So if you haven’t already heard the news, Facebook has joined with Skype to offer all of us Facebook users the opportunity to have live video chat with our Facebook Friends! An extra way to stay in touch…face-to-face. As Facebook says, “Sometimes an emoticon just isn’t enough. With face-to-face video calling, now you can watch your friends smile, wink, and LOL!”

What You’ll Need:

1. A Facebook Account

2. A computer with a web cam hooked to it

3. A friend who has already completed the video calling setup process…or at least wants to!

How To:

1. Login to your Facebook Account

2. Make sure your chat is turned on

3. Once you are logged in, go to www.facebook.com/videocalling. You can watch the video on this page if you want to get a warm, fuzzy feeling – but if you want to get on with it, you can skip it! There are no instructions…just pure bliss about face-to-face video calling!

4. Click the big, green “Get Started” button

6. A message will pop up that says “Who Do You Want to Call? Select an available friend” – Your chat list will be right smack dab next to it (on the right hand side). Obviously, your available friends are only those with a full green circle next to their names.

7. Select the name of the person you want to video chat with. You will notice that once you have selected the name a new video icon will appear at the top of that box…like so:

8. Go ahead and click the video button!

9. Since this is your first time using this amazing service, you’re going to get a popup that will let you know you need to run a setup. Here’s what it looks like:

10. This is really fast! Go ahead and click the blue Set Up button at the bottom of the pop-up. You’re going to get another pop-up letting you know that facebook.com is requesting access to your computer. You need to click on “allow” if you want to proceed with set up!

11. So far so good! Now you’ll see a blue progress bar…

12. And finally! Once it is done, go ahead and select your video chat buddy’s name again and click on the video icon, just like you did before!

13. Uh-oh! If they aren’t around you’ll get a message like this:

You might also get a message saying your friend hasn’t completed the set up process yet…depends on what is going on with who you want to chat with. The cool thing is that you can record your message and they will get it when they come back to Facebook (if they have set it up, of course).

There you have it! Now go on and video chat to your heart’s content!

As I was thinking about today’s blogpost, the words “within reason!” came to me. And not just a simple, little, quiet “within reason,” it was a great big, huge, resounding statement! What? What is that supposed to mean? After thinking about it for a few minutes, I realized why this particular phrase stuck in my head like that awful 80′s song that just won’t go away. Here’s what I came up with…

Within reason: most of us live our lives doing things “within reason.” Oh, yeah – we’ll go on that diet…if it’s within reason. How about taking up a new exercise program? Sure, if it is within reason. What about a new outfit? Yep – you’ll buy it…if it is within reason.

The big question of the day, then, is…is “within reason” stopping us from doing something great? Going all out? Putting ourselves right out there for the world to see? Yeah, I think it sure can. It’s like Jim Collin’s book, “Good to Great.” Good is the enemy of Great. We all get so complacent and happy with being good, that we take good ‘ole great and throw it right out the window. I think “within reason” can be a factor that fuels the fire of mediocrity.

I have had the opportunity to work with a few amazing athletes and extremely successful business people…and it seems to me they toss “within reason” right out the window! Instead of holding back on that workout, they go full out. Instead of calling it a night and turning on the TV for a few hours, they opt to go full out with their work and accomplish more than the average guy or gal does in a week.

So – take a few moments. Think about good versus great…thing about within reason versus going all out. And ask yourself: which do you want for you? Then do it.

This is the social media content for the Go Fast Web facebook fan page.  It will rock your socks and be totally awesome.  This content is great and wonderful.

This is the SEO section for the facebook fan page.  It’s great that I have finally figured this out.  This is going to make a killer facebook fan page.

This is more exclusive content for my facebook fans.  Thanks for liking the page and being so loyal!

This is the exclusive facebook content that you can have.  It’s great stuff and you need to like the page to get it, but since you’re seeing this, you’ve already liked the page…thanks!

Here at GO FAST WEB we have been working crazy long hours to get our site put together. We are so busy helping people get their businesses online and making some cashola that we haven’t been able to get everything up as quick as we would like to (however, we are NOT complaining)!

So…currently we are working on putting together some FREE info. Thought you might enjoy this quick (and somewhat entertaining) little excerpt from our Social Media guide!

Discovering the Giant

Have you ever seen Walt Disney’s portrayal of the “Brave Little Tailor?” In the video, the villagers are frantic because a giant is coming. In the meantime, the tiny unassuming little tailor (Mickey Mouse) is working hard at his sewing while dealing with all kinds of annoying little flies buzzing around his head. In an effort to be rid of the winged pests once and for all, he takes two fly swatters and, with a stroke of pure luck, kills seven of them at one time. He breaks open a window and joyously declares his amazing success,  “I killed seven of them with one swoop!” Unfortunately (or maybe…fortunately?) for Mickey, his story gets misconstrued in a way that encourages the villagers to believe he killed seven GIANTS with one swoop – not flies.

The story spreads through the town like wildfire and pretty soon poor Mickey finds himself in front of the King, royally appointed to take care of the bothersome Giant with the promise of not only huge sums of money, but the hand of the King’s fair daughter, Minnie.

At this point you may well be wondering what this entertaining little story has to do with Social Media. Easy (you’re going to love this)! Mickey Mouse, a simple peasant tailor who, under normal circumstances, would never have the opportunity to meet the King (let alone have a one-on-one conference with him), become filthy rich, and marry the most sought-after maiden in the land, found himself smack dab in the perfect position to do so…thanks to the virally spread misinformation that was shared between villagers. Yes, he still had to take care of the giant, but he was able to do it – and thus took the power away from the giant and into his own hands!!

And that, my friend, is the POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA. Gone are the days of having to go through the Giants to make something remarkable of yourself. YOU now have the opportunity to have and become whatever you want to become because the power has switched to YOUR hands through social media tools and practices. YOU ARE NOW YOUR OWN GIANT…and it’s TIME TO AWAKEN!!

How to get found. Isn’t that the big question that is always lurking at the back of every online business owner’s mind? Sure you can build a website. You can make it beautiful – or downright embarrassing to look at. You can go to great lengths to make it as user friendly as possible…or not. It really doesn’t matter what you do with your website because nobody will find it without either SEO or PPC. So…which is best? Well. Depends on who you ask.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization (thankfully referred to as SEO) is basically the art of implementing certain strategies in order to help search engines find your site and feed it back to a searcher’s page. The higher your website shows up on the page, the higher your “ranking.” So, in simple terms: you have got to link your keywords and what your business is about SOMEWHERE so that when someone goes to Google (for example) and types in your keyword…voila! You come up on the front page!

That’s what SEO is all about. It takes time, it takes linking, it takes implementing keywords in the back-end of your site and in your site’s context, and much, much more. And – chances are (especially if you are in a very competitive industry) that it will take some time for you to start ranking high on a page (again, depending on your keywords).

Paid Search

Paid Search is like the good ‘ole days when you would pay to have your business advertised on the TV or the radio. There are different types of paid search (pay-per-click and pay-per-impression) and different networks that you can advertise in (the search network, the content network, Facebook). The advantages of Paid Search are that you are much more likely to:

1. Get quick results
2. Hit your target audience
3. Get solid, trackable and measurable advertising results

But…it does take a budget and some very important research. And there are downsides: for example, if you do not have a fantastic landing page with high conversion rates to direct all that traffic to…well, you might as well throw your money in the trash. Waste, waste, waste!

So – SEO or Paid Search? Which one is better? My preference: both. I think a website that has been search engine optimized AND has been advertised throughout the paid search networks is really a winning team. Yes, you can have one without the other…but why would you want to make a single play when you can hit a home run?