A coffee conversation - via Tweet

I thought you might enjoy this story about how I found - or rather they found me - my new favorite coffee shop in Bellevue.

A couple months ago, I was trying to set an appointment to meet a friend for coffee. I cannot find the original conversation on Twitter, but it went something like this:

@Dana - would love to meet for sometime next week.
@Readysetgrow - that would be great. How about coffee in Bellevue on Tuesday at 2 p.m.
@cafecesura - We would love to have you come in for coffee.

What the heck? At the time, I didn't even know how that happened. Now, I understand how. But more importantly, Cafe Cesura is a brand who is paying attention, and listening to what people are saying on social media - about what they do!

Dana and I didn't meet there for coffee, but I have made Cafe Cesura my Eastside coffee destination - all because of a tweet.

How are you using Twitter to listen to what your customers or potential customers are talking about, or listening to know if they are talking about you?

Confused by all of it? I'm having a workshop in a couple weeks to help demystify Twitter and help you have results like the one above.

Facebook is your Friend

See what I did there?

 It is amazing to me as we sit, nearing the end of 2012, how many business owners have yet to embrace Social Media as a tool to help market their business. That is part of why I do what I do!

On CNN last week, Social Media Visionary Gary Vaynerchuk said, "If you aren't on Facebook and Twitter in 2012/13 - you're basically not a relevant business in our society." Do those words give you pause? If you are in business, perhaps they should.

Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus can all be a friend to your business - tools that can help not only build relationships, but also build your reputation as an expert, educate and even help your Google search results.

Social Media is all about creating opportunities, planting seeds. There are no guarantees, but every time you post on any Social Media platform, you are planting, watering, and ultimately growing relationships that can benefit your business.

Would sure love to hear your success stories! Where have you seen success using Social Media? How has Facebook become your friend?

I just "unliked" your page - and I thought you should know why.

I'm a sucker for Facebook Business Pages. I love to see the creative and helpful ways businesses are using to engage with their online community. Some pages do it so well - but more often than not, they just don't.

Here are a few mistakes I've seen lately:

1. Asking for "likes" from your page. They already like you, why are you asking them to like you again.
2. Asking for help to get more likes over and over again. I recently saw a business page that did this every day for a week (and I unliked their page as a result)
3. Bragging - No one likes people who brag.
4. Posting too many times per day.

Here are some solutions to these challenges.
1. Ask for likes from your personal profile. Tell them what you post about and provide a link. Make it easy for people to "like" you.
2. It's ok to ask for help getting likes - but show them how, or better yet, provide good content on a regular basis and people will automatically begin to share and your numbers will grow.
3. Change the bragging around. Instead of talking about me, me, me - talk about who and how you helped. A great example of that is, "This week we helped a small business who thought they had lost all their data when their servers crashed. We were able to restore data with minimal downtime."

Are there pages that you have un-liked? What caused you to make that change?

Random Acts of Post-It Notes

Picture this...you walk into an elevator and turn around (like we all do) to push your desired floor and there it is, a random, anonymous Post-It note. The particular one I'm referring to was in the elevator at the Dallas Hyatt a couple weeks ago. It simply said, "You matter."

It made me feel good, but more than that, it inspired me to want to do the same. So, I've been carrying around a pack of the Extra Sticky Post-It notes, and I've been leaving them in public places...bathroom stalls, elevators, entry doors, etc.

The messages I've written have been "You make a difference", "You are loved", "You matter", etc.

Would you join me? What messages will you send?

I just thought this would be a cool way to remind people that they mean something to someone, somewhere! We all do, afterall!

Social Media Etiquette. 6 Things you are doing to Lose Friends and Fans

Google, "How to get more Facebook Fans" and you will get thousands of articles. Even recently, our friends at The Oatmeal gave us their take on the issue.

So, your number is going up. (Yay!) But, you aren't getting more comments and likes. Maybe you've broken some unwritten etiquette rules - that you didn't even know about, honestly.

Here are a few things that might be impacting your Social Media bottom line.

1. Starting a page, inviting friends with NOTHING TO SHOW! Personally, if I am going to like a new page, I would be much more likely to join an active community - or at least one that has the appearance of community. Be sure to populate the page with articles, information, blog posts, etc. to show new viewers what they might expect from liking your page.

2. Starting a page, inviting friends and NEVER posting. Because a Facebook page is all about engagement and creating community, you MUST be active. Daily posts are a good standard, and a great habit to develop.

3. Over inviting, when you are holding an event - When you are having an event, create an event and invite those people who might be able to attend. And, by that, I mean - if you are having a networking event in Seattle, don't invite your friends that live in Albuquerque.

4. Over promoting when you are holding an event - Something that starts to look like spam is when you send multiple Facebook messages, or post on multiple friends walls. Be warned as you can easily be reported and lose posting privileges.

5. Using only your personal page to post your business information. Not only does using your personal profile for your Business violate the Facebook Terms of Service, but it's also just downright annoying if all you ever share is business information. A Business Page is the perfect place to share sales, new products, etc.

6. Using only tools to post. Studies have shown engagement on Facebook decreases by over 70% when you use tools anyway. If you want to engage with your Facebook audience, come to Facebook! Feel free to use tools to post to Twitter and LinkedIn! People aren't necessarily expecting to have a conversation on those platforms.

I am sure there are more...in fact, I can think of some already, but these are some of the top.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and experiences.

Facebook Insights...not so private.

Facebook has taken a lot of heat about their privacy policies. Most of that can be corrected through settings, thank goodness.

What has recently come to my attention is something on Business Pages that you might wish were completely invisible to the "fans" of your page. The image above is from the Pinterest Facebook page. They have over 1.7 million fans, which at first may seem like an impressive number. (It really is impressive) But, click on that number and your opinion might change.

When you do, you will see some information about the page that show their engagement - a key indicator to the effectiveness of a facebook page - has been in a steady decline for the past month.

The rub is that this is information you or I could find on any Facebook page. And, while this information cannot be completely deleted, you may want to make it challenging to find. If you have more than 4 tabs, you can hide the one with the likes.

If you need a little help, please just give me a call and I can walk you through how to change it!

And, what do you think about Facebook making this visible to everyone? Would love your thoughts.

Timeline: Ready or not, here it comes!

If you haven’t logged into your Facebook business page recently, you might not be aware that there is a change coming to your page THIS FRIDAY! But, do not fear, here are some tips to make the transition easier.

1. Choose a great cover photo for your banner on your Facebook page. The ideal dimensions are 850 X 315 pixels. Your profile picture will also be resized to 125 X 125 pixels.

2. Add some milestones. One unique feature of Timeline is the ability to jump to past dates. Click “add Milestone” and you can tell a story. When did you start your business? Hire your first employee? Win an award? This is a place to document your business history.

3. Visit the admin panel where you will find useful data, including recent page interactions (new comments, likes and likers), the insights graph and messages from fans. Explore the new Build Your Audience and Manage buttons to see their functionality as well.

As an added note, people can now send messages to your business. This is a new way for your fans to communicate with you and Any time a fan or customer reaches out to your business, it’s an opportunity to connect that you don’t want to miss. The challenge will be to remember to look for new messages which are part of the admin panel.

The shift to Timeline may take some getting used to, but when the sense of overwhelm disappears, you will find a much more robust tool that will help your business thrive.