YELP

YELP…Yikes or Yay?

July 3, 2012Nina KovnerENGAGE, GROW

“A happy customer is the greatest advertisement.”

Andy Sernovitz, Author of Word of Mouth Marketing

According to the US Census Bureau, 14% of Americans move every year (that’s close to 50 million last year alone). Every year, 12+ million move out of state and another 12 million move to another county in the same state. That’s a lot of people moving around and many will be in search of  “happy customers” to help them find their next great haircut and more.

Enter YELP,  “the fun and easy way to find and talk about great (and not so great) local businesses”.

YELPWith over 54 million unique visitors each month, it’s the place where savvy salons go to tap into online word of mouth and take advantage of this growing (and FREE) source of real world referrals and traffic.  In fact, salons are the 4th most searched for business on YELP, after shopping, home services and restaurants. WOW.

Check out The Power of Yelp, our newest Social Beauty Intelligence Webinar on the Why’s, What, and How’s of YELP.  Our hope is that you gain insight into this powerful referral platform and begin to use it to help attract new clients to your salon, YAY!

http://youtu.be/PCIXyhODf2w

(shared with LOVE from your passionistas Nina + Gordon)

 

 

Brian Solis Engage

The Promise, Kept

June 18, 2012Nina KovnerENGAGE, GROW

“One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises that one makes.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

 

Brian Solis is one of our digital heroes.  He speaks the truth.  He understands the digital space like no other, and the opportunities it provides to businesses and people if its used in the right way.  Brian Solis is the best selling author of Engage, and The End of Business as Usual, two books we highly recommend if you are seeking a deeper understanding of the social and digital revolution.  He is a disruptor, and we heart disruptors that push to make things better.

While we read his blog daily, this one jumped out at both of us at the same time, without even knowing, and therefore, worth sharing.  “Dear (insert business name here), what is Your Promise”.  Many companies have mission statements and vision statements, many times written in a boardroom somewhere, but what is your Promise?

In today’s VERY NOISY social and digital space, people want to know you, what you stand for, what your promise to them is, and be ready, because today, you will, we all will, be held accountable thanks to Facebook, YELP, Foursquare, Twitter and all the other social spaces that people can speak their mind.

We hope you take the time to read this blog from Brian Solis, you will be very happy you did, as will your team and your customers.

(shared with LOVE from your passionistas Nina + Gordon)

Lollipop Moments

June 11, 2012Nina KovnerGROW, HEROES

“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”

Mother Teresa

 

This inspiring video at TedxTalks by Drew Dudley completely re-frames the meaning of leadership, and shows that we all have the power to help change the world by making a single person’s life a bit more beautiful.  All it takes is a making a positive impact on one moment to one person, one day at a time.  WOW.

The amazing industry we play in everyday offers us all so many opportunities to create “lollipop moments” – whether it be for those entering our profession looking for direction, for peers in need of some mentorship, or even for our clients.

If it were not for those who created “lollipop moments” for us, we would not be where we are today, and so we are forever grateful to the people who created them for us.  Do you have a “lollipop moment”?  Think about it.

(shared with LOVE from your pasisonistas Nina + Gordon)

Find + Love + Share = Curation

May 30, 2012Nina KovnerENGAGE, GROW

 “There is no delight in owning anything unshared”

Seneca

Curate: to pull together, sift through and select for presentation, as music or Web site content. Dictionary.com

Before there was the social and digital web, most of what we saw as news and inspiration was the result of choices made by a limited number of professional “editors”. Today, that number has increased exponentially as platforms like Facebook have given us all the ability to become “editors” by simply curating (sharing the content that we find and love) for our online friends and fans.

A great example of this shift can be found on YouTube -a social platform featuring “gazillions” (48 hours of content uploaded every minute) of videos that run the gamut from impossibly amateur and uninteresting to highly polished productions (and everything in between).

One of our recent fave video finds is “1950’s Womens Beauty Salon” from Glamour Daze, a YouTube channel with 2.5 million views! We found it while searching beauty salons on YouTube, were hooked from the opening line, “To women, a beauty salon is more than a feminine barber shop”, and immediately knew we to had to share…curation at its best!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfFvJVRcVaE&feature=youtu.be

We also found this super juicy video on “curation” from devour.com (awesome video curation site) that simply and beautifully describes what curation really means and why it’s important.

PS: This blog was inspired by our passion of curating; finding engaging and empowering content that we love and feel compelled share.

(shared with LOVE from your curating passionistas Nina + Gordon)

 

Facebook Post

Facebook…Sharing The Love

May 25, 2012Nina KovnerENGAGE, GROW

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened.  Happiness never decreases by being shared”

Buddha

Have you ever wondered what makes a Facebook post engaging?  And by engaging, we mean the post earns likes, shares and comments.  Is it magic?  Is it a secret?  Well, maybe a little, but there are some key elements to consider in developing engaging posts on Facebook.

Facebook Post

As we write this blog post, we still are freaking out (in a good way) about the most engaging post in our history (that’s 2 months and 25 days).  Which earned 133 shares and 49 likes. WOW.

What about this post resonated with our Passion Squared community?  Here is our take…

Are you posting for your Target Audience?
Our community is passionate about making the world a better place, and this is done by starting with ourselves, which this quote was speaking to.  In our industry, we crave inspiration, growth and personal development, which is why inspirational quotes and images resonate with many of us.

Are your posts drenched in Authenticity?
The most engaging posts are those that people can feel the authenticity of your message.  The message from this post was just that, authentic, as was our intention in posting it.  People know when we are being “real”, the social space is no different, authenticity rules.

Are you enchanting your audience with Pictures?
On Facebook, posts with pictures or videos are typically the most engaging.  Makes sense, doesn’t it?  We all love images that make our heart sing.

Are you part of the Conversation?
The social web is the ultimate cocktail party.  Its designed for us to engage in two-way conversations.  This means its super important to always be checking your page, looking for posts, questions, comments, and responding, acknowledging and engaging your followers.

So many of us have thought that our Fan count was most important, when in reality, its the “Talking About This” number that counts.  This number represents the actual people engaging your page either by likes, shares or comments.

There are tremendous insights available on your “admin panel” of your business page. We recommend taking a look to see what your pages most engaging posts have been, and doing more of that.

Facebook has given us all such a cool opportunity to engage, empower and share with each other.  We are so grateful for our friends of Passion Squared and for all the love and support we feel from each of you every day.

For more info on Facebook Insights, you can jump onto https://www.facebook.com/help/search/?q=insights

We found this incredible image on Google, via a super cool Pinterest Board named Wordy Things.  We heart.  http://pinterest.com/lisapippus/wordy-things/

(shared with LOVE from your passionistas Nina+Gordon)