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.
This Free Facebook Landing Page Is Guaranteed to Get Your Fan Page More “Likes”
In: Facebook|Social Media
11 Jun 2011This free Facebook landing page is guaranteed to get more people clicking the Like button on your Facebook fan page. Well, not an iron-clad, money-back guarantee, but I’m pretty sure.
One of my specialties is designing custom Facebook landing pages and I’ll be happy to design one for you, but if you don’t have the budget or need for a custom landing page but would still like visitors to your Facebook fan page see something besides your Wall or Info tab when they land, I designed this landing page that you’re welcome to download and use for FREE! Click here to download.
Click the graphic to view at actual size.
It’s become a very common occurrence lately to hear about a celebrity’s Twitter or Facebook account being hacked. It’s happened to Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, Ellen DeGeneres, President Obama, and many more. The most recent is New York Congressman Anthony Weiner who seemingly tweeted a lewd photo of a man in tight briefs to a Washington State college student. His claim is that his Twitter account was hacked and, unfortunately, it’s a lot easier to do than most of you realize, especially if you make use of WiFi in public places like Starbucks or the airport. If you’re using Twitter or Facebook in a public place, anyone sitting nearby could gain access to your account and do anything from posting updates or photos to closing your account. And here’s the thing… since it’s usually only the celebrities we hear about when their accounts are hacked, how many ordinary folks get hacked every day?
To show you just how easy it is for someone to hack your Twitter or Facebook account, let me tell you about a new Android app called FaceNiff. Anyone with a rooted Android phone and this nasty little app can take over your account by simply joining the network you’re using and running the app. Watch the video at the bottom of this article to see just how easy it is to hack someone’s Facebook page. Here’s the app description from their own website:
FaceNiff is an Android app that allows you to sniff and intercept web session profiles over the WiFi that your mobile is connected to.
The good news is that you can protect yourself… well, mostly… obviously if the BAU wants to access your laptop to find out if you’re a serial killer, they’re getting in, because, well, Penelope is just that good, but in most cases, the following suggestion should protect you.
Facebook and Twitter both provide a way for you to use their websites in secure mode by using an https URL. In Twitter, go to your settings and check the box next to “Always use HTTPS”.
For Facebook you’ll want to go to the “Account Security” section in your Account Settings page and put a check in the box next to “Browse Facebook on a secure connection (https) whenever possible”.
Please note that although both Facebook and Twitter are working on a way for you to use a secure connection when using your mobile devices, for now, you pretty much need to be using their official website and not a third party app, so be sure to check to see if there’s a way to secure the app you’re using.
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Mildly Askew: My Photo Blog
Truth in lending.
