I’m holding at 6th place in the Coolest Horse contest. Voting has definitely leveled off. I need the fans of the rescues you all have voted for me to share the prize money with to vote for me to nail this thing! I have stopped pestering my fans too much on voting on my Facebook Page for fear they’ll get annoyed with me.
The Lady has received most of our credentials from Paws For Friendship for us to go forth and start visiting people who need a visit from me – just waiting for my vest. Well, also it’s just too cold for me to have any baths – which I’m supposed to endure before visiting – so I’m as clean as can be. But things are headed in the right direction!
I just reached 1200 Fans on my Facebook Page!! WooHoo!
I’m gonna close voting on the My Likeness Contest today or tomorrow so any last minute entries need to come my way Pronto!
I’ve been pondering a lot about helping people understand the soft power of we minis – from a very non-kapow perspective lately. Who knew I’d be up for getting sentimental this young in life! As an individual I know I am pretty much a “regular Joe”, I’m no show horse, or fancy schmancy prancer – I’ve got my weight issues, and annoying habits just like most – and just like most I have a kind core. It sort of depends on who you hang with to figure out which side of yourself you’re gonna highlight that day, you know?
A couple of weeks ago one of my talented Fans, Jim Seekamp – musician extra-ordinaire – wrote and recorded a song about, ahem, me. I instantly loved it (of course I would!). The Lady made a little music video of me with it. I hope you like it. If you love it you can download the song from Jim’s site. I did and use it as my ring tone!
Holding at 5th place. We still need over 4000 votes to win for the “Share the Love” road trip!
In the Pick your 5 Favorite Rescues in my Facebook Question These are the top ten as of 8am EST this morning:
Horse Rescue United 201 (402 – 603)
Frog Pond Draft Rescue 172 (344 – 516)
Rosemary Farm 112 (224 – 336)
Hoofprints of the Heart 109 (218 – 327)
Heart of Tuscon 98 (196 – 294)
Angel Acres 67 (134 – 201)
Proud Spirit Horse Sanctuary 55 (110 – 156)
Old Friends 52 (104 – 156)
Beauty’s Haven 47 (94 – 141)
Blue Star Equiculture 43 (86 – 129)
And there are other rescues very close in the running too! You guys could pull into the lead today!
According to my calculations because HorseShow lets you vote 5 times for me I should have about 2 -3 times that many votes from each of the fans of each of those rescues listed above. That’s what the number in parenthese mean.
I’m Doing This for YOU!
If everyone’s getting the message from these 10 rescues alone I should have between 1912 – 2859 votes! But I’ve only got about 500. If you add in the other rescues and their fans – I should be close to winning this thing. Remember I only have to get to 5000 votes. First horse to do that wins $5000!
I’m sharing the prize with 5 rescues at $500 each and am parceling out other amounts of lesser value to others who help me win this for you! $100 each to the others in the top ten and $50 each to the next 10. I just need enough left over to fund my “Share the Love” road trip. Which if this all works I might even get sponsorship for – which would mean more $ for you rescues!
Call to Action!
Please ask your connections, network, friends and family to vote for me here: http://www.horseshow.com/shows/#/coolest-horse/entries/177
I had a ball getting to talk directly with folks on last night’s #HorseChat sponsored by @HorseFamilyMag and its founder Mandee Widrick. She invited me on to share what I’ve learned by running my own Facebook page. I wrote a post about that right here to get ready.
Here were the “official” questions and my answers:
Q1) What would you say to people that want help their pets set up their own social media profile(s)? A1) Know your pet! Know their: lingo, ‘person’-ality, and their Mission, their: faves, hobbies + delights
@iotamchippus Tell us about the Coolest Horse contest that you are currently in the running for? If I get 5000 votes 1st then I win $5000 which I’m sharing with the Equine Rescues my fans tell me to! bit.ly/Apx4xO
#HorseChat 's Mandee Widrick
@iotamchippus How do you use your FB presence to promote projects that you or The Lady (@happyartstudio) are involved with? 95% I try to get my fans to smile or laff – 5%I will ask them to help with an eq. rescue project or to look at The Lady’s art
Q3) What are some ways that you keep people coming back to your Facebook page? With jokes, outrageous snark, silly pictures, contests, fun, and always the inane one-liners
Q4) How often do you post to your social media profiles and what kind of content do your followers enjoy most? morning, noon and night at least 3X a day X 365 – Everyone loves the funny stuff AND cute stuff. By FAR.
Q5) What kinds of crazy things do your Facebook fans like to share with you? This weekend a guy named Jim wrote and recorded a theme song for me. Listen!
Another fan took me to Hawaii and made a photo book of our adventures!!
And Two fans came to SEE ME all the way from WA and MA (I’m in KY) We partied!
Q6) As an animal persona on social media, do you think that gives you an advantage over the humans? Besides not having to vote in the next election? LOL. I love being able to speak my mind without worrying about IRS audits.
And there was some GREAT questions from other participants!
One that really grabbed me was from @hunterjudge, who asked: “Why would I want to run a page for my pet?”
The Lady’s answer of 140 characters was a bit glib. She said something like, “well maybe you dont, you have to have the passion for it.”
But I want to go into a little bit of detail here. First of all, I agree with The Lady, you DO have to have a passion for it, a reason to do so. For us, it is to help spread smiles (95% of my postings) and do a bit for equine advocacy and rescue (the other 5%). Even though my heart would put the split at more like 50/50. But folks get saddened by too much info about needy anythings, cats, dogs, people, horses…So we concentrate of laughter with some little bit of awareness about the other stuff.
Mind you, lately with The Coolest Horse contest and all we’ve been making more posts than usual about equine rescues – to get them to vote for their favorite rescue groups. That’s unusual for us. Mostly I just sit back and snark away.
But there’s the thing – I think I’ve been so lucky with finding such amazing friends and fans on Facebook because I want them to have a little boost from our interactions. I am a service-oriented fellow at heart. Remember I come from a long line of ‘pit ponies’ (minis who lived and worked in coal mines their whole lives). I know from service. I prefer this kind over the old stuff ANY day.
A new survey has found that an incredible one in ten pets in the UK have their own profile on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube.
The study – commissioned by insurance company PetPlan – found that 52 per cent of British pet owners have shared photos of their pets online, and a further 20 per cent share photos of their pets with their friends and family.
Sometimes I get questions from other horses about how they can set up an awesome Facebook Page like mine. First of all, you can’t. Hahahahaha! I’m kidding. You can! But yours is going to be different from mine because you are different!
Horsenality
So, while I might be opinionated and a bit snarky, you’re probably much nicer.
Are you cute?
The Lady is working on a cartoon series for me!
Are you a fancy show horse?
A work horse?
A sport horse?
Your horsenality will reflect that. That link there leads you to the Pat Parelli savvy crazies who have developed a whole system for humans to figure out what kind of “person”-ality their horse has. They call it horsenality. It’s kind of fun to play with. I’m a left brained extrovert. In Meyers-Briggs terms I’m an: EITJ. Which is hilarious because I’m about the EXACT opposite from The Lady. Click the Meyers-Briggs link and take the test and see what you are. It’s fun!
Lingo
Because Facebook has a lot of typing in it – you’ll have to decide how to type the way you talk. This is super important! This is where a ton of your horsenality is going to be conveyed to your fans! Like I said, I’m kind of a wise cracker so what I say can be pretty abrupt. Like a while ago I said “I don’t know what I’d do without you guys, but I bet it would be something productive.” Haha. Kind of mean, right? I know. Or this one: “The day Facebook adds a “Who cares?” button would be the best day ever.” heh heh.
But I have horse friends on Facebook who have completely different ways of talking. Petey Pants is another adorable mini who actually acts pretty darn cute, like, all. The. Time. Which is perfect for him and his fans love it! Here’s an example: “Toenail dood was heer. I gots ma toes did.” He was talking about his farrier, lol. He cracks me up. He’s consistant with that way of talking too. Me and all his friends love that about him!
So be sure to figure out exactly:
how you talk
what your accent is – if you have one – and
what slang you use too.
Frequency
Next you have to decide how many times a day you want to post. I do it before I run outside, and then a bunch throughout the day when I go to check my stocks. If I miss a morning believe me I hear about it! My fans will start worrying about me. So I have to keep up with it or run the risk of being responsible for actual work getting done at desk jobs. I couldn’t live with myself if I allowed that to happen.
If you must miss a day due to great weather, or a show or a race or some such – be sure to give your fans a heads up post so they don’t worry. Be cagey – you never know when your trailer might have a blow out and you’d be all on the side of the road chomping through your emergency hay worrying about your peeps and their work getting done. Not cool. You may colic.
Content
Be ready to post stuff that has to do with why you got a Page for yourself in the first place.
Links
Pictures
Quotes
Sayings
Jokes
Videos
Plugs (careful with those – not too many)
Pitches (ditto)
Observations
Shares, Etc.
Keep ‘em coming! Don’t pester your fans – but keep the flow steady enough so what you share doesn’t slide immediately off the ends of their news feeds. Of course if you post enough “high quality” content (stuff people “like” and comment on) the Facebook robots will keep your stuff high up in the highlighted news feed. But that’s only for those who choose to look at their news that way. Some do, some don’t. I take a middle of the trail view on this – so I post throughout the day and try to post good stuff that people like. That’s a win-win right there.
Your People
You have to decide how you’re going to treat your relationship with your own people. Sooner or later as a topic they come up. I have a friend, Beaseley The Wonder Horse, who has a great thing going with his lady human but fights mightily with her husband “The Other”. I know a mule, Fenway Barthomule, who writes a blog and calls his lady “Farm Wife”. They have interesting relationships. I have The Lady. She does some pretty crazy sh*t here and there and I just have to share it. Horse dentists? Limiting my caloric intake? Muzzles? Well as you can see she’s a handful and her antics simply must be commented on from time to time.
Connect with your Fans
Pay attention to them. “Like” their comments, react to what they say! They have gone out of their way to visit your page or say something to you. Have fun with them! Keep your horsenality in mind and carry on the conversation!
Whenever you can get your fans to:
Laugh
Groan
Say “awwwww…..”
Answer a question
Share something
Tell a joke
State an opinion
I’m big on helping people laugh from my world of snark. I’m also involved with equine advocacy so I’ll put a plug in for that once in awhile too. Right now I’m involved in a contest where if I win I’m going to share the $5000 prize money with at least 5 rescues and probably more in a “Share the Love” road trip I’m planning. This whole thing is generating a tremendous amount of buzz on my Page. Here’s this morning statistics from my Page: I have 1120 Fans and 1036 “are talking about this”. That is my highest rate of response EVER! For comparison, The Lady runs Merry Horses’ Page. This morning she has 5274 Fans but only 93 are talking about it. How come?
I’m funnier. Plain and simple. Merry Horses is cool – she’s a Big Time equine advocate, but she’s serious. Too serious probably. I’m a lot more fun!
Be Amazed
I can NOT believe how awesome my Fans are. This past Christmas The Lady drew me in various poses for a special “12 Days of Iota-Mas” and a crazy-wonderful fan diligently copied them all down, typed it out and went and sang the song to her horses – videoed herself and sent it to me! Well, see for yourself:
Of course there were the two fans who came from opposite sides of the nation (Wahington State and Massachusetts) to meet me in horsen this past summer too:
To Finish Up
I have a ton of fun with my Facebook Page. I love my Fans - they are like family to me. Better than family because they don’t steal my oats!!
The Lady has written a couple of blog posts about this topic too. Might have some good info in it, but I don’t know. I never read her stuff.
I think I may have some of the best most amazing Fans in all of Planet Facebook! As some of you know, I’m currently running a “My Likeness” Creative contest where I have invited people to make something in the image of ‘me’ and submit via photograph or other form so I can share it with everyone!
Clearly people have way too much time on their hands (and hooves) this winter because I’ve already gotten four entries! I’m uploading them into a folder right here. And I’ll keep adding to it as the contest progresses. But I wanted to share them here too! After all stuff slides off the bottom of digital walls fast on Facebook – and here I can bring it all together for all eternity.
Nyan Iota (+Alfie)
I’d like to start with this crazy animation loop – apparently its from a new meme “Nyan Poptart Cat” complete with catchy nutty song. See it here in its purest form: http://www.nyancat.cat/
Created by Christina Czekalski on an iPad with “Friends of Derby” (her little beanbag pony) by her side.
