facebook questions from a hat

we had a great turn out this morning with over 20 people at the social media breakfast.  we did things a little different by asking everyone to submit questions about facebook and then we as a group answered them.  it was very informative, here are the questions and the answers that the group came up with:

How do I set up a business page on facebook?
There is a link on the front page of Facebook, you have to have a personal facebook account first and you will create the business page under that.
Here's the link to get started: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

When you make your own fan page, how do you make it your own design?
Use Facebook Markup language.  http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/FBML

Is it best to post questions or comments?
Posting questions will usually generate a lot of comments from others on facebook, while comments are just a way to share your thoughts.

Facebook Pages vs Facebook Groups:
http://mashable.com/2009/05/27/facebook-page-vs-group/

How to use facebook and twitter together to promote a business?
Link the two accounts to spread the word to more people.

Is there a way to add a photo or video to a comment?
Put the link to the photo or video in your comment and facebook will automatically embed it.

Putting an RSS feed into your profile.
It is built into facebook or you can use twitterfeed: http://www.twitterfeed.com
Instructions on using twitterfeed:
http://www.helpdeskgoddess.com/2009/06/feeding-your-blog-into-your-twitter.html

what is RSS? real simple syndication http://www.whatisrss.com/

can you set it so your twitter updates become your facebook status updates?
set it up with selective twitter http://apps.facebook.com/selectivetwitter/ and then every tweet that ends in #fb will update your facebook status

can you "tweet" too much on facebook? yes

should you separate your business from your personal on facebook? yes, but it depends on the business

who's afraid of social media

every time I turn around lately, I am reading another blog post about why companies are hesitant to embrace social media. the thing about it is most of their concerns are there whether they are part of social media or not. for example, their concern that they can not control what is being said about them in social media. well, people will talk about you in social media whether you are involved in it or not. so, take the plunge and get involved in social media, that way you can be part of the conversation. there, that's my 2 cents!

social media is not a guinea pig

so, here's the deal, I do a lot with social media, between my personal obsession with it, my work with Waco Social Media, and the little bit of it that I do for my work.  I also read a lot of blog posts and articles on social media in the workplace and what always seems to fascinate me is the amount of businesses that treat social media as if it is a guinea pig, something that they are just going to "try out" and see if it works for them.  this does not work for 2 reasons:

1. if you are not truly invested in social media, people can tell and you are not going to get the results that you want from it
2. you never get a second chance to make a first impression, so make sure you make the best impression you can with your social media presence

I think social media is a great tool for many business to get the word out about their company with little or no monetary investment.  so, my bottom line is if you are going to give social media a try for your company, give it an honest try.  jump in with both feet and don't just dip your little toe in.

that's my soapbox for today, next week I will talk more about why businesses are scared of social media.

feeding your blog into your twitter account

one of the things that you will notice very quickly after you get on twitter is that people have their blogs set to automatically send out a tweet when they have a new post.  well, if you wanted to learn how to do that, today is your lucky day!  I use twitterfeed to feed my blog posts in, so I will walk you through the steps in getting that set up:

1. go to the twitter feed site at http://twitterfeed.com
2. click on register now
3. enter your e-mail address and create a password
4. click on create account
5. you now have a twitterfeed account and all you have to do next is set up your blogs
6. on step one, make sure twitter is selected in the "connect your feed to" drop down box
7. click on "connect feed to your twitter account"
8. click on allow to allow twitterfeed access to your twitter account
9. enter a feed name for your feed
10. enter your rss feed url (i.e. {your blogs url}/feed/posts/default) and click on test rss feed
11. click on advanced settings if you want to make any additional changes
12. click on create feed

you now have a feed that will automatically post to your twitter account everytime you update your blog, wasn't that easy

what do you want me to cover next?

so, I'm at a crossroads and looking to my wonderful readers to help me decide what to cover next, so let me know what you think in the poll to the right.  please feel free to comment as well.

a waco workshop for twitter beginners

Do you live in the Central Texas area?

Have you heard about Twitter but aren’t sure how to use it?

Signed up to Twitter but don’t know what to do next… or why?

Want to find out how Twitter can help your non-profit or small business?

Here’s the workshop for you. This is a hands-on, step-by-step workshop, led by three of the most influential tweeters in Central Texas. Caryn Brown, Jay Ehret and C.J. Jackson, members of the Waco Social Media Club, will help you make sense of how and why to use Twitter to make an impact for your organization.

Sign up now at http://www.wacotwitterworkshop.eventbrite.com/

Saturday, June 20, 2009
1:00-3:00pm
Cashion Bldg, Room 404
Hankamer School of Business
Baylor University Campus

how to add a watermark to a photo in picasa

so, here was the question I was asked today, what is the easiest way to add a watermark to a picture?

my answer, with picasa from google, here's what you need to do.

1. download and install picasa
2. launch picasa and let it start indexing your pictures
3. find the picture you want to add the watermark to in picasa
4. double-click on the picture
5. the picture will then come up in a photo editing tool where you can edit your picture
6. once you have your picture the way you want it, click on export at the bottom of the screen
7. take note of where picasa is going to export your file to (the file name will stay the same, but it will be in a different directory, so it won't change your original picture)
8. at the bottom of the export screen, click on the add a watermark checkbox.
9. enter the text you want displayed in the watermark in the add a watermark field
10. click on ok

see, now you have a watermarked picture, wasn't that easy?