Which Companies Already Have Google+ Business Pages?
In: Social Media
1 Sep 2011
If you’re a Google+ fan with a curiosity streak you just can’t control and have been wondering what companies were participating in the Google+ Business Pages beta period, I’ve found a really cool way to hack into Google to find the list. Shhh, dont’ tell anyone. Remember what happened to Kevin Mitnick when he got arrested for hacking.
Okay, once you’ve made sure no one is watching and you’re not on a public wifi connection, you’re ready to get started.
Step 1. Click on “Edit Profile” on your Google+ profile
Step 2. Click on “Employment”
Step 3. Type any letter to get a list of companies with Business Pages
Psst… If you type a letter in the “Education” field you’ll see a list of Universities with beta Pages.
Setting Goals and Appreciating Milestones
In: Facebook|Social Media
26 Aug 2011
Okay, I admit it, I’m a goal setter. Always have been, always will be. Admittedly I sometimes set my goals too high, like the one I set when I was 7 to climb Mt. Everest before I was 15, or when I was 13 and set my sites on marrying Raquel Welch, but, if you’re a goal setter and don’t set your goals high you may never achieve what was possible, only what was probable.
Once I’ve set a goal I like to acknowledge milestones along the way. If I set a goal that I know is going to be hard to reach, I find that it helps me stay on the path if I stop and pat myself on the back once in a while. The final destination is still ahead of me, but it feels good to take time to enjoy some of the smaller successes.
Last night, just before I finally called it a day, I noticed that I had 1,999 Facebook fans. Ultimately my goal is to have more than Lady Gaga — okay, again with the unrealistic goals — but something about knowing that during the night I would probably roll over 2,000 fans felt good.
This morning I was greeted with a very nice message from one of my fans (Likers) cheering herself for being my 2,000th fan and cheering for me at the same time. It felt good. Now, even though I’m a long way from my goal, this little milestone put a little bounce in my step and renewed my energy. I like to think of it as a computer game. The ultimate goal is to save the princess without getting killed and that little “life” meter on the side of your screen is taunting you, getting pecariously low, but then you find a box, open it and click the bottle inside and suddenly, you’re back in the game.
If you’d like to help me achieve my goal, please take a minute to click here and Like my Page. C’mon, I only need 42,853,938 of you to do it.
Facebook announced on their blog today that they have made a “bunch of improvements” that will be rolling out to users over the next several days. Rather than rewriting their post I’ll just give you the link here, but below is a video explaining the new sharing options which are going to make it a lot easier to share posts, photos and other content with your friends, family, coworkers and any other lists you create.
In addition to the sharing options which, if you’re familar with the new Google+ is very similar to their Circles, the other change I think most people will be excited about is the ability to @ tag anyone — friend or Page — whether you are friends with or have Liked them or not. And don’t worry, if you’re tagged by anyone who isn’t a friend it won’t appear on your profile until you approve it.
Once the changes are available to you you’ll get a prompt for a tour that will walk you through all the new features.
Need Something to Do? Why Not Set Up a Foursquare Brand Page for Your Business?
In: Social Media
13 Aug 2011
I’m sure most of you are familiar with Foursquare by now and know that it’s a social network that let’s you “check in” to places and posts tips for your friends. Foursquare can also be good for location based retail businesses and they provide tools you can use to encourage people to check in to your business and write good recommendations to encourage their friends to visit. But, did you know that Foursquare was also good for brands that don’t necessarily have a location customers can check in at?
Foursquare Pages are your custom homepage on foursquare, the epicenter of all brand engagement. Your fans can “follow” your Page (similar to on Twitter), allowing them to see Tips you’ve left around the world. Your Page can be customized to include your brand imagery, links to other websites, and can be located at a custom URL for your brand (“www.foursquare.com/yourbrand”).
Up until about a week ago, setting up a Foursquare Page for your brand involved filling out a form and waiting several weeks or longer for Foursquare to approve your Page and set it up for you. Now, however, brand Pages are open to everyone and setting one up is a few minute process. Here’s mine.
Tip: If you associate your company’s Facebook fan page and Twitter page with your Foursquare accounts your tips will automatically post on those pages.
For general information on setting up and using a Foursquare Page click here. If you’re interested in having a banner designed to brand your new Foursquare Page click on the “Contact” link at the top of the page or shoot me an email. hugh [at] socialidentitities [dot] com.
No, Your Phone Numbers Are Not Visible to EVERYONE on Facebook
In: Facebook|Social Media
11 Aug 2011There’s another ridiculous rumor making the rounds and the reason everyone is spreading it is because they don’t bother verfying the accuracy of what they read and just share it with all their friends with a knee jerk reaction.
Yes, if you’ve listed your phone or mobile phone number in your contact settings they are visible to your contacts on Facebook and they always have been, unless you’ve set them not to show in your privacy settings. BUT, they are not visible to everyone. Facebook did change the name from Phonebook to Contacts and changed the way you find the information but they haven’t pulled some super sneaky shenanigans behind your back.
Facebook’s official response:
Rumors claiming that your phone contacts are visible to everyone on Facebook are false. Our Contacts list, formerly called Phonebook, has existed for a long time. The phone numbers listed there were either added by your friends themselves and made visible to you, or you have previously synced your phone contacts with Facebook. Just like on your phone, only you can see these numbers.
One of the reasons this news has so many people concerned is because your number can become visible if you’ve synced your phone contacts using the Facebook mobile app, but again, your number is only visible to your contacts.
Personally I figure that my real friends already know my phone number so I have my settings set to not show my numbers to anyone. Simply go to your privacy settings page, click on “Customize Settings”; scroll down to “Contact Information”; select “Customize” in the drop down menu next to your phone number and then select “Only Me” on the pop up window and “Save Settings”.
If you’ve synced your phone contacts using Facebook’s mobile app I highly recommend unsyncing. Contrary to what Facebook says, I really don’t think it adds to your Facebook experience.
Do Your Pages Really Rank As High on Google As You Think?
In: Twitter
5 Aug 2011One of the best ways to get traffic to your website or blog is from the search engines, and in particular, Google, but you may not be ranking as high as you think.
If you want your pages to rank high in Google searches you probably pay attention to SEO and search for keywords and phrases people would use when searching for something you want them to find. I’m sure you periodically search for those keywords to make sure your pages are coming up within the first couple of pages, and preferably on the first page, and adjust your SEO if you don’t, but did you know that if you do a test search while logged into Google that you will see different results than everyone else does? You may be under the impression that you’re ranking on the first page when in realty you may not even be showing up in the top 100 results.
When you search Google to find out how you’re ranking, make sure you log out of Google first. If you’re logged in because you’ve been checking your email or using Google+ — or anything else you need to be logged into Google to use — you’re not going to get accurate results and may be losing out on a lot of traffic.
My Biggest Google+ Circle Yet
In: Social Media
26 Jul 2011
If you’re one of the 18 million early adopters of Google+ chances are that you’ll want to give your blog readers an easy way to view your profile and add you to their circles. There are two simple ways to do that. One, simply add the G+ profile icon button to your page somewhere, probably right alongside your Twitter, Facebook and other social network icons and two, thanks to the new GoogleCards WordPress plugin, you can add a box to your sidebar that shows your photo, how many circles you’re in and an “Add to Circles” button.
Click here to add the G+ profile icon button (not the one that is used to +1 your posts) to your pages.
To add the Google+ box to your page you can either download the plugin here and install it manually or do it the easy way and search for “googlecards” in your WordPress admin plugin page and add it automatically.
Take a look at my right sidebar to see how the actual Google+ box looks and why not go ahead and add me to one of your circles while you’re at it. 
When Will Facebook Sue Google Over +1?
In: Facebook|Social Media
19 Jul 2011There’s been a ton of hype flying around lately about Google+ and how Google’s +1 button is beating out Twitter’s retweet button but here’s the thing. Even though Google+ is a fairly blatant copy of Facebook, the real kicker is that they stole the whole +1 thing from Facebook. What am I talking about? Yes, I heard you ask yourself that. Well, I present Facebook’s +1 that was around way before Google ever came up with the idea.
Please click the Google +1 button.
|
Follow Hugh Briss Subscribe via RSS or Email and follow me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. |
|
    
|
|
Mildly Askew: My Photo Blog
Truth in lending.
