Social Media: Do you use proper etiquette?

Social media, in my personal opinion, is essential to a business in this day and time. People are always asking are you on Facebook, Instagram, what about Twitter and many others. While everyone wants to know if you are on these social media networks, keeping them up to date can be a pain. I am however so very grateful to the person/persons that came up with the idea of linking accounts so that one post can go across multiple networks. Linking accounts makes keeping social media up to date slightly less daunting. Some critics don’t like this feature but I love it. All of that is a moot point though if first you don’t know proper social media etiquette. Seeing as this is our first post on social media, I feel it not remiss if we discuss etiquette first.

       
       If you Google social media etiquette for business, tons of hits will come up. I will only post 5 key points. Feel free to post some etiquette rules (for business or personal) you feel are important in the comments below.

#1 Which is kind of a pet peeve of mine. Don’t write on someone’s business page wall and tell them to like your page or follow you. Don’t even do the, I liked your page so go like mine thing.

#2 Don’t flood news feeds with constant posts. If you post multiple times a day, make sure they are spaced out accordingly to avoid the flood.

#3 Mistakes happen but please, please, please check for typos and grammatical errors before posting.

#4 Be respectful, nice, courteous, you know the saying…do unto others….A thank you goes a long way and makes supporters/followers feel appreciated.

#5 #Don’t #over #use #the #hashtag. Just about all social media networks use hashtags. On some sites its ok to use multiple hash tags others it’s not. If you don’t know don’t over use, stick to just #one or #two.

This is one of many sites I came across about social media etiquette. It has a guideline that breaks it down for each network. Check it out, it has some pretty good info on it.

http://www.jeffbullas.com/2014/09/19/social-media-etiquette/

Happy Reading,

Andrea

Did You Do The RESEARCH???

Feels like college again….research, research, research. Starting and owning a small business is not an easy job. I’m writing the article knowing that a lot of the things I will mention we ourselves have not done. We are totally not hypocrites, how dare you even think it. Oh, what’s that you say, you weren't thinking it? Oh well, must be my guilty conscious, lol.  According to the U.S. Small Business Administration to run a successful business, you need to learn about your customers, your competitors and your industry.

Learn Your Customers

Who is your target audience for sales and services? Is it men, women, adults, teens, children? Learning about your customers helps improve sales. Believe it or not, just knowing the form of payment your customer type prefers can improve your sales. Say you have an elderly couple wanting to buy from you, they may only pay by check but you don’t accept checks so that could be a loss in sales.  Maybe there is a younger couple who wants to purchase something and they don’t carry cash, only debit or credit. There are lots of possible scenarios, for each you should be prepared for. You should know your target audience and make any necessary changes needed to accommodate them. What forms of payment they prefer to use, what they like to buy, when they like to buy it are all things you should know. Knowing your target audience should also have an impact on your marketing as well. Whether it’s by flyers, brochures, email, text or an app, you should know the best method and use it to your advantage.

Know Your Competition

        Google is a great tool….use it or whatever search engine you prefer. I have searched using keywords that describe our products to see what comes up. This is good because it shows you who has similar products. It also shows if your products are showing up in these searches and if so, how far at the top of the search results are you. This is just my FREE method for checking out the competition. I know there are many more feel free to share in the comments below. Seeing where you show up and how many others offer the same or similar products is a way to improve your business. Maybe you need a new advertising strategy or you may even need to change or switch up your product ideas.

Know Your Industry

If, like us, you corner the market in your area, that can be a good and a bad thing. Good because no one else in your area does or offers what you do, so you have the opportunity to get all of the local business. Bad because being so unique comes with a different set of battles like just getting your name and what you do out there. Our business is constantly growing but not always in monetary form, sometimes it just in awareness or recognition. If by chance you are in a well-known industry your challenges are slightly different. Yes, you have to get your name out there but you have to be even more innovative in the products you offer and how you present them. All that being said, know you industry, the ins and outs of online sales and in person sales.

        This is one of my longer post but it’s packed with useful information that only touches the tip of the iceberg on business research. Know your customers, know your competition, and know your industry. Did YOU do the research?

Where'd The Money Go?

        Good question. Knowing where your money is going is one of the most important elements of your business. You go to a craft show or you make sales in-store or online and when its all said and done it seems like you have nothing to show for it. Keeping track of your expenses and sales is a must. It will allow you to see where your money is actually going. When you keep accurate books, you will be able to determine your profit and loss margins as well. Once you have a clear idea of how you are spending and making money set a budget. Oh no, not a budget, SMH yes, my friend, a budget.
       
        There are some great programs available to help with book keeping. I know many small businesses, like us, can't really afford to just out right purchase book keeping software, but thank goodness there are some free/low cost options available. You can search the web for some free book keeping software and there are also templates available to use if you want to take that route. We chose to use QuickBooks online. Its very affordable and they have many plan options available to meet your financial needs. I like QuickBooks because it does all the figuring for you. It makes life so much easier and allows us to focus on other things. It shows your expenses and sales reports as well as allows you to run profit/loss reports. Book keeping, good book keeping, is essential to your business and should be a top priority."Pot meet Mr, Kettle", I know I'm speaking to myself as well. It can be hard to stay on top of but it's a necessary evil.

        You should also make a budget and stick to it. (Man, I'm really ragging on myself here.) You will definitely be wondering, "Where'd The Money Go?", if you don't. Spending more than you are earning is never a good thing in business or in life. That's why setting a limit(budget) is a must.

        I said all of this to say, good book keeping is essential to running and growing a business. If you have your books in order you won't have to wonder, "Where'd The Money Go?"....You'll already know.


Happy Reading
Andrea

Daylight Savings Time

So, it's daylight savings time, again. I was just getting use to the extra hour of sleep, now it's time to take it away. Woe is me. If you haven't figured it out yet, I dislike daylight savings time. Maybe it's not so much daylight savings time but just the fact that twice a year I have to change my internal clock as well as my watch. Here's an excerpt from a great article on daylight savings time from National Geographic.

"Each U.S. state and territory is free to ignore daylight savings time, so residents of Arizona (except those on the Navajo Nation), Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and other territories won't move their clocks this weekend.

If these exceptions seem confusing, the situation was far worse 50 years ago, according to Tufts University professor Michael Downing, author of Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time. Before the U.S. Uniform Time Act of 1966, DST was often observed very locally—and chaos was the result.

"In 1965 there were 130 cities in the country with populations of 100,000 or more," Downing explained. "Fifty-nine did not observe daylight saving.

"Of the 71 that did, there were at least 20 different adoption dates. In Minnesota, St. Paul was on one time, Minneapolis was on a different time, and Duluth was on Wisconsin time. In fact, somebody even found a Minneapolis office building in which the different floors of the building were observing different time zones because they were the offices of different counties."

As discombobulating as daylight savings time can be now, it was much worse before 1966. I can't imagine what kind of chaos ensued as a result of not having a uniformed time. I guess I can't really complain because it's much better now but I still would like for it to stay one way or the other, preferably the falling back time portion lol. 

What would you prefer?

Happy reading,

Andrea

The Many Perils of Small Business

So you want to start a business, forming the idea, easy, implementing the idea, not so easy. Why must it be so hard to own your own business? Throughout our journey I will be sharing with you some of the perils that we face as a small business. Some of the perils we face are relevant whether its small business or big business. One of the key factors for starting, owning and running a business is money. There are many different perils but for this post I plan to focus on money.

So you have the idea and you are tired of working for "the man" so you decide to work for yourself instead. Great idea, first question, where do you get the start up capital. Getting start up capital can be one of the biggest hurdles of starting a business. It's great if you can go to the bank and get approved for a loan and generate the revenue to pay back the loan but many people, including us, don't have what it takes to get approved or just don't want the added debt. So what do you do? Get investors, people who believe that you have a viable product and want to take part of your business. Get support from family and friends. Another good option is start a campaign on Gofundme.org. Or you could do what we are currently doing, which I must say is not ideal but its the route we have decided to take so far, and that's the pay as you go option. This option makes it so that you don't have to take out loans but your business will grow at a much slower rate because you may not be able to buy all of the equipment that you need until funds become available. Eventually, will we have to take out a loan, yes, but not just yet. We want to make sure we are in a position so that the business itself can make the loan payments and not have that money coming out of our personal pockets.

This particular peril kinda ties into another one of my blog post titled "Where'd The Money Go?", which will be published soon. Money is one of the deciding factors of business. So no money, no business so to speak. Not much you can do if you don't have the capital to keep your business running. So stay tuned as I share more of the perils that we face as a small business and also share some info on money management.

Happy Reading,

Andrea