Wow! Have we ALL been busy! Amy, Delilah and I have all had the proverbial "peddle to the metal" these past few weeks. Anyone involved with the auction business, whether as buyer or seller, knows that summertime in Florida is not one of an auctioneers busiest times. We did not get the traditional "summer break" this year. The phones continued to ring with estates from all over Florida and up the East Coast to New York, which is a GOOD THING! In addition to the added workload from estates piling in, we are also in a new relationship with 17-year Auction Veteran, Joel Kulcsar (formerly of Wiliston, FL), who will bring 2 Monday night auctions a month to our Crystal River Auction Gallery. That means cleaning all those items, setting them up, preparing the advertising and, of course, spreading the word through the latest technocological channels -- blogs, internet calendars, and Press Releases (where appropriate) on the internet! Last night I went to sleep at 5am, not because I was done with my work, but because I could no longer hold my eyes open!
Technology is now one of the most important parts of an Auction House's advertising plan. Maybe I'm behind the times now, but it wasn't always this way. We've sold costume jewelry and other items not suitable for our auctions on e-Bay for 10 years now, so I guess that means we jumped right on the internet auction bandwagon. Our first sale was a vintage Barbie doll, and the price she brought had us hooked. We've had a website (thanks to my son, Christopher) for as long as I can remember. I've always taken the steps needed (SEO or Search Engine Optimization) to keep our website in a good position when potential customers search for entries such as: auctioneer, auction house, appraiser. Lately I've noticed that I haven't been as diligent in keeping up with that, so I've begun submitting our URL (website address) to the sites necessary to stay at the top of the list in the public's eye, such as Yahoo, MSN and Google. Last year (or was it the year before?) we signed up with Proxibid so bidders from around the world could bid real-time at our live antique auctions. Then we added sound, and bidders as far as Timbuktu could even hear the auctioneer's voice while they placed their internet bids. This increased our sales, and was an excellent selling point when offering our services for consignment. Last month, Amy and I decided we needed to film the merchandise in our auctions for youtube videos, and she took the reigns, and has been doing that for each auction ever since (Go Amy!)
You'd think that being on e-Bay, having a website, keeping it submitted to the proper search engines, providing photo galleries and youtube videos on our auction's website, using an on-line bidding option, such as Proxibid, and posting Press Releases on line as well as submitting them to appropriate trade and local newspapers would have all our advertising bases covered. NOT TRUE! I read an article on the internet last week that really got me thinking. It mentioned the importance of businesses having another type of internet prescence. As I read on, I realized we had yet more work to do.
During the past year, my adult children urged me to open a Facebook account in order to get with the 21st century. They told me how I needed one to keep in touch with family and friends as well as to reconnect with long lost friends, co-workers and classmates. They explained how I could share photos, post or sign up for events, and gave me several other reasons why I simply had to join Facebook. I did so, and I've found it a blessing AND a curse (its wonderful for connecting and reconnecting, but it can "suck you in" and consume much of your time).
Another avenue associated with the internet, that came to my attention over the last few years, was the blog. If you'd asked me three years ago what a blog was, I'd have told you it was a column of sorts on the internet where people reported the news with their own slant. My perception was that whether right wing or left, "bloggers" were people who reported current events from their own perspective, without having an affiliation with a network or cable mainstream news company -- and that the best part of their job was that it was uncensored and they would work from their home or the nearest Starbucks.
My viewpoint about blogs changed when my daughter-in-law emailed a link to me so I could read her personal blog. It contained adorable anecdotes about her children and musings of her life as a wife and mother of 4. (Note: The number of their blessings has since grown to 5.) To my great pleasure, her blog also contained a photo gallery filled with photos of her family at work and play. At this point, I knew of two uses for a blog. One could report news and current events to the masses from any angle they chose or one could share their thoughts in journal format with their family and friends. I had not yet linked the idea of a blog to our auction business' marketing strategy.
Another PART of THE INTERNET that I've been avoiding like the plague is Twitter. Oh, yes, I've heard the terms Twitter and Tweets on television and seen enough people on TV "twitting" (or is it "tweeting"?) away on their blackberry as if their life depended on it. Yet, I did not understand how it worked, and I wondered if it had any purpose besides being another venue on which to place one's "status". When you really think about "status", isn't it really absurd? Why would anyone want to know what someone else is having for dinner? Who cares whether someone else is tired and going to bed? What has become of the world, when we all need to be so technologically connected, that our every waking move is posted in the form of a "status" on the internet for all to see and post their comments? Call me a sceptic, but to me, it seems a typical status post would be: "I'm baking cookies". The post is then followed by 5 or 10 comments: "Gee, sounds yummy", "Save me some", "what kind of cookies are you baking?". Am I the only person on the planet who thinks this is ludicrous? If one spends all their time TYPING about what they are doing, then where is the time to DO the task? Call me old fashioned, but I believe that writing letters and email cover the bases for just about every type of communication that is necessary in my life. Ask me if I've ever written something mundane in my status box on Facebook. Yes, indeed! I have succombed to peer pressure on that one. On the positive side, I can honestly tell you that I only log on once every week or two, so I'm not tempted to bore the world with every single detail of every single day. The only technological MODE that I find more ridiculous is people text messaging each other while in the same room! I pray I never take technology to THAT limit!
With my strong opininions about the need, or lack thereof to post one's comings and goings all day on the internet, I did not feel I needed a Twitter account. I could not see any use for one more internet site to monitor. I never quite understood the concept of reporting ones' every move to the whole world (or at least to ones' friends and family) in the form of what the internet calls a "status". However, I began to see a purpose for Twitter when I read that most of the major corporations in the U.S. had people monitoring Twitter full-time, and if someone wanted immediate customer service, their best bet was to post their complaint on Twitter. I assume that article was addressing an audience already familiar with the VENUE. It did not tell the consumer whether to post their issue on their own Twitter site, or that of the corporations. Do you add your phone number? How did the company reply? Who in the world was lucky enough to land the job sitting somewhere monitoring Twitter all day? I had a lot to learn!
