ideal Customer Relationship.”

Some thoughts from Steve Yastrow:
We get more than 5000 branding messages. How many actually work? Not many can cut through the clutter with brute force. Yastrow says that we need to use brand harmony-an overall picture that prospects experience from your brand, thus creating an image of your brand.

Most marketers think that they are the ones who brand the company. But it is the customer who brands the company. It is not what is said, but what is heard.

Yastrow says that the goal for marketers should be to create a customer relationship that is an ongoing conversation in which your customers never think of you without thinking of both of you. Not two. We.

More from the conference later.