Christian Karasiewicz, Author at Christiankonline.com

How to add the Facebook recommendations box to your Facebook Page [video]

One of the most overlooked features for your Facebook Page is the Facebook recommendations box. This is a valuable tool to add to your Facebook Page because it allows you to collect feedback from fans and customers.

Adding value to your Facebook Page with the Facebook recommendations box

The Facebook recommendations box isn’t just a way to collect feedback. It can serve multiple purposes:

Drive customers to your Facebook Page
Collect feedback about your business, improve products, improve your posting strategy, etc
Improve different areas of your business such as your website

Drive customers to your Facebook Page

When you add the Facebook recommendations box to your Facebook Page, you now have a single place to collect feedback from fans and customers on your Facebook Page.

Because the recommendations box is only available on your Facebook Page and not in your news feed, if someone hasn’t visited your page, this is a great opportunity to direct someone to your Facebook Page who hasn’t yet become a fan yet.

Collecting feedback with the Facebook recommendations box:

The Facebook recommendations box isn’t just a way to get people to your Facebook Page. Once you get them there, you can collect valuable feedback from them to learn what they like and don’t like about your business.

There are lots of types of feedback you can collect from the recommendations box; new product feedback, customer service issues, website improvements, etc.

Facebook recommendations for business success:

With the feedback you’ve collected, you’re now ready for business success. Just be sure you take the recommendations you receive and put them to use to improve different aspects of your business.

How to add the Facebook recommendations box to your Facebook Page

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The 10 Types of Social Media Addicts [Infographic]

Social Media Addiction is a disease, just like drug addiction and alcoholism. In fact, social media addiction affects millions of people and can show up in many different forms. For example, are you a “serial liker” – someone who likes every page you possibly can? How about the “constant checker” who cannot go five minutes without refreshing their Twitter or Instagram accounts checking for updates?

And one of my favorites? The “Self-Proclaimed Influencer” who’s obsessed with getting their Klout score to the top (it’s not all that important).

So do you suffer from social media addiction?

Check out the following infographic below for more types of social media addicts – and don’t be ashamed to admit it, we’re all addicts of something. Admitting there’s a problem is the first step to recovery!

Continue reading The 10 Types of Social Media Addicts [Infographic]

4 mobile apps to help train your brain

Conventional wisdom holds that we use just 10 percent of our brain brain cells. That’s pretty surprising, considering all of the things we do on a daily basis such as checking email, staying connected with friends on Facebook and keeping out with our social lives. While one would think that we are working to train our brain during these tasks, in most cases, we’re not. Instead, we’re filling our heads with tasks that drive us off track and keep us from really using our brain cells.

What can you do to help train your brain?

To help train your brain there are a lot of things you can do. The most important one is to keep it busy. This doesn’t mean to create a long to-do list and to get to work. Instead, to train your brain, give your brain things to do that will keep it busy. If you’re like 51% of the population that has a smartphone, you might want to consider putting yours to better use. While these gadgets help us do lots of things between email, the Internet, social networks and games, there’s a bigger use for them – training your brain. Smartphones can in fact be a great tool to help train your brain. We’re not talking just playing any old mobile game though (like Angry Birds), we’re talking about games that can help you train and stimulate your brain (and be fun at the same time).

4 mobile apps to help train your brain

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[Download] Pinterest Infographic

For those of you who are just getting started with Pinterest, it is important to know the proper dimensions. This way you are producing quality images or videos and can maximize your opportunities to have your pinned images repinned by others.

To help you out, I’ve put together this Pinterest Dimensions infographic – complete with all of the proper sizes and tidbits of information you need to know to be effective on Pinterest.

Pinterest dimensions

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App of the day: Kaspersky Mobile Security

With smartphone theft on the rise, it might be time to consider investing in mobile security. No, you don’t have to hire a bodyguard or put your smartphone under lock and key. There’s actually a convenient way to provide security for your smartphone anytime called Kaspersky Mobile Security.

While most users who have had their smartphones stolen simply go out and purchase another one and spend time setting up a new device, remember, not only are you losing time when you setup a new device, but in most cases, your smartphone is your lifeline where you’ve stored lots of important data such as contacts, emails, browsing history, photos, and more – which you could completely lose.

By taking the time to protect your smartphone by adding a mobile security system to it, not only will it help you reclaim some of the time you would spend on setting up a new device, but it can also protect you in more ways than one.

What I like about this app:

Continue reading App of the day: Kaspersky Mobile Security

How to use dictation in Mountain Lion

One of my favorite new features in OS X Mountain Lion isn’t reminders or Messages – they’re pretty awesome in their own right. Instead, I’ve been using the dictation and speech tool.

If you’re not familiar with this feature, what it does is it lets mac users speak to their mac – when composing emails, performing a Google search, writing a Microsoft Word document, sending and posting a status update in Facebook – among other applications.

To help you use dication in Mountain Lion, I’ve put together instructions along with a short video walking you through how to use dictation in Mountain Lion.

Continue reading How to use dictation in Mountain Lion

How to add Google Maps in iOS 6

Yesterday, Apple CEO, Tim Cook announced that Apple “fell short” with Apple Maps in iOS 6. While Apple Maps received a lot of negative press when it first launched – in particular, users complained that Apple Maps was buggy and provided the wrong directions, I had the opportunity to use it and while I enjoyed using Apple Maps (no wrong directions here), what I missed most were walking directions. Other than that, I felt it was an adequate solution, that will continue to improve over time.

With no official app available for Google Maps, how do you add Google Maps in iOS 6 (or can you)? Fortunately, there’s a very quick and easy way to add Google Maps in iOS 6. Details are below.

How to add Google Maps in iOS 6

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How to create a custom YouTube thumbnail image

For about the past two years, I have been steadily leveraging my YouTube channel to engage more with viewers and to broaden the reach of my videos. During this time, I’ve been keeping an eye on a number of changes that YouTube has been making – some of those incude the ability to create a custom YouTube background and the ability to monetize your YouTube videos.

While these are great features that can help you better personalize your YouTube channel and bring in a little money for your hard work, one of my favorite features that they added is the ability to set a custom YouTube thumbnail image.

Selecting a specific YouTube thumbnail image

Previously, if you wanted to choose a specific shot from your video to be used as a thumbnail, it could be done if you were a skilled video editor and followed these complicated instructions. For most YouTube users though, this was just too difficult to do and frankly, not worth your time. Enter custom YouTube thumbnail images!

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What are Facebook Gifts

Today, Facebook announced another addition to their social networking site – Facebook Gifts. Now, instead of giving virtual gifts, you can give real gifts for real moments.

With this new feature tied in to Facebook Timeline, now whenever someone celebrates a milestone, a birth or a birthday, you’ll be ready to send them a gift – without leaving Facebook.

What I like about Facebook Gifts

One thing that I am looking forward to with Facebook Gifts is the ability to create a seamless social shopping environment. Now, instead of having to go to different websites to do my online shopping or forgetting about a birthday, milestone or anniversary, I can now send Facebook gifts two ways – from the status update area or under the birthdays and Life Events section on the Facebook news feed.

From the looks of things, sending a Facebook Gift is very seamless too – with a few nice features thrown in.

How to send a Facebook Gift Continue reading What are Facebook Gifts

[Download] FREE YouTube Background Image Template

One of my favorite ways to engage with fans via social media is through my YouTube channel. Not only is YouTube the #2 search engine, but it’s also a great tool to promote and grow your online presence. For example, if you’re someone who creates a lot of videos about your products, YouTube is a great place to upload and store your content because not only are your videos available for people searching YouTube or Google, but they can also be embedded on websites or shared via your favorite social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

While uploading your video content to YouTube is a must for anyone who wants to use video to engage better with their audience, one area that often gets overlooked when growing your online presence through YouTube is your YouTube background image.

Although your YouTube background image is a static image that subscribers cannot click, it gives you the opportunity to get creative. For example, you can brand your YouTube channel – simply by changing the colors. This space can also be used to let YouTube subscribers know that you’re also on other social networks or that you have a website.

Creating a YouTube background image:

Continue reading [Download] FREE YouTube Background Image Template