Apr132011

From Personal Profile to Business Page – Should You Convert?

By Cassie Viau | April 13, 2011 | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Facebook recently released a new tool that allows people to convert from a personal Facebook profile to a business page, without losing any of the friends you worked so hard to gather. For business owners who created personal accounts before business pages were available, or for those who mistakenly created a personal account, this option sounds like a dream! But, be careful, and be prepared, before you make convert. Here are the pros and cons to making the switch.

PROS

  • All of your confirmed friends will be converted into people who “like” your page. This means you don’t have to rebuild your community!
  • Your profile pictures will be migrated to your new page. So, people will still recognize who you are in the news feed stream.
  • Business pages offer better options for sharing information and content. You can create custom tabs, run contests, and offer a more robust presence.
  • You’ll be able to connect with more than 5,000 people. The current friend limit on personal profiles stops you from connecting with more people.

 

CONS

  • None of your wall posts, comments, photo albums, etc. will migrate over. This is huge – your new business page will have a big audience of people ready to go, with nothing to look at. But, you can download your information before migrating so that you have a backup.
  • Your username, and therefore your unique URL, may not transfer over.
  • You will no longer have a personal profile to connect with people. You’ll have to create a new personal profile for personal friendships that you want to continue.

Cassie Viau is the Senior Manager of Client Services at Effective Student Marketing, Inc. Follow @CassieViau on Twitter for more social media tips and tricks!

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Apr062011

Obama Announces Re-election Via YouTube

By Cassie Viau | April 6, 2011 | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (3)

This week, President Obama announced that he would be running for re-election. But he didn’t do it with a standard speech – he used a digital media campaign that included a YouTube video, emails, text messages, and social media sites. It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle you’re on or what your political beliefs are, it’s important to remember that these are techniques that anyone could, and should, be using to reach an increasingly social audience.

President Obama uses his own, branded YouTube channel to post videos on a fairly regular basis. So, to announce his plan to run for re-election in 2012, he created a YouTube video entitled “It Begins With Us” and features supporters giving their feedback about the President. The video has over 200,000 views and includes a lengthy description that talks about the campaign’s focus on grassroots support.

The YouTube video was then used in his email announcement to supporters on Monday morning. The email had the simple subject line “2012” and included an embedded version of the YouTube video as well as a link to the YouTube channel. The campaign also used text messages to send out the YouTube video directly to supporters’ smart phones.

Finally, the YouTube announcement video was posted on President Obama’s Facebook page and Twitter account. The Facebook post has over 25,000 “likes” and 3,000 comments. The Twitter announcement uses the hashtag #Obama2012. The original post has been re-tweeted over 100 times so far.

I think that regardless of your political leanings, it’s interesting to see how politicians use social media to reach their audience. This goes beyond sharing photos and status updates with friends, and moves into a whole new level of marketing and campaigning.

Cassie Viau is the Senior Manager of Client Services at Effective Student Marketing, Inc. Follow @CassieViau on Twitter for more social media tips and tricks!

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By Cassie Viau | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (3)
Mar302011

Ask Questions and Get Answers On Facebook

By Cassie Viau | March 30, 2011 | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , , , | Comment (1)

You may have noticed a new style of post filling your Facebook News Feed recently amid the status updates and photo albums. Facebook Questions is the latest feature from the social media site, designed to help people create quick polls, gather information from friends, and share their own experiences with the click of a button. Here’s how to create your own question and start using this new feature:

  • Click “Question” above the status update box on your homepage.
  • Type your question in the box.

    Facebook question box

    Enter your question text here.

  • Click “Add Poll Options” to create the choices for your question.
  • Type your poll responses into each space. You’ll notice that as you begin typing, Facebook pages will begin appearing in a drop-down. If you’d like to use a specific Facebook page as a response, click it in the drop-down to add it as an option. This is a great way to poll people about specific brands, pages, or other features on Facebook that you’re curious about.

    Facebook Poll Responses

    Enter the responses people can choose from.

  • If you’d like to allow people to add their own responses, check the box. If you want to only allow your responses, uncheck the box.
  • Click “Ask Friends” to share the question with specific people on your friends list. The question will appear on your profile and in the news feed of your friends anyway, but you can target individuals this way.

    Facebook question in the news feed

    This is what your question will look like on your profile and in the news feed.

  • Within these news feed posts, you’ll notice that the question has turned into a link. Click this link to open a box that shows all of the responses and comments that your question has received.

    Facebook question results

    Here are the results of a Facebook question that was posted.

  • As people answer your question, it will appear on their profiles, allowing each of their friends to answer the question and spread it further.

Cassie Viau is the Senior Manager of Client Services at Effective Student Marketing, Inc. Follow @CassieViau on Twitter for more social media tips and tricks!

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Mar232011

The History of Social Networking

By Cassie Viau | March 23, 2011 | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (2)

As someone who has grown up with the internet, social media and online interaction, it’s always interesting to take a look back and see how it all began. This infographic shows the “history of social media” and outlines a lot of the major events that have helped us get to where we are today. I’d say that I really jumped in and became active around the 1997 AOL Instant Messenger era. From there I went on to use sites like LiveJournal, MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. I’ve always been fascinated with social networking and have never been afraid to create an account somewhere and try out the latest site.

When did you first start using the internet to connect with other people? How did you jump in?

The History of Social Networking
Via: Online Schools

Cassie Viau is the Senior Manager of Client Services at Effective Student Marketing, Inc. Follow @CassieViau on Twitter for more social media tips and tricks!

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By Cassie Viau | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (2)
Mar162011

Get Breaking News from LondonderryNH.net!

By Cassie Viau | March 16, 2011 | Posted in Around Town, Columns | Tagged , , , , , | Comment (1)

Did you know that the Londonderry Hometown Online News publishes breaking news stories on our Twitter account, @LondonderryNH ? If you’re interested in seeing everything that happens around town, from news articles, to police and fire reports, to comments on local happenings, you don’t have to suddenly become an avid Twitter user. Here’s how you can get breaking local news easily:

Create a Twitter account

  • Visit www.twitter.com and click “sign up.”
  • Fill in the basic information, including your name, email, and the username you’d like to use on Twitter. Remember, your username is how people will find you and reference you.
  • If you’re interested, the next few steps in the sign up process will help you find Twitter users to follow based on your interests and people you may already know. If you don’t want to engage with anyone else right now, skip these steps.
  • Congratulations! You’ve now created a Twitter account!

Find @LondonderryNH on Twitter

  • At the top of the page, search for @LondonderryNH. It’s important to use the @ symbol, since that denotes a username in the Twitter world.
  • You’ll now see a stream of tweets that mention “@LondonderryNH.” You can click on any of the blue versions of @LondonderryNH. These are links directly to our Twitter page.
  • Once you’ve clicked a link, the @LondonderryNH stream of tweets will appear on the right hand side, including our description. Click the FOLLOW button at the top of the stream.
  • You’ve now subscribed to our tweets!

Follow our tweets online

  • If you want to check the tweets daily, you can login to Twitter and see all of the @LondonderryNH tweets right on your homepage. These are posted in real time throughout the day.
  • You can also simply visit www.twitter.com/londonderrynh to view our tweets at any time, with or without a Twitter account.

Getting notifications on your phone

  • You can also receive a text notification each time a breaking news story is posted to the @LondonderryNH account. To do this, you’ll need to set up your mobile settings on Twitter.
  • Go back to your home page and click on the @LondonderryNH link to view our stream.
  • Next to the “Following” button, there’s a small icon with a mobile phone. Click that to start receiving text notifications from our account.
  • If you haven’t already set up your mobile phone, Twitter will ask you if you want to activate your phone. Say “ok” and enter all of the appropriate information.
  • You will now received text messages each time @LondonderryNH posts to Twitter, making it easy to stay up to date with the latest town news!

Twitter doesn’t have to be a place where you’re talking – as one reader put it, “I think some people fear they have to tweet, when all they want to do is listen to the chirping!”

Once you’ve created an account, you can start searching and following anyone you can find. Your home page will pull in a real time stream of all the accounts you are following, making it easy for you to see what’s happening, as it happens. You could choose to never post a single tweet yourself if you don’t want to! Have fun with it, and see what other businesses, news organizations, or people you can find on Twitter – there’s a whole world of people sharing updates out there!

Cassie Viau is the Senior Manager of Client Services at Effective Student Marketing, Inc. Follow @CassieViau on Twitter for more social media tips and tricks!

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By Cassie Viau | Posted in Around Town, Columns | Tagged , , , , , | Comment (1)
Mar092011

About.Me Makes a Personal Website Easy!

By Cassie Viau | March 9, 2011 | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , , , | Comment (1)

If you’re looking for an easy, free way to create a personalized website, About.Me offers a great option for those who don’t have web design and coding skills. It’s a place where you can aggregate all of your online content and social profiles in one place – an online business card of sorts. About.Me calls them “personalized splash pages” and they’re really easy to create.

Start by uploading a background, or choosing an image from the About.Me templates and designs. Other About.Me users have created a wide range of designs to choose from, to meet the needs of anyone from a business professional to an artist. You can also edit the colors and fonts of various elements on the page to match your background image and overall design.

The next step is to upload a personal photo and a brief biography about yourself. It doesn’t have to be anything long. In fact, a short, to the point description is best. You don’t want a lot of content on your About.Me page.

Finally, you add links to your social profiles. You can choose everything from Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn. It’s also a great place to include a link to your blog or your full, personal website if you have one. This is a one stop shop for everything about you. Of course, you need to know how you want to use these outside sites before you start putting them on your About.Me page. If you’re only interested in connecting with close friends and family on Facebook for example, you probably don’t want to include that profile on your About.Me page.

Once you’ve completed your About.Me splash page, you can start promoting it all over the web. Use as your URL on your Twitter and LinkedIn profiles. Add the URL to your business cards or email signature. Share it wherever you think people will see it, and whenever you want to promote yourself to others.

After you’ve started using About.Me and spreading it, you can login and track site analytics through an easy to use dashboard. Check out how many views or clicks your site has gotten on any given day or see if anyone else has linked to you.

For those of us with multiple social profiles and websites, About.Me provides a streamlined, clean place to promote our pages and connect with others.

Cassie Viau is the Senior Manager of Client Services at Effective Student Marketing, Inc. Follow @CassieViau on Twitter for more social media tips and tricks!

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By Cassie Viau | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , , , | Comment (1)