Breaking Even Communications

One Day Website Workshop: The When, The Why, and The How

By Nicole Ouellette on May 24, 2013 in This Week In Business

Last Friday, we gave our twice a year ‘One Day Website’ workshop. Our reasoning is that there are people who have the time/interest in learning website software but not the funds to pay us to do it for them.

The reason we do it only twice a year? Honestly, it’s a ton of work ahead of time (helping people buy domain names, getting the software installed, preparing the slides since the software likes to change periodically). We barely break even on it looking at this from a purely business point of view… but the whole point of this business was to at least ‘Break Even’ so I guess we’re good there. (I know, haha!)

But earning beaucoup bucks is not why we do this. For me, I consider this a bit of community service… and if we happen to get business from it someday, great. But at least we’re doing our part, teaching small pockets of people how to do something they want to learn. It’s a bit like being a teacher again.

I’m always impressed by the variety of people who come to this workshop: different ages (everyone from college students to retirees), different businesses (artists to non-profit directors), different levels of seriousness (from ‘I want to get this done today’ to ‘I just came to check it out’). As someone who runs one very specific kind of business, it’s nice to get a window into what other people are working on, and what they care about in terms of a website.

Since Matt Baya and I started doing this workshop in 2009, we’ve helped take about 200 people through this process in the twice yearly ‘One Day Website’. And that’s kind of cool.

Many people don’t end up finishing their websites, which makes me a little sad. But then I think about the success rate of the adult ed French class I used to teach… or how long it’s taken me to lose 15 of the 30 pounds I want to lose… and I see it’s similar. It’s hard to make yourself do something that is a little (or a lot) against your nature.

I’m always sad when I haven’t taken photos of these things, especially since we had such a nice group on Friday. But it was fun and we do look forward to doing it again!

Had no idea we did this kind of event? For the official internet record, we do it twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall (summer is crazy and winter weather can make travel difficult where we are). The best way to find out about when it’s happening is to subscribe to our monthly email newsletter. We announce the workshop there first, wait 3-4 days then post it on Facebook, the website, etc.

Sometimes, we can do this workshop for a private group, like we did for the Maine Indian Basketweavers and the Maine Crafts Guild. If you can fill a room for us, we’ll show up and do our thing. If everyone chips in, it’s a pretty affordable (and almost painless) professional development opportunity. If you’re a Chamber of Commerce, business group, networking group, adult education facility, university group… it’s a pretty good offer since just about everyone these days needs/wants a website.

So thanks to everyone who came last week, and especially those who came to those first few workshops when we were still learning the ropes. There will be many more of these (and hopefully some other regular workshops) coming to Downeast Maine and beyond.

Those who can do teach. Those who can’t, we can just teach you in a class.

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How To Handle Tragedy On Social Media

By Nicole Ouellette on May 13, 2013 in Good For The World

So when something crappy happens, what are we supposed to do online? The same things we do offline actually. Here’s what I’m talking about.

There was a historically huge Bangladesh factory collapse that killed over 1,000 people recently. My friend David posted a link from The Village Voice showing a screenshot of Joe Fresh, the retailer’s homepage, after the body count was posted:

OK so this is kind of ridiculous. Should Joe Fresh have done a bit more considering this was their factory? I think so.

Now posting a small condolence message is not quite the same as:

So this second instance of a brand handling a tragedy got A LOT more negative feedback on social media then the first one. Probably for a couple reasons:

For better or for worse, people seem a lot more sensitive about US-based tragedies. That said, it’s important to mention what is happening overseas in some cases so please mention something even if it seems far away… just know a US-based audience will react to a US-based tragedy more strongly as a general rule.
Acknowledge the tragedy if you want, especially if it affects your company.
If you go the acknowledge a tragedy route, don’t try to sell to people.
You can ignore a tragedy (without any or many negative consequences) if it has nothing to do with your business.
If you schedule social media updates ahead and something bad happens, skim your scheduled updates of accidentally offensive content. (Ex: There is a huge fire in your city and you have a post scheduled to go out called ‘Sell like your store is on fire.’ with a link to your latest blog post. Yeah, you might want to change that.)

In other words, you can’t be selling your stuff and be mournful at the same time. Your customers will think it’s kind of weird and creepy. And if you go the ‘we’re a sensitive company’ route, be prepared to wait a respectful amount of time before returning to your regularly scheduled program.

Want to read other opinions on this subject? Check out:

http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/Can_companies_ignore_their_way_out_of_social_media_14329.aspx

http://www.enveritasgroup.com/2013/04/26/when-tragedy-strikes-how-does-social-media-respond/

http://holtz.com/blog/crisis-communication/the-conundrum-of-being-a-non-u.s.-company-when-tragedy-strikes-the-u.s/4103/

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Managing Expectations For Your DIY Project

By Nicole Ouellette on May 8, 2013 in This Week In Business

My hairdresser Shaina is a great person who not only does amazing hair but also has one of those witty personalities. She posted this awhile back:

I will say right off that I don’t do anything hair altering (especially related to hair color) by myself. The whole looking in the mirror and having it be backwards thing is enough to keep me from even attempting updos.

I used to do my own box hair color but I knew it wasn’t as good as what Shaina would do. So I finally gave up and left it to the pros. Now I have people emailing me asking who is doing my hair.

This cartoon struck me a certain, specific way because it can relate to a bunch of different kinds of businesses.

What is ombre hair you may ask? Well it’s all the rage on Pinterest. Here are some pictures to show you:

So you get the idea, it’s one hair color grading into another hair color gradually and on purpose. Now you know!

Here’s the kit Shaina’s cartoon joke probably refers to:

Now if you are expecting to look like you’ve just stepped off the runway after spending a couple hours with plastic gloves in your bathroom, you are going to be disappointed.

And this is what we call in the business ‘managing expectations’. This is what I used to do when I did my own hair color and what you need to do when you attempt something yourself that you ought really to hire a professional to do.

Managing Expectations: It will be cheaper but it will take you longer.

It is cheaper to dye your own hair but by the time you set up, do it, and clean up you are talking double the time you would have spent at the salon. But it will be cheaper.

It’s ok if cheaper is important. Just realize you are prioritizing cheaper above quicker.

Managing Expectations: You are not going to get professional results.

If you think you can learn anyone’s job well in 2-3 hours (or even 10 hours) of internet searching, you are delusional.

If you think you can do a better job than someone with years of experience, you are delusional.

Embrace that you are not a professional. You might not be able to execute certain things. It might not look exactly like you expected. It’s ok.

Managing Expectations: You will get functional (and possibly even ok to good) results.

At the end of two hours, will your hair be different colors with this kit? Yes.

‘Results’ are a relative term. Whether you pay my gal Shaina or get your own ombre highlighting kit, you will technically have ombre hair at the end of both processes. But if you put the pictures of each result side by side, they will look different. When that matters to you is when you should pay for a pro. When it doesn’t, keep doing it yourself.

It’s best to know a pro you can call, should you decide to try something yourself in case you decide you can’t live with the results. But heading into a DIY process with some managed expectations is a good way to go into a project, whether it’s coloring your own hair or making your own website.

In the meantime, I’m going to let Shaina keep making me fabulous. Because I clearly can’t handle it.

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My 6 minutes and 40 seconds of [local] fame

By Alice Kaiserian on May 3, 2013 in About Us

People think that I am an extrovert, and they couldn’t be more wrong. I’m quite simply an introvert who has gone great lengths to hide her fear of speaking in public. Make it till you fake it, as they say. So when I was asked to participate in a Pecha Kucha Night here on MDI – I thought, oh god. I have to do this or they’ll figure me out.

Pecha What?

Pecha Kucha is a presentation format created a design firm in Japan to highlight new ideas, without presenters running on and on. You get to present 20 slides for 20 seconds each and then you’re done. Pecha Kucha Nights are becoming very popular events – where people gather to learn more about other folks in their community. The short format is excellent for those of us with short attention spans, and is easier on the presenter as well. The slides help the presenter tell the story – as well as keep to the time limit.

PKslide

Finding a Topic:

I was surprised, and honored, to be included as one of 8 presenters for the first ever Pecha Kucha MDI

When Astra from the Abbe Museum contacted me back in February to ask me if I would present, I assumed they had a particular topic in mind, and that’s why they asked me.
“Nope!” She said. “We just think you’d tell an interesting story.”

Okay. No pressure.

I decided to talk about my career as a special effects artist in Hollywood for 2 reasons.

1) it’s s topic I’m very familiar with, and have some good stories about.
2) it’s something that makes me fairly unique in a small Maine community.

Making your slides:

They wanted the slides 2 weeks ahead of time! A brilliant move on their part – because it made me step up and prepare.

Every blog I read about pecha kucha advised to plan out your speech before you make your slides, but I decided to reverse the process.
I design websites, so creating the visual part of the presentation first makes more sense for me. And making the slides was the fun part. Planning the speech not so much. Always start with the fun part. With every image I added to my slideshow, I thought of another detail I could talk about. I figure I made about 40 slides more than I needed as I changed my path through my story, but I don’t regret that time spent.

Preparing to speak:

I started by practicing my speech, without visual aids, alone in my car. Then I worried about timing and slides.
Both Keynote and Powerpoint have a timed playback feature so I could emulate the 20 second presentation style. Practicing with timing was the WORST. I stumbled. I mumbled. I would end sentences with “and….. I’ll talk about something super interesting here.” Mostly I feared that I would be like a deer in the headlights.

The solution I came up with was to make a list of 3 bullet points per slide to guide me when I got lost. I’m good at getting lost.
I put little images next to the bullet points in case I couldn’t see the slides during the presentation. I printed out my list and carried it around like a security blanket.
I admit that I made this list 2 hours before the presentation. Last minute deadlines yo!

The Presentation:

Did I mention I was nervous? At 3 am the night before I woke up to the thought “Crap, they’re probably going to record this.” Just another thing to sweat over.

Then when I arrived at the Library there were at least a hundred people in the audience. At this point I gave up feeling nervous and thought “What the hell, I’m either going to tank or I’m not.” Oh what wisdom comes with age, and a nice glass of spanish red.

I didn’t present until after intermission – another detail I had angst over which turned out to be a blessing.

Seeing the other presentations made me realize a few things.

1) we were all nervous, and all doing this for the first time.
2) the audience was just so happy to be there and loving every word.
3) there could be no failure in that environment.

From the first presenter to the last – everyone had a different style and a completely different topic, and everyone was fantastic.
Every topic presented was interesting and well thought out. The topics were climate change, the love of birds, a a journey through a little town in India, the perfect pie crust, a story of a favorite aunt, a womans fearless journey to Africa, and anecdotes from animated movies. In 6 minutes and 40 seconds you have a chance to get engaged, learn a bit, and still leave wanting more information. It’s like the best date ever.

Our MC was a Lyzz Bien – the most fabulous drag queen MDI or Maine shall ever see, and her thoughtful and hilarious introductions for each presenter tied the whole evening together.

Looking back:

I honestly don’t remember much about presenting, except that people laughed in all the right places, and I didn’t trip on my way to the podium.

And the best part? So many people approached me afterwards and told me how wonderful it was to learn more about me. I’m fairly new to the MDI community – and I feel like that community expanded exponentially in the space of, well, 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

Another best part? This presentation was the first time since I left Hollywood 5 years ago, that I’ve put that experience into one concise story. The career I made as an effects artist was a bittersweet one, and I was so burnt out when I left, that I never took the time to look back on it with fresh eyes. Now I can almost see what other people see, that I had an unusual and pretty cool experience in another part of the world, in a time shaped an entire industry. I’m thankful for the opportunities I’ve had, and incredibly thankful for the chance to share it with my new friends and neighbors here on MDI. I couldn’t be more pleased that I was included in the first ever Pecha Kucha MDI – and I know I will attend every future event. I can’t wait to see what else I can learn about my new home, and the people who live here.

For other Maine Pecha Kucha Nights visit www.pechakuchamaine.org

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Your Guide To Bar Harbor Barter and Swap (And Websites Like It)

By Nicole Ouellette on May 1, 2013 in Web/Tech

To some people in our area, there is an epic Facebook group called ‘Bar Harbor Barter and Swap’. It’s a closed and small group, mainly of people getting rid of random stuff (SCUBA fins!) or looking for random stuff (universal car seat stroller). Two examples from the past hour.

Whether unloading a cactus or buying a trailer, Facebook groups and other online spaces let you get in front of people who can join in your transaction.

I’ve learned a few things from buying and selling items on Bar Harbor Barter and Swap… and I think this knowledge may help you on your own local swap/sell group on Facebook, Craigslist, or other online locations where you are wheeling and dealing.

Using the term ‘reasonable offer’ will leave you hanging.

If you post something you are selling and ask for a ‘reasonable’ offer, beware for the sound of crickets. Here’s why.

Clearly you have some notion of what your item is worth (or what you think it’s worth) yet you want the negotiating power that comes from letting someone else say a figure first. You can not have it both ways, my friend. Also from the point of view of the people seeing this, they are afraid their offer isn’t reasonable…so they aren’t going to say anything. So either let people make an offer or communicate your desired price. This ‘reasonable offer’ business helps none of us.

Sellers: Include information like dimensions

Those five pairs of shorts do look cute but I have no idea if I can cram my body into them. Tell me they are a Gap size 4 and people like me can pass and you can spend your time chatting with people who could theoretically fit into them.

We just gave away Derrick’s cactus and included approximate circumference (3 feet) and height of cactus (6 feet) so people would know what they were getting into if they wanted to come pick it up. Don’t make people ask, give them all the information.

Seekers: Include information like what you are willing to pay

I see lots of people seeking objects that no one responds to… but the difference between ‘I am looking for a dishwasher’ and ‘I am looking for a dishwasher that hooks up to my sink for $50 or less’ is significant. If I know you are willing to pay me some money, I might go in my basement and see if my dishwasher would work for you. Also more details makes you more memorable so people can seek items out on your behalf.

Include a link to specs if possible

Including a link to the same product you are selling on Amazon.com or another website. These websites have full product specs and this will save you a lot of duplicate question answering. Especially if you have a technical product (tablet computer, motor, laser printer), include a link to the related product. Bonus: people see how much it would be to buy the thing new… and are much more likely to pay your lower price.

Give me some assurance I am not buying something bad.

So with the cactus post, we put that we were getting rid of it because it is “getting too big for our space”. In truth, it is beginning to take over our small kitchen near the kitchen table and we have no where else to put it. (I know, nothing like having to argue over who has to sit next to the cactus at dinner!)

If you are posting a picture of a printer and you say you’re getting rid of it because you’ve gotten a newer fancier one, that let’s me know I am not buying a hunk of garbage. (Getting rid of kid’s stuff is usually kind of self explanatory that maybe your kids have grown.) ‘Printer works’ is good ‘Printed something last week from my Dell laptop’ is even better. See what specifics can do to give people confidence?

Get second (or third or fourth) in line.

I’ve been looking for a filing cabinet for months but the idea of buying a new one that I was going to paint bright orange anyway seemed silly. I saw a perfect filing cabinet go by… and someone else had bid on it. I commented ‘Second in line if this doesn’t work out.’ And I got the filing cabinet in the end.

If you see something you like that someone else has dibs on, let the seller know you’d like to be considered if the deal falls through. I think this happens way more often than any of us know.

Know your audience.

There is someone trying to sell a really nice convertible for $8000ish. Problem is we live in a place where there are a ton of dirt roads and snow 8 months of the year (slight exaggeration but you get the idea). If this guy would put this thing on eBay motors or Craigslist, I bet he’d get his asking price.

It’s best to get a feel of the culture of your buying/selling/swapping site first before you post… and if you are in the wrong place, find another where you can get the best price for your efforts. This particular Facebook group seems to do best with transactions at or less than $100 with an occasional exception. Just because a certain website is convenient for you doesn’t mean that’s where your customers are.

I do hope you have some kind of fun distraction in your life like Bar Harbor Barter and Swap. It can help you get rid of the extra crap in your life and occasionally you can buy something you actually need from someone you actually know. I have met some fun people through the site who live near me… a bonus real life benefit in this online world.

And to those of you with some experience in this, is there any tips I might be forgetting?

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Hiring Someone To Write Your Blog: The If, The Why, and The How

By Nicole Ouellette on April 29, 2013 in This Week In Business

Many people are surprised when I tell them we ghost write for other blogs. Despite the fact that this blog is fun and kicky, we can be serious when we need to be. Some of our clients have been tech companies (since we have that knowledge anyway), some are just regular businesses.

Many people know that a blog is great for SEO and building authority. So the natural decision to make at this point is: are you going to do it or pay someone else to?

There are a whole group of people who think blogging can and should be handled within your company.

Why Your Blog Could Be Handled Within Your Company

1) Someone in your company knows what’s going on. A content writer is not in your business so they can’t know close to everything that is going on like someone who is there 40 hours a week.

2) Someone in your company can write. Yes, most people graduate high school being able to string sentences together… and some people have a real talent for it.

3) The same person who can write has free time. You can probably think of idle times in your schedule (or an employee’s schedule) and have the thought ‘Hey, maybe I/they can crank out a blog!’

There are a few reasons though why you may hire people like us to coordinate your blog, write part of it for you, or write the entire thing for you.

Why Your Blog Could Be Handled By A Content Writer/Marketer/SEO Person

1) Content writers are lay people. Chances are your customer won’t care and, most importantly, won’t understand fancy jargon. Someone who can explain things about your business in a way your customers understand and enjoy can be worth some money.

2) Content writers are good writers. Someone who understands how to write for the web and how to write concise blog posts that are both interesting to read and written in the voice of your company will leave website visitors with a good impression.

3) Content writers get the SEO stuff. There is a bit more to blogs than the writing part. It’s part specialized data entry, part understanding how blogs work in the bigger picture of website traffic. You need to know about the following to do it well:

using tags
interlinking to previous blog posts
how to find, use, and cite legal images in a blog post
how to write a grabbing headline that has keywords in it
proper formatting for easy reading and search engines
and more!

4) Content writers are fast. These people look at websites all day so we should be fast. They’ll work at least twice as quickly as your employee doing the same thing. (I’d be slow trying to ring up a customers purchases at your cash register since I have no idea what I’m doing in that situation!)

In other words, you have options. You don’t have to write the blog yourself! You can have a blog for your business and have someone else write it!

Even if you do hand this off, as the person driving this train (re: your business), you will need to set the person helping you (and your blog) up for success.

How You Can Set Up A Blogger For Success Who Isn’t You

A blog site

You’ll need to understand a bit on how your website works to understand if you’ll be able to blog on your current site or if you need to set up something on another domain that links to your site. Talking to a web person is worth it at this stage, mainly because you don’t want to build this blog up (and links coming into it) only to have to move it later. (I have moved my blog three times, trust me, don’t do this to yourself!)

If you are on the fence on the blogging thing, set up a free account on WordPress.com and try it for a month. If you like it, you can move it to a WordPress self hosted site by the Import/Export functions under ‘Tools’ without much trouble. All this to say, to blog you’ll need a place to blog. It may be worth it to have the employee you plan to blog with sit down with your web designer for some training on the software.

A regular publication schedule

Whether you are going to publish every Monday or every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday, establish this with the person you plan to work with. They are going to be limited by time constraints (like everyone!) and they need to know what is expected. For an employee that’s new to this, allow 3-4 hours per blog post (start off with 4 hours and as the person gets the hang of it, the time will be less). Remember a blog post isn’t sitting and writing: they may need time to contact information sources and do research in addition to the actual writing part.

If you are hiring a content writer, have them create a proposal of what you can expect from them in terms of content and publication schedule. (Note: content writers work much faster than your employee who is not a full time writer. It’s not fair to your employee to think otherwise!)

Sources for images

Whether you have a company Flickr gallery, an account with iStockphoto, or just a Dropbox folder where everyone puts in images, make sure whoever is writing the blog has access to this resource. They will need them for blog posts (blog posts with images are much more widely read, and having images has other benefits).

If you are creating the images, make sure to name the files something useful (like the name of the person in the photo). This way, the writer will be able to use the images appropriately and generate captions.

Topic structure and leads

Usually at a blog client kick off meeting, we figure out a general topic posting schedule. For example, Mondays are going to be interviews with our suppliers. Here are the questions we’d like to ask them and here is the contact information of some people to start with in terms of the first four interviews. Thursdays are going to be a product review. Donna will email you a list of new products for this season. Here’s a sample review I wrote to kind of give you an idea of what we are looking for on Thursdays…

A ridiculous level of detail? Maybe. But you don’t want your blog writer to stare at the blinking cursor and think ‘What should I write today?’ Having a structure will force ideas for days there are none and give a structure for the writer to work within and make sure the blog stays on topics you want it to be on.

Sometimes people do is hire a content writer to set up a structure for the staff blogger to follow. Give it a month and if it’s not working, you can always change it… but at least it’s a place for the blog to go day to day and week to week, especially those first few months.

Access to social media

The best thing to do after you blog? Be able to promote it! If your company has a Facebook page or Twitter account, give this person access so they can promote their posts. Sure you can have it set up so posts automatically go out but letting your writer go onto the social network and respond to comments, share it on their profile, and more means you’ll get way more bang for your buck.

Autonomy

By all means, check the first few blog posts before they go online… But nothing will slow down your company’s blogging quite like the bottleneck you will become if this keeps happening. Trust your people to do a good job (and by all means read the blog when it’s online!) but after an initial period of training, let your content writer run with it.

How Do I Find Content Writers?

So you’ve gathered above that while paying an hourly or salary employee to blog is cheaper for you per hour than having a writer do it… but it will also take them at least twice as long as someone just figuring it out. How can you find someone to help your employee get started or to do this for you?

Read blogs.

By reading blogs, you will find bloggers whose style you like. If you want to find someone local, do a Google blog search for local blogs in your area and see who’s writing. If you want someone who specializes in an industry, read blogs in those industries and certain names will emerge. These are good starting points.

Try LinkedIn.

Now that you have some names, look these people up on LinkedIn. Are they legit? Do other people recommend their blogging skills?

With LinkedIn’s new skills endorsements, at a glance you can see that while you might not want me to fix your leaking faucet, you probably can trust me to blog for you.

You can ever search by skill on LinkedIn (blogging) so think of this site as a way to check someone’s references.

Problogger.net Job Board

If you want to be a bit more general about it all (‘I just want someone who wants the job’), try posting it on the Problogger job board. This is a highly regarded place in the online community to find legitimate paid blogging opportunities. (Well it’s as legitimate as Craigslist for finding an apartment… there are always scammy people but plenty of reputable people use it too.)

No matter the route you go, all bloggers should be able to provide writing samples to you and other pieces of information that can help you make your decision.

Like the rest of the world, you are more likely to find someone you already know for the job. That said, there is no reason you can’t go out and seek a content writer yourself if you don’t know any!
Does this seem like a bit of work? It always is to implement something new at first.
Will your employee need a bit more help then someone who does this all day? Of course.
But is it worth having a blog? This being my 897th entry, I might be a little biased when I say absolutely.

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Breaking Even Communications

One Day Website Workshop: The When, The Why, and The How

Managing Expectations For Your DIY Project