In additional to my personal Facebook page, I also have Facebook pages for Compass Yoga and One Fine Yogi. It took me a long time to decide if this was a good idea. I wasn’t immediately convinced that brands could do something valuable with Facebook though eventually I came around to seeing the power of it for brands.
Compass Yoga Facebook Page
The Compass Facebook page includes inspirational images (and some with humor!), quick snapshots of yoga philosophy, links to our recent blog posts, updates on classes, event notifications, and gives students and supporters a way to connect with us quickly and easily to ask questions, give feedback, and make recommendations. I’d also love to encourage more fans to use it to interact with one another – we’re working on that piece. I used to put together a regular e-newsletter but I’ve decided to put more time into Compass Yoga’s Facebook page for several reasons:
1.) Facebook provides a two-way communication channels and is more dynamic. An e-newsletter is a one way communication tool that’s sent once in a while and many times goes unopened. By industry standards, if 20% of your subscribers open your e-newsletter, you are doing really well. Compass has always had 40%+, but that means that 60% of people never read it. 2.) Facebook gives us a way to connect people to one another. An e-newsletter just gives people a way to connect to us. 3.) The new Google inbox has all but killed email marketing. Many people have given up on email altogether in favor of social media. I will admit that I’m beginning to lean this way as well. 4.) E-newsletters are also difficult to share (meaning even when you click the share button, very few people ever open those shares) and time-consuming to create. A Facebook post is highly shareable and visible by a wide audience.
If you love yoga, or you’re just curious about it, I hope you’ll join us on the Compass Yoga Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/CompassYoga
One Fine Yogi Facebook Page
For a few months, I’ve been working on ideas and designs for One Fine Yogi, a line of yoga-inspired products in a few different categories. I’m still getting my head wrapped around this concept, and sorting through how I’d like it to take shape. Profits from the product sales will support Compass Yoga. While I figure out the direction for the product line, I post inspirational messages and images on the One Fine Yogi Facebook Page. If you need a boost in your day, I’d love to have you become a fan of the page: https://www.facebook.com/onefineyogi.
Facebook has been a great way to inspire people off the mat and to connect with supporters directly on a daily basis. It also helps people know that Compass Yoga and One Fine Yogi are run by real people who care about their health and well-being.
How do you use Facebook as part of your online presence and strategy?
Tomorrow, I’ll chat about Twitter – one of the social media channels I use most frequently.
As promised, my first blog post in this social media strategy series is about how I use my blogs – Christa in New York: Curating a Creative Life and Compass Yoga. I started blogging daily at Christa in New York: Curating a Creative Life on 5/31/07. To date, I’ve written 2,291 blog posts that have collectively received 250,000+ unique visitors across 60+ countries. It’s given me a way to learn, share, help, and celebrate. This blog has been a gift to me, personally and professionally, and there is no way to express how incredibly grateful I am to everyone who’s ever read it.
Blogging helps me connect with people even when we are separated by geography
My friend, Alice, was the editor of our school newspaper and she kindly published a few pieces I had written during our second year. My friend, Stephen, asked me if I planned to keep writing after we graduated. He said I should start a blog. I asked him who would ever read my blog and he simply replied, “I’d read it.” I remember that conversation as if it happened yesterday. That conversation changed the course of my life. I didn’t know it yet, and I don’t think Stephen did either. Some of our most poignant life moments happen that way – they come and go and it’s only upon reflection that we realize how very important they are.
My first blog I got started blogging on Blogger.com exactly 9 years ago to the day on October 15, 2004 while I lived in Washington DC. My first blog was Eyes and Ears Wide Open and it was on blogger. My first post began: “I’ve been journaling for almost 20 years, and the time has finally arrived for me to get some of these thoughts out of my head, off the closed pages of my diaries, and out into the world. I hope that someone reads them and gets something out of them.” I published a total of 26 posts.
Blogging has shaped my career and my life
On May 31, 2007 I sat down on my couch and started my current blogging adventure. That simple site was largely responsible for helping me secure my first job out of business school at Toys R Us. My boss, Bob G., became my mentor and supporter. During my interview, we chatted about my blog – I had put the URL on my resume. Bob loves a good story, and I told him I was trying to figure out how to become a good storyteller. Today, we’re still trading stories…on Facebook.
Once the recession hit in 2008, I knew I needed to jump to a new job. Like all specialty retail, Toys R Us was heading for the cliff and I didn’t want to go with it. My blog helped me to secure a new role at American Express because my daily posting showed I was disciplined and committed. The job itself was great in terms of the work, but my bosses were the worst I have ever had in my career. Additionally, the company was about to go through one of the most frightening times in its 150+ year history. Lehman Brothers failed 5 weeks after I started my job, and I had a choice: I could be scared and keep my head down or I could pick my head up, sit at the front of the class every day, and learn as much as I could for as long as I was there. I chose the latter and wrote about many of my experiences, without naming American Express, on my blog. The posts are all there, as are the many lessons I learned along the way. *Blogging gives me a way to process what I learn and archive those learnings for myself and others.*
I stayed in that role for 16 months and when a friend told me about a new job in product development, I sold my story like never before. The competition for the role was fierce. I put everything on the line, including my growing interest in blogging and social media. That key point – that I blogged every day about my life and hit “publish” – helped me secure the role and that began my journey as a product developer in technology in a deep way. My blog gave interviewers a way to get to know me on a highly personal level. I also made a lot of dear friends in that role who taught me so much, many of whom are still a wonderful part of my life. I will always be grateful for their presence, acceptance, and support.
Finally, my blog led me to connect with so many people around the world who care about things I care about. Some of my favorite friends found me through my online writing, and to this day their support has never wavered. It is that support that helped me believe I could make a go of writing full-time, or at least give it a healthy shot. On June 15, 2012, I took the plunge to freelance and start my own content development business, Chasing Down the Muse, and in 16 months, I’ve never looked back. It’s been a wild ride; one I am grateful for every day.
The Compass Yoga blog
In March 2010, I started Compass Yoga, a nonprofit to get more yoga to more people in more places. When I published the Compass website, I had no idea how my idea would develop, nor all of the incredible people I would meet on the journey. This blog has 270 posts though I now publish much more regularly on it than I did at the start. Most of the posts are re-posts of content from other sites that discuss the therapeutic benefits of yoga and meditation. Occasionally, I publish a product review and world yoga news.
Through the incredible efforts of so many people, the Compass Yoga blog has been named one of the top 100 yoga blogs and one of the top 10 yoga blogs on Twitter. These kinds of tributes are humbling, shocking, and motivating. What began as one small class at my local library has become a source of comfort for so many people, and most of that credit goes to the amazing teachers, students, board members, donors, supporters, and volunteers who make Compass Yoga what it is – a place online and off that welcomes and accepts all voices in pursuit of a healthy, happy existence.
Blogging helps me find kindred spirits
She who does not howl will never find her pack. For me, blogging has been a way for me to shout about things that inspire me and are important to me, and connect with people who share those interests. Through my blogs, I have been able to create a living, breathing tapestry of my own personal history and the many fantastic characters who have played a part in making me the person I am. It is a deeply satisfying endeavor, something that helps me carve a life I love. It’s been a tool to discover who I am, and it’s given me a way to contribute and pay tribute to the lives of others.
Tomorrow’s social media strategy topic: How I use Facebook.
It’s with a rather ridiculous amount of excitement that I announce I am officially part of The Motley Fool. I’ve been a fan of the Fools for many years and last week found out that I was accepted as a freelance writer for their new section, The Business.
My first post is about the viral video Dove Real Beauty Sketches and how inspired I am that corporations, finally, are joining Team Human. I hope you’ll click-through and read my post – How to Make a Viral Video: Dove Beauty Sketches.
Balance has been the hardest part of being a freelancer, and particularly a freelance writer. I regularly have to research, pitch, and complete work all in one day, every day, for different projects. I use an application called Remember the Milk to store all my to-do lists and one of those lists is entitled “Stop Freaking Out”. I created it to help me manage through the inevitable ups and downs of work.
On that list, I jot down all of the projects I’m currently working on and the ones that are possibilities in the pipeline. Whenever I feel panic begin to enter the fringes of my mind – “Will I have enough work to do? Am I on the right track? Is the risk worth the reward?” – I consult this list and it gives me enough comfort to put worry aside and keep working. It’s my source of calm in the storm.
It’s been a useful tool for me, especially since I decided to give my dream of being a full-time writer a shot at being a reality. I consult it, oh, about 3 times a day. Luckily it’s always close by as the app is on my phone and iPad, and the list is also accessible on my laptop through the Remember the Milk website. We all need support as we pursue a dream; we all need reassurance that somehow in the end everything is going to be okay. This list is one of the ways I provide that assurance to myself.
How do you reassure yourself when the going gets a little nerve-wracking?
Today I’ll be live tweeting High Water Women‘s Investing for Impact Conference. With an incredibly impressive line up of speakers from the investment, nonprofit, and NGO worlds, the conference will cover the triumphs and challenges of financial investing that is focused on making a positive impact on society.
High Water Women empowers women and youth in need by creating powerful volunteer opportunities that leverage the talents and aspirations of professional women. They focus their work in 3 main areas:
– Enriched education for at-risk youth
– Relieving the impact of family poverty
– Economic empowerment for women
You can follow the day via my Twitter feed, @christanyc, or through the High Water Women Twitter feed, @HighWaterWomen. The hashtag for the event is #HWW2013. I hope you’ll chime in, ask questions, and connect with others on this topic. I look forward to the conversation!
Have you seen “Giving”, a short 3-minute film created by TrueMove, a Thai mobile telecommunications company? It tells the story of two families – one facing extreme hardship and the other in a position to help. It showcases the beauty of giving without expecting anything in return. I saw it during a digital storytelling session at Advertising Week. This might just be the best 3 minutes of your day. And who knows – maybe it will inspire you to take action in your own community.
A pic I snapped during one of the tech session at Advertising Week
Day 3 at Advertising Week blew my mind. Literally. Technology is taking us right to the brink, in a good way. The brink is where you want to be. The brink is where we push the boundaries of possible, where our wildest dreams become the realities that we seamlessly integrate into our daily lives. The brink is where it’s at. It’s where I want to spend all of my time.
In one particular session, I began to see my future come together, how all the pieces of experience I’ve collected throughout my life gel. I may have even heard a “schumpf” as the picture of my future as a writer in the fields of technology, culture, and business became so much clearer. The steps to the end game aren’t all laid out in a perfect sequence. There are holes that I don’t quite know how to navigate, but I do know where I’m going and why. And I do know the very next step I need to take. That’s enough to keep going.
I also know this: I needed every job I’ve had, every person I’ve ever met, and every place I’ve traveled to make sense of it all. Some were delightful and some were awful. They were all necessary. It is a satisfying thing to look back on our days and see the logic in the madness, the order in the chaos. It makes the day-to-day so much more manageable.
Pic from Advertising Week – digital storytelling presentation
The lines to get into the sessions at Advertising Week are long. People begin to queue in The Times Center 30 minutes before the start of each one. This makes for an opportunity to chat with people I might not otherwise meet. I ask them about their businesses, their marketing challenges, and what they hope to learn in these sessions. They’re quick to tell me the good stuff – the popularity of their brands and the ideas that went right. What’s more interesting to the writer in me lies in the grey messy mass of TBD initiatives.
One Director of Advertising at a large consumer packaged goods company told me that they’ve made a fortune on the back of an animated character who represents the illness their OTC medicine is meant to eliminate. Now in the age of social media, consumers want to interact with that character but since he is the animated representation of the illness, he’s not going to sell product for them via Facebook.
“So what are going to do?” I asked.
“That’s a good question,” he said. “We have no idea. We fight a lot over it.”
If I was at Advertising Week representing a company, I don’t know that I would be so bold as to ask pointed questions without easy answers. It’s liberating to be there to dig, write, and illuminate the stories that are not so readily seen. It’s freeing to be there as someone just trying to learn rather than someone who’s trying to teach. It’s fun to be marketed to instead of being the one doing the marketing.
I’ll be writing 3 features per day on cool finds, interesting people, provocative ideas, and leading edge innovations in media, marketing, and technology. You can see all of my posts on the conference at http://www.allvoices.com/users/Christanyc. On this blog, I’ll draft a more personal piece each day on this experience chasing down my stories. Comments, feedback, and questions are welcomed and appreciated on both sites.
Seth Godin is the Yoda of modern times. He is well-meaning and honest in his crankiness, and I love him for that. I also love him because despite what the world tells you about personal and professional image, he is unabashedly, unapologetically himself.
His email is sethgodin@gmail.com. His blog, http://sethgodin.typepad.com/, doesn’t even have a vanity URL. His company isn’t some clever title; it’s just his name at http://sethgodin.com. I’ve never seen him give himself any kind of title except “author”. His tagline is “Go Make Something Happen”. (If everyone took that advice, imagine how evolved our world would be!) He thinks all marketers, colleagues in his own chosen profession, are liars and he tells them so; it’s the title of one of his most successful books and he’s not apologizing for that either. His popularity is based upon his inability to tolerate BS in its many forms.
He doesn’t let anyone off the hook for being less than they can be. He doesn’t stand for people who refuse to rise to their potential, nor for people who pump themselves up through image rather than substance. He believes that just because something is hard, doesn’t mean we should avoid doing it.
How do I know these things? I’ve never spoken to him. I’ve never asked him any pointed questions about life, work, and the world. I do read his writing, and this is what I hear in his words: stop waiting; stop making excuses; be authentic; stop pretending to be someone you’re not and be who you are. Those are messages to live and work by.
In additional to my personal Facebook page, I also have Facebook pages for Compass Yoga and One Fine Yogi. It took me a long time to decide if this was a good idea. I wasn’t immediately convinced that brands could do something valuable with Facebook though eventually I came around to seeing the power of it for brands.
Christa Avampato 