Last March (2012) I posted about the Timeline changes and listed all of the guidelines that Facebook had set for cover photos. Here is what those looked like at that point:

You may NOT include any of the following in your cover photo:

• Price or purchase information, such as “40 percent off” or “Download it at our website.”
• Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section.
• References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features.
• Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends.”

Facebook has very recently quietly changed those guidelines. Here is what they look like now (March 2013):

All covers are public. This means that anyone who visits your Page will be able to see your cover. Covers can’t be deceptive, misleading, or infringe on anyone else’s copyright. You may not encourage people to upload your cover to their personal timelines. Covers may not include images with more than 20% text.

That’s a pretty big change! It will be interesting to see if it increases spammy/advertising-centered cover images or if it is just Facebook’s reaction to the fact that no one was following their guidelines anyway and things will just stay the same. If you want to read through all of their guidelines you can do that here.

Late in 2012 I took a great workshop offered by Synchronicity Coaching to plan out where I wanted my business headed in 2013. It may sound odd or silly to some of you but one of the key goals that I came up with is getting more people/businesses in Livingston to be active on Twitter. For those of you in larger cities you are probably scratching your heads right now wondering why I would need to convince people to get on Twitter. And for some of you who live around here you are probably scratching your heads right now wondering why on earth you would ever want to be on Twitter!

In my social media trainings I talk a lot about why Twitter can be a good tool for your business. I also sometimes tell local businesses not to bother because, unfortunately, much of their target audience isn’t on Twitter. But today I want to talk about personal use of Twitter and how you can benefit from it. So for those of you who aren’t yet converts, here are a few of the reasons that I love Twitter and you should too:

Information – Who doesn’t love having easy access to tons of information? I know that it can get overwhelming at times and there is the potential for info overload but I find that the positives here outweigh the negatives. Every time I scroll through my Twitter feed I find something interesting and new that I would never have found before because I didn’t even know to look for it! For example, just recently found this cool little gem.

Events – Shorter, faster updates with the ability to search content using keywords and hashtags makes Twitter so much more fun than oh say Facebook when following, attending, watching an event. It’s like having a room full of your wittiest friends all analyzing and commenting on what you are watching. Only you can turn them off whenever you want and you don’t have to kick them out when you want to go to bed!

Sports – I am a bit of a fanatic, though a mostly friendly one, when it comes it to football and basketball. Mixed in with the Design Sponges and Modcloths in my Twitter feed are the sports related tweets of Nicolas Batum, Mike Rice, the Trail Blazers and more. I like getting some behind the scenes on these players who I cheer for regularly (and occasionally yell at). I like being able to hear what other fans are saying about the game I just watched. Kind of like watching a game at a sports bar with the players sitting across the room from you while you wear your pajamas and drink tea if you feel like it.

Customer Service – Let’s jump on the other side of customer service for a minute (the side of being the customer). Want a great place to blow off steam about a terrible experience you just had with a business? Get on Twitter! Okay, maybe that’s not the best way to handle an issue you’re having with a business. But some businesses are actually easier to reach through Twitter than other avenues and it’s always worth giving it a try (politely) and giving them the chance to solve the problem. It’s also a great place to give a warm, fuzzy shout-out to businesses that you love!

Search and Content – Like I said before, keyword searching, hashtag searching, constant updates…that all leads to so much great content for you to find, wade through and use in your own business. You can find news articles, blog posts, infographics or even just see what topics are trending to give you some ideas for original content of your own to create. Ok, maybe I’m blurring the lines here between personal and business use but I can’t help it sometimes!

News – I don’t watch the news on TV and I don’t get the newspaper. I pretty much get all of my news online and Twitter is usually the fastest way to stay up to date. I typically use it as my jumping off point where I find out what’s going on and then dive in deeper by googling or going to a news based website/online newspaper if I want to know more.

If all of these reasons haven’t convinced you to head over to Twitter.com and sign up immediately, then why not just do it for me. Help me reach my goal and give it a try. Who knows, you might even end up liking it. And if I wind up convincing enough people in Livingston to get on board, maybe we’ll even have a party – I’ll tweet you the invite.

You can find me on Twitter at: @handhweb, @snapfotogirl, and @livingstonlocal

And if at the very mention of Twitter I start sounding to you like those two little birds at the top of the post – stop by Social Media Socializing some Friday morning and we’ll go over everything you need to know!

For those of you who do not follow me on Facebook, you probably haven’t heard of Social Media Socializing. (Almost) every Friday morning from 8:30-9:30 am a group of us meet up at Montana Cup Coffee Shop in Livingston, MT to discuss anything social media related. Many people bring their laptops or iPads and we go over questions about how specific functions work on various social media platforms. We also talk strategy and I try to provide updates on the latest changes in the world of social media. If you live in Livingston or are ever passing through on a Friday morning, stop in, grab a cup of coffee and join the conversation! The best way to find out whether or not we are meeting on a specific Friday is to check the H&H Facebook page.

I have to admit that it drives me a little crazy when people start mass-posting warnings or tips about the latest horrible thing that Facebook has done to ruin our lives. Ok, maybe it isn’t always quite that dramatic but sometimes it is. The latest one (which has actually been going around for months but seems to have just recently hit the Montana Facebook scene) is this one:

It is definitely true that Facebook is making it harder for your posts to be seen and not all of your fans are seeing all of your posts. If you want to learn more about the recent changes that are causing a drop in Reach for most pages, here is a good post explaining it. What I have a problem with is that adding pages to an “interest list” does not necessarily fix this. I tried it myself just to see what would happen and will walk you through exactly what I did. If you follow the instructions in the post, when you hover over the “Like” button, here is what you get:

Once you click on “Add to Interest Lists” you will see this box pop up if you have never created a list before:

In order to test out how well this works, the next thing I did was click on “Pages” up near the top and got a list of all of the pages that I like (a lot more than I realized!):

I then selected every page that I have previously liked and added them to a list called “All Pages”. Once my list was created, it showed up in my lefthand sidebar underneath where Groups are listed. In order to actually view updates from the pages that I just added to my list I have to click on the list over in the sidebar. Then it filters out my newsfeed and I only see updates from pages on my list and not from any of my friends.

This is problem number 1. How many people are actually going to take the time (and remember) to click on a list that is at the bottom of their sidebar? When most people get on Facebook they just scroll through their newsfeed to see what’s new. Anything that requires an extra step and more time just isn’t very realistic.

The next step I took to truly test out the claim that you will see every page update if you create a list for it, I looked at my newsfeed side by side next to my “All Pages” list. Ironically, the first time I did this, more page status updates showed up in my regular newsfeed than in my list feed.

The two bottom posts in my “All Pages” feed showed up below the last two posts in my regular newsfeed which were nowhere to be found in my list feed. I did the same test about a half hour later and this time some posts were missing from my newsfeed that were in my list feed and some were missing from my list feed that were in my newsfeed. In the end I had to conclude that this latest ubiquitous chain post just doesn’t really solve anything.

Go ahead and create interests lists if that makes your life easier and you like to categorize things. Or go ahead and do what I did and put all of your pages into one list and let me know if you get any better results than what I got! Just don’t expect it to eliminate the problems that come with Facebook’s changes to the EdgeRank algorithm and their desire to make some money off of us.  Regardless of whether or not your lists work for you, I bet you forget you even have them after a couple of weeks! I know I will.

Livingston, Montana has recently received a lot of press online, at least in the world of social media news. And all thanks to what I consider to be a big customer service fail on the part of Wilcoxson’s Ice Cream (a company based here in Livingston). Last week this was posted on Wilcoxson’s Facebook page:

A fan of Wilcoxson’s was asking a simple question about the ingredients in the ice cream and the response given by  Matt Schaeffer, president of Wilcoxson’s, had nothing to do with the question and instead made the assumption that the person was from Pakistan. This led to a huge uproar in the online community calling the comment racist.  You can read the full story at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, or Huffington Post if you want all of the details. Wilcoxson’s has since turned off their Facebook page but that hasn’t stopped people from using other platforms to complain.

The big debate seems to be over whether or not what Matt Schaeffer posted was racist and people have every right to be concerned about that. But to me there is another issue that needs to be discussed and that is basic customer service. A customer, who is obviously a big fan of the ice cream, asked a very simple question. All Wilcoxson’s needed to do on their end was answer the simple question with a simple response. The president of the company says that he is the one who responded and that he did it when he was tired. I think that this highlights the problem perfectly. When adding social media into your marketing plan it is important to realize that your Facebook page will at some point probably be used for customer service. Taking that into consideration you need to really think about who the best person in your company is to be addressing customer service issues. In addition to that you need to assign the job to someone who also has a good grasp of social media etiquette. These are basic concepts that companies big and small are missing regularly as they try to jump into something that they haven’t fully thought out. Addressing these points in the beginning would help prevent mistakes like this one from happening.

The next issue is how you handle a situation like this one once it has already happened. I don’t know what Matt Schaeffer’s response was on Facebook because he shut the page down. Maybe he had no choice because the backlash was so out of control but it is hard to say when we don’t have access to his comments. By shutting his page down, he essentially took his voice out of the conversation. The absolute best thing that someone could do in a situation like this is apologize as quickly as possible once it becomes apparent that a mistake has been made. Apologize to the original customer and then apologize to the general public. Unfortunately, in his interview with the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, it feels more like he is making excuses then just flat out apologizing.

So what can we all learn from Wilcoxson’s mistakes?

1. Really think about who you put in charge of your social media. They need to understand social media etiquette, be professional and courteous, and have good customer service skills. It never hurts to bring in professional help to train your staff.

2. When you make a mistake it can often be fixed with a timely, sincere apology. Customer complaints or comments on Facebook are a chance for you to showcase your company’s amazing customer service skills. Use these opportunities to benefit your business!

How would you handle a customer service nightmare like this one? Have you thought about it and prepared for it? I will be interested to see what happens if and when Wilcoxson’s turns their Facebook page back on and will keep you posted.

Here in Livingston, school started this week. Back to school is always an exciting time of year and seems like more of a new beginning sometimes than January 1. As I helped my daughter prepare for school this year, I started thinking about how much technology has changed life for kids these day, in both beneficial and challenging ways. One of the biggest challenges that I see is that all of the stupid things that we all do as teenagers are now documented on the internet, for everyone to see, for a very long time (especially on Facebook). Your kid might not care about it right now but it could impact them later in life and that worries me. This goes for all of us “grown-ups” too. We all make mistakes and occasionally post that rare something that we wish we could take back. This is where two general rules can come in very handy. And I recommend that you share them with your kids too if they are active online.

#1: Stop and think about what you are doing before you push that “send” or “post” button!

#2: Set up and periodically check your privacy settings.

In this post I am just going to go over setting who sees your status updates on your Facebook profile. There are a lot of other privacy settings on Facebook to address that I will get to next time.

Click here to start editing your Facebook privacy settings. By default you can set it so that only your friends see what you post by clicking on “Friends” in the section that says “Control your default privacy”. I would highly recommend this as the minimum for your privacy settings. Then you need to think about who you are accepting as friends on Facebook. If you are very picky about who you accept and know that it is only people who you want to share personal information with, then go ahead and leave your settings here. If however you “friend” a lot of people who are just acquaintances or business colleagues, you might want to set up some lists and really customize what different people can see.

To set up lists where you organize your Facebook “friends” go here. Facebook will give you a few suggestions of lists based on information you have given them, such as where you live or went to college. But you can add your own lists and call them whatever you want. I like to have a list for people who can see everything that I post and then a “Professional” list that I can either choose to post to or not. Once you have some lists set up, you can select which lists get posted to by default. To do that go into your privacy settings again:

Click the “Custom” button and the box below will pop up.

Where it says “Make this visible to” choose “specific people or lists…” and then pick the list or lists that you want included as your default. You also have the option right below this to list anyone who you want to always exclude from seeing your posts.

Now when you go to post a status update “Custom” should show up at the bottom of your update box, like this:

If you decide that you are posting something that you want all of your friends to see, simply click on “Custom” and choose “Friends” instead. Just remember that anytime you add a new person as a friend, you will need to put them into one of your lists before they can see your posts.

I hope that this has been helpful and that you will encourage your kids (if you have any) to go through these steps as well. Next time we will get into settings for how people can find you, what information apps can access and more.

More often than not, when I go in to work one-on-one with a business the session starts off with a disclaimer. And that disclaimer always has to do with how little they know about social media and how un-tech savvy they are. I have started joking that I should call myself a social media therapist because what most of these people really need is just a little encouragement to help them feel confident in what they are doing. Most of the time these clients are actually already doing much better than they think they are. If this sounds like you, here are 6 tips to help you overcome your social media insecurities!

1. Observe: If you don’t feel confident yet in what you are doing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn… take some time to just observe what other people are doing. Try to find other businesses that are similar to yours (not big huge corporations that have teams of people working on their social media) and watch what they do. Take a look at a few of your competitors too. Notice what other people are doing that gets good response and also notice what others are doing that you don’t particularly like. It is totally ok to be a silent lurker for awhile to get your feet wet and get a feel for what it is all about. One thing to note when looking for people or businesses to follow on Facebook is that the search capabilities within Facebook are pretty poor so it is often better to try to find a particular Facebook page by Googling the business or going to their website.

2. Play around: Spend some time just interacting a little and adding different types of posts – photos, links, etc. to your page. Remember that you can always delete something immediately if you make a mistake or don’t really want to post it. Chances are that if you delete a post quickly no one will notice. If you have a friend or family member (even a teenager) who has experience on social networking sites, have them walk you through some of the basics. I wouldn’t start asking them for marketing advice but they can definitely show you some tricks and help get you started.

3. Create a rough schedule: Sit down and make a schedule for yourself for how often you would like to be posting on Facebook or your blog or Twitter. Committing to doing something can often be the first step in overcoming whatever is holding you back. Just be sure to be reasonable and not expect too much of yourself right from the start.

4. Share: If you are having a hard time coming up with your own content and it is blocking you from posting anything, share other people’s content! It is great to create your own unique content for your audience but it also just as helpful and useful to your customers when you share content that was created by someone else. Just be sure that you keep your audience in mind when deciding what to share.

5. Take a class or call in an expert: If you are still stuck and just need a little one-on-one help, give me a call. I frequently meet with business owners to do hands-on training. It is a great way to get all of your questions answered and gain the skills you need to feel confident marketing your business online. I also offer classes from time to time and if I have enough interest in one subject or area I will create a class around that if you contact me and let me know.

6. Have fun!

I am not one to be easily discouraged or defeated and so I am continuing my campaign to get Livingston, Montana to utilize Twitter and all that it has to offer! Last year we tried out the hashtag #livingstonroundup and did get a little action going around the festivities. This year, I have been working with the wonderful organization Western Sustainability Exchange. They are the people who bring us amazing Farmers Markets every Wednesday throughout the summer. To help them get the word out about the Farmers Market and also to help all of us who enjoy the market keep each other informed, we are going to start using the hashtag #livingstonfarmersmarket.

For those of you who are not familiar with hashtags, here is an explanation of them direct from the source, Twitter.

Twitter says…

Definition: The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages.

Using hashtags to categorizing Tweets by keyword:

• People use the hashtag symbol # before a relevant keyword or phrase (no spaces) in their Tweet to categorize those Tweets and help them show more easily in Twitter Search.
• Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message shows you all other Tweets marked with that keyword..
• Hashtags can occur anywhere in the Tweet – at the beginning, middle, or end.
• Hashtagged words that become very popular are often Trending Topics.

This was taken directly from the Twitter.com help center. Click here to read the rest of the article.

How do you apply this to your life and help out Western Sustainability Exchange? If you have a Twitter account and you attend the Livingston Farmers Market, start tweeting about what you see going on there. Tell the rest of us what band is playing, what food is available, what amazing handmade items you have found. And in those tweets use the hashtag #livingstonfarmersmarket. Or do a search for the hashtag on Twitter and you will see what everyone else in Livingston is tweeting about this week’s market. Help spread the word and we’ll see you at the Farmers Market!

I am so excited to tell you about one of the best improvements to Facebook in a long time!! You can now schedule your posts right in Facebook without having to use a third party application. And it is really simple to do.

Step 1:

Type your status update and then click on the little clock beneath it.

Step 2:

Facebook will prompt you to choose the year, then month, then day, then hour, then minute when you want your post to go out. Once you have set all of those click the “schedule” button.

Step 3:

If you want to make sure that your post was scheduled or you need to edit your post, go to “manage” in your admin panel – click “activity log” in the drop down menu.

In your activity log you will now see all of your scheduled posts. Click on the arrow to the right of the post to either change the time, publish it now or cancel your post.

That’s it. A super easy new tool that should help anyone who administers a Facebook page tremendously.

As more businesses are trying to grow their brand on Facebook, the amount and variety of Facebook ads that I see every day has increased exponentially. And whether it’s because businesses are getting better at advertising or just because I am paying more attention, I have been noticing more and more ads that catch my attention for one reason or another. Here are just a few that I have noticed recently that I wanted to share with you. The one above is for a local Montana candidate for Attorney General and I was struck by how it is crafted to appeal to women and specifically women from Montana who tend to pride themselves on being strong women. The accompanying image caught my eye immediately and the text fit perfectly with the image.

This ad is for Bota Box – a company that sells wine in a box and that is trying to develop their “green” image. Wine from a box is really not my thing but I love the idea of using your Facebook ad to get more page likes by giving to a cause that your fans care about. Many companies donate to non-profits or give back to their community anyway, so why not highlight that with a clever Facebook ad?

The thing that I liked about this ad for Downtown Kalispell is how it has a very clear call to action and tells you exactly what you will get when you go like their page.

The last ad that I wanted to highlight is the one above for Big Sky Yoga Retreats. I don’t love the photo because it is a little busy for such a small image but the text is what caught my eye. It is short and catchy and perfectly describes what is being sold.

There are many ways to get people to notice your ads and the best way to figure out what works for your business is to run multiple ads simultaneously. A clear image that shows up well even when it is really small and some clever text or an interesting promotion are always a good start.

What are you drawn to in Facebook ads? Do you have any other great examples?