Public Facebook Lists
Let You Recommend Pages, Subscriptions & People!
(Be Sure To Include Yourself!)

Facebook now has two types of lists… private lists and public lists!

Okay, that’s a big amount of generalization, but I think it will help you understand not only the differences but where Interest Lists can help your business. So work with me, okay?

You’re likely already familiar with Facebook’s private list system which is often called “Friend Lists” (though it can include subscriptions and pages as well). These lists allow us to do a lot of internal filtering of our news feed and do not reveal their secrets to the world!

Now, in a move that is strikingly similar to Twitter lists (which are public), Facebook has introduced public lists, known as Interests lists  (which may include pages, profiles and subscriptions).

If the terminology feels a little wonky, you’re not alone. The systems are so similar that even Facebook’s documentation often confuses the two.

What Are Facebook Lists?

Facebook lists are features that belong to your Facebook Profile and are a great way to create groupings (not Facebook Groups, different thing) of people, places and things we follow in our news feed. (Your page can not make lists.) Lists allow us to quickly see a filtered view of content. In the case of private lists, they are also used to specifically control who sees our postings. Public lists let us create and share a topic or “magazine” collection. People, places & things added to any list may be selectively removed from the main news feed for organizational reasons if we wish.

The Three List Types

Lists or “Friend Lists” = Private (strictly)
Interest Lists = Public (But can be set private or semi-private)
Smart Lists = inbound & outbound control and are not “real” lists like the other two but actually filters.

Both Friend Lists & Interest Lists can contain people, subscriptions and pages you follow.

If you already understand how Friend Lists work, you will find that Interest Lists are very similar with a few unique tools and settings (like Public!).

I already have Friend Lists, why should I care about Interest Lists? 

Friend Lists and the associated Smart Lists that work together with them will continue to constitute the bulk of your energies because they are designed “for you” explicitly. However, in the same way that Twitter Lists can “go viral”, function as “suggested reading lists” and help build your brand… while still serving as a news filter for you… so too can Interest Lists!

You will want to create a niche interest list (or three) for the niche you specialize in, add yourself to it, and then share it with your readers. If they they share your list (which they may since you’re going to make it useful, right?) then your message has the ability to spread in a new way! You are saving your readers the time it takes to build the list while helping yourself at the same time.

Gotta Get Me Some Interest Lists!

You can make your own Interest Lists to share AND you can subscribe to interest lists of others.

There are a couple different places in the Facebook interface that we can make Interest Lists, for our convenience, which is handy.  They all work the same though. 

Getting Started: Finding Your Facebook Interest Lists

From your Facebook news feed page, your left sidebar, possibly hidden under the “more” link, contains a new link that says “Add Interests…” which opens https://www.facebook.com/addlist/

Clicking on a existing list name will let you preview the list contents. Clicking subscribe next to the existing list will add the list name to your current Interests Lists, found here: https://www.facebook.com/bookmarks/interests

Search for lists in your niche for ideas!

Like any other sidebar element, Interest Lists you create or subscribe to can be easily added to your Favorites for easy access.

Creating A Facebook Interest List

The “Create New List” button is available in three different locations: In the “addlist” page (above), in the “Liked”/”Subscribed” drop-down of a page or subscription in your news feed, and in the  “Liked”/”Subscribed” drop-down of a page or subscription on their timeline.  All three buttons work the same.

Clicking the “Create New List” button starts the wizard:

In the first screen: Select the people, pages and subscriptions you want to include in your Facebook Interest List.

In the second screen: Give your Interest List a keyword appropriate name (for the search tool to work in your favor), set its privacy (Public generally) and click Done.

 Once you click Done, the list will be created and added to the page that displays all of your interest lists: https://www.facebook.com/bookmarks/interests (accessible by clicking the word “Interests” in your left sidebar). From there, you can easily set it as a Facebook Favorite if you wish.

Managing Your Interest List

Open up your list, and under the “Manage List” button you will find options to easily rename your list, add/remove people, pages and subscriptions, as well as restrict displayed content or delete your list

The “Edit List” option will let you easily add or remove who is on the list… making management real simple.

Adding Pages & Subscriptions To Interests Lists On-The-Go!

Both Pages & Subscriptions provide you with an easy pop-out, for adding them to an interest list, from their news feed entry and their Timeline.  (This is nearly identical to how profiles offer a similar pop-out for adding them to a private Friend List.)

Sharing Your Interest List – Start The Ball Rolling!

Each Facebook Interest List has a unique URL and a share button, giving you several ways to share your list with your profile, groups and pages. The URL can even be shared out directly to your twitter followers!

Useful Links For More Information

Check out my Facebook Interest List FAQ!

http://newsroom.fb.com/News/Introducing-Interest-Lists-109.aspx
https://www.facebook.com/bookmarks/interests
https://www.facebook.com/addlist
https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=245280282226964&in_context

Wrap-Up

As you can see, Facebook Interests Lists are really straight forward to use… and a great opportunity to showcase yourself and others in your niche!

Are you taking advantage of Facebook Interest Lists yet? If so, feel free to share a link to YOUR interest lists, with the community here, in the comments below!

 ~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

PS: If your list begins to go viral, and you have featured some Pros in it, you could probably earn some brownie points by gracefully letting them know they’ve been featured on a rapidly growing list!

image source: facebook (logo), me (screenshots)

Related Posts:

Facebook Interest Lists: The social newspaper done right (via VentureBeat.com)
How To Create Facebook Interest Lists (via KimGarst.com)
Facebook Introduces Interest Lists [UPDATED] (via AllFacebook.com)
Are you using Facebook’s Interest Lists? (via CNET.com)
Introducing Interest Lists (via Techcrunch.com)

Facebook Interest List FAQ

Facebook’s new Interest List feature provides a sweet way for you to showcase yourself and others in your niche with your audience!  (Plus it makes a great reading filter to boot!)

You can learn more about them in my Facebook Interest List Tutorial.

Below is some Facebook Interest List Frequently Asked Questions taken from the Facebook Help Docs.

What are interest lists?

Interest lists are an optional way to organize the content you’re interested in on Facebook. You can create your own interest lists based on the things you care about, or subscribe to other people’s lists. For example, you could create a Top Indie Bands list that features bands’ Pages and public updates from band members.

When you create or subscribe to a list, you’ll see the best posts from that list in your main news feed. Your lists will also appear in the Interests section of your bookmarks. Simply click the list’s name to see all the recent posts and activity from the Pages and people featured in the list, without overwhelming your main news feed.

How do I find lists to subscribe to?

You can find new interest lists to subscribe to by looking through our recommendations or searching for interests by name (ex: Photography, New Authors, Tech News). Just go to your Interests page and click the Add Interests button at the top of the page.

What happens when I subscribe to a list?

When you subscribe to a list, that list will get added to the Interests section of your bookmarks. When you click on the name of the list, you’ll see a feed of the posts and activity from the people and Pages on that list. You may also see highlights from this list in your main news feed.

Who can see the lists I’m subscribed to?

Who can be featured on an interest list?

 ~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

Useful Links For More Information

http://newsroom.fb.com/News/Introducing-Interest-Lists-109.aspx
https://www.facebook.com/bookmarks/interests
https://www.facebook.com/addlist
https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=245280282226964&in_context

image source: facebook (logo)

Just Because We  Like it…
Doesn’t Always Mean We
Want To Hear From It Daily!

As our social connections expand, it becomes more and more important to tightly keep control of how and when we receive communications from non-critical connections.

In the case of many “Like Pages” (Business & Community Pages) related to hobbies and interests of ours, often we are better utilizing a Facebook Interest List, to view the content on our own time, than allowing them in the main feed.

Adding a Like Page to a Facebook Interest List does not automatically “move” it there and remove it from the News Feed…

So, whether we just want to not see the page (without unliking it) or whether we want to move it to a FB Interest List… knowing how to easily remove the page from the main news feed is key!

Fortunately, Facebook makes it super easy to hide a page from your news feed… from one of two different areas.

From the News Feed… this set of options is hidden under the name pop-up and the “Liked”drop-down!

From the Business Timeline itself, this option is located below the Timeline Image (Cover) in the “liked” drop-out.

Get More Traffic!

Every website owner wants to get more targeted visitors to visit their website. It is imperative that any content you put on your website is keyword rich content that is dedicated and devoted to your target audience and stays within your particular niche. You can’t be everything to your target audience but you can be everything within your niche to your target audience.

Once you have the idea of a niche and target audience down pat it’s time to put that into action and get more targeted traffic.

Here are five sure fire ways to get more visitors.

These are just a few of the ways to get and keep traffic that I cover in my new report, “Traffic Building System: How to Get More Targeted Traffic to Your Website“.

It is important to do the following often, regularly, and strategically. With each campaign work on one at a time until you have it solidly under your belt. Whether you choose a new topic monthly, quarterly or on some other schedule, you should do the following for each new campaign. I suggest using 90 day intervals for effectiveness of focus.

Article Marketing – Create at five to ten 500 to 700 word keyword rich articles that are about your niche topic but very general. These articles should offer good advice, engage readers, and hopefully entice them to click on your link that resides in your bio to see more without overtly advertising. Keep these articles original and high quality for good article marketing SEO.

Create Keyword Rich Blog Posts — On your own website you should have keyword rich blog posts at least three to five times per week for at least a year. Having frequently updated content on your website will get more targeted visitors because the search engines are going to promote you more if you have appropriate keyword rich content. Here are 7 reasons why your keywords matter.

Guest Blog — This is a very important activity that enables you to essentially use other people’s traffic. Network with others who sell to your target audience, but sell different products and services than you do. Offer to allow them to guest blog on your website and you do the same on theirs. You can even have a complete blogging tour among your network.

Promote via Social Media — Promote every last item above on your social media accounts and ask your visitors, friends, and guests to do the same. By using social media to promote each and every addition of relevant content from new blog posts, to new articles, to guest posts, to new products you will create a rush of traffic that is targeted and hungry for the information that you offer.

eMail Messages — Send out email messages that are indicative of the new topic at hand to those who have signed up for your list, give them permission to pass on your newsletter so that you can get new people to read your newsletter and click through to your site. Sending out teasers is a good way, or creating a new email course specifically for the new topic will get excitement and curiosity peaked. Ask your guest bloggers, and those for whom you guest blog to also promote via their email lists.

Learn 7 additional tips to build traffic to your site here.

Success Tip: Keep it all Organized — If you do not have any idea of where you want to go you’re never going to get there. Use a publication calendar to help you reach your goals. Choose your topics in advance, as well as the products you wish to promote in advance. Once you create the list of topics, and products for each topic, it’s as simple as repeating the process over and over again. Here’s some additional tips for organizing your research.

 ~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

image source: 123rf.com

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe….
Select What Stuff Someone Can
Share With You On Facebook!

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to not see anything related to Facebook games that your nephew fills up your stream with… or to be able to hide all the music video’s that your neighbor shares?

How about doing content blocking without having to completely hide the person from your news feed?

Sounds like a win, right?

While the options are not particularly granular (or detailed), the content selector makes it easy to hide “portions” of content shared by an individual.

Like many other settings such as unfriend and hide from news feed, this option is available both from the news feed and from the individual’s profile page.

From the News Feed… this set of options is hidden under the name pop-up and the Friends drop-down!

From the offending user’s Profile, this option is located below the Timeline Image (Cover) in the Friend drop-out.

This option is perfect for when unfriending is WAY too much, and hiding all is STILL too much…

My favorite combination for individuals that are marginal for the moment in my current “need to see” list is to set “How Many” = “Only Important” and to set  “What Types” to “Life Events” … I will also sometimes include “Status Updates” for people I need more contact from.

Enabling “Status Updates” allows not only legit status posts… but also spam, links, etc to come through and should be carefully considered whether or not it is appropriate.

Like this tip, but wish you could set it for dozens of your friends at once? Fortunately, that’s super easy using the new Facebook “Acquaintances” Smart List filter!

There are probably a lot of people in your news feed that you really are not close too that this will help control the clutter they can make.

This option gives you a lot of middle-ground flexibility that most of the other filters and options we have talked about so far lack.

If you enjoyed this tip, let me know!

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

I Love You… But Go Away!

Sometimes, unfriending someone is far too drastic of an action… but even limiting their posts just isn’t enough distance between them and your news feed.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder right?

Often, we have a pesky family member or business acquaintance that we can not afford to unfriend, but we’re sick and tired of hearing from.

Fortunately, Facebook makes it really easy to “Hide” a person from the news feed… without ever notifying the recipient that they’ve been hidden!

How To Hide All Posts From An Individual From Our Newsfeed

First, click on “Facebook” to ensure you are in your news feed.  Then hover over the person’s name in your news feed… and when the pop-up shows up, hover over the “Friend” button. (Note: There is a matching friend button on their profile timeline that works the same way.) In the pop-out menu, uncheck the “Show in News Feed” option to hide this individual from the news stream.

How To UnHide An Individual, Previously Hidden, From Our Newsfeed

So what happens when you change your mind?

Maybe you had someone who was moaning about something you couldn’t handle hearing at the moment… but in three months you know they’re better and you want them back in your feed?

First, click on “Facebook” to ensure you are in your news feed. Then in the left sidebar, hover your mouse to the right of the word “News Feed” and when the pencil and drop-down opens, select “Edit Settings”. In the settings menu, locate the hidden friend, and use the little “X” to the right of their name to unhide them. Save your settings.

So that’s all there is to it… now you know how to quickly and easily hide and unhide a friend from your news feed.

(And best of all, they have no way of knowing you did this so can not feel offended beyond the fact that you never reply to their stuff.)

 I find this tool useful both for family that I need to stay connected to (but not listen to) and to business colleagues that are working avidly on industries I have no interest in (but which I need to remain connected to them for relationship reasons).

It’s the perfect solution when unfriending someone is too much … and selecting the content types of theirs that you will see is just not enough!

Enjoy your renewed Facebook news feed sanity!

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

Stop Someone From Seeing Your Stuff,
Sending You Invites, Or Bothering You On Facebook…

Whether you need a creepy person to go away… or an annoying one to stop sending you friend invites… the “Block” function on Facebook is mighty handy!

The “block” tool on Facebook is powerful because it makes your account “not exist” to the blocked individual.

Not only do they no longer see you as a friend (if you were one)… but when they search for you, it’s like you have never had a profile on Facebook.

click to see full image

Steps To Block Someone On Facebook:

1) Visit the profile of the person you wish to block.

2) Look for the “gear” (settings) icon at the bottom right of their timeline cover image. Click it.

3) In the dropdown, select either unfriend or report/block (both open the same popup)

4) Select the Block option (which will also unfriend a person at the same time if necessary) and click confirm…. done!

If a user has been doing things that violate the Facebook Terms of Service… it is also wise to report the account (timeline) so that it will get a review. (Things like this include griefing, harrassment, nudity, spamming, etc.)

(Parents, worried that that creepy guy on the other side of the family might like your child a little too much? Preemptive blocking is a powerful way to head off trouble!)

I personally use the Report & Block options on all spammers. This prevents them from re-requesting a friend invite and spamming me all over again six months down the road!

Poof! Be gone with you, spammer! Done!

Hope this helps make your Facebook a little safer and friendlier place!

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

PS: Blocking (or even just Unfriending) are not always the most tactful answer, which is why “hide” and selective content display options also exist!

Adiós, Ciao, & Get Lost…
Losing The Facebook Losers!

How To UnFriend Someone On Facebook

There’s plenty of reasons to want to ditch a connection on Facebook!

Unfriend is “The act of removing a friend from your facebook account.”

Fortunately it’s really easy to kick the sucker to the curb….

(and there are 2 places you can unfriend someone from)

1) How To Unfriend Someone In Your NewsFeed (Home Page)

Hover over their name to open up the connection popup box. Then on that popup, hover your mouse over the “Friends” button to see a drop down which includes an “unfriend” option at the bottom.

 2) You can also use the search to locate the individual’s profile and unfriend them from their profile.

Once you have reached someone’s profile… look for the little “gear” icon under their right hand corner of their timeline image.  Click on the gear icon and select either Unfriend or Block/Report (they open the same popup box). Now select the Unfriend option and click confirm!

click to see full image

It’s as simple as that!

With just a few clicks you can easily unfriend someone on Facebook (and have much less spam in your Facebook newsfeed)!

Amp Radio gives 10 Tips to Avoid Getting Unfriended … and I would add not to clutter your friends streams with too much business stuff as they will likely see you as spamming. (Reminder that commercial posts and links on your profile violate the TOS and need to be done carefully.)

While I can’t always tell you when unfriend’ing someone is the right move… at least now you know HOW to unfriend someone!

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

PS: Sometimes unfriending just isn’t enough to stop misbehavior. Here’s some additional information on how to block someone from seeing you at all!

How To Add Annotations To
The Google Analytics Graph

Can you remember exactly what you did 45 days ago that caused a traffic spike?

How about the dip 9 days before that?

And the other peak a week before that?….

While I can easily remember this weeks most recent changes that brought in traffic, keeping track of all up and down over an extended period just isn’t possible with the amount of other information I’m required to keep between my ears!

Also, data that’s living in my ears can not easily be offered to a coach, mentor, consultant when seeking advice on improving traffic!

Making Notes In Google Analytics

Fortunately, making small notes, known as “annotations” along the Google Analytics time-line is easy.

(All of this assumes of course that you have Google Analytics set up, the plugin installed if needed, and at least a couple of days data!)

1. Log into your Google Analytics account… select the domain you want to look at and once inside click the “Standard Reporting” tab.

2. Here, you need to note 2 items. First note the little tiny down-arrow (down-tab?) right below the timeline. The second, that you will not have until after you’ve made annotations is the little “quote” (blurb?) bubbles under date-points that indicate existing annotations exist for that date. 

3. Click on this down-arrow (down-tab) to open up the annotations menu.

4.  That will open a Annotation panel below the graph. Here you can select a date, enter the note, and click Save.

What types of things do I add as notes? Examples include:

1) Unique content that appears as though it may go viral (or did go viral)

2) Days my analytics plugin or script was accidentally deactivated (oops!)

3) Times that I have had site related trouble that may have impacted people’s ability to get to and read my stuff

4) Product launches

5) And anything else that may impact my traffic.

These notes let me keep track of what was going on and did (or did not) yield more traffic.

5. Once you click save the annotation is added and a tiny “comment bubble” is added near the bottom of the time-line right below the data point. These bubbles let you easily check the note and know which points already have notes. Extremely Handy!

That’s all there is to it! A simple little way to make sure you don’t come back in six months or a year and wonder what some particular dip/spike was all about!

Thanks for reading! Hopefully this helps you understand how to add annotation notes to google analytics and spare yourself some headache down the road! If you like it, please share it, book mark it and leave me a comment! I look forward to hearing from you!

Kimberly

Time To Spread The Word…. 

Yup, some of the “hype” you’ve been hearing is actually true… 

Let me explain….

Several months ago, the FBI caught some bad guys that were distributing some “malware” (virus) that infected computers. This malware reset the DNS of the computer to use the bad guys DNS server… so that the bad guys could make the infected folks see lots of spam, porn, popups, ads and other stuff. 

The infected computer (Mac or PC) still had internet – but it was being altered by this malware.  

The FBI arrested these bad guys and stopped the spread of the malware…. but the the question became of what to do with the servers that were being used. 

It was decided to keep these servers online for a while, to give the infected folks time to learn about the possible infection, and get cleaned up. 

Because when these servers get turned off… the lack of DNS will mean that they can no longer get to the internet (until they are fixed). 

Some of these systems HAVE been fixed and will be just fine.  Some haven’t!

However, the court order (and funding) that keeps these infected servers online expires on July 9th… and any remaining infected computers will stop being able to get online on that date. 

The media makes it sound like this is a high percentage of computers – but it’s not.  But it still might affect someone you know (in particular, your not-very-web-savvy friends/family).

We, as a community, have until July 9th to ensure that the community that depends on us … is able to GET to us!

The FBI’s official doc is here if you feel the need to slog through it (if you are techy). 

Generally speaking online “antivirus” type software is dangerous and to be avoided… but the FBI has actually put up a online site  to teach people how to identify and remove for this pesky thing. 

Visit http://www.dcwg.org/ to find out how to both scan for and fix the DNSChange infection (if you’re infected). 

I know my community here and it’s actually unlikely that your personal system is infected. It however is likely that the system of your friends, family, neighbors and others less savvy is what needs scanned. (Check yours for good measure though, kk?)

Any system that *IS* infected, post-cleanup, really needs a deep scan with a current antivirus, a current malware scanner and to have all of it’s Operating System (Windows/OS) files updated… as the DNSChanger stopped updates from working and blocked most scanners. 

Beyond sharing this post… (which I appreciate you doing)… you can help your own site visitors identify if they are infected by  turning on the Visitor DNSChanger Detector app on CloudFlare. (This is assuming you are using Cloudflare.com with your site, like I am.) Any infected visitors coming to your site will be alerted about their vulnerability and given information on how they can fix it.

Computer repair shops in your area will be able to help you fix this if it seems too much for you to do yourself. 

(That means that when Aunt Barb, from three states away, calls you and tells you her computer won’t get online… you send her to the computer shop to get it fixed.)

This is the kind of stuff that your friends, family, colleagues and yes… even your list… need to know about before the date arrives.

Please feel free to ask questions below, although most of what you need to know is available on http://www.dcwg.org/ 

Please help me spread the word over the next 2-3 weeks so we help reach as many people as possible. 

As always, your also welcome to republish this article (or send it straight to your list) as long as you link it to me and credit me, capiche? 

~ Kim ~
Simple  Tech Tips For Marketing 

PS: Generally speaking, online antivirus/malware scanners are in fact infected applications trying to hack you. The tools provided by dcwg.org are a very rare exception. I hesitate to suggest using any online scanner but this particular one is safe and important. If it comes from anywhere else… don’t touch it! 

image source: iconfinder.com

I Can Haz
My Video Plz?

Whether you forgot to keep a backup, lost your backup, or need to make a backup of a testimonial… sometimes you have legal reasons to need to get a file copy from YouTube.com!

Recently a reader asked…

What software do you/would you use for downloading YouTube videos? There are some testimonial video’s from my customers hosted on their accounts and I’d like to pull them down to my computer and upload them.

Both of these are standard Firefox addons that you can search for in the add-ons directory.

Are Facebook Ads
Failing?

Lately there are a lot of mixed results being published about corporate use of Facebook advertising!

This comes as Facebook is in early stage IPO and highly susceptible to negative public perception of their revenue potential.

Recently, General Motors announced that they were pulling out of using Facebook advertising as they had found it ineffective. (original article bloomberg.com)

However, Ford (and Subaru) see reported success with paid social campaigns and increases spending & awareness.

It’s worth noting that Ford has worked very hard in the last couple years to make their cars more tech savvy, more technologically current, more smart phone enabled, and have worked closely with influencers to both learn and influence in the social space. Ford is not simply doing FB ads but is “in” the social tech space.

Could this be a case of Ford having learned how to use social right and GM simply not getting it?

Facebook advertising is enticingly simple to get started with yet has many subtle nuances that add complexity that big brands often underestimate (including the fact that it’s a social platform and hardcore ads just don’t always work).

It will be interesting to see if the timing of this indicates a grudge GM has against Facebook or if this is the start of some market honesty.

Are you using Facebook advertising (PPC) in your marketing?

Why or why not?

Let’s discuss in the comments below!

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

Knowledge Graph –
Helps You Find What You
Meant To Search For!

This is the kind of improvements we all look forward to seeing from Google!

You’ve likely heard me joke that one of my most valuable skills is knowing WHAT to ask from Google and HOW to ask it! We laugh, but we know that getting exactly the right info we want is still sometimes tedious!

The new Google Knowledge Graph will actually help the average user get better results by requiring input to be “less smart” when we search…

For example, (once this is in place), if you search for Andromeda … the search will then ask you whether you mean the Andromeda Galaxy, Andromeda the tv show, or Andromeda the rock band… (filling in contextual information you may have forgotten to include with a simple easy click).

Google writes: “Get an under the hood look at the next frontier in Search, from the team at Google behind the technology. The Knowledge Graph is a huge collection of the people, places and things in the world and how they’re connected to one another. With this technology, Google can get you the best possible answers and help jump start your discovery.” Learn more at this link.

 
Introducing the Knowledge Graph

Context is a LOT harder for a computer/script than you might imagine – though its the basis of how our brains work.

Adding contextual information to our search will result in a more pleasant search experience (and less of trying to ignore unrelated search results when we failed to include important context clues in the search box originally).

Knowledge Graph options will also be available from the tablet and mobile views.

Will the Google Knowledge Graph change SEO?

Somewhat… but generally for the (substantially) better for the end user…

Now, a search for a general “short-tail” keyword will have “options” that will draw clicks off the first result.  At the moment these clicks are in the right hand column and do not disrupt the top spaces. (I have however spotted a top-space box that I can’t seem to reproduce that is likely coming.)

Example of Google Knowledge Graph Altering Search Results Page

It definitely catches my eye that even in the personalized view, no social appears in the right pane… or even ads for that matter! (Subject to change of course!)

As to whether this has a negative impact on SEO… only one question really comes to mind:

Does a site selling (for example) Andromeda (TV Show) t-shirts honestly deserve any clicks when a kid is researching a school paper about the Andromeda galaxy?

We likely agree that the answer is no.

However, we all know that some search results produce that sort of thing even though we know they never should have.

Because this action is “corrective”, it will impact a few sites that are ranking high for short tail keywords they don’t belong on… which most of us would likely agree is acceptable consequences. However, once the click-through to the corrected topic is made, high ranking sites should remain high ranking for their right (adjusted) usage.

Marketers usually know that a short-tail (broad) keyword is not a buying keyword anyways and majority of the focus goes on keywords closer to purchase (such as “Andromeda t-shirts”).

So, in this way, the Google Knowledge Graph will impact SEO but I find myself untroubled by the outcome.

What are your thoughts on Google’s Knowledge Graph?

Do you think it’ll be a helpful tool?

Let’s discuss in the comments below!

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

PS: I think that this, when if properly blended with personalized/social search, is a lot closer to making the search results produce the things we’ve needed than ever before! 

Zoom In On Your Audience
To Zoom Up In Traffic!

Want more targeted visitors and a higher conversion rate? Then it is important that every aspect of your website including how you promote it speaks to your target audience. You want your website to be the place your target market comes to get their needs met. The need might be to find out where they can find your products or services. It does not matter if you’re online or an offline business, the website can attract people to the website and the website can attract people to your store, no matter where it is.

Target market identification is just one of several ways to get and keep traffic that I cover in my new report, “Traffic Building System: How to Get More Targeted Traffic to Your Website“.

It goes something like this:

Potential visitor reads your article on EzineArticles.com, and enjoys it enough to click through to your website or blog. The visitor reads your blog posts and signs up for your newsletter to receive a free eReport about your products or services. Next, the visitor receives pre-written emails directly to their in box that promotes certain products and services on your website that you want to sell. The recipient clicks through, (or drives to your store) buys something, and gets on yet another list of customers, and then you repeat the process.

This is the basics of your marketing funnel but for it to work you have to have decided WHO it’s funneling out of the masses.

To know your target market you must know:

Who They Are — What is their age, sex, marital status? What do they care about as a group?

What They Need & Desire – Once you know them, you should be able to make an educated guess on their needs and desires.

When They Want It — This is an important component in knowing your target audience.  For instance, if they are normally never online on Sundays at 2pm don’t send them an email newsletter that day.

Where Do They Live – This can be interpreted as what state they are in, but it really means where do they hang out online. You want to be there so that you can observe how they behave, what questions they ask, and get ideas on services and / or products to offer to them.

Why You -  This is a question that is more about you than them: Why are you the right person to deal with this target market? What makes you qualified? Do you know?

You need to answer all these questions so that you can provide articles they will enjoy reading and obtain value from, separate from anything else but pique their interest in more. In addition, you want the products and services that you offer to fill their needs, and desires. If you truly know your target audience down to their age, sex, marital status, and income you’ll be more likely to be able to create solutions that they will want to purchase and share with their friends.

Once you know what type of products or services you want to provide, and to whom, you’ll be better able to create content that is compelling and attracts those visitors. By using systems such as message boards to find out what your target market is asking about, you can get an inside and early view of what to offer them. When you are offering appropriate information, content, products and / or services to the right people, your content will naturally attract more targeted audiences

 ~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

image source: open source image

What You Don’t Know About
Image Licensing
Could REALLY Hurt You!

Bloggers & Marketers beware!

Image misuse is a dirty secret among some bloggers and social marketers.

(And many of these individuals are people who get bent out of shape and acting hurt when someone then steals their posts… but I digress…)

If the morality of it isn’t enough for you, authorities are much more actively helping individuals that own images pursue legal action against thieves.

Now any image can be drag-and-dropped into http://images.google.com and Google will tell you where all the matching copies are! (Hint: Your no longer “safe” just because your blog is crappy and doesn’t rank well.)

When it comes to the images you must:

1) Own purchased rights to all images you use, and know the license limits, or….

2) Be using public domain images, or

3) Be using “commercial use allowed, creative commons, attribution required” and providing a link from that page to the author as specified in that image, or…

4) Create the image yourself!

Random images taken from Google should NEVER be used (on Facebook, your blog, wherever) as you are at high risk of violating copyright.

I get a lot of images from iconfinder.com (using the commercial use filter), from “Morgue Files” (search for it, public domain), and purchased through 123RF.com (aff) or iStockPhoto (aff).

Royalty Free images (such as from 123RF & iStockPhoto above) are still purchased images. They are not free, just that you do not have to pay a royalty on every single time you use them. Keep in mind that many have strict rules about usage and can not be used in products you plan to make available for reselling (like PLR).

You can also get images from Flickr’s creative commons search but remember you MUST link to the source from the page the image is used on and give credit to the author. That means that these images (in whole or in part) are NOT able to be used as Facebook Cover images because there is no way to put the backlink on the same page effectively. (Clicking to see the link does not qualify).

The last thing you want is a copyright holder sending a shut-down notice to your hosting company and taking your site offline while you battle in court. I’ve met numerous people now who HAVE been busted. One guy I met at the Niche Affiliate Marketing System (NAMS) conference had to pay over $16,000 – Definitely something you want to avoid!

I purchase credit bundles through 123RF.com so I’m never tempted to go steal images.

When I can NOT find an image, I make one, even if it’s very rough, and maybe just words, in my graphics program (paint.net). This lets me still have the image that Facebook and other sites need for thumbnails, while not breaking any laws.

I also try to avoid sharing blog posts and other content that I know has (or often has) stolen images. The corrosion of “safe harbor” laws endanger me … and besides, I don’t share a thief’s content with my friends.

(Many people however are stealing “simply” because they don’t realize that Google Images is not a free image pool for them to use as they please!)

Remember that your business is your business. Treat it as such. Take care of it. (And get a LegalShield plan to protect it when things DO go wrong!)

Where do you get YOUR images from? What’s your favorite source?

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

PS: If you haven’t tried it already, take an image that’s being shared virally, download it to your computer, then visit http://images.google.com and drag-and-drop the saved image into the search box and see the really cool results. 

Improve Your Feed
By Using The Acquaintances List

We’ve talked a lot about the HUGE power of using Facebook Lists to make Facebook easier…

But the new “Smart Lists” are a little different and deserve their own special coverage as they bring yet another set of tools to help you survive your news feed each day!

When used together, lists, smartlists, game/app filtering and FBPurity can return your news feed to something you actually appreciate reading!

SmartLists behave very different than “normal” lists so pay attention here as each one of them is unique.

The “Acquantances” list is used to allow you to easily “throttle” how much content you receive from people you are not particularly emotionally close too.

You first add people (Facebook makes useful suggestions) to the list and then you set WHAT you’d like to see from those people in your primary news feed. This removes a lot of valid but uninteresting to you posts from your feed and does so easily and silently.

Pretty straight forward, here’s how to get started.

Facebook Acquaintances Smart List Settings

Steps To Using the Facebook Acquaintances Smart List:

1. Click on the word Facebook in the upper left hand corner to return to the main page and newsfeed.

2. In the left hand column, scroll down to where you see Friends. If you do not see friends, go to the very bottom of the content in the left sidebar and click “more” to make it open up fully.

3. Click on “Friends” (which opens the area for Friend Lists) and then click on the smart list (they all have colored icons) that says “Acquaintances”.  That will take you to the page we see above in the screenshot.

4. From here, you can use the “Manage” drop down to deselect the content types you want to suppress from your main news feed. For me, I uncheck all except “Status Updates” and “Photos”.  Because I can still manually alter the settings for each individual, I leave it a little wide, and then I use the individual settings if I need to hide photos as well.

 5. At the bottom of the right hand sidebar you will see a “See All Suggestions” link…. click that to open the suggestions tool (and then see the next screenshot below).

Facebook Acquaintances Smart List Suggestions Tool

Here in the Acquaintances Suggestions tool we see the power of Facebook EdgeRank being used to calculate the individuals that we rarely interact with. I found the suggestions very accurate though I unchecked several who I was likely to re-engage with soon.

Scroll near the bottom and click the link that says “Include # More Suggestions” to make this page open fully. Now scroll through the images/names and check/uncheck as appropriate. Then click the Add To Acquaintances button.

People will be (silently) added to the acquaintances list and your news feed will now be more relavant to you!

This is simply a “bulk” way of setting a lot of these content restrictions at once that we can set by hand but is relatively time consuming.  I think this is a nice move by Facebook…. particularly for those of us with old classmates/colleagues that we are not “near and dear” with!

Go set yours up and then post a reply and let me know if you have any questions and how it worked for you!

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

PS: This is not a replacement for FBPurity as this does something that only Facebook can do. This works well WITH FbPurity to further clean up my feed.

Upward Bound
On The Social Train!

One of the most prominent trends in internet marketing today is the trend of social media. Social media is getting rapidly increasing in important.

Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur working from your house or a Fortune 500 company, you simply cannot afford to ignore social media anymore.

==> Studies Show Buying Decisions Are Influenced

Studies show that the majority of consumers today are influenced in one way or another by the posts of their friends.

If a friend recommends a brand, a place, a movie or a restaurant through social media, that person is much more likely to become a customer of that establishment.

On the other hand, if a friend complains about a business through social media, research also shows that consumers are much less likely to buy from that place.

In other words, what people say about you on social media plays a big part in consumers’ buying decisions today.

==> People Are More Willing to Share Links

When social media was first launched, people were cautious of sharing links. Sharing a link on Facebook appeared similar to sharing a link in an email, which seemed almost spam-like. In email, posting too many links is socially discouraged.

Today however, users understand that sharing links on Facebook or Twitter is perfectly acceptable behavior. Users are sharing more and more links today.

That means that if you publish top-notch content or do something innovative, the potential for your content to make its way around the internet is much higher.

==> Networks Influence One Another

The cross-pollination of social media networks is also getting increasingly faster. A post that gets popular on Reddit is rapidly going to get shared on Facebook. Something posted on Facebook will quickly be link shortened and posted on Twitter.

With or without your help, your social network is going to cross-post and cross-pollinate with other social media networks. The reach of good content and good promotions through social media is larger today than it has ever been.

==> Social Sentiment

One hotly debated topic is whether or not search engines can actually read the sentiment inside comments and tweets.

After all, if there are 1,000 tweets about “I Love Brand X,” it shouldn’t have the same impact as 1,000 tweets about “I Hate Brand X.”

The general consensus is that Google can actually read comment sentiment to some degree. Of course it can’t read highly complex comments yet, but by and large Google can distinguish between positive sentiment and negative sentiment.

It’s believed that sentiment plays a large role in rankings – as large as the number of shares itself.

==> Social Influence

The authority of the tweets, mentions, likes, +1′s etc are, of course, a measurement of how powerful each creator is. If they have a lot of followers and a strong brand, a mention or share from them weighs more than if they were a brand new account.

==> Starting to Influence Search Results

Social media is starting to influence search results. Getting exposure in social media is going to help you increase your rankings in the search engines.

In “3 Google SEO Changes Rattle SEOs & Bloggers Alike“, we looked at some dramatic shifts that are occurring in SEO today and social is most certainly one of them!

All this adds up to one thing: Social Media is getting more and more important by the day. In the past, social media could be just another marketing tactic you dabbled in. Today, however, it needs to be an integral part of any good business strategy.

Social influence is also beginning to be factored into SEO and shares from influencers in your niche can cause your content to perform favorably in the future!

And just because social media loves fun, viral topics, I thought you might enjoy Heidi Cohen’s “5 Dr. Seuss Quotes & Their Social Media Lessons“!

If you haven’t already gotten your foot in the door, start by choosing one network to master. Start with Facebook or Twitter, then move on to bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon and Reddit. Learn the system, build an audience and get in the habit of regularly posting great content.

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

image credit: me (and the appropriate social sites)

Thar’s Gold in Them Thar Hills….
And Hidden Magic In The WordPress Comments…

You probably already know that blog commenting can build your brand…. but with a subtle twist you really turn up the results!

Plus, you can get this additional boost to your results with no additional cost, only a little additional work and the only tool you might need is a notepad or Reader to keep track of sites you can use it on! 

If you’ve been doing blog commenting as a traffic generation method for any time at all… you’re likely kicking yourself for missing this little twist!

I suggest keeping either a notepad file or a Reader folder of blogs that meet the criteria of using an email based auto-email on reply system such as ReplyMe (many top blogs do) and that has a high enough PageRank/Alexa/Traffic for you to want to keep an eye on.

This will not work as well with sites that depend on the commentor to have subscribed to ALL the comments, as your comment will be lost in the flood in the receivers inbox. I also suggest utilizing it on mid-range PR sites, which are big enough to benefit you, but small enough that your actions stand out and can be appreciated.

Google may actually be planning to further the importance of well constructed comment engagement (and their own comment system) with influencer scoring of comments in the near future.

I hope it would go without saying the high importance of answering comments on your OWN blog (and taking advantage of a plugin like ReplyMe to ensure your visitor SEES your comments). That, admittedly is something I sometimes struggle with but which makes a huge impact when done right.

Again, the whole purpose of the comment system, is to build a conversation, not create dead-ends. When you learn to leverage this – both as a blog owner – and a blog visitor – you can accomplish a lot!

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

Top Fans for April 2012!

Congrats to Jim Landers from Jupiter Jim’s Marketing team @ https://www.facebook.com/JupiterJimsMarketingTeam & @ http://jupiterjimsmarketingteam.com/ for coming in by a landslide!

Click like and give these guys and gals a shoutout ♥ They rocked it!

Want to see how you scored last month and be able to track your points for May? Click here to see the rankings! https://www.facebook.com/Ask.Kim/app_118098318208381 

Click here to learn more about how I track my top fans using an app that lets me verify the results and is not a random selection tool unlike many lesser apps out there.

Thank you to everyone for your support this month and I look forward to seeing you at the top in May!

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

Building Website Traffic
With Private Label Rights

 Sometimes a lack of time to create fresh content for your target audience really can put a damper on your day!

You have to get traffic to your website, and you need to work on drawing traffic to your website on pretty much every single business day until the site is established enough to do some coasthing.

Thankfully, there is a way that you can supplement your personal content while still feeding your hungry audience AND building traffic!

One really great way is to use PLR, which stands for Private Label Rights content. PLR is “jump start” content that takes the pre-planning and brainstorming out of content creation. It gives you the benefit of someone elses brainstorming, ideas and organization of the post while being designed for you to add your special touches and voice to it.

PLR is just one of several ways to get and keep traffic that I cover in my new report, “Traffic Building System: How to Get More Targeted Traffic to Your Website“. 

You can purchase private label that is text content, video content, eBooks, eReports, eCourses, and more. Whatever you want, it’s out there. The real key to using PLR is to 1) USE IT and 2) Use it properly.  I’ll also add that starting with high quality PLR makes a world of difference. You’d be surprised at how many people buy PLR and never, ever use it. You’d also be shocked to know that most people don’t know how to use PLR in the most effective way.

Here’s some tips to get you started…

Never use PLR as Written — Always rewrite PLR. (Learn how to do that here.) Add your own keywords, your own voice, and ensure that nothing written is wrong or out of date. Run it through Copyscape.com, or a program like Grammarly.com to ensure that your content that is created is original. You might think that is strange, but you can create completely original content using PLR if you use it as a starting off point, and rewrite in your own voice, with your targeted audience in mind and using your keywords. Generally 30% unique content is the definition of original and I prefer the bulk of that to be at the beginning and ending to “frame” the content.

Repurpose PLR — If you get PLR that is written, try turning it into informative Youtube.com videos. Video is an excellent way to attract targeted visitors to your website.  You can post them on Youtube.com first, then use the code provided by Youtube.com and post directly on your blog if you want to.  You can also break apart a PLR eBook and turn it into separate emails for your list or a viral eBook that you allow readers to pass on to others. Don’t forget that you can use quotes from all of the above in tweets, Facebook updates, and other social media. Each piece of PLR carries a license (and almost all of them are different). Consult the license before purchase to find out what you can or can not do with that particular piece.

Use PLR for Brainstorming — Sometimes we just get stuck when we are creating content day after day. If you have a good source of quality PRL you can use the PLR as a jumping off point. If you have a good source for PLR you can usually be pretty sure that what is written is accurate, so you can skip the research phase and go straight to writing about the topic at hand. Many times you can get five or more blog posts or articles out of one PLR article if you use the PLR as research. Alternatively, I often turn a dozen pieces of PLR into about four or five blog posts by blending them together and weeding out the weaker segments. Add some finishing touches and you’re good to go.

When you honor these rules then almost all of the “downsides” of PLR completely vanish and you’re left with a happy audience, more social shares and more traffic! Win!  In the 3 Biggest Mistakes PLR Buyers Make you’ll see these same sentiments repeated by others!

Learn 7 additional tips to build traffic to your site here.

PLR is my life-saver to help me keep up my site volume while allowing me to “essentially” sneak in a week away from the blog to work on other parts of my marketing funnel from time to time.  I prepare, edit and scheduling them in advance, mixing them with some original content I’ve also precrafted.

When you start with high quality PLR that is well targeted to your audience/niche then the only “magic” required is to do a good rewrite/edit and hit publish!

 ~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

PS: Curious where my favorite PLR comes from? Check out Melissa Ingold (Special Report Club), Nicole Dean (Easy PLR), Alice Seba (DIY PLR), Tiffany Dow (PLR Mini Mart), master-resale-rights.com (mixed quality), and lastly tradebit.com (cheapest but often not best quality). I’m a proud affiliate of most of these and if you make a purchase they are obligated by law to buy me a cheeseburger

image source: me

How To Change Your
Facebook Fan Page Name

Facebook Now Offers *Two* Ways To Change Your Business Page Name

Updated: 5/5/2012

Please Note: These methods do NOT change the custom vanity URL (username) for the Page, which currently remains completely non-changeable.

What the Rules on Fan Page Name Changing Used To Be

Prior to the most recent update, the hard and fast rule by Facebook was that you absolutely could not change your Facebook Fan Page name… EVER!

As you can see, the only solution for anything from a typo to a business change was the delete button. Suffice to say this didn’t make people terribly thrilled.

However, the precaution has been necessary as Facebook has needed to actively restrict someone from making a page in a generic name, farming a ton of fans, and then renaming the page (possibly after selling it)!

Can you imagine the nightmare if you people were suddenly able to easily generate and sell pages with 100,000 fans? It would be insanity (and fans of the page would likely be pretty pissy at Facebook for it).

How To Change Your Facebook Fan Page Name

Method 1: Do-It-Yourself!  Only Works For Pages Under 200 Fans

Find the particular page name in question and under it, select “Edit Page” to enter that particular page’s administrative dashboard.

In the screen shot above, you see the new dashboard and the “Basic Information” tab presenting the “Name” field in an editable fashion.

This is how it will be displayed if your page meets the qualifications to have it’s name changed. If your page is not eligible, the Name field will not be available to you.

Now type the name in the way you would like it to be displayed and select “Save Changes” to change your Facebook Fan Page name!

Method 2: Request A Change Form (Only permitted for fully TOS compliant names & pages, with business documentation and where no confusion of the fans is likely.)  

(5/5/12: The form we had has been replaced by an in-dash form)

Facebook has recently re-introduced their name change request form for pages over 200 fans directly into the admin dashboard.

click on image for larger view

This option is not available to “Public Figures” and certain other categories. You must first change your category and hit save before it will appear. I used “Brands & Products – Products & Services” on both of mine to trigger it. 

Please listen carefully: If your page is not 100% TOS compliant including no modifiers, descriptive words, etc in the existing page name and no unsanctioned contests…. this is VERY high risk. Consider carefully if you want a Facebook staff member having a good long look at your page.

Also, recall that Business pages are only for fully owned brands and it does your business identification paperwork (Taxes, Trademark, LLC, Corp, etc). Recall that we are not authorized to have a page in any name that we do not fully, legally own.

I am seeing about a 50% decline rate for this request form at this time. This is actually reasonably high as it means about 50% of those that are requesting the change are getting approval.  Facebook is mostly declining TOS violations and pages that have changed industry/niche. (Page displayed in example was denied on “confusion” reasons.)

Summary

This is an excellent opportunity for those that need it to make a much needed Facebook page name change.

If you feel this post may benefit others, I’d sincerely appreciate you sharing it via social bookmarking, Google, Facebook, Twitter or your favorite social site!

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

PS: Be sure to sign up for my newsletter to stay up to date on what’s new in the industry! Get my newsletter plus great tips, ideas and advice! WordPress and Social Media are changing rapidly – sign up now so you don’t miss a daily beat!

image source: Facebook & my own
republication of post permitted with attribution & link

Confusing To Existing Fans,
They Say…

With the recent (again!) changes to the Facebook Page Name Change options, I submitted two of my pages for consideration.

The page most likely to have been approved was: “Ask Kimberly & Community: Social Media Technical Support” an old page that was one of the first I ever made…. and where I started.

My request was to change the page name to simply “Kimberly Castleberry” so that I might then merge it into my main page.

denied!

click to see full size view

The reply reads:

“Hi Kimberly,

Unfortunately, we cannot approve this Page name change. We have determined the name change you requested may be misleading for the people who like the Page. We apologize for any inconvenience, but this decision is final.
For help using Pages, please visit the Pages section of our Help Center: www.facebook.com/help/pages

Thanks,
Betsy
User Operations
Facebook”

They did not indicate that my documentation (an image of my drivers license with certain data blacked out) was insufficient, only that the conversion would be confusing.

Whether I would have had better luck requestion the conversion be to “Just Ask Kim” is unknown and not indicated in any manner that I can draw conclusions from.

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips for Marketing

PS: I did make a “sweet as can be” reply to Betsy asking for a little additional clarification and providing a little of my own. I did not try to aggressively make my case. Generally they will not reply to an email like this, but I’m crossing my fingers that I can garner a little additional insights for you. I do not expect a “change of heart” but any info helps us all.

This is me making a tutorial graphic… I adore SnagIt Editor (from TechSmith, the Camtasia folks) for this type of work. Available for Mac and PC both.

However, if I just need a super fast screenshot, I simply use the “Snipping Tool” built right into Windows 7 and available under Start ->Accessories -> Snipping Tool. It however lacks the advanced editing tools that SnagIt makes super-duper easy.

The snipping tool is really awesome. In fact it initially made me poo-poo the idea of using SnagIt… but now I find a lot of uses for SnagIt in addition to the Snipping Tool. It’s really the best of all words and lets me be both fast with making stuff yet ability to do nice editing work.

I found SnagIt to be much more suited to my needs in social marketing than alternative (but rated) products such as Jing.

SnagIt also handles video and a lot of other stuff as well (and recently got a nice update), but that’s a topic for another post!

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

PS: That’s not an affiliate link. Normally I’d link you to Amazon but I live in one of those states that Amazon has left. However, if you decide to buy, you might inquire if anyone you know is able to get you an Amazon link. Help your friends and mentors out!

Create a Site
Mobile Visitors Appreciate

If you’re building a website that’s designed to be mobile friendly, read this carefully.

Creating a website that’s friendly for mobile website requires thinking through quite a few usability concerns that most people just don’t think about.

While there remains a lot of discussion about whether or not you need a mobile (ready) website, most agree you probably do.

Here are five tips for improving the mobile friendliness of your website.

==> Use Responsive Design & Fluid Widths

Avoid fixed widths like the plague. With so many different devices out there, from the dozens of Android models to the iPhone to the iPad and all the tablet devices out there, trying to create one fixed width to work on all devices simply isn’t realistic.

Instead, try to use fluid widths wherever you can. Fluid widths will automatically adapt to the width of the web browser, making your site look good on any device.

You can make this happen easily in WordPress by starting with a theme that was developed with “mobile responsive design” in mind. Genesis, one of the top two framework themes on the market, has this feature built right in since version 1.8. So does WordPress TwentyEleven that came with your WordPress site.

==> Compress Images

Images hog bandwidth when not adaquately “compressed” for web use. This does not mean making the width/height of the image smaller but rather reducing the file size that has to be downloaded. (Slightly confusing I know but not hard.)

Forcing users to download a lot of data content on their mobile phones is never good when it’s avoidable.

Compressing the file size itself is vitally important to good loading speeds on both PC & mobile devices. (This helps your SEO overall.) While a designer needs to compress the theme images, you can easily compress your in-post images using the WP-SmushIt plugin.

==> Make Buttons at Least 44 Pixels

Most smartphones today use a finger tap to simulate a mouse click. In order to make buttons easy to click on, they should be large enough that someone can press on it without having to zoom in.

A general consensus in the design community is to make buttons designed for smartphones at least 44 pixels wide and 44 pixels tall. This makes them easy enough to click on by any smartphone device.

While some smart phones today do a good job with pinch-zoom, many do not, and even when they do, assuming a visitor is comfortable taking those extra steps is damaging.

==> Minimize Choices

If you’re building a website for a desktop viewer, it might make sense to have a dozen different links in your navigation bar and ten pages of content on the home page.

However, if you’re building a site for mobile devices, it’s best to narrow down choices. Try to have at most five different choices for navigation. Make the main parts of your site easily accessible.

Make sure a link to your full version site is at the bottom of your footer.

If you’re using a separate mobile site (or mobile plugin) instead of a mobile responsive WordPress theme, be sure to simplify your mobile site. Also, pay attention to ensure people can access the full site from the footer, if they desire.

==> Test, Test, Test

Don’t assume that just because your site looks good on an iPhone that it’ll look good on an Android. Don’t assume that because it looks good on a Samsung tablet that it’ll look good on an iPad.

Test your website on as many different devices as you can get your hands on. You’ll likely find that your site looks good on some devices, but doesn’t display properly on some operating systems.

Actively seek out errors and fix them.

To learn more about plugins available for WordPress that can optimize a site (that is not using a mobile responsive theme) for mobile compatibility, click here.

Douglas over at smedio.com shares 7 Don’ts of Mobile Marketing that you might enjoy checking out.

These five mobile marketing tips will help you create websites for mobile devices that look great, no matter what phone or tablet your customer is using.

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

image source: WordPress.org

How To Delete
Any WP User
(And Keep The Content)

Whether we want to delete the admin user – or ANY user – WordPress gives us a lot of flexibility and makes it really easy!

Removing the “admin” user account, that is auto-created by many quick installers, is one of the first things WP users can do to increase their site security.

Removing it does not stop us from having a user with administrative privileges – but it DOES stop a hacker from immediately guessing our username!

This post may look a little long, due to me using a lot of screenshots, but the steps to remove the WordPress admin user, are actually really simple. (I just wanted to be sure the process was super clear!)

Steps To Delete the WordPress Admin User

1. Update Admin’s Email Address

First, we need to be signed in as the admin user and give the admin user an email address that is not the one we plan to keep. Two users can not have the same email, so we quickly set this “old” user to a fictitious address. 

Be sure you are signed in as the admin user, then in the upper right corner, hover over the words “Howdy, admin” and in the drop-down select “Edit My Profile”.  In the profile section you can enter a different email address and then click save/update.

(You can either use a totally fake email address or if you are a gmail user like me, add a +1 to the first half of your email address, to create a alternate email address that actually still goes to your real inbox.)

2. Create A New WordPress User

While still signed in as admin, we want to make a new user using our preferred username, password, and gravatar email address and set the “role” to say “administrator” in the drop-down box.

This is a good time to ensure you are using a secure password that you do not use on any of your logins.

3. Now, log out of admin and log back in as your new user.

4. Go to “All Users” and hover over “admin” and select the “delete” options

5. Delete The Admin User

On the delete user page, we need to take great care to ensure these settings are correct.

The listed user that we are deleting needs to say “admin” (next to the #2 arrow)

The check box (next to the #3 arrow) needs to be moved down to “Attribue all posts and links to….”

and the drop down for attribution (next to the #4 arrow) needs to show the username of our new user.

What we are doing here is not only deleting the admin user but making sure that all of the posts, pages, etc that belonged to that user are not sent to the trashcan!

(If you accidently forget to move the box to attribute…. you will usually find most of the deleted posts in the “trash” section of posts and pages.)

And that’s all folks…. no more crummy admin user!

This really is a very easy process and it’s a great first step in learning to “harden” (improve the security of) WordPress. While it is only one of many steps that can be taken, its easy enough for anyone to do!

Fortunately, since WordPress 3.0, most auto-installers no longer create a default admin user and instead prompt you to create a user name for yourself… this was a great step forward for the baseline security of WordPress!

Hope you enjoyed this tip!

Now go do it! And then of course come back and leave me a comment!

~ Kim ~

 Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

image source: WordPress & me

Sitemaps For Videos?

Video sitemaps have become a key part of websites using a lot of self-hosted video and provide a way to tell Google about those videos. 

Video sitemaps are most important for sites self-hosting a lot of breaking news or hard to find videos and will generally improve the “findability” of these videos.

While some people disagree, most Pros I have spoken with do not feel that video sitemaps (XML files) are particularly important for those of us hosting most of our videos on YouTube. (The downside of using YouTube for hosting is that YouTube often winds up getting our SEO traffic.)

Before you watch this, let me note that just like your regular sitemap.xml file, there are now plugins available to WordPress.org users to make this a LOT less scary!

English Translation: If you have self hosted videos, providing Google with a video sitemap and schema not only improves their findability, but can often get them to turn up in search results, with a thumbnail, right next to YouTube videos. This can mean a fast way to get on Page 1 of Google at times!

Pay careful attention to the fact that he said you should use both Video Sitemaps AND Schema.org Markup on your site together. 

Learn more about video sitemaps here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?

For WordPress.org users, there are many very snazzy premium plugins that provide a wealth of tools and are likely worth checking out.

However, two plugins surface as notable in the free arena: Google XML Sitemap for Videos (3.5 rating on 40,000 installs) and a multi-featured Gallery plugin called Cool Video Gallery (4.0 rating on 40,000 installs). The first one is probably better for most sites that do not need all the extra features (chances for things to break) of the second.

However, that said, if I were truly serious about self-hosted videos ranking, I’d likely look closely at the extended features available in some of the premium plugins.

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

PS: If all of your videos are on YouTube, you probably don’t need one of these unless you’re pushing a lot of breaking news. I personally do not use one on this site due to leaning heavily on YouTube.

Google Drive
Your Files, Any Time

Introducing the all-new Google Drive. Now access your files, even the big ones, from wherever you are. Share them with whomever you want, and edit them together in real-time. Learn more at http://drive.google.com/start

Your document list is now part of Google Drive. Watch this short video to learn about syncing your stuff with the desktop application, creating and sharing files, new views and simplified navigation, and more.

Google’s entry into the cloud storage space comes belatedly, on the heels of many other services. A lot of fuss is currently being made about the terms of service issues and it remains to see how that will settle out.

While currently absent, Linux support is on the way (to go with Mac, PC, iOS & Android support already). Backupify, the service I use for backing up many of my social accounts (highly recommended), is now capable of backing up Google Docs (to go with their ability to back up many social sites, Gmail, Google Apps and more).

It remains to be seen how well Google can differentiate their services from the leading competition (DropBox). However, the ease of using Google Docs, cross-platform, now makes this a very tempting solution for those frustrated by the challenges of syncing and using Word/Excel etc on mobile devices.

Want to compare cloud storage systems? Ars Technica has a great platform and cost comparison.

While I’m still keeping an eye on the TOS issues, I am certain this will drastically increase my use of Google Docs due to my mobile needs. (I’m also certain that the base level security trumps the huge security holes that DropBox will never patch and allows access to files that should be private.)

Do you use any cloud based file services?

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

Zemanta – A Powerful Free Tool
To Assist Your Blogging!

Did you know there’s a really cool plugin/add-on that can not only improve your SEO and build your brand but also make your life easier as well?

Introducing: Zemanta!

Zemanta, the blogging assistant plugin that you won’t want to miss!

With things having gotten very volatile in the SEO world, it becomes more and more important to pay attention to criteria that we know Google is looking for… and one of those is “relevancy”. 

Fortunately, Zemanta helps with this by giving you a super-duper easy way to see posts that your friends and colleagues have written on a topic… without having to dig through Google search for hours!

As you can see, Zemanta saves me a TON of time!  And, these outbound links are as important for my relationship marketing approach as they are for my SEO so its a win/win from all angles.

Are you using Zemanta? I look forward to your thoughts and questions in the comments below!

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing

PS: Want to learn more about Zemanta? Be sure to check out Ileane’s post on Basic Blog Tips with another great Zemanta walk-through!  She uses Zemanta differently than I do and hers is not a duplicate of this post

image source: Zemanta

Marketing In The Literal 
Here & Now 

Location based marketing is one of the newer trends in marketing. If you run an offline business or a business that tends to do a lot of volume in local markets, using location based marketing can help boost your sales.

Location based social sites have been equally hot and not as hot as originally expected. However, even with only approximately 2% of social site users taking part in them, they still contribute dramatically to the local marketing of many businesses.

==> Review Sites: Yelp, Google Places, Citysearch

Review sites are one of the newest additions in the realm of internet influencers. If you run an offline business, there’s a good chance that someone’s going to use a site like Yelp to check out your reputation before visiting.

Using both paid and unpaid methods of getting your rankings up in these sites is a great investment.

Try to incentivize users of these sites to rank you well by offering gifts and discounts for people who post reviews.

Negotiate with the sites themselves to see if you can pay to promote your listings higher in their search engine.

==> Google Places, Google Local, Facebook Pages

Another place you might want to look is Google Places and Facebook Pages for local businesses.

There are two reasons to pay attention. First, you want your business to appear in Google Maps. When someone searches for “coffee” on their iPhone, you want your coffee shop to pop up.

The other reason is that local Google results often appear higher than organic results. This allows you to rank highly for relevant terms for much less work.

Facebook Pages allow you to provide important information to people interested in visiting your establishment. It also makes it easy for your fans to share your events and promotions.

==> Foursquare

Foursquare is yet another location-based service that uses a unique “check in” mechanism to help incentivize people to frequent a certain location.

If you have a business that people would visit often, then Foursquare is probably a good idea. Places like coffee shops, bars, laundromats, etc. can do really well on Foursquare.

Low frequency physical locations, such as passport shops or real estate agents, probably should give Foursquare a pass.

==> Groupon, LivingSocial and Group Buying Sites

Group buying sites are another possibility to consider.

The most important thing to remember with group buying sites is that they’re very expensive to participate in. Usually you have to give a significant discount, then on top of that give the group buying site a cut.

For example, let’s say your normal monthly Yoga pass costs $150. For the group buying site’s users, you offer a three month package for $60 a month. On top of that, you need to pay the group buying site $25 a sign up.

That means that instead of $150, you’re now working with just $35 to cover your costs with. You won’t make a profit; but you’ll get a customer through your doors.

To use group buying well, you need to know for sure that you can monetize a customer once they’re in your sales funnel.

These are a few of the most common location based marketing tactics. If you have a local business, you almost definitely want to be using reviews and Google Places. Foursquare and Groupon depends on your business model, as detailed above.

~ Kim ~ 
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing 

image source: iconfinder

Escaping the 
Facebook Group Trap!

With overly-generous “friends” it often seems harder to get OUT of a problematic group than it is to get into it in the first place!

(Remember, adding your friends to a Facebook Group auto-adds them to the group with notifications enabled, without their consent… always ask them first!)

Whether you’ve simply changed your mind about a group or a have found yourself auto-added to one fortunately leaving it is simple…. if you know where to look!

Leaving A Facebook Group

click to zoom in

Steps To Leave A Facebook Group

1. Click Facebook
2. Click Groups in your sidebar
3. In the page that opens, select the problematic group
4. Once you have opened the group, in the upper right (down about 2″) you will see a gear icon, click it.
5. The dropdown offers you the “Leave Group” option
6. Click the confirmation leave group button in the popup.

If you found this tip useful please be sure to share it!

Enjoy!

~ Kim ~
Simple Tech Tips For Marketing