About a month ago, the territory manager for the Scout shops was having a phone conference with the store managers and revealed that she wanted a Facebook page. There are a couple locations around the Twin Cities area, so instead of separate pages for “Burnsville Scout Shop” (where I work), “St. Paul Scout Shop”, etc., we should have an all-encompassing one.
Enter me, our local social media guru. It’s totally not true, but I helped someone else make a “Dear Wayward Student” Facebook page a while back, so I had some idea of what I was doing. I also had some fun making the first page, finding images to use for the profile pic and cover photo and what not, so why not volunteer my services?
I did a little research the next night, sent Sally (my manager) an email about what I found, which she passed along to Marlene, the territory manager. When I got the green light, it was time to go to work.
The biggest decision I had to make was the web address. “Twincitiesscoutshops” takes a long time to type and it just looks awkward, so I decided to use https://www.facebook.com/tcscoutshops instead. That still makes sense for “Twin Cities Scout Shops”, right? (If it doesn’t, it’s kind of a moot point since the page has been online for a couple weeks now.)
I gathered some pictures to use, wrote the description (I thought up the short one; the long version is mostly just hours and addresses for each location)… I did everything but activate the page because I wanted Marlene to do it. She’s ultimately responsible for what we do, so it was her last chance to pull the plug. A couple hours later, we were live.
And that’s where things have become a little more frustrating. Like I said, I’m our territory’s “social media guru”. (My nose grows a little longer every time I type that…) I want the page to do well. It’s my baby. My plan was to make Marlene and all of the store managers administrators of the page. They’d be able to post as “Twin Cities Scout Shops” versus their personal accounts and they could provide content from each of their stores. For example, the first non-profile, non-cover photo on the page is a selfie of the Burnsville Scout Shop staff and I thought we could get three more pictures just like that one.
The only requirement? Being friends with me on Facebook. That’s why Sally and Marlene became my Facebook friends. I can’t make someone an admin of the page if we’re not connected. Simple, right? Right?!
Apparently not. Well, either it’s not that simple or the other store managers don’t give a shit about the page because I haven’t received friend requests from any of them yet. I’ve tried to contact them on Facebook, but nothing. At the time I’m writing this, Sally, Marlene and I are the only ones who have administrative access to the page.
Jump ahead a few weeks to another phone conference. Marlene wanted each store manager to come up with an idea of how to increase sales for April and someone piped up that we should utilize the Facebook page. Not Sally; someone else. Did I mention that Sally, Marlene and I are the only ones who have administrative access to the page? We’re the only ones who can use the page. At all. And someone else had the balls to suggest using it more effectively.
Aside from that affront, though, that’s what Sally and I have been doing. A majority of it has been my own work—comes with the territory of being a social media guru (I better not write that too many more times or my glasses might slide off my face)—but Sally has been providing me with content. Without the pictures and emails she sends, I wouldn’t have much to post, so I don’t want to discount her help.
That’s what I’ve been working on the last couple weeks during while there haven’t been customers in the shop: “Like us on Facebook!” I made a sheet to put next to the register with a QR code that links to the Facebook page, a couple smaller flyers we can use when setting up a trading post off-site… I’m having fun doing research, posting useful/relevant/amusing content, it keeps me productive… I’m enjoying it.
Meanwhile, the page likes have slowly been creeping upward. I think it’s at 60 now, which means more people know about it, but there’s a distinct possibility that not all of the other store managers are among that number. Which also means there’s a distinct possibility that the person who said “utilize the Facebook page” has not engaged with it at all. Yeah, I probably sound a little bitter, but it’s my baby.
Maybe it’s because I’m not an actual parent, but I haven’t shown off any “baby pictures” to all of my Facebook friends yet. Hell, I don’t think I’ve advertised it at all, which probably makes me a bit of a hypocrite. People have to know the Facebook page exists if I want them to click the “Like” button. Thusly and therefore, here’s that link to the Twin Cities Scout Shops page again. Like and Share and come visit the shops in person! Who knows, maybe you’ll see me sitting in front of the computer working on yet another flyer.
