Unexpected Encouragement

So…
We had a few visitors this past week come in from out of town. One came from not so distant North Carolina for the day. But one of our friends, Mr. Jamie Lasher, flew in from Iowa to be with us.
These two friends are also business owners in their respective states. They both came for several reasons. One, of course is simply to visit us but the other was to observe our company in operation and to offer feed back, good and bad. We are always looking to improve in every aspect of our operation.

But don’t worry. Im not going to bore you with all of that stuff. (sigh of relief)
What I did find exciting during the time they were here was in a brief unexpected event that happened. My father in law took Jamie with him (in his company logo’d truck) to a particular Automobile Dealership we partner with to pick up a vehicle that needed paint work. They pulled up to the stop light right before the Dealership and a woman pulled up beside them urging our guest Jamie to roll down his window. Jamie was a bit startled about the whole deal but rolled his window down. When he did, this woman began to yell out to him, “Your company does awesome work! Your company is awesome!” and so on and so forth. Jamie politely said , “Thank you” and rolled up his window as the light changed and they parted ways.

When our guest made it back to our Service Center he began sharing this story with the rest of our team. This is what makes all of the hard work, the extra mile taken, worth it all. These kind of stories are what fuel our little family company to live by a motto in which I tweaked a bit and it is this,
 “Our company was not built by extraordinary people but by ordinary people that do extraordinary things”. (The author of the original statement is unknown)  We strive to not only do extraordinary work for our customers but to also treat our customers extraordinarily well.

(Pictures of my Father in law, Ron Roos and Jamie Lasher at #RiozBrazilianSteakhouse provided
 below)












When did you have a time like that of our guest? A time of an unexpected encouragement from someone?
Share it here. We would love to hear about it.

It is November and it has already snowed here in South Carolina! Whew!

Only in South Carolina do you have temperature change from being in the 70’s to dropping down in the 30’s within two days! It was a record of our lowest temperature ever.

Well, hopefully this months Facebook contest will set a record for most entries because this one here is going to a blast!

For this months contest giveaway we are having a photo contest called “Dress that turkey” !!! LOL

That is right. You heard it correctly! 

Follow this link to enter and to cast your vote for funniest pic!

https://www.facebook.com/automotivecosmeticsgroup/app_512541485429310

We are looking forward to seeing your pic! 

I had been trying to connect with the gentleman at our local Chamber of Commerce that handled the internet marketing, etc. so that we could begin to use our outlet there to get the word out about our fairly new Facebook giveaways. Once we did finally communicate,
he asked if I would be willing to share my social media experiences, especially our use of Facebook for contests and giveaways. 
Of course I obliged and he published it through their website and blog. However, he formed it as a Q & A session.  (I will provide the link to that blog at the bottom of this post.)
I want to share my original piece with you here on our company blog site (since I am far from a writer I definitely want to share any every little thing I type- lol ) So here it is. Enjoy.

THE 5 “W’s” OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SMALL BUSINESS IN MY OWN EXPERIENCE 

Initially starting out, the company we have now become was only a two person crew which consisted of my mother and father in law. A true mom and pop operation in which they travelled from car dealership to car dealership repairing vehicles’ interior blemishes and exterior paint work.

Fast forward almost eleven years to present day we have three mobile divisions and an array of services. But the kicker would have to be in our opening a service center on April of this year in Lexington, South Carolina. Reason being we our now serving the retail market. 

Never before have we had any need for marketing or more specifically social media. 

However, with the sales and marketing arena evolving, social media has become a major player in the game. It has become such an amazing tool. I have done a lot of research and study on this among many other marketing outlets and it is said that with the consumer markets growing use of mobile devices and internet shopping that well over 50% of all final sales are done with these two mediums alone. Wow! Fifty percent! 

This means that if we are not using social media, we are quite possibly missing an enormous amount of business; which led me and should drive you, to begin using social media platforms to advance your company.

Whew! Glad to have gotten all of that out there. Now, onto what I am writing this article about.

In setting up our social media business pages I quickly realized that the old saying, “Build it and they will come” does not necessarily apply. So I embarked on more research, more study and I decided to try out contests and giveaways through Facebook. Our specific goal in using all social media platforms is to bring brand awareness, capture leads, and ultimately serve the needs of people within our niche. Without having to invest a great deal financially into social media marketing, the ROI is phenomenal.

Thus far, our company Automotive Cosmetics Group has run three monthly Facebook giveaways and we are currently running one as I type this note to you. We have given away our services and we are going to give away Starbucks and Long Horn Steakhouse gift cards in the future. Our first giveaway that ran for three days on Facebook increased our following by 120 people or “likes”. The second giveaway increased our following by 35 people or “likes”. And the third added around the same number of 35 people or “likes”. The monthly giveaway is a work in progress so of course we are constantly testing and learning as we go. 

Because of the potential I saw in these organically made giveaways I decided to (yes you guessed it) do more research and I found a few different options in software platforms that assist in social media marketing. I spoke with several and joined in on webinars to learn more about them. In the end I decided to use a platform that is built to assist my efforts in doing our monthly Facebook giveaway with excellence. 

I am using that platform for the first time in running our current giveaway on Facebook. It has two days left to run but we have already captured 35 new email contacts and added 17 new people or “likes”. In giving to our community and state by using social media we have gained free advertising and we have had several new customers come through our doors. We are recognizing money we did not have before while growing in an area we did not have before.

As you can see, with a minimal investment, which in turn creates large profit, there is simply no reason that any company should not be using social media. The future of internet marketing is already here. It is social media. Create your company profile today.

Some of our first monthly Facebook Giveaway winners

LINK TO OUR LOCAL CHAMBER AND THE Q & A CHAMBER BLOG LINK