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How To Support Your Favorite Business Without Spending a Penny

1 Comment / Business & Marketing for Massage /

Recently a cool, little place here in Decatur that I enjoyed frequenting went out of business. In my past I was notorious for picking hairdressers, massage therapists, doctors, etc. that pulled up roots and moved away or quit their chosen profession altogether. I talk to people all the time who are having these same experiences. It’s disheartening.

Couple this with a lot of questions about why folks aren’t seeing my social media posts and I got to thinking about how we can all very quickly and simply use some of the time we waste spend on social media to support the businesses and service providers we love.

Many of you may already know that I focus most of my social media efforts on Facebook. I do have LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and a couple of videos on YouTube and Animoto, but Facebook is where you’re going to find me. I picked Facebook because I’ve been on it for quite a long time and was able to develop my business page with existing knowledge instead of starting over somewhere else. Also, a lot of people are on Facebook and it was free exposure for my business so it just made sense.

Then when Facebook went public and started selling its shares on the open market they changed their algorithms to make it more difficult for businesses to get free exposure to existing and potential customers. So hopefully this will help you 1) start seeing posts from businesses you’re interested in supporting and 2) learn the best techniques to help support your local favorites.

How Do I See Your Posts?

First of all, this technique works for any Facebook business page. I used mine for example purposes because, well, it’s my website so why wouldn’t you want to see my stuff?

So the very first thing you need to do is go to my Facebook page and “Like” my page. Yay! Don’t you wish everything in life were that easy? But, you’re not done yet so keep reading…

The next thing is look for these buttons underneath the cover photo.
Select the down arrow next to the “Following” button. Then select the Pencil icon next to “Notifications”. Please don’t select the “Unfollow This Page” option or you will be sad…
In each section of the Notifications section select the checkboxes for each section that has one and then in the Live Videos section, selection “All Live Posts”. Selecting these options will tell Facebook that you really do want to see what I’m putting out there.
Select “News Feed” in the left-hand menu bar. This dialog box will let you select where you want posts to appear in your Newsfeed. I currently don’t have any information as to whether selecting “See First” is any more influential than “Default”

And when you’re done select “Done”

Whew! That was way more work than I thought it was going to be, but now that it’s set up, you don’t have to mess with it anymore and as a bonus when I post anything you should get a notification. And again, you can do this process for any business you’re really into!

How To Support Your Favorite Business Without Spending a Penny

Obviously, if no one spends money with your favorite business this technique isn’t going to work and they are going to go out of business. So what I’m about to show you will help other people learn about your favorites and hopefully spend their money. This is a win-win so that when you’re ready to spend your money, your favorite massage therapist is still able to to give you a fantastic massage, your favorite esthetician can still give you a fabulous facial, or your favorite restaurant is still serving the best chicken salad in town. Using this technique is also going to convince Facebook that you really do want to see what your favorites are putting online and it’s really easy!

I’m going to sum it up very simply: Like, Comment and Share. If you love my massage go to my Facebook page and scroll down until you start seeing the posts that I make. Then do something to the posts. Like one, make a comment on another one, and if you really, really want Facebook to start putting my posts in front of your face, share them with your friends. If you see a sponsored ad that I’m paying for, share it and comment on it. And when I jump on and do a Live video, please watch it (as much of it as you can stand), comment on it and share it. These simple actions speak volumes to the Facebook algorithms (especially when you SHARE posts) and you will have the best chance of seeing future posts.

Interaction is the key. So let’s get out there and interact! I can’t make any promises, but you  might just get lucky and win something in one of the contests I run. And since I’m a massage therapist, I usually give away interesting things like, oh, massage!

♥

Sharon Bryant Harvest Moon Massage is Decatur, Alabama’s Barefoot Massage Specialist!

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2013 AMTA-AL Spring Convention – Refresh Your Career

Business & Marketing for Massage /

facebook-iconMany of you may already know that I am heavily involved with AMTA-Alabama Chapter. So it won’t be any surprise when I tell you that I’m going to the spring convention next weekend.

I’m nervous about it. Not the drive or meeting new people, I’m nervous about the class I’m teaching.

I’ve hinted at it a couple of times, but here it is for all the world, I’m going to be teaching a class called “Using Facebook to Promote Your Massage Business”. It’s all about marketing yourself on Facebook by using a Facebook Page.

I shouldn’t be nervous, I’ve done the research and made some charts for folks to look at. I know what I’m going to present, but still, I’m nervous. A little of it is the whole public speaking thing, but I’m always a little nervous when I have to do that and I usually get over that part of it as soon as class starts. I think the biggest part of it is that it’s massage. And I so love massage and respect the people who teach it that I don’t want to be crappy at it.

And then there’s the whole control freak part of me that keeps repeating, “What if they don’t bring their laptops? What you going to do then?” Eeek!

Maybe I’m putting too much pressure on myself, surely someone wouldn’t sign up for a Facebook class without bringing their computer especially when the registration form says, “Bring a laptop”.

Anyway, I’m going to try to relax a little. The charts are inches away from being done. I plan on finalizing them tomorrow and getting the copies made. I wonder how many people have signed up?

Now if Facebook would just stop changing things. They would have to roll out changes as soon as I got all my graphics fixed. But I have a solution for that too, teaching moment! Plus I’m too lazy (and don’t have time) to re-do them all.

Here’s some info on the Convention if you’d like to go!

♥

Sharon Bryant Harvest Moon Massage is Decatur, Alabama’s Newest Provider of Rossiter System pain relief techniques!

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What Are You Missing?

Massage PSAs /

Ever wonder what you’re missing on Facebook? I sure do.

Recently I started preparing materials to teach a class to a bunch of massage therapists on how to use a Facebook Page to market their businesses. In doing so I discovered that Facebook now chokes the reach of your Facebook Page posts down to about 25% of the Likers.

This news was disappointing, but makes perfect sense when you remember that Facebook stock started being traded publicly in the market. They (Facebook) have graciously added a “Promote” button for us businessey types to pay them to open the gate and let most of our Likers see our posts.

So if you’re curious as to what you’re missing, here are a couple of techniques you can use to stay up-to-date with your favorite Facebook Pages.

Pages Feed

1. Use the Pages Feed. The first time I looked at the Pages Feed I was astonished at the difference in what my Newsfeed was reporting and what was showing on the Pages Feed. The link  for Pages Feed is on your Newsfeed Homepage on the left-hand menu under the “Pages” heading.

Get Notifications




2. Use Notifications. Turn on Get Notifications by hovering over the ‘Like’ button then selecting the menu option. Now, depending on how you have your Notifications set up in Facebook you might just get the polite little globe icon reporting that you have 6 or 10 new status updates to look at or you may have so many email messages from Justin Beiber’s Facebook Page that your internet provider disables your account. Be sure to get in there and look at those Notifications settings to make sure you’re being notified the way you want to be notified.

Hope this helps!

♥

Sharon Bryant Harvest Moon Massage is Decatur, Alabama’s Exclusive Provider of Ashi-Thai Massage

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Who Was That Masked Marketing Plan?

Business & Marketing for Massage /
photo credit: ClickFlashPhotos / Nicki Varkevisser via photopin cc
photo credit: ClickFlashPhotos / Nicki Varkevisser via photopin cc

I’ve been reading Isabel Allende’s Zorro the last couple of weeks which is perhaps why it suddenly occurred to me that I could be utilizing my marketing tools a bit better. What a bizarre statement, you’re thinking, but bear with me.

My “marketing plan” consists of word of mouth marketing, local event massage, a Facebook page, Twitter, this WordPress blog, my Pinterest page, and now a monthly Mailchimp newsletter. For quite a while I’ve been using the Facebook page and the blog to advertise upcoming events and keep my clients informed.  Twitter is hooked directly to Facebook so I don’t really mess with it unless it breaks and I add something new to Pinterest occasionally. Recently I added the newsletter, but it feels like it’s just out there floating. Perhaps because the goal right now is a once-a-month update that’s why it feels uncoordinated.

That floatey feeling is what made me think that perhaps I need to coordinate a marketing plan of attack with all my tools. Perhaps I’ve been underutilizing them or maybe I’ve just been letting it happen organically, I don’t know, but it’s something I want to think about  more.

I feel as if I’ve overloaded my arsenal a bit at this point. I need Twitter lessons as I just don’t get what’s happening with it most of the time. I love Pinterest, but I’m struggling to find the right combination of how to use it to sell my services. For now though I’m going to set a new goal of figuring out how to coordinate the social media updates, blog posts and email blasts without getting too far away from my organic, let’s see what happens style.

So what does all this have to do with Zorro? Guerilla warfare, the Spanish attacking the French occupation in a disorganized yet highly effective manner. Perhaps I need to bust out that dog-eared marketing book, Guerilla Marketing for Free. 

So how do you manage it all? What’s your philosophy in the digital marketing age? I’m interested to see how other folks are doing this and not spending so much time at the computer that they don’t have time to actually do business.

♥

Sharon Bryant Harvest Moon Massage is Decatur, Alabama’s Exclusive Provider of Bamboo-Fusion Massage

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Meet My Sidebar – Where I Yelp About Myself

2 Comments / Business & Marketing for Massage /

Are you familiar with Yelp?

I set up a Yelp site for Harvest Moon Massage a while ago because I couldn’t  seem to make Facebook understand that I really wanted people to be able to “recommend” and rate my services. To date, Facebook still hasn’t figured out that I am a service provider even after repeated requests for them to review my page. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me as it took them two years to figure out that I was located in Alabama (not Arkansas) and fix the map locator on my page. But I digress, I’m here to talk about Yelp, not harp on how much I love Facebook. (I really do love Facebook, but it’s one of those love to hate you relationships)

Anyway, if you haven’t noticed it before, over there in my sidebar —–>>> there’s a pretty button that says, “Write us a review in Yelp”. It’s down there in the Other Places To Find Me Online section. Oh here it is!

yelp

I like Yelp. I like that you can go out there and find out what others think about a business or service. Unfortunately, I have done a poor job of asking folks to go Write a Review for Harvest Moon Massage on Yelp. Maybe because it seems like I should be offering an incentive for them to do something for me, but then I think there’s something a little dishonest and ‘conflict of interesty’ about paying for reviews. Therefore, I have no reviews for this little venture (as Facebook decided to delete the one’s I used to have on my page, grrr…). Hopefully that’s about to change since you are here now and know that I actually do want your opinion on how I’m doing.

So if you’ve had a lovely massage from me (or even a not so lovely one, I need to know) or if you love reading my blog or if you just like me for no apparent reason, please head on over to Yelp and be the first person to review me. I will be forever grateful.

If you don’t use Yelp, what do you use? I’m curious.

♥

Sharon Bryant Harvest Moon Massage is Decatur, Alabama’s Newest Provider of Fijian Barefoot Massage

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