my best wishes for the veteran still fight their way back into sociaty

Robert Service

Carry on,

It’s easy to fight when everything’s right,

And you’re mad with thrill and the glory;

It’s easy to cheer when victory’s near,

And wallow in fields that are gory.

It’s a different song when everything’s wrong,

When you’re feeling infernally mortal;

When it’s ten against one, and hope there is none,

Buck up, little soldier, and chortle:

      Carry on! Carry on!

   There isn’t much punch in your blow.

You are glaring and staring and hitting out blind;

You are muddy and bloody, but never you mind.

      Carry on! Carry on!

   You haven’t the ghost of a show.

It’s looking like death, but while you’ve a breath,

       Carry on, my son! Carry on!

And so in the strife of the battle of life

It’s easy to fight when you’re winning;

It’s easy to slave, and starve and be brave,

When the dawn of success is beginning.

But the man who can meet despair and defeat

With a cheer, there’s the man of God’s choosing;

The man who can fight to Heaven’s own height

Is the man who can fight when he’s losing.

  

      Carry on! Carry on!

   Thing never were looming so black.

But show that you haven’t a cowardly streak,

And though you’re unlucky you never are weak.

      Carry on! Carry on!

   Brace up for another attack.

It’s looking like hell, but – you never tell.

      Carry on, old man! Carry on!

There are some who drift out in the desert of doubt

And some who in brutishness wallow;

There are others, I know, who in piety go

Because of a Heaven to follow.

But to labor with zest, and to give of your best,

For the sweetness and joy of the giving;

To help folks along with a hand and a song;

Why, there’s the real sunshine of living.

      Carry on! Carry on!

   Fight the good fight and true;

Believe in your mission, greet life with a cheer;

There’s big work to do, and that’s why you are here.

      Carry on! Carry on!

   Let the world be the better for you;

And at last when you die, let this be your cry!

      Carry on, my soul! Carry on

11 ways to help Veterans on 11/11/11

11 ways to help Veterans on 11/11/11

1.     Give shelter  http://www.homesforourtroops.org/site/PageServer

2.     Offer a Vet a ride   http://www.dav.org/volunteers/DriveVan.aspx

3.     Provide foster care for a pet http://www.guardianangelsforsoldierspet.org

4.     Record a war story   http://www.loc.gov/vets

5.     Put those old cellphones to good use http://www.cellphonesforsoldiers.com/

6.     Donate use Dvd’s  http://www.dvds4vets.org/

7.     Cut coupons http://www.coupsfortroops.com/

8.     Contribute to a holiday drive  http://www.operationgratitude.com/volunteer/

9.     Post a care package. http://www.soldierpackages.org/

10.                        Share your expertise www.milserve.org

11.                        Support Big brothers and Big sisters http://www.bbbs.org/site/c.9iILI3NGKhK6F/b.5962335/k.BE16/Home.htm

3 Ways to Boost Interaction With Your Facebook Fans by social examiner

Are you looking for fresh ideas to engage your Facebook fans?
Do you have a pretty nice fan base, but you’re struggling to come up with ideas to engage them on a daily basis?
One proven approach is to help your fans.
Here are 3 techniques used by some of the most successful Facebook pages. Try them on your page to see how your fans respond!

#1: Become a resource

Despite the level of connection you think you have with your fans on Facebook, many still express pleasant surprise when you respond to them personally on the social network.
Use fan names when you can, and respond one-on-one to the comments they make. This proves to fans you are listening and are receptive to their commentary and feedback, making it more likely that they will post in the future.
Moreover, invite conversation by asking your fans’ opinions on topics, or asking them to tell you what sorts of content they’d appreciate.
Everybody likes being asked, and fans feel extra-appreciated when you fulfill these desires—so don’t ask them for input you never intend to use or incorporate.
In the example below, Time Warner Cable demonstrates an inconsistent response strategy toward different users. While “Sharon” got her request attended to by the page administrator, “Regina” reports frustration that her posts are being removed instead of replied to, indicating that she had posted additional comments earlier than the final post visible in the thread.
If your brand strategy is to be a resource to all fans, it is important that you treat all fan comments in the same way by responding to all of them, no matter the sentiment.

In the responses to this status update by Time Warner Cable, several fans voice concerns with the company, but only one gets a response. Seeing this, users like "Regina" become upset about being ignored and become even more vocal.

One example of this kind of open interaction strategy working very successfully is our own continued initiative to build out a Facebook fan page community of marketers, business owners and social media managers interested in sharing knowledge about social media (as well as Wildfire!).
We have found over time that our most engaging posts, which get the most feedback from our users, are consistently the ones where we invite people to post any question they have about social media or invite them to have their pages reviewed by social media professionals.
The key is to follow up (even for just an hour) with all of the questions and actually answer them. Because the promise to answer any question is not an empty promise, the users become confident that their questions can be answered and trust the brand for it.
An excellent example of a smaller business getting engagement right with great messaging strategies comes from the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company, an imported foods store in Pittsburgh.
As of this writing, the store had just under 1,100 fans. Their social media manager told me they regularly get over 1% engagement on their posts, a great figure for their size.

In this screenshot, we can see that the store's informal and kind-mannered one-on-one interactions with its fans help to grow a loyal and happy community.

#2: Offer your services, free

What is your brand known for? What would you like it to be known for? If you provide a product or a particular service like consulting or advisement, consider offering your fans a taste of it every once in a while for free!
According to eMarketer, the #1 reason users become fans of a brand on Facebook is to gain access to exclusive content, events or sales. Your brand can capitalize on this desire while leveraging the brand’s capabilities by giving users an occasional exclusive pass to experience the business, free.
Here are several examples of companies doing this on Facebook, to the delight of their users:
Rue La La, an online boutique of designer merchandise and clothing, knows many of its fans are in tune with fashion trends and enjoy thinking about design, clothing and style. As such, one of their most popular fan page “events” is a weekly invitation for fans to join a stylist on the page for an hour of live interaction.
Because typically most people don’t have access to a personal stylist or advice from one, Rue La La creates an environment where fans can happily expect this recurring event.

Fans can post any of their style questions, and the stylist will respond to all of them within the hour, right on the fan page, free.

We use this technique at Wildfire as well.
Every week, these invitations to post are the most consistently popular updates! Even the users who don’t get their pages reviewed that week leave feedback that they enjoy watching the advice for other fan pages, and that the learning experience is valuable.

Every week on the Wildfire fan page, users are offered the chance to get their fan pages reviewed by an expert for free.

#3: Make your fan page a complete knowledge hub

When brainstorming how to entice users to join and interact with your brand, the challenge is to come up with ways to encourage them to interact with the page continuously over time and prevent disengagement.
For brands that have a rich background or require a fair amount of user education, creating a fan page containing valuable resources and information that benefit the user is essential. The goal is to capture users with an initial promotion, and to keep them returning to your page for information even after the promotion is over.
An example of a page that achieved this goal is Webroot, a software company that distributes security applications and programs.
The initial user pull is the promotion Webroot has set up on its landing page. Users visit the Facebook page for a chance to win high-value prizes such as airline tickets, electronics and kitchen appliances.

Webroot created a powerful, resource-rich page about its products and services, including a tab with educational slide decks, a full customer support portal ("Ask Webroot"), an explanatory splash page about their mobile security products and even a collection of YouTube videos about the software.

Recognizing that its promotion would drive considerable traffic to its page, Webroot created a powerful, resource-rich page about its products and services, including a tab with educational slide decks, a full customer support portal (“Ask Webroot”), an explanatory splash page about their mobile security products, and even a collection of YouTube videos about the software.

Webroot has created a resource rich page for their fans and visitors on Facebook. Not only do they include a tab for a virtual agent that users can interact with to "Ask Webroot," but they also have a collection of product related videos in the "Videos" tab and information about how to start a free trial in a separate "Free Trial" tab.

As a result, users who visited Webroot’s page to participate in the promotion were also exposed to the page’s valuable content, which gave them a reason to return. In turn, Webroot created a full-service, user-friendly community through its Facebook page, a place where fans go to access information about the company.
Now that you’ve seen several examples of companies helping their fans help themselves, what’s the first approach you are planning to take with your fan page? Putting together a library of resources? Testing the waters by giving away some free services? I’d love to hear from you! Leave your questions and comments in the box below.
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Groupon rollercoaster part Deux!

Groupon began trading Friday morning at $27.82 and soared to $28.26 as of 12 pm EST, more than 41% above its original $20 share price. The company now boasts a valuation of nearly $18 billion. At one point, shares were up to $30 for a $20 billion valuation, but they've since settled back to $28.
Groupon doesn’t disappoint.  After adding another five million shares to its offering to make 35 million in total, and raising share prices to $20 each, Groupon is strong out of the gate with $700 million raised, for a valuation of $12.8 billion.
Previously, the company was slated to raise some $540 million after pricing its 30 million shares at $16 to $18 each, which valued it at $11.4 billion.  Groupon is scheduled to begin trading Friday under the ticker symbol GRPN.
Groupon CEO Andrew Mason has been on the road, pitching the company to potential investors and addressing some pretty legitimate concerns over the future of the company.  For starters, Groupon has incurred some huge losses in the three years since it was founded.  In 2010, the company generated $312 million in revenue and suffered a loss of $389 million.  Between January and September of this year, Groupon generated $1.1 billion in revenue while incurring a loss of $214 million.
To Groupon’s credit, it’s narrowing its losses and has assured investors that it’s a short-term issue.  The vast majority of the money has been going towards marketing and subscriber acquisition, which Groupon said it will start to ratchet down in the near future as saturation levels start to peak.
But there’s also the problem of slowing growth and a lack of repeat customers.  Groupon has long been criticized for appealing to deal-seekers who use a Groupon once and then never return to that merchant again—a particularly pernicious problem for restaurants.  In the third quarter, Groupon had 143 million subscribers, but only 30 million of them bought Groupons, which speaks to a failure to drive repeat sales.
To address that problem, Andrew Mason told potential investors in Boston last week that Groupon plans to swap out its worst 10% of employees with a fresh batch, which, he says, will help improve the quality of Groupon’s service.
Additionally, the company launched an interesting new luxury vertical: Groupon Reserve.  At first glance, it looks like an echo of Gilt City, but the new vertical could have the much-needed effect of driving repeat customers by appealing to people with cash to spend on quality goods and services, rather than impulsive deal-seekers.
Groupon has launched a number of other verticals this year, including travel (Groupon Getaways), loyalty rewards (Groupon Rewards), and instant mobile deals (GrouponNow), proving that it’s more than capable of growing and innovating.
But what about the daily deal industry as a whole?
“Daily deals will level off,” said eMarketer analyst Jeffrey Grau in a recent interview with VatorNews.  “People will get tired of it and when economic times improve, retailers may not be so eager to give away restaurant seats if more and more people have discretionary income. Those seats may be full and retailers may not need to give them away at discount.”
But local media and advertising research firm BIA/Kelsey predicts that consumer spending on daily deals will ramp up over the next several years to reach $4.2 billion in 2015, up from $873 million in 2010.  By the end of this year, U.S. consumers will have spent $2 billion on deals.
"But Groupon’s long term value is not based on the growth of the daily deal market so much as its ability to continue to develop verticals such as Groupon Goods and Groupon Live and Groupon Getaways, and leverage its user and merchant list to provide a wide range of premium business services, such as transactions services, email, customer relationship management and SEO," BIA/Kelsey VP Peter Krasilovsky told me.