Osceola County Commissioners created a citizens’ budget advisory committee to provide recommendations for the upcoming fiscal year. At the last County Commission meeting, the Commissioners appointed the resident from their district. The first meeting will be held on July 16th at 9 am in the Procurement Conference Room 2501/2502.
Facilitator: Tom White
Ray Stangle –District 2
Cashmore Shaw– District 3
Mary Lee Downey – District 4
Rosser Pace –District 5
Peggy Choudhry was not in attendance and will announce her committee member at the July 15 meeting.
The new school year begins on August 12thin Osceola County and a few of our area councils are helping our students prepare for the year ahead with supply drives. The Poinciana Area Council is collecting supplies through the end of the month at the following locations:
Valencia College Poinciana
3255 Pleasant Hill Rd, Kissimmee, FL 34746|
Osceola Community Health Services
109 Doverplum Avenue, Kissimmee, FL 34758
CenterState Bank Poinciana
850 Cypress Parkway, Poinciana, FL 34759
Kissimmee Chamber of Commerce
1425 E Vine St, Kissimmee, FL 34744
Access Affordable Benefits
8553 W. Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway, Kissimmee, FL 34747
New Beginnings Thrift Store
8553 W. Hwy. 192 Kissimmee, FL 34747
They will also collect supplies from attendees at their Business 2 Business Meet and Greet at Mindful Storage on July 24th. There is no charge to attend this networking event, so the PAC board of directors is asking attendees to bring a school supply donation. School supplies collected by PAC will stay with students and schools in the Poinciana area.
The Celebration Area Council will also be collecting supplies at their Business Spotlight on August 6th at 215 Celebration Place. This event brings local business people together will local businesses. Attendees at the first event in this new series will see inside the offices of Osceola County’s destination marketing organization, Experience Kissimmee, to learn about their role in our county, hear what is new with Old Town, find out about exciting new developments at AdventHealth Celebration, and understand SeaWorld’s new survey solutions with Avius. This event is also cost-free, so school supply donations for Celebration’s schools will take the place of an event fee.
You can losehours on Instagram looking at all of the gorgeous eye candy, but did you knowit’s also a very effective marketing tool for business?
Instagram has been around since 2010. Two years after its launch, it was purchased by Facebook. It’s important to know that this image sharing platform now boasts500 million monthly active users and over 95 million posts per day. Instagram estimates more than 300 million people use the service at least once a day. This platform allows for hashtags and commentary with its video or image sharing but users cannot post a non-image or video Facebook-style update post.
To get started using it, download the app on your phone. While you can discover people, like, follow, and comment from your computer, uploading must be done on a tablet or a phone. Currently, businesses and personal accounts function in the same way. If you’re looking to understand the intricacies and how to’s of posting, this article covers it all.
Once you know how to post, here are a few ways you can use this social media image platform to increase sales and reach out to customers and potential customers.
Some marketers debate the effectiveness of hashtags in getting found on social media platforms but not on Instagram. Hashtags are huge here. On each post you can use up to30. There’s a nice autocomplete feature that makes suggestions for hashtags as you type. Instagram uses hashtags to help categorize content but also as commentary. You’ll see hashtags that convey emotion as well as subject such as #donerightand #summerlove.
When the autocomplete feature suggests a hashtag, it also presents the number of instances that hashtag has been used on the site. It’s a helpful way of figuring out how popular your hashtag is. You can use popular hashtags, like #TBT (Throwback Thursday for posting older pictures) or #nofilter to gain likes. If you use popular hashtags, a lot of people will see your content. However, they’re not all going to be your ideal client/customer. It’s better to use more targeted hashtags that appeal to your intended audience since that’s whose attention you’re trying to get. Search for users that post about what you sell or do. Look at their posts and note what hashtags they use.
A final note about hashtags, you can’t use non-numerical symbols (outside of the #) sign. So if your business name contains an &, you’re going to have to decide whether you will spell it out as “and” or leave it out. Whatever you choose, be consistent in your usage.
Maybe it’s because of the visual aspect of the platform, and not getting bogged down intext, but users tend to follow back on Instagram. Take some time and search for users, as mentioned in the previous section, and follow them. Often, they’ll return the favor. Now they’ll see your content in their streams and be more apt to interact with it.
If you’re a business where locale is important, use the geotagging/location feature on Instagram. This allows you to mark where you are. You want to do this for two reasons. It shows people where you are (in words) and marks your location on the map. Users can choose to see all the images from a given area. Now if someone selects your city, they’ll see your post.
Yes, you want business through Instagram but you don’t get that by merely posting a new image every day. Take the time to follow, connect with, and like other people’s images. This is not all about you. You would never walk into a museum and hang your own work of art next to others. Appreciate what they have to offer. If they feel like you’re interested in them, they’ll be more interested in you as well.
It’s important to learn to navigate the app, through posting and connecting with people first. Once you’ve mastered that, you can start thinking ads. Ads appear in users’ feeds. There are several kinds to select from and you can use image ads or video ads. Here’s what you need to know about paying for views on Instagram. To run ads you will need to connect your Facebook page to your Business Manager on your Instagram account. Here area few additional tips on Instagram advertising.
Like all social media marketing, you don’t want to make this account all about your business and the hard sell. Share new products and services, but also share things you love, places you visit or those that inspire you, fun behind-the-scenes images at your business, and how-to’s on using your productor service. Need some ideas for posts? Here are 26.
Have fun. Be fun. Share beautiful things. Feature your employees and your customers. Like their posts. Instagram is a brilliant way to let people see your world. But if it’s all marketing propaganda, you won’t have very many people who want to visit for long. Instead, use posts that are welcoming, intriguing, and helpful and watch your audience, and business, grow.
—————————————————-
Written with the help of Christina R. Green teaches small businesses, chambers, and associations how to connect through content. Her articles have appeared in the Midwest Society of Association Executives’ Magazine, NTEN.org, AssociationTech, and Writer’s Weekly. She is a regular blogger at Frankjkenny.com and the Event Manager Blog.
She’s a bookish writer on a quest to bring great storytelling to organizations everywhere.
