Last week, I received three media event invites to see Christmas collections. I am sorry but it is way too early for my need as a blogger. My editorial mind is on “Back to school”, fall collections and then, Halloween. Really, it is a question of industry. In the fashion industry, bloggers are pleased to attend fashion shows because their readers are curious to know what will be in vogue in two seasons. But it doesn’t fit a home decor nor a mom blogger’s agenda.

I know it because I tested before to talk about Halloween in early September and people ignore these posts. Another issue for a bloggers is that we must produce content for now. Therefore, we do not have the time to write a Christmas post that will be published in a few months.

I understand that brands must present their home Christmas collections in July or August if they wish to appear in print magazines. And I applaud the fact that bloggers are included in what used to be reserved to the traditional media. But PR agencies and brands need to show more flexibility if they want to get the best coverage from us. For PR and communications agencies, it requires more than just educating your clients about the social media backdrop. It requires adjusting the budgets to be able to host two media events per season: an early event for traditional media and a second one for bloggers. Social media is changing the world at every level and your business process must follow.

SOURCING:
+ Ferm Living’s Calendar Wall Sticker $126.50 USD

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Twitter is designed for connecting with people and sharing information. While most companies are still debating if they should do it or what they should be saying on Twitter; others are actively involved with the Twitter’s community. Being on Twitter enables the brand who listens and acts quickly to benefit from opportunities, to test on a small scale concepts or promotions, to pinpoint what people really care about and even, to tailor to a new niche.

For those and many more reasons, I believe that a consumer brand who assigns one or two individuals to cover their social media on a full time basis can accomplish a lot to raise the profile of their brand. If small businesses can find the time to be on Twitter, I see no excuse for larger brands to not find a way to finance it.

What about ROI?

Many business people argue about the ROI on being on Twitter. But let’s be honest here. Nobody can really calculate the ROI of a billboard on the highways. Still, brands buy them years after years at a premium price. Why not reallocate the money  of two billboard ad placements to social media for a year and then, see if how it impacts your brand’s reputation, your press coverage, your social media exposure, and yes, sales.

Brands who do it right

See how these companies in the hospitality embrace Twitter. They take initiatives. And some of the things they do are pretty cool! Look at what Roger Smith Hotel, an independent hotel in New York City, has accomplished. I read on Happy Hotelier that Chris Brogan talked on a 10-minute keynote speech he gave at Web 2.0 conference about how his affluent friends on Twitter suggested the Roger Smith Hotel when he asked for where to stay in New York City. Plus, you can hear his recommendation on a video (the Roger Smith Hotel story starts at about 2:22 minutes) on his blog and on You Tube. I could continue but Mashable wrote a convincing post about How Hospitality Companies are Using Social Media for Real Results. Go read it!

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• Turning a Hobby into a Business on Etsy
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It is no secret to everyone who knows me a little that I love Etsy. I bought items on Etsy. I feature my favorite Etsy sellers on my main blog, At Home with Kim Vallee. When I talk about the business opportunity of the Web, Etsy always comes to my mind. Etsy opened the doors to many women, and men, by giving them access to a suitable marketplace. The past business model was solely based on local market and exhibiting at flea markets and fairs. By running an online store, more people could buy their products.

Let’s be clear, most Etsy sellers do not make a good living and will probably never will. But with hard work, a business plan and perseverance, you can do it. The New York Times published a good article on how people turned their hobby into a business on Etsy. Towards the end, the article missed the boat. Being a small entrepreneur asks for sacrifices at first. As a Web developer, I recalled doing rush jobs once in a while that meant working 16 hours a day.

Starting any mom and pop shop requires a lot of work, regardless of the products or services you sell. The sellers mentioned on the NY Times articles seem to be at a transition point where they moved from a mom and pop shop to the SOHO stage. Once their employees or freelancers are trained, they will be able to get more free time. In fact, this already happened for Ms. Vasquez.

Mixing Life and Business at Home

About that quote “At dinners, she and her husband talked only about business.”, it is normal at this stage. It requires discipline to find other topics to talk about. For the last 15 years, I have a business with my husband. We make sure to find time every day to talk about something else. We make sure we have hobbies outside our business. But it is also good to exchange about our respective business projects, where we want to go and to dream together of a successful outcome. It energizes us. Plus, talking about it ensures that we are both comfortable with the way we live together.

But you also need to network to grow your business and for your well-being. Meeting people provides new conversation topics. If you do not go out enough, it is not healthy.

Why Etsy?

If you are thinking about selling handmade products online, I suggest to any creative sellers to do three things:

• Have a blog where you not only talk about your products but also about other people products, design ideas that you like. There is an Etsy widget that will allow you to feature on the sidebar a few products from your Etsy shop. Make sure to add the Etsy widget to your blog.
• Open an Etsy shop. Bloggers love Etsy and being active in the social media community is key for promoting your shop.
• Use Facebook and Twitters. Make connections with people online and offline.

SOURCING:
+ photo: The Journey Journal by Cracked Designs on etsy $12 USD
+ That Hobby Looks Like a Lot of Work on The New York Times

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If you follow social media, you probably read the headlines about the numbers of Facebook fans. (November 30th, 2009 Update: On average, Facebook pages have 4, 596 fans). The highlight of the latest survey by Sysomos is that 77 percent of Facebook fan pages have less than 1,000 fans.  I read different theories about why or how to fix this. So here is my two cents.

First of all, let’s not forget that many small businesses, local designers and blogs have Facebook pages. Many of them has embraced Facebook as an affordable way to promote their brand. The owner or their marketing people typically passes a few hours a week or a month managing their social media presence.

Second, except for a small group, big names have not fully take advantage of Facebook pages. Many large corporations or organizations do not have a community manager or social media spokesperson on their payroll. Some people blamed the lack of a proper social strategy for the small numbers of fans. Yes, Facebook is not the answer for every business but I would tell you that getting the manpower to realize the strategy is more than often the biggest obstacle, besides misconceptions about social media. One thing is certain: If you do not engage with your fans, you cannot expect to get millions of fans just like that.

Lastly, Techcrunch noted that Facebook pages are typically updated every 16 days. They argue that Facebook users become a fan to show their support of affinity while people follow a brand on Twitter to hear what they have to say. There made some valid points. In fact, this is why I do not say or show the same things on my Facebook pages than on Twitter. The level of conversation is different. And maybe the problem is that brands have more trouble figuring out what to say on Facebook.

+ via Techcrunch where you can find more statistics about the survey by Sysomos

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When it comes to social media, you can do a lot if you take the time to think about how to use what already exists? A good example of using a feature that people are familiar with is the IKEA Showroom Facebook campaign. The beauty is that any business with a small marketing budget can do this.

For the opening a new IKEA store in Malmo, Sweden, their agency Forsman & Bodenfors devised a simple Facebook contest. The store manager uploaded showroom pictures to his profile. Participants won a product by being the first to tag their name to a product that appeared on the showroom pictures. Clever! They used the tagging function of Facebook, one of the most powerful features in Facebook to spread the word about their campaign. The nice thing is that anyone can do this.

This is what Guy Kasawaki refers as $0 marketing. It is not totally zero since you need influencers to market it, a person to run the campaign and in this case, the prizes. But now that I shared the key elements with you, assuming that you already built a good network online, you could bypass the agency and forget the ads in the newspapers. View like that, it is a very affordable advertising method.

Profile versus Fan Page

The IKEA Showroom Facebook campaign was built on a Facebook profile for the manager of the new store, Gordon Gustavsson. They opted for a profile instead of a fan page because a profile feels more personal. Nobody can deny that. You can set the photo permissions on your profile to be visible by everyone so that people do not need to become your friend before starting to tag themselves. Know that Facebook automatically asks the owner of a photo to approve the tagging requests from people with whom they are not friend.

If you opt for a fan page,  you could still communicate with the voice of the store manager on a fan page. Things to consider is the amount of time you can put on campaign management and your long term objectives. Creating a profile requires you to accept the friend requests. Fans are accepted automatically. Fan page has more promotional values. You may want to use the contest to build your fan base and not just a one time buzz.

Some people may argue that activities from a profile are more likely to show up on the news feeds. With the recent changes in the news feeds, Peter Deng of Facebook told in an interview that pages with many comments and likes should come up at a good rate  in the news feeds. It is up to you to trigger the buzz. As you can see both methods have values. Consider all elements before making your choice.

Watch the video for more details.

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With more and more businesses jumping into social media, it is important that you read this to avoid mistakes. There are some subtleties that a beginner may not easy grasp when comes the time to create a Facebook page.

First of all, businesses must create a page. Profiles are exclusively reserved for humans. You go against the terms of use of Facebook and many people, including me, will refuse your friend invitations. Think about it. Someone does not want to become friend with a brand, but they might be a fan.

How to Proceed?

You first need to sign in with the profile you want to use as the creator/owner of the page and then, create the Facebook page of the business. One fact that you need to know is that, contrary to group, people do not see who is the creator of a business page.

This is where it may be confusing to beginners. A Facebook page must be created by a person with a Facebook profile. The creator cannot be changed. If you are the sole owner of a small business, it is simple. The owner of the business creates his/her profile and then, the page for the business. What happens if you are a corporation or have multiple owners?

Choose wisely who creates the page

I repeat, the creator of a page have administrative power over the page forever. Therefore, if you ask a consultant or an employee to create a page your business make sure they do it right. Otherwise, they will always have access and control your page forever. It is easy to forget that important detail in the middle of the action.

I got the last piece of the puzzle (the ownership of the page) after a discussion with Jerome Paradis of Paradivision over dinner earlier this week. And we both discussed it with other social media experts. One may be inclined to create a profile that the business will control. One idea is a profile for a top position at the corporation, like the president or even the communications director where it is seen as the position, not the person who holds the title. Notice that it is against the terms of use of Facebook to create a profile for a person who does not exist and that a person cannot have 2 profiles. Facebook may imagine a better way to deal with the business page ownership in the future. Until then, you do not really have a feasible option.

Before you create your page, I invite you to read those texts written by Facebook about their Business Fan pages:

+ Who Owns Your Facebook Business Fan Page? – Talked more about the problematic than the solution
+ Facebook Pages: What are Facebook Pages? Should I create one?

Disclaimer:  Jerome Paradis is my husband and I own shares of Paradivision.

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A reader asked me to tell him how he can post text on a fan page. The same way that you can decide if your Facebook friends are allowed to post comments on your wall, the owner of a fan page can define their wall settings. In short, a fan can post text, photos, videos and links on a fan page if the page owner has granted permissions to their fans.

To not allow your fans to write or post content on the fan wall is a big no-no on my book. I will go as far as saying that if this is your philosophy, your brand is not ready to be on Facebook. I encourage your brand to go over its fear since you are missing out a big opportunity.

Encourage Participation with the right Wall Settings on your Fan Page

Web 2.0 is based on interactions. The value of a fan page is to have a true dialogue with your fans. For that to happen, they need the power to express themselves. I advise any brand or blogger to use the above settings for their fan page.

There are two elements that you can customize. The first are the View Settings. To not miss any intervention by your fans, set the Default view for wall at “Post by Page and Fans”. For the Fan Permissions, I allow my fans to post anything on my page fans. As the fan page administrator, know that you can always delete inappropriate or unsolicited marketing (spam) material.

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Social media is not only for people. It provides great opportunities for businesses, when done right. Social media allows any business to engage, listen, share and exchange ideas with consumers like you never been able to do it before. Plus, I feel that you can discover way more than with traditional communications and running controlled focus groups. You will discover the truth about what people feels and thinks.

One friend who shares my passion for social media in the business is Lara McCulloch, Marketing Director at Regal Tent Productions Ltd. I met her last year while blogging. We had dinner together last winter after the IDS 09 in Toronto.

Lara produced a blog called Ready 2 Spark but she is also a change agent in her industry. Lara organizes Twitter chat events twice a week where event professionals discuss matters affecting their industry. Her #eventprofs Twitter chat have been noticed by Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media and will be included as a good practice in the The Twitter Book.

I am telling you all this because Lara wrote an article for Special Events Magazine last month about the need for change in business marketing and communications. She made a good argument on why business must adapt and take advantage of the possibility that social media offers to them. She addressed some of the most common fear by management.

MORE:
+ The World is Changing … Why Aren’t You? in Special Events Magazine

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