Firecat Studio

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:

1. 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."
2. 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.
3. 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!