Monday, March 26, 2012

Facebook and twitter and Pinterest. . . Oh my!

Wow. Is it just me or are all the social media options becoming overwhelming? I could spend hours every day reading, pinning and posting. What's a girl to do who hasn't got the time? POST wisely and take advantage of the tools out there to help you do it. One of my favorite tools is Hootsuite. With a platform like Hootsuite, you can not only view all your "streams" at one location, but you can also plan your posts and not have to keep typing them like a maniac into each network you use. On Hootsuite, current platforms include: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Ping.fm, WordPress, MySpace and mixi. Now, I haven't played with all those yet, but I CAN tell you that I like it very well for what I consider the "trinity" of social media: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. You can type your post just once and it can be delivered across all the networks. You can also schedule posts so it makes it really nice if you know you have a busy week coming up but don't want to forget your followers. Monday morning, you can set up a post for each day of the week and then move on to your other business. Yes, I KNOW it takes away some of the fun of checking Facebook daily but it WILL save you some time in the end.

Tell me, do you have another multi-social platform that you use? How does it work?

Stay tuned for more information on using Pinterest for business.

Happy posting!

Monday, February 27, 2012

Meet the blue dot!

Wow. My first post as an official blogger. I'm really not sure where I plan to take the site yet but I do know that I want it to accomplish two things. One, share with the world more about myself and my business. Two, share marketing tips and ideas for small businesses.

Blue Dot Communications is my official new name. I've been doing marketing under The Paciorek Group for a few years now and things have gotten messy since we are ditching the magazine we were doing. Besides that, let's face it, The Paciorek Group isn't exactly an exciting name. Hence, Blue Dot Communications is born.

The story behind the name is an interesting one and my BFF, Marilyn, inspired me without even knowing it. Thanks Marilyn! My mother and grandmother taught me to be a good Catholic in all things gambling. Since Marilyn and I spent 12 years at Catholic School, I took her along on the gambling ride. It wasn't hard to convince her. Mom and grandma were also fans of the gossip rags and the National Enquirer was their favorite. Every now and then the Enquirer would carry "the lucky blue dot." Readers swore by the luck of the blue dot and story after story was printed. Mom and grandma cut out their blue dots (and of course one for Marilyn and I) and brought them with us on our casino runs and to our first trip to Las Vegas. They would rub the dot on the machines and wrinkle that poor dot up in their jeans pockets. Who knows how many went through the laundry! Alas, they rarely lost all their pennies in the slots so Marilyn and took our chances and laughed at them and kept our dots hidden in our purse.

I figure, I can use a little luck in my business and my clients can use a little luck in theirs. Hence, I am at one with the dot and plan to share the luck.

I welcome you to join me on my blogging ride. Oh yeah, and feel free to print out one of my blue dots for luck!