Lollipop Local SEO Services | Social Media Optimisation | Mobile Website Design

Facebook Privacy: How Do I Stop My Photos From Being Visible To Everyone?

Jo Shaer — Mon, 20 May 2013 07:57:30 +0000

It was a question that came up during one of my High Visibility Social Media training courses in Essex and again when I was doing some one-to-one tuition with Synergise. But the answer is not obvious. If you click on the padlock at the top of your profile page, it doesn’t mention photos. If you click on the cog and go into Privacy Settings from that dropdown menu, again, no mention of photographs. I searched online and there was a video but it became apparent that, even though it was made in 2013, it was now out of date because the functions mentioned were no longer visible. The Facebook Help Centre also gave no answers!!! By some trial and error, this is what I discovered. How To Set Facebook Privacy To Control Who Sees Your Photos First, you need to go into your photo albums. Click on Photos in the timeline navigation bar under the cover image on your personal page. For each album listed, in the bottom right hand corner of the image, you will see either the little image of the world – which indicates privacy is set to public – or a cog setting – which means that you can access each photo individually to set the permissions as to who can see that image. Obviously Cover Images will be set to Public by default. My Timeline photo album has the cog setting but is actually controlled by the timeline settings that I have set within my main privacy settings to friends only. So I don’t need to change individual photos there. However, if your timeline privacy is set to public by default, then you will have to go through this laborious process. As I was undertaking this exercise, I also noticed that my timeline setting had [...]

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How Do I Get My Friends To Like My Facebook Business Page

Jo Shaer — Sun, 19 May 2013 04:31:49 +0000

Hi Jo I have created my facebook business page – I wonder if you can answer a few questions Do I try and ‘get friends’ ?? Does it work the same way as personal facebook? Is it linked to my personal facebook in any way? – ie will all the friends posts from personal facebook appear on business one if I invite them to be friends? thanks, Barbara Barbara had done the hard part and created her Facebook business page from her personal profile but then things started to get confusing. The first thing to remember is: People have Friends but Businesses have Fans or Likes Invite Email Contacts When you create your Facebook page, if you click Show to see your main dashboard, the main options along the top are Edit Page and Build Audience. Click on Build Audience and you will see the option to Invite Email Contacts. Click on that and you can access your email by a variety of methods. Having said that, I would exercise some caution. Your friends and business colleagues may not take kindly to be importuned to do such a thing – especially if they are not on Facebook and view social media as a waste of time. Invite Your Personal Profile’s Friends To Like Your Facebook Business Page A better bet might be to invite those friends who are actually on the platform. You can do this by looking at the box in the bottom right of your Business Page dashboard. It’s next to the graph for insights and above the cover image. If you click the grey slider to the far right of the Invite button, you can scroll down to see more of your friends. Remember, these are your friends as an Admin of this page. If there [...]

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The End of Search – OK Google!

Jo Shaer — Sat, 18 May 2013 20:59:14 +0000

Google I/O announced the end of search as we know it. Google’s engineers realised that there is not only a need to answer, but also to converse and anticipate. Last year, the advent of the knowledge graph saw a huge advance in search technology. It enabled Google to move beyond keywords and understand people, places and things and the relationshi9ps between them. It allowed them to answer questions “like what are the movies by jj abrams” and “what’s the release date of a movie”. They are constantly improving the knowledge graph with over 570m entities and growing – it becomes more powerful every day. So if you search Google with the question “what’s the population of india”, you can already find out. But they can now anticipate your next question like “how does it compare to the population of other countries” and show both a trend graph and a comparison to China and the US, the two countries most often compared to India population-wise. The knowledge graph languages have also been increased. They already included English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Korean but now they have also added Polish, Turkish, Simple Chinese and Traditional Chinese. But there’s now even more answers. Android users and those who have iPhones with Siri can already communicate by voice – asking and receiving answers. The new innovation is for tablet, laptops and PCs where, using Chrome, you will soon be able to ask Google about your restaurant reservation or package that’s about to arrive, your upcoming flight or doctor’s appointment without having to sift through your emails. Those who opted into the Gmail field trial have already had this powerful experience. Google’s engineers want you to ask Google in the same way that you would ask a friend – to converse. [...]

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Social Media Training Courses in Essex

Jo Shaer — Fri, 17 May 2013 08:06:09 +0000

Lollipop Local run social media courses in Essex and Birmingham. Is Social Media Not Working For Your Business? Have you set up your profile on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn and then wondered what to do next? Have you worked hard to gain some likes to your Facebook page, put up lots of status updates and then drowned in the ensuing silence from your ‘fans’? Do you want to know why no one is liking, sharing or commenting on your posts? Engagement is key to getting your content seen in other people’s newsfeeds. But it is not easy to achieve. Rather than say that Social Media Marketing is a panacea for all businesses, we try to show ways that you can put your business where your target audience is hanging out online. One platform may work better one business than for another. The Power of SEO and SMO Social Media should be a component of your Marketing Strategy. It can help your SEO (search engine optimisation) – so customers have another chance to find you when they search in the recognised search engines like Google and Bing. Effective Social Media Optimisation (SMO) can help your business to dominate the SERPs for a specific keyword. The social media profiles for your business can occupy some of the other positions on the front page. If you can get to the top of Google with your website and then take up spot 3 with your Facebook Page, spot 7 with your LinkedIn page and position 10 with your Pinterest account, that’s given you almost 50% of the available real estate. Leaving your competitors with only 6 of the 10 spots to target. But proper optimisation of your profile or business page also allows you to be found on the many Social Media platforms. They [...]

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ForgeXpo – Virtual Trade Show

Jo Shaer — Thu, 16 May 2013 13:41:42 +0000

I really enjoyed attending the ForgeXpo Virtual Trade Show yesterday – even though I’m not into forging. The event was staged to coincide with timezones all over the world, so here in London it ran from 12 noon to 5pm. There were several webinars about the industry throughout the day held in the auditorium and you could sign in to attend. But, for me, the fun part was checking out all the different stands. Just as in a real trade show, there were a wide range of different visual concepts to tempt the passing delegate. So many colours and unusual shapes to assault the senses. Once inside, there was an explanatory promotional video and the opportunity to interact with the representatives of that company. It was all very slick and informative. I also enjoyed the coffee lounge where I was able to have a virtual soya latte with all the trimmings plus a large slice of cake without consuming any calories. On a more serious note, the costs of participating in such an exhibition must have been considerably less than constructing a stand at a physical venue. Images of all products could be included without actually having to transport in the real thing and for this type of industry, that could save thousands of pounds. I will be interested to hear what friends who are actually involved in the industry thought about the technical aspects in terms of interaction and networking. Originally posted 2011-11-12 13:19:58. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Google+ Updates Hot Off The Press 2013

Jo Shaer — Wed, 15 May 2013 22:41:02 +0000

At today’s Google I/O here were the updates on Google+ which are going to start rolling out today. Every day, we connect with others with a smile or a laugh, but the meaning often gets lost. So the G+ project was designed to share the things you love with the people you love. To explore the stuff you’re into and get together. Today Google+ are rolling out 41 new features across 3 major areas: Newly designed stream New hangouts experience New photo functionality Newly designed stream for Google+ They are rolling out a modern design across many devices. Today’s feed is flat – it’s easy to see a long list of things that have been shared like a never ending newspaper. But you might want to go deeper on things that interest you and the new stream is about design and depth Depending on the size of the screen, you will get 1, 2 or 3 columns – but you can still choose to have just 1 column. Posts like videos and photos can span multiple columns. It will be fast fluid and fun with animations throughout the products, posts that flip over for more information and menus that slide in and out to get out of the way Depth Currently, it’s often hard to go deeper on a topic that you care about so Google + are introducing related hashtags. Google will analyse the content of a post and put on the approptiate hashtag. Then flip the ‘card’ over to show related items from important sources and proximity to you. The example was of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, but nowhere is the term Eiffel tower mentioned in the post or comments. Google does image anlaysis and the knowledge graph. These recognise important landmarks so Google knew it was [...]

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What Is Engagement on Facebook?

Jo Shaer — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:39:40 +0000

Many small business owners are a bit confused by the term Engagement. They hear it used all the time by social media managers but they don’t understand really understand what it means. Why Engagement Is Important Not all of our posts get into the newsfeed and not all of our fans see everything we post. Engagement is vital because that is metric that Facebook uses to decide how often our posts will be seen and by whom. So your chances of getting your posts seen by more fans increases if you understand how Facebook views engagement. What is Engagement on Facebook? In fact, there are only a few specific actions that a user can take which Facebook actually views as engaging with the Page. And ‘Actions’ is the operative word. If someone likes your page If someone likes one of your posts If someone shares a post If someone comments on a post If someone clicks on one of your ads How Do I Get People To Engage With My Content? What tends to happen is you like a Page and you then see posts from that Page in your newsfeed. It may be a great image or quote and you mentally note that you must remember it. And then life takes over and you get on with the rest of your day and forget all about it. Just because you have seen it and remarked upon it in real life, Facebook does not know that. The only way it knows that you enjoyed the content is if you have taken the physical action of liking the post or sharing it or commenting on it. If you never take any action in relation to that Page’s posts, pretty soon Facebook will come to the conclusion that you DON’T LIKE what [...]

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Is Your Facebook Cover Image Breaking The Rules?

Jo Shaer — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:50:27 +0000

Facebook changed the rules on cover images back in March. Whilst we are now allowed to include calls to action like ‘Like our Page’ and ’40% off’, QR Codes and contact information in the cover image of our Facebook business pages, Facebook’s rules say that it can include only a maximum of 20% text. There is some leeway on this in terms of whether the text is contained within additional graphics or actual products on the site since it is a natural part of the photo and not a text overlay. In our example, Lauren had the writing actually on her TShirt. The 20% text rule applies to both cover images, images in Boosted (was Promoted) posts and Facebook ads themselves. It does not apply to unpromoted photos that you post on your page – these can have any amount of text. Because not all images will be reviewed by a human, there is room for error when cover images and ads are assessed. Their automated system may not be able to tell the difference between text on a product or in a logo and some businesses may have their cover image rejected. Facebook 20% Rule for Cover Images, Boosted/Promoted Posts and Ads According to their help centre: For ads and sponsored stories that appear in News Feed, the amount of space the text in your image takes up may not exceed 20%. Examples of promoted content this applies to include promoted page posts, app install ads, offers or any other ad or sponsored story with placement in News Feed. For example, event ads use the event’s photo for its image, so your event’s photo should not have more than 20% text if you plan to promote it in people’s News Feeds. This 20% text policy does not apply to [...]

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The FSB, The Government and Local Business

Jo Shaer — Mon, 13 May 2013 06:21:29 +0000

In the latest edition of the FSB magazine, the Policy Chairman, Mike Cherry talks about the relaunch of their Keep Trade Local campaign and some of the factors that make life difficult to businesses on today’s High Street. The FSB are in a unique position in that they have their finger on the pulse of what troubles local business owners but they also have close ties with the Chancellor and others in the Cabinet. Business Rates In a submission to the Chancellor about the Budget, they asked him to consider the indexation of business rates and to link it to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Now I’m not totally sure what this means, but I’m assuming it keeps increases in business rates in line with increases in consumer prices, which sounds logical if the Government wants to avoid putting the squeeze on margins for local business owners. I know several local businesses in Leigh who were forced to stop trading because of the onerous burden of business rates that seemed to bear no relation to the amount of custom coming through the door and turnover being achieved – let alone any profits being made to sustain them. You would think that most councils would like shops to be open, rather than boarded up. But it would seem that there is an endless supply of potential business owners who open a shop without doing proper research into the footfall or sustainability… or even basic discovery about an identical shop just a few doors down! There are no winners in that type of situation, just a splitting of the already small pool. I have lost count of the number of masseurs in Leigh on Sea and there are only so many back rubs that can be given on any day in just [...]

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Small Business Sunday – Being Retweeted By The Right Celebs

Jo Shaer — Sun, 12 May 2013 15:02:08 +0000

In this quarter’s, FSB Magazine, I learned about Theo Paphitis’s Small Business Sunday initiative on Twitter. It was in a snippet about a real life entrepreneur who is making the news. Lyme Bay Cabins in Seaton, Devon, were picked by Theo Paphites, the Dragon’s Den star as one to watch in his Small Business Sunday initiative. He retweeted a message by owner, Gary Davies, to his own 315,000 followers. This saw Gary’s Twitter followers more than double and increased visits to his website by 1000%!!! Gary launched his business last year after being made redundant. He designs and installs log cabins to create a personalised space for all types of work and leisure activity. It is impossible to buy that kind of endorsement and his phones have not stopped ringing since. Small Business Sunday Initiative Small Business Sunday was created by Theo in October 2010. What you need to do is tweet @TheoPaphites between 5pm and 7.30pm on Sunday and tell him about your business in just 135 characters followed by #SBS. Theo will then choose his top six and retweet them to all his followers on the Monday. It is the ultimate elevator pitch so ensure that you can condense your USP (Unique Selling Point) into 135 characters. Theo Quits Dragon’s Den Sadly, after nine series, Theo will not be appearing in the 2013 season of the show. In a press release in February on his own website, he said: This has not been an easy decision or one that I have taken lightly, but with the workload involved in growing my exciting, successful new lingerie brand Boux Avenue both in the UK and internationally, along with my recent purchase of the Robert Dyas retail chain and the running of the 240 Ryman stationery shops, the time felt right [...]

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