Tag Archives | Facebook

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

By 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.

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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Youtube’s and My Dad’s Birthday

By on April 23, 2013 in About Us

Business Insider let me know this morning that it was Youtube’s 8th birthday. It also happens to be my dad’s birthday. No one had to tell me that, in part because it’s three days before mine and only a few days after my sister’s. (Yes, my mom made three separate birthday cakes and had three separate parties. She’s a trooper!)

My dad passed away five years ago in November. So he didn’t get to see Youtube in all it’s glory.. but he did get to see some of it.

My dad hated computers. He was dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century by my mom and brother-in-law and implemented a computer inventory system finally at the hardware store my family owns. My mom did all his email for him at their shared email address. I can almost hear him say ‘Tell Nicole…’ as I read through some of my mom’s old emails.

What he did enjoy about computers was a specific part of the internet (I heard from my brother-in-law so if I’m wrong, Justin, let me know!) was his my MSNBC homepage.

Now these pages no longer exist but the idea was you logged in and in a dashboard format, it showed you articles you might like, videos, links to partner websites etc.

Lots of websites do this now. Really these were the precursor to the personalized news we have come to expect on social networks.

My dad liked checking it before and after lunch… because it changed during the day.

I smile when I think of this. I have 600 new unread articles in my RSS feed reader just from since 9 am this morning. My Facebook and Twitter feeds update every second.

My dad knew the internet at a simpler time. I did too when Breaking Even was first getting started.

So today, I appreciate that all this access to information is still novel, videos can still be funny, and wonder at how it all can refresh if I just wait a bit.

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How To (Not) Run A Facebook Contest

By on April 17, 2013 in Web/Tech

“I know I’m not doing it legally but…”

I smile as my friend/small business owner confesses to not running an exactly legitimate Facebook contest. I like how I’m kind of a Facebook priest that people confess their sins to.

Now she’s totally right; I am willing to bet Facebook is not going to come after her relatively small page for running a Facebook contest that is against their rules.

(Facebook? Rules? Yes there are some:
https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php)

The best way to follow the rules? Use an app to run your contest. I’ve used ShortStack for a photo contest (note there is no affiliate link there meaning I am getting exactly $0 to recommend them to you). It works great… and at $30/month for the two months we needed it, it was a great tool. If you look up ‘Facebook contest app’ you will no doubt find others that will work for your particular contest.

Now I see plenty of people trying to avoid this but here’s a couple of reasons why I think you should fork out some money and do your contest the right way.

1) Facebook rule compliance is automatic. 

Does reading fine print make your queasy? These contest apps have done that and created a way to hold contests that follows Facebook’s (often changing) rules. If you get in trouble, the app developer is going to get hauled into the trouble with you.

2) Your contest is confusing without an app. Trust me. 

Story time folks.

Our local vet ran a photo contest recently on Facebook. The photos with the most likes (one in the cat category and one in the dog category) won. So the first step was submitting the pictures, which were supposed to be emailed. Only some people posted them to the Facebook wall. Or forgot the date they had to submit them by.

Once that fiasco finished, there was the voting. So the picture in each category with the most ‘likes’ won. So few people ‘shared’ the picture of their cat/dog onto their personal profiles to get likes… but the likes from their friends (who were looking at a photo on the profile) did not count toward the total like count of the photo on the vet’s Facebook page. Also some people left comments without liking the photos, thinking a comment also counted as a vote.

Does this look like my dog being in a photo contest? Yeah, it doesn't to me either. Is your Facebook contest equally unclear?

Does this look like my dog being in a photo contest? Yeah, it doesn’t to me either…and as you see, my friends are confused by it too. Is your Facebook contest equally unclear?

Do you want to confuse people at each stage of your contest?  No? Then get an app, it’ll automatically take care of a lot of these issues for you.

And literally just as I wrote this, I saw a post go by asking me to ‘like our banner’ to enter a contest. The status update itself had no image which led me to wonder: What banner? The cover image on your page? The photo you posted about the contest two weeks ago? I’m the local informal Facebook ‘priest’ as we have established earlier. So if I don’t get it, your people won’t either.

3) Customer service is way easier. 

Now let’s say you were running a photo contest like our vet friends. If I had set up a place were people could submit photos on their Facebook page and then made a deadline, I could simply say. ‘Go here to submit your photo’ and the submission page would automatically go away on the deadline. Then I could have made a voting page for each pet viewable on one screen. I could have restricted the votes by Facebook profile, IP address, etc. The act of voting (or not voting) would be very clear by using a ‘vote’ button. I can even make a rules page which as a link comes up when people are on the contest page.

Do you want to answer the same questions over and over? Yeah, us either. Having an app with everything findable within it will save you a lot of emailing and panicked messages.

4) People will like your page if you run a good contest, not if you coherse them. (This is just a me thing, you can legally run a contest that makes people like your page to participate.) 

If you make me like your page, spin on my head, share it with 16 friends, then vote, I’m not going to do it. But if you run a simple, organized straight-forward contest that people enjoy, guess who will like your page? Contest participants.

Now if you want to make them like your page to do it, that’s perfectly within Facebook rules. But I want someone to like me because they do, not because I made them. So a more creative contest might be submitting a photo or captioning a picture. Something creative that people want to share or otherwise be involved with.

So please do hold Facebook contests. The good ones make me laugh and give me hope in humanity. But do try to use a contest app. It’ll make your customers’ and your life easier for just a few bucks!

And as bonus reading, here’s another great article on this topic: http://allfacebook.com/4-mistakes-that-will-get-your-facebook-contest-shut-down_b111212

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What I Really Think About Facebook

By on March 11, 2013 in Web/Tech

Several times, I’ve heard people refer to me as ‘the Facebook girl’. The most common questions we get involve Facebook: how to use it for business and what people can/can’t see on your profile.

If only so I have an easy thing to link to when I answer Facebook questions, I thought I’d write a post about it today.

Fact 1: Facebook is a tool, which means we need to properly use it.
Whenever people get mad at Facebook, I get annoyed. Because here’s the thing: it’s a free tool. You aren’t paying for it. Facebook is paying employees to maintain the site, create improvements, hosting costs for all those photos you upload, and more. You know how you pay for magazine subscriptions, cable television, and other sources of entertainment but don’t pay to use Facebook?  Yeah, exactly.

How can you offer something for free that costs money? You offer advertising. You take advantage of the same tax loopholes as big corporations like Walmart or Target. You sell shares. Now you are a profitable company yet still offer a free service.

The second you become a paying customer, a shareholder, or a developer who solves a Facebook problem if they would only implement it, complain all you want. Otherwise to me, it’s the equivalent of people who complain about our government but don’t get involved in the political process.

And guess what? If Facebook suddenly wanted to charge, all the power to them. It’s their website, not ours. If you want some bit of information to be yours forever and ever, put it on your website. Because you own that.

Fact 2: Facebook is the new silly email forward, which means I will ignore a lot of it.
Those ridiculous things you used to get in your email inbox have gone onto Facebook… where I will also ignore them. Let’s address these two of these things I see the most often which I am ignoring/deleting like I was doing with these email forwards way back when:

Intolerant Posts
People on both sides of the political, religious, and other aisles we’ve created in society need to stop posting negative stuff about the other side. First of all, there are plenty of ways to make your point in a non-negative way.

Second, there’s a psychological phenomenon where when you talk about other people, the person that’s hearing you subconsciously attributes those qualities to you.  So if you are saying someone is arrogant, the person hearing you saying it thinks you’re arrogant. Think on that.

OMG Privacy Posts
At least every two months, I see a bunch of ‘the sky is falling’ status updates about Facebook privacy. They are usually a flurry of activity as they get copied from friend to friend. You’ll notice me ‘the Facebook girl’ never perpetuates these.

In response to this latest one: if you really think I am going to click on and change a setting for you, you are crazy. I have over 900 friends and not much spare time.

If you are using something, you need to understand it. You wouldn’t misuse your microwave (by, say, putting aluminum foil in it and shorting it out) and then bring the microwave back to the store and tell them it’s their fault it’s broken. There are hundreds of great blogs out there including Mashable and AllFacebook which cover Facebook and how to use it in detail. You can also ask an expert for help.

The good news? Misusing Facebook won’t usually cause an electrical fire.

If you are genuinely worried about privacy settings 1) Go to your privacy settings on your profile and put your shields way up and 2) Don’t share things on Facebook you don’t want people to see. Which brings me to…

Fact 3: Facebook is my workplace, which means I will respect it.
Despite evidence I see daily, Facebook is public. If you wouldn’t want your boss and your grandmother seeing it, don’t post it.

Go look at my Facebook page if you want. These are all things I don’t mind you seeing: pictures of my dog, what I ate for dinner. Have you ever seen what my bedroom looks like? A picture of me doing any kind of illegal substance? A mean comment about someone else? Exactly. This isn’t me putting up a front; this is my public persona. A curated version of who I am that I am showing you on purpose.

You know where I go to relax? Pinterest. There, no one expects anything of me or wants to interact and instead I can just look at pretty pictures. (Alice’s version of this is Imgur.)

As Facebook evolves, it’s been interesting to watch how people use this tool. Heck, how I use the tool.

But as long as a majority of you respect this free resource by treating other users with respect, I think I will be grateful for what it does and tolerant of its shortcomings. Otherwise, I’m going to move onto the next social thing, and gladly.

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When Your Post Goes Viral

By on February 20, 2013 in Web/Tech

One of my colleagues is Jim LeClair, who runs the Maine Coast Welcome Center. He’s a mapping specialist who gets businesses listed in GPS units, etc.

I got a call from him last week, asking if I’d mind looking at his Facebook stats.

Because they seemed low? Nope, because they were really really high.

A simple thank you got around 30,000 shares (the photo was reposted and got 1,000 more shares from that). Even Jim, the guy who made it, is shocked.

A simple thank you got around 30,000 shares (the photo was reposted and got 1,000 more shares from that). Even Jim, the guy who made it, is shocked.

Jim thought it might be fun to post a picture thanking the plow people. He didn’t use Photoshop or do anything fancy; it literally took him five minutes. What happened next shocked him.

Over 100,000 people were ‘talking about’ his photo on Facebook and in 48 hours it got thousands and thousands of shares.

“How do I capitalize on this?” he asked.

“Did people like your page from it?” I asked.

He said about 400 people liked his page from the photo.

Sadly that’s the only way to follow up with people is if they like your page. Could Jim take out a Facebook ad with this picture and probably eek out a few more fans? I’m sure but those 30,000 fans will not hang on his every word from now on. And that’s ok.

A few takeaways from this situation:

1) Being positive will get you way farther than being negative. 
This photo generated some discussion, including some back and forth about plow drivers being overpaid. At first Jim was going to delete the negative but then he decided to just let the discussion be discussion. But his positive sentiment thanking plow drivers got him way more traction then being whiny.

2) You can’t plan viral.
Would Jim have made this photo different if he know hundreds of thousands would see it? Probably. But does it matter? This idea that you can plan for something to ‘go viral’ is ridiculous. Things online have a life of their own and you have to embrace that.

3) Some fame will linger in the way of fans who stick around… but a lot won’t.
This is why when things happen, you enjoy the exposure. Some new fans will stick around but not a majority (400 out of 30,000 in this case). And that’s ok.

Jim is enjoying the paparazzi not being outside his door (kidding), it was a pretty cool experience I’m happy one of my friends has had.

Have your own ‘going viral’ stories? How did it change your business? What did you learn?

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How To Market Your Restaurant Online

By on January 14, 2013 in Marketing Monday

I love food. For awhile, I was a ranked Klout influencer on the subject of avocados. True story.

Matt Erasmus, "Menu" May 18, 2008 via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution.

Matt Erasmus, “Menu” May 18, 2008 via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattzn/2541291913/

What makes me really sad is when I go into a restaurant and it’s awesome but there is no way anyone would know about it. Here are a few easy wins you can do with your restaurant right now:

Put your menu online. Somewhere.
Some of the time, Alice is a bar tender. She says if she has to read the sandwich list over the phone one more time to someone wanting to place a takeout order, she may go insane. She estimates she does this at least five times during her typical shift. (Note that while she is doing this, she is not able to do her primary job, which is taking care of the actual customers sitting at the bar.)

Get a website. Even a basic one. Put your menu and your hours on it and you too will have less annoying phone calls. Or at the very least, stick your menu on your business Facebook page or use a website like Open Menu. Both are free and, except for needing data entry, relatively painless.

When people call and see your menu is online, the person answering can now take orders from someone ready to buy, not spend time repeating information over and over.

If you have a website, make sure the menu and hours are up-to-date.
Are your pictures on your website old? Your customers won’t notice unless someone is clearly in, say,  an outfit from the 1970s. What I do need to know are what you serve and what your hours are.

I once checked the hours on a local restaurant’s website and made a lunch meeting there only to get there and find it ‘closed for the season’. The prospective client shrugged at me and I actually ended up not getting their business. I haven’t been back to that restaurant since because they kind of left me hanging.

Make sure people know when you are open. If your website, Facebook page, and front door have the same information, people can’t get upset that you didn’t tell them. (Well that one dude that is upset about everything will be but everyone online knows about his ridiculousness.) Just don’t leave me hanging with hours that aren’t true.

Get your customers’ email addresses as they leave.
The China Dine-ah is the master at this. They give everyone a card about the size of a business card with their check. You put in your name and email on it and get entered to win a $25 gift certificate which is drawn every week and announced over the weekly email blast. They have a list of thousands.

Most people don’t mind giving an email address (even if it’s a secondary one they check less often) so take it. Email is the only ‘free’ way you can follow up with a customer after the fact. It doesn’t hurt to ask; the worse someone can do is not give it to you and, guess what, you are at the same place you are right now.

Offer a juicy, social media only deal.
The people who like you on Facebook or check in on Foursquare are people who not only care about your business but are likely to point their friends your way. Offer this ‘inner circle’ only special and give them some exclusive information they can share. If you are going to put this in the newspaper, etc. this inside scoop will have much less meaning. Think about discovering a treasure you’ve found versus having the treasure pointed at by a big flashing Las Vegas style arrow. Guess which one is more cool and fun?

Make the deal juicy too. 10% off my order of fries with an entree order won’t do it for me and is kind of insulting. 50% off apps on Monday (or typical slow night) will get a new crowd in your doors and get them talking to their friends online about it. Both Facebook and Foursquare have easy ways to make deals. Deal websites are fine but do it yourself and keep the cash that Yelp, DealChicken, and Groupon will take from your bottom line.

Let your staff know what is going on.
When I flash the special I’ve unlocked on my phone via Foursquare and the waitress looks at me like I’m crazy and has to call the manager over (once again, this actually happened), I am thankful I am not a shy person. Most people I know would *hate* this kind of attention.

If you are offering a deal, or a new special, or a whatever, tell your staff about it. If they know it, they can sell it. Your staff is now linked to you in all kinds of fun ways through social media. They can list you as an employer on their Facebook or LinkedIn profile. They can check in on Foursquare. They are part of the social media equation so set the record straight with them so they can help other people understand what’s going on. Because if you make a customer even accidentally feel like a cheap jerkface, they are not going to want to come back in.

No matter what kind of restaurant you run, you can get more bodies in the door if you do more online!

Nicole Ouellette
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