After an exciting month, our “Save a Chicken, Win an iPad!” contest wrapped up today!

Over the course of the contest, 358 people entered on the CityMax.com Facebook page and today our President & Chief Evangelist, Dean Gagnon, pulled the winners’ names out of the bucket!

Since we had so many excited entrants, we decided to throw in one extra bonus prize. Now, let’s get to the results!

Our runner-up winner is…

Barbara White of Vancouver, BC!

Barbara wins a free CityMax.com website, domain, and hosting for one year. Congratulations!

And now, drum roll please.

The grand prize winner of the Apple iPad is…

Eco Candle Company of Appleton, Wisconsin!!

Founded by Shelley Nystrom of Wisconsin, the Eco Candle Company wins a 16GB iPad with Wi-Fi and 3G capabilities. A flock of chickens will also be donated in Eco Candle’s name to Heifer International. This plucky flock of chickens will help an impoverished family in Tanzania.

A big congratulations to our winners and a huge thank you to everyone for entering the contest and for sharing so many positive comments on our Facebook page!!

You probably already know all about Facebook. You might even be thinking, why should I care about Brenda’s late night out or what Tommy had for lunch?

The answer: with over 400 million active users (50% of them logging on every day), businesses big and small are using Facebook Pages to connect with customers and enhance their relationships.

When you consider that the average user has 130 friends, you can quickly see that Facebook provides an unparalleled opportunity for businesses to engage and network.

With that in mind, we’ve decided to launch the CityMax Facebook Page – better late than never, and we want to hear what you have to say! Go to www.facebook.com/CityMax and hit the “Like” button to start contributing to the conversation.

Why connect with us on Facebook?

1. access to special promotions and offers,
2. the chance to promote your own website, and
3. the opportunity to leave and ask for feedback.

To celebrate our launch, we’ll be giving away an iPad! To enter, simply join the page and tag yourself in a “Save a Chicken, Win an iPad” photo.

The CityMax.com Facebook page has a “Favorite Pages” section – that spot is reserved for all of our customers’ Facebook Pages (which is why you should create one for your business!).

One example of a great Facebook Page is CityMax.com customer Classic Shaving – their page has an impressive 1,505 “Likes” (formerly known as “Fans”).  Their page offers special discount codes, and allows customers to ask questions and leave comments.

With the growing importance of “Likes” in 3rd party websites and its use in search engine optimization, we recommend that all online businesses have a Facebook Page. To get started on your own page, click here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php.

As you may have heard, Steve Jobs (co-founder of Apple) and Steve Ballmer (Microsoft CEO) both recently launched massive new products – respectively, the iPad and Windows 7.

Both men are known for their brilliance and leadership at the helm of two of the most successful corporations in the world.

Both men gave keynote introductory speeches.

Both men have received criticism for their epic monologues.

Here is a hilarious edited version of Jobs’ speech – which should give you a sense of the slightly inflated opinion he may have of his product. It’s great to show passion, but not everyone can get away with this!

You can also check out the transcript of Ballmer’s more convoluted speech, complete with an excellent play-by-play critique.

My first observation was that (Ballmer) refers to his audience as users, PCs, developers, and beta-testers. He could have called them all robots; none of those terms are very human. Next I noticed how much of the speech is allocated to conveying that that very same community built–or rather, fixed–the OS. He made it sound like they’re all building a camel instead of a visionary or revolutionary product…

Takeaways
Whether you are giving a televised speech, a elevator pitch, or writing for your website, here are 5 quick tips to remember when talking about your own business:

1. Keep it short and simple. Get to the point and don’t use unnecessary phrases or jargon!
2. Use descriptive and specific words. Take it easy on the superlatives such as “great, awesome.”
3. Be organized and relevant. Know the statistics that are relevant to your market and reference them – sparingly.
4. Support your claims with information! Why are you the best? How are you the cheapest or the ‘greenest’?

Beware flowery or colloquial language. There is nothing more embarrassing than misused words when attempting to sound intelligent.

To your success and eloquence!