It’s March. Springtime in most of the northern hemisphere and time for Mother Nature to roll her dodecahedron to determine what will happen in the Sierras. For us? After the month of vendor love, let’s roar for those who give back to our communities!

Official Non-Profit Organizations

Do you represent a non-profit that perhaps has a thrift store, solicits product donations, or otherwise struggles to bridge the gap between your traditional offline development efforts and your social media presence? Now is the time to talk to us. We want to get you set up for Social Gifting so you can augment your existing efforts! How does no setup fee sound? How does a ridiculously low, non-profit-specific per-transaction IOMG fee sound? How does being able to take advantage of VendorBux™ and amplified word-of-mouth sound? It should sound like you want to talk to us and get set up before the end of the month!

Community Involvement of Other Forms

Existing vendors! You know who you think does a great job supporting your community. We always want you to spread the word about our services, of course, but for the month of March, we want you to reward your favorite community-involved business (non-profit or not) with free setup on IOMG. The voucher that you can give will be going out over the weekend.

Unlike the Month of Love vouchers which could be given to any business, these require a paragraph (or ore, if you wish) about how the recipient business has given back to the community. We want to hear wonderful stories about the things that are important to each of you, to highlight some of the great local efforts going on, to spotlight innovation, dedication, and resolve in the face of the adversity of those being served.

And… if you give your voucher and the recipient signs up, you get another to give away!

Social Gifting = Social Good

We believe in encouraging and supporting robust local community economies. We also believe that in order to accomplish that, giving back to those communities is essential.

Join us in sharing the platform, the benefits, and the camaraderie of give local, buy local, support local!

So You Want To Make a Facebook Page For Your Business?

All the cool kids are doing it; you want it too. How do you get started without looking like you just fell off the social media truck?

“Doing” social media correctly can take time and effort, but here are some basics to help you jump start the process.

This information is being provided courtesy of It’s On Me! Social Gifting and Siostra a la carte Marketing. If you have questions, want help, or just to join a community of like-minded individuals and businesses, feel free to visit us or our partners. Links are interspersed and also at the bottom of the page.

Get The Page Up and Running

1. Get an idea of what you want to accomplish. If you don’t know why you’re creating your Facebook page other than “I know/have been told I need to have one”, it may be worth your time to ask someone for help. You can decide to go it alone and discover along the way, too. Some possible goals: brand awareness, customer service, word-of-mouth testimonial collection, social and social media networking, direct sales, advertising.
2. Actually create your page. Here is the Facebook link. This will start you down the process of answering lots of questions, the first being what kind of page: Probably “Local Business or Place” or “Brand or Product”. You can change these later, so don’t get too hung up on it if you aren’t 100% sure. Don’t forget, you can also ask for help. Don’t neglect important pieces of information like address and hours.
3. Get your logo/image onto the page. This is the image that you see on the left-hand side of the page. Start with your business logo image (if you have one). Put something there. If that something is not a professional image, ask for help from your favorite local graphic artist or Siostra.
4. Ask your friends and family for “likes” by “inviting friends”. The “invite” link will be on the right-hand side of the Facebook page. Yes, the beg-a-thon can be annoying to be on the receiving end, so don’t do this very often. However, Facebook usually requires 25 likes to get a “vanity URL” (more on that below) so ramp up your initial likes quickly.
5. Get your “vanity URL”. A “vanity URL” is also called a “username”; it lets you give someone a URL that looks like http://www.facebook.com/IOMGLocalBusinessServices instead of http://www.facebook.com/pages/Supply-the-Future/127034560723350. Once you have your vanity URL, you can put it on business cards, flyers, etc.
6. Start the process for your “landing page”. If this is the first time you’ve done any of this, don’t freak out. You can do it yourself using a tool like ShortStack or you can get someone to create awesome landing pages for you.
7. Take a deep breath. If you’re new to this, here is where the fun really begins.
8. Start posting. Sounds simple enough, right? Imagine who you want to be reading these posts (revisit item #1 in the list). Start writing posts as if those people will be reading them. Assume you already have an audience. Post photos they will want to see. If you’re creating videos of your events or your products or your people or whatever, post them. It will take time to gain an audience, but visitors to your page need some reason to “like” you in order for them to stick around.
9. Watch for notification of your fans’ posts. You will want to periodically check for other people posting, whether they’re liking or commenting on your posts or asking you questions about your business. Take a few minutes a couple of times each day and respond to your fans. Not only will that help solidify your relationship with the person who you are answering, it will show those who are just reading that your company cares enough to interact and respond.

Overwhelmed yet? Don’t be. It may seem like too much work, but really, this is a great start to getting your business set up where your customers will be able to find you quickly and easily.

Add Special Features To Your Page

This is where you get to turn your page from a passive brochure into an active part of your marketing strategy. Remember the question in item #1 above? Go back to it. Why did you want your page in the first place? Some of the ideas you had there will drive the optional items that come next.

Give your visitors something to _do_ while they’re on your page. Actions. Sign up. Download. Give. Shop. The specifics will depend on your business, what resources you have available, and what you are comfortable with providing, but if you ask nothing of your visitors and give them nothing to participate in, that’s exactly what the result will be: nothing. Engage your visitors is not just talking to them, it’s encouraging them to one or more specific actions.

• Added value for likes Depending on the tools you use, you can offer coupons, white papers, or other spiffs to the visitors to your page who click ‘like’. Make what you offer legitimately interesting to your audience and you will be rewarded by more engaged visitors. Don’t give away the homeworld, but also don’t be stingy. Make your “giveaway” something of value.
• Contests, sweepstakes, and general giveaways Like any promotional efforts (you know, the traditional ones that don’t involve social media?), you can periodically re-engage your fans, generate promotional advertising, and give your fans a reason to share you to others through “custom tab” applications. Facebook has rules about promotions that you will want to be sure to follow, but if you use one of the many tools available such as ShortStack you can easily create and manage these.
• Custom features Restaurant menus? Financial calculators? Carpeting estimates? Appointment setting? Use your in-person business as a guide and look into ways to add convenience and value to your visitors; make it worthwhile not only for them to be involved with your page the first time, but to return whenever they need your services.
• Your Website Yes, you put your website URL in the Info box when you created the page (or edited it after reading this), right? Depending on how full-featured and up-to-date your web presence is, you may want a tab that sends your visitors to the website. This is a case-by-case basis.
• Newsletters, Mailing Lists, and More Whatever tool you use to create the tab, offer your visitors the chance to sign up for your mailing list: email, snail mail, whatever. This is a great opportunity to make sure they get your flyers, newsletters, coupons, notification of special subscriber-only events, and more. It also allows you to have an opt-in communication channel to your visitors that does not depend on Facebook.
• Shopping Do you offer goods or services? Make them available on your Facebook page. You can do that quickly and easily through our Social Gifting service where your visitors can even deliver those vouchers over Facebook to their friends (no virtual martinis here!). There are alternative methods as well. On-page transactions are good for most businesses, but talk to us about your business and the best way to approach your market.

Start Looking At Your Stats

The full meaning of the Insights tab is well beyond the scope of this Quick Start guide, but know these are there. This is one of the benefits of using a page in the first place on Facebook.

Click the Insights tab on the left of your page and you will be faced with graphs, tables, and more. This is a good thing, even if it seems a bit too much at first.

As you explore the statistics and graphs, you will be able to identify where your visitors are coming from, which articles are capturing the most attention, how items are being shared, and whether the time you’re spending is generally worthwhile.

Start “Collecting” Pages

As you (as a Facebook user) browse pages from other businesses, you will want to make associations with other pages/businesses. If you want to make a personal association, “like” that business’s page. If you want to make a professional association, look for the “Add to my page’s favorites” link on the lower left (as of this writing) of the page. When you “add to favorites” for your page, this is commonly referred to as a “Page Like”, and the pages you “like” this way will show up on your page as well. (HINT: Don’t “page like” your direct competitors.)

Why would you “page like” someone? It can help gain you exposure indirectly or otherwise generate interest in your page. It can also send people to their page which, perhaps counter-intuitively, will help you, if you’re seen as a good social citizen. The other page (if they know you’ve “page liked” them) is also more likely to “page like” you back, allowing their visitors to discover you.

How do you tell when someone has “page liked” you? It doesn’t immediately show up. As of this writing, Facebook does not include the number of page likers in the “total likes” shown on the front of the page. You have to look for it… inside the Insights page.

When you’re on your page:

1. Click the “like this” link under the number on the left-hand side of the page
2. On the upper-right of this page, there will be a “See Likes” link (above the bar chart). Click this link. It should pop up a window.
3. This window should show you who likes your page. In addition, it should have a menu on the left (that will say “People” at first). Select “Pages”. This will display the pages that have liked your page.

Check this list periodically and, as you feel appropriate, remember to thank those pages for visiting/liking your page. It’s generally poor form to blatantly advertise yourself on someone else’s page, so an etiquette tip is tread lightly when it comes to posting.

And So Much More

As you can probably tell, these “getting started” instructions are really just that; getting started. You can take these tips and tasks and get a decent page up and running, start growing and interacting with your fan-base. From here, the sky is the limit! You can spend as much or as little time as you like, with varying effects. When you’re just getting started, it’s highly recommended that you consult with someone you trust who has demonstrated experience in social media, even if that is just to ease you into doing your maintenance yourself. This is the way to have the most authentic and real social media experience for your fans/customers/visitors as well as for you.

There are also services who will manage up to, and including, all your social media; posting, blogs, and more, if you want to pay them for the service. This can be a valuable approach as well to consider, depending on just how involved in the process you wish to be.

Who Are We?

Again, a shout out to Cristina Sierra of NeverMissGift for the inspiration and a starting task list that has morphed into this document.

It’s On Me! Social Gifting (Brad Brighton) Your humble narrator. Creator of the Social Gifting application and maintainer of the Local Business Services page. Web | App | User FB Page | Business Services FB Page

Siostra: a la carte Marketing (Lara McKusky) Graphic Design, Facebook page creation and maintenance, and much more On Facebook

ShortStack (NOTE: ShortStack / Pancake Labs have had nothing to do with this document. They are just our default recommendation when it comes to easy-to-use page creation tools. We don’t even get any referral fees or anything. It would be nice if you told them where you heard about them though.) Cool Facebook page creation tools. Contests. Menus. More. On Facebook

Welcome to the first user newsletter for the It’s On Me Social Gifting community! We’re excited to start 2012 with a revised store UI, new vendors, and a great year ahead of us.

Have you visited the IOMG store lately? Stop by, check out the regions and browse the vendors. Let us know what you think!

Don’t know how to use the app? Check out our walkthroughs with screenshots!

Whether you’re wanting to give a gift or someone has given you one, the process is quick, simple, and painless.

Two of Our Newest Participating Vendors

Siostra a la Carte Marketing is our first participating vendor on the East Coast and will be helping us some with our graphics work, too. Check out their logo and FB page designs, and if you’re not already working with a local artist, ask Lara how Siostra can help you.

Central Coast Photobooth Company is an expansion of Reno’s own Reno Photobooth Company and we’re pleased to have them on IOMG as well in the Central Coast Region for California! Have you ever considered having a photobooth at your wedding? Ask Jo about how much fun it is to do this, as well as for parties, cookouts, reunions, and more!

Give local, buy local

Are you looking for a way to support your local businesses, but tied to online convenience? Suggest to them that they get on-board with Social Gifting, if they haven’t already. And if they are, give or buy right online, right from Facebook. Maybe you have a friend with a birthday? Someone you owe lunch to? A potential client you want to welcome, or an employee you want to reward?

Whether you’re in Northern Nevada (cake pops, massages, computer services, Italian food, and much more), Seattle-area (great gift baskets or hand-made soap anyone?), California Central Coast (photobooths! and who are you going to recommend for us there?), or the Baltimore-area (where your graphic design needs are covered! Additional vendor suggestions welcomed!), be sure to take a visit to the app and see who’s participating.

We would love to hear from you!

As we lead into this year, we’re looking to expand all over the country. To be the most successful we can be, we want you to tell us what you like and don’t like about the application and about the participating vendors. Where would you like to see us? What sort of goods and services would you like to see?

Thinking Outside the Box

Even though we use the term Social Gifting, the service and the platform are for far more than traditional gifting. Lawn services? Oil changes? Snow removal? Consumables like hand-made soap or cupcakes? Growler refills at a local brewery? Morning cups of coffee? Cosmetics, candles, and more from great local independent sales consultants? Whether you’re a business looking for new ways to be “just a click away” from your customers (why not you instead of a national competitor?) or you’re looking for a cool and convenient way to settle your social debt with a friend, look to IOMG to get it done.

Social Gifting and Social Good

Did you know that we also want to give back to the communities where we have a commercial presence? Local charities, official 501(c)3s, food banks, goods drives… many ways we can help out via either fee-reduced or fee-waived services to participating businesses as well as facilitating partnerships between businesses and organizations.

We also want to build up our own initiatives. The first, Supply the Future (on FB | on the Web) is all about getting the supplies into the system to support our children’s education. Books, paper, pencils, teacher’s supplies, hot breakfasts, whatever we can accomplish. Even better, with the IOMG platform, we can generate business for local vendors at the same time we work together to bring a visceral and tangible satisfaction to people who want to participate in local giving while still benefitting from online convenience.

Normally, confirmed referrals (the business has to sign up, fully pay the setup fee, and mention you as the referrer) receive a 10% bonus. This month, it’s 20%, meaning that you can get up to $20 each for getting your favorite local businesses to sign up.

The fine print: the overall program is subject to change at any time, bonuses are paid based on the discretion of IOMG (particularly if there is a conflict/multiple referrers), etc. but we want to be fair, bonuses are paid through PayPal, and the amount varies depending on the exact fees the business pays (which can be zero — meaning no bonus — in certain cases). The vendor needs to complete the signup during the month of January to receive the double bonus, otherwise the bonus will be the amount current at the time of completion.

Interested? Send your favorite businesses to our business services Facebook page, our contact form, or itsonme@playerspot.com

A group of people get together for a shared activity and share the burden of organization and cost. Some, like the pot luck, are almost self-organizing. The kegger requires a bit more effort (or a host with deep pockets and a baseball bat for collections).

Given the logistics, what about larger events and more costly contributions? What mechanisms are there for those who plan road trips, group getaways, or larger, more formal occasions like life events (weddings, showers, etc.)?

The Motivations

These days, sharing the efforts to bring together larger events is almost essential. One lucky person might have the time to be the party planner but typically it takes the cooperation of multiple normal people to get the job done. Casino road trip? Ski weekend? Bridal shower or reception? The more moving parts there are to confirming any of these, the higher the barrier to actually doing them. This has always been the case, yet social media, technology, and innovative services and approaches by vendors all contribute to making the “group events” more feasible and approachable.

The Technology

It’s not like package deals are new to anyone in business. What might be new though is how these packages might be marketed, how they may be purchased, and what kinds of tools are available to the average individual to make these sorts of plans reality.

In a classic model, one person might collect the money manually, call up the resort and make the reservations. Assuming that is, that scheduling and cash were available. Today, with Square or PayPal, online calendars and social media, the task is a little easier, but it’s still not a unified experience.

On the flip-side of the equation are the businesses themselves. A few are on the cutting edge, taking advantage of a new class of relationship commerce, Social Gifting, to not only make themselves an easier choice for harried individuals, but to legitimately harness the power of social networking in new, creative, and inclusive ways.

The Model

What’s the goal? Raising “average revenue per customer”? Increasing foot traffic? Reducing new customer acquisition costs? Enticing repeat business? Improving communication with existing customers? Probably all of the above and then some. Whatever the goals though, chances are good that you’re not on the same plan to accomplish these today that you were three years ago. If you are, your competition has the advantage.

What would happen if you offered your customer organizers a quick and easy way to schedule your service and invite their friends to chip in with the expenses where you (the vendor):

• track the money so the host doesn’t have to (ease is great!)
• offer overall incentives, exclusives, or discounts based on group dynamics (bring friends who might be new to the business!)
• reward the organizer for their loyalty

How would doing these things impact the current barriers to purchase? What sort of perception change would you gain in the minds of both the organizers and the guests? Who will the organizer choose?

The Next Step

Group contributions are not a new concept. Enabling them in the world of online convenience is. Whether you’re a photobooth rental service that’s experimenting with wedding registry contributions or a local ski resort looking to nudge that weekend group your direction over another, whether you’re a local bakery looking to amplify your word-of-mouth marketing to corporate/group accounts or a charity crowdsourcing donations for a capital project, convenience, as in every aspect of commerce in the internet age, will ultimately win out.

What are you doing to make purchases, large or small, easier to complete? What are you doing to add value beyond the transfer of money? What are you doing to establish yourself as on their side in the minds of your current and existing customers? What barriers to your selection can you remove when your customer may not even realize there is a choice?

You never hear, “Gosh, I’m glad I had to spend so many hours planning this trip!” or “Whew! The party was so easy to manage even though I had so many people pitching in.”

Take advantage of technology to re-humanize the way people interact with you. Don’t confuse personalization with being personal. Build your connections with tools you would use yourself.

Occasion? Assuming you actually need one, it could be a national holiday (US Thanksgiving is coming up as of this writing), it could be a personal holiday (birthdays, anniversaries), it could be professional courtesy (end of year “thank you” for business, referrals, or connections, perhaps). It could be to support your favorite teacher by giving her or him a Supply the Future specific basket, complete with gift cards to help with classroom supplies.

Know you want to give something Exquisite but can’t make the decision? EGB also offers VendorBux™ so you can still “give local” and “give personal” with online convenience through the Facebook store.

Now you might ask why we’re highlighting Exquisite Gift Baskets… well:

It’s our Exquisite pleasure to announce that is not only our latest participating vendor, it is our first vendor in the Seattle, Washington area!

Great baskets, great causes, a new retail location in Kingston, and online convenience via web and Facebook! Exquisite Gift Baskets of Kingston, Washington: Welcome!

Organizations all over the country are reporting declines in products and outright donations due to the squeeze the economy is putting on the primary giving base.

We want to help.

Use Social Gifting to buy and give from your local vendors through IOMG on Facebook in the month of November 2011 and you will not only get the convenience of online shopping, the immediacy of electronic voucher delivery, and the benefit to your local economy that “buy local” and “give local” provide, you will also be gifting against hunger.

A portion of the fees we collect from November 2011 sales (whether you give or keep the item or service) will be returned to the vendors’ communities in the form of a donation to a food bank to help feed the hungry this holiday season.

It’s one of our ways of doing Social Good and giving back to the communities that we are a part of.

Don’t see your favorite local vendor in IOMG yet? Share our vendor pages (web, Facebook) with them.

As vendors, it’s clear that online gifting and commerce are just continuing to be more important, yet it’s one of those aspects that local businesses don’t necessarily have in place. Sure, there are plenty of “shopping cart” solutions out there, but these don’t do anything to actually improve your future business, they don’t reinforce your social connections, and they don’t give your customers and fans the added value of electronic delivery of the vouchers.

Be ready for your customers and the holidays by signing your business up for IOMG now. Do it during this week and save up to 50%! Starting 13-Sep-2011 and for each day through 19-Sep-2011 (ET), pay your setup fee through this page and get the discount. Not ready? Contact us for more info and to discuss the benefits to your business. Can’t swing it today? Check back tomorrow to see what discount will be available then.

IMPORTANT: This particular offer is only valid outside Northern Nevada. The Bring a Friend promotion is open to all regions.

IMPORTANT: This promo expires at midnight ET, 19-Sep, and is open to all regions. Want to sign up solo outside Northern Nevada? Check out our Keep It Local promo.

However, if all you look for is what you want to see, you’re going to miss out on some special opportunities that may not appear to be what you’re looking for.

This has only happened a few times, but even that is often enough to warrant the information about how we are not an advertising solution. Read more at the link and feel free to let us know what you are looking for, what you think about the topic, and how we can better serve you.