Grow My Law Firm

HTTPS & Remote Logoff - Hidden Facebook Privacy Settings

 

 

Facebook's default connection allows malicious hackers to access your account, but here you'll learn how one simple change can log you in through an encrypted connection. You'll also learn how to be notified whenever someone accesses your account, how to monitor computers currently accessing your account, and how to log out of Facebook remotely. Keep yourself safe. Christine Pilch, 413.537.2474, Christine@GrowMyCo.com

© 2011, Christine Pilch, Grow My Company. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

Facebook adds relationship statuses and upgrades search

 

 

Facebook recently added new relationship statuses and upgraded its search component. This quick video will show you these new advances. Christine Pilch, 413.537.2474, Christine@GrowMyCo.com

© 2011, Christine Pilch, Grow My Company. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

Are you spamming your prospects without even knowing it?

Unsolicited email is considered to be spam by most people. It doesn't matter how great you think your product is or how helpful you think your information might be, if an individual didn't ask for your email, you're a spammer, plain and simple.

Recipients' potential course of action takes many forms: from annoyed deletion, to email requests for removal, to opting-out when available, to reporting you as a spammer. The last option is potentially the most devastating to you. If you're using an email marketing service, you just might find yourself reprimanded or suspended, because all reputable services have anti-spam policies. But if you're sending such email out of your own personal email program, like Outlook, the results could be much harsher. You could actually be blocked by your email host. That means that you can't send or receive email, and you'll likely be in for a battle with your ISP to get it restored.

So, what's a good marketer to do with that handful of business cards freshly collected at some event? You're certain that these people would benefit from your nuggets of wisdom, so how can you safely add them to your email list?

Best practice is to have a welcome email ready to go that invites them to opt-in to start receiving your eZine. I know that this sounds counter-intuitive because this is also unsolicited email, but it's all about perception. This email is an invitation with a promise that they will never hear from you again if they don't choose to opt-in. People tend to be much more relaxed with such a respectful invitation than the harsh intrusion of an automatic email subscription.

Make sure this invitation email has a compelling incentive. Give something away. Have a contest. Make it fun and attractive. Most of all, make sure that this initial email is so jam-packed with great, topic-specific content that they want more. Create desire. Then work hard at fulfilling that desire with every issue.

It's also good practice to use a reputable email management system, like Constant Contact. This ensures that your ISP won't flag you as a spammer. It also provides great internal tools that make the whole process easy and provides clear a opt-out when someone wants to go. There are many email management options, so be sure to do your research before contracting with the most popular one.

Bottom line, though, be respectful of your contact list. People will only accept email from you when they perceive value. Make sure you deliver even more than they expect every single time and they'll stick with you. But don't disrespect anybody by opting them into something that they didn't sign up for. If they didn't ask for it, it's spam, and you're a spammer.

- Christine Pilch

 

 

Klout: what's all the to-do about it?

I recently read a fellow marketer's recommendation of Klout in an e-blast, and while I appreciate his enthusiasm, I don't agree with his logic and support of this application as the be-all, end-all of social media influence measurement.

I look at my own Klout score from time to time, but I take it with a grain of salt. It's maybe the best indicator out there right now, but how accurate is it really in determining influence, which by Dictionary.com's definition is, "the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others?" 

True, @BarackObama's Klout score of 90 seems impressive. But @JustinBieber's Klout score is 100. Can anybody reasonably argue that a 16-year-old has more influence than the president of the United States? Are the retweets, comments and mentions of pre-teen girls really more significant and unpactful than those of the US president's constituency?

How about someone who has just 3 followers? This person's Klout score might be relatively low. But what if those 3 followers were Barack Obama, John Boehner, and Ben Bernanke? It could be argued that this person could be in a position of powerful influence regardless of whether they were retweeted by those users.

I am also a little suspect of Klout's data, some of which seems surprisingly old. I've been listed 107 times on Twitter, and this has been the case for a long time, but my Klout score reflects that I've been listed just 50 times. This makes me doubt the accuracy the rest of the data regarding retweets and mentions too. I really don't understand why this information is inaccurate though because it is dynamically generated and easily accessible. The list data seems at least 6-months old.

So, taking all of this into consideration, I really do take my own Klout score with a grain of salt. I commend the people at Klout for creating what is perhaps the best indicator available right now for social media influence, but Klout's algorithm unfortunately favors people such as celebrities. Let's not confuse popularity with influence.

- Christine Pilch

Why confusing a Facebook profile with a page is a mistake

Now, more than ever, with the new and improved Facebook Pages, it's important to make sure that you've don't confuse a profile and a page. Each has unique advantages over the other for particular purposes.

You can control what your friends see on your profile, whereas all fans have 100% access to page content. You can use friend lists to control access to individual aspects of your profile. For example, you may prefer to keep vacation photos hidden from a "client" list, and restrict people you don't know well from reading certain status updates and personal information. It's impossible to control who sees what content on a fan page.

Profiles are reciprocal, whereas Page admins can't see the Walls of their fans (likers) unless they are also friends. With a personal profile, you can read content on your friends' walls and interact there if your friends' privacy controls allow it. With pages, you have one space to intereact, on your page wall. You don't have the option to initiate a dialog on your fans' walls.

Profiles have friend limits, whereas pages are unlimited. Friends cap off at 5,000, so if you have a popular brand, you will have to insult all the extras by not friending them. You have the potential for millions of page fans, however.

Friends are mutually approved, whereas fans just simply like your page. Imagine the workload of manually accepting the 29M+ fans on the Lady Gaga page! On the other hand, it's nice to make an individual determination about each friend request and place each friend into an appropriate list at the point of connection, for privacy purposes

Pages can see usage statistics, whereas profiles have no statistics available. Since profiles are for personal use, there's really no need other than curiosity satisfaction for profiles to have stats available to them. Pages, on the other hand are for businesses, non-profits, entities, causes, products, etc. Admins have a vested interest in tracking who is coming to their page because the page is an investment intended to produce some result.

Once your friend leaves the buisness, who is managing that "company" profile and accessing your personal info? This one is a little scary when you think about it. You might accept a friend request from a "company" profile because you know the person who created it, for example, if your friend heads up the sales department. But what happens when your friend no longer manages that profile? Who now has access to your personal information on your own profile? Will you even know when/if a transition occurs?

Pages display videos prominently, whereas profiles bury them under photos. Video is one of the most significant marketing tactics available these days, and the latest generation of Facebook profiles not only got rid of the ability to highlight them in your left margin, but they also lumped them under your photos link in your left nav. Thankfully, Facebook retained the videos link in the left nav of the new pages, so they retain their prominence as a marketing tool.

Pages are accessible web-wide, whereas profiles can only be viewed by Facebook members. If you're looking for maximum exposure for your business, why would you want to hide your Facebook presence from people who aren't logged into Facebook? 

Profiles allow elaborate messaging, whereas you can only announce an event via pages. Facebook's messages enhancements made it possible for you to now see a comprehensive trail of all private communications between you and a Facebook friend, including chat. It also allows you to add friends and remove yourself from a thread. On the other hand, pages have extremely limited private communications capabilities.

Profiles and pages have distinct advantages and disadvantages depending upon your intent. Basically, if you're looking to market a business, product, cause, band, public figure, or non-profit, a page is the way to go.

- Christine Pilch

What to look for in a social media trainer or speaker

Like with most everything, there are varying levels of expertise among social media speakers and trainers. Beware hiring an "expert" and getting a casual social media user who billed themselves as competition to people who spend the majority of their days working within the social media sphere, and who are perceived as trusted authorities who advise users on up-to-the-moment changes in such applications and the implications of these changes. I use the word, "expert," cautiously because this field is so new, it advances so rapidly, and we're all learning together, that I prefer to call us early adopters or advisors.

Coming from someone who lives much of her life immersed in social media and who regularly responds to changes that impact you on the day they occur, here's what I recommend you look for when you hire a social media advisor:

1. Review this person's social media activity: If the individual isn't an avid, enthusiastic user of the tools themselves, how can they advise you on best practice? This includes the following:
2. Twitter: Twitter success for social media advisors is not necessarily in the number of followers, it's in influence and being perceived as a go-to resource, (see this post.) Check out your potential social media speaker or trainer's Twitter page. Is there a custom background that is consistent with the rest of their company's social media branding? Does their bio reflect their social media expertise? Do they tweet about social media tips, tricks and resources? Do they regularly break social media news? Do people generally look to them for social media advice and counseling? Do they use Twitter consistently enough to be perceived as an authority, i.e. more than perhaps 5,000 tweets?
3. LinkedIn: Like Twitter, with LinkedIn, it's not about number of connections here, because anybody can send out lots of invitations and build up a big network, but look at the strength of their profile. Is it complete? Does it clearly state their social media experience in specific terms? Do they have recommendations about their social media work? Do they use their status and Group memberships to demonstrate their social media expertise regularly? Do they have a company page? Is it complete?
4. Facebook: Take a look at the individual's Facebook page, no, not their personal profile, their Fan Page. Is it dedicated almost exclusively to social media? Are they regularly posting links to social media tips and articles that demonstrate that they are on top of the field on a daily basis? If they don't have a Fan Page at all, that's a big red flag. 
5. YouTube: Video is hot and one of the the most significant contemporary social media tools available to you right now. Is your potential advisor utilizing video to market their own social media expertise? Do they regularly create how to videos that make it easy for you to adjust your own social media profiles? Do they use video to react to changes and advise you of benefits and traps within specific applications? If not, how can they advise you in using video to market your own business?
6. Blog: Does the individual have a blog? Blogging was one of the first social media tools available, and the individual should have a blog jam-packed with social media tips, news, how-tos, and advice. Most qualified social media advisors use their blog as the hub for all their social media activity due to it's dynamic nature, which is in-line with social media's underlying chacteristic of being a collection of communications tools. Take a look at your potential speaker or trainer's blog for some good insight into their level of expertise with social media.
7. Community leader: Has the individual created an online environment that fosters discussion? Do they lead and encourage growth of others' social media knowledge? This can happen within a LinkedIn Group, Facebook page, Twitter account, Wiki, blog, and any combination of the above.
8. Thought leader: Is this person regarded as a go-to person for social media questions? Look at their blog, Facebook Page, and Twitter account. Watch their videos. Are they breaking news, or do they play catch-up 2-weeks after a change occurs within a social media platform?
9. Branding: Strong social media consultants know the value of image and consistency. All their social media identities should have a consistent look and feel, with colors, fonts, and language. They also understand how critical it is to enable anybody to reach out to them instantly and easily, so they prominently display their social media links across all venues, including their business cards. If you can't find the links to the individual's profiles on all these sites with minimal effort, that's another big red flag. 

I could also go into may other factors, such as strategic planning and RIO, but they're a little too technical for this venue. The above might, however, serve as a basic guide for you to use when evaluating a potential social media speaker or trainer. Social media identities are generally wide open, so this information is there for your review. I urge you to take a little time and look at all of the above.

Social media advising is a specialty niche. Many ad agencies are starting to list it among a suite of services, whether or not they have a dedicated social media advisor on staff, and many individual users are seeing visions of easy money in part-time social media speaking and training gigs. Unfortunately, casual use does not an expert make, and if you hire the wrong person, you just might be getting inaccurate or outdated advice from someone who is well-intended but under-qualified. Isn't your business worth getting its best possible introduction to this exciting new frontier?

Good luck!

- Christine Pilch