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Hello Alaska,
I consistently argue for the business use of social media, but the #1 objection I hear most often is, "I don't have enough time". In response, Hubspot recently provided a breakdown of the necessary time to attend to a campaign: - Check Twitter for chatter about your company ( 2 minutes ): Use tools like TweetDeck or Twitter Search to monitor conversations about your company in real-time.
- Scan Google Alerts ( 1.5 minutes ): Check Google Alerts for your company name, products, executives or brand terms. To set this up, enter your search terms in a Google Alert and select to receive updates as they happen or once daily. Now, when people blog about your products, an alert will be sent to your inbox. You can read the articles and respond right away!
- Check Facebook stats ( 1 minute ): Visit your Company Page's Facebook Insights. This can be found under the page's main photo if you are an admin for your page. Scan your active users and interaction stats. Check out your wall posts or new discussions if you have them enabled for your page.
- Answer Industry-related LinkedIn questions ( 3 minutes ): Search for questions on LinkedIn that you or members of your company can answer. You can set up an RSS feed for specific question categories to go to your Google Reader as well. When you find a relevant question, respond and include a link to your website or a relevant blog post that might be helpful to your audience.
- Use Google Reader to check Flickr, Digg and others ( 2.5 minutes ): Also set up RSS feeds for searches on your company name and industry terms in other social media sites. Similar to monitoring LinkedIn and Twitter, your Reader will serve as a great place to centralize your other searches too!
According to the wizzes at Hubspot, all of the above items combined should take about 10 minutes out of your day. We should all be able to squeeze that in, right? Here are a couple of problems with that theory: - These vehicles all need to be set up in the first place, a daunting task for the average middle-aged American business owner. Most of us would do 100 things that we like, or at which we excel, before tackling this chore (approximate time with unforeseen delays, several long breaks and some serious procrastination - 6 hours).
- Once we're finally set up, we begin our daily check for company chatter on various social media sites and blogs, for which Hubspot allocated 2 minutes. However, addressing them by either acknowledging a positive remark, or responding to negative comments will easily take 10 minutes.
- Answering a question on LinkedIn should take more than 3 minutes, if you want to sound like you know what you're doing (actual time 15 minutes, unless the question was "how to calibrate an electronic pressure sensor", in which case I'd set aside an extra 15 minutes)
When we are confronted with steps 1-5, paying a few bucks to have someone else take care of this work for us sounds like a brilliant idea. Hubspot's recommendations seem to count on that thought process. The company is after all a for profit business, in the marketplace to help us with these tasks; for a nominal fee. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube video posts are all great tools to promote your business inexpensively. But no matter how good we are at creating a positive online presence for our company and a marketing strategy to go along with it, small business people still need to perform. We live in a viral world, whether we are active participants, or not, because people talk about their experiences online and share that information freely. There is probably a formula around where company revenue, divided by the number of employees, equals the need to monitor online activity with regard to your firm. At a certain size, ensuring that Internet chatter as it pertains to your business is positive and answering those posts that show your company in a less than ideal light is essential, but for us little guys it is more important to make the time to ensure that our customers are satisfied in the first place. We may be able to use social media to attract customers initially, but if you are a small mechanic that consistently botches jobs and overcharges, monitoring Google Reader, Facebook and Twitter 24 hours a day won't help you stay in business. See you next week!
What's cooking at the Anchorage SBDC?
Check out the current workshop schedule on the SBDC Facebook page
Back by popular demand, the annual listing of Farmer's Markets throughout the state: ANCHORAGE Anchorage Downtown Market & Festival 3rd Avenue Between C & E Streets Season: May - September
Time: Saturday & Sunday, 10:00am - 6:00pm Anchorage Farmers Market 1420 Cordova Street Season: May - October Time: Saturday, 9:00am - 2:00pm Center Market University Center (Old Seward Highway & 36th Avenue) Season: May - October Time: Saturdays, 10:00am - 4:00pm Northway Mall Wednesday Market 3101 Penland Blvd at the Northway Mall Season: May - October Time: Wednesday, 9:00am - 4:00pm South Anchorage Farmers Market Location: Subway Sports Centre/Cellular One Sports Season: May - October
Time: Saturday, 9:00am - 2:00pm South Anchorage Farmers Market Location: Behind Dimond Mall, in front of Dimond Hotel Season: July - October
Time: Wednesday, 10:00am - 4:00pm Spenard Farmers Market Location: Under the Windmill at Spenard, between 25th & 26th Avenue Season: May 22 - September Time: Saturday 10:00am - 3:00pm COPPER VALLEY Copper Valley Farmers Market Location: Mt. View Gas/The Fishing Widow Season: July- September
Time: Every other Saturday, 10:00am - 1:00pm DELTA JUNCTION Highway's End Farmers Market Location: At "The Triangle" at the end of the Alaska Highway across from the Visitor's Center Season: May - September
Time: Wednesday & Saturday, 10:00am - 3:00pm DENALI Denali Farmers Market Location: Intersection of the Parks Hwy & Susitna River Road, Trapper Creek
Season: July - Mid-September Time: Saturday, 11:00am - 2:00pm DILLINGHAM Dillingham Farmers Market Location: by the Hockey Rink Season: June - September
Time: Saturday, 11:00am - 1:00pm EAGLE RIVER Saturday Eagle River Farmers Market Location: at Mike's Meats on the Business Loop, corner of Business Blvd and Old Glenn Hwy Season: July - September
Time: Saturdays, 9am - 2pm Eagle River Farmers Market Location: Eagle River VFW Post Parking Lot Eagle River Season: May - September
Time: Tuesday, 3:00pm - 7:00pm
ESTER Ester Village Farmers' and Craft Market Location: Ester Community Park Season: June - September
Time: Thursday, 4:30pm - 7:30pm FAIRBANKS Tanana Valley Farmers Market Location: College Road and Caribou Way Fairbanks Season: May - September
Time: Wednesday & Sunday, 11:00am- 4:00pm, Saturday, 9:00am - 4:00pm GLENNALLEN Kenny Lake Harvest Location: Corner of Glenn and Richardson Highways Season: June - September
Time: Fridays 3:00pm-7:00pm HAINES Haines Farmer Market Location: Payson's Pavilion in the Fair Grounds Season: May - September
Time: 5/30, 6/27, 7/11, 7/25, 8/8, 8/22, 9/12 from 10:00am - 1:00pm HOMER Homer Farmers Market Location: Ocean Drive, Homer Season: June - September
Time: Wednesday, 3:00pm- 6:00pm & Saturday, 10am- 3pm JUNEAU Juneau Farmers Market Location: Juneau Arts and Culture Center Juneau Season: June - August
Time: Sunday, 9:00am - 12:00pm KASILOF Kasilof Flea & Farmers Market Location: Corner of Mile 111 1/2 Sterling Highway & North Cohoe Loop KENAI Kenai's Saturday Market Location: Kenai Visitor & Cultural Center, Kenai Season: May - September
Time: Saturday, 10:00am - 5:00pm Kenai Peninsula Farmers Market Location: 43453 K-Beach Road, next door to Sav-U-More, Soldotna Season: June - October/ Time: Wednesday & Saturday, 1:00pm - 7:00pm Central Kenai Peninsula Farmers Market Location: Intersection of E. Corral Avenue & Kenai Spur Hwy, Soldotna Season: June - September/ Time: Saturday, 10:00am - 2:00pm PALMER Palmer Friday Fling Location: Pavilion across from Visitor's Center Season: May - August Time: Friday, 11:00am - 6:00pm SITKA Sitka Farmers Market Location: ANB Hall, 235 Katlian Street Season: July - September Time: Every other Saturday, 10:00am - 2:00pm: 7/17, 7/31, 8/14, 8/28, 9/11. 9/25 at Crescent Harbor Shelter SOLDOTNA Central Kenai Peninsula Farmers Market Location: Intersection of E. Corral Avenue & Kenai Spur Hwy, Soldotna Season: June - September Time: Saturday, 10:00am - 2:00pm Soldotna Wednesday Market Location: Soldotna Creek Park, behind Don Jose's Season: June - September/ Time: Wednesday 10:00am - 4:00pm Kenai Peninsula Farmers Market Location: 43453 K-Beach Road, next door to Sav-U-More, Soldotna Season: June - October/ Time: Wednesday & Saturday, 1:00pm - 7:00pm VALDEZ Kenny Lake Harvest Location: Rogue's Garden Parking Lot, Valdez S Season: July - September
Time: Tuesdays, 11:00am -2:00pm WASILLA Wasilla Farmers Market Location: Behind Wasilla Public Library Season: June - September/ Time: Wednesday, 11:00am - 6:00pm WILLOW Willow Farmers Market Location: at Mile 69 Parks Highway, across from Newman's Tesoro Season: July - September
Time: Friday, 2:00pm - 7:00pm Visit the Alaska Farmers Market Association for more information and how to contact the individual markets. ------------------------------------------------------- 2011 Fishin' Chix Alaska 1st Annual Fishin' Chix Pink Rubber Boots Ladies Fishing Rodeo Benefitting the Kenai Peninsula Food Bank The Fish Hut Charters and Lodging, Kenai, AK July 17, 2011 King Salmon Series The First Place winners will receive 60%; Second Place will receive 30% and Third Place will Receive 10% of the cash pot. The start time will be 7:00 a.m. shotgun start with the weigh-in at NOON sharp! The cost is $75 per person with 5% of the gross proceeds going to the Kenai Peninsula Food Bank and $21.25 towards tournament expenses. There must be at least one Fishin' Chix Member on the boat to be allowed in the Tournament. Men may fish but are not eligible for any prizes. There is a BBQ immediately following this event. Contact Jackie English - Independent Chapter Representative (907) 398-7877, akfishinchixs@hotmail.com, or Colleen Denbrock - Tournament Director (907) 262-4296 for more information and registration form: ------------------------------------------------------- The Arctic Imperative Summit June 19-21 Alyeska Resort, Girdwood Two days of provocative discussions, investor roundtables and original research focusing on infrastructure development, policy needs and economic opportunities in the Alaskan Arctic. Don't miss this rare opportunity to share ideas with influential stakeholders and help shape future development in the region. Visit www.arcticimperative.com for more information ------------------------------------------------------- AEDC Annual Outlook Luncheon Featuring author and radio host Kurt Andersen Wednesday July 27th Noon-1:30 p.m. Dena'ina Civic & Convention Center Get Your Tickets Here ------------------------------------------------------- The Alaska Chapter of the AMA proudly presents its Summer Lecture Series - Social Media June 9
Presented by Sandra Yi Fuller, with MSI Communications
- Marketing Research July 14
Presented by Heather Handyside and Adam Hays, Hays Research Group
- Facebook, Marketing Online August 11 Presented by Ross Johnston, Fine Point. This in-depth lecture series takes place in the Carr Gottstein building Auditorium on the Alaska Pacific University campus. Parking is free. Open to the public, Free to AMA, AK Chapter members, and $10 for non-members. Bring a friend, your own lunch and we will see you there. Registration recommended at www.amaalaska.org
------------------------------------------------------- Professional Development Seminar, sponsored by the Alaska Chapter of the PRSA The Hybrid PR Professional with Deirdre Breakenridge (who has recently been named one of the Nifty 50 Women on Twitter and one of the Top 50 Small BizWomen on Twitter). Attendees will learn the hybrid approach to social media roles and responsibilities, social media strategic planning and policy development. Discussion will include: - How public relations, marketing and Web work together in an organization's social media outreach.
- How public relations will rise to a level of one-on-one meaningful communication that helps marketing to embrace engagement over consumer interruption.
- How public relations has challenged traditional methods of monitoring and measurement to produce Return on Investment (ROI), as well as Return on Engagement (ROE), Return on Participation (ROP) and Return on Awareness (ROA).
Friday, June 24 8 AM - 11:30 AM Crowne Plaza Hotel 109 W. International Airport Rd., Anchorage, AK 99502 Breakfast is included. Member fee $80.00 Non-member fee $110.00 Visit the PRSA website for more information and to register. ------------------------------------------------------- | 
