Friday Five: Pondering

Things I’ve been thinking about lately… maybe you have some input to share?

1.  Should I make a Facebook page for my blog? I feel like a lot of blogs have Facebook pages and I wonder if it would be worth it for mine. If you have a Facebook page for your blog, does it help? Did you notice a difference after adding the page? If you just read, would you want to be a Facebook fan of Probably Rachel?
2. Is it possible to fracture something by sneezing too hard? Like a rib or your sternum? I definitely inherited my dad’s strong sneezes. He used to forgo the tissues and sneeze into a paper towel since he sneezed so hard. I don’t have horrible allergies so I don’t sneeze a lot, but when I do, it’s intense. I’ve bashed my need on the bottom of my desk because sneezing is apparently a whole-body thing.
3. Where are the strange plants coming from? I recently noticed a light pink petunia in the old play area in our back yard (that has a bright future as a patio some day). There was also what looked like some long grass growing up between the house and back sidewalk, when I pulled it, I discovered it was a chive plant. I’m seriously confused… these things weren’t there last year when we moved in.
   

   This is a petunia, right?

4. Why do the best project ideas pop into my head when I’m elbows-deep in another project? I’ve been working on a kind of complicated refashion for awhile. I’ve made and remade it a few times and not been happy with the progress. In the meantime, I’ve had some fantastic ideas for other things, so now I have this quandary… do I put the existing project aside and pick up another or do I trudge trough the existing project and just get it done?
5. Of course… What happened to customer service?

What’s on your mind lately?

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Friday Five: Safari Edition

Friday Five: Things I Don’t Understand

Friday Five: Human Behavior

How to lose fans and allienate supporters

Lately some sort of flu is going around the social media community that ticks me off. It causes community managers (or the intern or volunteer people put in charge of Facebook and Twitter) to host a giveaway and announce that the X number liker or follower will win a prize. I have been know to unlike and unfollow brands that do this.

Seriously?

You want to get more supporters and gain a larger social audience… I follow you so far. But giving away a gift card to the 2,000th (or whatever) person who likes your page, follows you, etc. is a slap in the face from those who have been with you from the beginning… you know before you started giving away free stuff?

Follower/fan drives, can be an effective way to get more visibility online… but not at the expense of losing the people who actually stand behind your brand.

So shift your focus off the exact numerical “supporter” and instead do a drawing… the fair way, that your supporters can all get excited about.

Your message should be, “We’re excited to reach X number of fans/followers soon. Once we hit X number, we’ll draw the name of one (or more!) of our supporters to win a prize!”

It seems so incredibly simple and fair to me.

Don’t forget to say thanks to the people who make (or break) your brand online.

Who out there is doing this well?

Related Posts:

Ask and you shall receive

Put the “social” in social media

The Twitter conversation

Ask and you shall receive

I love getting mail (even if the mail doesn’t love me). I also know that I’m not alone in liking free stuff.

The Stuff

On two separate occasions, I signed up on Facebook pages to receive something free.

Mio released two new flavors: lemonade and blueberry lemonade. Already being a Mio user, I got excited when they let Facebook fans request to try a “sample” of one of the flavors. I  requested a blueberry lemonade. Six to ten days later, I had a full-size blueberry lemonade in the mailbox.

Target (or maybe it was Target Style) allowed their Facebook fans to request a free beauty bag with product samples. I jumped on the opportunity to try some different skincare problems and get some bonus coupons. When my Target beauty bag arrived, it was better than I had expected! The bag alone was worth the time spent submitted my request.

Let’s Talk Timeline

For as addicted to Facebook as people seem to be, there’s a lot of confusion about Facebook Timeline. I was really intrigued and prepared for Timeline to roll out in September and then was sorely disappointed when rollout day came and went and there was no new Facebook! Come to find out it was delayed due to a lawsuit.

I’ve been using Timeline personally since around Christmas. Now, I have about half of the pages that I operate for my clients switched over and the progress feels good.

If you didn’t hear, Timeline for pages was released on Leap Day and on March 30th, every page will be on Timeline.

Why I like Timeline:

• It looks clean
• Cover photos are awesome (awkwardly sized, but awesome)
• I can make things as big or small of a deal as I want
• I can actually find those posts I vaguely remember from a couple of months ago
• There’s no longer a need to make a scrapbook… Facebook did it for me

Our wedding photographer offered to make us a cover photo. Isn't that cool?

Maybe I like this stuff because social media is a massive significant part of my job as a public relations professional, but I just don’t see the point in avoiding Facebook changes. I’d rather be an early-adopter and get it figured out before my friends or clients need help.

Change is change.

Birthday Thursday

I’m celebrating my first post-college birthday today. (Which means it’s my first birthday in a few years that I haven’t been on spring break.)

While I’m enjoying my low carb chocolate cupcake, enjoy some of my morning Timeline entertainment.

Obviously, Bradley is myhusband. Mark is one of our former professors, and the only professor who had us in two classes that we took together.

Related Posts:

The husband’s birthday weekend

To my husband

The Facebook birthday snub

What’s in Rachel’s Purse?

The other day, Victoria’s Secret asked its Facebook fans, “What [is] the one thing in your purse that you can’t live without?” (grammatical error corrected by me)

In the first 36 minute there were 2,048 responses. I briefly scanned some of them, already knowing basically what my answer would be. What appeared to be the most common responses (I have a life, therefore I didn’t read them all) were:

• Lip gloss/lipstick/chapstick
• Phone
• Money/credit cards
• Body spray

Other standouts included: hand sanitizer, keys, tampons and gun. Yes, that made the list.

But lip gloss was by far the most popular answer.

Any guesses on my answer? (which I didn’t post, so don’t bother looking for the thread)

How did you get here?

Where did you come from?

I’m actually not being philosophical, I’m being slightly shallow. Chances are you dropped by this blog by way of Facebook? Which means you’re more likely to comment on its content on my Facebook.

Maybe you found me through Twitter or you’re on the cutting edge and found a post on Google Plus or maybe you just “Stumbled Upon” this blog… I’m frequently entertained by the traffic drivers to my site, specifically when it comes to search terms.

Here are some of my favorite search terms:

Getting pregnant saved my life

dog dopound (spelling error included)

Say Thanks!

Thanksgiving is coming up and more and more things are happening that make me realize how important it is to say “Thank you.” Honestly, it’s two words that go a really, really long way with people.

I was knee deep in wedding thank you notes when I got really sick with DKA and was admitted to the hospital, then the whirlwind of our lives happened and the thank you notes (75% written) sat unsent and I felt like scum. Everyone had been so generous and so supportive of us, but they were still waiting on a thank you note. In this case, I figured that “better late than never” applied.

In our everyday lives, expressions of gratitude are extremely important. But looking on a larger scale, and into the communication industry, gratitude goes a super long way with customers, supporters and partners. Saying “thank you” is a big part of customer service (as are using other basic manners).

Non-profits are usually great examples of organizations who have saying thanks down to an art. Without generosity and support they can’t succeed and they frequently acknowledge that. An organization which I particularly close to that does a fantastic job of saying thank you is Humane Ohio. I interned for them when I was a junior at Mount Union. They take gratitude seriously with a section of their e-news dedicated to saying thanks and constant social media updates about how awesome their volunteers are and about organizations that partner with them for fund raising.

A picture straight from the Humane Ohio Facebook page

Facebook and Google should compare schedules

Last week the whole realm of social media resonated with not one, but two, big announcements on the same day.

Google+ went invitation-free and Facebook overhauled their entire system. Guess who was louder?

Analysis of my social media practices

I obsess over use social media…. a lot of social media. It interests me.

We visited with a friend who made fun of Twitter, FourSquare and Google+ all in one sitting. Afterward, I decided to dissect my motives for the social media that I use.

• Facebook: Facebook is still the king of social networks, it’s been around since high school and I use it to connect with friends and relatives with the occasional brand liking or general creeping that most users participate in.