An Innovative Way to get more Facebook Followers

KFC Facebook fans get exclusive peak at The Colonel's autobiography | QSRweb.com

Pinterest for Business

Any Business that relies on driving high volume traffic to their website to increase sales, should consider joining Pinterest.  It may not be as popular as Facebook or Twitter, but this virtual pinboard service is attracting plenty of attention.  Pinterest had an estimated 3.3 million unique visitors in the month of October. While there's no mechanism for potential customers to buy your products directly from the site, consider the marketing potential: Popular images (with links back to the original source) can get repinned on hundreds of other users' boards.

Companies that are using Pinterest successfully most often take a broader view of the market.  Rather than directly trying to promote a brand or product, engage your followers by focusing on issues that are important to your customers, such as the environment, healthy living,  and support of your local community.  If you’re still confused about how to use Pinterest for your restaurant or business, take a look at Whole Foods Market, which has really led the way with using the platform to best suit its customers needs.

Whole Foods rarely promotes its products; instead it shows customers all the things they can do with the groceries they buy from its stores. This gives Whole Foods great opportunities to interact with customers. Customers are being informed without hearing a sales pitch, just gentle encouragement to visit Whole Foods, and with over 30,000 Pinterest followers the results speak for themselves.

Use your Pinterest account to pin about certain topics relating to your industry and create a pinboard featuring awesome examples of some of your work.  An example of a company using Pinterest is Minted.  Minted is a global community of independent graphic designers and an online store that prints and sells the best of their designs in the form of paper goods.  They leveraged this tactic by creating themed pinboards that showcase unique ways to use paper. They then include links back to drive traffic back to their website.

If you are a restaurant, you should have a feel for what your customers are interested in. If your restaurant is in a tourist town, have special boards that have various pins of the sites, shops and attractions the town has to offer, the history of the town, your dishes and special events that you host. If you’re in a small town, become active in the community events, local schools’ sporting events, community theater showings and city events. If your restaurant serves food from a specific country or culture, pin images of that place and its traditions.

As you can tell, the trick to succeeding on pinterest isn’t necessarily about showing off your products or services directly. It’s about finding creative ways to show how those products and services fit into the lifestyles of your target audience. find ways to do that, and you’ll have what you need to pop on pinterest just like the brands we have discussed in this blog. 

Creative Thinking

Creative Thinking can be accidental or deliberate. It is the process which we use when we come up with a new idea or the merging of ideas which have not been merged before.  I often have some of my best thinking while driving the car in complete solitude or during one of my afternoon naps.

Afternoon Naps is not just for kids or Grandpa's

When looking for creative answers to problems or new ideas, let your subconscious mind go to work for you while you sleep.  During his day, Thomas Edison would take time out by himself and relax in a chair or on a sofa. Invariably he would be working on a new invention and seeking creative solutions to the problem he was dealing with. He knew that if he could get into that "twilight state" between being awake and being asleep, he could access the pure creative genius of his subconscious mind.
To prevent himself from crossing all the way over the "genius gap" into deep sleep, he would nap with his hand propped up on his elbow while he clutched a handful of ball-bearings. Then he would just drift off to sleep, knowing that his subconscious mind would take up the challenge of his problem and provide a solution. As soon as he went into too deep a sleep, his hand would drop and the ball-bearings would spill noisily on the floor, waking him up again. He'd then write down whatever was in his mind.

So Edison used power napping to catch up on much-needed rest and to give his phenomenal brain a break from conscious effort, allowing his unconscious processes to do the genius thinking for him.  Power napping can recharge your brain and give you a real mental, emotional and physical lift, so that you can perform at your peak again.

Find a way to write down every idea you have, no matter how terrible. Don’t get caught up on whether or not your idea is good yet. What’s important is you make it a habit to record ideas when they happen.  There are plenty of tools available such as voice recording feature on your phone to an idea journal on your tablet or laptop.

Just remember great ideas are born from your daily experiences, not while sitting in front of a computer or watching television.  So get outside, engage in conversations, take a walk and get inspired.

 

Dream

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
- Steve Jobs

The Classic Navy Blue Suit

What color shirt would you most likely wear with a serious navy blue business suit?  Unless you are an employee of IBM where white shirts are a condition of employment, I thought I would consult with some experts.  

The tradition navy blue suit is a must have for any businessman.  According to be stylish.org the first thing you notice is all the colors and shades on it (especially if you are looking at a pinstripe suit).

Overall, the look of the suit is blue but up close we find it has fine lines in teal, maroon and gray. Once you have selected the color of the suit you need to find more of it and the easiest place to do this is with your tie, to complement it. The color of the tie will definitely need some contrast.

The best way to stand out is to pair your suit with a shirt in a bold color. A navy suit (whether it has pinstripes or not) will work great with a light pink or even regular pink shirt.  If pink is not really you, you have another option to playing with color: playing with patterns.  Remember: since the suit color is dark, the shirt and tie color should be lighter for a formal look.

One final note, if you have a 3-button suit jacket make sure that the middle button is the only one buttoned, except the times you sit down, when you should unbutton it completely. If you have a two-button suit, the bottom button should be left unbuttoned. The reason is that it emphasizes your torso’s shape

 

Money Making Mommy Bloggers

In honor of Mothers Day I thought I would write about writing Mothers.  The Mommy blogger has been around for several years now, but did you know the army of chatty, tech-savvy mothers was this large — and monied?
14% of all American mothers with at least one child in their household blog about parenting or turn to blogs for advice.  About 3.9 million moms in the United States identify as bloggers, but just 500 of them are considered to be influential among other mothers, and these "influencers" are very powerful.

The average mommy blogger is 37 years old and 89% of mommy bloggers have kids between the ages of 2 and 11. They’re also socially conscious and are 85% more likely to have supported a politician based on an environmental issue, 88% more likely to buy eco-friendly products and 38% more likely to volunteer than the average mom. 

Top Mommy Bloggers

Girls Gone Child  www.girlsgonechild.net  run by Rebecca Woolf host of Childstyle: with Rebecca Woolf on HGTV and Author of Rockebye: from wild to child, she lives in Los Angeles

The Bloggess  www.thebloggess.com  with Jenny Lawson writes Good Mom, Bad Mom for the Houston Chronicle.

Her Bad Mother  www.herbadmother.com  with Catherine Conners,  director of Social Media at Babble


Dooce  www.dooce.com with Heather Armstrong  everything from breast milk pumps to a guy who talked like Elmo during sex.


Finslippy  www.finslippy.com  with Alice Bradley, Author and writes about family and life in Brooklyn New York.

Post Partum Progress   www.postpartumprogress.com  with Katherine Stone,  award winning speaker on issues of post partum depression and advocate for Womens Health and Empowerment.


The Girl Who   www.thegirlwho.net  with Monica Bielenko,  recovering Mormon and wickedly funny blogger with over 150,000 log in per month


The Pioneer Woman  www.thepioneerwoman.com  with Ree Drummond, cookbook author with her own series on The Food Network informative writings of life on the ranch in Oklahoma.

Amalah  www.amalah.com  with Amy Corbett Storch, straightforward blogs about life as a Mom in the Suburbs of Washington.

Sweet Salty  www.sweetsalty.com with Kate Inglis, writer, photographer, one of my favorites for sure, down home goodness.

Social Media as a Marketing Mix

We all know that our friends and families influence us if they give us a recommendation…or a ‘stay away!’ …for a vendor or business. And those recommendations have proliferated in the social media sphere through sites like Facebook, Urban Spoon and Yelp. But here’s something most of us don’t know. In a recent social media research conducted by the National Restaurant Association consumers were asked if they read a post or comment about a restaurant or retailer, and if they did, how influential was it in deciding whether to visit that establishment. About 60 percent of consumers said they had read a post, and 81 percent said that it influenced them on where they chose to do business.

 What’s more striking is that the numbers looked amazingly similar for vendor-generated posts. Seventy-eight percent of consumers said that those posts influenced where they chose to do business.

So if your presence in social media is just an afterthought, you should start to make it a key part of  your marketing mix.

Ski-in/ski-out Starbucks brings takeaway coffee to the slopes

  A new Starbucks in Squaw Valley, California, is the first to offer a drive-through style ski-in/ski-out service.

Starbucks has recently opened its first outlet to be located on the side of a mountain with a ski-in/ski-out service.

Launched earlier this month, the coffee shop allows snow sports enthusiasts to enjoy a Starbucks beverage while skiing or snow boarding around Squaw Valley in California. It is the first Starbucks to operate a ski-in/ski-out policy, meaning skiers can pull up to a small drive-through style window on the side of the coffee shop, purchase a drink, and ski away, without having to take off their gear. The restaurant will be open from 9am to 4pm throughout the winter season, weather permitting.
Although the coffee shop will inevitably face logistical challenges that branches in cities will not, the new Starbucks will surely reap the rewards from offering such a convenient service to skiers on the move. Those working in snow sports and restaurateurs everywhere, an idea to try out for yourself?

Dairy Queen's Innovative Facebook Contest

Another example of the power of Social Media in Business.  Dairy Queen is marking Oreo's 100th birthday with a location-based, social media-driven contest that will net the winners $100,000.
The Dairy Queen Facebook page boasts over 4.7 million followers, and they forcast 3.5 million check in in the nest three months.  With location based Facebook Places Beta technology they will be able to offer direct incentives to drive local business into their locations.

"Oreo Blizzard 100 is pioneering a new promotional landscape," said Tim Hawley, vice president of Marketing Communications for American Dairy Queen Corporation (ADQ). "This is the first time social media will be used to prove real-world store traffic. We are forecasting 3.5 million check-ins, which would obviously have a strong impact on our business."

Throughout the competition, fans can receive incentives such as gift cards to purchase Blizzard Treats, including the Oreo flavor, which is the most popular Blizzard Treat of all time, or to collect virtual Facebook badges that demonstrate progress made.  Genius.

Germ Scanner

Germ Scanner app new tool in food safety training toolbox

Hand hygiene is one of the most important parts of food safety training, and food safety trainers now have a new tool to aid their efforts in the National Restaurant Association’s Germ Scanner iPhone app.

Created with the generous support of Georgia-Pacific Professional, the free app lets users “scan” their hand using the device’s camera to illustrate various types of germs that might be present and things to keep in mind when washing hands.
After scanning for germs, the user can browse more facts and tips on food safety and hand-washing, including a step-by-step tutorial.

The hand-washing information is provided by the National Restaurant Association’s ServSafe Food Safety training and certification program, which recently launched its new edition course book and redesigned website. With nearly 5 million certifications issued, ServSafe is the industry’s leading food safety training program.

My 8 year old and I downloaded the app on the weekend,  the Germ Scanner app doesn’t actually scan for germs, as smartphone technology isn’t quite there yet, but the results of the simulated scan makes for a great training tool!

The Business of Education

 If you have followed any of the news regarding Quebec's proposed University tuition hikes, and the subsequent protests and near riots that occurred immediately after, you may be surprised to learn that although Premier Jean Charest has provided a compromise to students, talk of peace is far from over.

It says a few significant details were changed and that the final agreement isn't exactly what the students thought they had agreed to. Student leaders are asking that the agreement be revised.
The deal, aimed at ending three months of unrest in the province, uses a variety of mechanisms to keep student fees frozen until the end of the year — but there's a possibility the fees will increase exactly as planned starting next January.

At the same time something extraordinary happened this week in higher education you may have missed. Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology teamed up to announce a US$60-million investment in on-line education known as EdX.  The pilot course is on Circuits and Electronics, and over 120,000 students registered for this course.  There were more students registering for this single online course than make up MIT’s entire alumni.

Technology is changing how we educate our young people, and for Universities this means competition will become increasingly global, expanded beyond the typical bricks and mortar of their campuses. Consider this as example, if I wanted to teach a small course on the growing trends and changes of the Effects of Social Media on Business, I may attract 20 to 30 participants.  However, my linked in group of Retail Managers has over 10,000 members.  I could do a course with this group at a fraction of the cost and with a lot more participants.  Would these Managers want to have access to learning that's convenient, interactive and customized to them, at a reasonable price?

Harvard is betting that students all over the world will use home and office computers to take courses—no trips to Boston required. They’re investing in a nonprofit venture to ensure robust platforms and customized learning, while aiming to come as close as possible to the classroom experience in real time. Even instantaneous language translation may be possible. Mouse tracking may also tell teachers and researchers how students learn and what works and what doesn’t. For now, courses will be free and universally accessible, though that may change. In the short term, only certificates, not traditional degrees, will be available, but who knows where this could lead.

Technology should bring costs down to the end user, not up. However, tuition continues to rise, as does class size. Students graduate with crippling debt.  I believe that Canadian Universities are falling behind the technology curve, and it's time to shake things up.  Certainly an issue we should pay more attention to and possibly some great business opportunities ahead.

At Canadian university, a student-owned microbrewery

The University of British Columbia in Canada is in the process of creating what it says is the world’s first student-owned campus microbrewery.

 The University of British Columbia’s alma mater society is in the process of creating what it says is the world’s first student-owned campus microbrewery.
The UBC Alma Mater Society (AMS) already sells about CAD 1 million a year in alcohol and food at two Vancouver campus outlets, and now there are plans for a student-owned brewery to be built in a new student union building set to be finished in 2014, according to a report in The Province. Plans call for the new microbrewery to occupy the 1,000-square-foot basement of the new building, groundbreaking for which will take place at the end of February. The brewery is reportedly expected to add between CAD 500,000 and CAD 1 million to the new building’s CAD 103 million building budget.
Is there any match more natural than college students and a microbrewery? Campuses and student organizations around the globe, there’s plenty for inspiration here.
Website: www.ams.ubc.ca
Contact: president@ams.ubc.ca
From an article in Springwise Magazine

Want to Start Your Internet Business?

Learning how to start an online affiliate business can be a real challenge for anyone who’s new to the industry.  There’s a lot to learn and if you aren’t careful there are some major mistakes you can make—but for the most part starting an internet based business is simple and a great way to earn extra income online.

 

Start an Online Affiliate Business

 Building a business online as an affiliate is the practice of promoting other peoples’ products or services and making a commission off each sale. Marketing online as an affiliate you can earn money promoting high quality, high priced products that will earn you big commissions.

The first step is to identify what you want to promote and how large you want to grow your business. Try to find out what you’re interested in selling and make sure there’s a market for it as well as decent commissions to be earned.  I often suggest starting with something that you are already somewhat familiar with.  For example,  maybe you know more than most people about weight loss.  Start your research into products and services that you think work and that others will buy.  Check the bottom of the company website to see if they offer affiliate services.

Once you find what you want to promote and decide how serious you are about building the business. Is this something you’re doing for extra income to buy that new car or is this your new sole source of income? Outlining how large you want to shoot for will help set your goals and give you a better chance at succeeding.

Next, consider how you plan to promote the affiliate products or services. Do you want to simply send traffic to a small blog or do you want to have a local authority website that will eventually have thousands of pages? The advantages of going small with a blog site will be that it requires less risk and effort on your part, plus you can rank easier and target less competitive keywords. An authority site is a lot more like a long term internet marketing business plan. If you want to start off with an authority site you’ll have a significantly more difficult uphill battle but the reward is often well worth it. That being said you can also go the safe route and build more modest sites that can fund future projects like authority sites.

If you are starting with a simple blog site there are many "free' blogs available that are easy to set up and get started. Two of my favourites are Blogger and Wordpress.  Now you have to fill it with content.

Create unique, quality content

One of the most important aspects of website creation is content. Generally speaking, website content is what you have on your website. It can be articles, posts, tools, videos, audio or links to interesting or entertaining resources - anything that a visitor can use to his own information.
The key to website success is quality content. Quality content is something that your visitors will enjoy reading, watching or listening to and will refer their friends, colleagues, family members and others to it. By building quality content on your site, you get not only search engine traffic, but trust, reputation, greater conversions and incoming natural links.

General principles for creating quality content it has to be relevant to the main topic of the site (about product or products, services, etc),  it has to provide value to the potential customers and the content should fit in the general industry of the website (about related products or services)

Increase Blog Traffic

 Once you create your blog you will need to learn how to drive traffic. Traffic generation is literally the blood of your business. If you can’t get new traffic to your sites you won’t make sales and you stand no chance at growing your business into a successful one. Start by sharing your blog with everyone you now, think of it as the new age tupper-ware party, you are trying to earn extra income by promoting these great products that you think everyone else can use.  You will be amazed at how fast your following will increase if you provide interesting articles and opinions. If you don't already have one, create a business profiles on Google +, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.  Driving traffic to your website is not complicated, start with the basics and work from there.

Now Your In Business

Once you begin making sales from your website you’ll be on your way to building a “true” business. keep tax records for any employees and make sure you write off appropriate expenses like an office or transportation.  Once you reach your desired size and profitability you have options to expand even further to make more money by eventually buying your own products or service and keep 100% of the commissions and actually recruit your own affiliates to do the legwork of promoting it.

Conclusion

Remember to keep it simple, don't try to be something to everyone, there is a great article by Brian Clark that I will share with you titled;

Five Ways a Minimum Viable Audience Helps You Create a Successful Startup

In this article he says;

Start with a simple process, knowing that there is room to improve and improve constantly based on the feed back that you get.

He goes on to say;

Start with a viable product, see if people are willing to buy it, use feedback from those buyers to rapidly evolve the product into something better that will appeal to a broader audience.

As the old adage goes KISS ( keep it simple stupid )

 http://entreproducer.com/minimum-viable-audience/

 A Donut shop that closes it doors when it sells out!

If you genuinely adore doughnuts like I do, then a trip to The Vault is a  must-do on your Chicago list.
Situated in the Windy City’s River North neighborhood, The Doughnut Vault opens at 8:30 am each day from Tuesday through Friday and 9:30 am on Saturday mornings. Patrons are given good incentive to get there promptly, The blue doors slam shut just as soon as the last ring is sold, which is usually an hour or two after opening.  Forget your visa card, this shop only accepts cash.  Some 600 pastries are reportedly sold by The Doughnut Vault each day.
Doughnuts are easy to find in your average North American city — what better way to set yourself apart than by making sure yours aren’t? A get-it-while-its-hot model to emulate in the category of your choice?