By Karen Emanuelson Business can learn a lot from chocolate
Pricing
- Some customers will pay more for the prestige of owning/using your product/service (Godiva).
- Some customers will buy the cheapest version available (generic chocolate-flavored baking chips) because quality just don’t matter to them, because a premium price point is higher than anticipated, or because that is what they can afford or chose to afford.
Packaging
- Sometimes it’s how you package your products and services that encourages purchases. (How many colors of M&Ms can you think of? Trust me, the green ones taste just like the red ones!)
- Sometimes it’s how you bundle your offerings (individual Cadbury eggs or a 3-pack). Encourage “add-on” purchases by making it easy for customers to buy more without having to think.
Creative Marketing
- The Milk Chocolate Melts in Your Mouth, Not in Your Hand
Use a tagline that will emphasizes your Unique Selling Point (USP) and is memorable.
- Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t
Know your audience and adapt your marketing message and product/service offerings to the media — postings appropriate for your business Facebook wall probably shouldn’t be used as LinkedIn updates
- Gimme a break…Gimme a break…Break me off a piece of that…
Make your brand more than just a product or service. Tell your audience how your product can transform their lives and attitudes, if only for a moment.
What have you learned from chocolate?
By Sydney Anne 
Use unique marketing messages to attract attention to your business
Looking for creative ways to market your business? Use holidays as an excuse to celebrate and offer fun contests, discounts, and other opportunities for your customers. You may be thinking “That sounds like a great idea! But where do I start?”
Below are a few suggestions. Take these ideas. Tweak them. Make them fit your business. Most importantly, go for it!
December 4 is Wear Brown Shoes Day. Turn it into a Facebook photo contest. Encourage customers to post photos of them or their family members (or even the family dog!) wearing brown shoes. Offer a discount for entries and encourage comments from your Facebook community.
December 18 is Bake Cookies Day. Open up a forum on your website and share your favorite cookie recipes with your customers.
December 28 is Card Playing Day. Honor this day by having customer’s “draw a card” for their discount on their current or future purchase.
Here are some other “idea starter” holidays in December:
Month-long Celebrations
Safe Toys and Gifts Month
Universal Human Rights Month
Holiday weeks:
First week: National Hand Washing Awareness Week (Dec. 4-10)
Third week: You’re Doing a Good Job! Week (Dec. 18-24)
Hanukkah (Dec. 20-28)
Kwanzaa (Dec. 26- Jan. 1)
Daily Holidays
1 – World AIDS Day
2 – Special Education Day
3 – Make A Gift Day
4 – Wear Brown Shoes Day
5 – Walt Disney’s Birthday
6 – Saint Nicholas Day
7 – National Cotton Candy Day
8 – National Brownie Day
9 – Christmas Card Day
10 – Dewey Decimal System Day
11 – International Shareware Day
12 – National Poinsettia Day
13 – National Cocoa Day
14 – Monkey Day
15 – Cat Herder’s Day
16 – National Chocolate Covered Anything Day
17 – Wright Brothers Day
18 – Bake Cookies Day
19 – Oatmeal Muffin Day
20 – Hanukkah Begins
21 – National Flashlight Day
22 – National Haiku Poetry Day
23 – Roots Day
24 – Christmas Eve
25 – Christmas
26 – Kwanzaa Begins
27 – National Fruit Cake Day
28 – Card Playing Day
29 – Tick Tock Day
30 – Falling Needles Family Fest Day
31 – New Year’s Eve
Not quite sure that these holidays could work for your business? Create your own customer appreciate days or hold discount days to honor your accomplishments as a small business owner. Advertising and spreading the word help your business grow and fun holidays can help spread the word faster. Get creative and have fun!
By Sydney Anne Build your business and reputation with a little creativity
Marketing your small business with creativity builds interest and gets your business recognition. So why not find a unique way to get your name out there? Fun and wacky holidays and business promotions can attract customers and help with word of mouth PR.
Confused about where to start? Take some of these October holidays and run with them.
Try October 7, National Frappe Day: ask your customers which coffee drink is the best and offer 50 cents off each purchase for them to put towards a coffee shop coffee for the day.
Not your cup of coffee? How about National Dictionary Day on October 16: have a contest to see which customer can find the wackiest word in the dictionary and send them a coupon for 10% off a later purchase.
Looking for a different type of contest? October 25th is Sourest Day. Run a photo contest with the best sour face winning a sample product. (Thanks to mlblogselisha06.wordpress.com for the great sour face photo above!)
For a more traditional holiday idea, use Halloween to your advantage. “Dress up” your prices for the day, playing your pricing scale as the “ghost of good things to come”.
You can also create your own holiday to match the needs of your business. Celebrate it yearly, make it fun and get creative. Creating holidays to celebrate your business’s milestones and successes is another good way to draw attention to what you have accomplished.
Whatever unique holidays you find on the calendar, or whatever holidays you choose to create, make sure they are fun and exciting! They are a great marketing tactic to get customers to notice you and spread the word!
October Month Long Celebrations
Computer Learning Month
National Cookie Month
Energy Awareness Month
October Week Long Celebrations
Oct. 3-7 National Customer Service Week (first week)
Oct. 10-14 Home Based Business Week (second week)
Oct. 17-21 Business Women’s Week (third week)
October Holidays
1 – Walt Disney World Birthday 1971
2 – National Custodial Workers Day
3 – Virus Appreciation day
4 – Leave It to Beaver Birthday 1957
5 – Balloons Around the World Day
6 – Physician Assistant Day
7 – National Frappe Day
8 – American Touch Tag Day
9 – Leif Erikson Day
10 – Columbus Day
11 – Eleanor Roosevelt’s Birthday (1884)
12 – Bring Your Teddy Bear to Work Day
13 – World Sight Day
14 – national lower case day
15 – Sweetest Day
16 – National Dictionary Day
17 – Boss’s Day
18 – No Beard Day
19 – Hagfish Day
20 – Get To Know Your Customers Day
21 – Electric Light Birthday 1879
22 – Make A Difference Day
23 – TV Talk-Show Host Day
24 – World Development Information Day
25 – Sourest Day
26 – National Mule Day
27 – Cranky Co-workers Day
28 – Statue of Liberty Birthday
29 – Hermit Day
30 – Haunted Refrigerator Night
31 – Halloween
By Karen Emanuelson Google Plus defined
With all the recent changes to Facebook, there has been a lot of noise about a fairly new social network option called Google Plus. So what exactly is Google Plus and how does this fit into the marketing plans for small businesses and nonprofits? The best description of Google Plus comes directly from Google. Visit their short tour by clicking on the graphic to the right.
As of mid-September, there is not a business option on Google Plus. There is talk of a business option along with a number of other updates and improvements to Google Plus in future releases.
Will Google Plus replace Facebook?
Early on, there was speculation that Google Plus would overtake powerhouse Facebook. According to comScore, Google Plus reached 21 million visitors in 21 days and 25 million users in its first month. Google reached that benchmark 36 times faster than Facebook, which took 36 months to reach 25 million users. Tthe jury is still out.
Here’s what several social media industry heavy-hitters had to say about Google Plus:
What’s ahead for Google Plus?
According to Google Plus Product Manager Christian Oestlien, “The business experience we are creating should far exceed the consumer profile in terms of its usefulness to businesses. We just ask for your patience while we build it. In the meantime, we are discouraging businesses from using regular profiles to connect with Google+ users. Our policy team will actively work with profile owners to shut down non-user profiles.”
In the meantime, Reciprocate is recommending our clients continue with their current social media marketing strategies. The 25 million Google Plus subscribers were early adapters curious to see what the buzz is all about. Google Plus is not currently being used by the mainstream. Entrepreneurs, small businesses, and nonprofits who are working with limited resources — time, money, and staff — should take a wait and see approach before devoting time to Google Plus.
We encourage you to register for the Reciprocate monthly newsletter where we’ll include updates on Google Plus and other internet marketing opportunities.
By Karen Emanuelson
 - Send a cow of thanks
“Help me build my farm,” that’s the plea from guest blogger Sydney Anne, an MNSU college student who agreed to write this post in exchange for cows, brown geese, apple trees, or any other gifts readers will send her on FarmVille, the Facebook game with more than 11 million daily players.
By Sydney Anne
Guest Blogger and FarmVille Farmer
As you join the Facebook community, you may find yourself bored of the same routine. Update your status, “like” someone’s status, comment on someone’s wall, and then update your status again. Facebook has more to offer than a simple paper and mailbox replacement. Facebook allows you to join groups, become a fan of something, track events, and add boxes filled with ways to entertain yourself. 
Social Gaming
What one might say is the most entertaining aspect of Facebook is the ability to get involved in social gaming. Social gaming, different then video games, allows you to connect and compete with your friends on Facebook, or other social networking sites. What better way to spend all that free time you have then to start playing a game that requires daily attention? While Facebook games can be addicting, some of them actually get you thinking…or farming.
According to insidesocialgames.com, Farmville is the most popular game on Facebook. Created by Zynga, Farmville averages 75 million active users monthly. While Farmville isn’t the only addicting game on Facebook, it certainly beats out the rest, allowing you to plow, plant seeds, and harvest crops in your best attempts to have a bigger and better farm than your friends.
Interested?
You must first decide which route you want to go, or if you’re interested in both the daily attention needy games and the games that make you think, but don’t make you log on daily.
After logging in, the left hand column contains a link for games. Clicking this link will show you your games, games your friends are playing if you want to compete with them, and on the bottom it will list several games in several categories of play. Some daily attention needy games include games under the role playing, other games, and the virtual world games categories. Some games that do not require daily attention include games under the board games, card games, and the action/arcade games. Feel free to explore and try anything that looks interesting.
If you choose for a daily attention needy game, don’t worry, many of them have tutorials. After that you’re on your own, there are forums out there for any question! Log on daily, if not every few hours, to care for your crops, restaurant, fish, pet, mafia, amusement park, zoo, or anything else you could possibly think of. Taking care of crops requires hourly attention so they don’t spoil. Taking care of a restaurant requires keeping your staff happy by feeding them every few hours and/or serving the food so it doesn’t go bad. Taking care of fish and pets require daily feeding, brushing, cleaning, and whatever other adventures you find you and your pet on. While time consuming, and addicting, it can be fun. Just be careful that your virtual business or pet doesn’t take priority over the rest of your life!
If you choose to go the other route and play social games that don’t require daily attention, such as word or puzzle games, don’t worry, there is still competition involved. You still compete against your friends for the highest score. These games may also be viewed as more educational. There are brain games to test your “brain power”, geographical games, and word games. This isn’t to say that the daily attention requiring games aren’t education, because while they are addicting, they teach you the responsibility needed to maintain a farm or restaurant. However, addicting games are given a bad light because they are, well, addicting. But don’t let that scare you.
If you’re looking for something fun to do in your spare time give it a chance, just remember that there is life outside of your restaurant or farm. While Facebook games can be addicting, that doesn’t seem to stop the millions of users that play them, and it shouldn’t stop you either. Have fun!
Here’s some links to check out for more information:
Top 25 Facebook Games
CNN’s List of Top Facebook Games
Facebook Game — Addicts 
Special thanks to my guest blogger Sydney Anne, a sophomore at Minnesota State University – Mankato. Please send her a FarmVille cow of thanks. Then forward this blog posting to your friends so they, too, can send Sydney Anne a cow. Let’s see how big we can grow Sydney Anne’s farm! Once you’re on Facebook, search for Sydney Anne by email address, reciprocate_fan@hotmail.com, then add her as a friend. Cows are free. Attending college isn’t. Encouraging my readers to send Sydney Anne a cow seems like a small price to pay for this guest blog post. Thanks!
Share what you know. Feel free to comment. Send questions, and I’ll address them in future blogs. Next blog topic: YouTube: What’s all the fuss about?
4UPMNMSDTYZE
By Karen Emanuelson Facebook.com recently celebrated its 6th birthday. Founded by a group of college students in February 2004, Facebook has more than 350 million members who use it to connect to family and friends.
Why do you need Facebook?
You don’t, but if you’re not on Facebook yet, you might want to join in the fun. There is no subscription fee to join, and you can set up an account in a matter of minutes. Facebook is similar to having a personal bulletin board – you write a sentence or two to tell your friends what you are doing, thinking, or planning. Your friends do the same. You can even post pictures and links and play games.
Setting up your account
- Use your real name
This way friends and family can find you easier
and, when you send “friend requests,” your friends and family will know who the request is from. If your name has changed since high school or college, you may want to include your former/maiden name.
- Add a photo. Facebook is casual. Changing profile photos on Facebook is part of the fun, so don’t get hung up on which photo to use initially.
- If security concerns you, Facebook allows you to implement certain settings to control who sees your picture, name, age, etc.
Now what?
Searching for people to add to your friends list is as easy as typing in their name, part of their name, or their e-mail address. You decide who you want to “friend.”
Facebook allows you to passively follow your friends. If you don’t log on to the site for days, your friends don’t know, and you have the ability to look back and see what your friends have been up to.
Who should you “friend”?
In addition to finding and reconnecting with high school and college friends, you can also stay in touch with family – even if your family is local. (Keep in mind that some teenagers may find it “uncool” to “friend” their parents. Don’t be offended. That is their personal preference.)
I use Facebook for friends and family and rarely “friend” work acquaintances. I also don’t “friend” anyone I don’t know. Because of these restrictions, my “friends” list is less than 100. There are people on Facebook who have thousands of “friends.” I don’t enter the popularity contest.
Here’s a snippet of what my friends have shared in recent weeks:
- Listening to Nick Hornby’s latest book – Juliet, Naked – while painting sure makes the job easier!
(a neighbor two houses down the street)
- will be seeing Music Man at KFHS. Boy, I like those musicals!
(a former neighbor from our days in Spring, TX)
- Facebook: Yet another way to (try to) ignore the 20+ inches of snow in the driveway….
(an elementary school friend now living in Fairfax, VA)
- looking to the skies to see hot air balloons today…. depending on weather of course ~ it is the 21st Annual Hot Air Affair in Hudson, WI…..
(a former North Oaks neighbor now living in River Falls, WI)
- It started to snow at 10:30 this morning. It is coming down at about 1″ per hour. We are looking at perhaps 10″ or more by Saturday morning
(my father-in-law who lives in Powell, OH)
- I am gonna be a mom of a teenager in 3 more days! That makes me so old!!!
(current co-worker)
- need to figure out something to wear tonight. That is dressy, yet I can dance in. And is red. Hmm…
(former co-worker)
- cannot wait for Toy Story 3!
(my daughter, who’s at college 100 miles from home)
Some myths debunked
- Spam: If you open a Facebook account, you won’t be spammed. You control who has access to your email address and when emails are sent to you from Facebook. “No e-mails” is an option.
- Unwanted Friends: You control who your “friends” are – you must confirm any friend request and can reject any you want. You can even “unfriend” someone in the future, if you want.
- Privacy: You control what information each “friend” can see using easy privacy settings.
More info
Check out “Facebook 101: The Basics,” which goes into more detail.
Have fun. I look forward to, perhaps, having some new friends on Facebook. Future blog postings will discuss the other fun features of Facebook including sharing photos and links. I’ll also explore the increasing number of businesses using Facebook.
Special thanks to my guest editor and daughter Sydney for her contributions to this blog posting.
Share what you know. Feel free to comment. Send questions, and I’ll try to address them in future blog updates.
Next blog topic: YouTube: What’s all the fuss about?
4UPMNMSDTYZE
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