• Questions & Answers Tonight on Facebook!

    // kittymccaffery@yahoo.com // Blurbs by Kitty 16 Responses

    QA

    Tonight, April 28, 2015 I will be answering fan questions and answers on my Facebook page. The event will start at 7pm est. and end at 8pm. est. Please keep the questions clean and respectful. Can’t wait to talk with you all! Facebook.com/KatrinaMcCaffery

  • Social Don’ts. Most annoying things you can do on social media.

    // kittymccaffery@yahoo.com // Blurbs by Kitty 27 Responses

    I want to talk about things people do on social media that annoys everyone. You would think people would figure it out but some just do not get it. Just because there is an option to do certain things, it does not mean you should.

    I think the best advice I can give is when using social media, think of it like real life and not some completely other world without rules.

    Remember that nowadays most people have their social media accounts on there phones. We are all use to getting a buzz here and there from our social media but no one wants there phone buzzing like crazy, because some person does not know how to control themselves on social media.

    1. The forcing Friend. Adding people to group conversations without permission. Admit it, there is nothing more annoying then having your phone going off constantly because someone has tagged you in a group conversation you did not even want to be added to. My job revolves around social sites so I am on them a lot during the day working. I can get pretty fired up when someone adds me in a conversation with 20+ people. Before you say, “Just leave the group” or “just turn off notifications”. How many people feel guilty when you do either of those things? The group is notified, “So and so has left the conversation.” This means, your friend knows you bailed. Some people might not care one bit, but others feel bad about it. Truth is, you should not put people in that predicament in the first place. Throwing someone in a group conversation without permission is equivalent to trapping your friends into a room to make them talk to you. Not good.
    2. Sir tags-a-lot. Tagging friends in multiple post. There is nothing wrong with tagging a friend once in awhile in something funny, something uplifting, or something personal between you both. However, we all have a couple friends who tag us in everything they find amusing or “think” you will enjoy. This is another problem I hear from social site users all the time. Once again, people are put in an odd predicament. You don’t want to tell the person, “please stop thinking about me and tagging me in everything.” but you don’t want to keep getting tagged 5 times a day in things you give a hoot about either. The main reason this irritating is that photos you are tagged in go into your photo album. Assuming you have been tagged in 50 photos over the last couple of months that pretty much takes up what most people see when they view your gallery. How annoying is that, especially, if you use your social media site for advertising your business or brand.
    3. The stalking friend. Do you have a few friends that seem always to be online and every time you log on to your social site, they message you immediately? I have a few of them and it totally drives me nuts. Listen; do not be the person that makes a friend wants to delete their social media. Do not be the person that makes your friend cringe every time they login hoping they can go undetected for a while. Do you call people 20 times a day? Do you knock on their door every day? Maybe you do. I do not know, but if no one ever told you how annoying it is, you can thank me for letting you know now. I get that social media is about networking and communicating with friends, but people also use it for work, for reading news, for watching videos, ect ect. No one wants you messaging him or her every time they come online.
    4. The spamming friend. I should have made this #1 because EVERYONE despises spammers. I’m not just talking about posting the same thing they are trying to advertise 100 times a day, but also taking up feed with useless post to advertise. Twitter is the worse for this. If I follow someone and notice that they feed hog, I unfollow them immediately. Have you ever saw people do this? Instead of tweeting, “Watch Walking Dead tonight, don’t miss it.” They tweet in segments. WATCH. WALKING. DEAD. TONIGHT….. On purpose, they post 7 tweets with one word until they say what they want. They do this to get noticed. I notice it all right, and then I unfollow them. Another super annoying type of spamming is a person has 20+ fakes’ accounts that they made just to help them promote themselves.  The person will post a tweet and tag you in it, they will then post this same tweet to 50 other friends tagged and have you still tagged. If that is not bad enough, they have their fake accounts RT & Fav all the tweets. ARG!

    Here are some examples:

     

    annoying annoying2 annoying3

    One person tagged me in a massive amount of lame tweets and then had several fake accounts RT & Fav. This is not good promoting it is ANNOYING, for me and for my followers. STOP PEOPLE.

    1. Auto posting friend. Auto posting can be a great tool. If you are a company posting giveaways or announcements then that is a great way to do it. If you are a high profile person who wants to set up a bunch of auto post while your away that’s cool too. However, people who just do it because they can and it’s always the same boring stuff. STOP. People catch on. It makes you look lazy and fake. Eventually, people will stop commenting or liking anything, you post. They might even just unfollow you.
    2. Inactive or selfish friends.  The one thing that annoys me as a PR is when a client complains they are losing followers or not getting enough likes/favs/shares/RTs. I look at their accounts and see 3 post in the last 10 days and no interacting. I do not care who you are, big celebrity, top model, whatever, if you are not interacting with your followers you will lose them. I do not like following people who never interact with me. I also cannot stand one-sided people. You know the ones that want you to like or comment on all their stuff but do not return the favor. This just makes you look stuck up and turns people off. If you want to be on social media, interact with people! (Without being, annoying that is.)
    3. The friend that plays too much. Ok, so I am guilty of sending game request and even playing a few of the social pranks on Facebook. I had to remind myself that not everyone uses Facebook to play games and not everyone finds the pranks funny. Since I have started using my social media more for work reasons, I now see why massive amounts of game request and silly pranks can be a pain. If you don’t like game request there is now an option to turn off request, which is helpful, but you still have the friends whose wall consist of game scores and those annoying game post. I have a couple friends I stopped interacting with because too many times I liked a comment just to get a message saying, “Got ya! Now you have too..blah.” It was funny like once, then it got old.
    4. The negative friend. Everyone has a bad day, week, and even month. We all have bad things happen where we need some uplifting. The constant complaining is what I cannot stand, that and the people who constantly post horrible stuff. I have many human rights friends, I am all for standing up for my beliefs and making a change in the world. I will share stories once in awhile that really pulled my heartstrings, but some people just sit and post every awful thing they hear about online every day. We get it, the worlds not perfect. Awful things are happening every day. We do not need you to throw it in our face 50 times a day. All you are doing is bringing down your friends, and honestly, it kinda looks like you are obsessed with cruelty. Just sayin’.
    5. The bragging friend. Total opposite of the negative friend, this person just brags non-stop about how amazing they are and their life is. So much so, that it looks fake. Women seem to do this more than men do. “I got checked out by 5 guys today.” “So in so said I should be a model.” “Does my butt look big in these jeans? Oh it does, GREAT!” After awhile these types of people become comical. They try so hard! Just be yourself people, you will get attention but it will not be the kind you really desire.
    6. The friends who cannot figure out who they are. I do not know if you have friends like this, but I have a few. These people change their name like their underwear. Their info always changes as if they are trying to impress a certain crowd. It’s kinda hard to trust people who do this.

     

    Well, that concludes the top 10 most annoying things people do on social media in my opinion and what I hear from others. I hope it is helpful and opens some eyes. Let me know your thoughts.

     

    God Bless!

    Kitty McCaffery

     

  • Online business advertising do’s and don’ts. A must read!

    // kittymccaffery@yahoo.com // Blurbs by Kitty 33 Responses

    ads

    Good afternoon!

    I wanted to take some time and share some advertising wisdom I picked up over my years of doing PR work. I am asked at least once daily, “what is the most effective way to advertise online?” Their question is usually followed by, “I have spent thousands of dollars online advertising my business but it hasn’t seemed to make a difference. What am I doing wrong?”

    After doing a quick search, I can see the problems right away. Therefore, I figured I would share some tips with you to help you save a load of money!

    Starting from the beginning:

    Let’s say you just started your business, everything is legal and you are ready to advertise. Just for  examples, Let’s say you need to market one of the following, “Lonnie’s Lawn Care”, “From the Heart Photography, or “Actor Bill Bob Balinsky.”

    The very first most important thing you need to do no matter whom or what you are advertising is make an official website. Believe me when I tell you, going with a free website or super cheap site is a BAD idea. People really do care about presentation and if they see a cheap thrown together website, they will think your service is the same. Plus, most free sites have ads on them that annoy people and also can steal your business. The ads placed on your website so you can host your site for free are generated by your location and keywords. The last thing you want is for a potential customer to visit your website and see an ad offering a better deal then you are currently giving.

    When you are out seeking ways to advertise your company, think of yourself as the potential customer.

    If you were on Google, looking for a local lawn care service to come trim your trees, which company would first catch your eye?  It’s obvious it will be the companies at the top of the search engine with the most reviews or stars. Did you know 90% of people scroll down past the paid ads to get straight to the websites?

    To help you get a better picture I did my own search for a local lawn service:

    Exhibit A.

    Click to Enlarge

    Click to Enlarge

     

    In this first photo, you can see what first pops up. I marked it with a big red circle and X because 9 times out of 10 people do not click on those links. Why? Because, over time most of us have learned those ads are usually full of malware, a scam, a gimmick, or the most expensive option out there. I would tell you to test it yourself, but I don’t want any of you getting a virus. I don’t think it’s the companies themselves who put the malware or adware in the links but some how they manage to get there.

     

    Exhibit B.

    Click to Enlarge

    Click to Enlarge

     

    In this photo, I put a green check mark so you can see this is a good place for your business to be. If your business has a Google+ page with location enabled you will be listed in this spot after so many people view your page as long as you use the right keywords. The number of votes or reviews does not matter at all as far as getting you listed in this section. But, this is STILL not the best form of search engine advertising. Not everyone uses Google. Bing uses Bing Local. Yahoo has Yahoo Local Businesses. If you would like, just take a minute to run the same search in all three engines and watch how you will get completely different companies on each search engine.

     

    What I would recommend is use something like, https://moz.com/local or if you would like to list in more of a manual way you can visit, http://www.locallytype.com/pages/submit.htm Of course, if you don’t have time to do either you can always hire me at Hollywebonline.com 🙂

    Exhibit C.

    Click to Enlarge

    Click to Enlarge

     

    Exhibit C is where you want to be! Those who know me should know I love taking surveys through my company. It helps me to find out exactly what the people want and how they want it. A recent survey I did of over 1200 people via email in June 2014 showed me that 90% of the people look at company’s official sites more than anything else. Reviews are good but can’t always be trusted. I was surprised at how many people said they don’t even read company reviews from Google+, yelp or any site for that matter. People want to form their own opinion about the company and not take someone else’s word for it. Instead, they just want to see what the company has to offer, how long they have been in business, what their prices are, and where they are located.  If the website looks nice and has all the information the customer needs, you can just about bet they will make a phone call.  If I were a potential customer looking for lawn service, using the search results I found pictured, I would choose Acutaboveorlando.com. They are not listed in the ads, Google local does not list them, there is not reviews or starts, BUT they are #1 on the search engine. The company’s website is nicely done and has all the information I need. This tells me this company didn’t pay there way to the top. They got there because of the traffic to their website. Think of it as a “people’s choice”.

    It’s great to have your business listed in the Yellow Pages or on Yelp but those sites are nothing like they used to be. When the apps first came out everyone was using them but it wasn’t long before people figured out ways to fake reviews. Then, the two companies were so worried about fake reviews they began deleting real reviews causing people to just stop leaving reviews at all. Some companies were even afraid to list their business for fear some aggravated customer would use the opportunity to attack by posting mean reviews. When both companies went public saying they would not remove negative unfair views, lot’s of businesses removed their pages. With all that said, they credibility of websites like the ones mentioned have went way down. Just like the saying goes, “Don’t believe everything you read online.”

    Once your stunning website is built and full of information to satisfy the potential client, start building your social sites. This is SO important nowadays! Your business needs to be listed on Facebook, Twitter, Google + local, LinkedIn, and possibly Instagram or Pinterest depending on what your business does. You want to get people talking about your business, sharing your photos, deals, offers, ect. Let’s face it, the majority of the world visits social sites at least once a day. If you want to be seen, you need to be on social media! This also increases your rank on the search engines BIG TIME.

    Show off your goods!

    Now, let’s use the made up company “From The Heart Photography.” You want to show the locals that your photography company is the best around but you are just getting started and don’t have 1000’s to advertise. No worries! Create your website and include a portfolio showing off your work. Add galleries to your social sites and update your pages daily with new work or some of your favorites. Just make sure you watermark your images to stop thieves from stealing your precious work.

    Have contest & giveaways! Trust me when I say, if you want numbers on your social sites all you have to do is host a giveaway. People love getting stuff  free. Come on! Who doesn’t? Every couple of months, have a little giveaway or host a contest.  For the photography company, a great way to get attention on Facebook would be t0 giveaway a free 8×10 photo or small package to one lucky person who likes your page and shares it. In the past, I have seen photography companies gain 10,000 followers in a month by using this strategy.

    Using printable coupons on your website is another great way to reel in customers.

    Get that website at the top of the engine fast!

    Once your website and social sites are created, start using Google adWords or SEO plug-in on your site. Every page of the site needs to have several keywords about your business tagged to it. You need to have a eye catching meta description that’s catchy.

    Going back to the lawn care service, this would be a good example of what your listing needs to look like on the search engine.

    LONNIE’S LAWN CARE

    www.LonniesLawnCare.com

    Most Affordable & Dependable lawn care service in Orlando FL! We work hard to give you luxury service for a low cost.

    People love simple and sweet. It has all the words we like to hear and it has the main words the search engine needs to properly list your business.

    You can see how this business would be one of the first to pop up if you searched, “Affordable lawn care service in Orlando Florida.”

    Now all you would need is a good amount of visitors to look at your website, which can easily happen through social sites, and in no time your site is at the top of the engine!

    This day and time it’s all about numbers and presentation. People want to see that other people like your company but in the easiest fastest way possible. Most people don’t have the time to sit and read reviews or comments left by others. They want to check out your social page, see some catchy graphics, and most importantly see some big numbers!

    Be honest, if you visit a Facebook page for a business and they have no profile photo or header, you immediately click away. It’s just as bad if you have some bland logo or background that’s easily forgettable. What REALLY matters is how many other people you see that’s liked the page. If you visit and they have 48 likes you will think, “Wow they aren’t very popular, or their business must be so bad no one cares to even like their page. However, if the company’s page has 1250 likes, you are automatically impressed and the company now seems creditable to you.

    It is the same for Twitter. How many of us are followed by a person or company that has 30 followers and we just ignore them? If the person or company has 30,000 followers though, we check them out real fast and follow back.

    superstar

    I have now pretty much summed it up for businesses; it’s really no different for marketing yourself. If you are an actor, artist, or some type of public figure trying to get seen and heard, just use the same advertising tips. Build a great website, get on all the social sites, hire a publicist to create you some cite sources and make your notable, and most importantly stay active online.

    Using the fake guy I created, “Actor Bill Bob Balinsky”, let me give you an idea of what his online presence needs to look like for him to be successful.

    Let’s say, I just saw him as a guest star on a TV show and thought, “Wow he’s hot! Who is he?” I look up the shows current guest stars and find out he is Bill Bob Balinsky. After, I giggle about his name, I do a Google search on him. One or two things could happen, I could find tons of info on him and because his next biggest fan, or find hardly nothing about him and five minutes later forget he ever existed.

    Every public figure relying on fans or popularity to grow their career needs an outstanding website, they need to be booming on social media, and they need those notable cite sources. For actors that would be IMDb, Wikipedia, Youtube, and have at least 5 articles written about them from notable sources.

    In this fast pace world with so many other people or businesses out there struggling just like you, it’s important you don’t let them forget you! Send out email newsletters, blog, post to your social sites daily, and interact with the people.

    I promise if you do all those things, you will be on top in no time!! If you just can’t do it on your own and need help, I’m here!!! Just email me or give me a call. kitty@hollywebonline.com

    Thanks for reading!

  • Feeling so loved this week! Shoutout from my friend Rob Aurelius

    // kittymccaffery@yahoo.com // Blurbs by Kitty 21 Responses

    I met Rob Aurelius from A&R Collective group in May of this year. He has been a PR for several years now and has some awesome clients. We became friends in no time sharing some tips and PR secrets with each other. Rob is one of those people that makes you feel like you have known him for years.

    He has an amazing business sense and an eye for a good deal. I pretty much go to him before I make any decisions now because he always has the best advice. Recently, he became an ambassador and spokesman for my organization R.I.S.E. & STAND, after much thought and research of course. LOL. That is Rob. He doesn’t do anything on a whim and that is one thing I adore about him. Just wanted to say how happy I am we met and how honored I am to call him my loyal and dear friend.

    -Kitty

    [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9TRTg9CadM]

  • Zac Barnett from American Authors gives me a shoutout! Swooning…dying…can’t breathe…

    // kittymccaffery@yahoo.com // Blurbs by Kitty 22 Responses

    Thanks to my AMAZING friend Oliver Trevena, Zac sent me a shoutout this morning!!!! What could brighten a girls day more than that??

    American Authors

    American Authors

    [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2FUfD7TmDY]

    Find out more about the American Authors by checking out these links:

    http://weareamericanauthors.com/
    http://instagram.com/americanauthors
    https://www.facebook.com/americanauthors
    https://www.youtube.com/user/AmericanAuthorsVEVO
    https://play.spotify.com/user/americanauthors
    http://www.vevo.com/artist/american-authors

    And, don’t forget to follow my future husband…when I say future I mean like in my next life time.. Zac Barnett!:
    https://twitter.com/ZacAAuthors

    Also, the trustee sidekicks and future groomsman:
    https://twitter.com/mattaauthors
    https://twitter.com/daveaauthors
    https://twitter.com/jamesaauthors

    Download their music here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/american-authors/id557564979

    I LOVE everything! But, I recommend if you are listening to them for the first time download, “Believer” and Best Day of my Life”. Why? because this is the best day of my life! Believe me when I say that!

    -Kitty