I was in the bay area today, on our weekend Thanksgiving Trip to visit my family.  My husband and I like adventure, but didn't expect the events of today to transpire - and definitely- didn't expect to be posting a "LOST DOG" poster online! 

We have 2 dogs:  Chelsea, a 7 year old Great Dane Mix and Rocky, an 8 year old "Heinz 57 variety" (we were told at the shelter when we adopted him as a puppy that he was Shepherd and Rottweiler mix, but he's only 40 lbs, is very "cattle dog like", very similar to a breed called "Kelpie" 

So, our Great Dane, has some arthritis issues and today, seemed to be in a lot more pain than usual. She was grunting and moaning and could not seem to get comfortable. So, we decided to take her to a nearby vet. We left Rocky in the back yard, at my Mom's house, while we all went to her appointment. We were gone approximately 2 hours and when we returned.... no Rocky. 

So at 5:30pm, we had a large dog doped up on pain medication to worry about and now, trying to find our other dog (fur baby as I like to call them) in a neighborhood he doesn't know! SCARY! 

It appeared that he somehow managed to get under the house and escape out of a grate he pushed through at the front of the house (probably chasing the cats my mom has had inhabiting under there). 

We spoke to some people outside at a neighbor's house who said that Animal Control had been by a little earlier asking about a Shepherd dog, and if they knew the owner. They didn't because we were just visiting. They gave us a good clue that he had probably been picked up by them, but of course, the shelter doesn't open until Tuesday (3 whole days away) and like any good "mom", I couldn't just sit around and wait... "What if he didn't get picked up?" "What if he's out there lost?" So, I had to take measures of my own, just in case. 

While my husband and sister drove the neighborhood, and my 9 year old nephew made home made posters, I took to the avenue I know best: social media. I first went on the Animal Control Website where you can search to see if your pet was brought in (actually, it's a link to PetHarbor.com). It was too early yet, for Rocky's picture to be there, so I submitted a lost dog alert and then took to Craig's List to post in the Lost and Found. 

I did, almost instantly, get a call from a wonderful community member, named "Marilyn", who was just a volunteer who was passionate about animals, who had seen my posting on Pet Harbor. She thought she had spotted him, but it turned out to be a similar looking dog who's been there since November 5, 2013. 

From there, I got an email, suggesting I post on the Facebook Page: Fido Alert: East Contra Costa County .  I did as she suggested, and with-in minutes, she created the flier that you see above. That was wonderful in and of it's self.  Within 31 minutes, it had been shared from her page, 30 times!! There are 4,000 plus "fans" on this Facebook page, and they proved very quickly how passionate they are about connecting fur babies back with their parents. 

If that wasn't exciting and supportive enough, I got a text at 8:54pm from a leader of the Fido Alert Page, "Cat" (ironic huh?) who stated that it appeared that the shelter had posted Rocky on the Pet Harbor website, sometime within the last few minutes. I jumped on there and sure enough, there he was. My little jail bird.  He is micro chipped (with unfortunately, the wrong contact information) so they were able to know some things about him before posting him online. 

You can see his mug shot here: 

I am so truly thankful for the support of complete strangers tonight. It has restored my faith in humanity knowing that they are so willing to help someone they have never met, and probably never will.  As an animal lover myself, and one who will stop just about anywhere to try to rescue a "lost" dog, I am grateful for those who go beyond themselves to help others. Please, if you are an animal lover too, consider supporting your local shelters and rescue organizations like Fido Alert and Pet Harbor. They truly do make a difference in the lives of people and pets, both on and offline! 

Because of Social Media, texting and the shelter website, I am able to sleep a little easier tonight... 

On December 11, 2012, you'll be getting the new LinkedIn profile, which has a simplified design, provides deeper insights, and surfaces new ways to connect and build relationships. You'll also be one of the first to preview a new way to showcase rich content on your profile -- like presentations, videos, documents, and more.

Now there are more ways than ever to tell your professional story on LinkedIn, and we're excited for you to try them out. As we roll out these changes, we'll also be streamlining our app offerings, so the following LinkedIn apps will no longer be supported on the homepage or profile as of December 11:

SlideShare Presentations
LinkedIn Events
Please note, if you use SlideShare Presentations or Creative Portfolio Display your content will still be available on your LinkedIn profile. You can find out more about these changes on our Help Center.
We hope you like your new LinkedIn profile!

Thanks,

The LinkedIn Team

Q: Are you paying for ads on Yelp and does it help your business? I have an estate sale business and they "filter" all my good reviews and show all the bad ones.....I have heard if you advertise with them to the tune of $300 per month, they will "fix" that......have you found it worthwhile advertising here.....as in does it bring you more clients? Customers we will always have, but wondering about clients and new sales.

Many people are finding more questions than answers when it comes to Yelp and Yelp Advertising. So much so, that you are hearing about it more often from frustrated business owners and through websites Yelp-Sucks.com

Here is what I say: 
A: There are a few things to consider: 
1) How many leads are you CURRENTLY getting from Yelp without advertising? 
2) How many reviews total do you have and how many of those are negative? 
3) If you have negative review, how negative are they? I have found that negative reviews often can help a business because  people feel challenged to "see for themselves". 
4) are you using any other ways to gain reviews? Google Places, Yahoo local, Facebook etc? 

In this case, I wouldn't worry too much about bad reviews or paying for Yelp Advertising. Chances are, for your type of work, you won't see a high enough return at $300 a month from your target market. You would be better off spending time and money on Estatesales.net, the Sacramento Bee,Penny Saver and any other local sites as well as  estate related websites which is where your target market is more likely to be spending time. 

Facebook recently added a new feature called "Interest Lists" to our Bookmarks on our home page (you know, those links on the left hand side of the page when you are reading your news feed?)

Many page admins have been putting a plea out to their fans that they MUST add their page to the Interest list in order to see any posts from that particular fan page. This is not entirely true, as I pointed out in my last blog post. 

I have seen post after post of how daunting of a task it can be for folks wanting to do the "right thing" by page admins, and individually adding pages to their interest lists. 

In testing this theory out, I found that there are 7 easy steps to creating an Interest List on Facebook. 


YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO THIS ON EACH INDIVIDUAL PAGE!! 


Step 1: Find a page that interests you and go to their page. Next to the "Like" button, you will see a settings icon, click on that and a drop down menu will appear 

Step 2: Click add to interest lists

Step 3: Click add to New List and it will take you to this page. If you click on "Pages" it will bring up all of the pages you have liked and you can then select similar pages to the one you started with and group them accordingly.

Step 4: Just click on the pages that you want in this list and a "check mark" will appear and indicate that the page has been selected. When finished click "next" at the bottom of the box. 

Step 5: You will then select a list name. I have one for clients, one for networking, one for Sacramento etc. 
During this time, you can also select the privacy settings. Making this public, people can then subscribe to your interest lists and follow it. 

Step 6: Once you have clicked "done" you will be redirected to your Interest Home Page which will list your different lists (Clients, community, business etc- much like your friends and family lists), so you can click on them and see only posts that come from the pages selected for that particular list. 

You can then access your Interest lists at any time by clicking on them in the left hand menu when you are on your home page. Be aware that they could be hidden under "More". 

Why an Interest List? 


According to Facebook: "Interest lists are an optional way to organize the content you're interested in on Facebook."
They suggest it because it's an easy way to "Simply click the list's name to see all the recent posts and activity from the Pages and people featured in the list, without overwhelming your main news feed."

Here is the latest FB message  flooding our newsfeeds and wasting some of our time (or is it?) 

FACEBOOK now requires page administrators to pay to promote their updates if we want our content to be seen by our fans. If we do not pay to promote our posts, only about 10% of the fans receive the updates on the Facebook home page feed.

To keep RECEIVING ALL POSTS FROM US you have to hover the mouse on the "Like" button near our name. In the drop-down menu select "ADD TO INTEREST LISTS". Then create an interest list (and make a name for your favorite pages). When you select that interest list you will see ALL of our posts and you won't miss anything important!" 


Yes, it is true, Facebook has changed its Algorithm (see previous blog post about that here) and it does "pay to play" if you have something worthy to promote, this notion that you MUST create and add your favorite pages to an "Interest List" in order to see ANY posts, is not all that accurate.


According to Facebook, "Interest lists are an optional way to organize the content you're interested in on Facebook." The operative word being OPTIONAL!

It also states: " When you create or subscribe to a list, you'll see the best posts from that list in your main news feed." Again, this does not guarantee that you will see ALL posts from any given page, nor will your fans see all of your fan page post by adding your page to  their interest lists! 


To boot, I have seen post after post of people saying how daunting the task is of adding "all" of their pages to an interest list- upon the demand of many page admins freaking people out that they may miss out on some life altering information if they don't do it. 


**I have found an easy solution, if in fact, you want to create and interest list. I will be posting that in my next blog. **


In the meantime, don't stress. Continue to find and provide good content and engage your fans on your fan page. Facebook is favoring posts with more engagement! 


If you want to create an interest list, I say go for it. It's much like when you put people into category lists (Friends, Family, Church, Work) and when you click on that list, you get news only from those people. I think it is worth while, especially if you don't want to miss news from your clients, community organizations or the like. 

Right now, we are in the thick of it. Political Debates, the advertisements, the newspapers and now, our social media news feeds. 

I have been seeing more and more pleas from my friends on Facebook about unfriending/ deleting people from their Facebook accounts because of "over the top" political rants being posted online. 

While I am a firm believer in free speech, I am also a firm believer in respect for other's feelings and opinions. I have seen so many hateful statements come across my own newsfeed that it caused me to want to write about it! 

I personally try to stay very neutral on Facebook. I have so many friends, acquaintances and even clients that I am connected with on Facebook- and just as they are all very different people, one can assume that they may also have varying political views.  

Particularly, if you are using Facebook for business, you want to stay as neutral as possible. Posting politcal rants on your Fan Page or Personal Page with customers on it, may cause a sense of disconnect for people just based on the fact that they don't agree with you politically. 

DickensonInteractive.com posted a great article back in March 2012 about this very subject and suggests: 
Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Not Post About Politics On Facebook. 

I love his #5 Reason: " There’s enough politics in the media. One of the reasons I use Facebook is to laugh, have fun and converse with my friends and family. I don’t use it to get worked up or stressed out over something I see that I disagree with. There’s enough political coverage in the mainstream media. More than enough. Keep it there and leave the politics to the pundits."

What do you think? 

A new social media marketing company has arrived in Sacramento. Introducing iSnap Social, the creator of the Social Photo Station and accompanying suite of social marketing tools. iSnap Social’s Photo Stationallows users to take a photo at a venue or event and upload it to social networks like Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter. iSnap Social provides an easy way for brands to expand their reach and influence on social media networks. “The holy grail of social media marketing is enticing your customers to market on your behalf and there’s no better way to do that than photo sharing,” says iSnap Social CEO and Co-Founder Alexander Lowe.

iSnap Social users get an easy way to take high quality photos, branded with the featured company’s graphic overlays and share them instantly. Featured brands and businesses get a unique tactic to engage customers, add fans and followers and gain insightful data. The iSnap Social cloud-based platform tracks metrics along the way, gathering usage statistics, conversions, time and demographic information. All data is viewable and exportable from the secure iSnap Social Cloud website.

The iSnap Social platform has already proved invaluable for Sacramento and nationally-based businesses alike. Customers that have successfully employed iSnap Social to aid their social media marketing campaigns include CBS Radio, Live Nation and Hyatt Resorts. Explains Doug Link, Theater Director for Imax Esquire Theater, “It is apparent with the reduction of marketing budgets and the proliferance of social media marketing, iSnap was an opportunity we could not afford to miss.”

CEO and Co-Founder Alexander Lowe conceptualized iSnap Social on a napkin in 2010. Since then iSnap Social has grown to become a global network reaching thousands of users every day in venues around the world.

About iSnap Social:

iSnap Social (www.isnapsocial.com) is the creator of the social photo station and accompanying suite of social marketing tools. iSnap Social products enable brands to create more authentic connections with customers through photo sharing. iSnap photos are liked, commented on and shared broadly across multiple social networks. By making branded photo sharing easy and fun, iSnap builds a brand’s social media presence quickly and efficiently while providing an exciting free amenity to customers.

Contacts: 

iSnap Social
Julia Mjehovich, 916-930-6804
julia@isnapsocial.com

Have you ever had an entrepreneurial or business question that you need a qualified answer to?

Do you need to be inspired or find tips on how to better promote your business, product or book? 

Wouldn't it e GREAT, if there was a "one-stop-shop" to find  the answers to all of those burning questions? 

Well, you are in luck! Such a site does exist! It's called the  Business Info Guide and it's an Entrepreneur's DREAM resource!

There is Business Development, Industry Guides, Marketing and so much more! 

What's even more awesome, is that if you have something to offer, you can actually contribute as an author, entrepreneur, or your own article! 

Stephanie Chandler, is the founder of this fantastic resource and she is an invaluable resource herself! Not only does she provide this resource  but she is an author, speaker and runs her own publishing company! 

Browsing through any of her websites will keep you busy for hours, but you will be sure to come away with excellent resources for your business! 

This is from the Sacramento Bee- 9/27/2012

There has been great "buzz" around what employers and Universities in California can ask of their (potential) employees and students. Of course, most people feel as though it's a complete invasion of privacy, and puts people at risk for losing their current job, not getting into college or getting a job they have applied for. By signing these bills, it puts those fears to rest! 

 According to the Sacramento Bee: 

"Gov. Jerry Brown signed two measures this morning to block California universities and employers from seeking access to applicants' social media accounts."

"The Golden State is pioneering the social media revolution and these laws will protect all Californians from unwarranted invasions of their personal social media accounts," the Democratic governor said in a prepared statement.

Assembly Bill 1844 and Senate Bill 1349 were signed!.
 
Read the entire article here