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Hungry Food Love blogger: 10 tips to brand biz on social media

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Melissa Bailey
Melissa Bailey shares tips on social media.

Feeling intimidated by social medial? But you know you need it to brand your business, right?

Here are 10 tips on social media from Melissa Bailey, award-winning blogger of Hungry Food Love. I met Melissa in 2012, when I recruited her to blog about food for the Democrat and Chronicle’s then new Flavors of Rochester website. (Melissa was working in marketing at the time and catering parties on the side.)

Blogging for the D&C gave her confidence and experience, and soon she started Hungry Food Love. She’s done an amazing job with it. Sure, it’s a blog about food and it includes recipes, but now it also includes crafts, “things we love,” and more about Melissa’s life, travels, and giving back.  Be sure to read her amazing story about her trip with World Vision to her native country of the Dominican Republic.

One step at a time

Here are Melissa’s top 10 tips for using social media to brand your business.

  1. Get familiar with social media.
  2. Set goals.
  3. Do not use all platforms.
  4. Know your options.
  5. Do it right or not at all.
  6. Show your expertise.
  7. Build a community.
  8. Get organized.
  9. Cross promote.
  10. Set realistic goals.
Hungry Food Love blogger Melissa Bailey speaks to Latinas Unidas.
Hungry Food Love blogger Melissa Bailey speaks to Latinas Unidas.

Melissa shared these tips at the recent Latinas Unidas 2nd Annual Latina Business Expo in Rochester, N.Y.  I hadn’t seen Melissa in a few years, so it was heart-warming to give her a hug and see how much she’s accomplished, with her awards for blogging and being featured by NBC Latino and in Better Homes and Gardens and Woman’s Day.

Her tips are right on; for me, the most important is to get organized. Without organization, you can’t achieve results consistently. And as Melissa reminded us, “Do one step at a time. So it’s not overwhelming.”

Do check out Hungry Food Love; it will give you inspiration!

 

Free SCORE seminars to grow your small biz

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Great group that helps small biz owners
Great group that helps small biz owners

To be a successful small biz owner, you have to keep on top of myriad subjects and trends. That’s why the upcoming “Learn to Soar 2.0” should be at the top of a small biz owner’s “to do” list.

The Greater Rochester Chapter of SCORE is offering “Learn to Soar 2.0,” a free seminar and networking event for new and existing small biz owners and entrepreneurs on Wednesday, Sept. 28. The event begins at 8:30 a.m. and ends at 5 p.m. at Monroe Golf Club, 155 Golf Ave., Pittsford. ESL Federal Credit Union is co-sponsoring the event.

Did you say free?

I’m a member of SCORE, which is a volunteer organization with more than 80 experienced business professionals serving Monroe and surrounding counties. These professionals offer free one-on-one business advice and mentoring for new and existing businesses, in addition to SCORE providing a robust schedule of workshops at low cost. SCORE is also part of a national network of 11,500-plus volunteers in partnership with the U.S. Small Business Administration.

As a SCORE volunteer, not only do I help advise entrepreneurs, but also my communications business has benefited greatly from attending some of the SCORE workshops. I had a great foundation in business from my many years as an editor and general manager of publications. Once I went out on my own, I needed to expand my skill set, and SCORE has helped me do that. I’ve learned more about social media strategy, tax issues, marketing and selling, and so on.

That’s why I’m so excited about the line-up for this year’s event.  Here’s the list of workshops to be taught by super knowledgeable SCORE volunteers who have an impressive track record as professionals:

 

  • 8 Ways to Use Video to Grow Your Business
  • Panel Discussion on Alternatives for Financing Your Business (such as Kiva, Kickstarter, etc.)
  • Promoting Your Business on a Zero Budget
  • Grow Your Business with Email and Social Media
  • Sales Process and Closing Techniques
  • Successful Negotiating Techniques
  • Back2Biz: 30 Ways to Grow Your List
  • The Power of the Inbox
  • Social Media Explained
  • What is a Balance Sheet?

 

It’s free!

It’s unheard of for this type of event to be free! Normally you could expect to pay at least $100 and often much more in the Rochester area for this kind of helpful training. “Learn to Soar 2.0” builds on the success of a 2015 “Learn to Soar” event, for which I was a volunteer. It was a stimulating day, with about 200 people attending a variety of seminars. Our SCORE chapter received such a positive response from participants that we decided to offer a full slate of new seminars in 2016.

Attendees can choose three workshops to attend. The event includes morning pastries and coffee, a free box lunch, and plenty of time for networking. The program will end with a reception and cash bar. “Learn to Soar 2.0” is open to business owners and new entrepreneurs in the Rochester area and surrounding counties.

Pre-registration is required for this event and can be done at https://greaterrochester.score.org/.  For more information, call (585) 263-6473.

I hope you can attend!

 

May Bragdon diaries: A deep dive into Rochester life 100+ years ago

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Screenshot of the website of the May Bragdon diaries
Screenshot of the home page of the website of the May Bragdon diaries.

A great contribution to Rochester, N.Y., history is now available online. It’s the diaries of May Bragdon, the sister of renowned Rochester architect Claude Bragdon. It’s fun reading and full of references to all things Rochester of the time period of 1893-1914.

May Bragdon worked as an executive secretary at Cutler Manufacturing Company, before working for her brother, then some other companies, and finishing up her career working for Gannett Publishing Company and retiring in 1938.

I’ve never seen a project quite like this: 10 diaries annotated and transcribed, and the preservation of photographs, theater programs, postcards and other items that May pasted to the pages of her diary.

Day-to-day life in Rochester, N.Y.

You can read the transcription of each diary page placed directly across from the actual diary page. Then there are the photos, which transformed me back in time. Her diaries leave the impression that as a single woman she lived a very full life, with family and friends and going to the theater, concert, sporting events, parks and ponds and more.

Screenshot of the diary entry about the 1894 devastating fire in downtown Rochester.
Screenshot of the diary entry about the 1904 devastating fire in downtown Rochester.

One of the more memorable entries is on Feb. 26, 1904, the first page of a new volume of May’s diary.

This volume opens with one of the most eventful days Rochester ever had. The Big Fire! It was bright and sunny and still and beautiful and almost eight o’clock before we noticed the column of smoke in the north east drifting over us and found out it had been burning since before five o’clock. Fahy’s (Rochester Dry goods co.) Beadle & Sherburne’s and Sibleys! Sibley’s whole – sale house and stables – and some little houses on Division and Mortimer Sts. and finally the Granite Building! When I came in sight of that – on the bridge – I saw the little flames licking out of the Vacuum Oil office windows and Dr. Scranton‘s below – the 12th and 11th stories! and realized – a little – what it would mean! It was horrible, the feeling …

See “before” and “after”

You’ll see in the center pane buttons for “original” and for “manuscript” view which allow you to toggle back and forth between those views.  The “original” view presents the scrapbook page and whatever might have been pasted on it.   The “manuscript” view is that same page after the inclusions were removed.

To really understand the scope of the project, click here for background information.

I found out about this project when I interviewed conservator Gary Albright of Honeoye Falls. He worked on this project with the team from University of Rochester’s Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation. Andrea Reithmayr, special collections librarian for Rare Books and Conservation, explained the scope of the project to me, and pointed out that entry about the big fire in 1904.

The diaries also are a reminder of how important it is that we still chronicle our daily lives, and in a way that will last and not disappear in our technology driven world.

(Coming soon: my story for Rochester Magazine about Albright and his amazing talent to conserve photos and paper documents.)