Taking out the Trash: a little of this, a lot of that
Time for another edition of Taking out the Trash, the semi-regular posts that may or may not have something to do with saving money but are not specific deals. I have a lot on my mind so I’m cleaning out the “garbage” in my head by Taking out the Trash.
It’s been a quiet week here in Lake Wobegon….
- Did you see all the Father’s Day freebies that I posted yesterday? I have to ask because according to some new data tools given to us by Facebook, only 10% of our Facebook readers saw that post! It was culled from 90% of reader news feeds, including my own. ?!?! The only way I saw it was by going directly to the Green Bay Consumer Facebook Timeline. Frustrating! So click here if you actually want to read it and find out some deals for Dads on their big day.
- I hate to complain about Facebook which is free for users… However, it seems every time Facebook makes a change to their system (every six months or so), pages become less and less visible to the people who are fans of them. Facebook has always said “We’ll never charge users a fee”. As you may have heard, Facebook, the now publicly-traded company, is now giving pages the option to “promote” their posts by paying an advertising fee. It ensures that ALL people who are fans of the page will see the post if they log on to Facebook. Because being a fan of the page never guaranteed that, apparently. Well played Facebook, well played.
In other news…
Yesterday, I had a reader who asked why the news blast was sent so late in the day. She was bummed because yesterday’s Jimmy Johns deal was over by the time she read about it. And I was bummed for all those people, too!
If I had to guess, I’d say that 90% of the time, we do not normally post things that are out-of-date by the time the daily email goes out. We are very conscious of that fact when we write articles. However, with a deal this big, we felt we couldn’t have our Facebook, Google+, Twitter and RSS Feed readers miss out on the deal.
Normally, we get information prior to an event and then readers have it at least a day ahead of time Unfortunately, we didn’t get the Jimmy Johns info until yesterday morning when a reader alerted us. Curiously, although I am a fan of the Jimmy Johns Facebook page where this deal was announced, guess what? Facebook chose to take it out of my news feed. Hmm, I guess I’m not done picking on FB today! 
Needless to say, we obviously didn’t have advance warning in that case. But we really do try to stay ahead of things. If an event is happening on the weekend, we do not wait until Friday to mention it for that very reason.
As to why we send the daily emails when we do, we know that there is no perfect time to send it. If we sent it earlier in the day, then we’d run a greater risk of having stuff out of date when it’s included in an email the following afternoon. We’ve experimented with the time and find that our late afternoon email works well for most. As always, we just try to do our best as we do all this in our spare time.
Also happening…
PERFECT weather this week! I always call it Goldilocks weather. Not too hot, not too cold! My Scandinavian genes are not looking forward to the warm-up ahead. I once heard a commentary by Garrison Keillor where he mentioned the Norwegians could handle the heat up to 75 degrees. When it got to 76 or more, they were uncomfortable. Yup, that’s me!
We’ve been taking advantage of a lot of the free and cheap events going on in the GB area: The Lunch program, summer reading program, free admission to the Neville on Wednesday, strawberry picking, the Farmer’s market on Broadway and more. Just a reminder that you can refer to our Summer Fun section on our home page for all sorts of events and activities.
And speaking of farmer’s markets, tomorrow morning I’ll be going to the Appleton Farmer’s Market for the very first time! Can’t wait to see it. And get some more locally-grown produce. This time of year I swear we gorge ourselves on all the fabulous fresh fruit and vegetables available. So proud of my kids earlier this week when they chose blueberries over crackers or chips as a snack!
Have a fabulous weekend everyone!
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