Social Media: The Online Friendship Bread

Exactly 10 days ago, we were given a bag labeled Day 1 and the date along with a sheet of paper with what appeared to be a list of instructions.

Oh great, I thought. I’d heard of this Amish Friendship Bread before. I’d never tried it but the thought of passing along a bag of this stuff from person to person made me cringe a little. Who knows who had it before my neighbor and before whoever gave it to her? (I mean of course it’s perfectly safe to eat because you are baking it and killing all the germs, if any, with the heat… but still.)

If you’ve never heard of friendship bread, it’s basically where someone gives you a bag of starter, which contains yeast. Now that you have the bag, you’re supposed to mush the bag for 5 days. On the sixth day you have to add a cup of flour, a cup of milk, and a cup of sugar. On the tenth day of mushing, you can start using the mixture in the bag to make bread.

One of the beginning instructions on the tenth day is to make more starter which will be given to four other people, but still leaving you with some to make bread. The bottom line is you’re supposed to continue the chain reaction so everybody gets a starter to start making their own bread without having to purchase yeast and hoping it will rise.

The mixture already pretty much guarantees that the yeast will make the bread rise. For a new person to make bread from scratch it’s probably difficult because the yeast may not make the dough rise for a variety of reason (maybe the wrong temperature, not enough water or ingredients).

Therefore, a starter is a great way for a “beginner bread maker”, like myself, to start bread making. It may not apply to every beginner though. Even though this is supposed to be the easy way to make bread, I made a mistake. My dad and I were wondering why we had so much batter. We filled a whole Bundt pan and a loaf pan. Turns out we stole some starter from a friend. You’re supposed to separate the mixture so you will have enough to give 4 other friends some starter. But we only measured out 3! (Oh well, now we have more to eat haha.)

I researched and found that the starter is a sourdough starter. But it won’t taste sour because friendship bread recipes call for a lot of sugar. And yes, there’s plenty of sugar in the one we made. (There are several other recipes and ways of making different types of friendship bread.) And although the initial bag of starter made me cringe, the bread actually tastes really good! Here’s a photo:

Now that we have the friendship bread part of the title of this article covered, what about social media?

To many businesses, using social media is a different animal.

Successful and busy business owners who don’t have experience with social media need a starter to get their social media platforms going. Rather than thinking that social media is just another trend, waiting for the right time to do social media, or trying to learn everything about social media before starting, it’s important to realize that wasted time is wasted money. Consider getting help with social media.

Here’s what a social media client care assistant could help you with:
Set up your social media platforms
Take care of unwanted spam
Start scheduling tweets and posts for you…
So you can start engaging with your clients.

Just like the friendship bread starter, once you get it going, you can take your business further. You can start getting more friends through social media and engage with them, just like giving the friendship bread starter away to your friends. Your message will continue to spread around your country, or even the entire world.

Maybe you don’t know how to get started. I can be that starter.

Bethany Looi is a teen who helps Internet Marketers with their VA and social media client care needs. She loves social media, food photography, traveling and the Spanish language. Bethany is combining these passions to pursue a career in journalism and social media management. She has finished high school at the age of 16 and is currently taking a year off to pursue her passions and growing her business.