Social Networking - It Works!

I had heard social networking was the way to go to promote our business. It sounded good in theory and  recently I was pleased to have had some interactions that have made me a believer. Before I go further a little primer on social networking. The key is maximizing the amount of people that can link to you. With every person who touches your social network you can potentially have access to all of their social groupsk. This can be done with your web page as the ultimate focal point. It is the reservoir of information. Everything that a person wants to know about you or your business is on the website. Most of this information does not change very often and doesn't usually involve two way communication.  For that you can use Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and other social media sites for immediate interactions. When you want to get the word out quickly to many people this is the what you do. These instant contact networks ultimately drive traffic to your web site.

So what happened to make me a believer?


We are planning a client education day to educate current and potential clients and support some local horse charities. We posted this on our Facebook page where we have 236 fans. Immediately a friend, Sarah Pratt, from www.horsejobs.ca commented that she was looking forward to the event. A day later she commented again asking if we were looking to sell tables for vendors at the event. How did she guess? It gets better. Through the Facebook page she joined my Twitter feed. When I posted that I had a new blog she joined up to this blog and created a link from my blog to her blog. Wow. From one mention on our Facebook page I have a new follower to my Twitter account, a subscriber to this blog and a great company who wants to support our charity client education event. Sarah is very active in social networking so now all of her friends, fans and followers know about what we are doing. Amazing. By the way check out her blog at http://horsejobs.ca/blog/.

Last week we posted on our Facebook page and on my Twitter feed that online registration is available for the client ce day event. I kid you not that within one hour 4 people had signed up and paid for their registration. And of course we have increased the chances that we will be exposed to the social networks of these registrants. Not bad for a brief mention on a web page.  I should also mention that the total cost to us was free.

I am excited because I have just begun scratching the surface of social networking. Our plan is to keep adding regular content to our Facebook and Twitter feeds. One of the things I have learned is that regular content that offers value is rewarded by more followers. Already one of our associates, Dr. Michelle Courtemanche has begun tweeting on Twitter. You can find her at MTCDVM when you search on Twitter. We will begin sending out email blasts to clients promoting our client ce day and our new preventative health plan for horses. I will post any new and exciting surprises we discover as we delve deeper into the world of social networking.
There are two great books to read to get a good overview of this subject.
"Six Pixels of Separation" by Mitch Joel
"Crush it" by Gary Vaynerchuck.

Please let me know of your experiences good and bad with social networking!

Zappos - Tony Robbins - Business Mastery - 01-16-10

I found this great slideshow that Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos recently presented. Zappos is an amazing success story that has a very distinct culture that is responsible for much of it's success.

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Zappos - Tony Robbins - Business Mastery - 01-16-10

View more presentations from zappos.

Tech Tip #2

Organizing My Life

Although I try to organize as much of my stuff on my laptop as I can I still find I have notes and ideas scattered over several folders. When I am feeling retro I have a moleskin notebook that I jot down ideas, thoughts, to do lists and comments that make me laugh. It’s a great accomplishment to write stuff down but it can be hit and miss trying to find things afterwards. I have found a great software called Evernote that allows one to keep ideas, photos, web sites and any other sundry information in one area. The concept is that you create individual subjects or notebooks. In these notebooks you store any pertinent material there. To search for information you assign common tags to the note and search by the tags. There is an iPhone and Blackberry app as well that syncs seamlessly with the desktop version. Using the software you can take a photo or voice message with your smartphone and it files the item in the notebook you choose.

Right now I have a note called blog ideas. Anytime I have an inspired thought I jot down the idea either on my laptop or iPhone. I parked my car at the airport last week. Instead of writing down my location on a scrap piece of paper I took a photo of the location. When I returned I pulled up the photo and went to my truck. Likewise while driving it is not a good idea to write a note but with this application I can create a voice note and have it filed appropriately. Another useful tool is the ability to drag websites or highlighted text in a document to a new note. A great feature is that it is a free software. You can upgrade to a premium version if you require more storage space but the basic free version allows you 40 MB per month which is adequate for my needs.

Check it out at Evernote.com

What Have You Learned Today

The family of a good friend of mine has a special nightly tradition over supper. Each person at the table has to answer what have they learned that day? The first time I had the pleasure of sharing a meal with them I was struck about what a great question it was. I vowed that I would try to answer that question each and every day from then on. I was struck about how that simple question made me stop in my tracks and reflect on my day. What did I do? Who did I interact with? What did I do well? What did I fumble with? What did I learn? Like all great vows unless one is diligent it becomes forgotten. Luckily, I was able to have supper with them last night and guess what I was asked? Of course. This time though I had to think of an answer. And think some more. I couldn't think of one for the longest time. I fumbled out a half hearted answer and promised myself I would answer this question in one way or another every day. It is so obvious that every day we learn something new and it should be acknowledged. Later that night I thought that this can be applied to business as well. I am going to sit back at the end of the day and either silently or with my wife or friends and ask myself what did I learn about the world around me  and my business today? I hope it will force me to sit back and reflect on my day and its achievements, little victories or my works in progress. 

So what did I learn today? I need to stop and think about my myself and my business. How am I doing personally? Where are we succeeding or struggling in our business? What goals have I forgotten about and need to reach? How are our veterinarians doing? How is our support staff doing? Did I do all that I set out to accomplish and finally where were our victories. 

If you like this idea please let me know if it helps you or your business.