Tag Archives: social media

Animal House Shelter Huntley Client Case Studies

WHO THEY ARE

Animal House is a non-profit, 501(c)(3), No-Kill shelter for all breeds of dogs and cats. Since opening in June 2002, they have rescued, rehabilitated and placed over 15,000 dogs and cats, to date, into their loving forever homes.

Animal House Shelter, Inc. rescues abused and neglected dogs and cats and rehabilitates them mentally and physically in order to place them with the best new family.  They rescue 98% of their dogs from high ‘kill’ shelters, pounds and various animal control facilities in which they are usually listed as strays, and almost always scheduled to be euthanized.

Animal House Shelter Huntley
Animal House Shelter Huntley

THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE

For Animal House Founder Lesley Irwin, the challenge is find dogs and cats homes and to build awareness of the adoptable animals at the shelter. They do this through donations to feed, care for and provide medical care and keep the shelter maintained. The shelter is non profit and relies solely on donations.

“When animals come to our shelter, we often need urgent help from foster families who can care for these dogs and cats until permanent homes can be found,” said Lesley Irwin. “Phone trees and letters through the U.S. Post Office are costly and time consuming. There is also a need to connect with pet product or services companies and other rescue group and shelters.”

Volunteers are needed to care for animals. All dogs are walked 4-5 times a day and socialized with each other and volunteers. The cats are housed in a large ‘free roam’ cat room so they can interact all day with each other, staff, volunteers and potential adopters.

SOCIAL MEDIA BENEFITS

Alexis Williams is the social media/marketing manager for Animal House Shelter. She created an official Facebook page for the shelter, a YouTube Channel and a Twitter account. In addition, she manages and maintains these social networking accounts.

In the first three weeks since they launched these accounts, they have seen a great response. On Twitter they have 2,000 followers and have had lots of engagement from over 1,000 “fans” on their Facebook page. Fans have been posting pictures of their animals adopted from Animal House Shelter and giving updates on how their pets are doing. They also receive lots of supportive comments and words of encouragement. Animal House Shelter has found Facebook to be a great place to also post events, news, and requests for assistance.

Animal House Shelter is using YouTube to post video of dogs and cats available for adoption.

Alexis says, “One of my favorite videos is of Kyrpto, a puppy who was very shy when he first came to us. In the video you can see how he warmed up to the team due to his therapy with our staff.”

CYBERLIFE TUTORS BENEFITS

“Working with CyberLife Tutors, we learned how to build an effective Facebook business page for Animal House and engage supporters through the use of multimedia content, said Alexis Williams. “They encouraged us to create a Twitter account and added us to the McHenry County Business Daily news increasing our visibility throughout the county. We used CyberLife Tutors “Build Your Twitter Following” tips to grow our followers to nearly 1500 in a month. April M. Williams shared best practices to leverage automation tools to reduce our time investment while demonstrating social networking business etiquette. She helped us communicate to supporters about upcoming events increasing attendance. By working with April, we understood how to use video, pictures and links to engage with others and build a larger community.”

SUMMARY

What is Alexis Williams advice to business owners?

“Twitter has also proven to be an exciting outlet for us! We met many other great animal rescue groups who are pursuing the same work. We assist each other by re-tweeting each other’s tweets. Twitter has also become a source of meeting companies who are offering donations. By simply being on Twitter and meeting some pet product companies, we received several companies offer to provide donations of products. We have been given donations of collars and dog skin care products.

It is exciting and we look forward to continuing to use the social networks to not only help our animals find loving homes and bring awareness to our shelter, but to also connect with supporters, pet product companies, and other rescue groups/shelters. “

Follow Animal House Shelter
Website Animal House Shelter
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/AnimalHouseShelter
Twitter @HuntleyAHS
YouTube

Using Your Website and Social Media to Drive Club Membership

Would you like to use your club website and social media tools to drive Toastmasters or other club membership? These free tools work both for individuals and club leaders.

I am speaking on this topic at the District 30 Toastmasters Leadership Institute (TLI). For those who cannot attend, you can download a copy of my presentation

Using Your Website and Social Media to Drive Club Membership.

How is you club or group using social media to get the word out?

LinkedIn
LinkedIn

Internet Marketing Intensive Series

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:

April M. Williams
CyberLife Tutors
(414) 502-7745
http://www.cyberlifetutors.com
INTERNET MARKETING INTENSIVE SERIES

SHAH CENTER IN MCHENRY HOSTS SEVEN PART INTERNET MARKETING SERIES FOR SMALL BUSINESS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ALGONQUIN, ILLINOIS – June 8, 2011

The Shah Center in McHenry hosts a seven part Internet Marketing Intensive series of classes for small business owners. Learn the basics of online marketing and see how you can integrate this powerful tool into your overall marketing strategy. From planning to implementation, this series is the must-have for every small business.

The sessions taught by social media coach April M. Williams of CyberLife Tutors and Michael Bissett of Yellowbird Marketing. You get nuts and bolts practical applications so you can use these tools now. Best of all, most of these tools are free for you to use!

Series 1: Th July 7, 14, 21 6-9 PM

Session 1: Marketing Plan Session 2: Marketing Channels and identifying Prospects Session 3: Search terms, Domains, and Branding

Series 2: Th Aug. 11, 18, 25 Sept. 1 6-9 PM

Session 1: Website development
Session 2: Traffic Builders &Monitoring tools; keystrokes and analytics
Session 3: Integration & Branding
Session 4: Multimedia approach to marketing

For additional information, or to register, please contact the Shah Center at (815) 455-6098 or sbdc@mchenry.edu.These sessions are offered to through the Shah Center, a part of McHenry County College and the Small Business Development Center. The Shah Illinois Small Business Development Center is located at 4100 W. Shamrock Lane McHenry, IL 60050.

April M. Williams, a nationally recognized speaker, author, coach and blogger actively leverages the power of social networking tools. April is President of CyberLife Tutors and shows clients how to leverage their strengths to enhance their business. April published a book “Social Networking Throughout Your Career” and has been featured in major publications including the Wall Street Journal, Project Management Institute, Savvy, Business Journal, CBS Chicago and Nations Restaurant News.

April 08

ABOUT CyberLife Tutors – Serving McHenry County, Northern Illinois and surrounding areas to promote business through low cost, high impact marketing, building relationships and driving results.

Visit our CyberLife Tutors events calendar for information on upcoming events.

Social Media Classes at Shah Center McHenry County

Press Release: Illinois Small Business Development Center Classes for McHenry County

March 15, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Contact April M. Williams
CyberLife Tutors
(414) 502-7745

http://www.cyberlifetutors.com

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS CLASSES

Illinois Small Business Development Center and Cyberlife Tutors host Social Media classes

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ALGONQUIN, ILLINOIS – March 15, 2011

Please join the Illinois Small Business Development Center and Cyberlife Tutors for an interactive, two part series on Social Media and how it applies to YOUR McHenry County business today.

This series is designed for those new to or curious about social media as a business building tool. Hosted by Illinois Small Business Development Center and April M. Williams of CyberLife Tutors, attendees will see how business can harness the power of free tools to target specific customers. Sessions cover LinkedIn and Facebook for your business. Mark your calendar for April 21 and 28, 2011 6:00 – 8:00 PM at the Shah Center, 4100 W. Shamrock Lane, McHenry, Illinois 60050. Cost is $30 per session. For registration or more information please contact Illinois Small Business Development Center at (815) 455-6098 or email sdbc@mchenry.edu .

“Understanding the keystrokes of how to harness and use social media is a key capability to operating effectively,” states ISBDC Director Mary Margaret Maule. ”These classes shorten your learning curve and reduce wasted time trying to learn yourself, self taught. Social media is the fastest growing form of marketing, most cost effective and flexible. Social media is a MUST have for all small businesses.”

See how other McHenry County businesses have grown their business using social media.

Scholl Construction Client Case Studies

C You At The Movies Client Case Studies

April M. Williams, a nationally recognized speaker, author, coach and blogger actively leverages the power of social networking tools. April is President of CyberLife Tutors and shows clients how to leverage their strengths to enhance their business. April published a book “Social Networking Throughout Your Career” and has been featured in major publications including the Wall Street Journal, Project Management Institute, Savvy, Business Journal and Nations Restaurant News.

April M. Williams teaches a Facebook for Business class at Shah Center
April M. Williams teaches a Facebook for Business class at Shah Center McHenry County

ABOUT CyberLife Tutors – Serving McHenry County, Northern Illinois and surrounding areas to promote business through low cost, high impact marketing, building relationships and driving results.

– END –

Facebook Your Toastmasters Club PR Friend

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:

April M. Williams
CyberLife Tutors
(414) 502-7745
http://www.cyberlifetutors.com
FACEBOOK YOUR TOASTMASTERS CLUB PR FRIEND

David Reed and Oak Brook, Illinois Toastmasters club hosts a presentation with speaker, author, blogger and coach April M. Williams on February 22, 2011.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ALGONQIUN, ILLINOIS – February 16, 2011
The Oak Brook, Illinois Serious Speakers Toastmasters club will feature April M. Williams and her presentation on “Facebook Your Toastmasters Club PR Friend” to build membership and your career. Attendees will see how their club can harness the power of these tools to recruit new members and retain current members.

David Reed, MIM(MBA) is Toastmaster of the Day for this event from 5:30 to 6:00 pm at the Republic Bank in Oak Brook (2221 Camden Court).

“All are invited to hear this wonderful and educational speaker,” David said.

April M. Williams, a nationally recognized speaker, author, coach and blogger actively leverages the power of social networking tools. April is President of CyberLife Tutors and shows clients how to leverage their strengths to enhance their business. April published a book “Social Networking Throughout Your Career” and has been featured in major publications including the Wall Street Journal, Project Management Institute, Savvy, Business Journal and Nations Restaurant News.

April 08

ABOUT the CyberLife Tutors – Serving McHenry County, Northern Illinois and surrounding areas to promote business through low cost, high impact marketing, building relationships and driving results.

– END –

Create Your Resume With LinkedIn

Linkedin resume builder easily creates a resume from your LinkedIn profile. On the plus side, the process requires a few clicks. On the negative side, the results are not useful for me.

Try it out for yourself. Log on to the LinkedIn resume builder and connect to your LinkedIn profile. Choose the template you prefer. I used the Executive template.

LI profile header

To edit your resume, open your LinkedIn profile and make changes. When you are finished, view your resume or print your resume to a PDF format.

LinkedIn social_linkedin_button_blue_128
LinkedIn

I always recommend customizing your resume for a specific job. This resume tool makes customization difficult. For every new resume, you would update your LinkedIn profile and create a new resume. This two step process is more cumbersome than updating the resume itself.

Here is a link to my April M. Williams Resume produced by the LinkedIn Resume Builder. What do you think of the format?

http://blog.linkedin.com/2011/01/24/linkedin-inmaps/

How To Get Started With a Blog and Blogging

Have you wondered about blogging? What is a blog? What will a blog do for me?

We will be talking blogs here over the next several months. Be sure you do not miss an article, sign up for our Enews and Updates in the box on the right side of the page.

Blogs can help you in your career. How?

  • Find your audience
  • Let others know about your products and services
  • Allow you to stand out above the crowd?
  • Find the easiest way to interact with your readers and potential readers?

Over the next few weeks we will be sharing more information on how you get get started with blogs and blogging to move your career forward. Can’t wait? Contact us to get started now.

"Where Are You Today?" travel blog
“Where Are You Today?” travel blog http://www.aprilmwilliams.com

Do you have a blog? Click on “comments” at the top of this article and tell us about your blog. Let us know your topic and leave a link to your blog.

How often should I blog?

Five Twitter Success Stories and How Small-Businesses Can Learn from Them

For those of you still at a loss regarding how to use Twitter to promote your business, I present five Twitter small business success stories. From these examples, we can learn ways to take advantage of Twitter in order to both promote our brand and grow our business. I hope these miniature case-studies can be useful for you.

Answer Questions

In this first example, we meet @danielha, a co-founder of Disqus, a third party blog commenting platform. Daniel Ha found on a Twitter a Tweet from a blogger that describe how she wanted to switch her blog comments to Disqus, but she realized if she did, then she would lose all of the old comments, which she wanted to keep around. Ha read the Tweet and responded to her, saying, “doh. how can we make it easier for you?” His interaction with her led to a series of emails that finally helped Disqus figure out a way to transfer all old comments in many platforms into the new Disqus system. Twitter, in this case, helped a company react to a weakness in the product, thus opening themselves up to many more clients.

Inform Customers

In our second example, we see the example of @LobstertruckDC, the Twitter account of Red Hook Lobster Pound. The company truck drives around DC, parks for the morning, afternoon, or however long until supplies run out, and sells all manner of lobster dishes. By using Twitter, the company can notify its customer base of the truck’s location, any special deals they’re selling, and other tidbits about the fresh lobster. Its 11,000 followers surely appreciate the interactivity of Twitter. From this we can learn how Twitter can work to update customers regarding a mobile store’s whereabouts and what specials are on the menu for that day.

Announce Prizes and Promotions

Our third example comes from Powell’s Books, the large independent bookstore in Portland, OR, which recently used Twitter to offer a promotion to Twitter followers to help celebrate having been online for sixteen years. The store set up $500 worth of prizes online for contest entrants, all of whom heard about the prizes online. This contest essentially favored online customers, which was a great way to create internet buzz about the store and attract customers to the website again and again.

Twitter McHenry tweets @AprilMWilliams/mchenry-county-businesses
Twitter McHenry tweets @AprilMWilliams/mchenry-county-businesses

Handle Complaints

A fourth example deals with how JetBlue used Twitter to handle customer complaints. Yes, JetBlue isn’t exactly a small business, but the way they handled one man’s complaint regarding the overheated aircraft in which he was flying was enough to help him understand the situation and perhaps why it was so hot. About the incident, the passenger later wrote, “Even more impressive is that it was not an automated response. There was a real person writing that little note.” Even if a company cannot immediately fix the problem sometimes that company’s Twitter presence, if presented humanly and forthright, can be enough to placate even the grumpiest of customers.

Growing Your Business

Finally, you can use Twitter to help your small business grow. Take the story of Houston-based shop The Coffee Groundz, whose Operations Manager J.R. Cohen joined Twitter a few years ago without really understanding what it was. After spending some time linking with other Houston community members, he one day answered a message in Twitter. A client wanted to order a sandwich and have it ready by the time he arrived. Not a big deal, surely, but it was a first for the store. Cohen said yes, and what followed was a launch of orders over Twitter. Even customers in the store could place their order via DM without having to get up from whatever they were working on. By breaking away from standard methods of ordering, such as using the phone, Cohen helped The Coffee Groundz seamlessly transition into being a social media enterprise.

By-line:

This guest post is contributed by Alisa Gilbert. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alisagilbert599@gmail.com.

Map Your Connections with LinkedIn Inmaps

LinkedIn recently introduced a feature called InMaps which produces a visual representation of your connections. The map color codes your connections using an algorithm. On the bottom of the page, there is a blank legend.

It is up to the LinkedIn member to determine what connection these contacts have in common and fill in the color coded legend. The common thread could be a former employer, family or industry.

LI my networks stats

Checking out my LinkedIn profile InMap I got this message, ”

Wow! That’s one large network.

The good news: you’ve got an impressively large network. The bad news: we can’t currently create a map from so many connections. Stay tuned – we’re working to increase the limit!”

You can read more about InMaps on LinkedIn’s blog. Check out your profile map on LinkedIn. What common connections did you find?

LinkedIn
LinkedIn

C You At The Movies Client Case Studies

WHO THEY ARE

“C” You At The Movies was founded on the premise that entertainment provided from a movie theatre should not have to be constricted to the confines of an auditorium or the quality of a current feature. The five Northern Illinois locations in Antioch, Zion, McHenry and Libertyville include indoor and an outdoor theatre.

The “C” You At The Movies company mission states: “We realize that there exists a child in every one of our customers. It is our goal and privilege to help that child to smile during their visits with us and to keep them smiling long after the movie they came to see has ended.”

"C" You At The Movies
"C" You At The Movies

THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE

For “C” You At The Movies President Cynthia Kottke, the challenge has been to compete for their customer’s discretionary spending dollars. Her goal, to provide an entertaining, unique, family-friendly atmosphere, is standard from which all “C” You At The Movies’ ideas originate. 

The business challenge includes effectively communicating with customers and gaining immediate, actionable feedback. The company relied on traditional newspaper advertising to talk to their customers. They found the one way communication lacked the feedback they desired.

General Operations Director Scott Dehn attended CyberLife Tutors’ series of “Social Networking for Business” classes and learned how business can create relationships with customers. Scott created a strategy and began implementing the new knowledge.

CAMPAIGN RESULTS

Scott says, “We have been very successful with our Facebook and building fans. We recently crossed over 9,000 fans on our page! The “C” You At The Movies Facebook page is a forum for events and announcement. Customers visit our page to comment and talk about their experiences at our theaters.”

The site even functions as a customer service branch for questions on movie times, upcoming shows and favorite movies.

Scott turned one challenge into an opportunity. “Issues such as monitoring for, and deleting businesses using our page to simply advertise for themselves has been problematic. However, I have taken that as a possible opportunity to reach out to those companies and inquire as to whether they would be interested in advertising with us on-screen. Policing the posts and keeping them civil can sometimes be difficult as well. I try to keep our pages family-friendly as a reflection of what our company is all about.”

SOCIAL MEDIA BENEFITS

I would have to say that anything that encourages feedback in an interesting, creative way has been most successful. Asking for opinions has been very helpful in getting the snowball of communication rolling.

My goal for 2011 is to dive into the world of Twitter and see where that takes us. This has been so much fun. I really enjoy the social networking part of my job. The benefits to our business are much more immediate and personal than those of your standard newspaper advertisements.

CYBERLIFE TUTORS BENEFITS

Class lessons you provided have really helped me to establish a plan of attack in our social networking.

Scott said. “I created one Facebook page for each of our theatre locations as well as one for the C You At The Movies, Inc. company.  It is a total of 6 Facebook pages that collectively has earned over 10,000 “likes” at this point.“

SUMMARY

What is Scott’s advice to business owners?

“We have gained quite a following and it has been a lot of fun! I have some big plans to expand on this in 2011. Believe me, I tell everyone about the great experiences and benefits these classes have provided. I will let them know about the upcoming social networking class as well! I know many of them will be interested.”

Follow “C” You At The Movies on Facebook and Twitter.

Theatre Facebook Pages:

Mchenry Outdoor Flea Market
McHenry Outdoor Theatre
McHenry Theatre
Liberty Theatre
Dunes 1,2,3 Theatres
CYATM Antioch Downtown Theatre