click image to enlarge

There are mixed feelings out there about the new Facebook Timeline that is about to be rolled out.  I installed the BETA version a few weeks ago and have been getting comfortable with it. As a Certified Social Media Specialist,  I need to be able to advise my clients on how to handle it when it is rolled out to the masses.  This release is one of the most significant changes Facebook has made to the personal profile in a long time.  And while Facebook wants to be at the centre of your online identity, many people find this new release to be intrusive and over the top. I found some great features in this and for the first time in a long time, I had to revisit my security settings on Facebook and make some adjustments to feel comfortable with the way information will be shared.  Here are 5 important points about Facebook’s new Timeline.  Please note that the new changes coming to Facebook affect only your personal profile. Facebook has not made any announcements or commitments regarding Facebook Business Pages.

1. Ticker

The ticker has already been rolled out and you will see this along the right side of your screen when logged into Facebook. It is essentially activity stories that get posted to the ticker.  By placing your curser over a specific item in the ticker area, you will get what they call a ‘hover card’ with more information regarding that particular activity. What I like about it, is that not only personal page but fan page activity shows up here. By paying attention to the ticker, I have been able to connect with some people and pages I might have otherwise missed.  You can also now streamline the activity you want to see from the people you are connected with and shut out some of the noise.  What I don’t like about it, is that you have to pay particular attention to each activity update you post to ensure the right people see it. You will also want to revisit your application settings and perhaps change the update status to be ‘only you’ that sees it or your app activity will also be shared in the ticker.

2. Lists

If you haven’t already put your friends in lists, now would be a good time to revisit this. You can create different lists and place your friends in one or more appropriate list; family, friends, business, etc.  (you can have the same person in more than one list).  On your home page, you will then be able to view the news feed from a particular list.  As before, you will also be able to send out Facebook status updates to a specific group of people (ie friends) or to a targeted list.  Facebook has also introduced smart lists.  You’ll see smart lists that create themselves and stay up-to-date based on profile info your friends have in common with you–like your work, school, family and city.  You will also be able to merge your existing list to an appropriate smart list.

3. Subscribe Button

This is relatively new on Facebook and in my opinion more designed for public figures. If you set this feature up on your Facebook profile, you can allow others to subscribe to your public updates.  This information will show up in peoples’ ticker and news feed.  There is a little overlap between having your personal profile with subscribe enabled and a fan page. If you are a business owner however, I still recommend having a Facebook business page over using the subscribe option. Your business page allows you access to custom tabs and applications, Facebook stats, you can have more than 1 page admin and you can promote the page with ads  etc. whereas the subscribe button does not allow any of these features.

4. Timeline (the Wall)

Timeline is the new term for your wall.  When you think about your current Facebook wall, you know that as you add new items, the old items ‘fall’ off the page. Many of the important moments of your life disappear into the archive. Facebook’s answer to this is the new timeline which is really scrapbooking on steroids.  You will be able to enter important moments in your life and feature them on a timeline that is easily accessible. It appears to have been designed for the younger demographic however. Many young people today will share just about anything.  When the new timeline is rolled out, you will see some of the events that Facebook encourages you to add. Some make sense, like the year you started work or opened your business, moved to a new city etc.,  but some of the other categories like ‘changed eating habits’, ‘got glasses or contacts’ or ‘broke a bone’ leave me scratching my head!   Facebook would like you to give them much more information than ever before.  Why? To be able to feed the advertisers of course!

I personally will not be filling out the majority of the information. There is a security issue here I would like to bring to your attention and it pertains to filling out exact dates.   If you plan on entering a timeline for the birth of one of your children for example, you will have to give them the entire date for it to appear on the timeline.  This is a security risk for identity theft.  So please be careful.

5. Your Cover

There will be a big blank space at the top of your new profile that you will be able to fill. It is a placeholder for an image and it’s called the cover. You’ll see it in the image above for Mark Zuckerberg’s profile. He chose to showcase his dog ‘Beast’.  There is a specific dimension for this image – 850×312.  Look to this as a great opportunity to brand yourself! Get creative! I have seen some fabulous ones and I had fun creating mine.  You won’t see mine though unless you have the beta version of Timeline until it has been rolled out to the masses.

There are other significant changes; things like the application directory and how Facebook will be working with developers to allow seamless integration. Unfortunately many of these applications are not available here in Canada yet, so I haven’t been able to test them. Stay tuned for more as they become available.

The bottom line here is not to be too excited when this new Facebook version arrives on your screen. Take time to check your security settings, be mindful of how much personal information you share and explore the new features to see how you can streamline it to make it work for you.  Don’t get me wrong. There is still a lot of merit to using Facebook, particularly if you are a business owner whose target market is on Facebook.  Feel free to ask questions or get help if needed.

I have adopted Mari Smith’s approach to putting information out there.  Ask yourself these three questions:

1.  Would I be comfortable if this information were to show up on the front page of the New York Times?

2. Would I be comfortable if this information came up in a Google search?

3. Would my mom be proud of this if she saw it online?

If you can answer yes to these three questions, then you are probably OK sharing the information.

What do you think? I love getting feedback. Here on this blog, you’ll get commentluv. This is a great opportunity to leave a link back to you own blog when you leave a comment.

Until next time, Joanne

While physically located in Newmarket, Ontario, where Joanne resides with her family, she is virtually yours, anywhere.

3 Key Items to Staying in Charge

Having your own website and ranking well in the search engines is one of the most important pieces of real estate that a business owner today can own.  The reality is, people and businesses are gravitating to the internet in droves and technology is changing very quickly. Are you poised to be able to take advantage of these changes when they happen?  Are you ruler of your own domain?

Here are 3 tips to staying in charge of your own future.

1. Make sure you have registered your business name

Protecting your intellectual property and your brand is so very important. Imagine investing the time to become known in the industry as the ‘go to’ person in your field.  All the time you have spent getting ranked well in the search engines and then one day, you receive an email or a telephone call to say you must cease and desist using your business name because someone has put a copywrite or trademark on it and now owns the right to use it.  What would you do?  Contact the business development centre closest to you and find out what you need to do to protect yourself.

2. Make sure you own your own domain name and access to it

I am always surprised at how many people come to me and want to make a change over to WordPress but they don’t have access to their own domain name. They don’t know what the login information is or they have given the responsibility over to someone else, who paid for the domain name and invoiced them.  What this means, is that you run the risk of having to change your domain name if the person you gave that responsibility to won’t turn it over.  How costly would that be especially if your domain name matches your business name, marketing materials, your business cards, etc?  If you own the domain name and you cannot put your hands on the login information, expect the domain registrar to put you through a rigorous procedure to confirm that you are the legal owner.  It won’t be pretty.  I have seen both of these instances happen.

When I take on a new client wishing to engage in social media, I insist they own their own domain name. We use their credit card to purchase the domain and I ensure they have the access information. I also make sure the client is the person who is informed when the domain name and hosting needs to be renewed.  One word of caution. Don’t leave this info solely on your computer. What if your system crashed? Have your domain name registration and all other pertinent business related information printed off and stored in a safe place and keep it up to date.

3. Have access to your own website files

I know many business owners employ the services of a website development person or company. In many cases, the person or company will put your website files on their own server.  Most will not allow you access to those files in the form of ftp or a cpanel because of the security risk to their server.   What if something were to happen to that person? How would you get access? Now, your regular files can be copied without access but it can be tedious.  Personally, I register all my social media clients on a well established web host like Hostgator that supports WordPress.  Please click here to find out why I chose them. I give my clients access to their cpanel and ftp access if they request it.  It is your business and your files. If you paid for them, you should have access to them.   Don’t be afraid to ask your supplier where your files reside and how you can access them. Be wary about dealing with anyone who tries to hide this information.

Share your experiences with me. I love getting feedback.  Here on this blog, you’ll get commentluv. This is an opportunity to leave a link back to your own site when you leave a comment.

Until next time,

Joanne

While physically located in Newmarket, Ontario where Joanne lives with her family, she is virtually yours anywhere.

One of the things I love most about being a Social Media Virtual Administrator is the fact that I have some control on my carbon footprint. You see, I don’t commute to work every day, my clients don’t need to have additional workspace, equipment and spend extra on utilities for me to get the job done. I also use recyclable materials in my office and home wherever possible.  This is all great. But I do virtually (pardon the pun) all my work online and what was starting to weigh on me, was the knowledge of just what an impact computing has on the environment and so I began to consider green hosting for myself and my clients.

While I don’t pretend to know all there is to know about the subject, one thing I do understand and that is that the IT sector has a big climate impact and all those datacentres out there are using a huge amount of electricity not only to power but also to cool their servers.  So,  I embarked on a journey to find a host provider that had not only talked a good story about being green but one who put their money where their mouth was and appears to have implemented an environmentally sound program for their business.

It might have been easy enough to find someone whose servers operated solely on wind.  That would have been ideal if that was the only criteria I had to consider.  The challenge for me was to find someone who not only had a green solution, but one who is successful with a good track record, provides great technical support, supports WordPress (the platform that most of my clients use for their website or their blogging vehicle) and who is reasonably priced.  Working with small local business owners, cost is always a factor.

About a month ago, I moved most of my clients over to Hostgator.  I have been most impressed not only with the work they have done on going green, but also with the organization as a whole. Their ‘up time’ is really good, they have a sound grasp of WordPress, their pricing is reasonable and their technical support people are great. The only down side? I wish they were Canadian!

You should know that I am not an affiliate, nor am I getting any compensation for this testimonial. This is strictly me being really happy to have found a hosting company that has to date met all my needs and this includes a green focus. This is good news for me and for my clients and I now feel that I am being responsible to the environment.

How about you? Do you worry about your carbon footprint? I know there must be other good green suppliers out there and I’d love your input! Let’s get people thinking in this direction.

Here on my blog you’ll get commentluv. This is a plug-in that allows you to leave a link back to your own site when you leave feedback.

Until next time,

Joanne

While physically located in Newmarket, Ontario where Joanne lives with her family, she is virtually yours anywhere.

Reasons Why People Fail in the Social Media Space

How is your Social Media ‘Campaign’ going? Has the balloon burst?  Social Media has become mainstream so quickly and you see everyone scrambling now to get on board.  But if you are like many people who jumped in and got involved in the Social media space without truly understanding what it’s about, you might be finding your enthusiasm starting to wane.   Here are some of the main reasons that people peter out and are not successful in the social media realm.

1.  Focusing on the ‘sale’.

I have said this before but there are still so many businesses out there who don’t get it. Social Media is not about flogging wares.  It’s about relationship building.  Yes, it is true that Social media is an ideal way to address the first three stages of the sell cycle;

• awareness,
• knowledge and
• liking

with preference and buy as the latter two.  But the focus here is on the beginning stages of the sell cycle and that is where prospects are finding out about who you are as a business entity and as a person.  This is where the relationship begins to form. So offer up valuable information and add value. Be generous.  What goes around comes around in this space. Don’t be afraid to share some of your intellectual property.  People buy from people they like and trust.

2. Lack of commitment

It’s tough to make time every day to visit your Social Media profiles, write a blog post on a regular basis  and work at developing those relationships. Sometimes we’re at a loss for things to write or comment about.  But if you want to be truly successful in relationship building, then you need to make this a part of your regular routine.  I tell my clients to spend the first half hour of their day working on their business not in their business.  Imagine taking the time to have lunch with a new friend.  It’s hard to foster that new friendship if you don’t show up at the table.  There is help out there.   As a Certified Social Media Specialist, I coach my clients on how to find the right conversation, the kinds of things to talk about in this space and where they can find food for thought.

3. Quantity instead of quality

10,000 followers! That’s great! Now, how are you going to develop a great relationship with 10,000 people?  Don’t get caught up in relating your ‘success’ (how many Facebook friends/fans or Twitter followers you have). The truth is,  most people say about 300 people is where you will max out. Instead of worrying about the numbers,  get clear on the targeted group of people you are trying to attract and then leverage the Social media tools to disseminate your message. Your following will grow organically over time.

It’s important not to have unrealistic expectations in this space. It could take months before you start to see some traction. Relax and enjoy the experience. Know that every time you engage someone in this space, you are moving them closer to wanting to do business with you.

How about you? How is your Social Media strategy working? I love getting feedback here on my blog. And here, you will get commentluv. That’s a plug in that allows you to leave a link back to your own site when you leave a comment.

Until next time,

Joanne

While physically located in Newmarket, ON where Joanne lives with her family, she is virtually yours, anywhere.

Are You Being Held Hostage or Feel Your Hands are Tied?

I got a call a few weeks ago from a small local business owner who was very frustrated with her web designer. You know the type; someone who holds their cards close to their chest and would rather baffle the client with BS and hold them hostage.This website person actually told me they were smarter than the people at GoDaddy. WOW. Seriously?

Most small business owners I work with have very little to no computer technical skills. Most of them put their trust in someone they knew or took the recommendation of a friend to help them establish their online presence rather than take the time to find out if this potential supplier was the right fit for them – both from a personality perspective as well as taking into consideration if this supplier had the ability to understand their business. Sometimes one gets lucky. Suffice it to say in this case, this individual was not a match on either front. The worst part of all of this is that this person stuck with that developer for 2 years and suffered the outcome I describe below.

So, what are the signs that you are working with the wrong support person?

1. You get the feeling this person doesn’t really care about you or your business. You feel they are only interested in billing you and arm and a leg every time you ask them for help.

2. This person has not taken the time to understand you or your business model and what you need to do to get business.

3. The supplier has not done enough to stay current with changing trends and you feel you are falling behind your competitors.

4. You have begun to feel de-motivated and lack enthusiasm because you feel that lack of support. You now avoid calling or talking to that person because you don’t want a confrontation.

5. You wouldn’t even consider referring this person to anyone else.

If you answered yes to any one of these questions, what is stopping you from making a change? Most of the time, people will tell me that they have invested too much money in their existing situation and don’t want to start over.  They feel their hands are tied. The fact is you are likely spinning your wheels and the longer you sit there, the deeper the rut you’ll create. The online world is changing rapidly and it’s important that you understand that and embrace the change.  Don’t stick your head in the sand. These changes will keep coming.  I say cut your losses and move on.

As a Social Media specialist, forming solid relationships with my clients is vital on all fronts but wanting them to help them form those kinds of relationships with their client base is equally important to me. If I sense there is a change in our relationship,  I want to know immediately.  I am not too big to say it might be time to move on if the relationship is no longer mutually beneficial.  It will happen from time to time.  As a business owner myself, I understand the importance of keeping my finger on the pulse of all my relationships.

So, are you still happy with the people you have taken into your fold?

Next time, we’ll talk about this same situation but with the shoe on the other foot.

Until then, I always welcome feedback. And here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv. That’s a plug in that allows you to leave a link back to your own blog.

Until next time,

Joanne

Virtually Yours, Anywhere!

I just returned from a lovely 2 week vacation – well 6,000 kilometers of driving may not constitute a vacation to many people but I loved it. My husband, son and I traveled to the East Coast of Canada (Nova Scotia primarily), to experience the beauty that province has to offer. But that wasn’t the only beauty of it; my clients also enjoyed  Social Media support while I was gone.

You see, with a laptop, the wonderful world of wireless internet access and some discipline, I was able to publish client blogs, answer emails and deal with any emergencies while on the road and still enjoy my family and our time together. And as a Social Media Specialist, the bulk of the work I do is online, meaning, I have an easily transportable office! It doesn’t matter if I am sitting in my home office in Newmarket, Ontario, in an Inn in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia or in Europe for that matter. I can still meet the demands of your business remotely. And, working with a Virtual Administrator means that you pay only for the time we spend working on your behalf! It’s a win-win situation.  I even managed to keep up to date with my contacts on Facebook – publishing pictures and video from our trip along the way and sharing some of our experiences. Many people commented that it was like being on the holiday with us! I loved that. Social Media tools have a way of making you feel you are never far from home and help you continue to build those relationships.

Another bonus on this trip was having the opportunity to meet up with Kathy, another VA from Nova Scotia. We got to know one another at a VA forum in 2009 and through Social Media, have had the opportunity to get to know one another remotely. We spent the day sharing information and ideas and learned about each others businesses. The VA community in general is a very giving, supportive group. We give referrals to one another, share knowledge and even sub-contract to each other where appropriate. I feel blessed to be part of this world-wide industry.

Virtual Administrators (VAs) come in many flavors and from widely diversified backgrounds. You’ll find VAs with pure administrative skills and others marketing or technical skills. Many business owners hire one VA or many depending on their needs. It makes it much less complicated than trying to find one employee with all the skill sets you may require.

Overall, I love the flexibility of owning my own business and I love supporting my clients in the Social Media realm. I especially love the fact that I can do it from anywhere in the world, even when I’m on holiday!

How about you? Have you been to Nova Scotia? What was your favorite experience?  Mine had to be whale watching off the coast of Pleasant Bay.   You can watch this short video on our whale watching tour with Captain Mark’s.  The whales came within a metre of the boat. Such an amazing experience…

I love getting feedback and here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv. That’s a plug-in that allows you to leave a link back to your own site when you leave a comment.

Until next time,
Joanne

While physically located in Newmarket, ON where Joanne lives with her family, she is virtually yours, anywhere.

Still Using Telephone Directories to Market Your Business?

In a recent informal survey of local small business owners, I was surprised to learn how many still rely on costly telephone directory listings as a primary means of marketing their business. Interestingly, when I asked them how they themselves find products and services that they are looking for, most said they did their looking online. There seems to be a disconnect between what they do and what they expect their prospects and clients to do.   If you read one of my recent posts on 8 ways to green your office, you will know that I discontinued the delivery of local telephone directories to our home because I do all my searches online and have for some time.

In addition to the number of people who use their home computers to source product and service, there is a growing number of users of smart phones and products like the Ipod Touch. What business owners need to get a handle on is how these users actually find products and services online. Most business owners tell me they have a website. When I ask them how well optimized their sites are for keywords, most don’t know and don’t understand the implication. One cannot count on the fact that users will know to look up your business to find what they are looking for so it’s not enough just to have a website.  Most of the time, users will do a Google search on a keyword or keyword phrase to find what they are looking for. The bottom line here is that if you are not easily found using those keywords, to those individuals, you do not exist.  And, if the proliferation of these tools and the growing number of Social media users continues to rise, where does that leave your business in the coming years?

As a Social Media Specialist, I counsel my local business clients to at least have a Google local business listing. This local business listing must contain the keywords that your community will use to find your product or service. You need to think like a consumer when you are targeting these keywords. It is also important to do some keyword research to ensure that your listing will have the chance to be ranked high in the Search Engines.  If you are not comfortable doing this on your own, you should enlist the help of someone who can help you.

If you are a business owner who does business online, then it is even more critical that you either understand keyword searches and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or get someone to help you ensure your sites rank high enough to be found. Most users will not leave the first page of Google to find what they are looking for. Targeting to be on the first page of Google should be your goal.  Targeting to be the first listing on Page 1 of Google would be ideal.  According to Market Samurai, a higher percentage of users will click on the number 1 Google listing than on any other.

Social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and WordPress (blogs) naturally rank high because the Google search engines heavily index these sites so being involved in Social Media is a good choice.  Knowing which sites to be involved in based on your business model is something I work on with clients to ascertain where they will have their greatest success.

Ready to get started?  I’d love your feedback. Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv. That’s a plugin for bloggers. If you leave a comment, you can provide a link back to your own blog. How great is that?But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment. I want to hear from everyone!

While physically located in Newmarket, ON where Joanne lives with her family, she is virtually yours, anywhere.

Until next time,

Joanne

Earth Day is Coming!

I don’t know if you are like me, but until recently, my office was inundated with paper! In addition to business related activities, I look after the bill paying for my household, and therefore any mail coming into the house, comes into my office. We also have three printers in our house which can make for a lot of paper, as well as a lot of ink!

Recently, I embarked on a mission to try and green my office as much as possible. I was on Rogers Daytime (TV) a couple of weeks ago and provided these ways to green your office on the show. Since then, I have had a few people ask me to repeat these tips, so I decided to dedicate my blog to this topic this week.  With Earth Day around the corner, I think this is a timely topic.   I hope some of these tips will help you as well. I apologize to my American friends. The websites that I will refer to here are Canadian so you might have to do some research on your end to find out if these exist where you live too!

1. Yellow Pages Directories

Until recently, we received 3 copies of the Directory in one form or another. There was a large general one for the Metropolitan area, and two regional ones.  I do all my searches online now.  I can’t remember the last time I pulled one of these out to look up a number and with the proliferation of  Social Media, Smart Phones, tablets and the IPod Touch, these are quickly becoming redundant.   To give Yellow Pages credit, they embarked on a mission a couple of years ago to green their process, which includes the paper that they print on. What was not addressed however, is the delivery system which is required to actually get these publications to your door.   In addition, when you recycle your old one, the same delivery process is needed to take it to the recycle plant.  Yellow Pages has now implemented a service whereby you can visit www.ypg.com/delivery, and on the main page opt out of receiving a hard copy of the publication.

2. Unaddressed Ad Mail

Have you ever stopped to think how many flyers and brochures you get in your mail in a week?  How many of you actually read all these pieces of mail?  I know I don’t.   Since the government clamped down on telemarketing, it appears everyone has taken to bulk mail.  Just think of the paper, ink and recycling effort that goes into these initiatives.  This is one reason why Social Media is becoming so important.  This is a way for your to interact with your prospects and clients online, 24/7 and it’s a place where you will actually get interaction!!  If you would like to stop this mail from being delivered:

a)  If you have a superbox (meaning a centralized mail box on the street), you can slip a note in to the mail carrier asking them to stop giving you unaddressed ad mail.

b) If you are still lucky enough to have your mail delivered to your home, you can post a note on your mailbox asking the same.

It’s as easy as that. There will still be some mail that is required to be delivered. Most of these revolve around political/electoral items and community newsletters.

3. Addressed Ad Mail

You know these.  The Credit Card companies are great for this kind of thing.  If I took every offer, I would have 100 credit cards.  You wonder how they get your name in the first place!  One way is if you purchase a large item and sign up for lease payments or purchase on a no-money down option and pay over time.  Financial Institutions then get their hands on your addressee information and many of these companies sell their lists.  One should always read the fine print.  If you would like to stop this mail from coming to your house, you will have to be a little more diligent.  Go to www.the-cma.org.  When you get to the website, click on the Consumer Information tab. Then click on CMA Do Not Contact Service.  Register your name there.  You will likely have to revisit this one a few times a year if you purchase a lot.  As you sign new contracts, you are potentially setting yourself up to be put on another mailing list.

4. Pay Bills Online

Many of you may still feel uncomfortable with this option and that is completely your choice.  I do online banking and pay bills online. It saves time, money and the environment.  I know in the U.S. many companies will give incentives for you to pay online, some with cash!  I also invoice my clients online.  No more snail mail!

5. Printing

When you print, consider these tips:

• Print on both sides of the paper
• Extend your margins to allow more printing on a page
• Use a font like Times Roman to get more words on a page
• Change to Draft printing until you are ready for the final version

These tips are great for helping cut down on paper.  Of course buying recycled paper is also a big plus. You may have to pay a little more for it, but I am a big believer in “Pay me now or Pay me later”. If you would like to ensure a sustainable planet for your children and grandchildren, then think of the big picture. A few cents more now for our children’s futures is a small price to pay.

6. Ink

Many people still throw away their printer cartridges…in fact approx. 70% still do.  There are companies out there like Cartridge World, who will refill your ink cartridges for you. They also refill or remanufacture toner cartridges for photocopiers and laser printers.  The result is the same as a brand new cartridge and at considerable savings.  These components take hundreds of years (some components 1000 years) to break down in landfill.  Look online for a Cartridge World in your area.  They have franchise outlets  in many countries.

7. Electricity

Using a product like the Smart Strip Power Bar is a great way to cut down on power usage. You can plug your computer into the main plug of this strip and the rest of your peripherals (printer, fax machine, etc) in the others. When you power off your computer, it automatically powers off the rest. Simple and easy.  The same would apply to your TV and peripherals.

Also using the Smart Fluorescent Light Bulbs is a great savings too.  Consider these for the whole house.

8. Consummables

When it comes time to buy office products, consider looking for recycled items.  I recently purchased a package of Papermate pens that have components that you can put in your compost!  The outside shell of the pen is made from a corn product.  There are other parts that can be recycled. Only a few (like the ink tube) needs to be thrown away.

I also purchase recycled paper, envelopes, folders, binders, paper clips and even a couple of file crates that are made from post-consumer waste.

I hope these tips help! I am sure there are 2 others to round it out to 10.  Let me know what you do!  I love getting feedback.  Here on my blog, you will get Commentluv.  That’s great for you bloggers out there.  By leaving a comment, you can attach a link back to your own blog. Great for SEO.  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment. I love to hear from everyone!

While physically located in , Ontario where I live with my family, as a VA, I’m virtually yours anywhere….

Until next time,

Joanne

Plugging into the Difference – WordPress .com or .org

As a Social Media Specialist, I have clients who wonder why they should have a blog and the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.  Matt Mullenweg, founding developer of WordPress gives a great interview below on the usage of WordPress and offers a great analogy on the difference between the .com and .org options.  Listen in and hear what Matt has to say.

I am not only a big proponent of having a blog, I recommend using your WordPress site as your hub. As many of you probably already know, I collapsed my static website at the end of last year and folded that content into the back pages of my WordPress blog. The reason I did that, was

• to cut down on having to maintain two sites, and more importantly,
• my WordPress site is a great place for me to communicate with my readers, establish great relationships and build community. My readership has gone up considerably and I have many more returning visitors to my site in having done this. Google Analytics tells me so!

A blog is a great way for you to give your community fresh, valuable information on a regular basis.  I did a post on Top 10 Tips on Blogging back in the Fall.   If you would like to read it, you’ll find it here.  The questions is, does one go with .com or .org? I like the analogy that Matt uses here of owning a home vs renting. Personally, I would much rather own my own and be in control of my own destiny. Wouldn’t you?  While the low maintenance aspect of the .com site may seem attractive, what does Matt mean here when he says in the .com version, you have ‘no yard’, and you ‘can’t knock down the walls’?  Here are a few key differences you should be aware of.

1. In the .com version, WordPress has proprietary ownership of all your content. Because you have your material installed on their site, there is the risk of them shutting you down if they don’t like your content.  One should read the terms of service before signing up for a .com site.

2. In the .com version, you must use the templates they have to offer.  You cannot modify the template layout, look and feel and you run the risk of looking like every other .com site out there.

3. You cannot install any of the vast array of plugins that are available to you in the .org version.  There are literally hundreds of developers coming out with new templates and plugins all the time and I install many of them on my clients’ sites – things like the Facebook and Twitter plugins for example,  that allow interconnectivity between all of your social media sites.   So functionality in my opinion, is much lower here than on a .org site.

4. You cannot do affiliate marketing on your .com site.

5. A .com site screams NEWBIE!!

There is a VIP option (not free) that allows you more control.  Matt discusses this in the video but as he says, they turn away many inquiries. This would be for larger organizations with a huge online blog presence.

If you are someone who just wants to publish a personal blog, then the .com site is probably fine.  If you are using your blog for business purposes however, I would recommend the .org version for the reasons stated above.  It is true, there is more maintenance and responsibility in maintaining your own site, but that is where I come in.  Using the services of a Social Media specialist who sets up WordPress blogs will be very helpful  not only in the site design, but in its functionality.  I also make sure all your social media sites interconnect and talk to one another.  It is so important for your community to find you no matter where they hang out online.

What have your experiences been like?  I love getting feedback.  And here on my site, you’ll get commentluv.  For all you bloggers out there, leave a comment, and you can link back to your own blog. How great is that?  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave me a comment, I want to hear from everyone.

While physically located in , Ontario where I live with my family, as a VA, I’m virtually yours anywhere….

Until next time,

Joanne

3 Ways to Reputation Management – Keeping An Ear to the Ground

Yes, it’s true! People talk about their life experiences – good or bad every day.  In the past, they would tell their friends, family and co-workers, but here’s what’s changed.  Now anyone can go online and spread word of that experience… with the world.  With the surge in blogging, article writing and tweeting, people now have a voice and they aren’t afraid to speak up.  If you are a business owner, how well are you tapped into what people are saying about your brand?

If people are saying great things about your business, wouldn’t you want to thank them? Wouldn’t you like to springboard off of that positive feedback to influence others to do business with you? Of course you would.  The other side of the coin however, is this.  Do you think it’s possible to keep 100% of your clients happy 100% of the time?  If you do, please tell me who you are! The reality is, that sometimes clients will go away unhappy and they are going to talk about it, potentially online.  So it’s very important to stay tuned in to the conversation that’s taking place out there.

How do you do that?  Here are a few ways to stay connected to the conversation.

1. Google Alerts

Go ahead and set up a Google account for yourself and install Google Alerts. It’s FREE! Enter the keywords for your brand – your business name, your name, your domain names, your key personnel, etc. Go ahead and enter your competition as well.  Wouldn’t it be great to be able to monitor that activity too?  GA will send you an email to tell you when it gets a hit on that search criteria and you can investigate. Yahoo also has its version too. You can find it here.

2. Twitter Search

Set up Twitter Keyword searches to monitor the conversation going on in Twitter. You use the same philosophy as above.  You can do that from whatever console you are using i.e., Hootsuite, Seesmic or Tweetdeck for example.   Don’t forget that tweets get indexed in the search engines too.  Good and bad comments can hang around the search engines for a long time, years in fact.

3. Trackur.com

Consider using an application like Trackur. It has a great Social media monitoring system and comes with a free and a premium version.

There are a myriad of other applications that you can try out as well.   Some are free, others charge a premium.  Depending on the size of your business, you may need something more robust.  Try radian6.com

Good news spreads fast on the net, and bad news spreads even faster.  So what do you do when your brand gets mentioned?  If it’s a great review, as I said above, thank the person/entity that is providing the great feedback. Foster that relationship.   They are acting as a great ambassador of your brand.  But what to do about a bad review?  Don’t ignore it.  Others won’t.  Take this as a great opportunity to engage them in conversation, listen carefully to what is being said and respond appropriately.  By addressing it here, not only are you are showing that you care, but you may be able to change their opinion and you can turn the relationship around.  It’s Public Relations.

As a Social Media Specialist, I encourage all my clients to monitor their brand and make sure they are participating in the conversation – good or bad.  After all, it IS your reputation at stake.

What do you think? Have you engaged people in this environment using these tools? How did they work?  I found an example of this just yesterday where someone included my content in his post and gave me credit for it with a link back to my site.  What did I do?  Thank him of course!

I love getting feedback.  Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv.  That’s great for all you bloggers out there. Leave a comment and you can leave a link back to your own blog!  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment. I’d love to hear from all of you.

Joanne

While physically located in , Ontario where I live with my family, as a VA, I’m virtually yours anywhere….