by Kimberly | Feb 3, 2010 | Blog, Facebook, Featured
I became a fan of the US Army fan page on Facebook after the shootings at Fort Hood last year. Today I noticed an interesting status up from their page. (See below). I think this is a fascinating use of a government agency connecting with every day people but it was also an interesting commentary on just how far social media has come and is now ingrained in our every day lives. After seeing this update, I went over the Army’s Facebook page to see just what was going on and it seems as though the Army’s fans were posting their opinions on the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. Obviously, this is a highly charged and highly emotional issue for many people on both sides of the issue. The parts that particularly caught my interest was: 1. The response from the Army’s admins for page who were actively engaging with their fans and letting them know they were being heard. It also appears Admins are actively watching the page to delete any completely derogatory and profane messages. But the ones that are on there seem to be posted by people on there who are willing to post their opinions without resorting to name calling or hurtful words. 2. That this issue was being so openly discussed at all on their fan page. While fan opinions on Facebook may not change whether the policy continues, it does seem entirely feasible that at the very least, these comments will be forwarded to those in the higher ranks and quite possibly to congressmen and women and other policy/decision makers. I believe...
by Kimberly | Nov 18, 2009 | Blog, Facebook
Facebook recently changed not only how news and updates are delivered to users, but they’ve also implemented a formula for deciding which news is delivered. When you log into Facebook, you will most likely first see “News Feed.” (Unless you’ve moved Status Updates to the top of your left side menu, in which case, you will see just the Status Updates from your friends.) What shows up in your News Feed is determined by Facebook based on their own formula. The News Feed typically will include content from your Friends and from the Fan Pages that you belong to. However, unless you click on view “Live Feed,” you are only going to see the content that Facebook has decided you might be interested in. This means Facebook now takes into account what Fan Pages your friends like, or what Fan Page stories they are commenting on, which fan pages you interact with frequently and which fan pages you visit most often. What does this mean for Facebook Fan Page Administrators? It means that engagement and interaction on your Fan Page just became much more important if you expect to get your Fan Page to show up in your fans’ News Feeds. No longer can you just post on your Facebook and expect that it will get seen by your fans by showing up in their News Feed. It will still show up in their Live Feed, but the Live Feed is not the default and we have no idea how many users are actually moving from their News Feed to the Live Feed. Fan Page Administrators will now have...
by Kimberly | Oct 25, 2009 | Blog, Facebook, Social Media
On Friday, Facebook made yet another change to how users see their news feed on their homepage when the log in. Previously, when you logged in you saw all the latest news and posts from your friends and from the fan pages you follow. Additionally, there was the “Highlights” section off to the right hand side of the screen which many people never really understood the usefulness of this feature nor was it ever really clear how a particular story, photo, video or link ended up in your Highlights section. Now when you log in you will first see the “News Feed” on your Home page. According to Facebook’s Blog this is “the most interesting things that happened in the last day in the “News Feed” view. News Feed picks stories that we think you’ll enjoy based on a variety of factors including how many friends have liked and commented on it and how likely you are to interact with that story.” What this means is that Facebook has “picked” some of your friends and fan page’s updates or postings that they think you will be most interested in regardless of when they were posted and is essentially *highlighting* them for you. This does have some benefits in that you might find a posting or update that is interesting to you from several hours to a couple of days ago that you might have missed when you were not logged into Facebook. However, it also means that Facebook is picking these for you so there may also been people or pages showing up in this stream that really are...
by Kimberly | Jul 15, 2009 | Blog, Facebook, Marketing, Social Media
Facebook has gone yet one step further in providing you with the ability to embed a widget on your web site or blog which includes posts from your Facebook Fan page along with the option to show your current fans. Best of all, it provides a quick and seamless way for a reader of your website or blog to become a fan of your site from right there. (Assuming they have a Facebook account.) This is awesome new feature which allows you to create yet another way to engage with your target audience and to bring them in to part of your online social network. It’s also a great move on Facebook’s part to push Facebook out even further into the Internet stratosphere. To get the code for the widget for a fan page, you must first be an Admin for the fan page. This means you can’t just go and add a widget for any fan page that might grab your attention. As with anything that you post on your site, it should be something that you have explicit permission to post. As an Admin to a Fan Page, when you go to the page, you will see the option just below the picture or your logo which says, “Add Fan Box to Your Site.” There you will actually see two options, one for getting the code for adding a fan box and the other option provides you with code to get a Live Stream box which shows all the updates from your friends and where you can also post your status. Grab the copy and paste it...
by Kimberly | Jun 14, 2009 | Blog, Facebook, Social Media
Last night Facebook opened the gates to allow users to claim a specific username, which is something people have been requesting for a long time. LinkedIn allows you do that and so does Twitter so it seems that it was about time for Facebook to provide users the ability to create a personalized URL as well. For people who are using Facebook primarily as a business networking and social marketing platform, then there are additional benefits to having a specific vanity URL related to marketing and branding. For many of us who already use either our name, our business name or another specific username, there was some added pressure to be the first to stake a claim- especially if you have a fairly common name. I chose to go with my proper name instead of my business name. I did this for a couple of reasons. First, as a Virtual Assistant, there is just as much likelihood that someone will search for me by name as they will for my business name. My URL for LinkedIn is also under my proper name. Secondly, Facebook made it very clear that users would not be allowed to change their username and were advised to choose wisely. I figured that if I ever wanted to re-brand myself or decided to change my name or my industry, then I would want to still have a relevant username/URL for my Facebook account regardless of what I was doing or the name of my business. Besides, in a few weeks, I’ll be able to choose a username for my business Fan Page that can specific...
by Kimberly | Dec 23, 2008 | Blog, Facebook, Social Media, social media marketing, Social Media Virtual Assistant, Twitter
Within Facebook you have the ability to add an application which will sync with your Twitter feed and supply all of your tweets to your Facebook Status. There are a couple of benefits to using sending your twitter feed to Facebook. The first is that it will often place you on your friend’s home page so they will see it almost every time they log in. This increases your visibility on Facebook. It may also garner you more twitter followers who like what you tweet and will go choose to follow you. There can be a couple of downsides to consider as well. Being constantly on the homepage with updates from your twitter conversation may be annoying to some people who can then choose ask for “less” about you in their home page feed. If you tend to be a prolific tweeter, your tweets will also fill your Personal Profile page as it will be considered a new “status” every time you tweet. So, it’s best to consider the positives and the possible negatives when adding this application. However, if you do add it and decide that it’s just not for you, then you do have the option to remove it as well. Here’s how to add the application: 1) At the bottom of the Facebook window, click on “Applications” and a small box will pop up. At the top of the box, click on “Find More”. 2) After you’ve clicked on “Find More” a new page will come up and in the upper right hand corner, there is a search box where you can enter “Twitter” and hit...
