Archive for category blogging

Top 5 Tips For New Facebook Pages

Posted by Paul Holmes in blogging, business, internet, social media on March 22, 2010

1. Make your page title as generic as possible.
If you are setting up a page to promote your company brand, this may not be an option. But generic pages are far more likely to gain fans than brand pages.

Think about it this way – if you have a website about “Travel to Asia”, do you think Facebook users will be more likely to become a fan of “Travel to Asia” or “TravelToAsia.com”?

As much as it pains you, there are far more people who are fans of “Travel to Asia” than there are fans of your website.

In my experience, people are far more likely to share their photos, videos and comments on more generic sounding pages, and more likely to randomly recommend it to their friends.

All this builds a larger community – a community, remember, that you can promote your website and services on.

2. Set up your page properly.
Put an image on your page. Design your page nicely. Through the magic of RSS, import your blog into your Facebook page.

Change the settings so that fan comments appear to everyone, enable comments, videos, photos, and discussion forums!

3. Name your page.
It’s much easier to share your Facebook fan page if you can give a short, concise, and branded URL for it, rather than some ridiculously long address.

Which looks better to you?

If I had $1 for every time I saw a Facebook fan page with over 1,000 fans, but no vanity URL, I’d be rich! It used to be 1,000 fans were what were needed to name a page, then it went down to 100, and now it’s a mere 25 fans! Do you have 25 friends who can fan your page?

Click here to name your Facebook fan page!

Promote your page on Facebook, Twitter and your blog.
Facebook is here to stay. It’s not going away. Get over any concerns you have about losing traffic to it, and take advantage of the community-building tools it has!

Facebook has a little widget you can add to your website to promote your page, it’s called the “fan box”. Click on “Edit Page”, then “Promote with a fan box” (middle column, third section). Here’s what it looks like:

IdeaZone.ca on Facebook

Of course you can link to your Facebook page in a bunch of ways – with a nice Facebook icon, a text link, or with the Meebo Bar.

Advertise your page.
You can advertise your website on Facebook (and I do suggest any serious business considers this). But did you also know you can advertise your page?

My favourite form of advertising on Facebook are fan page ads to “friends of your fans”. If you have 100 fans on your page, there are probably thousands of “friends of your fans”.

Suppose “John Smith” is a fan of your page, “Acme Widgets”. John’s friends will see an ad pop up occasionally showing your “Acme Widgets” page, and saying “John Smith is a fan of Acme Widgets. Become a Fan?” One click, and they’ve signed up!

The old marketing question in this case has gone from “Do I trust Acme Widgets?” to “Do I trust my friend’s positive opinion of Acme Widgets?”

But why would I pay Facebook to advertise Facebook?

First of all, you need to get over the old rules of web marketing – you are not advertising Facebook, you are advertising your brand on Facebook.

There is another big reason: comfort.

The fact is that Facebook users are far more comfortable with Facebook then all those other scary websites in the world! Once a fan becomes comfortable with your fan page, they’ll become far more comfortable with visiting your website.

advertising, branding, facebook, fan pages, vanity url

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Is Google Buzz the Twitter Killer?

Posted by Paul Holmes in blogging, business, internet, social media on February 16, 2010

Will Buzz Kill Twitter?

Some have compared it to FriendFeed, some have called it Google’s answer to Facebook, and some are just annoyed and can’t wait to turn it off (in GMail, you can scroll to the bottom and click on “turn off buzz”, by the way).

Others have predicted Google Buzz will annihilate Twitter! They make a compelling argument.

It’s a sophisticated broadcast notification system, much like Twitter.
It’s public.
You can send images (and you don’t need third party applications like TwitPic).
You can automatically feed Buzz from other services (Blog RSS Feeds, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Digg, etc.).
Your Google profile is now your Google Buzz profile, and has much more information than a Twitter profile (yet, uglier).

It’s overwhelming like FriendFeed, but this is offset in part by neatly integrating right into GMail (which is certainly the most open tab on my browser). This means you can have a peak, or you can completely ignore it – but it will always be at your fingertips, beckoning you…

And does anyone have any doubt that “Buzz” will very soon be searchable (and from Google, no less)?

Will Buzz kill Twitter? Maybe. Maybe not.

What do you think?

buzz, digg, facebook, flickr, friendfeed, google, rss, twitter, youtube

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Top 10 Social Media

Posted by Paul Holmes in blogging, business, personal, social media on December 1, 2009

I have written various articles on social media in the past, and a few people have asked what my favourites are. The following list is not “the best”, nor specifically “the best for application X”, rather my favourites – those I enjoy using or gain specific benefit for using.

10. Ning‘s (like Your Canada)
Ning is a really cool product that allows you to launch your own social networks around specific themes. Your Canada is an example of one I launched to add a social component to our popular Your Canada website.

9. FriendFeed
Everyone was getting excited about FriendFeed, the ultimate social media collaborator. It’s a cool tool because it let’s you tie all your social media activities into one stream. It can be a bit overwhelming though, so I find myself using it sparingly these days.

8. YouTube
Anonymity is still the name of the game on YouTube. As a result, you get poorly spelled and otherwise idiotic comments on videos all the time. This is too bad, given that it otherwise is the best place for exposure, and the tools to connect people socially are actually pretty good. The social aspects of video are still developing, and I suspect a number of other sites may take the lead in “social video” while Google focuses YouTube more on commercializing what they have (and doing this primarily by pushing sponsored videos, vs. an advertising model). Some to watch include Vimeo, DailyMotion, 12seconds.tv, Ustream.tv, blip.tv, and about a few dozen others.

7. Flickr
Yahoo! has one product that kicks ass and totally owns it’s vertical, and that is Flickr. Flickr is the best social medium for sharing photos/images. Picasa is Google’s alternative, and it is OK. A few others are Photobucket and Flixya, but they are a long way from successful at this point.

6. Digg
The DiggBar has revolutionized Digg (much to the chagrin of the ol’ skool Diggers). I use it all the time, and am a bit of a Diggaholic now. It’s a great tool for sharing interesting stuff you find on the web. It also has some great integration tools to very easily share “Dugg” stuff on Facebook and Twitter. I use Digg every single day.

5. Instant Messaging
Three years ago this was number one (followed by blogging and online forums). Three years ago, I did 100% of my instant messaging using MSN Messenger. Two years ago, 80% was MSN and 20% was GoogleTalk. Today, 50% is Facebook, 30% is GoogleTalk and 20% is MSN. As always, ICQ and AIM are 0%. Instant messaging is still a great way to get ahold of people in a hurry.

4. Blogging
I love to blog. I have at least 5 blogs I update regularly, and I love posting comments to other people’s blogs (which is what makes it a social medium). I also love WordPress; I am a total convert to the platform. I even organized a WordCamp in Victoria a few weeks ago, which was tonnes of fun.

3. Facebook
I was a Facebook holdout for ages, but have grown to like it. I like it because almost everyone I know is there. The platform itself is annoying sometimes, and frustrating at others, but they have the critical mass, so it remains a tool I continue to use, even if I use it despite itself.

2. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is great for business. At a recent presentation I gave at the University of Victoria to all of their business students, I asked several hundred students how many of them were on Facebook, and almost every hand went up. I then asked how many were on LinkedIn, and about 5 hands went up (I think a few of those hands were faculty, too). This is ashame. LinkedIn is a great tool for business, but also for career building. The guy sitting next to you in class today might be CEO of some big corporation in 10 years. Stay in touch and add them to your network on LinkedIn. I’m not sure if I got through to them or not.

LinkedIn is easy, passive and a great way to introduce people. It’s sort of like a virtual business mixer, but doesn’t require you to smile and dress nicely.

1. Twitter
Even people who love Twitter make fun of it. Twitter is an amazing tool for connecting with people and getting a message out. Through the power of the retweet, your potential network is huge. That conference I organized back in #4 above – I used Twitter as the primary medium through which to promote it, and over 100 local (and international) people showed up. Not too shabby for something people love to make fun of.

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I’ll review my list every once in awhile as my tastes change. It’ll be interesting to look back in the future and see what has changed.

I can already say that “FriendFeed” used to be much higher up the list, and I expect there is a good chance Google Wave and Foursquare will appear here in the next year or two. The influence of mobile and video (and mobile video) should introduce a few new angles to the equation, too.

A few others that I use that didn’t make the top list are Plaxo (11), Yelp (12), Identi.ca (13), Vimeo (14), Meetup (15), SlideShare (16), MySpace (17), and StumbleUpon (18). I have profiles on a few others, but don’t use them much.

I’m always happy to connect with people I know on any of these networks, see my social media links in the right column to link to my profile, or visit my Contact page.

blogging, digg, facebook, flickr, friendfeed, instant messaging, linkedin, ning, social media, twitter, youtube

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Share on Tumblr

Posted by Paul Holmes in blogging, internet on August 22, 2009

I’ve been playing with Tumblr for awhile. It’s really cool, and the interface is amazingly simple, but I could never quite figure out exactly what to do with it.

Then I went to WordCamp in Surrey and listend to Lorraine Murphy from Raincoaster, and she described it as a “terrible blogging tool”, but a “great scrap-booking tool.”

The lightbulb went on!

I was using DiggBar a fair amount for this, but “scrap-booking” is not really the point, and because of the “social” aspects of Digg, you have verify your humanity every time, which slows the process down considerably. Then, going back and finding your Digg later isn’t rocket since, but it’s not dead simple either. This is not an anti-Digg post (they did send me a free t-shirt, after all), but I would say that Digg is best used for it’s intended purpose (same goes for StumbleUpon and Delicious).

Retrieving links from Tumblr is 100% idiot-proof, since it’s a public blog – no logging in, no messing around. Since it’s “blog-style”, you just need to remember the date you added it, or search for it.

I installed the “Share on Tumblr” bookmarklet (not button, widget or plugin), and already find myself “scrap-booking” all sorts of stuff.

I’m off to the races!

When you login at Tumblr and create your first Tumblog, go to the Account menu (top right) and select “Goodies”. Click on and drag the “Share on Tumblr” button to your bookmark bar (yes, it even works in Chrome).

After that, you’ll be tumbling like a mad tumblr!

blogging, digg, scrap-booking, tumblr, wordcamp

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Guest Blogging 101

Posted by Paul Holmes in blogging, internet on August 20, 2009

I was recently invited to submit to another blog, to blog on the topic of blogging. This practice has been around for ages, and is generally referred to as Guest Blogging.

I wrote a short article about Feedburner.

Guest blogging is a very interesting concept. On one hand, bloggers are limited by the amount of time they have, so writing content for another blog (that adds value to that other blog) might seem counter-intuitive.

If you blog for fun (and not to try to make millions of dollars), as I mostly do here, this isn’t that big a deal.

There are a couple of benefits to guest-blogging which may not be immediately obvious:

By posting a well-written blog entry, you enhance your reputation as an “expert” or at least a “reliable source”. Certainly you were reliable or expert enough to be trusted by the person who you guest-blogged for.
When that blog content links back to your website, it’s of far greater value from a Search Engine Optimization perspective than yet another link from within your own website. Google, and other search engines, don’t just count the links coming into your site, they look at where they come from, and they look at the context (i.e. which keywords are linked). If you are linked from a highly reputable source, it will enhance your reputation within Google’s Almighty Algorithm™.

There is an excellent Guest Blogger group on LinkedIn to meet with others interested in guest blogging, and to otherwise discuss the concept.

Needless to say, my little experiment isn’t earth-shattering, but it certainly was a great deal of fun.

feedburner, guest blogging, linkedin, reputation, seo

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