5 Reasons Your FEC Should Be Using LinkedIn

Get Your FEC LinkedIn

Assuming you’ve the got the Real Estate thing handled the most important words for your business are no longer Location, Location Location. Those words are now Marketing. Marketing! Marketing!!! This post is going to provide you a quick education on why LinkedIn is worth some of your attention for your Family Entertainment Center. Here are 5 quick things you need to know, now.

It’s Strictly Business

Let’s pretend Facebook is used 40% business and 60% for personal use. Those numbers are a bit high, but they’re close. LinkedIn is 95% business and 5% personal. What this means to you is that promoting your business can be a bother to those on Facebook looking for cat videos or to hear about your weekend away. People on LinkedIn expect to hear about what your business is doing.

It’s a “Blue Ocean Strategy”

In the international best seller by W. Chan Kim, Kim makes a very important distinction between blue oceans and red oceans in business. A red Ocean strategy is one that all of your competitors are employing and the waters are bloody as a result of the “fight”. A blue Ocean strategy is one where you zag, while everyone else is busy zigging. Think about the number of FECs you see on Facebook and compare that to those on LinkedIn.

You want morning business on a weekday?

Does your business feel like this in the a.m.?

Unless it’s summer or some other time when the kids are out of school you really only have one choice: corporate events. Those can be super hard to book unless you know how to connect with the right professionals. You know which social media site both caters to business professionals AND has a fabulous search feature to help you find them?? I’m not going to give out any names but it’s initials are Linked In.

You can offer team building opportunities

Corporate culture and team building is all the rage in business. Do you offer activities where two or more associates can play together or against one another? If you answered yes to that, than you can say you offer team building. Getting people out of the office for shared experiences is a tremendous way to get them to work better together on projects. This is your selling point.

Connect with event managers

Earlier I mentioned the power of search. That is where LinkedIn really shines. When you start building your network on LinkedIn you’ll be able to easily find and connect with folks who are responsible for building events for their companies. Connect with enough of them and some are bound to do business with you. Do a great job for them and they will tell their friends. Added bonus, they will likely book events for their kids too.

Bottom line is, you’re likely spending a portion your day working on a Facebook strategy (or just goofing off on Facebook, whichever). Do yourself a favor and allocate 15-20% of that time on LinkedIn. You and your business will be glad you did.

BONUS TIP

Click HERE for a quick video that will help you grow your LinkedIn network while you sleep.

If you want to learn more about how to leverage LinkedIn and other ideas to grow your FEC, check out our PLVR Club.

May 16, 2017

Creating A GREAT Online Profile

So many online networking sites and so little time to nurture them all. If you can’t spend the amount of time there, you’d better make sure your profile is doing it’s one job: Attracting your ideal customers. But how do we get flat text to do the heavy lifting?

My 3 most used profiles: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook

Talk about “who you are”.

Many of these sites have an area for a “summary”. Most folks summarize their
current work experience and consider this done. Sure that’s a great way to check off the task, but does it really help? No. This is the area where you want to engage the person by showing them who you are. What are your values? Share your thoughts on Fun centers. Answer why did you get into the space. Tell us about your family. Make this interesting and personal. It doesn’t have to be long, but it would be great if it made us feel like we got to know you.

Tell us about “what you do”

This should be an easy one, right? Well, recognize that there are lots of people
who do what you do. How will you make your profile stand out? You need to make sure you are using KEYWORDS. Keywords are the words that people use when “searching” online. Specifically list the types of attractions your family entertainment center offers.

An important point to consider- we need to make sure that we are using the
keywords that our industry uses as well as the keywords our clients use. Don’t just type FEC or OOHEC. Not everyone knows what those are. Spell out Family Entertainment Center and Out of Home Entertainment Center too. You have to make sure you appear credible to industry insiders and findable by potential clients. 😉

William Butler Yeats said it best- “think like a wise man, but communicate in
the language of the people”.

Photos and Videos

We all know that a picture is worth 1,000 words. Well, how many pictures are there in a 1 minute video?? LOTS!!! Make sure you’re sharing imagery of people having fun.

Important to make sure people sign a photo/video release form.

Company or Personal Page?

You are going to want to have both. Depending on the site you may spend more time as one than the other, but you definitely want both. In fact, on both LinkedIn and Facebook you can’t have a company page/profile/place without having a personal one. Similar rules apply. And the more photos the better. One last thing, don’t be drunk tweeting from your company page thinking it’s your personal one…you’re not the President for crying out loud.

Add Contact Info

You wouldn’t dream of putting your business online without your address so make sure your phone # and e-mail address are there too. This is all about ease of use…making it easy for your prospects to use you!

Its good to have “past life regressions”

Well, maybe they don’t have to be full on regressions, but it is good for people
to get to know about your past life. Why? Because they may have been a part of it. I believe that “all business is relationship business”. We had
some really strong relationships with people we are no longer connected to.
Think about that. If you ran into your favorite “cube buddy” from your first
job, your favorite boss from 6 years ago, a college suite mate or whomever, you would likely be able to pick right up on good conversation. Guess what? Some of these folks may be in a position to host an event at you venue.

We have some amazingly strong ties in our past. It would be wise to make sure
those folks can find us and possibly help us in our future.

Hobbies and interests are interesting

Since “all business is relationship business” and relationships are built fastest
around commonality, shall I assume there is no need to write more?

Seriously, take the time to share your passions. You will probably be amazed at what comes from this simple act. It’s a great conversation starter, it can open doors that weren’t previously opened and you may just land your next gig because of it.

I highly endorse being endorsed

Having endorsements (third party recommendations) show up on your profile page is a great way to have others feel good about you. You have earned them, therefore you should feel great about asking for them. If there are people you would feel good about writing them for, do so. You never know, they may write one for you.

It’s also a really good idea to ask for video testimonials from guests. Whether they’ve thrown a HUGE party or were just there for a couple of hours. Try and get as many different types of people to speak about the different attractions as possible.

Your online profiles are where people go to find out about you in the NOW world.

Whether you are meeting a new client, vendor or potential employer, they are checking you out online. What impression will they get?

May 12, 2017May 12, 2017

Why Private Label VR for Your VR Arcade

If you’re thinking about opening a Virtual Reality Arcade you’ve found the spot. We’re constantly creating resources that are designed to help you succeed in the space.

Our arcade management software is second to none and offers a ton of useful features. Our favorite is how we help keep the industry above board by making sure game developers are getting paid. As you can imagine, they like it too.

This blog is another great resource…or at least it will be. We’ll be focused on two things: sweet VR experiences and helping you grow your business. Give us a little follow here or on Twitter so you know when all the fresh content is being served up.

The absolute best resource we can provide you is the knowledge we’ve gained as both the first AND the largest VR Arcade Management company in the United States. We want to provide you with white glove treatment so you’re ready to operate your new VR Arcade fast.

Business Description: We provide you the equipment, training, management software and access to gaming to run your own branded VR experience for your customers. This gives your guests another reason to come in while adding cutting edge appeal to your organization. Even better is our ability to “brand” the hardware and software with your logo. Soon we be placing your chosen advertising inside the goggles interstitially during the gaming experience. Talk about a captive audience.

Quick Background: We began in early 2016 building software designed to help manage Virtual Reality arcades. As the software gained popularity, relationships with VR game developers blossomed. We opened one of the first VR Arcades in the country, “VR Junkies” in June 2016. As that location grew so did interest in other arcades being opened. We have seven as of 5/11/2017 and will have at least than many more by January 1, 2018 through our franchise opportunity.

The private label VR side of our company makes the arcade about you and your brand. We created a simple and effective way to catapult your venue to the cutting edge of out of home entertainment and technology while dramatically increasing your bottom line.

Products & Services: Right now we can get you setup to operate your customized VR experience. Soon we will be releasing online scheduling capability that ties into your CRM, a mobile app that enables push notification to offer specials, and in-screen advertising that reaches a truly captive audience. All of these services will have tremendous impact on your bottom line.

What it looks like: The Private Label VR experience requires a minimum of 100 square feet per (10×10).

Watching people play in a VR world is almost as exciting as playing; at least one of these booths should be in a high traffic area. We’re happy to help you with the space planning, computer configurations and onsite installation of your arcade booths. A booth includes the goggles, sensors, hardware and software to run it, and a monitor (so people can see what the player sees). As the technology is so new, most people haven’t experienced it. Their first time in, will likely require a staffer to show them “the ropes”. Once started, the play is very intuitive and will require little (if any) further assistance.

How to engage with us: We have two levels of service we provide: The first is a guided “do it yourself” where we make sure your in house “tech” gets everything operating correctly. The “white glove” option includes us doing the configuration and installation of equipment. With either scenario, we will provide training on both operations and customer experience. Our custom built game management software (detailed in our presentation) gives you data points on your customers, the games they play, how long they play them and the amount of minutes played.

If you are interested in learning more, e-mail me or pick up the phone and call 248.224.1326.