Businesses and organizations can now create a Google Plus pages to market themselves joining millions of individuals. You can set up your Google Plus page following these steps.
Google Plus Pages for business and organizations will bring changes to the way search results are displayed. Visit our CyberLife Tutors Google Plus page and add us to your circles.
If you have any questions or would like me to set up your Google Plus page, just give me a call.
Create your Facebook custom URL for business. You no longer need 25 Facebook fans to LIKE your new Facebook page to claim your unique custom page URL. Instead of searching for your page in Facebook, a custom or vanity URL provides a direct link to your Facebook page from any internet browser.
Here is how to create your Facebook custom URL for you business page. You must be an administrator of the Facebook Page and logged into Facebook.
Visit the page http://www.facebook.com/username where you will be able to choose your username. Choose wisely as you will not be able to edit or transfer this username once it is set.
Honolulu’s KITV television station requires readers to sign in before posting comments on their website. This is common across most websites. Yesterday I received an email from KITV that a Facebook account is now required to post comments. A portion of the email is below:
We wanted to take a moment to tell you about an important site improvement that will affect the way in which users comment on news stories on our website. Following a site improvement on October 20 commenting on news stories will require signing in through a Facebook account. This improvement will allow even more of the community to engage in news story commenting and provide a better overall site experience for all of our users. Because of the transition, existing commenting accounts will no longer be able to login.
Signing in with your Facebook account displays your real name or at least the name on your Facebook account. Some people use an alias when they post comments. Will this drive users to create dummy Facebook accounts increasing Facebook’s membership? What do you think about the requirement to use a Facebook account when logging in to another site?
When Google’s new social networking site Google+ launched several months ago, it was invitation only. To create an profile, someone had to send you an email with an invitation. As of this week, Google+ is available to everyone.
Like Facebook, Google+ is changing and evolving rapidly. There is even a Google+ app for your Android or IPhone.
If you joined Google+ you may wonder how to find new people to add to your circles. There is a search box at the top of the Google+ page. Using this method is effective if you know the name of the person you want to follow.
Other times, I am looking for those and I do not know their names yet. Many times I am interested in finding others who have something in common with me. Once I identify these people, I can check their profile then decide to follow them or not.
I use Find People on Plus directory helpful for this situation. Using the filters, I can narrow my search by gender, the number of followers, number of following, occupation or location.
This tool is especially effective for sales prospecting and career management.
While you are on People on Plus, be sure to add your name to the directory so other can find you.
Google+ is a new social networking site from Google. Launched in beta mode in July 2011, the site had 10 million users within two weeks. This figure is more amazing because during the pilot, an invitation was required to join.
Here are how to resources so you can get started with Google+ quickly.
An email address is required to sign up for Google+. If you ask for an invitation, be sure to include your preferred email address with your request.
Create your profile. Include your work experience, hobbies and any other information which is relevant to your background. Include keywords in your descriptions.
Find connects using the search box. When you add contacts, you will see there updates in your stream.
Organize your contacts into groups or circles as Google+ calls them. Cluster people by how you know them, relationship to you or any other way that works for you. Google notifies them they were added to a circle but does not state the name of the circle.
For more information read more tips for Google+ Newbies.
If you would like an invite to join Google+ enter a comment below including your preferred email address.
Would you like your blog posts to appear in Facebook every time you publish a new post? There is a way to update your Facebook pages settings to import blog posts and display them on your Facebook page using the Facebook Note application.
You can import your blog posts to your Facebook profile page or your Facebook fan page. Here is how to set up Facebook to import new posts from your blog.
Log in to Facebook.
Go to your profile or Fan page.
Click on the Notes tab. If you do not see a Notes tab, click on the + and selected the Notes application.
Click on “Write a Note”. Create a test note, then save as draft.
Click on “Edit Import Settings”
On the “Import External Blog” page, enter the web URL of your blog feed. Click the check box on then click “Start Importing.”
Once the set up is complete, each time you write a new post on your blog the post will display on your Facebook page.
Following Twitter etiquette and showing good social networking manners is not hard to do. Here are six steps to stay on the good side of other social networking and not become an online clod.
Use @ replies: When mentioning another Twitter account, use the @username to let them know you made a comment. Without the “@”, the account you are mentioning will not likely see your tweet.
Retweeting: Share others messages by retweeting or rebroadcasting tweets to your followers. If a message exceeds the 140 character restriction, it is OK to trim or modify the message to fit. Be sure to keep the original message intent.
Be interesting: Include a variety of content in your Twitter tweets. A stream of pure sales messages will likely turn off followers. Post pictures of interesting sites, links to industry news articles or just plain old fun comments. Be personable.
Follow back: With Twitter, it is a good practice to follow those who follow you. Twitter restricts the number of accounts you can follow based on the number of Twitter accounts following you. Once you follow 2,000 accounts, Twitter will not allow you to add new accounts to your following until you either unfollow some or others begin following you. If you do not follow back, you will find many accounts will unfollow you.
Stop the auto messages: Don’t set up messages to automatically send a response when an new Twitter account follows you. I recently received a direct message from someone I followed saying. “Thanks for following me. I look forward to reading your tweets.” This was a meaningless message to be because this account did not follow me back. They never did see any of my tweets. The message was meaningless and cluttered up my messages pages.
By following these six social networking tips you can navigate Twitter and use tweets for business while using social networking with etiquette and good manners.
Animal House is a non-profit, 501(c)(3), No-Kill shelter for all breeds of dogs and cats. Since opening in June 2002, they have rescued, rehabilitated and placed over 15,000 dogs and cats, to date, into their loving forever homes.
Animal House Shelter, Inc. rescues abused and neglected dogs and cats and rehabilitates them mentally and physically in order to place them with the best new family. They rescue 98% of their dogs from high ‘kill’ shelters, pounds and various animal control facilities in which they are usually listed as strays, and almost always scheduled to be euthanized.
THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE
For Animal House Founder Lesley Irwin, the challenge is find dogs and cats homes and to build awareness of the adoptable animals at the shelter. They do this through donations to feed, care for and provide medical care and keep the shelter maintained. The shelter is non profit and relies solely on donations.
“When animals come to our shelter, we often need urgent help from foster families who can care for these dogs and cats until permanent homes can be found,” said Lesley Irwin. “Phone trees and letters through the U.S. Post Office are costly and time consuming. There is also a need to connect with pet product or services companies and other rescue group and shelters.”
Volunteers are needed to care for animals. All dogs are walked 4-5 times a day and socialized with each other and volunteers. The cats are housed in a large ‘free roam’ cat room so they can interact all day with each other, staff, volunteers and potential adopters.
SOCIAL MEDIA BENEFITS
Alexis Williams is the social media/marketing manager for Animal House Shelter. She created an official Facebook page for the shelter, a YouTube Channel and a Twitter account. In addition, she manages and maintains these social networking accounts.
In the first three weeks since they launched these accounts, they have seen a great response. On Twitter they have 2,000 followers and have had lots of engagement from over 1,000 “fans” on their Facebook page. Fans have been posting pictures of their animals adopted from Animal House Shelter and giving updates on how their pets are doing. They also receive lots of supportive comments and words of encouragement. Animal House Shelter has found Facebook to be a great place to also post events, news, and requests for assistance.
Animal House Shelter is using YouTube to post video of dogs and cats available for adoption.
Alexis says, “One of my favorite videos is of Kyrpto, a puppy who was very shy when he first came to us. In the video you can see how he warmed up to the team due to his therapy with our staff.”
CYBERLIFE TUTORS BENEFITS
“Working with CyberLife Tutors, we learned how to build an effective Facebook business page for Animal House and engage supporters through the use of multimedia content, said Alexis Williams. “They encouraged us to create a Twitter account and added us to the McHenry County Business Daily news increasing our visibility throughout the county. We used CyberLife Tutors “Build Your Twitter Following” tips to grow our followers to nearly 1500 in a month. April M. Williams shared best practices to leverage automation tools to reduce our time investment while demonstrating social networking business etiquette. She helped us communicate to supporters about upcoming events increasing attendance. By working with April, we understood how to use video, pictures and links to engage with others and build a larger community.”
SUMMARY
What is Alexis Williams advice to business owners?
“Twitter has also proven to be an exciting outlet for us! We met many other great animal rescue groups who are pursuing the same work. We assist each other by re-tweeting each other’s tweets. Twitter has also become a source of meeting companies who are offering donations. By simply being on Twitter and meeting some pet product companies, we received several companies offer to provide donations of products. We have been given donations of collars and dog skin care products.
It is exciting and we look forward to continuing to use the social networks to not only help our animals find loving homes and bring awareness to our shelter, but to also connect with supporters, pet product companies, and other rescue groups/shelters. “