2025 International Pawn Symposium At long
Social Networking and Pawn Shops
Our team at PCG and ButterMilk Media are dedicated to keeping YOU and your shop informed about the latest and greatest tricks and tips to grow your social media networks! In fact, ButterMilk’s team leader gets up at 4:00 a.m. almost EVERY DAY and reads for 2 hours on EVERYTHING he can find about Social Media and new technologies. And he keeps up with how Social Media is changing DAILY as there are new startups, new offerings, new tricks and tips, what NOT to do, and a HOST of other information to read! And it never stops – the information just keeps pouring in!
Can your Pawn Shop do THAT? NO WAY! There are not enough hours in the day. We work hard to keep up with this BARRAGE of NEW information, strip it down into easy to read and understand bits of information so OUR CUSTOMERS don’t have to! And that’s a FREE service we offer as we have to keep as well – or get left behind!
We are moving faster than NASCAR drivers or even a Formula One Racer down THE INFORMATION SUPER HIGHWAY! And you must understand that in today’s world – INFORMATION is A COMMODITY! So what we are offering has a HUGE VALUE proposition for our clients in the information age! And at some point, like many other Bloggers with incredible information to offer, we may be moving to a PAID BLOGGING SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE! But for now – it’s TOTALLY FREE!
There was a nice man who recently posted about FaceBook and how he was not getting any results and is just clueless and he belongs on the sidelines – bench him – he can’t play in this game.
He’ll NEVER get ahead in the Social Media or WEB-BLOGGING GAME as he’s talking about viruses and not checking E-mail because of them – that’s so 10 years ago! This gentleman that does NOT get the internet at all – as it’s left him behind like last weeks TV GUIDE – and who even reads the TV GUIDE? – It’s on the internet. In fact, TV and RADIO are DYING and are soon to almost DEAD! The average person who watches TV is over 50 – Local Radio is dying too and so advertising on Radio is not a good value – or perhaps even a waste of money – as the younger generation have iPods, Satellite or are STREAMING music from Pandora and other FREE music channels where they are NOT bombarded with commercials all the time – they don’t want to have to listen to COMMERCIALS! They have so many choices that they could care less about the OLD TRADITIONAL MEDIA!
But what this nice man is REALLY missing is in this new Social Media GAME — You have to pay to play, and you have to be present to WIN! (But the costs are minimal in big the scheme of things) You can’t just have a FACEBOOK PAGE and expect big things – you HAVE TO SHOW UP! And you have to give a little to get anything. Which means sharing information – and the way we set things up – the minute you POST to your website – that post automatically populates on Twitter, FaceBook, etc. ONE CLICK!
If you post something to an empty FaceBook FAN PAGE or even on a personal FaceBook page with only 100 or so friends or likes – who’s going to SEE IT? Nobody (If a tree falls in the woods?) So you must understand that although social networking is almost 100% FREE you STILL have to invest SOME TIME by way of posting and adding people to your Social Networks – and WE at PCG and ButterMilk have got a bag of tricks for doing that!
But you DO NOT just try to SELL on Social Networks right away – as everybody HATES a sales pitch – just must ENGAGE your audience by asking questions, commenting on posts, making your customers feel like they are part of your business and THEN you can SELL! But even then you MUST OFFER SOMETHING to get people to show any interest in your FACEBOOK FAN PAGE or WHY they should “LIKE” you? And if you really know what you’re doing – you’ll GIVE AWAY SOMETHING – if people will LIKE you FAN PAGE – and have a drawing for all new LIKES – that will drive traffic like nothing else!
Last year I saw a Billboard on the HWY – it was HUGE – lit up and IMPOSSIBLE to miss – It had “The Company name” and then “JOIN US ON FACEBOOK” and that’s IT – HUH? What a WASTE OF MONEY! That is a hard core example of WHAT NOT TO DO – now if it had said Get $50 OFF you next purchase of $200 or more (or anything similar) then I might have pulled over whipped out my smart phone (or perhaps gone home) – went to their FaceBook Fan Page and LOOKED to SEE what I could get a deal on – instead – I just LAUGHED – and thought “YOU FOOLS!”
We are going to continue to POST great information on PCG and ButterMilk’s Sites – via our Blog and/or FAQ sections and we’ll continue to “share” some quick tips and tricks as OFTEN as possible – so that people can get some SOLID information that they can use and/or implement to increase their social networking traffic – such as this which was sent to one of our Pawn Shops we’re working with:
*(what a cool tool – you can FOCUS on a geographic location and RANGE to add followers to your Twitter Feed that are NEAR YOU! Instead of just adding follows in the hopes they will follow you back even though those FOLLOWERS could NEVER make it to your shop!
In short, WE read consume a TON of information and then provide the BEST of that INFORMATION to YOU! Sure you can find it – it’s out there and it’s FREE – but having somebody break it down and GIVE it to you – IS INVALUALBLE!
I saw an article posted for the GIA Conference that “Mashable” is a GREAT place to find great new info on what’s going on with the internet – well – It SURE IS! But does every pawn shop owner have the time to even SKIM the 20 posts per day they send out? There’s also Tech Crunch (another 20 posts per day)- and millions other places to find useful information about how to use Social Networking and the Internet to grow your business – ALL FREE – we can’t consume it all – how could you?
Amy Porterfield (who’s really good at social networking) we “WATCH HER POSTS DAILY!” – (as they are mainly VIDEO POSTS) But she says the ONLY thing that’s NOT almost 100% FREE in social networking is VIDEO – if you can’t create decent video – just do NOT go there! Save that for later on! But we can do better videos than SHE CAN! And BRAND THEM!
ANYBODY that knows anything about the internet or Social Media knows that VIDEO CONTENT IS KING! So its worth spending a little extra money to GET GREAT VIDEOS for YouTube which can then be shared on your website, and ALL of your Social Networks!
Other than video – which you can shoot yourself – and just post it or send that Video to us – and pay a reasonable fee and you’ll get a PRO VIDEO that will make your AD PLACES POP, as well as your Website, FaceBook FAN PAGE, Twitter, you name it – your Videos will LOOK GREAT and thus make your business look GREAT in the process – as VIDEO CONTENT IS KING!
YouTube is so huge that they’ve had to buy ACRES of commercial real estate to house the MILLIONS of Videos posted daily – in fact, 100’s of hours of video are posted EVERY MINUTE on You Tube – but we make it EASY for PEOPLE to find your videos in MINUTES!
Also, give your EE’s some incentive (bonuses) to DRIVE TRAFFIC – and sell MORE INVENTORY – and social media is the quickest, most targeted and most TIMELY and RELEVANT way TO SELL!! A fellow pawnbroker who’s just starting out in the social media game made a VERY WISE and ASTUTE observation – Social media is custom made for a PAWN SHOP!!! As there’s always some new or different items to get a great deal on!
You can’t pay for a radio ad to sell a Hi-def TV – you can just advertise your shop – that’s NOT very TARGETED but you can post about a deal on that HI-DEF TV for FREE! And once your social networks have GROWN – and MORE People see that DEAL – that TV is SOLD – and probably in the next day or so because everyone will RACE down to YOUR SHOP to get that deal – and ONCE it’s already sold, these people are STILL coming into your shop – while there – they will more than likely buy something ELSE!
A few words from Pawnshop Consulting Group and ButterMilk Media!
Jerry Whitehead
onetravel@aol.com
www.pawnshopconsultinggroup.com
www.pawnsymposium.com
USA Office Location:7920 NW 85th Avenue
Tamarac, FL 33321
954-540-3697
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Cashwiz© Holdings Ltd.
Cayman Office: 345-943-7296
Cayman Fax: 345-943-4653
144 N. Church St.
Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, KY1-1105
www.cashwiz.com
National Pawnbrokers Association – Industry Partner