First Friday: The Month of February Review

The first Friday of each month, I do a quick article reviewing topics from the previous month, including links to the articles, breaking it down by platform and theme as well as providing a link to read the full article.

As always, I'm glad to answer questions folks have and look forward to more questions coming my way.

Tuesday Tips: All

• Feb. 18: Choose Your Images Wisely - This post discusses why it's important to pick good images for your Facebook profile, cover images, avatars as well as for posts and other social media.

Tuesday Tips: Facebook

• Feb. 4: Schedule Posts - A reminder that scheduling posts can help keep your page active without making you post new content every day.  
• Feb. 11: Like Content As Yourself - Liking your content you post as yourself instead of your page counts as interaction and engagement.  So do it.

Tuesday Tips: Google +

• Feb. 25: Format Your Posts in G+ - Tips on how to bold, emphasize, and strikeout text in Google+ posts.

Wednesday Words: Facebook

• Feb. 12: People Talking About This (PTAT) - An explanation of what this statistic means on Facebook and why it is important to you.
• Feb. 19: Avatar - Definitely not the blue aliens from the movie Avatar.  This talks about the image used in the tiny square on Twitter, Facebook and other locations.

Wednesday Words: Google+

• Feb. 26: Circles - We threw in a Google Word this month - Circles - which is basically the way you sort your friends on Google+.

Wednesday Words: Twitter

• Feb. 5: Follow Friday - Just what is #ff?  If you don't know, this post explains it.

Thursday Tutorials: Facebook

• Feb. 6: How to Schedule Posts via Facebook - This is a step by step tutorial explaining how to schedule posts using the post interface via Facebook pages.  A useful thing to learn how to do.
• Feb. 13: How to Change From Using Facebook as Your Page to Your Profile - Per an article above saying you should like your page's content as yourself, this guide explains just how to do that - as some people didn't know how to change from liking as their page.
• Feb. 20: How to Find The Info for Optimizing Posts - Information on how to find statistics so you can figure out what times of the day are optimal for creating posts so they will be seen by more fans.

Other Posts

• Feb. 7: Nifty Infographic with Sizes for Social Media Graphics - This article links to a very useful infographic that I now have bookmarked because it tells me what dimensions are needed for every form of Social Media graphic spot.  Good stuff to know.
• Feb. 14: The Hard Truth About How The Facebook News Feed Works Now - Another good article linked from this article talking about what's changed with the Facebook Feed since December.
• Feb. 21: How 6 Hours of Social Media Marketing Can Increase Your Sales - Another article being linked to that explains how just as little as six hours of social media marketing can increase your sales.  A must read for anyone marking sales in social media.
• Feb. 22: Weekend Sessions - Answering questions on whether or not Facebook pages are tied to a specific admin's account, can admins charge other admins for ads and more.  Some good to know info in this weekend post.
• Feb. 24: The Monday Search: Social Media Job Openings Available as of 2/24/14 - A list of social media job openings for those seeking jobs.

Thanks for reading!  Posts will continue to roll out this month and on-going.  Please leave any comments, questions, etc. in the comment section below!

Thursday Tutorials - How to Add Staff to Facebook Pages

!!!IMPORTANT NOTE!!! There has been an update to this tutorial.  If you are not on the updated Facebook page layout, you can continue reading this blog post for instructions on how to add admins.  Otherwise, the new article with updates can be found here:  http://socialmediamarketinghints.blogspot.com/2014/06/thursday-tutorial-facebook-tutorial.html

One of the regular pieces of advice I will give is to add other staff to your Facebook Pages to assist with posting and communicating with your fanbase.  Some folks will sign their posts with who replied.  Others will just make it look like a singular, cohesive team and not sign names.  What you decide to do is up to you.

The first important thing to keep in mind when adding staff members to your page is that they have to have liked the page and be your friend in order for you to add them to a managerial page role.

The second important thing to remember is that there are several roles you can put a person in.  When adding admins to a page, it automatically defaults to adding them as Content Creator - which is likely where you want them to be.  The reason for this is simple.  Adding anyone as Manager means they have as much control as you do of the page.  This means, if they get upset or vindictive for whatever reason, they can remove you as page admin - it doesn't matter if you created it or not.  It also means they can add/remove other staff.  So I strongly encourage you to only add people you absolutely trust as the highest level of Manager to your page.   There are five assignments you can give to admins for your page:  Manager, Content Creator, Moderator, Advertiser, and Insights Analysts.  Over the next few weeks we'll define each of these positions better, but they are reasonably easy to determine by FB's descriptions.

To add managers, visit your page.  You should see the following screen:

Click on "Edit Page."  This will create a drop down menu with a number of options, as seen below.  From those options, choose "Manage Admin roles."

That will take you to a page like this:

I went ahead and screen shot the drop down menu options at the same time.

So to add an admin, type in their name.  It should start to auto-populate with a drop down menu, then you can select the person you want.  In the drop down menu, select the role you want them to play.  Once done, click save.  You will be asked to type in your password to confirm changes.  You can also use this same menu to remove admins or change their roles.

You can rinse and repeat to add a number of admin - I am unsure if there is a cap on the number of admins a page can have or not as I have never reached a cap.

Hope this helps!

Thursday Tutorials are a series of tutorials designed to help people who may not be as Facebook savvy as other people.  Some tutorials will be targeted towards newbies to the social media world, others will include tutorials for more advanced users.  Thursday Tutorials are written for the layman and are designed with everyone in mind.  You can find all the Thursday Tutorials by clicking on the Thursday Tutorials tag below.

Wednesday Words: Meme

While a lot of the younger and middle generations will understand this term, some of the older generation don’t understand what the word “meme” means.

To define it simply, a meme is, typically, an image with text above and or below it.  Meme’s can come in animated gif format or even as videos, but the most common is a simple image.  “I Can Has Cheezburger” and “Fail Blog” are great examples of Meme posting sites.

Of course, you can create your own memes at those sites, but there is also a site to help you create one from any of the popular meme pictures, found here:  http://www.memecreator.org/

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media.  These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media.   You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Tuesday Tips: Monitor Your Social Media

Many companies make the mistake of creating social media accounts on the major networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) but then not doing more than a few minutes with it each week - thinking they've already done most of the work because they are "on social media."

If you are one of those people who think that, you couldn't be more wrong.

If you don't listen to your customers - and don't engage them - you aren't going to retain them and your social media presence is for nothing.  This is especially true if you are a new company or an established company that's new to Facebook and looking to expand your business with social media.

As your social media following grows, you will end up spending more time, possibly ending up with a person who is your social media manager who will handle all things related to social media.  But until you reach that point, you need to engage your customers.  Ask open ended questions to spur conversations, create well versed replies that are NOT canned responses, respond to people who ask questions.  Like their responses in topics.

Remember that social media retains everything you say or post.  You should constantly re-evaluate how you respond to both positive and negative comments and try new approaches from time to time.  Keep things fresh.

Tuesday Tips are a series of tips released on Tuesday each week regarding a hint or tip to help you manage and market your Facebook presence better.  You can find all the Tuesday Tips by clicking on the Tuesday Tips tag below.