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Great Infographic produced by the gang at onlineschools.org. If you are still not on the Facebook bandwagon what are you waiting for? The world is passing you by.
The Power of Social Media has changed the way we do business. I’ve often heard it’s not how much you know it’s who you know. And to a certain extent this seems to be true. Here’s how my career path progressed from high school.
My first job was working as “joe everything” at my Family’s Restaurant – The Oriental Pearl. I was a shoe in for the job…my main connection was the owner of the company.
At age 18 I decided to get experience outside of the Family business.
Sold Webster’s Dictionaries door-to-door…I got this job by applying to and ad…I did have any connections. This company would have hired anyone with a pulse.
Sold Kirby Vacuums, again I had a pulse…a key trait required for getting the job.
Bicycle Courier, great job, got fit and got paid well to hustle. A family friend worked at this company and I got the job no questions asked.
Civil Engineering – Summer Help with the Manitoba Department of Highways and Transportation. A couple of my friends worked there and put in a word for me. But do university students pull any weight in the hiring decision? In this case – NO. My sheer determination to land this job got me in the seat.
Summer Student at Richardson Greenshields – this was a job posting at the Summer Student Job Board. I didn’t have any connections for this one…got hired with my charm. Although, I think that the fact the job was partly subsidized by the government had something to do with me getting hired.
TD Bank, this was my first job out of University and I landed this job based on their campus interview process. The TD Bank turned out to be a 10 year career with various job postings and career advancements. I believe most of my moves in the bank were based on a combination of reputation and who you knew. Most movers and shakers in the bank wanted to move up as well so they tended to be the ones that “got it”. Meaning…surround yourself with good high performing people that make you look good. If you performed and maintained good relationships with these upwardly mobile people – opportunity would come your way. In a sense, my career path was like surfing a wave…at almost 10 years it was a nice one at that.
My job at CJOB/POWER97 came as a result of a friend introducing me to the General Sales Manager of the station. My friend Blair put in a good word for me I’m sure…but I believe I got the job based on skills and talent.
My role at Pizza Hotline, came about as a result of being a client centric Account Executive at the radio station. If you focus on the client good things happen…and in this case I got a tremendous opportunity to hone my skills working with a market leader.
My current role as Sales & Marketing Strategist at Naida Communications came as a result of rekindled university friendship. His company worked on a marketing piece for Pizza Hotline…I got to know Jeff and his company better and made the decision to join him.
As you can see, my career progression has been largely shaped by hard work,good reputation and enhanced by people I know.
Your hard work and reputation can be further leveraged with the efficiency of Social Media. How? think more job opportunities, more joint venture opportunities, more sales opportunities. Having said this, you can’t just sign up for a LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter account and expect things to happen. Things happen when you engage, get connected and offer value. Improve your odds twofold by getting a warm lead in…it’s worked for me and I’m sure it would work for you too.
Check out my LinkedIn Map Network…it’s a cool feature that LinkedIn offers to help you see how your world is interconnected. First you need to be LinkedIn, then you need to get connected by reaching out to people, then you can get your MAP done by going here. What you see below is my ZOOMED out version but when you ZOOMIN…you see all the names beside the dots.
They say that the next generation of communicators don’t even use email anymore. It’s either SMS or BBM they say. For me, I find that I still use email quite a bit. But I also understand that Social Media is playing an increasing role of corporate and personal branding.
So how do you brand yourself a little better? By creating links to yourself in your Outlook Email Signature. How? Follow the simple steps below.
You can “right click” on the icons I use below and save them as a PNG Image to your desktop.
Once open, go to Tools drop down menu and select Options
Click on the Mail Format tab then Signatures
Click on New, and then Create a Name for Your New Signature, Click OK
Fill in the contact details, add your previously saved icons by clicking the add picture button (see red arrow)…select files accordingly….click OK
To Add Links to your Icons:
A great article posted by Casey Hibbard at Social Media Examiner. A Case Review on how Cold Stone Creamery racked up the sales with the use of Facebook. It’s a great read because I experienced good results by implementing some of these tactics with a client of mine. The advantage with Social Media is that if it’s done right the ROI compared to traditional advertising mediums make the decision to do Social Media a no-brainer.
By Casey Hibbard
Published November 22, 2010
Ice cream has always been social. But Cold Stone Creamery has found a way to make it even more so—with Facebook.
The American ice cream retailer, known for pounding and slapping customized creations on a “cold stone,” has long been a favorite of ice cream lovers – enthusiasm that has helped churn out 1,459 locations in the U.S. and 16 countries.
Like many retailers, the company long relied on traditional advertising to spread the word. But a YouTube video contest in 2005 set the company on a social media course.
Today, Cold Stone continues to innovate outside the kitchen, recently releasing what may be the first eGift feature on Facebook, and running contests that get thousands engaged even more deeply with the brand.
The payoff goes well beyond greater customer engagement; Cold Stone’s promotions add to the bottom line by moving people from their computers to physical stores.
Organization: Cold Stone Creamery
Social Media Handles & Stats:
Website: ColdStoneCreamery.com
Twitter: 2,460 followers
Facebook: 830,478 fans
YouTube: 26,251 views since channel created in June
Highlights:
If you’re on Facebook, you’ve likely either given or received a virtual “gift” or widget from a friend, an icon such as a birthday cake or heart. These virtual tokens of affection allow friends to express their care.
This July, Cold Stone made eGifting more tangible. Now you can send Facebook friends a code for an actual ice cream creation eGift, ranging from $5 to $7, right from the Cold Stone Facebook fan page for delivery via Facebook or email. Like a gift certificate, recipients can instantly redeem the gift at any of the retailer’s American locations by showing a printout or the code on their mobile phones.
Cold Stone’s eGift Social uniquely allows Facebook friends to send codes for tangible gifts.
For a viral effect, the eGift shows up in the recipient’s News Feed on Facebook, so all friends can see it.
One of the first brands to enable eGift Social, created by First Data Corporation, Cold Stone links its social media presence directly with sales.
“The strategy, and really our goal, for eGift was more for that everyday gift,” said Suzanne Schutz, vice president of marketing at Cold Stone Creamery. “So, Veronica is having a bad day. I see that she posted something on her Facebook status. Very easily from the office in 2 minutes, I can spend $5 and send her an ice cream, and it makes her day.”
So far, the results are impressive, delivering on Cold Stone’s goal of increasing revenue for its many franchisees.
“We’ve sold in just over a month and a half, about 2,000 eGifts and we’ve added roughly $10,000 in incremental sales to the franchisees,” Schutz said. “Franchisees love it because they don’t have to do anything. It’s no extra labor. It’s all done in the virtual world, if you will, and then they just watch the sales come in. So they love it. We love it. Our fans love it. It’s definitely a win-win.”
In direct response to Facebook fans’ requests, Cold Stone decided to run a 2-for-$5 coupon campaign. The retailer posted the offer on its Facebook page and notified contacts by email.
Just 3 weeks in, fans had printed more than 500,000 coupons, with more than 20,000 of those from Facebook. Clearly, the campaign went well beyond just pleasing customers.
“Since we launched the campaign, we’ve seen sales increase just about 1 to 1.2%,” Schutz said. “We’ve seen a redemption rate of over 14%. For me as an advertiser, that’s a great ROI. For traditional advertising we would have spent upwards of $500,000 and we would have seen less redemption. I think our average redemption was .02%. So far, it exceeds what traditional advertising and print do.”
We are enjoying an uncharacteristically warm November in Winnipeg. But with the thought of plummeting temperatures and drifts of snow the idea of a warm vacation always comes to mind.
Over the past few years the travel game has changed a lot. Discount websites like iTravel2000, SellOffVacations, Priceline and Hotwire have challenged the revenue streams of many local travel agencies. Do your typical store front travel agents have a place in the business world? For the time being, I think the answer is yes but not sure how long. My interaction with this travel company was the inspiration to this post.
I called this travel company because my wife had booked with them last year. Our primary reason? They double our points on our Visa card. Since the agent we used last year provided some good information we call back again this year…warm lead initiated.
The call started ok but nosedived shortly thereafter. Below is a post-mortem and hopefully you’ll increase your sales by plugging up your lead leaks. I see the following 8 things occur on a regular basis all of which can vaporize your leads:
If you are in the game of sales make it easy for me to buy from you. As I am ready to BUY but still have yet to book a vacation.
Need more help with Marketing Strategy that can lead to more sales? Email me at ron[at]naidacom.com.
