Almost Savvy

How-to: View and Organize Fan Pages on Facebook

Irene Koehler — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:34:39 +0000

Today’s post is in response to a question I’ve received from a few people lately. With the most recent redesign of Facebook, some people are finding it much more difficult to keep up with their favorite fan pages as their updates drift by in the stream along with your friends’ status updates. Most often, you’ve joined a fan page because you’re hoping to learn, interact, take advantage of limited-time deals, etc. Much of this takes place in real time, so you may have missed an opportunity if you don’t see the update until a few days after it was posted.

Here is a quick and easy way to organize your content stream on Facebook using Friends Lists, so that you will be more likely to see the updates from your favorite pages.

You can easily take this a step further if you have a lot of fan pages you’d like to track closely. Simply create more than one list. You may want to create separate lists for business fan pages, retail fan pages, and hobby fan pages. Organize them in a way which makes your favorite content easier to find.

Was this tip helpful? Do you try to keep up with groups and fan pages that you join on Facebook?

What other questions would you like to see answered in this way?

Coming Soon: An Interview with YOU!

Irene Koehler — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:40:09 +0000

As the blog’s readership and community have grown, I’m continually impressed with all of you. I’m pretty sure that I’ve learned far more from you than you have from me. You share your thoughts by commenting on blog posts, sending emails and tweets, and participating on my Facebook fan page. Through all of my activity online, I’ve met so many fabulous people I never would have met otherwise. We’ve done business together. We’ve helped out each other when one was in the midst of a crisis (OK, so that was mostly me in the midst of a crisis). We’ve become friends.

There is no reason I should keep all of this networking and connection awesome-ness to myself. I’d like to do a better job of bringing you all into the conversation. Sure, you are talking with me, but I’d like to do more to involve you in the learning and teaching, while giving you a chance to get to know each other, too. With this in mind, I am hoping to do regular features about YOU!

I’m not yet sure how frequently I’ll post these features; that depends on a number of factors, including your feedback on the idea. I would record a short interview to learn a little about you and how you use social media, possibly including any questions or tips you may have. At least for now, I’m thinking this would be open to any interested members of the AlmostSavvy fan page who have access to a webcam and mic/speakers.

Your Feedback Is Everything

I’d very much like your feedback. Would you be interested in being featured? What suggestions do you have about how you’d like to see this implemented? And, if I do go ahead with these features, I’ll need a snappy name for them – any suggestions?

Do You Have a Digital Business Card? (Register for .tel for free)

Irene Koehler — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:12:41 +0000

We all want to be found more easily online when our friends, potential clients and employers Google us. We’ve set up our LinkedIn profiles, started blogging, created websites, invited others to be our friends on Facebook and tweeted like crazy on Twitter. With all of these fragmented presences online, wouldn’t it be nice to have a directory of all the places we can be found, plus the option to include our email address, phone number and tags which help the right people find us and get in touch? That way, we could direct people to just one place to be referred to the various ways to contact us and find out what we’re up to. It’s sort of like a virtual phone book; you remember the phone book, don’t you? They used to be useful way back when, before we found contact information online and started using them only as doorstops and booster seats for kids not tall enough to reach the dining table.

There are plenty of easy ways to do this now. Each offers their own features and options for customization and discoverability. Among the options are:

Today, I am focusing on registering a .tel domain (you may be more familiar with other domains, such as .com, .net and .org). To help me understand the benefits of owning my .tel domain, I met with Vincent Largilliere of Digitrad, who was kind enough to walk me through the set-up. First, it is important to understand that registering a .tel domain is similar to registering any domain – it is not free, unlike the other sites I’ve listed above. For that fee, though, you have more control of your information because it is a completely different site, rather than just a page on someone else’s site. I encourage you to look at the features of each type of directory listing. There is no reason you can’t use more than one of the options above.

What is .tel?

From the Digitrad website:

(click image to enlarge)

The .tel allows you to store, publish and update online all your contact information and keywords under your unique domain name, without the need for a website

> For individuals, .tel is a business card fully secure and customizable.

> For companies, .tel is both a limited public directory open to customers, and a internal directory, complete and secure for you and your co-workers .

All the extensions are identical, .tel is different: classical extensions link a website to an address, .tel links an address to an identity. This is its specificity and main strength.

.tel will allow you to increase your visibility on the Internet, to optimize your referencing, but also and more importantly to manage your personal digital identity as you see it, with the flexibility and the security that you need

More information can be found on the Digitrad website here.

Want to register .tel for free?

Vincent has offered free registration of a .tel account for AlmostSavvy readers. If you’d like to grab a year’s free registration of your very own .tel account, take a look at the video and keep reading.

In the video, Vincent answers a few questions about the value of .tel and walks me through the set-up process. You’ll note that I had to do quite a bit of editing (it seems we both talk too much!).

Following our session, I continued the set-up process. Take a peek at IreneKoehler.tel now.

To get a code for free registration of your own .tel account, simply add a comment below sharing why you’d like to try it out. Be sure to add a valid email address in the appropriate field (that’s how I’ll get the code to you).

Many thanks to Vincent and Digitrad for offering free registration to AlmostSavvy readers to allow you to see for yourself how you might use it to your own best advantage to manage your online reputation and visibility.

Thanks also to the kind folks at the Skoll Foundation who loaned us their conference room to tape the interview above, and thanks to Adin Miller for connecting me with the Skoll Foundation.

Also, in the name of full disclosure, Vincent did buy me a crepe while I was in Paris attending LeWeb. The crepe was not in exchange for this blog post, but I understand that perception is everything. Frankly, if anyone ever wanted to compensate me for a blog post, I’d hope the going rate would be something greater than one crepe and an offer to give blog readers a discount code. Evidence of said crepe.

Ready for Yet Another Social Platform? Here Comes Google Buzz

Irene Koehler — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:58:30 +0000

Are you ready for a new social platform? Here comes Google Buzz, which brings social elements right into you?Gmail inbox.

With so many of us using Gmail, this just might stick. It will be rolling out over the next week. You’ll be notified when it is live for your account.

As of now, it will integrate will services including Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, and Google Reader. You will be able to connect with Twitter, but only to pull in content, not to publish tweets (at least, not yet). Facebook is absent from the list.

As always, I’ll give it a try and get a feel of how it can work best for me. Right now, I retreat to Gmail to hunker down and get work done. If I have the ability to customize Buzz and turn on/off at will, then life will be much easier.

I see huge potential upside to Buzz. With the power of the enormously popular Google products and an already built-in user base, this could be a winner. More accessible than other networks, but less geeky and intimidating than Google Wave. Some have labeled this the “Twitter killer,” haven’t we heard that before about other new?platforms? We’ll have to wait and see.

Robert Scoble has written an interesting and more detailed post about why he believes, after several failed attempts by Google to go social, Buzz just might succeed. TechCrunch has also published a post on why Buzz may gain traction in ways Wave has not yet been able to achieve. Both posts are great reads for those wanted more detail and analysis.

What do you think? Will you give it a try? Take a look at the high-level overview from Google and let me know your thoughts.

LinkedIn Lets You Show Off Your Best Assets

Irene Koehler — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:08:35 +0000

So you think LinkedIn isn’t as sexy as Twitter, Facebook or other networking sites? I encourage you to think again. If providing the most powerful professional networking and job search platform around is sexy, then I’d say it’s pretty sexy.

And, it just got a little sexier in that you can now show off your best assets more prominently. No, I’m not talking about push-up bras; the change I’m talking about allows you to bring more attention to your professional assets.

Until now, the LinkedIn profile was very structured and inflexible in its design:

Summary and Specialties
Applications (i.e., Blog, SlideShare, etc.)
Experience
Education
Recommendations

These sections were listed in this order and there was nothing you could do to change things around. If you wanted potential employers to know that you’d just received a PhD in Astrophysics from Harvard, you had to hope they had the patience to read through all of your part-time jobs as a paper-boy and as a cashier 7-11 to find your education way down at the bottom.

Enter drag-and-drop. You can now rearrange these sections and move the most important information to the top. Have you worked with Bill Gates and want everyone to see his recommendation praising your role in building Microsoft? Move your recommendations to the top. Have you increased sales for your company over 500% in the last year? Upload a slide showing the results to SlideShare and move it where it will best show off your talents.

Kudos to LinkedIn for allowing us to take more control over the look and feel of our profiles. In the future, I’d like to see the ability to drag and drop pieces of these sections, rather than the entire section. For example, when you move recommendations to the top to highlight the feedback from Bill Gates, all of your other recommendations move, too, which might make it difficult for someone to scroll down to find your skills and experience. Still, this is a fabulous step in the right direction.

Take a peek at the LinkedIn video and let me know in the comments what you think of this new feature.

Happy Holidays! Please Enjoy This Spam

Irene Koehler — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:25:23 +0000

Over the last few weeks, I have been inundated with holiday cards and greetings of all types. While this is typical at this time of year, this is the first time I received so many automated cards and emails, most of them from people I don’t really know.

On Facebook, there are applications which allow you to post a greeting card to the “wall” of all of your Facebook friends. Once I started receiving a lot of these, I deleted them from my wall as it made it difficult for someone to find my “real” content, the stuff I wanted to have on my wall. On LinkedIn, I received email from many of my connections wishing me well, but these were broadcast messages, not sent to me specifically. And, most of them included information about the sender’s product or service or request for help in a job search. “Happy holidays. Click here to find out more about me.” Makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

While I know most people had good intentions, being on the receiving end of these impersonal messages began to feel like I was being spammed. I felt that they were taking advantage of technology which made things easier on their end without regard for those on the receiving end. Yeah, I know that receiving those long holiday letters about what extraordinary things your neighbor, Bertha, and her kids have been up to over the last year can be seen as impersonal also, but at least these came from “real” friends and family and were specifically addressed to us.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for taking the green high-road and saving trees along the way, but you can keep your spam. And, furthermore, don’t send me any more spam disguised as holiday fruitcake personal greetings.

Image courtesy of pandemia

Hey, Facebook, It?s Me ? Really! (Just Ask the Goat)

Irene Koehler — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 00:24:49 +0000

OK, people, who tagged the photo of the goat on Facebook? You know who you are. Stay right there; I?ll deal with you in a minute.

So, here I was doing my usual social media evening check-in to see who?s doing what and what?s news. I happened to see some news of yet *another* virus of some sort spreading throughout Facebook, appearing to come in the form of a status update from your Facebook friends. After reading a bit about it, I went straight to Facebook to post a warning to the AlmostSavvy fan page and to my own profile letting others know to avoid clicking on certain links. I did not include any links in my post, but did include the name of the allegedly malicious site.

After a couple of attempts to post the information, I was informed that I had been locked out of Facebook. Apparently, other users had flagged the name of the malicious link and when I tried to share it, Facebook couldn?t tell if I was one of the good guys or one of the bad guys trying to spread it around. Now, I?d think the fact that I only included the name of the site and no actual link might have given them a clue, but the approach seems to be ?when in doubt, lock them out.?

Annoying as it was for me, I can?t say that I blame them for immediately locking down on anything that seems possibly suspicious. The good news is that I was immediately directed through several steps to prove two things in order to regain access to my account: 1. that I am a real human, and 2. that I am, in fact, me. One might hope that proving point #2 might make #1 unnecessary, but I was willing to play along (not that I had any choice).

Proving that I am human is simple and accomplished through CAPTCHA. Easy, done in two seconds. What followed was much more complex. I was shown a supposedly random series of photos tagged as being of some of my Facebook friends. As with many on Facebook, some of my friends are *really* my friends whom I easily recognize. Others, well, picking them out of a police lineup might be a challenge.

For each photo, I was shown 5 friends? names. I had to select the correct name or click ?I?m not sure.? The instructions indicated that only two ?I?m not sure? answers are permitted in the series, and that is assuming that the correct name is chosen for the remaining photos. Knowing this, I felt the pressure to select a name as each photo appeared.

With so much on the line, I quickly came to the following conclusions:

I need to keep in touch with more of you so that I am better able to recognize your gorgeous faces
Many of my friends are terrible photographers, awkward photographic subjects, have or once were children, and/or are just plain wacky.

Imagine my joy as I was asked to identify photos which included:

20-30 year old wedding and school photos (Did we really dress like that in the 80?s?)
Small children with the family dog (Is that you when you were a wee youngster, your child, your neighbor?s child?)
A large crowd of people fishing at a lake (Can?t even tell which person is tagged in the crowd.)
People smushing their faces in the most awful way (probably when the photographer said, ?Now, let?s take a funny one.?)
The back of someone?s head in the audience at a large event (A guy with black hair. Helpful, thanks!)
A goat (OK, which of you allowed one of your friends to tag a goat with your name? Friends don?t let friends tag goats.)

Not surprisingly, I failed the test. When you fail, you aren?t given a score. I have no idea how many I missed, but it was enough to make my true identity open to suspicion. I?m assuming that I failed miserably, thanks to you and your funky photos.

For my next attempt, I summoned assistance. The college kid is home for winter break and, while she knows only a few of my friends, she?s one sharp cookie. I knew her input certainly couldn?t hurt. I wanted to either pass or have her laugh along with me at your impossible-to-identify photos as I failed once again. Together, we reasoned through the choices for each photo. One guy had a partially visible nametag. One bride I narrowed down to one of two names on the list and took my best shot. And the goat? I may never know. I was forced to choose the ?I?m not sure? option and hope that I had enough correct answers to pass this time. And pass I did.

So, what did we learn?

Be careful about what you post to Facebook, especially when it comes to anything related to security risks because someone may have flagged it as problematic.

And, you with the smushy face, the tagged back of the head and the goat?I?d like to speak to each of you privately after class. We?ve You?ve got issues we ought to discuss.

What is Your Favorite “Real-time” Tool?

Irene Koehler — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:10:00 +0000

The theme of LeWeb ‘09 was “The Real-time Web,” but what exactly “is” real-time? And, at what point, do real-time tools stop being new toys which only truly-geeky people use and start becoming so embedded into our everyday lives that we don’t really think about them, but can’t imagine living without them?

While most of the conversation at LeWeb was fairly technical and focused on what’s ahead, such as exciting new applications and tech start-ups, I wondered what tools these uber-geeky folks are using day-to-day in their real lives which are simple enough for the rest of us non-geeks to use.

I invite you to hear from some of the attendees as they share a few of their favorite tools. Let me know in the comments which tool is your favorite and why you’re a fan.

LeWeb Bingo! Watch and Play Along!

Irene Koehler — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 11:06:43 +0000

Here in Paris, the excitement about LeWeb is palpable. While the actual conference will take place over the next two days, there are many pre-conference parties and activities today.? I’m thrilled to be here as one of the LeWeb Official Bloggers and looking forward to meeting many of my peers from around the world.

One peek at the agenda and it is easy to see that the conference is packed full of meaty content. For those of you who aren’t lucky enough to be here, you may watch the events below. If for any reason, the embedded videos don’t work, just go to the LeWeb homepage, I’m sure there will be an updated link, if needed.

Whether you are participating in person or via the web, I invite you to have a little fun with the content by playing LeWeb Bingo. If you’ve never played bingo, it works like this:

Print one or both Bingo “cards” and keep it with you as you listen to the presentations. (To print, click on the image once, then click on it again. You’ll get a nice, large image suitable for printing.)
As you hear one of the speakers use one of the terms listed somewhere on the Bingo card, place a large X in that square.
The center square is a “free” spot. It automatically counts as having an X.
When you have an entire row, column or diagonal filled with X’s, you have Bingo! (I only advise yelling the traditional “Bingo!” if you are watching remotely and are alone at home. Yelling at the conference is done at your own risk.)
If you really want to win it all, go for a “blackout” – which means you continue to play until all squares on your card have an X. (And, by “win it all”, I mean that you get absolutely nothing as there are no prizes at all. You may, however, feel free to wager with a friend to see who will achieve “blackout” first.)

Let the games – and the exciting presentations – begin!

Live streaming from the Main Stage at LeWeb:
Video chat rooms at Ustream

Live streaming from Salle 400 at LeWeb:
Live TV : Ustream

Moments and The Power of Not Laughing

Irene Koehler — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:50:53 +0000

I didn’t know what to expect. The guy was a complete stranger, yet here we were having a delightful and very natural conversation. We talked about our kids, observations about life and social media.

A few days prior to our meeting, I saw a tweet from this guy saying he’d be in the Bay Area and asking if anyone wanted to get together. Twitter, at that time (about two years ago), was a much more intimate place. While I didn’t know him at all, I went to his profile to read a few of his tweets. He seemed like a friendly person who had a passion for using social media to connect with others. I was relatively new to Twitter at the time and decided to take a chance. He and I had never interacted before, but what’s the worst that could happen? I replied to his tweet, half-expecting not to hear back from him. But, I did.

There are moments in each of our lives when the path isn’t clear. We can keep on doing what we’ve been doing and be just fine, or we can take a chance, challenge ourselves and try something new. I wouldn’t realize until later that this was one of those moments for me.

I began my career in the corporate world somewhere around the dawn of time, but had been developing an interest and some level of expertise in social media and reputation management for quite some time. It wasn’t an intentional shift, it naturally evolved over time. A friend, who knew of my growing interest and skills, invited me to speak to a local organization and share some tips. The presentation was well received and the requests for me to speak and coach others began to pour in. I had already been a huge LinkedIn user and advocate for years prior to this and, similarly, was frequently asked to help others learn how to best use the tool.

I have no tech background, unless you count the two weeks I spent in college with keypunch cards. I didn’t get my first email account until I was well into my career. I wouldn’t know code if it ran over me. The first time I posted an event to Eventbrite, it took me an entire day – one from-morning-til-night day. It was new to me; this was all new to me. I pushed myself. I was frustrated. I was having fun. I had forgotten what it was like to have fun.

When I coached others, I often used myself as an example. “If I can learn to do it, so can you. I will be here to help you.” I found that this “take it slow” approach resonated with smart and talented people who happened to be just a little bit behind me in the learning curve. Still, I was doing this as a side project along with my other work. Inside, I wondered where this might take me. Was I too old to have a voice or have something to contribute? Would I make a fool out of myself because of my lack of tech skills? These and other questions had been churning in my mind, yet I had never shared my vision or concerns aloud.

He teased me about my social life. That’s when I knew we had connected. I somehow trusted him and wanted to get his feedback. His expertise far exceeded my own. He’s far younger than I am. I knew he had a completely different point of view, which is exactly what I wanted.

As I talked about the voice and presence I hoped to have, I expected him to laugh at the thought of someone from a pre-interenet generation imagining that they had something of value to share. I had already rationalized in my head that it would be OK if he laughed. I was ready for it, but it never happened. He immediately smiled and told me there was a great need for someone like me. He even offered helpful suggestions for next steps.

Looking back, there is no doubt that this was a moment for me. A guy with no agenda other than to be supportive and kind allowed me to take a leap of faith, saying aloud what had only been inside. After spending the afternoon together at a sidewalk cafe, I left feeling confident and energized. He smiled, he nodded, he bought me juice. And, he didn’t laugh at me.

We seldom know when others are in the midst of such a moment. They may not know it themselves. As they share what is on their minds, I wonder… Am I fully listening? Am I connecting? Am I being supportive?

I will forever be grateful for that wonderful afternoon with the nice guy who felt comfortable enough to tease me and who didn’t laugh. Thank you, Chris Brogan, for treating all moments as if they are important.

Image courtesy of *clairity*

Almost Savvy

How-to: View and Organize Fan Pages on Facebook

Related articles which may interest you:

Coming Soon: An Interview with YOU!

Your Feedback Is Everything

Related articles which may interest you:

Do You Have a Digital Business Card? (Register for .tel for free)

What is .tel?

Want to register .tel for free?

Related articles which may interest you:

Ready for Yet Another Social Platform? Here Comes Google Buzz

Related articles which may interest you:

LinkedIn Lets You Show Off Your Best Assets

Related articles which may interest you:

Happy Holidays! Please Enjoy This Spam

Related articles which may interest you:

Hey, Facebook, It?s Me ? Really! (Just Ask the Goat)

With so much on the line, I quickly came to the following conclusions:

Imagine my joy as I was asked to identify photos which included:

So, what did we learn?

Related articles which may interest you:

What is Your Favorite “Real-time” Tool?

Related articles which may interest you:

LeWeb Bingo! Watch and Play Along!

Let the games – and the exciting presentations – begin!

Related articles which may interest you:

Moments and The Power of Not Laughing

Related articles which may interest you: