Archive for the ‘Facebook’ Category

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Who does the world think you are?

June 19, 2013

Facebook advertisingApparently I’m someone who is interested in Adult Fantasy Games, the odd bet and I wouldn’t mind driving the new Volvo V40.

I’d like to go on holidays to Tuscany after needing the help of a Retail Consultant and playing some more adult fantasy games!

LinkedIn AdvertisingWhen I get serious I’m interested in ERP (excuse my ignorance but I have no idea what that is) for small business, a white board device for waking up ideas and I might even like to earn some extra money.

When I’m done with all of that I might like to find a new  file sharing platform while I take on my one year diploma course in Corporate Governance with DCU.

Finally I might be interested in switching to UPC.

Interesting person!!

Social Media Advertising

This is a sample of the advertising that is being targeted at me across Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

With all of the different social media platforms it is possible to do some very specific targeting with your advertising campaigns.

Facebook – this probably has the biggest targeting capability as it can focus on your location (as precise as towns), age, personal status and declared personal interests.

For the advertiser  it works on either a pay per click basis (you only pay when someone clicks your advert) or on impressions (the number of times your advert has been shown).

You set a daily budget and you also have the capability of setting a maximum amount per click. The big limitation with Facebook advertising is that most people are in a very social frame of mind when they are using the platform so it probably isn’t great for “heavy” topics.

With Facebook you can also enjoy an element of what I call “endorsed” or “trust” advertising – where you see an advert and it declares that one of your friends likes that brand/product. If you want extra oomph from your page posts you can invest a few bob to push them out to the people who have liked your pages and their friends.

We have found it to be quite effective for many of our clients.

LinkedIn – the targeting capability for advertisers is really good here with options around location (just country so far), age, seniority, the size of the company the person works for, job role, sector and you can even target Groups that have been set up. This also operates on a pay per click basis (these are quite expensive) – you set the maximum per click and a daily budget.

I haven’t used it yet for clients but I have experimented with it for Fuzion – we have won some business as a result.

Twitter ADvertisingTwitter – advertising on twitter is still in it’s infancy and my feeling is that targeting will be more difficult because a user provides limited information when they set up their account. However if you read the blurb twitter reckon you can target by gender, geography and special interests (it must track the content of your tweets  or maybe who you are following to assess this – it might be tricky to target the huge number of users on twitter who lurk and never tweet). You have a choice between promoting your account or pushing your tweets into peoples twitter feed).

We haven’t used twitter advertising for any clients yet.

Collectively across all platforms there is a lot of information and capability that can help you target customers – the skill is knowing who your customer might be and using the targeting tools to attract their attention.

For the record when it comes to me other than a trip to Tuscany (off there next week!), Facebook marketing and pulling my hair out with Sky last Christmas the world just doesn’t know me at all.

I definitely have no interest in adult fantasy games… (al least that what I keep telling everyone!)

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion 

Fuzion with offices in Cork and Dublin in Ireland provide Social Media Consultancy and Training services.

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Posted in Advertising, Facebook, LinkedIn, Motivation, Online Advertising, Social Media, Web Marketing | 2 Comments »

Snap into it

May 17, 2013
Bueller

Anyone, anyone, anyone?

“Snap out of it” I had to tell myself.

I do a lot of social media training and consultancy both directly for  clients and as part of organised courses for the Enterprise Boards and the Digital Marketing Institute.

I use a suite of materials to deliver this training including some very detailed notes that cover the whole area including blogging, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and some of the other emerging platforms and trends in social media.

In the last few weeks I have found myself delivering a huge volume of training and on this particular day I found myself delivering a module to a client group in the morning and a similar programme in the evening to a group of SME’s as part of training for one of the Enterprise Boards.

Facing into delivering the same material on literally the same day and feeling really tired my motivation level had dropped.

I started to question myself as I drove to the hotel:

Was I getting bored with my own material?  

Would I be able to deliver a good session?

I was wallowing ..

Hold on (big conversation with self!)…you have been crafting your training materials for a few years, you have continuously improved the programme, you not only understand the material intimately but you know how to deliver it in a way that keeps the group engaged and learning – Besides you know you are passionate about this whole area.

This group of SME’s have signed up for the programme, they have given up their evenings to learn about something that could make a big difference for their business and you know you can show them how, in a really practical way.

After giving myself a few virtual slaps in the face and a big kick up the bum I managed to change my gears and open that door – “who wants to tell world about how great their business is?”

We had a great session ..in fact it was the best reaction to a session that I had in the last few weeks and after it I was buzzing.

What you get from any group at a meeting or a presentation is often down to what you bring in the door with you ..your frame of mind, your attitude, your belief, your energy and your enthusiasm.

Snap into it ..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion with offices in Cork and Dublin offer social media training and consultancy in Ireland

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Posted in Blogging, Facebook, Marketing, Motivation, Personal development, Positivity, Social Media, Training, Twitter | 5 Comments »

Are you leaving breadcrumbs?

April 20, 2013

Leaving breadcrumbs

“You are doing a lot of work in Dublin these days” she said to me.

“We are, but how did you know that?” I asked

“Oh ..I figured that out from your Facebook posts” she said

That conversation was about five years ago and it was at an event for a client in Dublin – for me it was what I call my “penny drop” moment about social media. At that time I was using Facebook, just like everyone else posting the odd thing about what I was doing and where I was going. In fact, I think I wasn’t that sure what I should have been posting and even how relevant social media might be for business.

It dawned on me that with every post you make people are watching, digesting and forming impressions about you and what you are all about. Often they won’t comment, reply or even “like” your posts, but they are listening and soaking up what you are saying.

From that moment I realised the power of social media and the importance of having a clear idea about what picture of you and your business you want to portray.

Every status update, every tweet, every retweet, every like, every share, every favourite, every discussion, every hashtag and every blog post are all little breadcrumbs that you leave to bring the reader to a place you wanted to take them.

Are you leaving breadcrumbs?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion with offices in Cork and Dublin offer social media training and consultancy in Ireland.

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Posted in Blogging, Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter, Web Marketing | 12 Comments »

Can you teach someone to Speak like you?

January 28, 2013
His Masters Voice

Learning to speak like you?

That penny has finally dropped and businesses seem to be embracing social media – judging from the level of enquiries we have for consultancy and training and judging by the new social media agencies that are setting up it looks like that moment is here.

Social media is a huge opportunity to communicate, to interact, to make new connections and to build genuine rapport with customers, prospects and other people in business.

Have a peep at a lot of the adverts by some of the large companies and notice how they are all including their Facebook address prominently – why are they pushing this instead of their website?

They want to bring people to a place where they can interact with their brand, bring their unique personality to life and have the opportunity to build genuine “followers” instead of taking to them to their website.

Getting there ..

While this penny seems to have dropped many businesses while realising the importance of social media believe they do not have the skills to execute it properly. Often the solution to this dilemma is to outsource their social media activity to an agency, which is creating opportunities for all of us working in this space.

While this may seem like a solution it really isn’t – I’m probably shooting myself in both feet by saying this but it is our genuine belief that your voice should not be outsourced.

Expertise - Einstein

It’s really simple – no one will have your knowledge, your passion and your insights and this is what you need to fuel and maximise your social media activity.

Passing your voice to an agency, who will never understand your business the same way that you do is giving away the magic that brings social media to life. Not only will you miss the magic but you will also miss the valuable learnings that social media interactions will bring you about your business, your products, services, sector and your competition.

My only exception here might be during an interim period or during a busy campaign where you might require an extra pair of hands and eyes to support your own teams efforts.

Instead of paying someone to speak on your behalf (in a way that will never be as good as you) why not you or some member of your team spend the time and budget to learn how to use these social media platforms properly – once you know how, you will fly!.

You can never teach someone to speak with your voice – it’s impossible.

It’s your voice they want to hear ..

Greg Canty is a parter in Fuzion

Fuzion provide social media training and consultancy from our offices in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter, Web Marketing | 7 Comments »

Christmas Interruption ..

December 28, 2012
interrupting christmas

Spend time with your loved ones!

“60% off nearly all stock tomorrow”

When someone likes our Facebook business page, follows our business on twitter, signs up for our newsletter or follows our company blog  in effect they give us permission to send them updates, news about our business and general communication. When they “sign up” they can’t control when we might interrupt them ..when it happens, about what or how often.

Permission to interrupt is a precious gift that we should respect.

In this “social media” age it’s become part of our ritual to check Facebook and Twitter , even on Christmas morning to see what our on-line buddies are up to, including friends and family – it brings us close ..I’m looking at friend’s children open their Christmas presents, I’m watching other friends having fun pictured in their new Munster Rugby Jerseys, I’m watching family pictures, I’m watching family reunions, I’m watching my “circle” cracking jokes and enjoying their precious family day ..

In between all of this I’m also watching supermarkets,coffee shops, gift shops, hotels, breweries and APP suppliers pitching in …in fairness most of them are wishing me Merry Christmas but a few are way too enthusiastic trying to sell, announcing their sales or offering special deals.

Most of these posts will have been scheduled in advance while their social media personnel were at work before the holidays and definitely not on Christmas day!

For everyone in business …with social media there is a time to interrupt and a time to definitely not interrupt. Christmas day, is a day when it is better not to say anything even when you think you have permission …you don’t!

Merry Christmas!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion provide social media consultancy and training from our offices in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Customer Care, Facebook, Holidays, LinkedIn, Twitter, Web Marketing | 4 Comments »

Erin, Ciara and Cyber Bullying

November 1, 2012

Teenage DiscoI remember being 13 – it was one of the years I enjoyed most in my life!

I was hanging around with a cool gang, I was discovering Deep Purple, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, I played football day and night – it was a time when we were gaining independence but without  too much responsibility and the “big” school exams were still  a few years away.

And of course there were the girls, the first disco’s (Highfield Rugby Club) …life was great!

Erin Gallagher - victim of cyber bullyingHow could the age of 13 end up being so different for Erin Gallagher in 2012?

I struggle to get my head around how she felt and how social media, something I enjoy so much could play a part in making her so miserable that she took a decision to end her beautiful life.

Just like Ciara Pugsley a few weeks earlier, taking her own life was her best solution to cope with what she was going through.

Social Media?

Of course social media isn’t to blame.

However social media unfortunately provides bullies (let’s face it – they have always existed) with more ammo, with a thicker skin and the ability to bully from a distance and often with a degree of anonymity.

This is why we have a responsibility to step up to the mark and go further than ever before to make sure that bullying is highlighted and that the bullies are stopped and exposed.

Parents & teachers

It’s no longer enough that we can plead ignorance and dismiss Facebook and the other social media platforms as being something for the young folk.

It’s no longer enough to ban our children from using the platforms – they will anyhow.

To protect our vulnerable children we need to jump in ourselves, learn and understand how these powerful and very useful social media platforms work, discover the risks and plan so that these can be managed and minimised.

Lead the way

We owe it to our kids to show them how to:

  • Set up their personal accounts properly
  • Maintain their privacy settings
  • Connect with “friends” safely
  • Think about what they post
  • Post appropriately
  • Spot and deal with inappropriate behaviour
  • “Unfriend” and Block certain users
  • Report Bullying

All of the functionality and procedures are in place to make this possible – learn about them.

Please download our “Safebook” poster , which is a simple aid for parents and teachers to help promote the responsible and safe use of Social Media and assist them in a bullying or inappropriate situation.

If our child is drowning they must know how to help themselves and must know when to ask for help.

Ciara Pugsley - victim of cyber bullyingWe owe it to the memory of Erin and Ciara, their parents, friends and families to take responsibility and help to make our exciting new world a great place for every 13 year old.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion provide Social Media Training and Consultancy in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Bullying, Facebook, Parenting, Social Media | 15 Comments »

Facebook – Targeting your posts

October 21, 2012
Bra fitting service

It won’t fit everyone!

Maybe you don’t want every post from your Facebook business page reach every single viewer.

A great feature has just come on stream with Facebook which gives you the ability to control exactly this scenario.

Why might you do this?

With a particular post you might want to limit it to fans of your page who live locally or who are in a particular age group. Sometimes you may want to just target your post at members of a particular sex or with a particular personal status.

A department store who are running a special promotion on bra fitting may not want to interrupt their male audience with such a message, running the risk of them deciding to unlike the page.

A restaurant may not want to annoy viewers who are single when they are promoting specials on Valentines day – it might just annoy them!

How does it work?

Target post on Facebook

Who do you want to see this post?

When you are writing your post before you publish it you can choose to target the audience for this post be clicking on the “target” button, which can be seen on the bottom left corner of the post window alongside the timing button. (you must first enable this feature in your page settings – see below)

From here you can make your audience selection, which gives you a wide range of choices enabling you to limit the reach of your post.  Once you decide to publish, the post will only appear in the newsfeed of those fans that match your selected criteria.

The criteria includes gender, location, age, relationship status, education and interests.

If your fans choose to share that post it will only appear in the newsfeed of their friends that match that criteria.

The post will appear on your wall as normal visible to everyone who visits your page.

Enabling the Post Targeting feature

If your want to use this feature you must first enable the post privacy gating feature for your Facebook page – what a terrible name for the feature!

To do this you must go to the edit page menu that appears at the top of your admin panel. From here click into the manage permissions menu and you will see the “post privacy gating” option towards the end of the page, which you enable by just clicking the box.

Once you have done this the “target” feature\icon will appear as an option in the post comment window as already described.

Well done Facebook !! – its a great new feature.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion offer Social Media Consultancy and Training from our offices in Cork and Dublin.

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Posted in Direct Marketing, Facebook, Marketing, Social Media | 5 Comments »

Social Media – End of the Auto-Post?

July 2, 2012
Social Media Training - LinkedIn

How often do you post an update on LinkedIn? – thought so !

Over the last few days you may have noticed a message from LinkedIn advising that your “tweets” will no longer appear automatically as status updates on LinkedIn.

If you didn’t have this feature switched on it obviously makes  no difference to you but if you did you need to consider how this affects your social media activity.

Twitter to LinkedIn

I’m not sure what is behind this change but I am suspecting that LinkedIn may want you to post directly from their platform – at least this way you will have to open up your LinkedIn dashboard to make a post and hopefully (for them) notice some adverts that are of interest to you. Clicking these makes them money by the way!

The big problem that I see here is that most people do not consume their social media from LinkedIn – yep, we connect, search for contacts but very very few of us are actually consuming – am I wrong? Is this their effort to make themselves part of the conversation and more relevant?

LinkedIn to Twitter

You can see from the graphic above that it is still possible to push your LinkedIn posts to Twitter once you click the little twitter box at the bottom of the post.

Twitter to Facebook

Another recent development I have noticed is that my Twitter posts are no longer being pushed to Facebook  despite all the connections being switched on. I have disconnected and refreshed the connection but it has made no difference.

I am starting to think that Facebook like LinkedIn want the user to log on directly to their platform to post updates, again in the hope that you will spot some adverts and make them a few bob!

Facebook to Twitter

I’m not sure if it is a coincidence but in line with this lapse in functionality Facebook are promoting their auto posts to Twitter feature quite actively when you log on. Hmmm ..

Robot Using a Computer!

Automation isn’t always good ..

Consequence?

So what does all of this mean to the heavy social media user who is quite active on all platforms and was enjoying the benefit of these time saving applications. Effectively you could post once on Twitter and this post would replicate on both Facebook and LinkedIn. This is what I was doing myself.

Maybe it’s a good thing?

I think you should embrace the change and treat it as a good thing.

Auto posts from Twitter were never the best idea for a number of reasons:

  • You can allow yourself to post more often and repeat posts on Twitter (this frequency could come across as “spam” on Facebook and LinkedIn)
  • If you have posts of a visual nature you are better going to Facebook and posting there directly – when you post from Twitter any link was just appearing as a link.
  • The platforms are quite different and while auto-post can be ok most of the time, often your “tweet” may be inappropriate on LinkedIn and maybe on Facebook
  • I find that if you use the “auto-post” feature you actually start to miss some of the action on the other platforms – they all do a different job for you, don’t forget that.
  • Users of LinkedIn and Facebook may not get all of the @gregcantyfuzion and the hash tag #FF, #Positivity “stuff” and can find it quite annoying and distracting from the actual message

My best advice is to treat each of the social media platforms differently, post separately as appropriate and for ultimate control use tools like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite as time saving devices. Using these you can select the destination for each of your updates (be it to any of your twitter accounts, your facebook personal or business pages).

The schedule facility on these platforms is an extra bonus, which can also be very handy.

LinkedIn

Regarding LinkedIn status updates I don’t see the change making the platform more relevant – If anything it could actually have the opposite effect!

If you wish to make an impact here try:

  • Participating in discussions on Groups you have joined
  • Start discussions in Groups you have joined
  • Start Asking and Answering Questions that have been posted for your industry sector/area of expertise

But I don’t have the time .. (this must be the one thing I hear most from people about social media)

Heh, that’s not my problem …if you have figured out that social media is good for your business then you’ll make the time!

Happy Posting ..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion PR

Note:

If you need a helping hand with your social media effectiveness check out our Social Media Training / Social Media Consultancy services.

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Posted in Facebook, LinkedIn, Marketing, Social Media, Training, Twitter | 10 Comments »

Facebook – It’s all about Timing!

June 25, 2012

After the major changes that we saw with Facebook Business Pages (for me they converted these pages into mini-websites) at the end of March and after the global social media giant went public shortly after, we have now seen a few more little but quite significant changes that have improved the functionality for all business users.

Facebook - scheduling your postsTiming!

Now it is possible to schedule your posts on your business page – the next time you start to post click on the little “clock” button below the window, which opens up a range of options that will allow you to schedule a post by year/month/date/hour/minute.

This is an excellent function that allows a busy business owner to schedule posts when they get a chance. It’s clearly best to be on-line so you can respond quickly to  comments but at times this may not be possible.

Hierarchy for Administrators

adding administrators on facebookWhen we work with clients and students at our social media training sessions I used always give them the “Admin Warning” – basically all administrators are created equal. Effectively someone you make an Administrator of your business page on Facebook immediately had the same power as you and could actually remove you if they wished.

This “feature” always petrified business owners – a disgruntled employee could cause a lot of damage with a few key strokes and some novel content!

Facebook have now created a hierarchy so it is now possible for you to give users Admin access but you can limit each users power. At the top of the tree there is the Administrator who has the power to allow and remove users.

Below this there are a number of different levels, each with decreasing powers using the headings; Content Creator, Moderator, Advertiser and Insights Analyst. This improved functionality allows a page owner to allow access to various individuals to work on the page but only to a level that they need to.

No doubt we will continue to see more changes that will make Facebook better and more relevant for business users … It’s all about Timing!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Posted in Facebook, Social Media | Leave a Comment »

Facebook – “Show Me the Money !”

June 11, 2012
Show me the money

Show me the money !!

I was doing a simple status update on the Fuzion Facebook business page and I noticed a “notification” window open up that I had not spotted before.

“Promote this post to get more views and comments” the notification window shouted at me. I already knew that I could create an advert for specific posts but it had never been waved at me so blatantly.

Between the changes to business pages that went through at the end of March, the stricter rules about running competitions and no longer being able to specify “landing” pages, Facebook are really hitting the brakes on your ability to generate activity and “likes” without writing a cheque…. the free ride is over.

promoted posts - facebookFor the business page owner/administrator you need to provide huge value, personality and clever content to make it attractive for users to “like” your page or you must simply write a cheque.

Facebook is now serious business and we have officially entered the era of “Show me the Money”

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Advertising, Facebook, Marketing, Online Advertising, Social Media | 1 Comment »

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