Using Facebook for Your Business

This month's flyte log arrives in email boxes around the world today carrying a message of hope. Hope, that you'll finally get over your fears and join Facebook; for the good of your business, the good of your country, and the good of all that is holy.

Sorry. Heavily medicated this morning as I fight this cold.

In any case, last night I finished up my four week Web marketing class that I've been teaching over at the University of Southern Maine. One of the big topics was social media, and how small business owners and entrepreneurs can use social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn to build their network and grow their business.

Last month I wrote Six Simple Steps to Generate Business from LinkedIn. This month I turned my attention to Facebook. Sure, a lot of people hear Facebook and think college students, superpokes and throwing sheep. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't ask.)

However, with over 250,000 new users every day, and the fastest growing demographic 25 and older, it's time to realize that your customers and your competition are already on Facebook. It's time for you to take the plunge.

So, please check out Facebook for Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs and use it as a guide of how to get started with this very powerful social media tool.

And be sure to check out the flyte new media page on Facebook and become a fan!

Rich Brooks
Facebook Marketer

Converting Keynote to Google Presentations and Slideshare

Being the loyal Mac user that I am, I use Keynote rather than PowerPoint when presenting to an audience. (Plus, I love those transitions!)

Earlier today I put on Social Media and Your Brand: Go Viral! for the Maine Marketing Association's lunch and learn. I was asked if I could share my slides, and since the presentation was on social media, I decided to use some of the social media tools at my disposal.

Two popular options are Google Presentation (part of Google Docs) and SlideShare. Both allow you to create, import and share slideshow presentations. Both also can be embedded into your LinkedIn profile. Both also choke on Keynote presentations.

The first thing you need to do in Keynote is save your presentation in the PowerPoint format (PPT.) You can do this by choosing File > Export.... Next you'll see this screen:

Choose PowerPoint and hit Next.... Then you can save your ppt file.

You can then import your .ppt file into Google Presentation or SlideShare. I tried both and found that the Google Presentation version was way off in terms of alignment. Not surprisingly, the fonts that worked well in the presentation weren't supported on the Web. However, many of the words bled off the edges of the screen, the centering was all off, and links and bullets were inconsistent.

I thought I could maybe tweak some things in PowerPoint and then reimport to Google, but PowerPoint--perhaps sensing I had been unfaithful--quit every time I tried to open the file.

I had never used SlideShare before, so I decided to give it a chance. Importing the file was as simple as clicking a button. Although there were still changes in fonts, and there were also inconsistencies with links and bullets, overall, it did a much better job of keeping the integrity of the original slideshow. One major frustration is that it replaced my Web-friendly Trebuchet MS with a less interesting font.

Please note that both of these presentations are a bit wider than this blog column, but I didn't feel like fiddling with the fine tuning. One nice thing about both Google and SlideShare is that they kept the links in the presentation live.

Social Media and Your Brand: Go Viral!

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: social media)

If you'd like to compare that to the Google Presentation you can check that out here:

Rich Brooks
Social Media Guy

Ping.fm - Update Your Status Across Social Media Sites

Once you start "living" in more than one social media space, the idea of updating your status across multiple Web sites gets tedious fast.

However, Ping.fm is a tool that can update your status across dozens of popular social media sites. Once you sign up for Ping.fm you'll be able to add your login credentials for a host of popular social media sites. The list keeps growing, but it includes such heavyweights as:

• Twitter
• MySpace
• Pownce
• Plaxo
• Facebook

And a couple dozen others. It's also a great resource for you to decide which new sites to check out.

Ping.fm will automatically blast to all the social media sites you've set up, but you can include some "triggers" that will send (or refrain from sending) your updates to select sites.

The only frustration I've had using Ping.fm -- which isn't their fault -- is that LinkedIn cuts their status updates at a lot shorter than the common 140 characters. I've had more than one person alert me that I made a mistake with my last LinkedIn update.

Come on, LinkedIn, get with the program!

That small complaint aside, Ping.fm is an essential tool for any self-respecting social media marketer. Now, if I could only get something like Ping.fm to help manage my real world life.

Rich Brooks
Self-Respecting Social Media Marketer

Use TweetDeck to Become a Twitter Power User

As you start getting more involved with Twitter, managing a large number of people whom you follow becomes a major problem. That's because as you follow more people, it becomes more difficult to pay attention to your favorite tweeple. (That's Twitter-speak for people.)

However, there's a great 3rd party application called TweetDeck that allows you to create smaller groups of people. By creating these subgroups of people you can make sure you don't miss the tweets of your favorite tweeple.

For example, I've created one group called "Core" which includes industry leaders, friends, and other people who have continually helpful or clever tweets. I have another group called "Mainers" where I track the tweets of interesting people near our offices in Portland, Maine.

To learn more about how to use TweetDeck check out the video below, or watch TweetDeck & Twitter: Better Manage Your Tweeple at YouTube.

TweetDeck is free to try, but if you like it, please make a donation at TweetDeck.com. Thanks!

Follow Rich Brooks on Twitter!

Rich Brooks
Maine Tweeter

LinkedIn for Small Business and Entrepreneurs

This month's flyte log has arrived and the subject is Six Simple Steps for Getting Business from LinkedIn.

Although I've had a LinkedIn account for a few years, I really didn't use it much except when someone I knew found me and asked me to join their network. More recently my activity picked up as LinkedIn added features like Answers and Groups, and this past week LinkedIn added a bunch of Applications to further enhance their services.

If you've been passive in your LinkedIn usage lately, or don't have an account at all, it may be time to revisit LinkedIn. Start by reading Six Simple Steps for Getting Business from LinkedIn.

I also was interviewed late last week by Dan Schawbel of the Personal Branding Blog in a post called It's Time for You to Become a Master Brand Using LinkedIn.

Rich Brooks
The Missing LinkedIn

Web Marketing Course for Entrepreneurs and Small Business

I can't believe that we're just one week away from the first class of Web Marketing for Entrepreneurs and Small Business over at the University of Southern Maine.

Well, actually I can, as I spent most of yesterday afternoon updating and revamping the search engine optimization content for the class. And I've blocked out plenty of hours this week to review the rest of my content and build out the social media component. But the "I can't believe" part stresses the fact that it's only a week away, and if you were planning on coming you've got to get a move on.

Who should go? Well, you should be in driving distance of Portland, Maine. (Yes, one of these days I'll create an online version, but not today.) Assuming that you can get to the campus, this course is geared to small business owners, marketers and entrepreneurs who are looking to build a Web presence to grow their business.

Topics will include search engine visibility (how do you out rank your competition,) email marketing, business blogs, social media, e-commerce, and building a Web site that will convert prospects into customers.

The course is held over four Monday nights, 11/10/2008 - 12/1/2008, from 6pm - 8pm at the Abromson Center on the campus of the University of Southern Maine (directions.) The cost is $205, but you need to pre-register for the class, so...

Register Now!

We'll be spending class time reviewing students' current Web sites (when applicable) and making on the spot recommendations to help you rank higher, drive more qualified leads to your site, and convert more prospects into customers. So what are you waiting for?

Register Now!

Rich Brooks
Oh Captain, Your Captain

How to Engage People on Twitter: Replies, Direct Messages & ReTweets

Twitter, as readers of this blog know, is a popular microblogging platform and my current fascination/addiction.

I've put together a few videos recently about Twitter:

• Getting Started on Twitter
• How to Find and Follow People on Twitter and
• How to Gain Followers on Twitter

Today I'm taking it a step further with a video on how to engage people on Twitter one-on-one by using replies, direct messages and retweets.

If you can't see the video below, you can watch How to Engage People on Twitter at YouTube.

Rich Brooks
Follow Me at Twitter

Getting More Out of LinkedIn with Groups

LinkedIn is a popular social networking site. It's probably the most well-established, business-friendly of the social media Web sites out there. It's been described as "Facebook in khaki" because of its business-casual, mild-mannered design. There's little you can do to pimp out your page; LinkedIn is first and foremost a networking platform.

I first joined LinkedIn years ago, setting up a profile and finding friends and colleagues to link up with. After that, I didn't do much outside of accept (or decline) someone's heart felt request of:

I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.

- Your ex-employee / One-time vendor / College dormmate / Random Dude

You had me at "I'd like."

However, I find I'm spending a bit more time there as more tools have been rolled out. None of these are game changing; in fact, they're pretty derivative of other social media sites. But if your peers are on LinkedIn and unlikely to be found at MySpace or Facebook, these new features up the interaction quotient quite a bit.

A while back, LinkedIn created Answers, where people could ask or answer public questions, establishing expertise and networking all the while. Now LinkedIn has Groups, where you can join or create a group. A group could be alumni of your alma mater, a local networking group, or even people of a particular religious or political persuasion. Like the basic membership at LinkedIn, there's no charge to join or create a group.

Groups come with some nice features. Groups can enable discussion boards or post news articles for discussion. Hmmm...actually that kind of sounds like the same thing except the latter comes with an upload feature.

Sending an email blast to the group isn't as easy as it could be. LinkedIn seems to have made a decision to disallow a bulk email to go out to group members. Instead you can initiate a discussion through the discussion forum, or download the csv list of members and email them through your own email program.

Despite the lack of better email tools and the small feature list, I like the use of groups because you can have a more intimate conversation within a group of people who share an interest or a zip code. These type of conversations tend to be more rewarding.

If you haven't been active at LinkedIn for a while, you might want to check out the groups section.

Rich Brooks
Find Me On LinkedIn

Twitter Explained in Plain English

I've posted a few Twitter How-to movies of late:

• How to Get Started on Twitter,
• How to Find and Follow People on Twitter, and
• How to Gain Followers on Twitter

but maybe we need to take a step back and talk about what is Twitter, really. And to that end, let's take a look at Twitter Explained in Plain English from Common Craft.

Now that's a compelling argument for getting on Twitter!

Rich Brooks
I Tweet, Therefore I Am

How to Gain Followers on Twitter

Sure, it's easy enough to get started on Twitter. But how do you leverage the power of this microblogging platform? How do you get a couple dozen followers, or a couple hundred, or a few thousand? (Without using bribery?)

By building your following naturally and organically you can extend your reach and influence, or just make a wider circle of people laughing, crying or informed.

In this video Rich Brooks (that's me) takes you through some proven techniques to increase your followers on Twitter.

Rich Brooks
Won't You Be My Follower?