Social Media Classics

Aug 102011

Today as we have been going through the Social Media Class on Salty Waffle I am reminded of how quickly everything changes. Facebook, Google, Twitter, Hootsuite, they all change soooo quickly. Each time we review the lessons there is something new to report, Google algorithm changes or new features on an app.

Thank goodness Mitchell Cuevas stays on top of updating our content.  It’s good to know what kind of image you are putting out there and we make sure that we are hip on the social media trends so that you are too!

Nicole Donnelly, Twitter, Infographic

Nicole Donnelly, Twitter, Infographic

Bear Experience

Aug 082011
Salty Waffle, nicole donnelly, babylegs

Me in a Bear Den

Early Sunday morning we went on a 3 hour bumpy bear tour in Whistler, BC. Throughout the tour, Mike was talking so passionately about his bears. He knows their names and personalities as he’s out there for 2-3 tours a day all season long. He wants to bring awareness to people about how we can all live together and social media would be such a great way for him to share his stories, photos, and videos.

For most people bear sitings and interactions are not on our daily agenda. Bears are so cute and so much like humans in their relationships and interactions with each other. They have individual personalities and as Casey Anderson, grizzly expert, says, it’s like a soap opera.

Both Mike and Casey have a love for bears and a passion for sharing their learnings with others. That passion combined with a little social media would do wonders for bear awareness. Imagine a Gary Vaynerchuck style show about bears.  (watch this video!)

Hackathon

Jul 172011

social media prize, hackathon, redmond, WAThinkspace hosted the AT&T hackathon in Redmond, WA. It was super cool! Over 100 super smart people gathered to build mobile apps. There were so many cool apps.

Some mobile app names and descriptions are in this screenshot. I can’t wait to see which ones make it big!

The winning team got awarded a prize of free social media class and coaching for 3 months. It’s going to be a fun class!

Lessons Learned in Social Media Class

Jul 072011

social media internToday we’ve got another social media class going at thinkspace in Redmond, WA. Everybody is writing about what they learned today. I’ve learned that there are a lot of smart people in the room. Everybody is flying through the lessons and writing really great articles. I can’t get enough of these Gen Y’s.

There are more Gen Y’s unemployed than in any other generation by at least 20%. Why don’t you older, more experienced people take the time to train these brilliant young ones? This generation of digital natives can learn so fast it would knock your socks off. That’s why they won’t be sticking around doing the same task day after day, they need new challenges.

With a little social media training, accountability, and reward, you can have yourself a real rockstar that will surprise you with their creativity and mass amounts of content.

Groupon

Jul 062011
Groupon“Groupon” was the rally cry today as we closed our morning call. What’s the big deal? Well Groupon makes it a practice to look at a business’ Yelp reviews and the like before they’ll do a deal with a company. What’s the Salty problem? We are virtual, our classes are primarily virtual, so we can’t have a valid 3rd party site with reviews…until now! Linkedin now has review pages for businesses. Whew!
With this 3rd party platform where people can post reviews, we can now get in line to Groupon again. Tomorrow we’ll get some more reviews after class and videos to post too.

FUN!

Jul 042011

Nicole Donnelly wakeboardingThis morning we talked about the Salty Waffle value of FUN. “Don’t take yourself too seriously.” The reason that I wanted FUN in there in the first place is that I like to live my life that way. I like to have new adventures, explore, and have FUN doing whatever the day brings. The idea that I’m having FUN on a business trip or in meetings has been the root of jealousy personally and professionally.

I haven’t figured out how to quell it on the home front, but at work everybody is allowed and expected to have FUN! We have FUN in our meetings and freedom with our schedules to go do whatever floats your boat. You can post articles from anywhere that your smart phone has a connection.

FUN is also in the writing style. You can take a racy angle to a story and that’s ok. As long and it’s respectful, then you can cross humor boundaries all you want. You can bring personal experiences into your stories or keep it business only.

Mitchell said that FUN for him allows him to go boating all the time and have a life outside of work. He also said that FUN lets him write almost anything that he can think up and he knows he won’t get in trouble for it.

So, this morning the rally cry was FUN!

Secret Sauce: How to Hire a Community Manager

Jul 032011

How to Hire and Train a Community Manager

a.k.a. Social Author, Social Media Marketer

(Leverage Gen Y to Rock Your World)

Note to hiring manager: Salty Waffle will teach each new hire all of the tools, tactics, and techniques for doing this job well. We do not expect anybody to have had previous community management experience, but that would be a huge plus if they have.

The process:

-Hiring manager to post brief job description and writing requirements
-Applicant to submit writing samples
-Hiring manager reviews
-Email qualified writing samples to info@saltywaffle.com
-Salty Waffle will notify hiring manager of those selected for training
-Invitations with pertinent pre-work will be emailed to selected applicants by Salty Waffle
-Applicant to attend training via Skype
-Notification to hiring manager of approved applicant(s) to be sent within 48 hrs.
-Applicant will begin work
-Salty Waffle will coach your new hire daily/weekly (as agreed upon), your new hire will be coached through all Salty Waffle lessons online

Community Manager

Description: Build and maintain online communities for businesses around their specific industry. This includes posting to multiple social networks, writing articles, responding to press and customer inquiries, sparking conversation, maintaining and nurturing relationships.

The requirements for the job:

  • Great writing skills
  • Enjoy communicating with people
  • Quick to complete assignments
  • Creative problem solving
  • Like to learn
  • Be available for a Skype or phone call at least once a day during US business hours, up to four 30 min. calls per day. (training and daily numbers)
  • Attend two days of training in person or via Skype

*Tech savvy, psychology, anthropology, sociology, communication, journalism, or marketing majors/minors are a plus.

Each applicant must submit 3 writing samples under 300 words, all copied into the body of an email. You have 24 hrs. to compete this task.

Sample 1: write an article about yourself
Sample 2: write an article about what you are passionate about
Sample 3: write an article in the voice of Salty Waffle for www.SaltyWaffle.com

Write 3 tweets (140 characters) for each article.

Write 1 Facebook size (50 words or less) synopsis of each article.

If the applicant does not follow the directions above please exclude them. If they follow the directions and submit good articles, in the proper order, please forward their writing samples on to me. Good is defined as having proper grammar, formatting, spelling, and punctuation. Some of the language that we use is jargon and not common English such social media jargon is okay to use.

Nicole Donnelly, CEO Salty Waffle

Jul 032011

Nicole DonnellyRobert Murray took this great professional looking picture in the office at Faronics in Vancouver, BC. Thanks Bob!

Rally Cry

Jul 032011
Social Media InternEvery morning at 8:32 am we have a team call. “Our daily calls fall flat at the end and we need to do something about it.”, said Mitchell Cuevas our Salty Rockstar Social Author and Platform Manager. We need a rally cry! So, what do we say? Mitchell’s first attempt was to ask somebody on the call to pick a word, the word was sunscreen. On the count of three we all said sunscreen.

Well that did not garner the enthusiasm we had hoped for. This week we are going to try something from our one page plan. Something to do with values or goals. I’ll let you know how it goes.

It’s About Time!

Jul 032011

I need to practice what I preach and that is all about writing meaningful content. Sharing stories, ideas, and other useful information is what it’s all about. We humans have a need to connect. Every day I’ve been writing, but it’s all been going into a private blog. That’s how I process ideas, I write about them.

Now I’m going to share the information here. So, there’s no promise of brilliance in every article. I do promise to be authentic throughout. No B.S. here! I’ll post imperfect photos and articles because I believe that perfection is for procrastinators. It takes one to know one.

Rule #6 is my favorite-“Don’t take yourself too seriously.”  Here’s a great image to get us started…Sara Donnelly and Nicole Donnelly in Costa Rica

I love my little girl so much and this year I am going to do my best to be home 75% of the time and not travel so much or take her with me. I want her to see the world too.

While many other C level executives believe in the separation of work and personal life, I don’t. I may have a C title but I’m also wear my E title proudly. I’m an Entrepreneur.

To me being and Entrepreneur means that I am able to redefine social norms. I can create a new reality where freedom and leadership can co-exist. I can do anything that I can imagine.

This blog will be nothing but a figment of my imagination or reality as I see it.