The importance of having a photo on your social networking accounts

Let’s face it – or not face it. Social networking is hear to stay and we better be ready to start adopting it.  It’s practically everywhere. It influences our buying habits based on what our friends have recommended. It offers us discounts for checking into stores like Banana Republic, Macy’s and H&M to name a few.  We even receive free food and discounts at some restaurants (more obviously to follow) just for liking a businesses Facebook page.

With so many businesses beginning to up their online social media game, don’t you think it’s time you upped your game too?  The first place you can start is with your profile picture.  Did you know, your profile picture is a vital part of connecting with others.

By not including a picture, if someone wanted to Continue reading The importance of having a photo on your social networking accounts

The art of publishing social media content

Sure, we can all spout off a couple of blog posts and maybe even a few dozen tweets and some Facebook updates in a days work. Anyone good at writing can do that. So what’s missing? How about when we should be pushing out content so that we’re engaging fans, readers, and followers?

Think about it. If I’m a business, I’m open certain hours so that I can attract a lot of customers and keep my operating costs – you know, lights, heating and air, salaries as low as possible.

This same principle holds true for our Facebook updates, tweets and blog posts.   If you post content at Continue reading The art of publishing social media content

How to expose your business through an email signature

Probably a simple tip, but a very effective one at that. If you are serious about exposing any of the following:

  • Website
  • Blog
  • Facebook profile
  • Twitter profile
  • LinkedIn profile
  • Facebook business page
  • Photographs you have on Flickr
  • Etc…

Consider creating an email signature with links to these accounts. This way while you’re getting traffic to your sites, making connections through your content; you’re also connecting with the people you correspond with through email.

Need to learn how to insert your signature in a specific program like Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, your Twitter background? Connect with me and I’ll be glad to help you out.

5 areas for a successful Twitter profile

Want to get your Twitter game off the ground? I’ll be honest, adding followers is easy, getting someone to follow you back can be a challenge though. Here are five (5) areas you should complete to help create a successful Twitter profile and get you on the road to Twitter stardom! By including this basic information, you’ll up your Twitter game immensely from the start and increase your chances of others following you.

  1. Username

    2. Your username, referred to @username or www.twitter.com/username is your identification. Pick one that is simple and easy for others to remember. If you’re a person, try using your name. If you’re a business,use your business name or something simple.

  2. Name

    3. Your full name or business name will suffice. This is done within your Twitter profile settings. This is an important area because while your username may not be your compete business or personal name. Ex: Username: @ckroks, my full name can come up when someone searches for me i.e. Christian Karasiewicz or a close variation, Chris Karasiewicz. Including this is important because it helps people find you not only through a Google search, but also through a Twitter search as well.

  3. Website address

    4. One key thing about Twitter – it is a conduit, a place for directing other users to your content. If you have a website and don’t list it, it is like saying I have a business, but I don’t tell people about it. If you don’t want traffic to your site, don’t tell people. If you want traffic and don’t list your site, don’t complain about not having any customers. You need to direct people to the place you want them to go to. It could be a website, your Facebook profile so they connect with you further, a LinkedIn account, etc…

  4. Profile photo

    5. Probably common sense, but keeping the standard Twitter profile picture probably won’t get you too many friends. Make your profile more inviting by adding your photo – think professional looking, not Cancun beach. If you’re a business or setting up a Twitter profile for your business, create a logo. Image sizes are as follows. On twitter.com/username, your image is 73px x 73px. In the timeline, it is 48px x 48 px. Create one!

  5. Twitter background

    6. The same concept holds true with your Twitter background. Change out the default one — it is under https://twitter.com/settings/account. If you want some free Twitter backgrounds, this is a site I recommend using: http://www.twitrbackgrounds.com/. It’s free, I’m not getting paid for promoting it – they just do a good job. If you want to really kick your Twitter background up, be sure to check-out my next note on doing this. For now, a free solution will suffice.

So there you have it. 5 areas to a successful Twitter profile. While this won’t guarantee you’ll get followers, it will help make your Twitter profile more appealing and inviting for others to want to follow you.

5 Ways to clean-up your Facebook profile

Clean-up your Facebook profile

Got a Facebook profile – sure, we all do! Did you know that you can only have 5,000 friends? Once you reach this limit and start accumulating friend requests and other connections, you may not be able to interact with other Facebook features like groups, events, applications and pages. Be sure to prune your friends list occasionally. Here are 5 ways to clean-up your Facebook profile. Continue reading 5 Ways to clean-up your Facebook profile

Understanding the new Facebook newsfeed

If Facebook does one thing extremely well, it’s changing their game up midstream – leaving users scratching their heads because they had just gotten around to understanding the last version of Facebook.

With Facebook’s recent updates to Facebook pages, they also made a few changes to Facebook profiles – most notably, who shows up in your newsfeed. In previous versions of Facebook, users could go to their newsfeed and see previous status updates from the last time the logged in or click the ‘most recent’ link to see their newest updates from their friends or pages that they have liked.

Well, things have changed again…rather than clicking the ‘most recent’ link to see all of your friends, you’re also presented with the ability to set your newsfeed to show the following:

  • Friends and pages you interact with most
  • All friends and pages

To change what you see in your newsfeed, follow these steps:

  1. Login to Facebook
  2. Click on the Facebook logo (on the left)
  3. Click the dropdown next to ‘Most recent’
  4. Select ‘edit options…’
  5. Select ‘friends and pages you interact with most’ or ‘all friends and pages’

In addition, you can also filter to see only pages, photos, links, lists of friends, etc…in your newsfeed, which is also a great addition!

So take the time to review your newsfeed and ensure your’s is setup how you want to see it. No longer are you left scratching your head why you’re seeing the same updates from the same friends or pages all of the time.

How to create a successful multi-author blog for your business

Wordpress multi-author blog

One of the biggest challenges that most businesses face is how to keep readers interested and coming back for more. In the typical business setup, it is very linear. One person does one job, another person does another and so on. While this may work for certain jobs, eventually, your business begins to get stale and workers begin to get tired of the same tasks over and over.

Rather than find more “work” to keep them busy, why not put them to use by having them share something interesting about your business – what does your business do, are there any tips you can share with your customers through your employees, such as how they can connect with you through your social media channels. How about even have them provide insight into certain products or services that you may offer.

Not only will this make work more fun, but your business can also benefit tremendously from the added exposure. I know what you’re thinking though…I don’t want my employees wasting time writing, I want them doing their jobs!

In a sense, they are. They’re also helping you open the door to people that may know your business, but don’t know your full line of products. Take a look at successful sites like Engadget, Mashable and 9to5Mac who have seen success with having a multi-author blog. Not only do they produce content at a high-rate, they’re also able to get their jobs done and have fun doing it! Not to mention, the more quality content you product, the more it helps spread the word. Pretty soon, you’ll become the go-to place for your product or service.

So once you’ve made the decision to begin blogging, be sure to follow these 5 tips on how to setup a multi-author blog for your business. Continue reading How to create a successful multi-author blog for your business

3 ways to get people talking about your business!

For business owners, having an online presence is key — especially if you own an online business. Sure, that means having the obvious Facebook page for your business, but what about a Twitter account? Yes, you’ll need one of those too – preferably one that lists your businesses name, website and information and not your own.

Once you’ve setup your Twitter profile – see my Twitter profile tips, the next thing you’ll want to consider doing is to create a Twitter background. Sure, sounds boring, but if you’re creative, you can come up with some pretty nifty designs that make your Twitter profile standout and make you look like a Twitter superstar.

Below are two different types of Twitter accounts that have created a custom background.

Branding yourself:

In the above example, this person has added their person contact information along with a graphic and a larger photo. This is a great use of space, as it helps to let others know how to contact them and where else they can connect with them at.

Branding your business: Continue reading 3 ways to get people talking about your business!

The follower to following ratio dilemma on Twitter

So now that you’ve gotten set up on Twitter, you’ve probably received a few follower requests from Twitter and followed even more people in the process.

Following other Twitter users is important. This is because when you follow someone you’re essentially saying I want to see what this person talks about because it may be something I want to retweet (or send) to other people that are following me as well.

This is all fine and dandy to follow people because you want to hear what they are saying. This will help you create content or “social media” which you can then send to the people following you. This will keep them engaged and help you gain followers in the process.

So how do I gain followers? Simple!

  • Use Twitter Search to find people to follow that seem interesting
  • Retweet or forward content from Twitter users
  • Post your own tweets – remember to make your tweets public so that they can be found when someone is using Twitter Search

Once you begin gaining followers, it is important to maintain a good Twitter ratio. Basically, a Twitter ratio is having a balanced number of followers to people following you. Why is this important? Once you follow 2,000 people, you cannot follow anyone else until you have 2,000 people following you back. You’ll then get messages saying ‘unable to follow’ and so forth.

Once you reach this point, you’re either Continue reading The follower to following ratio dilemma on Twitter

3 ways to get people talking about your business!

Let’s face it – as much as we don’t want to admit it, we love being the center of attention. For some business owners, that’s rather easy when you have a large following and people know you. For others who don’t have so large of a following (or for that matter are rarely talked about), that can be a challenging task.

The first thing I strongly recommend is to consider:

  • How well your business is branded.
  • Do only a few people know about your business?
  • How large are their circles?
  • Are your customers the type of people that would tell others about your business?

While you ponder your reach among your current customers, here are 3 ways business owners can help get people talking – most of which require just a little effort and the opportunity to reap big rewards!

  1. Talk to your customers

    2. As customers, we often seek out employees to ask them questions or to get assistance. Why can that same model not hold true for business owners? Probably because we’re too concerned with the sale rather than helping the customer. Talk to your customers, ask them questions like if they saw the current sale, if they needed anything, etc… Also, don’t be afraid to ask them if they would give you a review, testimonial, referral, etc… Often, people will oblige if they have had a good experience. Remember, word of mouth marketing is a huge contributor to increasing awareness for your business. Engage with your customers often and they’ll be more inclined to engage back — by telling their friends about you!

  2. Make your website and social media links visible and easy to share

    3. If you have your own third-party website, consider adding the standard buttons to your website — Facebook, Twitter & email. These tools not only allow others to easily share content from your website, but they’re also FREE! If you’ve got a Facebook and Twitter account (who doesn’t), make your website visible so that people can find it easily and share your content with their friends.

  3. Don’t be afraid to try out new topics

    4. Often, I get the question from business owners why they’re not Continue reading 3 ways to get people talking about your business!