Have you ever made the mistake of liking one of your own posts on accident? Did you unlike it quickly, worried that you’d look like you were patting yourself on the back? One of our clients, Plan B Consultants, was having a similar problem, in that their employees and consultants, who were also page admins were some times inadvertently liking the page’s comment as the page.
So we put together this quick screen shot to help ensure that when liking the page’s comments they were doing so as themselves and not the company.
ps. A little secret: Just click on comment and see which thumbnail comes up. If you see your gorgeous mug then you know you’re doing it right!
Edited to add:
It appears from some feedback that people might be having a problem with one of their page settings…. Use facebook as your page and then click “Edit Page” – then under “Your Settings” see if “Posting Preferences: Always comment and post on your page as Plan B Consultants, Inc., even when using Facebook as Cherie Smith Prochaska.” is checked. If so, uncheck it and you should be good to go!
Last week, Cherie and I traveled to Las Vegas to run the Rock N Roll half-marathon. While Vegas is always a good time and this visit was no exception, the race itself had some serious logistical issues. Not to sweep those issues under the rug — there were many valid complaints from hundreds of runners, ranging from allegedly contaminated water to a shortage of post-race food to a poorly organized starting and finishing area — what fascinated us as an online marketing firm was Rock ‘N’ Roll’s response (or somewhat lack thereof) to the backlash on Facebook and Twitter. It was — and still is, really — like watching a train wreck happen in slow motion.
When a huge company such as the Rock ‘N’ Roll Marathon Series (they currently organize nearly 30 races across the U.S., Canada, and Europe) fumbles with their social media response to valid complaints from (high) paying customers, it provides a lesson for any company using social media as a platform to interact with customers. Social media — Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, etc. — can be an invaluable tool but it can do more harm than good if not well-used.
For instance, as soon as the race ended, upset and sick runners took to Facebook to voice their frustrations. Hundreds of those comments were not answered — and those that were eventually answered were not done so very quickly — and when a response was given, it was a blanket PR response from the CEO (and written with incorrect facts, too). Any company in charge of a race with 44K runners (at $140/each, that’s over $6 million), hiring social media managers should be a key decision — smart, thorough people who can offer levelheaded responses without delay. When you wait to respond to angry, upset, and disappointed customers (and runners are a passionate repeat “customer” group), you look guilty and unsympathetic.
Some of the Facebook comments:
Additionally, Zappos.com was tied to this event as a lead sponsor and Zappos.com is known for their stellar customer service. (I, for one can vouch for that service on many personal occasions.) This brings into question what sponsors should ask when partnering with companies. Zappos.com couldn’t have predicted these particular events would unfold, but I wonder how many sponsors ask of companies: “Do you have full-time staff to handle your social media responses?” I bet it’s not a standard question but maybe it should be.
Finally, just today (over a week after the race), Rock ‘N’ Roll emailed a $50 discount offer for the next Rock ‘N’ Roll race — a January race in Arizona. When many runners expressed that it would be impossible for them to travel again so soon after Vegas, and wondered if they could use that discount on another race, the answer was always something similar to this:
The offer felt like another customer service fail. Obviously the majority of runners who had a bad Vegas experience couldn’t travel a month later and the organization most likely knew this. They made an offer they knew wouldn’t make much of a difference to the issues at hand or to their bottom line.
So, a few final thoughts on the issue from a social media standpoint:
Most large scale events should have social media staff, to handle (in real time) post-event response
As many comments as possible should be directly answered, through comments or emails
Admit mistakes outright and offer concrete solutions (you can’t change the experience, but you can refund entry fees, offer considerable future discounts, or a combination of both — and make those solutions benefit all that had complaints, not a select few)
Avoid blanket press releases and instead address individual concerns
What do you think? What’s a company’s social media responsibility when an event has disorganized and dangerous logistics?And, are sponsors responsible for a company’s social media response?
Can we get a little personal for a minute? This certainly has nothing to do with web design and it’s probably a stretch to even say that it related to graphic design but it certainly is creative and it makes me happy so I’m posting it!
See most of the work I do makes me happy and even though I’m not a baker, there is a 50% chance it’s in my genes, I mean look at my cousin Mel’s cupcake shop!
Most of you who know me, know that my twin boys (←warning: blog that gets yearly updates!) turned three today! And this being their first year in preschool I got really excited about the cupcakes we were going to take to school. I googled afewideas and almost opted for store bought cupcakes because most of them were pretty complicated and we’ve been pretty busy lately. Then I ran across the cookie monster cupcake! And it was pretty perfect. The boys LOVE cupcakes, cookies and marshmallows. Trifecta.
So here’s how I did it in 6 easy steps!
1. Bake the cupcakes of your choosing, making sure to fill the cups to the top. We went with the quintessential funfetti flavor, one box filled 12 cupcakes.
2. While they are baking you can prepare the googley eyes.
All the examples I saw used white chocolate discs. But the boys love them some “mellows” so I wanted to find a way to make this work. They are just large marshmallows with dollops of blue gel icing. I let these sit for about an hour before I put them on the cookie monster cupcake so the gel didn’t run.
3. Next the fur.
I put half a bag of coconut into the food processor with a whole tube of blue gel icing. Just be careful when you are doing this because I noticed steam coming from the top, after spinning it for a while. Sorta worried I was burning up the machine, I checked and thankfully the steam wasn’t hot it was cold? I was actually beginning to liquify the coconut and it was creating a mist. So don’t do that.
Once I got the coconut to the blue hue I wanted, I transferred it to a bowl and mixed in a shaker of sprinkles to make cookie monster a little bit sparkly and fabulous. Ha, my poor boys.
Now that they’ve baked and have nice big muffin tops (finally, a situation when that’s actually desired!), let them cool and then you can begin icing and assembling.
What NOT to do.Don’t cut the mouth slot before you ice with frosting or your cookie monster will look like this:
4. First you’ll want to ice the top. I chose Pillsbury Easy Frost (which is 99% of the reason this was so darn easy). Then over the bowl of fur, holding the cupcake upright (or the muffin top will begin to separate), place handfulls of fur onto the icing. Rotate the cupcake from the base as you go and lightly pressing the fur down.
5. Mouth: Then after your satisfied with the fur coverage, take a serrated knife and give the little monster a mouth. Just cut about 1/4 of the way in at an angle so you don’t cut the whole top off or encourage it to separate. Then lift the knife to open the mouth and shove the Chips Ahoy cookie in!
6.Eyes: After the gel icing has set (note: it won’t be completely dry, just a little less gooey) take your serrated knife and cut a little of the rounded part off the marshmallows so the eyes will sit flat on the cupcake.
If not then they will either roll off or you will have to secure them with tooth picks. Which is neither cute nor safe, both of which we want our cookie monster cupcakes to be, right? See example pic of what-not-to-do above if you’re still contemplating securing with toothpicks.
After you cut a few you’ll want to rinse the mellow build up off the knife with hot water so you can keep getting nice clean cuts.
A little icing on the bottom of the eyes also helps them to stick.
It can get a little messy so hopefully you’ll have helpers as good as mine to clean up the mess!
And be sure to share your cookie monster cupcakes with friends!
Every once in while, when Jennie is not working on writing copy or social media marketing for our clients, she gets the chance to pitch C*Squared Associates. We are so proud of the first press coverage we received from these efforts (and to think she’s only been at it for two months)!
Founder, Cherie Prochaska, was featured in The Aggie Network’s Texas Aggie Magazine. If you know anything about The Aggie Network you’ll agree that this is huge!
Do you have company news of your own that you’d like to get some media love? We are standing by ready to help. Contact us today: 503-272-1878.
One of the many things C*Squared Associates can do for you, as a blogger or small business owner, is design a custom banner or blog header for you. We’ve enjoyed doing just that for blogs such as Food Lush, Elly Says Opa, and My Grand Illusions. If your site could use a fresh banner, especially [...]
Recently, C*Squared was lucky enough to assist in the new design and launch of Hotel Sales Training Company, Plan B Consultants’ website. Plan B is a hospitality consulting firm, specializing in improving hotel business and sales with hands-on assistance. (Please “like” them on Facebook and also follow them on Twitter!) It was such a refreshing [...]
A few months ago, Cherie & Julia submitted a logo to the Zambia Tourism Department Branding Contest, an open competition that called for anyone and everyone to submit a personally designed logo in hopes it would be chosen as Zambia Tourism’s newest brand. While Cherie & Julia’s logo wasn’t selected, the experience still brings up [...]
A friend of C*Squared Associates, Shasta with Outrageous Fortune, recently asked us to help strengthen her social media presence and grow her blog audience. Cherie suggested a handful of strategies and Shasta will periodically post about what she’s found through using those tools and resources. First, a couple sites Cherie recommended to Shasta (that might [...]
To kick off C*Squared’s blog, I thought I’d share some social media tips and tricks I’ve garnered over the last few years, as social media marketing has really taken off. I’ve broken this into three categories: blogging, Facebook, and Twitter. Blogging Make post titles straightforward, placing proper nouns or important key words and in the [...]
We’re so thrilled you’ve stopped by to read our first blog post (and we hope you’ll return to read the second and third and hundredth). Who are “we,” you might ask? Glad you did! We’re the team behind C*Squared Associates. (More specifically, Cherie Prochaska and Jennie Canzoneri.) We’ll both be popping up on the blog [...]
ps. A little secret: Just click on comment and see which thumbnail comes up. If you see your gorgeous mug then you know you’re doing it right!
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