Twitter Chat Schedule

I had the wonderful pleasure of giving a talk about social media during the Girlfriends Getaway Bolton Landing, and one of the items I brought up was twitter chats. If it's a topic, there is likely a twitter chat for it. From fitness to government, there is a chat for everyone and every professional.

I told the women in my seminar I would post the link to the twitter chat schedule on my site so they could check out all the amazing discussions going on around the world about topics that interest them and connect with like-minded people. So, here is the schedule -- it's a Google docs file.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mothers' Day to all the moms out there! :)

To celebrate, here is a picture of me when I was little with my mom, her mom and her grandmother! Four generations in that shot, which was taken at my great-grandmother's in Lake George, N.Y. when I was a toddler.

No Comment? No Problem. Just "Like" Me, Please.

Everyone who writes a blog, or website wants more comments. The theory behind it is, more comments means more followers, readers and interactions -- and that equals more influence.

But, these days I would rather a reader "like" or "recommend" me, because it gets more eyes on my brand and post. When someone hits the "like" or "recommend" button on your website, it is shared immediately on Facebook.

It shows up in their newsfeed for all their friends to see it. And, it's not just some short to-the-point sentence. People see the person who recommended it, the title of your post, your website and usually the first graph, or whatever meta tags you have added.

If someone leaves a comment the only people who it is visible to are the people who already come to your site, and you. If they "like" or "recommend" you it is instant word-of-mouth marketing among friends, similar to a friend telling someone to go buy a product because they liked it when they tried it.

So, don't get upset if you don't have a bunch of comments, and instead be happy you are "liked."

Croudsourcing Your Personal Brand

Sometimes I laugh when people seem so shocked about the idea of crowdsourcing, because really, you are doing something people have done for ages -- asking someone else's opinion. Just this time, it's on a larger, and more public scale.

No matter what we say, we all worry about what people think, and by crowdsourcing you are able to put something out there and get criticism and complements on a project, idea, logo or whatever, before actually sinking money, or making a strong commitment, into it.

I've crowdsourced for brands before, but this was the first time I crowdsourced something for one of my personal brands. It was a magnet design for The Adirondack Chick, my food, travel and outdoors website.

A little background -- the magnets will be put in gift bags at an event I'm speaking at in the Adirondacks next month. While I'm speaking about social media during the wellness weekend, it seemed more appropriate to add something to the bags that was more closely related to my Adirondack Chick site, since all of the attendees are females, and well, we will be in the Adirondacks.

Here were the three designs I placed on my personal Facebook page and asked friends their opinion:

I was absolutely in love with the first design, but several people pointed out they thought part of the word Adirondack was lost in the center of the flower. After playing around with it and looking at it printed, they were right. So, we went back to the drawing board, aka Photoshop.

We played around with the shadows and other font, but it still wasn't working out as nicely as we planned. Instead, we decided to take a page from my business card, and move the sunflower image - which by the way, was actually grown in the Adirondacks in my garden - to the side and layer just a portion of the wording over it leaving a little white space.

After uploading the second and third one, we got great feedback on the third image, and because we had to make a decision ASAP, because of deadlines, went with it. 

I'm very pleased with the final results, and am really glad I asked for other people's opinions. 

Social Media: L'Oreal Careers in the USA Facebook Page "Gets It"

People are always asking me for examples of brands and companies that "get" social media. I have several names I keep in my back pocket for use, but am also always looking for new ones, and one of my recent finds was the page, 'L'Oreal Careers in the USA.' They are hitting the mark on most of the major responsibilities of running a Facebook page - timely interaction, making a connection, updating often and being transparent.

Being that it is a page focused on company employment, and in this economy it seems like everyone is looking for a job, I was pleasantly surprised they allow people to post on their wall. (Something, I'm a big advocate of, but some brands are reluctant to do)

They communicate with the people posting to their page, many of which are people seeking jobs, and although in many cases give a standard answer, they give one that shows the company is paying attention.

The screen shot below from their page is a great examples of how a brand can interact with a Facebook user about an issue some may consider a sensitive.

Clearly, Eric is not happy that he hasn't heard back about his application. But, L'Oreal gives him a general, but what comes across as genuine, answer. Eric even thanks them in the end. The whole interaction leaves you with a positive image of L'Oreal -- all because they took the time to answer questions from a potential employee.

A quick scan of their page shows only several Facebook user posts that have gone unanswered for whatever reason, but for the most part, they get it.

They also get the idea that a large company like them may need more than one Facebook page. By having a separate page just directed at people who are interested in working there, they are also directing these people away from their "brand" page, which could get cluttered with people just asking about jobs and internship. A very smart move.

- Michelle