Last year, I wrote a post about Facebook introducing the Subscribe Feature. This particular post was focused on subscribing to people who were NOT your friends. It basically is a really cool way to follow people on Facebook that would never accept your friend request: movie stars, rock stars and your nerdy heroes.

But the Subscribe Feature also works with Facebook friends.

More about that in a sec, but first I want to put to rest another hoax that’s been going around on Facebook these days. Timeline is still very new for most people, and I’ve been seeing this message posted on many people’s Facebook status:

 Hi everybody. If you didn’t know already, the new FB timeline-style will be rolled this week for EVERYONE. In the timeline set-up every post you’ve ever made will be visible and available to see. I like to keep my FB private except to those I am friends with on here. So if you all would do the following, I’d appreciate it. Please do both of us a favor: Hover over my name above. In a few seconds you will see a box that says “Subscribed”. Hover over that, then go to “Comments and Likes” & unclick it. That will stop all our posts showing up on the side bar for strangers to see. But most important, it limits hackers from invading our profiles. If you re-post this I will do the same for you. You’ll know I’ve acknowledged you, because if you tell me that you’ve done it, I’ll “like” it. Thanks.

This is a total hoax. I have no idea how unsubscribing from comments and likes will make you less susceptible to hackers. A couple of things will, include using the https: interface to log in to Facebook, changing your password often, and setting your privacy settings on everything to “Friends” rather than “Friends of Friends,” or worse still, “Public.” You can read more about this on the Sophos Blog.

Here’s a little how-to video I made for you that shows you how to change your subscription to your friends’ status updates.

You can also edit your subscriptions to your friends by going to their Facebook profile and clicking on the “Subscribed” button.

Last week, I got this email from Jo Ledingham, the theatre critic at The Vancouver Courier:

As a freelance theatre critic, I reviewed more than a hundred local theatre productions on the pages of The Courier last year. However, due to recent cutbacks in the paper’s freelance budget, reviews (with the same total count of six hundred and fifty words) will now appear in one edition per week rather than the previous two.

 

Twice named “Best Community Newspaper in BC” and Canada’s largest distributed community newspaper, with a circulation of more than a quarter of a million, The Courier has served the Vancouver theatre community very well until now.

 

Fewer reviews will have a negative impact on local theatre makers and theatregoers. Productions with short runs and non-professional shows may no longer be reviewed. Grant applications – which rely to some extent on professional reviews and critiques – will be affected. And without reviews, small, independent theatre companies with slim marketing budgets will be further challenged to find audiences.

 

I urge you to let The Courier know how this reduced coverage will affect your theatre company as well as the future of Vancouver’s vibrant but still financially troubled theatre community. You can reach Barry Link, Editor, at editor@vancourier.com. Sooner is better than later!

 

As one of my fellow critics urged, “To the barricades!”

 

Jo

 

Oh, gentle reader, what a long journey we have been on together. On September 27, 2009, I wrote my very first blog post on The Art of the Business. I had been guest-posting on Simon Ogden’s The Next Stage blog since January 31, 2008, and I decided it was time for me to jump out of the nest and start my own blog.

On October 25, 2010, I relaunched my site under rebeccacoleman.ca, in its current form. As of today, I’ve been blogging, in some form or another, for four years, and on a thrice-weekly basis for three years.

But lately, I’ve been feeling like I’m running out of steam. It’s partly about inspiration. But truthfully, the world of social media chugs on, and there isn’t really any lack of things to write about. It’s just getting harder and harder to bring words to the page when I sit down with my MacBook.

Am I running out of things to say? Am I getting burnt out? Am I less ‘hungry’?

I don’t know if this happens to you, but I find that every few years, I go through a “shake up” time in my life. While I’m going through it, it’s horrible and stressful, but I know that it’s good for me, because it makes space in my life for new experiences and personal growth. 2011 was one of those times for me.

My life shifted in many ways: both in terms of personal relationships, and also in terms of work. In 2011 I decided I was going to cut back on freelance publicity work to better focus on teaching, and that’s been great. But because I’m teaching, I don’t feel the need to ‘hustle’ so much for work. And part of hustling was me writing this blog, so that people who read it would come to think of me as an expert in my field.

As a teacher, I still have to be up-to-date on the latest social media and marketing trends, so that’s not going to change. But I’ve made the decision to cut back on the amount of posts I write per week here, to 1-2 per week. There is other writing I want to do: both for my cooking blog, and I have also started a longhand journal again, which I am using as a way of processing through this period of growth and development. Who knows where that will lead?

So, I just wanna say, thanks for reading. And thanks for sticking with me over these last few months when I’ve been struggling. And that I’m not abandoning you. Your encouragement and kind words, in fact, are why I’m still here.

Let’s see what the future brings, shall we?

Okay, so you know how I’m always harping on about what a powerful marketing tool video is?

I’m doing some work these days for a new kid’s art school that’s opening up in the Burnaby Hastings area. It’s called Artspace, and I’m helping them out a bit with their social media.

I made this little video for them for a Valentine’s Day campaign. It  took me about an hour… they sent me the video and the still images, I edited it together, put in the titles, transitions and music.

I think it’s a great example of a very simple idea that didn’t take a lot of time, which is a really great/powerful marketing tool.

Enjoy!

I dunno about you, but I’ve been super frustrated lately when I’ve tried to tag other people’s pages on Facebook pages that I administrate.

Why would you want to tag other pages on your page? Well, it’s a great way of cross-promoting other business. I am currently doing publicity for The Wellness Show, which happens in a couple of weeks, and we are busy giving stuff away on our Facebook page, and also promoting exhibitors and guest speakers who will be at the show.

Here’s an example:

If Omega Crunch has a Facebook page, I could have “tagged” their Facebook page, which would hotlink the name of their business to to their page. You could then simply click on their name, and be taken to the Omega Crunch page, and be able to ‘like’ them. My comment would also show up on the Omega Crunch page, because I had tagged them, which is excellent cross promotion for The Wellness Show, as well, exposing our page to the already existing Omega Crunch fans.

However, even though Omega Crunch has a page, and I connected their page to our page, I wasn’t able to tag them. It used to be a very simple matter of typing an ‘@’ symbol if you wanted to tag someone in a Facebook post, and a list of the people you are friends with and pages you like would pop up, and you could choose the one you wanted.

In some recent update, Facebook made this much more complicated, but it can still be done. Now, in order to tag someone in a post from your page, you have to be signed in and using Facebook as your page.

I use the default setting below on all the pages I administrate for ease of use.

That way, I can post as the page when I’m on the page, but as myself everywhere else on FB. There’s less futzing around with signing in and out of pages. But in order to tag, you must be signed in as your page. You can do this simply by pulling down the arrow right beside the “Home” button in your main navigation bar on the upper, right-hand side. There will be a list of the pages you administrate there, and you can switch to the page you want to be signed in as.

Then go to your page, write your update, and tag away!

Finished product: two Facebook pages hotlinked together!

Yesterday, I bought a new pair of shoes. That, in and of itself, is not much of a shocker. I don’t even bother to try to hide my shoe obsession.

What I did, however, after buying the shoes, may interest you. I took a photo of them with my  iPhone and posted it to my personal Facebook profile. I then wrote a little blurb saying where I’d bought the shoes, and encouraging my similarly shoe-obsessed girlfriends to check the store out. I became an ambassador for the Freedman Shoe Outlet on 4th and Burrard today.

And I’m not the only one. Every day, people post online about where they’re eating, buying shoes, or getting the best deals on electronics. It’s our nature to want to share when we’ve gotten a smoking deal, great customer service, or a fabulous dinner. I would like to believe that we do this because we want our friends to also score a good deal or eat the most amazing creme brulee ever. Probably, however, in reality, it’s because we like to make our friends jealous.

It’s not hard to create ambassadors for your business. If you make it easy for people to talk about you, and you give them something to talk about, they will. This means making sure you have “Follow Us on Twitter!” or “Like us on Facebook!” buttons on your website, so that people can easily start following you with one click. You should also make sure you have sharing buttons on your site, so that people can easily Tweet about you or talk about you on Facebook to their friends. When you do see someone Tweeting about you or talking about you on Facebook, be sure to thank them. A little appreciation goes a long way.

On Monday, I gave you some tips about how to handle negative feedback from your clientele.  In keeping with that, check out this great article on Mashable: 5 Ways to Turn Social Customers Into Brand Ambassadors.

Witness my love/hate relationship with Starbucks.

While I resent them for being a huge, faceless corporation that sells, for the most part, terrible-tasting, too sweet, overpriced caffeinated beverages, I still go there. There’s one on every street corner, it seems, and the wifi works well with my computer.

And you’ve got to admire their ability to brand themselves.

While some Starbucks are starting to sell wine and beer (it will be years before our archaic liquor laws will allow you to have a glass of wine at a Starbucks in Canada), I am loving their mobile app, which they released a couple months ago.

You must understand that I download a lot of apps. I play with them, test them, and most of them are novelties that end up stuck in a file on the 7th page of my iPhone. The Starbucks app (iPhone, iPod Touch and Android), however, is brilliantly designed.

It has several great features. You can design your own drink, and of course check out what food offerings they have. Last year, I was dating a guy whose drink was a “Tall, in a Grande cup, Americano with three pumps of Toffee Nut Syrup and soy on the bar.” I think. I never could get it right without him writing it down. This new app allows you to remember your favorite drinks and your friends’ favorite drinks. Very convenient when you’re being sent on a 3pm coffee run for the office.

It also uses GPS to locate the nearest Starbucks to wherever you are. And it tells you if that Starbucks is open or not.

But my favorite part of the app is the payment option. We all probably have Starbucks cards lying around. You get them for your birthday, for prizes… If you register your card online at Starbucks.com, you can sign into that account through your phone, and pay for your purchases at Starbucks using your phone. It’s a very cool feature.

I have often set off to an early-morning yoga class with just my mat, keys, and phone, and bought myself a coffee to sip on the walk. It’s brilliant.

Other app-makers: take note! This one is a winner.

One of the main reasons businesses give me for not wanting to jump into social media is because they are afraid of being flamed. Putting yourself out there involves a certain amount of risk: what if someone says something negative about you?

Here’s the truth: people are going to talk about you. Either positively or negatively. But they will talk about you. Isn’t it better to know?? At least, if you know, you can take steps to repair the damage, and perhaps turn that customer around.

1. You need to monitor your feeds. You need to check in with your Facebook Page your Twitter account, and your blog comments at least once a day. Social media tools are rapidly becoming the latest and best customer service tools, rapidly replacing the telephone and even email.

2. Don’t assume that you are getting the whole picture. People may be talking about you, but may not be aware that you have a Facebook Page or a Twitter account. They could be talking about you on other blogs. So, you need some additional tools: Google Alerts (which will scan the interwebz for blog posts that mention your business’ name), a running Twitter search (also scanning for your name, and easy enough to set up if you are using a program like Hootsuite), and every once in a while, type your business’ name into the search feature on Facebook.

3. Making it right. This is a tough one, partly because we live in a “the customer is always right” world. And let’s face it: the customer isn’t always right. But the squeaky wheel gets the grease, so it may be better to err on the side of caution. If something genuinely has gone wrong, your first step is to acknowledge that. Simply acknowledging that there is a problem will allay most of the negative feelings. Then, do what you can to make it right. Also, know when to address comments in public (usually at first, so that anyone who visits your site afterwards can see that it was dealt with) and when to address in private (negotiating a deal). I do not recommend you delete negative comments.

Check out this article on AllFacebook.

Once upon a time, last year to be exact, in the midst of cold, cold February, I got a new stereo installed in my car so I’d have music and podcasts to keep me company on the long drive up the Hope-Princeton to Penticton. I was braving cold and winter driving conditions to attend the very first Eat.Drink.Tweet Conference, put on by my friend Allison Markin of All She Wrote Consulting.

It was a hoot. I had a deliciously good time: got to stay at a swank guest house, met a whole raft of cool people, presented my YouTube workshop, ate some fantastic food, and, yes, I drank some wine. You can read about my Eat.Drink.Tweet experience here.

And I’m not the only one. Allison’s little conference sold out, was trending on Twitter for three days (a funny story about that in a sec), and won The Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association’s 2011 award for Social Media Initiative.

In a tragedy of epic proportions, I can’t attend this year, due to a work conflict. But you should really go, especially if you are in the wine/food/cultural tourism business. The connections and information you’ll be able to take away from the weekend will be immense. Heck, even if you don’t do that stuff for a living, and you just like good food and wine, you should go!

And now, a social media cautionary tale: on the first night of the conference last year, Friday, we attended the keynote by Rick Bakas, then a wine tasting of local Naramata Bench wineries. Allison announced that if we could make the hashtag #Eat.Drink.Tweet trend on twitter, she would get a tattoo with the EDT logo. In the true spirit of social media (transparency and authenticity), Allison got her tattoo.

As you are likely well aware, I have been obsessed with Pinterest since September. In case you are still unfamiliar with this latest social media craze, Pinterest is an online visual inspiration board. It allows you to collect images (or “pins”) of things and group them into thematically-based “boards.” I use mine primarily to collect inspiration for my food blog, but there are so many beautiful things on there that I have many, many other boards, and have been known to lose chunks of my life scrolling through Pinterest.

I also recently wrote a blog post about Tumblr. While I still haven’t started Tumbling, I do understand Tumblr’s appeal. It sits smack-dab somewhere in between a blog and Twitter. I consider myself to be a writer, so I am going to stick with WordPress, but many people who either don’t consider themselves to be writers, or who find coming up with fresh blogging content daunting, are turning to Tumblr instead, which is a multi-media rich blogging platform that focuses more on photo and video than words.

Both platforms allow you to easily “re-tweet” what others have posted. On Pinterest, it’s called “Repinning,” and on Tumblr, “Reblogging.” This allows you to easily and quickly, with a minimum of effort, share content that you find interesting. Pinterest and Tumblr also play very nicely together.

This week, a very interesting blog post was published about the “stickiness” of Tumblr and Pinterest. When you are looking at your social media success, there are several factors to take into consideration: numbers, certainly, the amount of engagement, and the amount of time people are spending on your site, or stickiness. Turns out, I’m not the only one with a Pinterest obsession: visitors, on average, spent 88 minutes per month on Pinterest, and 141 on Tumblr, only topped by Facebook (394 minutes).

If people are spending that kind of time on Pinterest and Tumblr, should your business be on them? Maybe, if those platforms fit for you.

Who out there is using Pintrest and/or Tumblr for business? I’d love to hear from you.