Introducing the Recipe Box!

What was once a jumble is now an ordered list: the Hounds in the Kitchen blog is re-organized and ready to connect you to recipes, tours, and reviews. This update has been a long time coming and I hope it will allow readers to better find the content they want.

Hop over to the new Indices page to check out the Recipe Box and Farm Tours. Other indexes are still in the works to be completed soon.

I genuinely appreciate your feedback that prompted me to create the indexes. Do you like them? What else would you like to see to better this blog?

Timeline For Facebook Pages {Friday Five}

I had the pleasure of attending a workshop on Timeline for Pages at Cement Marketing this week. Alaina Shearer, owner of the social media marketing company, led the casual, informative session. Like it or not, all pages are being switched to timeline today. Change is not easy, for sure, but the new format does have some distinct advantages. It allows a brand to tell a complete story, gives fans a chance to send private messages, and fosters engagement among fans.

Tips for Timeline

1) Use Cover, Profile, and Pinned Posts Wisely - Combined, the cover, profile, and pinned areas (pins last for seven days) offer a huge pixel area for marketing your business. The cover may not contain a call to action or redirect away from Facebook, but the pinned post can. Use these three areas in conjuction with one another to create a multi-faceted brand message.

2) Share and Highlight Images - The new timeline format encourages the use of photo sharing by making beautiful galleries from your albums. Highlight a picture or album to expand that section across the whole timeline page.

3) Maximize the Milestones - Milestones are your chance to tell your brand's story from the beginning. Beyond the traditional 'opening date', 'first xyz' posts, consider adding milestones that speak in the voice of your brand. This might include joking, cutesy, or heart-string-tugging moments. (Hint: Check the 'hide from news feed' box when making multiple milestones so you don't overwhelm fans.)

4) Prioritize Your Views/Apps - Just below your new cover picture on the right side of the page are boxes that might include photos, notes, videos, events, and likes. Click the little blue downward triangle to switch the apps around. With the down arrow clicked, you can hover over each box to reveal settings and swap places. Only four are visible to fans so you must choose your most important applications and feature them here.

5) Revel In The Engagement - A quick study by Simply Measured reported on Mashable suggests that fans are 46% more engaged with the new timeline format than before. This engagement comes from people staying longer on the timeline pages. Give fans plenty of milestones and highlighted posts to keep their interest and share your story. The handy Insights tool in the admin bar can give you plenty of stats about how timeline works for you.

Facebook is automatically switching all pages to timeline format on March 30 at 11 AM PST so you have a few more hours to play with the settings in preview mode before timeline goes live.

I am slowing improving the Hounds in the Kitchen facebook timeline as well as updating the pages I manage for social media clients. I enjoy the format as a reader and storyteller.

What do you think of timeline format? Are you using it for a business page? Tell all in the comments.

What's Going On?

You may have noticed Hounds in the Kitchen has had some trouble recently. From images not loading to receiving errors when trying to look on the web to a whole day without service, our website was as googly as Devie's eye. Boo.

IX Hosting Fail

Most of these failures were coming from my host, Columbus-based IX Hosting. They warned me that data on my site was causing 'server overload' and suggested I upgrade to their next level of hosting, a costly VPS service. I did some research and didn't think that was necessary.

Then this week, they shut down HoundsInTheKitchen.com for failure to abide by their terms of service. Apparently unlimited hosting is actually quite limited.

I had no choice but to play nice and convince them to give me the site back. I wanted it for just enough time that I could switch to a new host. I did that and am with a no-contract host while I figure out what to do next.

I have to say I am terribly disappointed with IX Hosting. I initially chose them because I love supporting a local company. I worked with some great people, all of whom have now moved on to other businesses.

For the last month I have expressed my discontent with a slowly loading site to IX service reps directly and via social media. I have not once received a positive response. When I was in a panic this week while the site was down, I complained on twitter and no one from IX attempted to help. Maybe I did violate terms of service somewhere but a good host would help me understand why and respond to me, not leave a customer feeling bullied into a costly upgrade.

Another IX user reached out to me in the last few days saying the exact same thing happened to him. Not good. Shop around and don't choose IX if you are looking for a web host.

Current Site

My chief concern when IX allowed access to me was migrating data to a new host. I attempted to move over the custom designed theme but it was too much for the moment.

You can see that the easy install theme is very wonky right now. Pictures are oddly sized, some widgets aren't working yet, but all the content is here.

Migrating a site is tricky and has taken many hours and heartaches this week. I felt un-anchored with three years of life's work tied up out of my reach.

What's Next

I'm not sure what is the right move from here. I work terribly hard at creating content for Hounds in the Kitchen. My writing here is completely unpaid.

It feels ridiculous to pay a fair amount per month to host a site on which I don't make money. I could switch to a cheap host, but I might end up with the same problems I just went through.

My idea to ask for donations and promote ebook sales engaged very few readers. If I add advertisements to make up the difference, you would see at least two ad blocks, perhaps three.

While I do make residual income from teaching classes and social media clients, I truly believe I could advertise these services with a much simpler (and free) wordpress.com site. It would seem like a downstep to return to wordpress.com but server steadiness and cost savings might make up for lack of flexibility.

At any rate, I wanted to let you know what was up here. Thank you for reading. I appreciate everyone who has reached out to me to report outages and offer suggestions. Feel free to continue in the comments - what would you do?

Food Is Social (Media) 101

Yesterday I presented a workshop at the Ohio Ecological Food and Farming Association annual conference called 'Food Is Social: Using New Media to Market Your Food Business'. More people attended than I had handouts, so I promised to reprint my notes here.

Why Invest Time in Social Media?

“Four out of every five people who have access to the internet across the world use social networks in some form, many several times a day, some on multiple devices.” Linda Abraham, comScore Co-Founder and CMO & Michael Lazerow, Buddy Media CEO and Founder

“Consumers trust information they receive through blogs more than Facebook or Twitter.” Social Media Examiner, December 2011

“In the U.S., social networks and blogs reach nearly 80 percent of active U.S. Internet users and represent the majority of Americans' time online.” Technorati, October 2011.

Where and How To Start

Website (4-8 hours to set up) Represent yourself online with a website that contains, at a minimum:

• Information about you, the personality
• Products/Services you offer
• Contact Information
• Links to other pertinent online profiles/social media

If starting from scratch, choose Wordpress for a free, simple, but robust software. Upgrade to ‘YOURNAME.com’ for $12/year. Under Settings/Reading select ‘a static post’ to be your front page. Add other information as pages.

Blog (1 hour per article, ideally updated once per week at a minimum) Consumers trust and share blog articles. Use yours to promote:

• New products or services
• Timely information, such as farmer’s market locations
• Press/reviews received
• Information and articles that support the values of your business
• Recipes featuring your products

If using wordpress.com, this timely information will be entered as ‘posts’. For best Internet search-ability, categorize each post and add tags.

Good blog posts (both in terms of readability for users and search engines) have:

• Specific and catchy titles
• Naturally included keywords
• Length between 200-750 words
• At least one picture, with an alt tag that includes keywords
• A conversation starter if you are looking for blog comments

Google Places (30 minutes to set up, nearly no maintainance) Help customers find your location by claiming a Google Place. Simply click the 'Get Started' button and follow the simple directions to be included on their online and mobile map searches. Be ready to add a few pictures, your hours, payment information, and a short description of your business. You will need a google account to set up this profile.

Facebook Page (30 minutes to set up, 10 minutes maintenance daily) Navigate to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php to set up your page. Be ready to include a profile photo (and a few more if you have them) and share information about your location and products/services.

Once your Facebook page is set up, participate daily, if you can. Each time you check in, respond to any questions or messages. ‘Like’ comments that people give you. Share a status message, which could include:

• Short blurb about what you did that day
• Link to an article about your industry
• Announcement about a future event
• Quote from which you draw inspiration
• Photograph of something around your farm/kitchen/facility

Twitter (5 minutes to set up, 10 minutes maintenance daily) Twitter makes it easy to set up your account and then you can start sharing messages in 140 characters. Share tidbits about what you’re doing right now, links to blog posts/events/facebook, and retweet other’s info. Converse with twitter followers by starting a message with @user.

The real power of twitter, however, is in the search. Go to search.twitter.com and look up keywords related to your business. Answer questions if people are asking, follow competitors and friends, converse with partners like @OEFFA, @4H, seed companies, governmental officials, etc.

Keys for Social Sharing

Simple is better - flash graphics, music, and multi-paged sites can be fun when done well, but customers will understand you better when the message is simple and presented cleanly.

Keep mobile in mind - The use of smartphones is growing. Design your site and messages with mobile users in mind and make sure nothing on your site is too complicated for phones to view. Wordpress is easily viewed on most smartphone devises.

Converse and thank - Think of social networks as a way to have public conversations and share as you would at a dinner party. Thank those who follow you and those who share your information generously.

Promote genuinely - Too much self-promotion is inauthentic. Share a balance of information, news, links to other trusted sites, and fun.

Advanced Social Networking

QR Codes QR codes are scannable graphics that link a mobile device to a designated web URL. The destination can be an introduction page, introduction video, or more info about a specific product or service. Museums are using them to give more details about an artwork. Realtors publish QR codes on house signs to link to online picture galleries. Musicians link QR codes to current videos.

Create yours at http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ for your website or a welcome page for a specific event. If you are packaging goods for an event location where you will not be present, create one for each product variety that leads to more info for customers.

Analytics Once you have your website established, you will want to know who’s visiting.

Set up a free account at http://www.google.com/analytics/ to track data. Learn about your pageviews, location of users, keywords, etc. Use this data to provide information that people request, i.e. write more about popular keywords. You can also track how changes in your website organization or promotion are working and who is sending traffic to you.

Wordpress has their own set of data tools. These are less robust but still useful if you don’t want to bother with Google.

Other social networks Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Flickr, Google+ and hundreds of other social networks are out there. Explore them when you have time and use them if they will work for your business.

Remember that social networks are like all other tools - they only work for you when you enjoy working with them.

Also keep in mind that I offer writing and social media services at reasonable rates. If you want to have a social media presence but don't want to set up and maintain it yourself, contact me and let's find a way to work together.

Welcome to the New Hounds In The Kitchen!

Come on in and take a look around the new design at Hounds in the Kitchen. I worked with Cliff from LinKen to create a cohesive design and upgrade functionality. There's a little widget on the side to show off recent and popular posts and an easier to read calendar of upcoming classes. Comments, sharing, and everything else works together more smoothly now. I am excited to finally feature Allie Lehman's logo at the top of the site.

Other than the design, you might note that I have withdrawn ads. I feel more freedom without them but I would still like to earn a little bit from the hours I spend writing this blog. I created a Support Us page with info on how you can donate, buy Hounds In The Kitchen merchandise, and shop Amazon with a small commission coming to us. The ebook store will also feature a new book for purchase very soon. I really appreciate your support.

You will notice another new page, Write For Food. I am growing my freelance writing business. If you know of a small business looking for writing or social media support, I would greatly appreciate your referral. My rates are reasonable and I often barter.

We are still tweaking things, like the custom search that doesn't seem to be working at the moment. If you see something out of order, please do let me know. What do you think?

Farewell, Food Processor

I stood over the bowl of rugelach dough, pulsing and pulsing with a growing feeling of failure. Like a flash in the pan, I realized why I dislike food processors: I cannot see and touch the food. I teach kids and adults in classes that the two most important tools in their kitchen are their hands. And it's true: preparing food is a physical activity for me.

My new-fangled safety-minded food processor is equipped with three separate locks that must be in place for operation. I fight with these stupid locks every time I use the machine. Place bowl on base, press 'on', nothing. Twist lid tighter, press 'on', nothing. Pound top funnel, press 'on', finally a little action. It's all in the name of safety, of course.

Which brings me to the second thing I despise about food processors: the blade. How does a sensory minded cook remove dough from the bowl? I reach my hand in. I've been down the road of using a sissy silicone spatula and the blade tears those up.

So what do you think happened to my finger while trying to scrape out the dough?

You can picture the next scene in my dramatic break-up with the food processor: removing the blade with a now bandaged finger, I scrape the dough into a bowl with a spatula this time. The food processor has not even done its job so I clench the spatula with the injured finger at attention. I finish mixing the flour, butter, and cream cheese into submission by hand.

I am over trying to understand the implied convenience of a food processor. My two hands are almost as good and they've never hurt each other.

Of course I didn't take pictures during this fiasco! Tomorrow I'll share photographs of the final product, which turned out beautiful and tasty.

Links I Love {Friday Five}

I apologize for another list post but my mind is stuck on them right now. I have gift lists, guest lists, and grocery lists scattered around the house. When not making or checking off my lists, I read these five great articles this week: 1) It's For You, Teacher Tom is a sweet reflection in the true meaning of gift giving, as observed with preschoolers.

2) If I Do Something Bad, Will You Still Love Me? by Amy Turn Sharp makes me feel all funny inside. She can do that with the shortest stories and I am always amazed.

3) The Chicken In The Snow is Lil's latest blog post. She wrote the comic after we saw a little snowfall and wondered how our chicken Austra must feel.

4) Alex pointed out the Most Popular Photography Tips, Tricks and Hacks post by Lifehacker. I hope to find some time to dig through all the ideas soon.

5) I was thrilled to see my name among the Charcutepalooza Semi-Finalists list. I am so appreciative of those who followed along and supported my meaty writing. If you liked my posts, click through to some of the other sites - I'm among some amazing bloggers!

Did you read anything great this week?

Blog Changes - Your Help Needed

You may have noticed a few changes on the blog recently. Here's what's going on: Updates

I updated the category titles and am working behind the scenes to make sure posts are correctly categorized.

I took down the Foodbuzz ad block when my contract expired at the end of September. I want to earn something to pay for all the work I put into this blog but I'm not sure whether ads are the right way to go about it.

The About page was recently tweaked and I'm working on a new Media Kit.

Logo and Redesign

Allie Lehman and I are almost through revising the logo she designed and it's awesome. I can't wait to share!

I am looking at new themes to make Hounds in the Kitchen more professional and pretty. I'm a little scared of editing a new theme to suit my needs all by myself but I don't have a budget to pay. If anyone out there loves CSS or wordpress or themes and wants to offer a trade for cooking class instruction, basic writing and editing or something else I'm good at, let's talk.

Input Welcome

Can you help guide Hounds in the Kitchen? I designed a simple survey that will take about five minutes of your time. Questions range from your cooking habits to what you like about the blog to events you might attend. Fill out the survey at the bottom of this post or follow the survey link.

Thank you, as always, for reading and following my crazy life.

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