Christian Karasiewicz, Author at Christiankonline.com

Searching posts and status updates with Facebook Graph Search

Facebook Graph Search is a powerful way to collect valuable data about your friends and fans.

When Facebook Graph Search first launched, you were limited to searching for information about your friends. For example, friends who live in Washington DC.

You could also use Facebook Graph Search on a Facebook Page to learn more about your fans and customers as well.

Today, Facebook has enhanced Facebook Graph Search even more and now gives you the ability to search posts and status updates.

This is great news because not only can you find friends who share a common interest with you, but it is even easier search your post history with Facebook Graph Search.

To use Facebook Graph Search to search posts and status updates, follow the instructions listed below.

Using Facebook Graph Search to search posts and status updates

Continue reading Searching posts and status updates with Facebook Graph Search

Facebook link thumbnail image dimensions [Template]

With Facebook releasing new Facebook link thumbnail image dimensions, it’s time to learn how to update your images within your blog post or website. This way whenever someone shares your links on Facebook, the images look great within the Facebook news feed. To do that, we have created a free Facebook link thumbnail image dimensions template for you to use.

This collection of templates is available for the desktop, mobile, and sidebar images on Facebook.

To use these templates, you can download the recommended template. This requires having larger images to work with.

If you don’t have larger images, we recommend using the mobile template so that your images are optimized for Facebook.

By using this Facebook link thumbnail image template, you can quickly create images that scale perfectly across Facebook.

To use the Facebook link thumbnail image dimensions template, just follow these instructions.

Facebook link thumbnail image dimensions

Continue reading Facebook link thumbnail image dimensions [Template]

How do you stack up? Measuring Facebook Page performance

How well is your Facebook Page performing? When asked this question, most businesses can probably only provide basic stats such as page likes and reach to use when determining their Facebook Page performance.

While this will provide some meaningful data, it doesn’t necessarily provide enough information to tell you how well your Facebook Page is doing.

For that, you’ll want to dig into your Facebook Insights to get a better understanding of what your fans are most interested in seeing you share on Facebook.

If you’re not yet ready to jump into using Facebook Insights to track your Facebook Page performance, you’re in luck.

Social Media analytics company, Quintly, compiled a collection of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) on Facebook Pages of varying sizes that you can use to give you a better idea on where your Facebook Page should be performing.

Here are some of the areas that are covered in this infographic on Facebook Page performance.

Average number of Facebook fans
Like, comment and sharing distribution on Facebook posts
How to calculate the interaction rate on Facebook
How to calculate the people talking about this ratio

Of note, one of the most interesting performance metrics that is talked about is interaction distribution on Facebook Pages.

For those of you unfamiliar with interaction distribution, this is whether fans prefer to like, comment, or share Facebook Page posts. Let me know if the performance metrics that are mentioned measure-up to what you are seeing on your own Facebook Page.

Remember, when using these Facebook Page performance tips, your results may vary slightly.

Measuring Facebook Page performance

Continue reading How do you stack up? Measuring Facebook Page performance

Fixing Facebook image issues using the Facebook debugger tool

Over the past week, Facebook has increased the size of images when you share a link to a blog post. This is great news because this means your images now appear larger. This isn’t so great if you have older blog posts that contain images that are not optimized for Facebook because they will get squished or cutoff. We’re going to teach you about Facebook image optimization and how you can use the Facebook debugger tool to fix images on your older blog posts to make them look their best in the news feed.

Facebook images in the news feed

I’m really excited about the larger image sizes in the news feed because it now makes the news feed more visual. Unfortunately though, if your images are not optimized properly for Facebook, they won’t look so good.

Here is an example of what the new images look like when you share a link on Facebook.

Example of a Facebook image that is not optimized

Example of a Facebook image that is optimized

As you can see, while the images have gotten larger, depending on the size of images on your blog or website, they may not resize properly, resulting in images that are cut off or in some cases, stretched.

So what are the correct image sizes that you need to be using? According to the Facebook Developer blog, the recommended size is 1200 x 628 px and the minimum size you should use is 600 x 314 px.

If you have the original, follow the instructions below.

If you don’t, there are plenty of tools for creating images for social media to help you re-create them quickly.

Facebook image optimization tips to fix images in the Facebook news feed

Continue reading Fixing Facebook image issues using the Facebook debugger tool

Winning the battle for content supremacy with Ryan Hanley

This interview with Ryan Hanley, owner of Content Warfare, is the eighth in an ongoing series of podcasts with individuals doing great things in online marketing.

I am very honored to have the opportunity to interview Ryan Hanley from Content Warfare on today’s podcast.

For those of you who don’t know Ryan, he is a content marketer who LOVES Google Plus (a lot), and wants to see you succeed in a competitive online space.

In this week’s podcast, we talk a lot (nearly 50 minutes) about different techniques to help you consume, curate, and create awesome content for your business, why you need to stop ignoring Google Plus, and Ryan shares valuable tips and a few tips and tricks to implement on Google Plus to help boost engagement and more. Below is a breadown on the topics that Ryan and I cover on today’s show.

Podcast interview with Ryan Hanley from Content Warfare Continue reading Winning the battle for content supremacy with Ryan Hanley

How to overcome the 20% Facebook Ads rule with the Facebook Ads facebook text overlay tool

Are you tired of wasting time creating Facebook Ads only to have them rejected by Facebook, forcing you to start over?

While you cannot regain the time you lost, with the Facebook Ads tool, you can test your Facebook Ads before submitting them.

This way you can focus your time and energy on others important areas such as ad targeting.

How does the Facebook Ads tool work?

When running Facebook Ads, Facebook has a 20% text rule. What this means is that your ads cannot contain more than 20% text. But what constitutes 20%?

Instead of spending time creating Facebook Ads, uploading them, and waiting to see if they are approved or rejected, you can get your Facebook Ads approved faster with the help of the Facebook Ads tool.

The Facebook Ads tool or Facebook text overlay tool is a tool designed to let you upload a Facebook Ad you plan to use and determine if it meets Facebook’s 20% text rule for Facebook Ads.

Example of a Facebook Ad — Using the Facebook Ads tool to check for 20% text.

As always, before creating any ads, be sure you have read through the Facebook Ad guidelines. This way your Facebook Ads won’t get rejected for other reasons such as the type of content your ad is about.

To get started with the Facebook Ads tool, I’ve included a short video and instructions below.

Video: Using the Facebook Ads tool for faster ad approvals

Continue reading How to overcome the 20% Facebook Ads rule with the Facebook Ads facebook text overlay tool

Using a YouTube timecode to improve video conversions

One of the frustrating things about online video is that if a video is really long, you’re forced to wait for it to load completely before you can jump to different points in the video. Today we’re going to show you a shortcut using a YouTube timecode to jump viewers to a specific point in a YouTube video.

This way, instead of having to fast-forward through the video, viewers can jump straight to the part they want to watch on YouTube.

Use cases for a YouTube timecode

YouTube timecodes can used in a number of different ways.

Here are some of our favorite ways to use timecodes on YouTube:

Break a long event video using a YouTube timecode
Break long videos using timecodes for sharing on social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter
Include videos using YouTube timecodes in an email signature
Instead of sending viewers to watch a video again, use a YouTube timecode to jump them to the part that answers their question
Create a blog post and include a YouTube video that jumps to a specific timecode that relates to the blog post

To learn how to add a YouTube timecode to your videos, follow the instructions listed below.

How to jump to a specific place in a video using a YouTube timecode

Continue reading Using a YouTube timecode to improve video conversions

Achieving Facebook marketing success for business

With over one billion users and new features being added weekly, it’s no doubt, why Facebook is good for business. But with so many changes happening, it can be difficult for businesses to keep up with all of them. As a result, it makes it hard to achieve Facebook marketing success.

While businesses recognize the need to implement different types of promotions on Facebook, what can businesses do to leverage Facebook as a marketing vehicle to drive engagement, interactions, and sales?

This infographic shows you different types of Facebook promotions that you can implement within your business to help achieve Facebook marketing success.

Here are a few of our favorite highlights from the infographic.

98% of retail websites had a Facebook Page in 2012 (tweet this)
33% of online shoppers have made a purchase based on seeing an item on a friend’s Facebook news feed (tweet this)
Implement the STIR method when trying to decide which posts to promote on Facebook

Keep reading to learn more about different types of Facebook promotions that you can implement in your business to help achieve success with using Facebook.

How to set your business up for Facebook marketing success Continue reading Achieving Facebook marketing success for business

Take Google+ further with Google+ Embedded Posts

Google Plus recently rolled out Google Plus embedded posts. Now before you think they’re copying Facebook, Twitter, or Vine, hold that thought.

What Google Plus embedded posts do is they let you take a status update from Google Plus and share it on your favorite blog or website. Big deal, right?

Why use Google Plus embedded posts on your blog or website?

When I first saw this feature from Google, it got me excited. This is because with Google Plus embedded posts, you’re not just including an image of a post from Google Plus.

Instead, you get to do the following with Google Plus embedded posts:

Embed a Google Plus post
Circle the author
+1 a post
Share a post
Comment on a post
Follow the entire conversation outside of Google Plus

This is kind of a big deal (and an advantage), because now you have a way to share content on Google Plus – where you can engage with one set of users.

If you want to take things a step further though, you can take that content (and the entire conversation) off to your blog or website by using Google Plus embedded posts to engage with a different audience who might not be connected with you on Google Plus.

This also allows your readers to do the same on their blog or website, which in-turn can help spread the word about your content and allow those readers who haven’t yet connected with you to add you to their circles.

Penchant for Google Plus

For anyone who has spoken with me at length about Google Plus, you’ll know that I also see this having huge SEO benefits. While this isn’t happening now, it’s coming.

The more you embed and engage with Google Plus content, the more likely Google is to boost the SEO ranking for that website.

Still not sure if Google Plus embedded posts are THAT valuable?

Here is an example of using Google Plus embedded posts within your blog or website. Notice all of the touch-points that you can interact with.

Follow these instructions to learn how to embed Google Plus posts on your blog or website.

Using Google Plus posts to grow your social presence

Continue reading Take Google+ further with Google+ Embedded Posts

How to record Skype calls in 4 quick steps

When I first began creating podcasts, one of the areas that frustrated me was coming up with a consistent way to record the audio for each podcast interview. While we used Skype, I wanted a convenient way to be able to record Skype calls – whether on a PC or a Mac and to be able to use my own equipment.

Why I chose Skype to record calls

While most of my podcast interviews are with people who live in the United States, a large part of my audience is overseas. The great thing about using Skype is that it’s easy to setup – and it allows me to use my Internet connection to meet with individuals across the world.

Another benefit is that you can use Skype for audio calls. Skype also supports videos calls over Skype as well.

One other reason I chose Skype was because it’s mainly free.

To record Skype calls, follow the instructions below.

How to record Skype calls

Continue reading How to record Skype calls in 4 quick steps