It's simple to create a Facebook page for your business or organization, but then what? On Friday, Feb. 3, social media pro Jennifer Navarrete will lead a Brain Jam for branding your Facebook page, monitoring and curating activity, and building a following.
Creating, Promoting and Maintaining a Facebook Page
You already know how to use Facebook. Everybody's on Facebook. And creating a Facebook page for business is easy too. Here's what's not so easy:
Branding the page beyond the logo
Deciding what content to offer
Building a fan base
Friday, February 3, 2012 Coworking (open house, just hang out and work) 10:30 am - 3:30 pm Lunch discussion Noon - 1:30 pm
Where?
Firecat Studio 918 Nolan #104, San Antonio, TX 78202
You're welcome to come get some work done anytime between 10:30 am and 3:30 pm, just like working from a coffee shop but with cooler people and free coffee. Yes, you are welcome to invite others, but there's limited space, so make sure your friends register!
Coworking in March
On Friday, March 2, we're going Local! We'll discuss tactics for getting a local business or branch better online visibility with Google Places, Yelp, Foursquare and more. Save the date!
As always, please feel free to suggest upcoming brown bag topics. Thanks!
Firecat is hosting an all-day Jelly coworking session on Friday, January 20 as part of Worldwide Jelly Week. Bring your laptop, cell phone, or pen and paper and get some work done with some fresh faces and ideas around you.
What Is Jelly?
Jelly is a worldwide coworking movement, and it's how Firecat Studio was introduced to the coworking concept in 2006. Knowledge workers and creatives can pretty much work where ever they like, as long as they have an Internet connection. The next logical step is - where do you want to work from? For a lot of us, that's often home. But home can be isolating; you can miss the water cooler chats with coworkers and the face time with other human beings. Coworking, and Jelly, have sprung up as an alternative place to work.
To quote from the Jelly website:
Jelly started in NYC in February of 2006 when roommates Amit and Luke realized that they loved working from home, but they missed the creative brainstorming, sharing, and camaraderie of a traditional office. (Office politics, not so much.)
So they started inviting friends to come work from their home one day a week. They soon found that working in close proximity to new and interesting people every couple weeks resulted in new ideas and interesting conversations.
Emboldened by their early success, they made it a more regular thing. Jelly was born.
And What's Worldwide Jelly Day 2012?
It's a celebratory week of coworking happening worldwide. San Antonio's godfather of coworking, Todd O'Neill, has organized coworking sessions in San Antonio each day of the week. Here's the schedule so far:
Monday, January 16 - Geekdom, Weston Centre, 112 East Pecan, 11th Floor, San Antonio, TX 78205. Map
Tuesday, January 17 - La Taza Coffeehouse, 15060 San Pedro Ave/281, SATX 78232
Wednesday, January 18 - TBD
Thursday, January 19 - TBD
Friday, January 20 - Firecat Studio, 918 Nolan #104, San Antonio, TX 78202. Free of charge, soft drinks provided. Brownbag lunch. Map
Ready for 2012? Friday, Jan. 6 Firecat's coworking & brownbag session will make sure your marketing explains your Unique Selling Proposition — specifically how what you offer is different, and better, than alternatives. Kate Hayward will lead the workshop.
Craft a Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
It's one thing to describe what you offer. It's a bit more difficult to get really specific about how buying from you is unique — different and better — than buying from your competition.
A first step in creating a modern business plan, your unique selling proposition tells prospects what you sell, how they benefit from buying it, and why you're the best provider of it than anyone else.
The USP was first described in the 1940s, popularized in the 1960s, and this key marketing idea is still vital today. From the 1961 edition of Reality in Advertising by Rosser Reeves:
An advertising message must make a proposition to the consumer. Not just words, not just product puffery, not just show-window advertising. Each advertisement must say to each reader: "Buy this product or service, and you will get this specific benefit."
The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer. It must be unique—either a uniqueness of the brand or a claim not otherwise made in that particular field of advertising.
The proposition must be so strong that it can move the mass millions, i.e., pull over new customers to your product.
Do you offer the lowest price? Highest quality? More choices? Best guarantee of results? A unique combination of skills and experience?
In this free coworking workshop, Kate Hayward will help participants draft their own USPs and review and improve them by getting feedback and ideas from one another. The eventual goal is to hear people you meet say, "I've heard of you. You're the company that _____ ..." When prospects are able to restate your USP, you know your marketing is effective. Let's get there together in 2012.
You may remember our fabulous presenter, Kate Hayward, from the Visual Thinking workshop she presented at Firecat's coworking and brownbag in September 2011. Kate is a seasoned curriculum developer with a BIG active brain, helps world-changing nonprofits developer and deliver mission-critical train-the-trainer strategies, and shares her thoughts on the Thinkubator.
Light sandwich fare and beverages will be provided. Feel free to bring your own if you prefer.
When?
Friday, January 6, 2012 Coworking (open house, just hang out and work) 10:30 am - 3:30 pm Lunch discussion Noon - 1:30 pm
Where?
Firecat Studio 918 Nolan #104, San Antonio, TX 78202
You're welcome to come get some work done anytime between 10:30 am and 3:30 pm, just like working from a coffee shop but with cooler people and free coffee. Yes, you are welcome to invite others, but there's limited space, so make sure your friends register!
Coworking in February
On Friday, February 3, Jennifer Navarrete of MediaFuse and Susan Price of Firecat will give a free sample of our upcoming half-day full Facebook Pages for Business. Save the date!
As always, please feel free to suggest upcoming brown bag topics. Thanks!
It's people gathering to do their usual work, just in a new location. It's a growing, worldwide movement, especially relevant
for those of us whose jobs involve the phone and computer, allowing us to work from just about anywhere.
Am I supposed to stay all day?
Entirely up to you, any part of the day, or the whole shebang. Many folks drop in for just a quick coffee, or the lunch
discussion, others for the happy hour.
Do I need to be a web geek to participate?
No, we welcome all kinds of folks -- accountants, lawyers, artists, architects, journalists, printers, farmers, designers,
massage health workers, historians. It helps if you can get stuff accomplished with cell phone and computer, but most people
find a few hours spent networking and thinking with a pen and paper can be quite productive.
Is it a big networking fest?
It's pretty relaxed, and if you want to meet others, you can -- but it's not required ;) We maintain a "no pitch zone" but we
have seen people find talent, projects, jobs, vendors, and a few enterpreneurs have found investors.
Why do people cowork?
A change of scenery stimulates new ideas and ways of thinking, so coworking tends to breathe life into the way you think and
feel about your work. Independents, and telecommuters enjoy a break from the home office. Entrepreneurs, and others thinking
about going independent, find lots of advice and warm support. We almost always learn something new at coworking, through what
has been called "accelerated serendipity." The right people, with the right information or connections, have a way of coming
together when they need to.
Is there a cost?
Not at these sessions at Firecat. We sponsor coworking sessions on the first Friday of each month for the benefits mentioned
above. Our team offices at home except for meetings, so we need the contact. Some spaces are "collectives" with a subscription
or rental model. This one's free.
Is there coworking at other places?
There sure is, coworking is an emerging trend all over the world. See the coworking wiki for locations and
specifics. There are other coworking sessions in San Antonio, dedicated coworking spaces have sprung up in Texas in Austin,
Bryan/College Station, and Houston, and more are coming. San Francisco, New York City, Philadelphia, London, Paris, Milan, even
Beirut have coworking spaces. In San Antonio, Todd O'Neill and Debbie Curtis run C4Workspace in the historic King William
district just south of downtown. Get your work done and some networking too!
