Friday, April 16 has been named the official Foursquare Day.

To those who don’t use Foursquare, we are a bunch of crazed stalkers who tell people where we are at all times.  But for those in the ‘know’ it is a great marketing tool for people and businesses!

After tomorrow, anyone who comes in contact with myself or any of my other Foursquare/Twitter Sonoma County friends will see Foursquare in action.    Hopefully we can even show those who disbelieve that it actually is a great marketing tool, one that businesses should be at least paying attention to.

We will be swarming the Brasserie Lounge at the Hyatt Vineyard Creek for snack and drink specials for first time Foursquare friends, drinking wine flights at Cellars of Sonoma and hanging out at Third Street Aleworks for some beer and appetizers.

I wrote about the Hyatt Vineyard Creek in my Sonoma County Online feature on my Two Five Media blog a few weeks back because they were the ONLY business in Santa Rosa to have a special deal on Foursquare  (Now, Third Street Aleworks and Cellars of Sonoma both have specials).

The official Twitter name for tomorrow is @4sqday and the official hashtag for the Sonoma County Wine Swarm will be ….. #4sqSR or  #4sqdaySR. I am thinking the shorter the better though.

So make sure to tag your Foursquare check-in’s and tweets with the hashtag!  If you are a newbie or want to learn more, just ask me.. I will be sure to be at one of these three places tomorrow!

More details:

• The Hyatt is trying to get a swarm badge, which means if 50 or more people check in, everyone gets a badge.  First time check-ins also get a free drink.  There will be other specials too!
  • You can earn up to three badges just by checking in – First-time users get the Newbie Badge, if we get 50 people to check-in, a Swarm Badge and all check-ins to the Brasserie will get the FourSquare Day Badge (remember, Foursquare changed the rules, so you actually have to be there to get points of a badge!) More info, click here.

• Third Street Aleworks is doing happy hour pricing ALL DAY for check-ins… Oh, and if anyone takes away my mayorship they get a free t-shirt! (Not that I am gonna allow that!) More info, click here.
• Cellars of Sonoma is giving away a free flight of their wines to anyone who checks in!  More info, click here.

See you in Santa Rosa!

+Shana.

As most of you know, I now have an office in Downtown Santa Rosa.  Instead of working from coffee shops like I have been over the past several months, I am now at 25 Old Courthouse Square. This is the headquarters of Two Five Media – My new internet marketing agency that I run with my partner in crime, Philip Wyers.  We cover all internet marketing services including Web Design, Email Marketing, E-commerce, Social Media, Marketing Strategy, Videos and everything else in between.

While I have been a bit slow on the wine blogging, I am still active with my wine drinking and once I get everything done that comes along with starting a new business (licensing, banking, tax stuff,etc. etc.) then I should have more time to get back into blogging (fingers crossed).

I have my Funny by Accident wine blog and should probably keep ShanaRay.com separate from my wine blogging, but for now I am at a standstill trying to juggle all of my brands. 

Any suggestions on what I should do? Should I keep ShanaRay.com has my wine blog, or transfer my wine blogging over to Funny by Accident completely??  Just curious….

So, as for now, this is my website where I write about wine, food, beer, shoes, unicorns and some social media.

Whatever the shiny object that gets me excited that week is….

Today’s shiny object that has distracted me from my work is my new Christmas tree sitting in the Two Five Media headquarters.  Here is a sneak peek at it with lights on it.  Ornaments and more pictures to come soon.

I posted a few months back about how I won 10lbs of bacon exclusively because of Twitter.  Well, today my biggest prize that I have won on Twitter was installed – The internet!

A few weeks back I received a DM stating that I won the Sonic.net prize for their latest Twitter contest celebrating their 15^th year anniversary in business in Santa Rosa.  The 15^th anniversary gift usually calls for crystal but Dane and the Sonic.Net team decided to launch a Twitter-only contest in which they would give away a year of free internet service in a random drawing once a day for fifteen days….  The two requirements for entry  –  to add the hashtag #SonicNet to any tweet and not to get too spammy with the #SonicNet tweets.

So there I was, just days after signing the lease to my new office in Downtown Santa Rosa (25 Old Courthouse Square, Santa Rosa, Ca 95404) looking at pricing for business connections and I heard about the contest.   Of course, I posted many different tweets from both my @sharayray account and my newly created business account @twofivemedia.  Each tweet talked about how awesome it would be to win Sonic.Net internet for the new office.  My winning entry below.

Now I sit in my new office with my business partner Philip Wyers, with high speed internet and a giant smile on my face.  Such an amazing first step to opening our new agency, 2five Media.