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.

Keep talking... you're making me famous

You know the saying... keep talking shit, you're making me famous? Well it's actually true in a very distinctive way on facebook. When you post a message on facebook, and someone likes you post or comments, it actually boosts your post so that more people can see it. So not matter what someone said about your post, good or bad... it gets seen more. So if you don't like what someone said or did, don't comment because your only helping their post get seen in the long run. On the other hand, if you do want to boost your friends post, like and comment on it so it gets seen more.

All those celebrities out there know that any publicity, good or bad is good publicity. Every scandal, every picture in a magazine... it all helps them letting you know who they are. When no one is talking, no one cares. It's a good thing to keep in mind next time someone writes something rude about you online. Keep talking... you're making me famous!

Online sales require more than just a good product

When it comes to selling online, it takes more than just the product in your hand and a snap of the item crumpled on the floor. I experienced this when selling racing swim suits online. I noticed that someone else was selling the exact same swim suit, only their price was $29 and had no bids after 5 days, and my starting price was $39 and had a bid after only one day. So what made my swim suit better when it was the exact same swim suit? The picture and the listing made the difference. They used a shot of the suit crumpled on the floor taken by their phone, I used a shot of the swimsuit I had researched for and found online. It was an older version of a brand name swim suit that wasn't sold much anymore online but you could still find the info and pictures for it if you really looked. I did a lot of research to find the right images and description but in the end it payed off because buyers are more interested in seeing professional images and a better description.

Their image of the swim suit

My image of the swim suit- though a little pixelated and I had to do a little photoshopping to make it look right, still a much better picture and more appealing to buyers.

Facebook now charging for personal page posts

I have to say, I was quite shocked when Facebook decided that in order to reach a large amount of fans on your business page, you now have to pay to reach out to the fans that you tried so hard to collect in the first place assuming that you would be able to reach them easily with your business page. But now Facebook is offering this for your personal page as well. They have a button now on your post that says "promote" it then wants you to pay $7 in order to make your post "important news" on your friends newsfeeds.

This seems like the beginning of Facebook slowly becoming a paid site which will ruin the while concept of Facebook completely.

I'm wondering what the push is for these new methods of making Facebook users pay? Are the billions of dollars Facebook is making off advertisers not enough? Are they just getting greedy? Or are advertisers backing out because, in my opinion at least, Facebook advertising is less effective than google advertising.

I understand hitting up the advertisers and small businesses for cash, but hitting up the typical consumer Facebook user is just going overboard. What is going to be paid next? Does this mean that my posts aren't going to be seen by as many of my friends if I don't pay?

The big question is, what do I really get out of paying the $7 to promote something to "important news" on my personal page. Lets say I want people to know about my small business or my event, am I really going to make $7 worth of profit from advertising to under 1500 friends? Not necessarily. Maybe if I was a medium sized business with a personal page but I'd say the majority of people are not.

Now I'm just wondering what the next social media site that's going to be coming up if Facebook wants to keep hitting us up for money, I know everyone will be gone soon enough. Maybe google plus? I'm not a fan of their layout but I'm also not a fan if paying for posts!

Facebook coupon offers

I think I like this new promotional tool on facebook business/fan pages. You can pay to offer a coupon to your network and you can choose how many it reaches. I don't like the fact that it has a limited reach, because I feel like when I got all those "likes" on my page, I should be able to reach them like I would with an email address only on their facebook wall. But the good thing about the coupons is that if someone see the coupon and clicks on it to redeem it, it comes up in their friends newsfeed that they have redeemed a coupon from this business.

It's cool for me as a consumer because then I can see some offers that are out there that my friends were interested in and it's cool for me as a business because my coupon code and like to my page gets posted on that persons page so all of their friends can check out my offer as well and possibly go to "like" my business too or redeem the offer. I will probably use this each time I want to post about a coupon code for my online jewelry sales business. I like that it reaches out to more than just my fans, it can reach their friends and friends of friends too. That in itself if worth it more than just letting my fans see a post. Also, the fans that click on the offer are more likely to see my future posts in their news feed than they would have before because now they've shown interest by clicking something I posted.