I am pleased to introduce you to the second winner of my eBook, Deborah DeFoe of Cookie Lee Jewelry. I have known Deborah for almost four years. We met at a networking group. I asked Deborah to share a bit about her business with me.

“My business is Cookie Lee, fabulous fine fashion jewelry amazingly priced to fit any style and every budget. I offer personalized services geared to save customers time while providing superior customer service. They can shop from the comfort of their home or office. In addition, I have a Special Occasion service where customers can gift someone on special occasions throughout the year, such as birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day and more without having to remember dates. In addition, I am available for home shows, office shows, fundraisers and more.

I have been in business for six years. After a girlfriend hosted a home show for me, I decided to pursue this as a business because it is an easy and fun way to increase my income while sharing my love for jewelry with others. My business also provides the flexibility for me to work around my family’s schedule and still be involved in the volunteer work I do with my church, hospice and Kiwanis.

The best referral for me is the career woman who dresses for success and men who need affordable gifts.

Contact me by phone, email or on Facebook!”

805-341-9055 or 805-375-9148

deborahdefoe@cookielee.biz

http://www.facebook.com/DeborahDefoe

In early December I recorded 12 Tinsel-Tastic Tools, Techinique, Tips and Tricks to stuff in your Social Media Stocking. I also promised to give away twelve copies of my ebook, “52 Ways to Soar Down the Social Media Highway”. Each winner not only gets my eBook, but a blog devoted just to them and their business and they get highlighted on my Facebook business page, The Social Networking Navigator.

The first lucky winner is Carol Leish, owner of Call Me Capable. I asked Carol four questions and here are her responses:

1) Please describe your product/service:

“In my business, Call Me Capable, I give motivational talks about Disability Awareness from a personal perspective of coping with speech and visual challenges most of my life. I also sell a children’s game, Call Me Capable ™ for kids 3rd through 9th grade that has questions dealing with physical, learning, and mental challenges. The purpose of my talks and the game is to realize that we are all more similar than different.”

2) How long have you been in business?:

“I’ve been a motivational speaker since 1997. The game has been selling since 2002.”

3) Who is a good referral for you?

” Elementary and middle school students and teachers, as well as service clubs, non-profit organizations and businesses too.”

4) How can someone connect with you?

“People can call me at 805-988-6161 or email me at capable@callmecapable.com”

Special needs and education is near and dear to my heart. Take a look at Carol’s website, too! http://www.callmecapable.com/

Congratulations, Carol!

Join me beginning February 6 at 6:00 p.m. PST for a five week teleseries. Details below!

I hope you will join me. Sign up here: http://www.thesocialnetworkingnavigator.com/tune-in-and-tune-up-your-social-media-strategy-a-five-part-teleclass/

Today I decided, since I coach social networking, that it would be a good idea to grab the Facebook Timeline. I was curious and wanted to see what all the hoopla was about. So, I recorded my screen using Jing and did it live and posted it to my Facebook business page. It was pretty easy and a whole bunch of fun. Below are the three videos I did – all less than five minutes each. If you are curious, too and want to see me in action, take a look.

Add the Facebook Timeline! – click on the link below!

The Social Networking Navigator – LaurieH920′s library

Add a cover photo (extremely cool!) click on the link below!

The Social Networking Navigator – LaurieH920′s library

More fun stuff! Click on the link below!

http://www.screencast.com/t/lOhnYOmWUez

Have you installed the timeline yet? If so, leave your Facebook address in the comments section so we can see!

It was very exciting last week to launch my new business, The Social Networking Navigator. Despite some nail-biting moments of waiting patiently for my Facebook landing page to be ready and my web designer to launch the home page of my new website (he was experiencing a major traffic jam amongst other unexpected events), all went as anticipated on the day I had circled on my calendar as the big day I officially became a social media coach. Not an expert or a guru, but an educator for small businesses and entrepreneurs to get some one-on-one attention to grow their businesses online.

What I found to be very interesting, was the number of people who quickly liked my Facebook business page. Today, I finally had a chance to check out who liked my page, because very few people did not leave a comment. Social networking is all about interaction. However, some people stopped by and even posted their business page on mine, which I believe is poor social networking etiquette. So here are a few tips as to what to do when you are asked to like a new Facebook business page.

1) Only do so if you truly like it! Enough said.

2) If there is a landing page asking you to subscribe to a newsletter, subscribe if you want to get their newsletter – you can always unsubscribe, but check it out for one issue and see what it’s all about. You may be pleasantly surprised!

3) Actually take a look around the business page and leave a comment instead of just a thumbs up. Tell the person that you were there and say something interesting about the page.

4) Read some of the previous posts before yours and engage in a conversation. This tells the owner that you truly are interested in what their fans and followers have to say and you never know when someone might see your name or interesting comment, recognize it, and engage in a conversation with you.

5) Put the person’s page on your list of favorites on your business page if you really like it and wish to be kept abreast of the goings-on on their page.

6) Visit the page often or if you see posts in your stream from their business page in the future, engage and become a part of the conversation.

7) If you know of people that would benefit from visiting the new business page, refer people to it because being a strong referral source is an excellent way to gain followers and to help your friend promote their business.

There is nothing that bothers me more than people coming to my Facebook page asking me to like their page and then never hearing from them again. It’s not all about the numbers, it’s about quality and the content of the comments and discussions.

Do you respond to every request to like a new page? Have you recently launched a new Facebook business page and what was the response? How do you keep attracting new followers?

Do you know the origins of the quip, “content is king?” Apparently it was mouthed by none other that Bill Gates, way back in 1996 in an essay he wrote for Microsoft. The closing line of his paper stated, “Those who succeed will propel the Internet forward as a marketplace of ideas, experiences, and products-a marketplace of content.” Amazing that fifteen years later these same words are still being touted over and over again. A mantra of sorts for social media managers and marketing strategists. Kind of like the old adage in Real Estate, “location, location, location.”

As I prepare to launch a new website, Facebook business page, and newsletter, I am reminded over and over again about “content is king.” Sharing with my readers relevant information about what I do, in a creative manner. Because, let’s face it, if one Google’s common keywords for their industry, they will most likely find a myriad of different articles and posts already written about it. So, as I think about my content, I started thinking about another important aspect of content. And that is, consistency in delivery. Or, in my words ” consistency is Queen.”

If one is not consistently putting new content out there, who really cares? One great article may drive traffic to your website or blog, but forward thinking about the next one is the challenge. One ingenious tweet may be retweeted several times, but people want more valuable nuggets of information. One great video may be watched several hundred times, but when will the next one pop up? Having a strategy or schedule for posting on whichever social media venues you prefer will benefit your business or cause (and keep you on task and organized.)

What I do is keep a calendar of where I want to be on the top six social media venues, divide it by topic and spend a few hours each week writing and inputting into the various social media automated platforms I use. It is worth the time and keeps my brain thinking about what I want to say. I also carry a notebook around with me and jot down things that happen in my daily life that are worthy of a tweet, blog post of video; not everything is thought out ahead of time.

Bottom line is, do you want to be a one-hit wonder or be a consistent force on social media? I agree, content is of paramount importance, but consistent dialogue with your audience makes that content worthy. How do you formulate your content and what do you do to be sure you are constantly updating it and being visible in the social stream?

What? Another social media marketing coach opening up shop? Really? Well, yes really! But I like to think my approach is different than some other social media gurus. First, I am not a guru or an expert. Ok, that is pretty gutsy to say in the social stream. But, it is true. I am an entrepreneur who has successfully launched three educational businesses. Within the past two years, I realized if I didn’t jump on the social media bandwagon and embrace it, my businesses were going to fail – or at least remain stagnant. Because whether I liked it or not, social media was here to stay – and it will only get more pervasive in the future.

So, after taking a social media course and learning about social networking, I started applying what I learned and my sales started to increase. I found myself reaching outside of my comfort zone and interacting with people I met online. Folks began connecting with me, asking questions about my tutoring businesses and wondering how I could help thembegin a business; not necessarily an educational business, but a small business that fit their skill set.

Since I teach others how to begin a tutoring business, I decided I had to share with them the success I had with social media. Thus, The Social Networking Navigator was born. And the cool thing about social media is that once you know how to “do it” , “it” can be applied to any business. People in my networking circles starting asking me for advice and direction. I was invited to be a keynote speaker at a women’s convention, discussing my journey that led me into the world of tweeting, posting, blogging, etc. I was a guest consultant for a budding women’s entrepreneur class at one of our local universities, and small business owners were asking me for advice on how to manage their social media efforts. Thus, business number four was born!

My approach is the same business formula I use for my tutoring businesses – one-on-one instruction, assessing my clients’ with their needs and helping them come up with what I call a User’s Manual to keep them organized and on track, developing a marketing strategy that will work!

I hope you will join me as my journey unfolds. I am here to help you succeed on the social media super-highway. Buckle your seat belts and prepare to accelerate your business forward!

“Oh Mom, you are so INTENSE!” said my older daughter the other day. Like that’s a bad thing! I looked at her quite bewildered. She continued, “All of my friends think so, too!” Well at least she talks about me to her friends. I took that as a good sign that she acknowledges my existence outside of the home – chatting to her friends about me around the lunch table at school.

So, I looked up the definition of intense and this is what Merriam-Webster Dictionary had to say: “Marked by or expressive of great zeal, energy, determination, or concentration, exhibiting strong feeling or earnestness of purpose, deeply felt.” Yep, that’s me!

I am all of those things. Is that bad? I am the mom who cheers at every cross country meet as loud as I can and meet her at the finish line with the requisite bottle of water. I know better than to say anything. Just hand over the water and be close enough to lean on if necessary. I ask questions about school, her classes, her thoughts about college applications and generously render my opinions, keeping in mind if I say too much I will lose the privilege of being told anything.

I remember back to my daughter’s middle school years when I was driving a van full of her friends home from day camp and decided it would be fun to go fast over the speed bumps. Laughter, screams and giggles were plentiful back then and I know they all secretly loved it when it was my turn for carpool. I was a fun mom, but never intrusive.

I am an involved parent but I keep in mind the boundaries I should not cross. I believe in giving my daughter her independence and encouraging her to make decisions on her own. I have worked very hard on not intervening in many aspects of her life unless asked. Which is really difficult for someone like myself who freely states her mind, with enthusiasm, I might add.

I handle my business the same way. I love what I do, am passionate about it and am not shy or quiet about the benefits of my private tutoring service or my social network coaching. Intensity is a good thing when kept in check.

Imagine my astonishment when I discovered other synonyms for intense: blistering,dreadful, excruciating, explosive, fearful, ferocious, fierce, frightful, furious, ghastly, hard, heavy, heavy-duty, hellacious, terrible, vehement, vicious, and violent.

I’ll take the first definition. How about you? Would you describe yourself as intense in a positive way or a negative way? Because clearly intense can also be interpreted as a major character flaw!