Is there a difference between using bullets or numbers? Yes.

Think of a numbered list as a step-by-step order and a bulleted list as unordered. In fact, these two types of lists are called “Ordered Lists” and “Unordered Lists”.

An unordered list might include things you would pick up at the grocery store:

• Eggs
• Green Onions
• Bread
• Bell Pepper
• Orange Juice

An ordered list might be the instructions on cooking breakfast:

1. Dice vegetables into bowl
2. Wisk three eggs into a different bowl
3. Sautee vegetables over medium heat
4. While vegetables are cooking, begin toasting bread
5. Pour a glass of orange juice
6. Pour egg mix into pan over vegetables
7. Flip eggs (if omelet  style) or scramble

In the second list, if I used an unordered list, we might’ve had cold toast, burnt eggs, and a salad for breakfast.

Here’s a video from the team at WPMU with the “how-to”:

I don’t know about you, but now I’m hungry

It’s a search engine for Creative Commons licensed images on Flickr.  It seems to be a quicker search and the choices are plentiful as to how you want to filter the license or search. You can also find a “top-tier” of relevant stock images for purchase if those catch your eye.

When searching for an image, the default filter seems to be “Interestingness” and “Non-Commercial” – and I suggest you change those to “Relevance” and “Commercial” (you’ll find these choices on the left once you begin searching).

Once you find an image on Photo Pin click on “get photo” – and then you can download the image, grab the proper attribution code, and even “fave” the image on Flickr to “keep found things found.”

We searched the term “learning” to find the results shown above. Let’s look closer at the image details.

You have four sections and an additional step we’ll take on your blog post (uploading the image to your site).

1. Download the Photo

2. Upload Your Image

The best placement for your image is on the right. However in most cases, you should place your cursor at the beginning of a paragraph and then call for the image to be right justified from within your blog editor. (Here’s a video on how to properly upload an image on WordPress)

3. Grab the Attribution Code

Copy the HTML code so you can give proper attribution on your blog post.

4. Paste code onto your post

Paste the code near the bottom of your post by going to the HTML editor. You can see the end result at the bottom of this post.

That’s it. Make sure to save Photo Pin in your bookmark toolbar (How-to: Firefox | Chrome).

photo credit: Rusty Stewart via photopin cc

Not having a Google Profile could be a “minus” on your findability ledger.

One of the most important pieces you’ll publish on any social platform is your profile. It’s how people find you. It’s how people know whether they want to connect.

On Google, it’s much more than a profile. It’s putting a face – your face – on the findability map. Faces are becoming part of the byline on many search results (if the author or site has implemented rich snippets – have you?)

The photo that would appear in your byline comes from your Google Profile. To add “rich snippets” properly and receive the full benefits of “author rank“- you’ll want a Google Profile. Notice we haven’t yet approached the use of “plus” or social portions of Google.

So let’s take a look at how we might build a great profile on Google, including creating a series of photos, a strategic Introduction, and relevant links to your work.

To begin, log in to your Google Account (here’s why). You can get to your profile by clicking on the +YourName in the upper left corner or by going to profiles.google.com.

It all begins with the “Edit Profile” button in the upper right. You’ll see a reddish bar appear over your profile page. This is also the place where you exit (and save changes).

Remember! Click "Done Editing" on Your Profile to Save Changes

Each section of your profile page can be edited individually. Simply hover over the section you want to edit.

Photos

To begin with, you need a high-resolution image of your face. A highly pixellated (fuzzy) image isn’t going to help you in the least. Try to pick an image that is already being (or can be) used across your other social networks. This main image for your profile is the image that will appear as part of your byline in search results.

You also have five other photos you can use. These can form a banner, where the photos work together (here’s how to create a banner), or they can be four separate ingredients.

For my own profile, I chose the latter (five ingredients) and commented on each photo I used. This way, if people clicked on the photos, they can see why I used it and what it says about me.

In "Edit" mode, click on photos section and then "Manage Photos"

Before you begin editing or adding the photos, it’s probably a good thought to know what you want to convey. For me, I wanted an introduction and to show some of what I do. For your business, it may be more about the products you work with or results of your service.

Once you put the photos up, you can always rearrange them by “organizing” your album (this section is called the “Scrapbook”)

You may "Organize" or "Add" images. To change order, click and drag.

Once you have your photos in order and you’ve save your work. Click on an image to leave an explanatory or editorial comment about the photo.

Leaving a comment will add to the story behind the photo

My comment on the image above points to a practice I preach often: RePurpose your Content

There are several other sections to fill out on your profile page, but here are a few of the more important pieces to populate (before you begin posting)

Introduction

After the photos, you want to fill in the introduction text below (you’ll see the sections when you click on “Edit Profile” on the top right).

I don’t know of a character limit here, and you can use hyperlinks as well as bold and italicized fonts. While you may be tempted to just copy and paste any bio text you have from elsewhere, know this: Content on your Google Profile page will hep you get found in the Related People and Pages section now appearing on many Google Search Results. Do a search for “Content Marketing” and look at the profiles on the right of the search.

Shouldn’t you be there for your business or key offerings? You’re closer to getting there if your profile tells your story.

Contact Info

Farther down the page you’ll have an opportunity to put your work contact info such as phone number and email address. IMPORTANT: Don’t skip these – I’ve already had people contact me because they found the info on my Google + Profile page.

Other Profiles

On the upper right (but below the photos) is a section you can input other social profiles and web pages. I also put the address to the RSS feed of my blog. While not everyone will (though you should), if they connect with you in one place, they’re likely to connect with you elsewhere. Where is your elsewhere?

More

There is more to your profile that you can update or tweak later, but these are the most important. For findability and credibility sake.

And we haven’t even talked about “plus” yet. And maybe you don’t want to plus at all. But not having a Google Profile is a minus to your business.

Google Plus burst onto the social scene in the summer of 2011. Some love it. Some hate it. You should use it for your business. For reasons greater than the “+” sign.

There are plenty business reasons to use Google Plus, most notably “findability” or making sure customers and buyers searching for a business like yours – find yours. We’ll go more in-depth on the “plus” parts of Google in other posts. To get started, you want a Google Account.

It’s not about having another email account or another social network – you don’t ever have to give your GMail account out to anyone and you don’t have to be social. Yet, the tools available from Google and how you’ll use them make having a Google account (including the GMail) very important – especially for business. Google has a suite of business tools too, though we’ll begin here with an individual Google account.

You will use (and might already be using) GMail, Google Reader, Feedburner, Google Analytics, YouTube, GoogleDocs, Google Places, Maps, News, and much more. Your customers and potential customers use Google on so many devices, it is common sense to have a Google Account – and just plain stubborn to not.

When creating your Google Account, we recommend getting as close to your real names (whether as a person or a business) as possible. If your name is Jim Franklin of Franklin Boat Works, do your best to get “jimfranklin” and “franklinboat” or “franklinboatworks”.

If your name is not available, it’s better to use initials than a number, though if you must use a number make it so it means something: your business address or part of your phone number; a zip code or … you get the idea.

After you fill out the first page of information, you will be asked to fill out a profile. You can do that now or skip this step temporarily. You can always modify your Google Profile from any Google page when signed in (if you’re not signed in to Google, go to Google.com and sign in). Just look in the top, right corner:

Getting a Google account is not for popularity sake. While having many connections or likes is a wonderful thing, the reason you’re creating a Google account is for “findability” sake. You want customers and prospects to find you. They want to find you (if you’re good) – and frankly, Google wants them to find you (if you’re the most relevant solution to the searcher’s problem)

The model of Dialing 8 consists of its hub (Blog) and eight areas branching off the hub.

This model will exist for a long time and its advantage to a business is that strategies and tactics can be planned regardless of how rapid tools come, go, or change.

This is part of how Dialing 8 overcomes overwhelm. A new tool comes about and a business owner can decide which area off the hub we place it (if we place it at all). Every tool doesn’t need to be employed.

While we look at the social media tool set largely as tactical within a strategy, there can (and should) be a strategy for each tool. Understanding the possibilities of a tool or platform can go a long way to determining if it can be an asset to your overall plan.

As we  examine tools, platforms, apps, plugins, and extensions with such an eye as to how an item might be used to the benefit of a small business owner. The uniform framework we will use is simple, and hopefully one you can easily adopt for your own use:

• Platform: The first piece we’ll look at is the tool itself and how viable it might be to your plans in the long-term. Sometimes we might recommend a wait-and-see approach and other times we’ll suggest sooner-better-than-later.
• Purpose: Before you get started on a tool, it is important to make sure it has meaning to you, your business, your plan. If we don’t define a purpose from the beginning, we will quickly stray from a path that will prove profitable. Note: Purpose can change with new information. Profitable might not always be revenue.
• Profile: This might be more important than any posting or shared piece – your profile. Just about every platform or web-based network allows you to build a profile. Don’t skip this piece or take it lightly. It’s often the place others will look to before connecting or conversing with you.
• Practice: This is the meat of it, really. How often will you publish? What will you publish? What time of day will you update? Is the tool conversational, advertorial, or a resource sharing center?
• Participation: Who is your target audience — and how do you find them? Who is talking about your product/service? How will you approach less-than-positive conversation points?
• Penetration: What add-on tools will “power-up” your use? There are ample add-ons, plugins, and extensions for just about every tool.
• Profitability: What will success look like in using a tool? How are metrics gathered. Is the goal to build awareness or revenue?
• Putting to Other Use: There are opportunities to repurpose content or merge efforts of different tools. AN example is to post a presentation on Slideshare, then make it a video on YouTube as well.

These 8 Ps will provide the who, what, why, when, where, and how for each tool, along with ideas on how you can remain focused and measure your success.

Dialing 8 Member Benefits

The breakdown of a tool will also serve as a foundation for one of our weekly workshops (members only), and members will have access to a worksheet so they can build their own plan of action for a tool. Members will also have access to a printable “cheat sheets” they can refer to often.

If you haven’t you’re missing out. If you’re ignoring the emails, you’re missing out.

What you shouldn’t miss out on is the model of combining creative forces into a single content package. In a recent mailing, I received this offer for How to Build a Powerful Business Presence on LinkedIn sending me to this page to get the book:

Notice the contents of the ebook list 5 great titles and links to the authors. (And you should go download this free ebook because it gets better on the inside).

Two words: Joint Venture

You can do this in your line of business. Think about it. Some examples:

• Real Estate Agent – Home Inspection – Landscaper – Interior Designer – Pest Control
• Wedding Planner – Caterer – Florist – Printer – Photographer
• Furniture Store – Carpeting – Window Coverings – Painter – Handyman
• Insurance – Financial Planner – Taxes

I know several business people who won’t blog because they can’t see the results before starting.  More than one have actually said things like,

“I’ll write more when I get more readers.”

Really? What’s the math on that possibility?

Why do people drive at night? Confidence.

• We know where we’re going (strategy),
• we know what we’ll do if a deer jumps out (tactics) and
• we have an idea what success looks like (goal).

Can you apply the same with social media?  Have Confidence.

• Know where you’re going (strategy),
• know what to do if someone links or comments (tactic),
• have an idea what success looks like (goal).

On your social media trip, keep your eye on the road – but don’t get ahead of yourself. Post one post at a time.

You can nominate yourself, your local small business or independent, or even a friend or family member just starting out. Just have them (or you) fill out the form below.

Winners will be notified by email on Friday, February 17th.

Here are some links we’ve shared this week that we think will go a long way in making social media count for your business:

Content Marketing: 5 Ways to Make Money [Chart] by Heidi Cohen – Descriptions of five options for turning your content into cash flow, along with a table of comparison.

The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Pinterest for Marketing on HubSpot – Very thorough primer. Every business can tell stories with visuals, here’s how.

Commonsense Social Media Measurement as a Diagnostic Tool by Kami Huyse – A Social Media Measurement Framework in order to improve performance and prove value.

Latest Google Search Revamp Brings Opportunities For Local Businesses on Search Engine Land – With the “Search Plus Your World” – local recommendations could be a big benefit to businesses.

How to Create an Effective Google+ SEO Content Strategy by Neil Patel – Optimize your content, Maximize your +1s, and for the sake of your efforts (and your readers) … format your posts.

The Beginner’s Guide to Market on Twitter in a Genuine Way by Alicia Cowen – Basic (but important) steps to take to get your word out there. Good 7-step action plan at the end.

In this installment of our Metrics Series we will take a look at Facebook Insights and what they can tell you about your Facebook Marketing Strategy.

When a small business owner makes the decision to begin a social media strategy, often the first step he thinks of is getting on Facebook and building a Business Page.  He believes that if he gets “Likes”, he will increase his online visibility and, subsequently, increase his business.  This is partly true.

In beginning your social media plan, it IS important to gain visibility for your business but the way you go about it can make or break your campaign.  The difference therein lies with whether your likes are organic  or paid.  I’m going to take a leap here, though and assume that everyone brilliant enough to start using social media to grow their business, also knows that paying for likes will NOT ensure customer loyalty, conversion or an increase in business.

So…let’s go forward with the assumption that on your Fan page, your likes are organic and hard-won with great content, Fan page engagement and connection.

Measuring Your Success With Facebook Insights

What are Facebook Insights? Facebook Insights is an analytics tool you can use to see how people are interacting with your Fan Page. Like Google Analytics, it’s free, easy to use and it can give you a better insight into your fan base.

When you create a Fan Page, you will automatically have access to the Insights dashboard right from your Fan Page.  If you look to the left side of your Fan Page, you will notice a tab for Insights.  By clicking on this tab, you will initially get an overview of your key statistics:

• Total Likes,
• Friends of Fans (the amount of friends that all your combined friends have)
• People Talking About This (the number of people who interacted with your page in that week),
• Weekly Total Reach (the amount of impressions that your posts have had)

It may seem confusing, but in order to simplify things, I’m going to concentrate on a few metrics that the small business owner should focus on.

Reach

According to Facebook, reach measures the unique visitors who have actually been exposed to your post because it showed up in their newsfeed.  What’s cool is that viewers don’t even have to Like the page because they can see content from the page show up in their feed because one of their friends talked about it.

Based on the Facebook algorithm (called EdgeRank), not all stories will show up in the news feed. The algorithm is based how often a fan views & interacts with your page, the type of content, and time. EdgeRank determines which posts show up in a user’s “highlighted stories first” news feed.

Basically, this means that the more people who interact with your page, by liking, sharing, commenting etc, the more likely Facebook will be to show your content in your Fans’ stream, thus making it more likely to be seen and interacted with more. Get it?  In examining the data, you can see how you reached people, whether it was organic, paid or viral.

By creating content that is interesting and encourages your fans to interact with your page, you will be helping boost your posts’ (and therefore your business’) likelihood of being generating high EdgeRank and be shown more often in your Fans’ newsfeed.  Phew. That was a mouthful.

Talking About This

With Facebook Insights, you can analyze the number of Likes by gender, country and language. But more important than likes, is the Talking About This metric.

Facebook’s Talking About This he number of unique people who have created a story about a post by sharing, commenting or liking it.  Measuring this score encourages page owners to come up with creative ways to engage their fan base.  Basically, it’s a measurement of all the interactions ignited by the content on your page.

When 30 or more of your fans are “talking” about your page (have interacted with it in the past week), you can begin to determine who, where and how people are interacting with your page.  This can give you tremendous insight into the types of posts that people respond best to and which demographic is responding to each type of post, whether it’s stories, likes, mentions or check-ins or the coveted Share.  Shares can even improve your SEO by increasing the chance of building new Likes directly from Google.

What Does This Mean?

Facebook Insights give you post per post metrics that allow you to see the detailed information for individual posts you create (up to the last 50 you posted). This way you can get an idea of what sort of post is working better for your audience than others. This metric is called Virality.  Simply speaking, virality is a percentage of the number of people who talked about your post divided by the total number of people who saw your post. The key to any Facebook Marketing campaign is to get as much virality as possible, to spread your business name and visibility.

How Do I Increase Virality (Without Paying For It)?

• Make your posts succinct. Posts 80 characters or less receive 27% more likes, comments, and shares than posts greater than 250 characters.
• Create polls and contests to encourage your Fans to engage
• Post images and Video
• Creating fill in the blank posts “This weekend, I’ll be _________.”
• Include a call to action

This content is made available to non-members temporarily, yet always available to Dialing 8 members in the archives. Consider becoming a Dialing 8 member today