Employee Foursquare Checkins

When Chewbacca and I are in the binary system we always make it a point to swing over to Tatooine so we can stop off at Mos Eisley, our favorite pirate city.  We like Mos Eisley because we can get the power cores swapped out on the Millenium Falcon while we hang out at our favorite local pub Chalmun’s Cantina (often referred to as the Mos Eisley Cantina) all while staying off the Emperial radar.  Chewie pulled the Falcon into Docking Bay 94 and I promptly grabbed my phone and checked in on Foursquare…awesome…I was still mayor of the spaceport service center.  This scruffy looking space scoundrel has pwned Docking Bay 94 since I first created the venue back during the Galactic Civil War.  The best thing is, I get a 20% discount on spare motivator cables with my checkin and because I’m also the mayor the Millenium Falcon gets a free wash…and she is usually dirty so that really does come in handy.  I’m definitely glad Docking Bay 94 embraces the Foursquare special offer philosophies as I could just as easily have checked in at Docking Bay 93 (or any of the 362 docking bays here), but none of them offer any Foursquare promos.

Chewie and I shuffled on over to 3324 Outer Kerner Way to hit the Cantina for a couple drinks and to mingle with the other smugglers in order to learn some tips on new routes to take or maybe even pick up an odd job or two.  We sat down and ordered drinks so I checked in on Foursquare.  Turns out Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes are the mayor here at Chalmun’s…yep that’s the house band.  Those guys are here every day!  How am I supposed to compete with that?  Foursquare is supposed to be a game that encourages customers to explore areas and to want to revisit places to try and earn rewards (whether they be promos or just bragging rights on mayorship). 

If you have a business where you have customers visit you on your premise (retail, restaurants, etc), then you should not allow employees or regular service staff to check in to your venue on Foursquare while they are there for work.  Businesses should want to keep Foursquare interactions with their customer base only.  Social Media Han Solo recommends these types of businesses create a separate venue where just employees can check in (restaurant for example can have an employee venue for the kitchen to accomplish this objective).  This will bring about comradery and a friendly competition that your employees can share together while allowing that same competition among your customers to occur at your main venue.  Obviously, office environments that are not visited by customers would not run into this issue and should encourage employee checkins at the office.

Stay classy out there space travelers.  You’re our only hope.

Unsolicited Signing of Books in Stores

The Millenium Falcon had taken on some serious damage after a tough battle near what used to be Alderaan.  In case you didn’t read about it in the Rebel Alliances Times, that is where I took out Darth Vader which cleared the way for Luke to fire his proton torpedoes and blow up the first Death Star setting the galactic Empire back a lot of money and time in their quest to rule the galaxy.  Actually, most of that damage came during the dramatic rescue of her Worshipness from that planet sized battle station which was only a success because of yours truly.  Chewie and I decided to use some of the reward money from saving the Princess to not only make some repairs to the ship, but to toss in some much needed upgrades.  She’s the fastest ship in the galaxy (ya know…Kessel Run in 12 parsecs and all), but this ol Corellian cruiser could always use a few new mods. 

On the way to Echo Base in the Hoth system I made a quick stop at Coruscant to hit my favorite local bookstore (yeah that’s right…Social Media Han Solo is a shop local first kinda scoundrel).  We stopped in so I could pick up a new manual called “Trust Agent Rules to Engage Your Hyperdrive Motivator 2.0″ to help us out with those new modifications.  Chewie and I finally make it to Echo Base and are getting ready to start work on the repairs then I notice something when I opened the book.  Someone has scribbled all over the title page and it should go without saying that at this point I’m pretty ticked off.  Then General Rieekan tells me it was too dangerous for anyone to leave the system until the energy shield is activated, leaving me stuck there and unable to return it for a new one.  I send a transmission to the bookstore and the owner has no idea what I’m talking about so he goes over and grabs another copy…sure enough…that book has writing on the inside cover too which matches the writing in mine.  I then tossed the book over to C3-PO (since he is fluent in over six million languages) to see if that babbling protocol droid could determine what the writing says. 

It turns out the author of the book must have visited the store at some point then signed and wrote a little note in all the copies without the store owner even knowing about it.  This so called hyperdrive guru thought he was so much of a celebrity and conceited to the point that he actually went into the store without the owner knowing about it just to sign copies of the book thinking that people would be excited when they discovered his autograph.  I’ve got news for you pal, you are not a celebrity or any kind of rock star and not everyone who grabs a copy of your book cares about getting your autograph (nor do they want it).  Stop walking into every book store you pass and signing all the copies on the shelves.  If I really cared about getting a signed copy of your book I would travel across the galaxy to whatever hyperdrive repair conference you weaseled your way into getting a booth or a speaking session at and ask for it in person.  Book store owners should all start calling your publisher and demand refunds for you defacing copies of their books. 

Twitter Profile Picture

So you’ve taken the plunge and finally created yourself a Twitter account.  Well bravo new recruit and welcome to the Rebel Alliance.  Now the first thing you are going to want to do is get your profile page set up and customized.  Probably the single most important part of this profile creation process is selecting what photo to use for your avatar (primary picture).  The Twitter galaxy is an environment where people converse with one another, therefore you should choose a photo of yourself.  People will want to envision themselves talking to you so be sure that you do not choose some random object, animal, or a group shot of you with others.  Keep in mind that when people see your posts in their feeds, your photo will be pretty small so make sure your picture is focused more on your face than one of a full body or distance shot.  Think of it along the same lines as a drivers license or yearbook type of photo.  As a general rule of thumb try not to constantly change your profile picture.  I say this because a lot of people get used to seeing and recognizing posts by user images and not by reading the actual user names. 

From a technical perspective, be sure to use a .jpg extension and try to keep the size of the photo relatively small in weight (ideally under 50 kb).  The biggest reason for this is that some applications will not render profile photos if they are in other extensions (.gif, .bmp, .png, etc) or if they are over a certain size even though Twitter via the web browser shows them.  You will notice this a lot in applications like Tweetdeck when you see posts show up with a blank box for a profile image.  This means they have either used an extension the application doesn’t recognize or the size of the file is too big to generate and the API blocks it.  Also, be sure to keep the overall pixel dimensions at least around 250×250 or larger.  The images will automatically display in a thumbnail version so you don’t need to make it in a reduced thumbnail size yourself.   If you make the image too small when your thumbnail is expanded within the application preview window larger than your original size it will cause the image to pixelate and distort. 

Here are a couple good examples of your space scoundrel buddy Social Media Han Solo:

Well get on out there and upload that profile pic so you can start exploring the Twitter galaxy in the name of the Republic.  May the force be with you.

Happy Valentines Day

Ol Social Media Han Solo is jumping on the Valentine’s Day bandwagon and adding to the digital noise floating around the compuinnerwebs by wishing you all the best Hallmark Symbolic Love Day you could possibly have.  I’m thinking about taking Princess Leia over to Naboo for a picnic (would have taken her to Alderaan…but ya know…Darth Vader blew it up).  Yeah that’s right folks…the Hanster here does like to get a little romantic every now and then.  Of course, not too much though cause I do have to maintain some level of reputation as the galactic super pimp that I am.  Here are a couple of Valentines Day Cards you can send (top one to your special other and the bottom one to your buddies) featuring yours truly, of course.

Comment Wars

Occasionally as you cruise across the Social Media galaxy you will find yourself visiting the Blog Territories. Landing on these planets can provide a wealth of information and can take on a life of their own in the comment sections. Remember that not every space traveler is going to share the same opinion as you do on the blog subject matter. Should things get a little too heated and you face a situation that could spiral out of control…take some advice from your ol scruffy scoundrel buddy Social Media Han Solo here and just simply hop back on your space cruiser and take off. Let that fire just keep on burning on there and walk off into the Hoth sunset like ol Luke did here.

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