status.twitter.com: Where Twitter tells you what went technically wrong, if it was having an issue.
twitterbackgroundsgallery.com: where you can pick different backgrounds for your profile.
www.twitbacks.com: where you can pick different backgrounds for your profile.
www.twittergallery.com: more background options.
www.hashtracking.com: look up different hashtags and follow conversations and see results of hashtags.
There have been many news reports and articles written about people that are fired or not hired because of things they have written on the internet. Many different news channels have discussed whether or not it is ethical for Employers to look at your Facebook and other social media accounts to get a sneak peek into your personal life and other connections. It has been outlawed in many areas that employers can not ask for your passwords but that won’t stop them from looking publicly!!
Make sure your privacy settings are set correctly. Facebook LOVES to change the rules regularly. When in doubt, don’t post it!! If it’s slightly questionable and you’re job hunting, it may be best to not post it. Same rules apply to Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and etc…
Here are a list of Mashable articles that may interest you and go into more detail:
mashable.com/2012/07/30/social-media-fired
mashable.com/2012/05/07/facebook-like-fired
mashable.com/2012/08/26/complain-boss-facebook
There is nothing wrong with repeating tweets from your blog posts. Your followers may have missed it the first time or two. Please keep the posts current and spread out the repeat tweets. Don’t repeat tweet within a short time frame.
If you wrote the blog post over a year ago and if any of the content is outdated, please write a new post with current, updated information and tweet that. Leave the old post in the past. Seeing tweets about a 2 year old post where the content is not longer accurate looks bad on you. Same for posting the same post multiple times a day for a weeks and months at a time. It’s annoying and can cause you to lose followers.
Social Media can be overwhelming. you can simplifying them (Twitter, Facebook and Linked-In) by using a tool such as HootSuite.
The great thing with HootSuite is that you can type out a single post and that 1 post can be posted in multiple locations. 2nd: you can create posts in advance. Spend an evening writing 3,4,100 posts, walk away and poof - they appear over the next several days, week or month!! 3rd: they have videos - lots of videos - that help you learn how to use it. 4th: It’s FREE if you use 5 “feeds” or less.
There are other sites out there that will do the same thing. HootSuite is the one that has been recommended to me by many other social savvy people.
Facebook: One key thing that seems to be skipped over a lot is… If you are on your PAGE as your PAGE, click on the the home icon at the top of the site. That is the “wall feed” for your BUSINESS, not the “stupid feed” as one of my clients likes to call it otherwise known as your profile wall. Using your business PAGE to like, comment and share other pages’ content, will increase your page’s presence and potentially getting you more likes. NOTE: the only pages that you will see while doing this will be the pages that your PAGE “likes”.
To “like” a page by your business, go to that page and click on the tiny arrow next to the “like” and” Message” button. Click on the tiny arrow and select “Add to My Page’s Favorites”. Also, if you are still in Facebook as your page, you search for the pages you want to like and click the like button.
Pinterest is great for business too - as long as you use for more than business!! Think of Pinterest as visual bookmarks that you can get to from ANY computer (that also posts to Facebook (personal) and Twitter). My wedding photographer friend, David Abel does a beautiful of mixing it up.
Twitter is more involved than the other previously mentioned medias, however it is also a great place to find information related to your business. Start slow to get the hang of it and once you learn how to navigate the “jungle”, grow. Keep your business and personal accounts separate. Follow related or similar companies and inspirational people. If you are a Mary Kay consultant, why not follow Bobby Brown and other famous make-up artists. I follow Dave Ramsey - talk about a smart cookie!! HootSuite is great for helping to tame the beast of Twitter. Talk to me if you want to learn more. NOTE: Don’t feel bad about “unfollowing” someone on Twitter. Some post WAY too much and belong in Twitter jail (which is a real thing)!!
HootSuite basics. It’s pretty cool and very helpful!
When having links on your website, you want them, to most importantly, be correct! If you are trying to show your viewers/readers/customers a YouTube video, you want them to see it, otherwise, why did you send them there? News feeds or articles, other people’s videos, etc. have a tendency to change, make sure you have a back up, just in case.
If you do a lot with YouTube or Vimeo, it is best to link to the “channel” by using the proper icon. If you want a particular video displayed, then why not embed the video some where on the site. Have it on your channel, so you know it will always work.
If you are a commercial and residential painter and you want your services page to have an example of you doing a faux finish, then post the video or specific link to that video on the page it relates to.
People expect simple things. Social icons should go to the social medias that the icon represents not just to a video. Keeping your site to high standards will help your site be more user friendly and will have more repeat visitors.
Ever wonder where the stats come from for how many people use one search engine verses another search engine or which social media is the most popular? All these different companies and businesses throw out all these numbers but they hardly ever say where they originate from! Well, I have done my own 5 question survey and have a few results. (Click here to fill out the survey)
The number one social media so far? Facebook! 100% of the surveyors said they are Facebook users!!
Trailing behind at number 2? YouTube!! (almost 31%)
Twitter is only at 19%.
14 out of 26 surveys sign up for E-newsletters (that’s almost 54%) and 12 out of 26 follow blogs (that’s about 46%).
**As more results come in, the stats may change.**
I just took the best social media class ever!! A networking business associate of mine asked me to take this class in her place. She thought that not only could I learn from it for my business, but I could pass the information on to her in a more “chewable” fashion.
I thought I knew quite a bit about social media, but boy was I wrong!! There is so much more out there!! Most everyone knows about Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and YouTube, but did you know about HootSuite, Vimeo, Delicious or how to use Google Docs to create a survey for your company? I use Google Docs, for spread sheets, coding cheat sheet, etc. but had NO idea that I could create a survey and that it would tally the results!! How cool is that?
How about how to shorten url’s by using bit.ly or tinyurl.com when referencing other web items? The trainer of the class introduced us to this… Tumblr.com and instead of having a huge blog that gives the impression of needing to write long articles, this does not!! Quick, easy and user-friendly is quite an understatement!!