Start Up Social Media

Rockford Social Media News-Rippln Through Rockford

I suppose it is about time that I try a phone app…especially since my eight year old daughter wanted to down load an app on my phone the other day, had it all picked out and everything.  However, Dad is from troglodyte and semi-luddite land, and still uses his cell phone to make calls and send the occasional text, rather than down load apps.

Now on to the actual topic at hand, which is the marketing of a cell phone app called Rippln, which has not even been released yet, but appears to be taking the internet by storm, in a few short days.  I had seen some references to it, but since I am not a big cell phone fan or app user, I ignored those posts until a respected friend of mine from my SBI teaching days sent me a message on Facebook about it, and I took a look at the plan, and since it is free, I decided to sign up.   That was Thursday or Friday and since then I have seen a number of recruiting attempts, including  a post to my linkedin account.  Linkedin?  Wow, and I like the way the post was written.  Readable and professional, but still excited…and the folks who I signed up under will be doing a Google hangout today to educate the team…so it looks like the marketing folks are going full steam ahead on Social Media platforms to get the word out, and I want to follow along, so I can describe it for you, because this should be masterful.

Think about it.  How many apps for cell phones are downloaded every day?  But I do not know of any that have built demand through and mlm set up prior to the release of the app.  They are almost guaranteed success initially, even if the thing does not work.

Of course, with mlm, there is a compensation plan, and probably a monthly charge of some sort, and I am curious to see what that will look like as well, and I have seen some short articles about the compensation plan, which are a bit confusing, but let us play along and see what kind of marketing wizardry happens here.

Here is a review of the rippln app…http://www.businessforhome.org/2013/04/rippln-mobile-app-review-2013/

This is not a request to sign-up, just a quick review, which sure did appear fast.  Mike

Rockford Social Media News

I just completed my first Google Hangout on Air, and now I have this neat new and unedited video up on my Youtube channel and posted to my website page build around the same keyword.  My motives are really selfish here, I am hoping that the combination of my Google profile, my Google+ page, and my Youtube channel will bring increased traffic and page rank to that page.

I am also exploring the option of interviews on Google Hangouts on Air for newly minted counselors I find on linkedin, who do not have much of a sense of how to market, or use social media for marketing, and I actually have some other very interesting ideas for the tool as well.

As usual though, many folks who are very adept at Facebook for example, have no idea what Google+ is about or how to use it, so there is an educational process involved, much like the one I am involved in as I research best practices.

How about Google Communities?  I have started one called  When It Comes to Brains, Size Matters which is gathering a following, much to my surprise…and maybe this community thing could have some commercial value down the road.

So get yourself a gmail account if you do not have one,  and come join in a Hangout with me, we will tell tall tales, and swap social media experiences.

Rockford Social Media News-Etsy, Rockford, and Artisan Businesses

Did you see this in the Rockford Register Star this morning?    The Art of the Deal-Possibilities Endless For Rockford in Etsy Venture   is a very intriguing article.  I think that this kind of adventure is extremely important to us citizens, as commerce moves online in a big way.   The old way of making a living, by hourly wage, working for a corporation, or at a job site, is no longer available the way it used to be,  and I saw the impact in my counseling practice every day.

In fact, I knew there was a recession starting in the summer of 2007 when my court ordered clients began to struggle to pay their weekly $20.00 fee, and I could get a sense of when things were beginning to get better, when payments picked up in Jan. of 2010.   Most of my clients were the working poor, and middle class, doing well enough to have some piece of the American dream, but the recession really hit those folks hard, and know I see them struggle even more, because the traditional sources of jobs have dried up.

If I were to look for a job today, it would be on Twitter or Linkedin, not in the local paper, sadly.

So, if we are going to empower folks, I think this initiative is a great start.  Problem for me is, no craft talents or ideas.  I do have information I can market though…but probably not on Etsy.

I do have  a good friend in Poplar Grove who uses Twitter and Etsy to market his Boy Scout custom made kerchief slides.  Mike Crookshank is the maker of the slides, and he makes them in his shop out behind his house, so there is an another example of a home grown business owner doing very well on Etsy using Twitter and his Scouting backgrounds.

I will be very interested to read Mayor Morrisey’s State of the City address tomorrow in the newsp…I mean on the RRStar website.