One of the biggest frustrations that I hear from businesses is that it is difficult to message “fans” on facebook.  While it frustrates me at times too, I have also recognized that most people don’t want more SPAM, and so that is probably a good thing. No business owner ever thinks that their messages are spam, but “spam is in the eye of the beholder”.

In fact, I read my facebook mail in the morning before I read my email for that very reason. Although I have a great SPAM filter (gmail), I still get 130 or so emails per day, and most of them come through during the night.

Many will rejoice however, to hear that facebook is experimenting with business pages being able to email fans. This is being rolled out as a test, but may be available soon. According to The Next Web, this is what you will see:

If this does become available for all users, it will be imperative for you to understand how to use it, otherwise you will not only tick people off, but you will lose fans. Here are a few questions to ask yourself before sending an email:

1. Ask yourself if the message helps them or only you

2. Does it have value for them?

3. Would you pick up the phone to convey the message?

4. Are you sending this message because you believe they will want to receive it, or because YOU want them to?

5. If it cost you money to send it, would you send it?

Remember, most people who ‘liked’ your page did so before this was available. Unlike regular email, they didn’t ‘opt in’ to receive FB mail from you and they will easily “unlike” you if you abuse it.

 

As you may know, I am a big ‘fan’ of facebook.
Someone recently made a snarky comment about the time that I spend on facebook.
I admit that I laughed, and rolled my eyes (believe me, considering the context, it was worthy of an eye roll:)

First, I will say that things are never as they appear. I do spend a lot of time online.
I don’t play games, etc. I use the time online to connect with others, and learn.

(I am also an avid reader)

I don’t spend time watching TV. Statistics show that the average person watches 6 hours of TV a day! Ironically, if you ask people if they do that, they ALWAYS insist that they don’t! (most do, track how much time YOU do:)

I have started watching more movies with my boys, but I still prefer FB to TV.

Why?

• TV is passive, FB is active.
• Most people use TV as a passive mindless “something to do” exercise.
• Through facebook on the other hand, you can connect with other people.
• I believe connecting is important!

Here are the benefits to facebook as I see it:

• I find/read great articles via facebook (I am a constant learner;)
• Giving to others: commenting on and engaging with others is a gift – for them, and YOU!
• Life is about the connections that we make! Connecting with & interacting with others is a great value to both parties!
• We often don’t get the opportunity to connect with people who ‘get us’ IRL. Via facebook, we can connect with people that we otherwise couldn’t or wouldn’t.

I will also add that over 70% of my business came through facebook last year!

(Here is a great webinar on facebook and marketing by the way)

What are your thoughts on facebook vs TV?

You can connect with me on facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/realheatherO

If you would like to learn more about how to use facebook, contact me at heatherO at heatherO dot com

(Feel free to sign up for my posts by email too

 

Good Morning! It is 6am as I am writing this. I am out on the deck up in the mountains and my dear friend Marla’s house. It is still dark and cool, and all I hear is chirping [bliss!]

Today is my birthday and when I woke up this morning the thought for this post came to me, so here I am writing in the dark

For those of you who have known or ‘followed me’ for any length of time, you know that I am “all about your story”. Creating and sharing your story and who you are is ‘my thing’. So, I was very excited as I watched the Facebook F8 conference the other day and saw the introduction to the new timeline format.

Last night I went ahead and updated mine (developers can update early, but no one else can see it until 9/30). I really like the layout, and enjoyed being able to look back on highlights from previous years.

What occurred to me this morning was what a great perspective it gives us in where we are and how far we have come-or not:)

I look forward to it opening up to everyone so I can encourage my current and past coaching clients to look back and see:

are you still complaining about the same things?
have you done what you wanted to do?
are you STILL waiting to be.do.have what you want, etc?

We don’t always want to look at those things, but it is important! It is important to see where we need to MOVE and to recognize what we HAVE done, and how far we have come!

The last year was a tough one for me, but I can still see progress, and I can see those little moments that were great! That is a good thing!

I look forward to your thoughts, and to hear your thoughts after timeline is released to everyone. I hope you will share your “aha’s” with me

 

Okay, I promised a post on the latest Facebook changes and although I am sure there will be more to add, I am going to start here

Here is how Facebook explains it:
Facebook Pages and Profiles with Subscribe: Two Ways to Connect

Facebook Pages are now used in a number of different ways to represent businesses and organizations, public figures, bands, and more. For the last several years, they have been the primary tool for those entities and people to have a presence on Facebook. Today, we’re introducing a new way for public figures to maintain a personal profile and also share public updates with a wider audience. Now that Facebook offers two key tools that enable public figures to connect with their audience, we wanted to provide a summary of each and explain the ways they can be used:

Pages have advanced marketing features for managing your brand or business on Facebook. Pages can be maintained by multiple people on your team, have insights to understand who your fans are, and can target posts by language and location (e.g., tell only fans in New York about your show there). Pages can also be promoted with Facebook Ads and Sponsored Stories.

Profiles with subscribe are ideal if you want to personally connect with friends, family and other people who are interested in you. It’s fun to receive updates from friends and others that you want to subscribe to, and it’s easy to publish to your subscribers on the go. Anyone who subscribes to your profile can receive your public posts in their News Feed.

Which is right for me?

Facebook Pages help public figures and organizations build communities and tell their stories in their own unique voice. In addition, Pages offer tools to help you analyze how people are interacting with your Page so you can monitor key metrics, get demographic and geographic insights about your audience, and increase connections and interactions. For example, if your band is on tour, you can announce this on your page and create events for each show from your page to allow people to RSVP and attend.

Should I create a Page or allow subscribers to get my public updates?
If your goal is to represent your business, brand, or product on Facebook, create a Page. Pages let you engage with people on Facebook, and offer tools (like multiple admin features and insights) that help you manage and track engagement.

If your goal is to share updates from your personal profile with a broader audience, allowing subscribers is a good option. When you allow subscribers, anyone can subscribe and get your public updates in News Feed, even if you’re not friends on Facebook. You can choose who sees what though.

You can have an unlimited amount of subscribers, and subscribe to as many as 5000 people. (You can have 5000 friends on your profile.)

There is a lot of buzz around facebook making itself more “twitteresque”, and in some sense I can see that. On twitter anyone can follow you and see your updates (you don’t have to accept or approve them).
I still am undecided about my opinion of the whole subscriber thing for myself personally. Here are a few of my thoughts:

• I understand that a lot of people are at the 50000 friend limit, but having a ‘page’ resolves that.
• I am always of the mindset that you should assume that all of your posts are public, so having other people see them really shouldn’t be a big deal (?)
• I am very conscious about posting pictures of my kids and don’t want the whole world looking at them.
• When people send you a friend request and you ignore them, they can still see your posts anyway
• I get FB emails from people that I don’t know already (including one trying to ‘pick me up’ this morning)
• I wonder if FB is going to get so big that it loses it’s value for many
• Facebook is tweaking friend lists in the hopes that will help but I’m not sure how many people will use them (?)
• It will allow people to see your updates without the awkwardness of asking you to ‘be their friend’ when they don’t know you

There is a lot of discussion around this being a move to make facebook more like Google + (like in this article)

Facebook is also addressing the ‘potential noise’ issue by updating friend lists ( read more here)

Here are some other articles about the changes:

Allfacebook

Mashable

 

There is still a lot of confusion around this ‘brave new social world’ that we have evolved into.

“Social Media for business, using social media for business”, etc are searched everyday.

Even though it’s 2011, there are still people just getting started, or who have had accounts but don’t know what to do with them. There is a LOT to be said on this topic, but I will summarize as best as I can

1. Understand that social media is different. This isn’t just a different channel for ‘marketing as usual’. The concept isn’t necessarily new, but the platform is.

This post explains in greater detail:

The Grateful dead graciously received the feedback AND adoration of countless raving fans. They were BEYOND successful, they were legendary. They went beyond “making money” and created a legacy… more…

Social Media is a conversation, not a bulletin board
…It’s about conversations. We’ve had decades of ‘here is what WE want you to see’ advertising. The reason why most of those forms of advertising don’t work as well as they used to is because we’ve had enough! The reason why we TIVO, and skip the commercials and are scared to answer our home phone in the evenings (if we even have one anymore) is because we’ve had enough… more

It’s not just about facebook, or blogs, etc…It’s about you! (more)

2. Having a cohesive, broad based presence is important. I recommend having AT LEAST a twitter account, facebook account and a blog (and youtube is becoming even more important than ever!). This is a great visual (read the article here)

3. Social Media gives you the opportunity to attract customers and clients (not just beat them over the head with your sales message:). Give them valuable information that is worth reading and sharing! This is a great article on that.

4. Would you go out of your way to go to your Facebook business page? Create and provide great content that people look so forward to, they will go to your page to find it if they miss it! You can offer giveaways, and freebies and the like to get people to ‘like you’, but do you want people to buy from you? Do things to get them to ‘really like you’. You don’t need thousands!

5. I prefer to focus on the term “Social Networking” as it emphasizes the fact that it is a verb. You have to take action! It goes beyond setting up some auto feeder to post stuff. That is more like throwing spaghetti on the wall.

Here are a few quick tips:

1. Find good resources for informational articles that are relevant to your ideal ‘fans’ and post at least one daily.
2. Have photo not a logo for your profile picture (this is more important than you realize)

3. Look at your facebook insights to see when the best times to post are.

4. Get a blog if you don’t have one!

5. Set aside 15 minutes every morning and every evening to devote to social networking/blogging. If done correctly it WILL pay off!

I welcome your comments below!
Questions? Need help? Email me at heathero at heathero.com

 

I am gearing up for fall and working on getting some programs scheduled.

Some that I have offered before, and some new ones.

It’s always a challenge trying to guess what others “need most’.

In the past I have always found that what people ‘really need’, they don’t sign up for!

So, I decided to ask YOU!

You have “the mic” so speak up!

Here are a few that I am working on:

Design Your Day (previously called: “How to win the day by 10am”)

Here’s the jist of it:

You create a list of the most important areas of your life (ie home, family, work, etc) and I show you how to accomplish something in every area in under 2hrs/day

Live Your Legacy

This is a new one. It could also be called “Design Your Life”. This one is to help

you focus on what really matters in your life, and making the time for it!

M&M’s and P’s

I have offered this before and it is a great program! I offered it as a 6 wk course, and am trying to figure out a way to make it shorter. (It’s best as a 6 week program) This program helps you to create a better marketing plan by helping you clarify what you “do”. I help you create your Mission, Marketing, Purpose and Plan.  I help you focus on ONE thing, overcome ‘the curse of knowledge’, create a plan that allows you to focus on your assets and create the life that you want, and market it in a way people will hear!

Facebook for Business

This is one of my most popular programs. How to use facebook for business without being annoying!

I teach tips and tricks to attract new fans without cheezy offers, or paying for ads!

Getting Started with Google Plus +

Google + basics. Why you would want to use it & how.

Win the Year!

This will be a goal setting and ongoing accountability program designed to help you reach goals you set 9or should have:) by the end of the year. There will be weekly conference calls, feedback, kicks in the butt, etc

Fire Your Webmaster! How to Create Your Own Website with WordPress

Learn how to create a website that will get MORE traffic, and cost you LESS money!

YOUTUBE for Real People

Video is a powerful way to get more web traffic and business! Learn basic tools to create videos without even having to be in them!

I greatly appreciate your feedback!

Please comment below if you would be interested in any of these topics. Also please let me know what you would like to learn or see offered! Please indicate whether you would prefer live events, webinar or by phone. thank you!

 

Businesses on Facebook Rejoice! You Can Now Convert Your Business Page!

For many business owners, figuring out how to leverage the power of facebook is confusing. The first point of confusion is in setting up ‘a business account’.

It has been very common to see businesses set up as ‘personal accounts’. Many people still use personal accounts for their business even though it violates facebook terms of service, and facebook has and will shut down such accounts. Thus far, many have continued to use them because they don’t want to lose the ‘friends’ that they have established. Starting over with “0″ is just too daunting for many, even thought that is exactly what they would end up with if facebook shut down the account.

You can now “move over” or “migrate your page” and keep your connections!

In one of the best ‘upgrades’ to date, facebook now allows an account owner to ‘convert’ a personal profile page to a ‘like’ [business] page.

Why move?

• Compliance with terms of service (avoid having facebook delete it)
• More professional
• Allows you to use third-party Page applications to set up a Like-gated landing page, run contests, collect email addresses, and more.
• Allows you to change the name of your ‘page’ for better search results
• People are more likely to ‘like’ a business page than accept a friend request from a business
• No limit to the number of ‘friends’ as with personal pages

When setting up a business page [aka Like page], there are a few things to remember:

1. Choose your page name carefully! You can choose your domain name later, but when setting up the page you have to choose the name of the page. How you name the page is very important in regards to branding, and to search. This cannot be changed once you have accumulated fans.

2. Choose type of business carefully. Many people will choose ‘local business’ for example, even though they may [now or in the future] offer other services that aren’t ‘just local’.

3. Populate the page with useful info about you, your business, and what it offers others. People don’t choose to ‘like’ a business just to get advertising messages. What will your page do for them?

Lastly, don’t create a page if you aren’t going to visit it daily! You won’t get activity from others if you aren’t there yourself.

**If you are considering changing your personal page to a like page (vs a profile that you set up for your business) read this article first!

You might want to read this one too.

To migrate your facebook page click here.

Share your thoughts on this. We would love to hear them!

Is your business on facebook?

Questions about migrating your business on facebook? click here or contact me at heathero@heathero.com.

To learn more about how to build your business on facebook, contact me! HeatherO@Heathero.com

 

The squabble between internet giants continues.

The latest is Google’s recent move to disallow facebook’s ability to allow users to find friends via their Gmail account.

According to Google, this is due to facebook’s unwillingness to reciprocate by allowing Google to access facebook users data.

While Google’s argument may sound plausible, the bottom line is that it is a hassle for their users.

Facebook, twitter and other social sites are only as good as the connections that you can make within them, and trying to search for everyone that you know one by one is not only a painful proposition, but a truly unproductive one (and a horrible time sucker!)

The easiest workaround (in my opinion) is to simply import your address book to a free yahoo or microsoft account, and then allow facebook to access that. For those who don’t use an online email system, I used to recommend setting up a gmail account just for this purpose. I will now recommend a microsoft or yahoo account instead.

You can read more about the decision here via Techcrunch.

 

Look! Another Facebook change! I know that just thrills most of you

Let’s check it out:

Facebook recently rolled out ‘friendship pages’.

You may not have noticed them as they are only really ‘find-able’ via the little link that is created when someone posts a comment to someone else.

It appears in the newsfeed:

And on the person’s ‘wall’:

When you click on that link, you see a page that aggregates all of the communications between two people.

I personally find it interesting to see all of those dribs and drabs and comments all in one place.

Lots of people however, find it creepy and invasive.

I’ve read many comments on Facebook’s blog and they are interesting to say the least. I read one woman comment that she was disturbed by seeing posts between her boyfriend and his ex.

Hmmm…what do you say to that?

The reality is that these conversations ARE taking place, whether you see them in context or not. They are public posts that are simply pulled together, so is that invasive and creepy?

I guess ‘invasive and creepy’ are in the eye of the beholder!  I would love to hear your thoughts. In the meantime, remember, that facebook is a psuedo-public space.

Even if you have the tightest security settings ever, those who you are friends with see your ‘public’ activity.  Now they just have the ability to see it in context.

I have yet to find a way that someone could just ‘pull up’ this page whenever they feel like it however. So, if it makes you feel any better, they would have to see a post FROM you TO them (or vice versa) to see, and click on that link.

They can’t just go to your page and see it. You can click on someone else’s page and see YOUR friendship page WITH them, but not with someone else.

(I’m not saying it CAN’T be done, but I haven’t figured out how you would.)

Please share your thoughts on Facebook friendship pages.

 

I am always fascinated by how different people see things.

I recently saw someone post on facebook that they are deleting any ‘friends’ that they haven’t heard from in X number of months. That is certainly their prerogative, but it made me pause.

My initial reaction to the facebook post was to roll my eyes (to be completely honest) ‘It’s not all about you”, I thought.

The truth is, most humans come from the land of “what’s in it for me”.
It’s human nature to a large extent, but we do have control over it.
We control our perspective, how we choose to see things, and what we set our intentions to be.

I couldn’t help but think:

We are our perspectives, our intentions, our expectations, and a myriad of other things.
(Right now I am musing on those 3).

• As far as facebook  (or anywhere else) goes, not everyone feels comfortable commenting. Not everyone knows what to say, some people are inherently more ‘chatty’, etc.
• If you are posting content that has value, is it fair to delete that person that might benefit from your posts?
• Or are you posting content purely for your own edification (via comments)?

Are you on “all about me-er?”

It’s easy to be. We all are, and need to be on some level. But to what extent?

It’s not just about Facebook.

Facebook is just one of many places to see and experience this, but It permeates life on every level.

It reminds me of a poem that I read when I was 17, and watching my father die before my very eyes. I have never forgotten it:

“Disregard what the world owes you, and focus on what you owe the world” …~SH Payer

(you can read it in it’s entirety here)

I believe that what we ‘get’ in life is in direct proportion to what we give.

Everyone certainly has their own reasons for doing things, and being online is no different. I encourage you to ask yourself ‘why am I here?” (read: on facebook, on this planet, or anywhere else for that matter).

I often tell my son “You aren’t here just to be happy. You are here to make a difference, and to contribute something to this planet, and the people around you.”

I strongly believe that this is true, and often we don’t even know what a difference we make. All we can do is do what we can do. But starting with the belief that we are here to make a difference, and the intention of giving, not just ‘getting’ is a great start!

I encourage you to take a few minutes to ponder this question, as so eloquently phrased by Michelle Gower, “Are you looking through a mirror, or a magnifying glass?”

(Just something to think about

Get in the conversation! What are your thoughts?