Does CoTweet allow Facebook Integration? Kind of..
This question was raised today at online bootcamp: Does CoTweet.com have Facebook integration like Tweetdeck?
The answer: Kind of…
Ping.fm integration is available –very new since Oct 23— so that what you tweet on co-tweet can flow to your ping.fm account which of course flows to all of your accounts configured there.
Stay tuned for a detailed blog post on this subject.
You may also want to check out http://www.HootSuite.com for similar capabilities.
Meeting Planners Q & A about Facebook
On Tuesday, August 25, 2009, Plan Your Meetings, sponsored a webinar, hosted by David Nour with Michelle Cullison and Nhat Pham. These questions were asked by the meeting planners:
1. Can a group created by an individual be moved to a public business page?
Moving from a group to a company page is a manual process. Create the page and then invite all group members to become a Fan of the new page. Some Group admins put a deadline on the move and close the group. You may also provide some new content on the page as an incentive to make the move.
2. How are people using Facebook to find potential partners/vendors?
You may find vendors/partners using the advanced search page on Facebook. It allows you to search for people, pages and groups by keywords. You can get to the advanced search page by typing search in the Search field. (Currently, there isn’t a link to advanced search on the menu.)
Another great way to find potential partners and vendors is groups. Join industry specific groups where your partners and vendors are spending time. Need to find the groups, search for them with the advanced search page.
Are they searching like on Google? Yes. Business pages on Facebook are public so googling the company name and the term facebook as search words is a good way to see if a potential vendor has a facebook presence.
How does Facebook rank pages when a search is done?
Facebook doesn’t disclose how it ranks pages on its search results page. However, this page about the new Facebook Search may be helpful to you: http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=923
3. I get feeds on my home page from groups/pages that I am member/fan of, what do we need to do as a company to get our updates to post to our friends pages?
4. Can you create an event for a Cause FB account?
A cause is an FB application. Anyone with an FB profile may create an event.
5. What is the difference between a group and a fan page – benefits of both?
Groups gather people around a topic of discussion and can be a good place for collaboration. FB fan or business pages are like personal profiles but for businesses. They have all the power of personal profiles including the ability to publish a lot of company info, install apps, communicate with and build a fan base.
6. Is it advisable to keep a “personal” Facebook page versus a “professional” page?
Having both kinds of presence on Facebook is important. You develop business relationships personally using your personal profile and as a brand using your (professional) company page.
7. If you post a blog to the notes section how do your friends see it?
Under the Settings menu, Choose Application Settings and then Notes under the Wall tab click on: Allow Notes to publish to Streams.
8. I am the director of communication for a small trade association – we have created a group on Facebook – so are you saying we should create a profile – if so, for me or for biz? How would you do this?
Groups are good for collaboration but do not have as many features a public profiles (business pages) have. As an association, you could benefit from the added features that public profiles have. To create a public profile for your association, go to Facebook.com and click this link: Create a Page for a celebrity, band or business. Having a personal and a business presence on Facebook is helpful as business relationships can be formed personally and organizationally.
9. How can Facebook give an incentive travel company an edge on the competition? Create a content-rich public profile for your company on Facebook Business pages. Make it a page that adds value to your audience and includes links to your website and industry specific keywords for Google. Invite your target audience to become fans. Engage your audience in conversation.
10. I’m looking for a job – any suggestions on how to use Facebook for that? Many times job leads come through the people you know. Make sure you’ve entered all your education and work history info in your personal profile. Communicate confidence and the value you bring to employers in your status updates. Do communicate that you are looking for opportunity. Don’t convey desperation in your updates.
11. How can you use Facebook for education/learning?
12. How can my company keep negative comments off our Twitter account? Controlling negative comments is a common concern across social networking platforms. Some of the blogging/microblogging tools allow you to turn off commenting but then you’ve shut down communication with the exact audience you want to build relationship with. Responding positively to the negative comments may indeed give you an opportunity to build repo ire with your audience and show how you are handling the issues that occur. Google the words “Transparency in blogging” to learn more about how companies are dealing with negative comments in the blogosphere.
13. How secure is Facebook?
I will talk about 3 common ways that FB accounts are compromised and how to prevent it from happening to you.
- Phishing: Do not give you account information to someone who claims to be an FB rep via email. FB will not ask you to update your account info via email ever.
- Hacking via email access. You can reduce your chances of having your account hacked by using a password on your FB account that is DIFFERENT than the password on the email account that you have associated with your FB account. If a hacker gets your FB password and it is the same as your email password, they can then take over your email account that manages your FB account and lock you out of your account.
- Applications are another door hackers use to compromise your account. Facebook is an open development platform meaning applications can be submitted by anyone. One way to reduce your vulnerability is by installing only verified applications. Read more about verified apps here: http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=247
14. Looking to extend company community aspects while differentiating content on Facebook so it is not a duplication of efforts. With this type of strategy, you will need to communicate what type of content will be unique in the FB arena. I saw a site that week that gives tips on their FB page that they do not post anywhere else.
And, if the company doesn’t have a blog where interaction occurs, then of course, the FB page can be the place for customers to provide feedback and enter discussions with you. Open up your FB page wall for community interaction.
15. How do you get over the legal hump within a corporation to allow use of Facebook for the company and employees? Developing a policy and making sure all parties understand the rules is key to social networking success in a corporate setting. Here is a GREAT site, the Social Media Blog Council, to use a resource in the process of policy development: http://www.socialmedia.org/
16. As a non-profit with few resources, how do we figure out what the best use of Facebook for our situation is? If you have a small budget for education, invest that in learning social media strategy. Then, perhaps you can utilize volunteers or college students for implementation. The leaders must understand WHAT the goals are and who the audience is on these social sites. Social Media Strategy programs are offered by David Nour, Nhat Pham and Michelle Cullison.
17. How do you keep you personal Facebook and business Facebook separate? I don’t want to personally become a fan of a vendor but want to professionally become a fan. Only people (personal profiles) can become fans of pages. However, you can tag another page as Favorite page of your Business page. Go to the Vendor page on FB that you want to support as a business. Then, click the Add to MyPage’s Favorites and select your business page from the list. You won’t be a fan but you will be showing support business to business.
18. What’s the quickest way to add value to the lives of those we contact with in Facebook and to monetize opportunities for all parties involved? To add value, think about what tip you can give your audience today that will help them in business. Monetizing many times comes when a client trusts your business enough to close the deal, buy the product. What can you say today to build trust in your product or service?
19. What is the balance between being effective at promoting events vs. spending all of your time on social media sites?
It is best to determine 2 things before you login to social sites:
1. How much time do I have to give to this social media session?
2. What specifically do I need to accomplish when I login?
I would suggest allowing time to create the event in the FB events app and promoting it on your page and to your targeted friends list. You may also promote the event to select groups on FB that have the targeted audience on FB.
20. How do you show the value and utility of Facebook and social media when executive management doesn’t even understand social media? Case studies are really helpful to show what others are doing that is working. Mashable.com is a good site for breaking info on social media and web 2.0. Here is an article that highlights some big business success stories that you may want to share with your executive management: http://mashable.com/2009/02/06/social-media-smartest-brands/
21. Facebook comes across as a social site – how do you make messages more “business like”? In your status updates, answer questions like these, “What would add value to my audience today? What can I share that will help them professionally?
22. How do I get folks to register for my online training?
You may want to familiarize yourself with FB events. Another great way to get the word out on FB about products and services is to join groups with members who are in your target audience. Start discussions in the FB groups and offer the group members free pre-training teleseminars or webinars so you add value first and then plug the training on the call. You wouldn’t want to join a group and then start selling your training services.
23. How can I advertise my business on FB but not have it so “In Your Face” to my friends. You may want to consider a paid FB ad. You can get significant exposure for $30 a month. Or, segment your friends using Friend Lists and send targeted advertising messages to select groups. However, remember that social networking culture is somewhat averse to advertising. Try soft marketing value add messages that also include links to learn more about a product or service.
24. To me, Facebook is merely a social tool. I want to be convinced of it’s usefulness as a business tool. I’ll give you 3 reasons:
First is location, location, location. Facebook allows you to put your business where the traffic is flowing. There are many people you can touch in FB that will never come to your website. Secondly, google loves high traffic sites and a link to your website from within FB increases your findability on google and other search engines. Finally, on FB pages you are allowed the chance to have people build a relationship with your company or brand.
GETTING STARTED ON TWITTER
Are you on Twitter? Are you tweeting? Who are you following? Have you been re-tweeted? How often do you get DMs?
These are the questions floating around business networking conversations these days. Newbies to social networking are nervous because Twitter is an unknown territory— a very strange one at that! Who speaks in 140 character snippets? It takes some getting used to. At first glance, it makes no sense. A glimpse at a home page on Twitter shows fragmented, one-sided conversations happening now. You may wonder, “How can this be useful?” But, with all the success stories on Twitter, many are considering a move to this unique new communication platform. How about you?
To get started, create a personal profile and connect with a few trusted people that you know in real life. Practice on each other. Post some updates to your profile. Ask a friend to @ message you. To @message is to reply publicly to a tweet (a status update on Twitter.) To reply privately or send a message privately is DM or Direct Message. Send your trusted friends a DM – a direct message (the Twitter version of email). Get your feet wet with this new tool. Don’t be afraid. Remember that EVERYONE is fairly new to this and even the “experts” will make a “mistake” every now and then.
When you sign up on Twitter, try to secure your first and last name as your username. This will help you establish your personal brand and build your personal online reputation. And, it is cheap (free) insurance to protect you from someone who may want to masquerade as you on Twitter. (If you have a business name, go ahead and create an account for your business also to secure the username even though you may not be ready to use it. Getting started personally will familiarize you with the tools so that you can better understand how to use this tool for your greater business purposes.
Like most things in life, experience is the BEST teacher. Join the Twitter crowd today.
Feel free to post Twitter questions as comments to this post on my blog. Or, better yet, Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcullison and send me a DM!
10 Ways to Strengthen your Facebook Profile for Business
Getting Started on Facebook for Business?
Here are the top 10 things you can do to make your Facebook profile strong:
1. Add a Profile Picture
2. Fill out the Information Page with your professional image in mind
3. Upload photos that depict the professional but likeable you. Add video too if you have it!
4. Install Applications such as: My LinkedIn Profile
Beware of adding too many meaningless apps so your message isn’t lost in the noise.
5. Create Valuable Status Updates
What’s important? To your clients? To your industry?
6. If you have a blog, feed the posts to your wall.
7. Add Business Contacts
8. Join Groups that reflect your real life business associations
9. Join Groups that are relate to your business but are new to you
10. Invite Group Members to become friends
Get into LinkedIn – Are you there yet?
Social Media is the HOT topic for business in the down economy. From marketing to customer support, from research to training services, social media is the platform known to reach large audiences at a minimal cost. One of the most widely used social networking sites for business is LinkedIn.com.
On LinkedIn individuals create profiles that are like dynamic resumes. From the profile an individual creates connections with other individuals. There are 4 main components-data areas-on LinkedIn: People, Jobs, Answers, and Companies. In addition, there are Groups that people can join and Applications that can extend the capabilities of LinkedIn. LinkedIn has become an interactive, professional environment that enables individuals to share information and best practices, to collaborate to solve problems, to conduct research, develop joint ventures and extend business development opportunities.
How you use LinkedIn will depend on factors such as your role (Owner, Manager, Sales, HR), your industry (retail, professional services, entertainment, manufacturing) your needs (statistics, access to decision makers, feedback from a target niche, expertise of others) and your goals (acquire new clients, gather information for presentations, hire qualified employees, raise venture capital, get publicity, explore foreign markets). The most important element needed for effective use of social networking sites is a well-defined strategy.
To begin developing your social networking strategy:
• Review your business goals. (1 month, 3 month, 6 month, 1 year)
Tip: If you haven’t written them down for 2009, do it now.
• Determine what kind of business relationships are needed to meet those goals: breadth, a large audience of acquaintances or depth, a small but trusted network of people you know. It can be both but you will need to be intentional in your interactions.
• Determine the types of people you need in your network to achieve your goals. (For example: corporate decision makers, experts in an industry, prospects in your target niche, 30-50 year olds in your geographic location, etc.)
• Determine the kind of data needed to achieve your goals.
The data you need may be found in the Answers section of LinkedIn, Groups or in the myriad of new applications available for installation.
Use the information you compiled from the above activity to drive the actions you take on LinkedIn and other social networking sites.
To get a better understanding of the value of social networking, take the concept offline. Envision yourself at an on-going business card exchange or trade association meeting that allows you to come and go at your leisure. The attendees are from all over the world and from all industries. Some people know each other and some don’t. You can ask for introductions. You can take charge and introduce yourself to new people or invest in relationships you already have. Social networking sites provide exactly this scenario online. Opportunities abound for those who invest in people by developing connections on LinkedIn and other social sites. Get started today by creating profile on LinkedIn.com.
Want to learn more?
Sign up for the Boot camp on June 5th? If your not local, look for the online boot camp in mid-June.
Adding Twitter to Facebook, MySpace and more…
If you want to integrate your Twitter profile into your Facebook Profile, MySpace profile or other web space, visit this page offered by Twitter, http://twitter.com/widgets, select Facebook (or your choice) and follow the instructions.
Getting your social sites integrated with each other is one way to build your following in multiple locations so you will be ready to build relationships and build your business in 2009!
TwitScoop – What’s hot and what’s not on Twitter
Do you know what is hot on Twitter.com right now?
Twittscoop is a tool designed to keep you informed! Twitscoop creates a tag cloud of the words that are currently being tweeted more than other words. You can display twittscoop results on your blog, like this:
Odiogo Voice to Content – Free for Bloggers
I was just reading a blog article on MarketingProfs.com and decided to listen to the post instead of read it.
I checked out the company link on the audio player and discovered http://www.odiogo.com/.
I’ve installed the plugin for Wordpress and this post will be first test for converting my blog posts to audio so that my blog readers can choose to read or listen to my post!
Amazingly, the plugin and RSS Feed service is FREE! You can’t beat that for convenient podcasting!
Status Updates Ping.fm
August 25, 2008
Good Morning,
I attended a webinar last week, sponsored by Shannon Cherry of Be Heard Solutions, and was invited to sign up for a new tool called Ping.fm, http://ping.fm/. This tool is still in beta and as of 8/25/2008, the invitation code required for sign up is: vivalaping.
Here is what it does for you:
If you are on LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter (for example), Ping.fm allows you to login and create a status update, press submit and ping.fm will update the status of all your accounts with one click. This tool will be a GREAT timesaver for those who want to actively market in the social media world.
Many social networking sites are supported—even Wordpress.com!
Sign up today while the invitation code is valid. Then, check back here to learn more about how how to use ping.fm and other social media tools to grow your business!
Warm Regards,
Michelle
