December 15, 2011

Social Media Thursday

 During the month of November, I participated in a campaign sponsored by American Express called “Small Business Saturday”. It occurred on the Saturday after Black Friday and before Cyber Monday. It was a push to draw the consumer to invest some of their holiday spending in small businesses. Part of the campaign included $100 (one hundred dollars) of Facebook Advertising. For FREE. I applied and my little ad was accepted and then, quite honestly, I forgot about that part of the push. I put up information on my Facebook fan page, business page and my personal page. Tweeted about Small Business Saturday and placed signage about it in my booth during the Christmas Wonderfest in Detroit.

I have had an increase in sales (slight, but still even one new sale is better than no sales, right?), but I still didn’t make any connections to AmEx and their campaign. Yesterday I received the following email (excerpted here) :

We are happy to report that with your $100 in free Facebook advertising, your campaign reached 134,036* potential customers. (*Reach is defined by the number of unique impressions delivered within your geo-targeted area.)

To keep the momentum going, American Express OPEN offers a variety of helpful resources on OPEN Forum^®, including social media tips and tools for businesses like yours. It is all part of our ongoing commitment to the success of small, locally owned businesses.

Wow!!! The ad ran on Facebook for approximately 15 days (I got in on the deal late) which meant I was able to spend more per day than I ever would be able to afford (almost $7 per day)on a regular basis. At the same time, Facebook offered a 50% match of AmEx’s $100.00, again FREE, so that meant I was virtually spending $10.00 per day in Facebook Ads- YOWZA! 

Of course, I am, indeed, a small business and so obviously could not keep those ads running. I cancelled my ads, but I have had an increase in my Facebook fans and more specifically, a request from an international company to possibly market one of my products!!! Double YOWZA!!

Check out the open forum and think about saving some of your advertising dollars for one or two times a year to invest in Facebook Ads. You never know how the results will pay out in the end!

See you tomorrow ^_^

Holiday Time, November 2011

So here I was, on a blogging roll when this fabulous 10 day show popped up on my calendar of events. Ten days?!?! Low booth fees?!?! How could I not be there? Aahhhh, but how do I communicate this information to my local customers at the last minute? How do I tell my online customers that I'm having a sale to commemorate this awesome event? I could try phone calls or individual emails, but where does that fit into the production schedule?

Let me let you in on a secret, I recently discovered to handle this. Okay, not so recently discovered, at least not in the big scheme of things. I know you've seen those signs everywhere saying "TEXT _______ to _______ and receive ________". I know I have. I get text coupons from Cold Stone Creamery and Payless Shoe Source just for sending a code text to some random code. Great for big business, but what about us little guys (and gals) who want to do the same thing? Enter the WWW (world wide web, for you non computer geeks)!

I started researching services and found some serious information out there. Customer service runs the full gamut from basic "you-run-the-whole-thing" to ultra supreme "just-tell-us-and-we'll-make-it-happen-for-you". One of the companies I checked out is Textingly. Textingly is a online based text message software. It's like having instant messenger with all your customers at one time. Customers can respond to you and you get real feedback in real time. You manage the messages from your computer. Better yet, you can try the service for free....yes, that what I said, FREE.

Textingly.com

Soooo, now you've seen the video, your interest is peaked and you're wondering what to do next...it's easy. Try it out, click the link on my sidebar or the one right here and see for yourself how you can utilize the service. Me? I'm trying it out for my holiday specials, so if you want to find out what they are, email/convo me your cell phone number and you can get a second hand look at how it works. Don't worry, you can always opt out and never hear from me again, but what fun would that be (tee hee)?

Okay, so that's it for today's Fun with Music and Video. I know it's not Monday, but I promise I'll be back in full swing on Tuesday!

Happy Holidays and remember, we can celebrate Thanksgiving everyday of our lives by appreciating all the people and things we have around us.

November 21, 2011

Fun With Music and Video Monday

This week's video is a mini tutorial on miniature paper roses. I was looking for some cool ideas for my Valentine's Day gift boxes and came across this wonderful little idea. She makes it look all so easy. I can't wait to try them out. I'll be posting the trials next Monday for your critiques.

September 22, 2011

Yesterday was such a crazy emotional day. After having a gut wrenching cry early in the morning, I jumped into my Etsy teams discussions and got busy. Went down into the workshop and made some new items, prepped some others for shipping. Got a severe case of the sleepies and took a nap. Got up on the run, to get ready for kids to come home from school and then off to TaekwonDo. Stopped by an old friend's dance studio and she asked if I wanted to teach for her again. YES!!!!!!! Had a great ride home with the kids, singing Michael Jackson songs and other great oldies, like "Scrubs" by TLC. Now I'm up at midnight, typing this crazy rambling blog post. Yea, exactly.     I have no idea, but I wanted to do something before I went to bed.

See you through the screen.

Thought of You from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.

August 22, 2011

Today's theme is: Time For Change. I spent the weekend at a wonderful dance workshop in Kalamazoo, MI. It was really a great time. Besides learning some new dance routines (choreography, to us dance-y types), I met some great women, and men, had a chance to focus on my goals and get some cool business promoting/growing tips. It was, again, a really great time. Now, it's Monday and it's time to begin putting all that I learned into action!

I also started reading a new book about changing my children's attitude, behavior and character in 5 days. I love my kids (ages 20, 14, 13, & 6) and I think that, overall, I have good children. They represent house and home training pretty well when they are with others. Are they "pod children" (think Stepford Wives)? No-by no means are they scary good. We have issues like many families, rebellious moments, whining, temper tantrums, etc. So this book tells me that I can have better behaved children, mainly by focusing on my behavior. Okay, that makes sense. I just have to have the consistency and will power to maintain the "rules" and not back down. That's where you come in, dear follower and reader. I'll be listing this week, the things that I need to achieve to affect...effect...create change in my world. You see, I know that if I am accountable to someone, I will get it done, because I don't want to say I didn't do something.

So, here's the plan for this week - 1. Have a "Meeting Of One" daily - this meeting with myself is the first order of business everyday. The goals of the meeting are to assess what needs to be physically accomplished for the day, list my business/personal/family goals and brainstorm ways to meet those goals, record progress, problems and possible solutions to stumbling blocks and map the plan of action for the day.

Today's List (Monday, August 22, 2011

• Prayer Session
• Meeting Of One
• Walk Two Miles
• Daily Blog Entry
• Read "Have A New Kid..." Intro & Monday Chapter (complete lessons)
• Task List - Physical Needs (short term)
• Task List - Virtual Needs (long range)

So I'm off now to get started on the things on my Physical Needs Task List. Check out my Artist of the Week on the Art Commons page and have a great Monday!