The North Carolina Professional Women in Building will be hosting a hospitality suite on Thursday, September 16 during the 21 Century Building Show and Expo. It is a great time to come out and find out more about PWB membership, and get some tasty snacks.
Additionally, PWB is presenting two seminars geared toward women during the show. Come join us, it should be a lot of fun. First Mitch Levinson and I will present Social Media for Home Builders at 10 a.m., then Tammie Smoot and I will present Sell To Women Through the Social Media Grapevine at 2 p.m.
Let us know what you’d like to learn during Social Media for Home Builders! Mitch and I are happy to cater the class to your requests and suggestions!
Don’t forget to register for the show at www.21BuildingExpo.com.
Social Media Sites – Which Ones Do You Use?
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Professional Women in Building held a NAHB webinar today on using social media to reach one of the hottest buying demographics in America – Women.
We did an online poll of the participants. The question posed was, “What types of social media are you using for your business?” The poll results are pictured, but I’ll post the results as well:
Blogs – 22%
LinkedIn – 51%
Facebook – 73%
Twitter – 19%
YouTube – 24%
Other – 14%
Ok, so in terms of what I do on a daily basis, this is HUGE! With only 22% of the companies on the call using a corporate blog, that means that 78% need one! Having the blog work as the engine of your social media program integrates your program. It makes the program less work. Companies can reduce the amount of time needed in social media management by 50% while increasing their website traffic by 25 – 50%. Integrating this piece is key!
This seminar is part of a 5 part NAHB webinar series called Building Conversations, so make sure to check it out!
It’s Not Personal, It’s Business
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How many times have we heard this? I love this page from Seth Godin’s What Matters Now. It is by Mitch Joel the President of Twist Image and author of Six Pixels of Separation.
Compassion:
“It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.”
We spend more than 50% of our lives at work. Why would anyone want to wake up in the morning and go to work with that attitude? If you don’t make it personal, and if you don’t make it count, what’s the point?
Business is missing one important core value: compassion.
“Between work and family, I have no time for community.”
This is is something everyone feels at some point in their lives. But think about it: What if we made community an integral part of our business? What if we recognized that we can’t have strong businesses without a Read More→
Topsy Turvy Mother’s Day
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I’ve always wanted to try a Topsy Turvy for growing tomatoes and thanks to my “boys” now I have the chance!.
As you can see from these photos, it has been a Topsy Turvy Mother’s Day at the farm! Reminiscent of the world of Dr. Seuss, when I took the photo of the Topsy Turvy I accidentally moved the camera and got a really crazy shot. I assure you that our house is not bent!
Now I’m growing tomatoes upside down! It will be interesting to see if each plant really produces 50 pounds of tomatoes like the ads claim. Tomatoes are supposed to grow 20-percent faster and no staking is required. The downside is that I have to try to remember to water them every day.
10 Tips to Attain and Manage Power
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This post is for all the business owners and entrepreneurs in my life. My friend Karla Sinclair, Publisher of Atlanta Daybook shared this information from the Possible Woman conference held recently in Atlanta. It is really great information and I hope it will provide you with additional motivation to continue to be the shining star that you are.
Political commentator Donna Brazile gave the keynote address which focused on women attaining and managing power.
Ten Tips from Donna Brazile:
- Know your power and believe in yourself.
- Be true to yourself and visualize.
- Identify role models and mentors.
- Nourish your ambition.
- Dare to dream and communicate clearly.
- Set a strategy for success and write it down.
- Remove stumbling blocks and remain steadfast despite the obstacles.
- If you get knocked down, get back up.
- Don’t be afraid of controversy.
- Stir the waters. Sometimes making waves is the only way to move forward.
Your Web site and SEO
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My Brother Built It. Why Doesn’t it Work?
Have you ever wondered, “How effective is my company’s Web site?” The mRELEVANCE team runs across companies every day that had their Web site built by a relative, typically their brother or brother-in-law. This is great if your brother or brother-in-law works for an Internet marketing company, but chances are, he doesn’t.
Many of these companies don’t see results from their Web sites and simply have a hard time proving or justifying the effectiveness of their sites. In the worst cases, they can’t get their sites to work at all.
During an upcoming seminar on Web sites and SEO (Search Engine Optimization), I will cover the five most common reasons why Web sites do not produce leads, prospects or buyers:
- Not built to drive traffic
- Difficult to Navigate
- Content and Branding
- Proper Call to Action
- Tracking and Analytics
Best of all, during the presentation I’ll provide constructive direction on how to fix them.
For more information on this Lunch & Learn on Friday, May 21 at 11:30 a.m., call the Cartersville – Bartow County Chamber of Commerce at 770-382-1466.
If you can’t make the seminar, but need help with your Web site, let me know. We love helping companies become effective online! 770-383-3360 or carol (at) mRELEVANCE.com
Sites for Women
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If you are a woman, and statistically we know that about 50-percent of you are, here are some social media sites you may want to check out! We discovered many of these Web sites last fall while putting together the “Sell More Homes to Women Through the Social Media Grapevine,” a program presented by myself and three dynamic women at the International Builders Show (IBS). If you are a man (and 50-percent of you are), this is a great way to find out what makes women tick and how to market to us!
Blogher – The community for women who blog
www.blogher.com
Girls in Tech – A network for women in business in the technology space
http://girlsintech.net
MillionaireMoms – the art of raising an business and a family at the same time
www.millionairemom.com
Atlanta: A Social Media Meca
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Social Media Marketing for Business
Atlanta now tops the lists of places to be in social media marketing. Does your small business Tweet? Do you have a Facebook page? If the answer is no, maybe it is time to look into a social media program. Just last week Atlanta was listed as one of the top Twitter cities of the world. Listed at #5, Atlanta is in good company coming in just behind London, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.
During 2009, Atlanta was one of the fastest growing cities in terms of Facebook users with more than 142% growth during the first half of the year. In numbers of Facebook users Atlanta is second only to New York! With all of these potential consumers flocking to Facebook and Twitter, it is more important than even to make sure your small business has a presence on the sites.
To streamline your social media strategy, make sure to launch a blog as the heart of your program. A blog will help you develop your messages and save time spent on social media by reducing the number of places you need to update. While there aren’t Read More→
Purse Power
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I don’t think anyone underestimates the buying power or influence of women. In fact, I recently Retweeted sheconomy, “Men, The Female Consumer is in Control. Listen or Perish. http://ow.ly/1zjvB.” My friend Aaron Hoffman quipped back quickly, “I think we understand that given that there’s 20 women’s stores to every guy’s store in the mall.”
Women influence all the major consumer purchasing categories from home furnishings to vacations to new homes. Here are the percentages:
- All consumer purchases: 85 percent
- Home furnishings: 94 percent
- Vacations: 92 percent
- New homes: 91 percent
- DIY (do-it-yourself projects): 80 percent
- Consumer Electronics: 51 percent
So, what is the best way to reach out to this influential demographic? Well, the Internet of course. Here of the statistics on where you can find us.
An April 2009 Women and Social Media Study by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners shows that women are twice as likely to use blogs over other social networking sites for trusted information. Here are the findings from the study:
- 75% participate in social networks
- 55% were active bloggers Read More→
Chatty Cathie Replaced By Texting Tammy
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A recent study from Pew on texting reveals that teens preferred method of communicating is by text. The study shows that boys typically send and receive 30 texts a day, compared with girls’ 80 messages. The one exception is Girls 14-17 who typically send 100 or more messages a day!
Women have always been the more social or chatty of the two sexes, but it seems that Chatty Cathie is being replaced by Texting Tammy.
Overall, girls more fully embrace most aspects of cell-phone communications:
- 86% of girls say they text message friends several times a day, compared with 64% of boys.
- 59% of girls call friends on their cell phone every day, compared with 42% of boys.
- 59% of girls send text messages several times a day to “just say hello and chat,” compared with 42% of boys. Read More→
