05/21/12

Social Media Monday: I Blame Pinterest.

As you know I have a lot of love for Pinterest. It’s so pretty: the colors, the designs, the perfect pictures. If I find something I love I must pin that sucker and share my awesome find.

Recently I hit Target after a very long, self-imposed dry spell. I may have gone overboard. I skipped around the store and bought a summer wardrobe in about 90 minutes. I am not going to lie, it was a little piece of heaven. I know I am not alone, but I will publicly admit it, I am a Target junkie.

After getting home and laying out all my purchases I decided I needed to post all my loot on Pinterest. I found each item and then pinned it to my board. They looked lonely and a little sad. It was time to make a fancy outfit. Not just a skirt; but the skirt, top, hip jewelry, and oh sure, let’s throw a scarf on that baby too. Basically I am trying to pretend that I have just a little bit of sass and style.

I needed a way to make my pretty style boards. If you look around Pinterest you’ll find a lot of pretty pictures created on Polyvore. I felt left out. I wanted to make the pretty things. I bit the bullet and now am the proud owner of a Polyvore Account. I can make an outfit, decorate a room, create a style board. I can now spend more time on another social media platform. Of course I then have to pin all my fancy creations back to my Pinterest account. So yes, this new addicting time suck is all Pinterest’s fault. Pinterest is like a gateway drug to Polyvore and now I am hooked. The bastard.

Here are some creations from my latest Social Media platform:
Goodies from my Target Run.

Cute Summer Casual by coastal-chick featuring a straw hat

This one is all about the shoes.

Red White & Blue by coastal-chick featuring straw clutches

My daughter is in her cousin’s wedding, so of course I had to make a board for her.

Junior Bridesmaid by coastal-chick featuring pearl stud earrings

I also made a tween ensemble for my little lady. Dear lord the shorts are TINY.

Dressing a Tween by coastal-chick featuring owl jewelry

Come on over to the dark side, join me on Polyvore. We can pretend we’re fashionista’s together.

04/11/12

Chick Tunes on Wednesday… Because I can

So I woke up to this tweet:

I was GIDDY… WHY am I GIDDY? Well, one word: Napster. Here is the issue, I love to share music but there is the annoying thing called copyright law. I try very hard to find a service that protects the artists’ right to their copyright but let’s me share good tunes with all of you. The last thing a little blogger like me wants to do is piss off Sony Music or one of the other big boys. I try to share music that I actually OWN so, you know, they won’t take away my house.

I tried Spotify earlier this year and just could NOT find my groove with these guys. I was resistant to change or to doubling my work since my iTunes worked so beautifully. Today’s roll-out of the Spotify Play Button is a big deal and I am currently waving my pom-poms for this new feature. Here is their summary:

I cannot agree more – this is TOTALLY AWESOME. Read more about the new Spotify Button HERE. In Celebration of this new music sharing button I have for you, the Spotify Button Play List. I have a little folder on my iTunes called HOLD. HOLD is the folder for all my “download later”, “could be cool”, “I like it but not sure I want to spend $0.99″ songs. I pulled some of my favorites and there you have it.

Enjoy!

UPDATE: So I am having a little bit of Sad Trombone here… The embedded player doesn’t really PLAY on my site, it launches Spotify, you sign-in and then it plays while Spotify runs in the background. I feel like this was a bit of a bait and switch, join our network so your friends can listen to your playlists. Is it horrible – No, especially if you already have a Spotify account. Is it perfect? Not even close. So my poor little pom-poms are down to a couple of threads on this new Spotify Share Button – let’s hope they fix the issues so it’s a real share.

04/2/12

5 Rules for Working with your Spouse

This past year I went back to work. I will admit, it was not by choice but it was the right thing to do. It’s actually an amazing gig. I work during “school hours” (I know, I actually work whenever I can fit in a few minutes but these are my “office hours”). I telecommute from my home office and don’t have to miss my kids’ activities or nurse emergency calls. I love my job as a Business and Social Media Manager at Rallyverse, Inc. There is one small drawback; I work for my husband.

Working with your spouse is hard, working FOR your spouse is a recipe for disaster so you need rules. Rules make things much easier to navigate the minefield that is working for your spouse.

Report to someone else: My husband is the CEO, this is his rodeo and I am just one of the work hands. I originally reported directly to my husband. The lines of marital/work boundaries get blurred in this scenario. The heated argument regarding the trash earlier in the day can bubble up when you discuss a work product issue. To avoid daily conflict, I now report to the middleman. I currently sit under our Senior Vice President in the flowchart. Joe and I get along much better but I am confident my SVP is pulling his hair out. I mean who really wants the boss’ wife as a responsibility? Thankfully he’s a great guy and a great boss.
Don’t Work on the Weekends: Starting a new company is all consuming and can take over our weekends. We try to be Mom and Dad, not CEO and underling on the weekends unless it’s necessary. Working on the weekends, after the kids go to bed or while watching a baseball game is sort of part of the deal since we work in Social Media. This is a hard one but we carve out blocks of time that are work free so we can be a family.
Respect each other: At work my husband is the CEO. I can be a snarky piece of work some days but I do my best to remember I am now working and can’t be discussing his inability to wipe down a counter after making a sandwich. This respect goes both ways. When I am the harried WAHM he doesn’t harp on me about what I need to be doing at work. He respects my need to be Mom and turn off the other stuff. As he says, “I may be the boss here but she is the one in charge at home”. I love this line.
Date Night: I am not going to lie; we are TERRIBLE at date night. We suck eggs at date night. I am not great about going out on a date. I would rather watch a Game of Thrones marathon on the couch after the kids are in bed sipping a glass of wine and enjoying his company (which actually means I collapse on the couch while he watches bad tv and we call it a date). We are working on this point. It’s important to remember that you are spouses first, parents next and then work associates third. It’s a hard one, hopefully we’ll go out one of these nights soon. I am very fond of the guy, I just wish I had enough energy to get dressed up and have a date.
Communicate: Our Company is young. As a start-up you try different scenarios and see what works best. The same is true when trying to find your rhythm working together. When I worked for my husband we didn’t communicate well, we got mad at each other. The marital relationship can take an innocent comment and make the other person feel attacked. I finally told my husband I loved him too much to work for him. He couldn’t separate Kathryn his wife, from Kathryn the Manager. I couldn’t separate Joe my husband from Joe the boss (it’s hard when your partner is now the boss, very very hard). We had a lot of honest discussions on how we could make this work. Communication is the key in any relationship, but it’s vital in this scenario. I promise you will avoid a lot of growing pains if you can communicate during the process.

Five seemingly simple rules and it’s all better. Well, not really. Like I said, you will need to recalibrate as things evolve. While working for your spouse is hard there is one huge benefit, I can’t get fired for sleeping with the CEO.

Do any of you work with your spouse? Do you have rules that have worked for you? Let us know.

03/6/12

Welcome to The New Coastal Chick

I have been working for a long time on this little re-design. I was very lucky to have the wonderful women at The SITS Girls give me some much needed advice. I took a good long look at my blog and made some updates and changes I hope you will all enjoy.

Here are some of the changes you might notice:

The logo, well the lack of logo. I loved my little chick but it was time for a change. My previous design was launched in 2010 and as a new blogger it was a great way to help people remember The Coastal Chick. So why change my design so drastically and kill off the chick? Plain and simple it was time. I wanted a simple design that didn’t distract from the content.
The header. The photo was taken by me and is from a very small beach in town. I am trying to use more of my own photography going forward so I started with the header. I enjoy how it still represents The Coastal Chick but in a simple, real way.
Kathryn Doran vs The Coastal Chick. As you know I am working in Social Media. I am also doing some Social Media Consulting on my own. It was time to put myself front and center since this is my personal blog. Not to worry, I will always be The Coastal Chick.
New Pages: The SITS Girls were right, the menu bar needed a little beefing up. I have new places to visit. The menu bar will be updated depending on my focus. This month we are working on The March Madness Photo Challenge.
Layout. One Column. Easier to read on-line, on a tablet and on your phone. Also? I just liked the clean look of it. This theme is called Twenty-Eleven downloaded from WordPress.
Content. I will try to focus on what I know. Being a Mother (Mother Roar), Rocking Out (Chick Tune Tuesdays), Social Media (SMM Mondays), Pretty Pictures (Wordy Wednesdays and The 366 Project) and now and again I am sure I’ll torture you with stories from the hood.

A big THANK YOU to Patti Wunder of Easton Place Designs for my social media buttons, header help (ie she finally just made it pretty for me) and Coastal Chick Blog Button.

My beautiful background was created by the very talented Jo Klima of August Empress.

I still have little bits and pieces to fix regarding the re-design. It’s been a lot of hard work and a huge learning curve to take on a re-design. I hope you like the new feel of The Chick, I am very proud of the new look.

02/20/12

Social Media Monday – To Tweet or Not To Tweet

People get freaked out by Twitter. Overwhelmed by the thought of writing a Tweet. Once it’s out there, they get cold sweats because they finally Tweeted or is it Twat (no seriously, people have asked me this question). People ask me simple questions like “What’s a Hashtag?” (# by the way) “How do I tweet a person” (@twitter name). Most importantly, “Why should I care about Twitter?” Here is my simple answer:

You shouldn’t care about Twitter. You don’t NEED to be on Twitter. You will not be a social pariah if you decide not to join Twitter. Personally, I love Twitter. I joined Twitter as a way to promote my blog. So about two years ago I started The Chick and set-up a Coastal Chick Facebook fan page and a twitter account. At first I just used Twitter to push out my blog content. I dipped my toe into the water, a follow here and tweet there. The thought of tweeting to an actual person seemed like an overwhelming prospect.

Soon I realized I could follow people from my little town. I still felt like a fish out of water and thought it might be a nice way to connect with other bloggers in the area. Traffic jam on the interstate near us? The folks I followed tweeted about it. Power outage? Guess what, Twitter works on my phone and I could follow the progress. Breaking news? It’s on Twitter before journalists can spread the news. Twitter is great for connecting locally, following national news and getting updates from your favorite bloggers or websites.

Twitter can also be used to contact a company. Last fall we had a horrible experience with the local Ford dealership. 8 days and a dead battery later we were told they never finished the work they had charged us for and needed our car back. I asked for compensation for time and, at minimum, for the battery that was working when I dropped off the car. I was told they would do nothing except complete the services for which we had already paid. I tweeted the Ford Customer Service about my experience. Three tweets, two DM’s (Direct Messages) and a phone call from corporate customer service later and our routine maintenance was covered for the next four years. Ford did a great job correcting the situation. Ford also did a great job controlling bad PR.

Two years and 1,500 followers later I have a nice group of Twitter AND IRL (in real life) friends. That’s right, a group of us who met online now meet for lunch every few months. I can honestly say one of my dearest friends I met on Twitter. A lot of people of a certain age, my age actually, think Social Media is a waste of time. I think that view is absolutely acceptable. There is only so much time in the day and room in our brains so Twitter might not be your thing. I actually love Social media. It’s my job (and an awesome one if I say so myself) and a hobby. Kind of the perfect situation if you think about it.

Many of you are Twitter deficient or phobic. I’ll cover the basics below.

Twitter Address: www.Twitter.com

Twitter Handle: The name you choose for yourself. My handle is @TheCoastalChick. Remember, every letter counts so keep your twitter handle as simple as possible. If I were to choose my handle again I would pick my name.

Tweet: 140 characters (letters and spaces) you can write as an update.

Tweet to a person: @Persons Twitter Handle and then your message. You can check your feed for @ messages so you can reply even if you miss the tweet when it’s posted.

DM: Direct Message. A private message to another Twitter follower. You must follow the person and they must follow you in order to DM.

Hashtag: It’s a way to tag a tweet. It’s also a way to search for a group of tweets. When I talk about my town I add the #Darien hashtag to the end of my tweet (and yes they count towards your 140 characters). When I want to know what is happening in town I search for #Darien.

Tweets are put out in real-time. You can read your stream and see what is happening at that very moment. If you want to see what you missed click on friends’ profiles and read their stream, do a hashtag search and check your mentions and interactions. Many people use hootsuite or tweetdeck to keep and eye on twitter and respond to their followers. I prefer my iPad Twitter app but have used all different programs to read my feed. It’s a personal preference.

Now for a little ugly about Twitter. It’s the same as everything on the internet. You will have people follow you who tweet spam. You may receive a message from someone you follow saying “Someone is saying terrible things about you” and a link. That is also spam. Don’t get freaked out by these folks. Just block, ignore or report them for Spam and move on. I think of them as the crappy insert in the Newspaper and just throw it away.

The most important thing about Twitter is to decide how you want to use it. For your business? For your blog? To make connections locally? To meet people with the same interests as you? Twitter is whatever you make it. Now it’s time to decide: To Tweet or Not To Tweet