Business Feature: Juice Nation

Taylor Richard is a key member of the family-owned business.

Not only is Juice Nation locally-owned, it’s a family-owned. And they make it their business to make every customer feel like family. Employees are rewarded for memorizing customer’s names and order preferences with contests and incentives.

This may be one of the reasons that Juice Nation has been successful. So successful that Owner Tameko Richard has never had to turn to paid advertising, but she does use social media. Juice Nation has a strong presence on social media with 1,187 followers on their Twitter and 768 likes on their Facebook. “I just try to make sure we have a presence and put information out there that people care about,” said Tameko. She tweets a healthy tip of the day, their weekly/biweekly frozen yogurt flavor, relevant articles, and daily specials or promotions. The store is also on Four Square, as Tameko reported surprise and confusion when a customer came in boasting, “I’m the manager of this place!”

Juice Nation’s products are made with no sugar, no syrup, whole fruit, and organic wheat grass (“I can’t keep wheat grass in the store,” laughed Tameko). The store also sells organic steel-cut oatmeal for breakfast, which Tameko raved about. They also sponsor a reboot program where customers consume only raw juices, fruit, or vegetables for either one, three, five, or seven days. Tameko said that one customer lost 80 pounds from doing two of the 60 day cycles.

Juice Nation participates in many community events from: golf outings, health fairs, Blue Cross events, even business openings. When they close down around the holidays, nothings is wasted– everything is donated instead. “We definitely like to do our fair share of things and like to give back to the community,” said Tameko.

Stop in soon to 111 Washing Square South in Lansing and try something new!

By 2012, 50% of Web Sales Will Occur Via Social Media

Preuss Pets

At the corner of Cedar Street and Grand River Avenue, sits a business that’s hard to miss. Preuss Pets has been in operation for over thirty years and seven of those years have been at their Old Town location.

The store’s Facebook page has over 5,000 likes and sees a lot of interaction with its followers. Owner Rick Preuss doesn’t work on their social media personally but said he contributes to and oversees the activity maintained by his daughter, Kirbay Preuss and Freshwater Manager, Steve Oberg.

Preuss explained that their social media strategy stems from trying to make their presence be as conversational as possible.”About 80-90% of content is informative about pets, interesting pictures, or promoting charitable events that we’re involved in,” he said. The remaining content serves to promote specials and sales.

When it comes to marketing, Preuss uses paid advertising during the Mid-Michigan Pet Expert Talk Show that he is a co-host on, and occasionally uses cable advertisements to target specific audiences like those of the television show on Animal Planet, Tanked.

Preuss stressed a unique importance of social media saying that it’s easy to get caught up in the business neighborhood mindset of Old Town, but that Preuss Pets is not just a business. “Social media helps remind us we’re a part of a larger purpose. A more wholesome, more thought-out, more purposeful pet community,” he said.

“When you’re dealing with animals, it cannot be all about the money,” Pruess said.

Preuss and his employee’s passion shines through at Pruess Pets. The store offers a huge selection of freshwater and marine animals, a variety of reptiles, kittens, and a full line of small animals such as rats, guinea pigs, ferrets, and gerbils. In addition, they sell every product imaginable needed to care for your pet. Stop by Preuss Pets to shop for the animal lovers in your life this holiday season!

Owner Rick Preuss explaining the necessity of breeding fish onsite in order to ensure the best health.

 

Why You Shouldn’t Care About Influencers

Influencers are important, but when you have limited resources to dedicate to your social media brand presence, it makes sence to focus on allocating your resources to the aspect of your online presence that is going to have the most impact.

Social Media Marketing IS Effective

Are your efforts paying off?  The folks at MDG put together this infographic to prove that social media marketing IS effective.

NYPD Remembers 9/11 Via Social Media

The New York Police Department will be hosting a virtual  memorial for the fallen heroes of 9/11 this year.  They are using Facebook and Twitter to share photos, memories, and honor the fallen. 

Anyone is welcome to follow @NYPDnews and #neverforget to learn about each of the victims killed in the line of duty, who will be honored one at a time, each hour during the day.

5 Tips to Boost Your Facebook Page

For most small businesses, a Facebook Page is a relatively cost efficient way to raise awareness of your brand and communicate with your target audience.  Here are five tips to give your Facebook Page a boost:

1. Design From your cover photo to your profile photo, and your albums…these should all be relevant to your brand and your message.
2. Content Keep it short, keep it relevant, and keep it engaging.  It is always good to link back to your other social media accounts as well.  If you just published a white paper to your website, link back to that.
3. Engage Demand responses from your audience.  Post informational articles, links, questions, and short statement that will get your audience thinking.
4. Promote Again, link back to your other social media accounts, and use these other accounts to promote your Facebook Page.  Make sure that you put a Facebook icon on your website, and if you send an e-newsletter, include a button there, too.
5. Measure- You are not going to know  if your page is really working for your business if you don’t measure.  Figure out what you want your Page to accomplish, and determine what success looks like.

Now Boost!

How to Integrate Twitter and YouTube with Facebook

Watch this brief tutorial about how to easily integrate your YouTube Channel and/or Twitter Feed on to your Facebook Pages and Timeline Application area.

Vespa Builds Online Community

“Think beyond coupons, deals, promotions…these are often offered to new customers too.   A very cost effective and resource friendly way to connect with customers to build and continue customer loyalty is via social media” (as in our “Take Customer Loyalty To The Next Level” blog)

 Vespa has managed to do just that.  Vespa USA has recently launched a social media campaign, asking anyone (Vespa owner or not) to submit Flickr or Instagram photos, and optional via Twitter, using #VespaStyle, showcasing how their ‘lifestyle’ somehow includes a Vespa.  And it is working – the company’s Facebook page already has close to a million Likes!  These photos are posted to a mosaic- like collage where Vespa fans and owners are the stars, talk about building a strong online community!

Do You Have An Online Communication Strategy?

 

Whether your company has a website, a Facebook Page, Twitter handle, YouTube, Blog, or all of the above, you must have a strategy.