click on ‘Hide Twitter’

And all the Twitter messages are gone.

You can do the same with messages from FourSquare, FriendFeed, FarmVille, MafiaWar and all the other messages you really do not need to see.

Post from: Erno Hannink veel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Remove Twitter updates from your Facebook News Feed

I want to make the blog posts available in audio, except for the posts with a lot of screenshots. This way you can download the audio version to your iPod or MP3 player and listen to the article in the car or during a walk instead of reading the article.

Download now

This first Podcast in English is an overview of the equipment that I purchased and installed to do this in a professional way.

After careful research for the right microphone I have selected the Blue Yeti.
Via Amazon.co.uk (aff) Blue Microphones Yeti USB Microphone

This is a USB condenser microphone connected to the PC without any downloading or installing of software. The microphone is huge and is not for on the road recording. This microphone is on my desk and I will do more recording right at my PC.

The second product is especially for on the road. With this voice recorder I can record a quick note, a thought, an idea, and the most important one for me, record my presentations.

The Philips LFH0888
Via Amazon.co.uk (aff) PHILIPS LFH0888/00 Voice Recorder + 4 x LR03 Alcaline Xtreme Power AAA Batteries + 2 Free

For the editing and recording I have installed Audicity on my PC. It is open source software for Windows, Mac and Linux. For Windows 7 I use the Beta version that is really good and was easy to install. For people with a Mac I hear a lot of good talk about Garageband.

To get the podcast easy and beautiful integrated in WordPress I use the Blubrry PowerPress plugin

Have fun listening to the mp3. If you have any tips for podcasting or when you have a great subject for a podcast just let me know in the comments.

Download the podcast now [5 Mb]

Update: The Blubrry PowerPress and Headway theme have some conflict so the player is not showing now. Looking for a solution.
Not sure what happened but now it seems to work.

Post from: Erno Hannink veel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Add audio to the mix

When you ask a question on Twitter not everyone that follows you will see that question. Then only a percentage of the people that see your tweet respond because they know the answer and want to share it with you. Use 1:100, 100 followers and 1 reply, as a rule of thumb.

If you want interaction on Twitter and answers for your question it is good to get the right people to follow you. It is best that you start answering questions of the people that you follow. So people can see that you are also giving to the community.

One of the questions I often get is “Where can I find interesting people to follow?”
When you start to follow people in your niche, potential co-workers, potential clients, experts, often they will follow you back. If they don’t follow you back, you can always unfollow them, if that is important to you.

One great source to find people is de Tweepguide. There are a few versions Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, UK and world wide but mostly US. It is based on what keywords people use in their Twitter profile.
It is a great resource because there are all kinds of categories e.g. blogger UK, journalist UK, Coach .com, WordPess NL.

Another great feature is that you can search in Tweepguide. Search on people with ‘social media‘ in their profile.


Other great resources are blog posts like these

• The 100 Most Powerful Women On Twitter
• Twitter Elite by TwitterGrader
• The First 99 People to Follow on Twitter
• Top 100 Geeks you should follow on Wired
• Top 100 most popular via Twittercounter
• Twitter for Social Entrepreneurship: The Top 100 Tweeps to Follow
• 100 Top Graphic Designers to Follow on Twitter
• Directory: 100 technology experts on Twitter via ZDNet
• 100 web designers to follow on Twitter
• 100 Designers To Follow On Twitter
• 100 social media experts to follow on Twitter
• 100 PR People Worth Following on Twitter
• Top Design Savvy Tweeters

Some more interesting lists can be found on TweepML. The lists on TweepML have a great ‘Follow All’ feature. Klick and you will start following all the people on the list.

What resources do you use to find interesting people to follow?

Post from: Erno Hannink veel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Find people you need to follow on Twitter

You can invite friends with:

1. Your contact list in the online email service like Gmail.
2. Upload a contact list from you desktop email program like Thunderbird or Outlook
3. Invite friends that are suggested
4. enter name, email address or a keyword for your niche
5. your schools or employers to find former class mates or ex-collegues (if you want to of course)
6. your Instant Messanger contacts

Use the contactlist from you local email software:

Invitations personal

When you use these options and you do send invites, please send a personal invite. Add some text why you want to connect with the other person. Where is your connection?

Invites like this, that are in my inbox, are not helping:

It is not clear for me who is in the picture. The profile page is not helping at all.

More friends

Make it easier for the people you are inviting so they can decide in the inbox or only need to take a brief look at your profile page.

Add some text to the invitation, like:

Hi,
We are connected on Skype, love to connect on Facebook.

Warm regards,
Erno Hannink

Then make sure that your Personal Profile gives enough details for people that only have met you online. Show links to the places where people can find more about you online, a link to your website, Twitter profile etc.

Post from: Erno Hannink veel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

More friends on Facebook? Make your invitations personal

Notes
Your notes van be found in the row of tabs, or in the drop down ‘>>’, or you will have to add them via the ‘+’.


You can use a note to create a blog for your Facebook page.
You can look at your own notes, notes on all your Pages, notes of your friends, you can even check notes that mention you.

Click on the button ‘+ Write a note’. Note: do not click on the link ‘Write a note’ because this will take you to the notes of your personal profile. We want notes on our Page. You can write a blog post here:

We want to import blog posts and not write new posts for now.
Scroll down on the notes page.

Here:

Now we will import our blog posts – Click on ‘Edit import settings’

Import your blog

1. Enter the URL for your blog – this is not the URL of your feed.
2. You import the content of your own blog – no copyright issues. Check.
3. Start importing

Confirm
The RSS feed of your blog has been found:

“We read your feed at http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ernohannink/fgTi
If you confirm this import, we’ll check the feed every couple of hours for new posts you’ve made, and add anything we find to your Facebook notes.”

Click on ‘Confirm’.

If you now go to your page you will see your notes in your Wall.

Completed.

Pros and cons:

• Your blog posts will now show up as status updates. Fans can ‘Like’ and comment on your posts. With this you will reach a larger audience within Facebook and on the web.
• The complete post is now available in Facebook and your fans can comment here. The reason to visit your blog is smaller now. There is a link of the post on each note to visit your post on the blog.
• It is not clear when the post will be imported. It can take an hour a couple of hours, but also some days. Sometimes it will posts 3 articles in a row while it was a daily post in your blog. If you write time sensitive posts this could be an issue.
• You are where your target audience is, and your articles are here.

Duplicate content and penalties:
Some people worry about duplicate content and penalties. No need. The post in your blog is the original and will get the ranking in the search engine. The note is a duplicate will not get the ranking. You will not get a penalty for your note. You want your article been read by as many people as possible? Add your blog posts to your notes in Facebook.

Inspiration for this article via Hyperarts How Facebook Notes Have Changed & Why You Should Use Them

My page for more inspiration ErnoHanninkEN

Post from: Erno Hannink veel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Blog posts in your Facebook page via notes

Start sending your Facebook page status updates to Twitter.

This can be done easily:

1. Go to http://www.facebook.com/twitter

2. Select the page that you want to connect. Click on ‘Link to Twitter’


3. Give your Facebook page access to Twitter

4. The page is linked
Now the page is linked and click on settings

5. Adjust settings
Select what actions you want to be published on Twitter.
Maybe you want to deselect the option video and photo, depending on how many photo’s and video’s you upload.

Done, it automatically sends the updates to Twitter and includes a short link like this http://fb.me/FVkVZQ0n

Post from: Erno Hannink veel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Facebook Page status updates to Twitter

Talking with (potential) clients about their online marketing strategy I see a lot of missed opportunities. Why do I recognize it so well? I have the same problems.

Your Clients and services

You started your own business. Clients were happy with what you did and recommended you to their network. New clients came from that network and you followed up and started working for them. Your clients also asked you to do another project that is close to your current expertise.

Over time you grew a clients list with a variety of markets and business sizes. The kind of services or products that you offer mirrors this variety in clients. Every time a project is done you will have to find new clients.

This is not what you want. You want, if you are just a little bit like me, that clients come to you. You want to attract clients. If you are not clear in your communication who that client is, they will not come to you. If you are not clear in what you do for your clients, they will find another company that does.

I talk with independent professionals about what they do. Often I get a short and sometimes a long story of what they do. The story is based on all the stuff they have done or are still doing for their clients. When I dig deeper we talk about target clients this often is also a list of various branches sometimes they even say “Everyone”.

When you really want to attract clients it is extremely important that you have a laser focus on what you do and for whom.

Loss Aversion

There are plenty of smart people online that will tell you to pick a niche. There are even books on that. What they don´t tell you is that when you already have a business, this is a really difficult process.

It is so difficult because you have to stop doing some or maybe even most of the stuff that you are doing today. You will have to say goodbye to some of your clients and to some of the markets that you are in now.

For my next book I am doing some research on why this is such a difficult process. And why I get tons of excuses why they don´t need to do this now. It is good to understand that there is a part of your brain that is giving you such a hard time. This is the Amygdala (Wikipedia)

This part of the brain is responsible for your Loss Aversion (Wikipedia).

Loss Aversion generates a feeling that you want to keep what is ‘yours’. When making your niche smaller, your aversion to loss wants you to keep all your current clients, services and markets. Even if they do not generate money.

Then you come up with all these great excuses “What if there are not enough clients in that one niche?” or “I am not good enough to be an expert in this area” or “I will get bored if I will focus on this niche.” Yes, I have heard them all. Yes, I even used some of these.

Pick your niche

Do you want to attract clients?
Then it is time to focus and pick your niche, choose your target audience, choose your services and choose your specialty.

Now you understand why it is so difficult and where this feeling is coming from. Accept the pain and continue.

Or like Ittybiz (Naomi) says:

If you pick a niche, you lose some customers. If you don’t pick a niche, you lose ALL customers.

Do you know that feeling of being afraid to really cut drastically in your markets and services? Share it with us. If you have picked your niche successfully I love to hear it in the comments.

photo credit: LadyDragonflyCC -August is Canning Month

Post from: Erno Hannink veel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Choosing your niche hurts

Nora Roberts writes daily and has an amazing number of bestsellers.

“Since she started writing stories down in notebooks 30 years ago, Nora Roberts has used discipline and talent in equal measure. Early in her career, she worked her writing in between her sons’ daily pre-school and nap schedules. When they were both in school full time, her writing schedule mirrored theirs, although she put in extra hours over the weekend. Now, after almost 200 books and countless bestsellers, she writes eight hours a day — every day.”

OK, you don’t have to do it this way. Maybe these points will make it easier:

• Write 1,000 words a day
• Write 5 days a week
• In 2 months you have a book: 40,000 words
• Take 1 month for reading and editing
• Publish 3 books per year
• Rinse and repeat

You will attract your own following.

When I finished writing my first book last year I knew that I wanted to do this again. I loved doing it.
Receiving all the tweets, comments, e-mails when the book was published, I knew I will do this every year.

So, I am working on my second book: Pick your Niche

Help

If you are an independent professional and picked your niche, I would love you to answer some questions via e-mail for me.
Your answers can help the readers of this book to pick their niche.
Let me know via the comments if you can and want to help me.

photo credit: akeg

Post from: Erno Hannink veel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

How to write a bestseller

If you only show your updates then I am missing interaction on your page.
My tip is do also show the updates of others on the wall of your fan page. This will invite people to ask questions on your wall.
As a visitor I can also klick on ‘Suz’s Posh Pets + others’ myself each time. But to make it easier for your visitors you can make this standard on your page.

Settings Page Wall

1.Klick on options when you do not see ‘your page name + others’ , ‘Your page name’ and ‘Just others’.

2. Click on settings

3. At ‘Default View for Wall’ select: ‘All Posts’

Wall with all messages

Now you will see all messages immediately when you land on your wall.
Also convenient for you as an owner because now you see questions that are directed at you or when you are tagged.

More tips? Connect with me on ErnoHanninkEN on Facebook and subscribe to the newsletter.

Post from: Erno Hannink veel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Updates from you and others on the wall of your Facebook page

Metro Garage Door Co.


TicketVoid

Mompreneurs Cafe

Click the image to enlarge. Click Back in your browser to return to this page.

What is the value of the high number of followers without interaction?

Post from: Erno Hannink veel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

The value of more followers on Twitter