Facebook – Page 3

Making Facebook Connections Personal

Facebook, Facebook For Business, Online Consulting, Social Media Advisors

We all heard the big fuss this week about Facebook changing the layout on Business Pages. I saw at least 10 different people write about it. As usual, my first stop was over at my buddy Mike Mueller’s blog as he is my Facebook Guru whenever I want to know the real details. However, this isn’t what I wanted to discuss in this post. Instead I wanted to talk about one of my absolute favorite tools on Facebook. This is a tool that allows you to connect on a one on one level with others and make your Facebook Friends a personal friend once again.

Who Cares? I’m All About Quantity

I understand that some of you are probably thinking to yourself right now, “who cares? I am trying to make as many connections as possible!” If that is your mindset, I get that. I personally have over 1,400 friends on my Facebook profile and accept just about any & all friend requests. (Unless I know it’s spam.) But here’s my question: What good is 1,400 friends if I never interact with them?

Now don’t get me wrong, there are ways to connect with people through leaving Happy Birthday wishes on their wall with 300 other people. But to me that isn’t that personal. In fact this last birthday of mine I looked and some that came by to wish me Happy Birthday. Several had not left a comment, or anything on my wall since my bday before. So how does that make me want to be a consumer of their product or service? I could also try tagging them in photos that they aren’t in to help promote by business, but that doesn’t seem too personal but rather more like spam. Instead, my favorite way of connecting with friends on Facebook is through Chat.

Facebook Chat For Personalization

When I start each day of work, one of the first things I do is sign onto Facebook and open up my chat. I do this for several reasons. The first is that I am connected to many of my previous and current clients. They like using the service to ask me a quick question about their custom WordPress sites, or to schedule a coaching call. It’s a fast easy way for them to get a response from me. On my end, I like it because I can talk to multiple clients all at the same time. It’s not uncommon for me to have at least four different Facebook chats running at the same time. I also like the rest this gives my voice as I already talk anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 minutes a month on the phone. Which is my second reason for using Facebook chat. I can multitask phone calls, multiple chats and save my voice all at once.

The second reason I love using Facebook chat is that it is a great way to connect with past clients. We all know that after a few months down the road your clients can start to forget who you are. They don’t remember that while you helped them with one service, you also have a list of other things you offer. Sometimes just the simplest conversation with them can drum up new business. Over the past few months this has been one of my most productive ways of stirring up new business. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t start a conversation with “Hey do you need any of my services?” The art of the soft sell is definitely needed here in full force. Instead I may ask how their family is doing, or how they like their new site, or share an article that might help increase their business. By offering something of value, they are more likely to remember me in a positive light.

The third way I use the Facebook Chat is to answer questions of those I am connected to. I regularly see friends of mine on Facebook asking for assistance with an issue on their wall. I could send them a private message and wait for a response to see if I answered the question properly, but that can take a lot of valuable time. Plus normally when you answer a question for someone there are three other questions you may have to get answered to get to the correct solution. If they have their chat enabled, I simply send a message. After a simple conversation and quick solution, I have instilled trust in them and that person will think of me the next time they might need to hire someone to handle a task related to my business. As with any type of networking, the key is getting your brand and name in front of consumers as much as possible in a positive manner that they will remember you in the future.

This leads me to the last way I use Facebook Chat to personalize my connections and expand my business. When time permits, I will start conversations with friends that I knew from many years ago and try to reconnect. This may be old high school friends, people I grew up with, or college buddies. Once again, I don’t necessarily start these conversations with the mindset that if I talk with them it will bring me business. I genuinely am try to reconnect with past friends that I have slipped out of touch with. If we don’t talk about what I do for a living at all, that is fine. Why? Because now that we have talked about our kids, shared photos, and reminisced of times of old, I have now gone from just someone they knew in the past to an old friend that is back on their radar. They are no more likely to pay attention to my status updates, photos & videos. All of this means more opportunities for business.

I am sure there are many other ways to connect on a personal level with people on Facebook. For me, I am a fan of the Facebook chat and will continue using it. So, the next time you are logged on, find me and let’s start a conversation!

Is Facebook Affecting the Economy?

Facebook, Facebook For Business, SEO, Social Media Advisors

Recently on this blog, I talked about how people sometimes misunderstand the nature of certain websites in this post. Facebook and Google are sort of like apples and oranges: there is no way to directly compare them. Now, it seems some people are even willing to blame Facebook for the downturn in the economy. Sounds funny, but read on:

“While Facebook has been taking off and Zuckerberg has been banking billions, however, a lot of other things have been going wrong. So I created a few charts comparing Facebook’s growth to the unemployment rate, the median price of a home, and the S&P 500 stock index. If you’re a conspiracy theorist, you’ll be very, very suspicious.”

In this article (quoted above), the author notices the correlation between unemployment, low real estate prices, and the stock market on one hand, and the extreme success of Facebook on the other. Why, he asks, does Facebook seem to do well whenever the economy gets worse? Is Facebook hurting the economy?

This is one of those cases where my wife, who questions everything, would likely tap this guy on the shoulder and say, in a sort of academic tone, “correlation does not establish causation.” In other words, just because two things happen together all the time, it’s not always easy to tell if one causes the other or the other way around.

For example, when my son was a baby, there was an article in one of our parenting magazines about how children who had night lights in their rooms were more likely to have glasses when they grew up. Oh no, everyone said! We can’t use night lights, because they cause nearsightedness!

A year or two later, the recommendation to go without nightlights was rescinded. Can you guess why? You may have already figured it out: Nightlights are purchased by parents who have trouble seeing in their children’s rooms at night, and parents with poor vision tend to have…? Children who grow up to need glasses (just like their parents do).

So, using that principle, I think it’s far more reasonable to conclude that the relationship between bad economy and Facebook is pretty intuitive. Facebook is not harming the economy; far from it. It’s even created some new jobs and new career paths. The reason that Facebook does killer business when the economy is down is that unemployed people are bored, and bored people love Facebook!

Hence, the economy is influencing Facebook. It’s not rocket science.

ALERT: Google and Facebook are NOT locked in epic death battle!

Facebook, Facebook For Business, Online Consulting, SEO, Social Media Advisors

Sorry for the dramatic headline, but I figured it might not hurt to use the same tactic that I’ve seen others employ with regard to my email inbox.

I guess I’m just a little bit tired of hearing self-proclaimed gurus and experts say things like, “SEO is dead” or “Facebook KO’d Google” or anything similar. The fact that YouTube receives more searches than Google, or Facebook has more traffic than Google, doesn’t mean that Google is harmed by this or going away anytime soon. Google actually owns YouTube, in case you didn’t already know that part.

Yes, I agree that our time online has undergone a shift from old-school surfing and searching to using the internet as a primary source of entertainment and socializing, too. This is revolutionary and terrific, and I use these new tools as much as anyone (and probably a whole lot more, in some cases). That being said, there is not a death knell ringing for traditional SEO efforts.

I welcome any disagreement or proof to the contrary – I have an open mind on this. Here’s a quick question for you: If you want to find a book, or movie times, or an address, or find out about homes in another area of the country, would you visit Facebook? If you’re halfway normal, the answer is no. You would probably start with Google. If you’re heavily involved in social media, you might ask your friends/followers for recommendations for a good local plumber or electrician, but if you’re in a hurry, I bet you would go to Google or another search engine for this.

My point here is to be wary of those who proclaim any prevalent technology to be dead, unless of course they’re talking about digital laser discs or 8-track tapes, neither of which will make a comeback.

If someone is going against the grain, it doesn’t always mean that they’re innovative or ahead of the curve. Sometimes, they are just trying to sell you something (“Buy my new system”, “Listen to me talk”, etc.), or they just plain don’t understand the internet very well. I see way too many emails and pitches about video being the “next big thing”. I’ve been hearing this every year since 2007 or so. I promise that video is important, but it’s not even a trend anymore – it’s just plain here.

I’ve been online since 1994 or 1995, and I’ve seen a lot of changes. I started my first website in 1998 for my business, and I started blogging in 2004. Even though I feel like I understand this stuff pretty well, I don’t consider myself to be a full-blown expert, other than in certain specialized niches. I am not selling anything with this post, either. 🙂

A few thoughts I want to share with you:

Google and Facebook really aren’t competitors at this point, and I don’t see that changing.
Facebook, Twitter and blogging are all important and useful in your marketing mix, but don’t overlook SEO.
YouTube may get a lot of searches, but most people aren’t going there to buy anything. If you manage to get leads from your videos, I bet they found the video…..on Google’s organic search results.

The bottom line is that not everyone is as knowledgeable as he/she may indicate. Sometimes, those who are respected as teachers and consultants for internet marketing and social media are simply those who are speaking loudest, or in the right place at the right time.

There are a bunch of people I respect in social media, people who “walk the talk” and whom I admire. I won’t even attempt to name them here, because I know that I will leave out someone important. Many of them have written books on these subjects and they deserve their accolades. Unfortunately, however, I’ve also seen a growing group of people who are proclaiming their importance and tech knowledge to anyone who will pay attention.

Just some food for thought. Sorry if this one came across is negative. I just really hate to see anyone being led astray.

Thanks for reading!

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/span112/3682335659/

Is This a Preview of The New Facebook Email?

Facebook, Facebook For Business, Online Consulting, Social Media Advisors

So Facebook recently told the world about their latest and greatest feature, new Facebook email. I will be honest, I wasn’t really excited about this new feature. My initial thought is, another email address to keep track of and set up. My second gripe was that this meant another place for spammers to reach me and fill up another inbox. Today, my second complaint of this new email system was already met. See the email to the right that came into my message system. (I don’t even have the new Facebook email yet.)

Here’s a spammed message from someone who “found me in South Carolina” and wants to “expand their business.” Their project doesn’t interfere with what I am currently doing & can make me rich.

Now getting a spammed message once in a while is no big deal. I know that their are people trying to scam and do things the wrong way all the time. My issue though is going to be more with Facebook on this one. Since these messages are being sent from a member to a member always, how will they be filtering all the messages from their 500 million members? Or, will be just be inundated with so many spam & junk email messages on a daily basis that we all just ignore the account & never even look at the content inside it.

Are messages like this what we all have to look forward to with the new Facebook email? What do you think of this new feature that Facebook is launching?

The Best of 2010- Year in Review

Custom WordPress Sites, Facebook, Facebook For Business, How To Blog, Online Consulting, SEO, Social Media Advisors, Social Media Training

As this year comes to an end I always try to reflect back and see what successes and what struggles we faced as a company and reflect as we make our preparations for the upcoming year. One of the places where I start this is by looking at my Google Analytics to see what pages, what posts were the most popular of this year. This post will share what you the visitors of 210 found important and were interested in.

Here are the top 5 most visited posts from this past year:

5. Goo.gl Changes Link Shortening

The first week of October I wrote about Goo.gl releasing a link shortener how this could be used to build QR codes, track the traffic instantly to a specific link & also share that information collaboratively with others to view. One of the links shared via goo.gl has already received over 500 clicks in the last two months from over 8 countries.

4. Using Creative Commons Photos- For FREE!

This past year I was asked over & over how to get safe and legal photos to use in your blogs. I was spending so much time teaching people how to do this that I finally made a short video and wrote a blog post on how to do this. It seems that people really wanted to know how this was done by the amount of traffic the post has received. If you are looking to get good photos for free for your posts, check this one out.

3. Facebook Page of 47,000 Gets Shut Down Over Vanity URL.

The online community really shocked me by the power they posessed when Jonathan Rivera and the Real Estate Referral Group page was shut down. The reason it was shut down was over a trademark violation in the user name he chose for the group. Even though he tried to get Facebook to change the URL he was unsuccessful and the page was then shut down. However after the post we wrote here on 210 and the one over on Tech Savvy Agent and a massive online effort by thousands, the page was reinstated & the URL was changed.

2. Custom WordPress Sites.

This was an actual page of our site and was neck and neck all year long with #1 for the most popular thing on our site. While this is not an actual blog post and is a static page, I was amazed to see the amount of traffic it has received this year. What it shows to me is that people are recognizing the importance of having a powerful website. It also shows me that you have realized the importance of your site having a solid platform like WordPress powering it with their great plugins and blogging components.

1. Google Instant and How it Will Change Your Keywords

In September of this year Google release Google Instant. The day that it was released I wrote a blog post about my thoughts on Google Instant and what I thought it meant towards search engine rankings. This post was by far the most popular one of the year receiving 2 1/2 times the traffic of any other blog post on our site. People understand that while social is important, having a good grasp on SEO is huge. It also showed me that in the upcoming year we need to do classes and posts regarding SEO. I think one of the reasons this post received so much traffic was due to the amount of people sharing the content on both Facebook & Twitter. It was shared on Twitter 66 times and Facebook an additional 41 times.

So as we make our plans for next year, be on the lookout for a post this coming week where we will share about some of the things 210 has in store for next year & also a post regarding what we see as the hottest new things for 2011 that you want to jump on before everyone else.

Thanks to everyone for an amazing 2010 and for Jason & myself we want to wish each and every one of you a Happy Holidays and an amazing new year!