Keep it shiny and new

People seem to complain about "big box" stores taking over the "mom and pop" stores because of lower prices, more locations, etc... but I feel like that's not always the reason that people start going to these new stores. For example, there is a small "mom and pop" convenience store that just closed down near my place. It coincided with a shiny new liquor store that opened less than a block away across the street. I used to stop at the "mom and pop" store on my walk home from the gym a couple times to buy a bottled drink, but I stopped going there and started going to the brand new shiny liquor store to buy a drink instead. Why you may ask? It's wasn't that their prices were any better. The new liquor store has a better selection, it was bright inside, it looked clean and new, everything in there seemed to be new, and it felt airy and fresh. The "mom and pop" store looked old, you can't tell how long the bottled drinks had actually been in there, some of the food looked rotten, they had piles of junk that looked dirty and old everywhere, nothing was organized correctly, it just looked like a big mish mash of garbage inside. 

I bet a lot of people would agree that they would rather go to the new liquor store instead of the old "mom and pop" store. It's not that the liquor store was a 7-11 or brand name, it is just a random small business, but they keep a nice clean fresh appearance that appeals to their customers. I think this can be used in any medium, not just having to do with stores. It can relate to the look of your business, your image, your ideas... always keep them fresh and new. There will always be someone out there that is waiting for your idea or look to get old and move in with their shiny new approach, so you have to be aware of that. You may be the biggest and best thing on the block now, but you never know when someone new is going to move in the neighborhood and show you up. Remember to always keep it shiny and new! :) 

Boost your social media with a model contest

It's not always easy to tell if your social media tactics will work until you actually try them out. Not every idea will be a perfect fit for every type of business and not every idea will be available to you for free or at a low enough cost. This idea is basically free (unless you offer a cash prize for the winner, but you don't have to). Start a model search for your fan page. This works for fashion, events and more. Get models to enter your contest by offering a reward for the model with the most popularity. You can offer money, the chance to be on your advertising as the face of your product or event for their own publicity or a professional Photoshoot for photos plus being your cover model.

There are free ways to set up the contest. You can set up a firm for models to fill out on the website www.wufoo.com they let you have up to 3 online forms for free. Then you set up a photo folder in your Facebook photos that says "Cover model contest" Add the contest rules, for instance, "write vote in a comment under the model you wish to vote for, only one vote per person per model." Tell the models to post about the model contest on their Facebook to tell their friends to vote for them.

The result is that you will get a lot if traffic to your Facebook post and page which will boost the contest post to be seen by more fans on your Facebook fan page. You will also get more likes on your Facebook page because your contestant models will draw attention to your page and also new fans must like your page in order to vote in the contest.

What is too much promotion?

So what is too much promotion? Some would say that you could never have too much promotion? Maybe I've just spent too much time in Hollywood but most people I know plaster their image and brand ALL OVER EVERYTHING completely 100% shamelessly. Obviously when it comes to things like facebook and twitter, you want to give a little meat to your self promotion so people don't get bored with you trying to ram sales down their throat. What about promoting yourself as a model or actor? Obviously you should put yourself on every ad for everything that you do, but why not put yourself out in as much as you can? You have to toot your own horn.

For example, a big promoter/ model in Hollywood puts his picture on probably 90% of the flyers for his events. Everyone knows exactly who he is and no one complains that he doesn't use other models enough because he is the boss and it's his event. So it makes sense to everyone that he would use his image. A lot of fashion designers use their own image. A boot designer used exclusively herself in every image of her first catalog because she wanted to be the star and she was in charge of the decision making. Her reasoning is that she did all the work to get the boot company to where it is so she should be able to do as many pictures with herself as she wanted. A fashion designer in Beverly Hills still uses her own picture in the windows of her store even at age 60. She gets designers to photoshop it to make her look young and beautiful so that she can keep using her image because people know that she is the owner and she could really care less if someone had anything to say about it. She does use a few other models but when she was younger, it was almost exclusively just her modeling for her own company for years.

The bottom line is that your never too exposed when it comes to promotion. All the people that worry about you being promoted too much are only upset that they are not being promoted enough or fear that you will steal their spotlight. People even create bad publicity to keep getting noticed because even bad publicity is still publicity. In short, don't sell hard, but keep your brand/image in their minds.