Biggest Mistake on Facebook Profiles

June 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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This is a guest post from “The Publicity Hound” aka Joan Stewart

If you’re on Facebook, I’ll bet you’re making this mistake.

On your Profile, at the top, under your name, where it lists the company where you now work, I’m betting it links to a generic Community Page and not a Company Page, also referred to as a Fan Page.

When Facebook changed your profile to the new design a few months ago, it automatically hyperlinked your employer field to an auto-generated Community Page.

Facebook expert Mari Smith says that’s the Number One mistake on Facebook profiles. You can read her entire post here.

It will take you less than a minute to fix it. Here’s Mari’s quick fix:

–Click Edit Profile. Go to the Education and Work section.

–Begin typing the name of your Fan Page in the Employer field.

–If you see your Fan Page in the dropdown menu, select it.

–Then fill out the remaining fields (Position, City/Town, Description and Time Period). If you also add in any Business partners/Colleagues, this will show on their profile, too, under the Employer section.

–Click Add Job. You can also add Project(s) to any position and add Business partners/Colleagues. Again, this shows on their Employer section.

If that doesn’t solve the problem, refer to her blog post above for another quick workaround. If you fix it and it still doesn’t show up correctly, it may take several days.

Reprinted from “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week,” an ezine featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity. Subscribe at http://www.publicityhound.com/ and receive by email the handy cheat sheet “89 Reasons to Send a Press Release.”

Filed Under: Business Tips, Social Media Tagged With:

How do they know who and where I am?

May 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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Facebook Places, released a few months ago, is for location- based check ins. Mashable wrote a great article summing it up on their site found here. It will be major competition for FourSquare and Gowalla, two location-based Social Networking applications that have become popular in the last year.

The options for individuals and businesses to use location-based applications are endless; but don’t forget about security and safety. Take time to check your user privacy settings – managing your reputation is key. If your Facebook settings are left at default, your friends can check you into places without you being aware of it. This could at a minimum be unpleasant, or even dangerous in some cases. If you want to avoid it, disable this feature.

You can change your privacy settings and this default by going to your Facebook Account>Privacy Settings>Custom>Customize Settings>Things Others Share>Friends can check me into places and disable it to retain control. Facebook will not share or expose your location automatically. While you’re there take a look at the other settings and make sure they are still how you want them to be. Mashable has a great article “10 settings every user needs to know.”

How do they know me?

Along those lines, if you want to err on the side of caution, you may also want to dig a little deeper in the Privacy Settings and disable the Instant Personalization feature by unchecking the box. Essentially this feature allows some websites to access some of your personal information and use it to instantly personalize your experience. You can either opt out at individual websites on a case-by-case basis, or turn it off entirely.

Go to Account>Privacy Settings>Instant Personalization. Close the happy smiley face guy pop-up and uncheck “Enable instant personalization on partner websites.”  Interestingly enough, Facebook will pop up with a plea for you not to do this due to “false rumors about instant personalization.” Personally that made me want to do it even more! For details about what it does check out this article and then decide for yourself.

A regular review of your privacy settings is a wise investment of your time to help you feel comfortable in the wild wild viral world.

Annie Rubens is the WBA Director of Communications

 

Filed Under: Business Tips, Social Media Tagged With:

Politics, Facebook and Relatives – Can you spell T-R-O-U-B-L-E?

March 28, 2011 By 1 Comment
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If everyone in your extended family is still speaking to each other since Wisconsin’s Budget Repair bill hit the streets, consider yourselves lucky.

First, like it or not, social media has changed politics. For every post from one side, there is an opposite post from the other side. And then there is the “truth-o-meter” that tries to decipher the truth. But somewhere in the midst of it all, are people who want to speak their mind and a social site where their friends can’t wait to read their next post. And before you know it, family and friends can take your thought and created Social War 2068464.

So, let’s say you post something on your wall, like “I think owls should get eye care” and naturally one of your owl loving friends agrees with you. But then, one of your family members does not – maybe because owls keep him up at night, who knows? Your friend and your family member start arguing about the rights of owls. The argument lasts all day, allowing even more of your friends to either think your family member is a jerk or side with your other friend. Mind you none of these people may even know each other, their only link is YOU. Finally, one of your friends informs you about what has been happening on your Facebook page for the last 8 hours.

Here is how NOT to take care of the situation –

Don’t block and “un-friend” your family member and then tell everyone but the blocked person what you did. Of course, the blocked family member will eventually find out they have been “blocked” which, by the way, is actually worse than “unfriended”. This results in the blocked family member complaining about why the original posting family member has always been a problem. Then, both of you should NOT take the fight about blocking and “unfriending” off the social media site, and send it via emails and text messages to all other family members. And, don’t tell a relative not to share the message with any other family member, because this will only generate a whole new batch of text messages and emails between previously uninvolved family members about the two of you. And suddenly, no one is talking about owls anymore, and your mother is trying to figure out how she can have everyone over for dinner at the same time without breaking out the riot gear.

How can you handle controversy on social media?

  1. If it is controversial, be prepared that everyone won’t agree with you or your friends. If you don’t want differing views don’t post it publicly.
  2. Establish an “agree to disagree” policy at the start of any controversial issue that you know exists with certain friends and family. You won’t comment on their posts – they don’t comment on yours.
  3. Pay attention to what happens on your Facebook or social media wall after you post something. It is amazing the arguments and discussions that can happen when you aren’t watching.
  4. Be prepared to take control of a discussion if you don’t like the direction something is going on YOUR page.

a) Thank the posters for their spirited discussion, and tell them the conversation is over and you are deleting their posts.

b) Use the DELETE key to erase posts you don’t want on your wall. It will keep it from spreading.

If you don’t think this can happen, ask me about owls next time you see me. By the way, this did NOT happen on my Wall!

Monica Sommerfeldt Lewis is the owner of Archer Lion in Chippewa Falls, specializing in windows, doors and exterior products and is the current WBA Associate Vice President

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