2016 White Squirrel Festival: Thank You for a Real Good Time!

2016 White Squirrel Festival: Thank You for a Real Good Time!

Wow…what a weekend! For the second year, Spark Media Collective had the privilege of providing official social media promotion and photography for the 2016 White Squirrel Festival. In it’s 13th year, the White Squirrel Festival is a free 3 day music festival held in downtown Brevard, NC during Memorial Day weekend. With over 30,000 attendees over the course of the weekend, this festival has truly become a “must do” event each Spring.

There are a lot of music festivals going on almost every weekend in Western North Carolina. What makes the White Squirrel Festival so unique is its family-friendly atmosphere alongside food trucks, beer garden and great live music. One of the big events for the weekend was the return of the Squirrel Box Derby. Kids and adults racing their handmade cars down the notorious ‘Courthouse Hill’. After a short hiatus, the students of Transylvania County Schools picked up the event and did a great job managing and running this classic event.

 

As the White Squirrel Festival is held on Memorial Day, Saturday starts off with the Memorial Day Parade and Presentation of Wreath Ceremony. Complete with fly overs, high school marching bands and inspiring speeches, the Memorial Day Ceremony was a reminder to honor all those that have sacrificed and fallen for our country.

 

At the eastern side of town, a music stage was set up that stretched the width of the 3 lane street. The view from the stage is about as good as it gets. A full length view of the festival with Bracken Mountain as the back drop. It’s hard to imagine a downtown with a view as picturesque as Brevard.

 

The music lineup this year was a great mix of bluegrass (or ‘new-grass’), Appalachian, singer-songwriter and folk rock. With headliners along the likes of Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors, Jon Stickley Trio, Town Mountain and Sarah Siskind, it was hard to say that there was a day that you could have skipped.

The White Squirrel Festival is always a treat for us here at Spark Media Collective. We kept Facebook and Instagram up to date with a constant stream of photos and video from the entire festival. With the added feature of event photography, we created Facebook albums for each day of high quality images, capturing the full experience of the festival.

So, another great White Squirrel Festival is in the books and we’re already excited for next year! If you haven’t made it yet, definitely put this one on your calendar…you won’t regret it. A big thanks to the Heart of Brevard for having us back again this year and to all of you for coming out and being a part of such a great event. See you next year! #WhiteSquirrelFestival

Facebook’s New ‘Like’ Options Start Rolling Out

Facebook’s New ‘Like’ Options Start Rolling Out

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New Like Options are here!

After years of requests for a ‘dislike’ button, Facebook has finally answered…kind of. Back in September 2015, Mark Zukerberg said, in public Q&A session, “We don’t want Facebook to become the type of forum where people are voting up and down on people’s posts…what they (users) really want is to be able to express empathy…not every good moment is a good moment…you want your friends and family to be able to express that they understand and relate to you.”

Watch his full response below:


 


 

So, what is rolling out to users everywhere isn’t a ‘dislike’ button or a thumbs down, but rather a selection of emotions that allows you to choose how you feel about a post. This option is available for both personal and business pages, and on desktop and mobile. The roll out appears to be gradual, so not everyone will it see it right away and some may see it on one device and not another. Now, when you see that post about a family tragedy, lost dog or a bad meal at your favorite restaurant, you don’t have to awkwardly ‘Like’ it.

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How to use it

On a desktop (or laptop), simply hover over the ‘Like’ button and the options will pop up as you see above. Move the pointer to the one you want and click. If the options don’t appear, you do not have the feature yet.

On mobile, hold the ‘Like’ button down and again the emotion options will pop up and tap the one that you want. Again, if the options do not appear, you don’t have it yet.

If the option does not appear on either device for you, be patient, it will soon.

 

So, this is Facebook’s response to the years of requests for a ‘dislike’ button. What do you think? Will ‘Love’ become the new ‘Like’? If you ‘Like’ and not ‘Ha Ha’, will your friend think they’re not funny?

Cast your vote in the comments section. Facebook’s New Like feature: Thumbs up or thumbs down?

Revamping the website of a stonework artisan in Brevard, NC.

Revamping the website of a stonework artisan in Brevard, NC.

MacBook-Circle-of-Stone

David Reed, owner and designer at Circle of Stone, has been creating handcrafted stonework across Western North Carolina for over 30 years. After relocating to Brevard, NC, David wanted to update his website and give it a more modern and visual feel, and have it be responsive across different devices.

When David approached Spark Media Collective, he had an existing website that served its purpose, but was little dated both visually and functionally. So, we set out to help him bring his site up to speed on both fronts.

The goal was provide an online platform where Circle of Stone could showcase the variety and quality of stonework that they offer. With decades of creating beautiful landscapes, it was a natural fit to go as visual as possible and let the pictures do the talking. We went with full-size images on the homepage, with each one acting as a menu option. Each page continues the theme of having a full background image behind text or a plain background with gallery images in front.

In addition to designing and creating stonework, David has written 2 books over the years and a third book, The Complete Guide to Stonescaping, which is an updated combination of the first 2 books. We highlight the book at the bottom of the homepage, as well as give it its own page with menu link. This gives the book high visibility without cluttering every page with a “buy now” link.

There are a number of things that we did to “modernize” the Circle of Stone website. The most important being responsiveness. When viewing the website on a mobile device (tablet or phone), the website does not simply shrink to fit the screen, but rather re-structures to optimize the user experience on whatever device they are on. The menu becomes tucked away, as to not clutter the limited screen space. Images are resized and text is adjusted for easier viewing and reading. It continues to adjust to landscape or portrait orientation of the device. Additionally, we added buttons to emphasize “call to actions”. Contact, buy now, menu items…any action items that we wanted to encourage users to take.

With high quality images, responsive design and a modern layout, we were able to give Circle of Stone an updated look, regardless of what device the user is on.

Let's talk about your website.

5 Small Business Social Media Marketing Goals for 2016

5 Small Business Social Media Marketing Goals for 2016

5-Small-Business-Social-Media-Goals-for-2016

It’s 2016, and by now, most small businesses are utilizing social media to some degree or another. Whether you are a local retail shop or restaurant, service provider or involved in B2B, social media is an invaluable tool to help you personally connect with your customer and build relationships. Here are 5 things you can do to help kick off your social media efforts in the the new year:

1. Take social media seriously.

In just a short few years, social media has transformed from a novel way to announce a sale to a powerful marketing tool that is capable of driving business, creating a brand and reaching customers. While there are no set rules on how to make social media work, the idea behind taking social media seriously is to think about the potential of what it can do for your business and how you can maximize on that. Roughly 81% of small & medium-sized business are using social media and the ones that are successful with it know their customers, know where they spend their time online and know how to connect on each platform. It’s not about being serious on social media, it about taking social media seriously. So, goal #1 for 2016 is to make social media an intentional part of your marketing strategy, rather than simply a side note.

2. Create a social media plan.

“I’m just a small business…social media plans are for large organizations with marketing departments and big budgets.” Just as a business plan is for businesses of every size, so is a social media plan. It can be as formal or informal as you want it to be, but the more effort you put into it, the more helpful and useful it will be to you. So, what is a social media plan and why do you need it? In its most basic form, you plan should include:

  • goals (gain new customers, maintain existing customers, brand awareness, etc)
  • customer demographics
  • appropriate social media platforms
  • posting strategies (types of posts, frequency, content topics)
  • budget
  • testing methods (analytics/metrics)

There was a time not too long ago when competition for people’s attention on social media was fairly slim. Even on a local level, that is no longer the case. As of 2014, the average Facebook user has over 300 friends and ‘likes’ 80 different pages, groups or events (and that number is continually growing). That’s a lot of information to try an prioritize in a persons feed. A well thought out plan will help you focus your efforts to reach the right people at the right time and give you an idea of what is working and what is not.

3. Try promoted posts or ads.

Over the last year, businesses large and small have experienced a huge decrease in the “organic reach” of their posts, especially on Facebook. As more and more people are on various social media platforms and “liking” or “following” more and more businesses, in addition to their own friends and family, each platform is continually trying to optimize everybody’s feed to show them more of what they want. And, as many platforms are going public, they are also feeling an increase in pressure to create more revenue. This leads us to promoted posts or ads, both of which are paid features. So, by decreasing the number of people that see your posts, they are hoping to force you into using their paid features. For the most part this is working. The good thing is, you can start small while you get the hang of things. It’s a bit of trial and error, but by spending $5 or $10, you can try a Promoted Post on Facebook or a Sponsored Ad on Instagram and not cringe if it doesn’t take off on your first go. So, for goal #3, go out on a limb and try a paid boost or ad…it may surprise you.

4. Utilize insights & analytics.

Almost every social media platform offers some degree of analytics so you can track your performance and effectiveness. Some will also give you really helpful demographics and activity information, as well. So, why does it matter? By utilizing the analytics feature, you can see if you are effectively reaching your customer, getting a return on your investment (ROI) and give you ideas on what types of posts/content performs the best to help you plan future posts. Akin to reading the stock market ticker, it may take a bit to get used to reading the vast amount of information, but once you do, you can gain a lot of insight into how things are going at a relatively quick glance. To start, a couple of times a month, browse through the analytics and see what types of information they provide and figure out which ones are important to you and your business.

5. Have fun!

Remember, social media isn’t about computers, phones or tablets…it’s about connecting with people, just like you. Think about what you like to see and what types of content you engage with. A single post is not the be all end all, good or bad. Play around with it. There are so many different things you can do to keep things interesting (and fun). Post a picture of employees having fun at work or create a nonsense event that you can invite people to or share some good news about your community. Run a contest or conduct a survey. Or do it all! The whole idea of social media is that it is just that…social. It’s not the same type of advertising from 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago. Interact with followers, reply to comments, make comments on other pages, like or follow other businesses. It’s SOCIAL media…it’s supposed to be fun!

Social media has come a long way in a really short time. It’s continually changing and growing, which makes it an exciting and dynamic tool to stay in contact with your customers. If you have your own social media goals for 2016, post them in the comments section below…we’d love to hear them!

Questions? We love to help.

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