Insites :: The MosierData Blog

Sorry everyone for the delay in posting this.  It turns out, we did announce the winner of the outreach on Friday June 8th as planned, we just we never got around to notifying everyone that didn’t win until today.

Before I announce the winner, I just want to recap a little about from the outreach itself.. The entire project was a smashing success. Given the little promotion we had, we still managed to hear from a total of 14 non-profit organizations, of which 6 completed the process of submitting their consideration package to fully qualify.

After evaluating both the physical and digital packages sent to us, we narrowed the list to the three organizations who all shared the following criteria:

1. Is an active, growing organization with at least some paid staff.
2. Expressed an interest in learning about the web and a willingness to get as involved as necessary to make sure this project is a success.
3. Sent at least one follow up to check on the status of their entry.

The items above were all very important factors to us. While we didn’t announce them publicly before now (we didn’t want to influence the submissions), we wanted to make sure that the recipient understands that harnessing the power of the web is not something that can be strictly outsourced to someone else.

In order to do it right, someone from the organization needs to take ownership as we hand things off and handle the day to day interactions that are essential to success. By evaluating with these criteria, we were able to insure that the recipient was ready and willing to roll up their sleeves and take an active part in moving their organization forward online.

One last thing before I announce the winner.. I want everyone who submitted an entry to know that it was extremely difficult it was to choose only one recipient. I sincerely wish that we could have chosen all three finalists. I am amazed at the number of truly great organizations right here in Central Florida.

With that out of the way, we decided to award the package to Tampa Bay Job Links. This young organization (www.tampabay-job-links.org) almost exactly fits our mantra of always trying to help those that are trying to help themselves. They provide assistance to folks that are job hunting that includes:

 

• Helping candidates search for jobs that are a good fit for their experience
• Helping candidates learn to create or update their resume and write effective cover letters
• Providing group career coaching seminars and workshops
• Helps individuals deal with other issues that affect their employability, including health, family and transportation issues.

This is just a partial list of the services they offer and we are proud to be aligning with them.

Work will start almost immediately, so look for an update from us soon on our progress.

And a whole-hearted thanks again to all organizations that entered.

Businesses with Facebook Pages can now set five different roles for their administrators: Manager, Content Creator, Moderator, Advertiser and Insights Analyst.  This is a useful tool for Facebook managers.

 

Facebook Adds Post Scheduling:

Facebook’s scheduling tool includes the ability to add dynamic links and images directly to your Facebook Page. You can prepare a post and schedule it to appear later by adding a date and time in the future before you post it.

Other schedulers I’ve tested do not do a good job of including these features, so this is a big improvement. I tested the Facebook scheduler today and found it to work very well.

Here’s how to do it:

 

Facebook Rolls Out Promoted Posts

This makes it easier for marketers to expand the reach of their posts.Promoted posts are a simple way to reach more of the people who like your Page and their friends.

Marketers can set a budget as low as $5 for the promoted post; the price varies depending on the size of the brand’s fan base. The budget is for the lifespan of the ad, not a daily spend.

Marketers can promote a post for up to three days after the original post was created. They can also “pin” the post to the top of their page—rather than have subsequent posts appear at the top of the page—for that time period to increase the post’s visibility.

 

Facebook had introduced these tools to be very user friendly. The tool is the latest way Facebook is seeking to strengthen its advertising formats. Earlier this year, mobile ads were introduced and last month the social network rolled out new tools in its Ads Manager tool, as well as a simplified ad buying tool.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been teasing everyone on Facebook with a “mystery” project that I said is going to be BIG.

Well, the time has come to reveal it:  We’re going to give a website away.

Well actually, we’re giving away more than just a website – we’re going to pretty much take a non-profit in the area under our wing and help them use the power of the Internet to get to the next level.

Why are we doing this?

In a nutshell, it feels good to give back, and we’re due.

Don’t get me wrong.. we do regularly make small donations to different causes, usually anonymously, and I’ve been known to swing a hammer for Habitat for Humanity once in a while, but it’s been a while since we did something big for a non-profit in the community.

How big is big? Well, the last time we did something I would consider “big” was when we partnered with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Lakeland and Mulberry to start a program called “Computers for kids.” We went out and convinced some local companies to donate used computers to the Boys & Girls Club. For our part, MosierData removed all the data from the systems and completely refurbished them for free. We were able to get local companies to donate nearly 20 computers, and even got Microsoft to donate licensing for Windows. It was a great success, and I will never forget the way the kid’s faces lit up when they were given a computer to take home.

Then and now..

Since then we’ve stopped messing around with computers and operating systems (even for Friends and family!) and focused exclusively on our web work. That focus has paid off – we grew about 20% in 2011 and so far this year we’re on track to do even better.

That’s why this time, I want what we do to make an even bigger impact.

The problem is – We don’t really have a non-profit to support at this time. So we’re making a call out. For clarity, we’re looking for an actual 501(c)3. Sorry, you won’t qualify if you’re a for-profit company that simply isn’t making a profit (although we’ve been there and feel your pain).

We’ve named this effort our 2012 Pro-Bono outreach, and full details are available here: http://www.mosierdata.com/pro-bono/

We’re including almost every service we offer – valued at around $6,400 in total.

If you visit the link and look what is included, you can’t help but be impressed. When we were researching this, a lot of the giveaways we found had a lot of exclusions like stock photos or content writing – we’re including all of that and more.

In fact, the only thing we are not including (but will help you procure if needed) are your domain name, web hosting and email newsletter service. And no, we’re not going to force you to use (or even try and sell you) our services for any of those either.

I know the one question everyone has is “How will you choose the winner?” That’s simple, we’re going to review the consideration packages that are submitted (see the official contest page for explanation of what that is) and the non-profit that inspires us the most, that we feel is the best candidate, will win. We’ll make that decision on June 8th.

So the bottom line is this.. If you know an organization that could use a complete transformation online, send them this link. If you are the leader of such an organization, I invite you to register here and put your best foot forward. And to all of you who enter, GOOD LUCK!

With the rise in popularity of social media and a lot of consultants focusing almost exclusively on developing a social media strategy for clients, we thought it would be a good idea to go back to basics for a refresher on other ways to communicate.

Don’t get us wrong, social media is important and it is vital that your company embrace it.  But at the end of the day, it’s just another form of communication (and one that not everyone embraces).

Multiple Channels

Proper communication is crucial to providing good customer service.  There have been many examples where openly communicating has kept a bad situation from getting worse, or even turned it into a positive.

This post lists 5 other ways to reach your customers outside of social media.  If you are offering products or services to the general public (even if your “public” is other businesses) you should be using at least 3 of them, if not all.

1. E- Mail
   Hello captain obvious!  You already send and receive emails every day, but did you ever realize it can be passively used to spread any marketing message?  Your email signature is the perfect place to let everyone you correspond with know about your upcoming sale, new product or whatever else you have to announce.
2. Telephone
   It still surprises me how many web sites think it is best to leave a phone number off their site.  The most common argument is “I don’t want all the phone calls.”  WHAT?!?!!  Thinking that you can do business with no way for people to talk to a human is just crazy.  Humans like to connect.  Put your telephone number out there.
3. Instant Messaging and Audio/Video Chat
   While not the solution for every kind of business, Instant Messaging is widely popular and very convenient way to stay connected.  Here at MosierData we use IM’s all day and every day to  communicate with not only our team, but our clients too. If you have a camera and microphone, many IM’s (such as Skype) even offer video chat – which can be even more personal than a phone call.
4. Live chat on your website
   If your business is large enough to have at least one full time person dedicated to customer service, you should really think about adding live chat as a sales and support tool.  As a bonus, most live chat companies let you actually watch the path visitors take through your site, letting you see in realtime what they find interesting.  When they decide to talk to you, you get a nifty little popup on your screen.
5. Online meetings / Webinars
   For times when you would like to present something to multiple people at once (and it doesn’t have to just be customers, you can present to employees, a board of directors, or anyone) online meetings are one of the coolest ways to get it done.  No need for a room and a projector, just your computer and a microphone.  Most companies such as ClickMeeting even offer a free trial.

What other ways does your business communicate with customers?  Leave us a message in the comments and let us know.