Are you using Slideshare to promote your business?

A few months ago I did a webinar on How to use Twitter for PR for your Toastmasters Club.  Due to a few technical issues, the slides weren’t visible in the recording, so I posted my presentation on Slideshare so that people could view them while listening to the presentation.

And I didn’t think much more about it.

That was until about a week ago when I had a notification from Slideshare congratulating me on achieving over a thousand views.

Wow, that was a lot of eyeballs!

I looked at my profile.

Oops, I hadn’t even bothered to fill it in properly and hadn’t included my website on it!!  What a lot of missed opportunities to connect.

I looked at my slides.

Without hearing my presentation, my slides wouldn’t make much sense.  Oops again.

It got me thinking.  If over a thousand people had clicked on my slides without me promoting it and without me thinking of it as a stand alone showcase.  What would happen if I produced a presentation especially for Slideshare?

So I re-purposed a popular blog post 55 Things to Tweet about and created a Powerpoint especially for Slideshare.  Which you can view below.

And this is what has happened overnight.

I woke up this morning with an email from Slideshare congratulating me!  They had chosen my presentation out of thousands uploaded yesterday to feature on the front page of Slideshare today.

• 
• Over 200 people viewed it while I was sleeping.
• It has been downloaded 3 times.
• I gained more subscribers to my mailing list.
• A new follower on Twitter who was promoting my YouTube workshop, told me that she had discovered me through Slideshare and had already shared my Tons of things to tweet about on Twitter with her professor.

Not bad for less than 24 hours!

Would love to hear about your experiences with Slideshare.  Please share them by leaving a comment below.

Update at 20 hours after uploading

• Over 1000 views
• Downloaded 23 times
• Most talked about Slideshare presentation on Facebook and has now been entered onto the “Hot on Facebook” section on their homepage.

Now I am curious about how much traffic it has generated to my website….

Do you have a YouTube channel? Here’s a quick tip on how to add your Social Media sites to your channel so that people can connect with you easily.

If you like this tip, share it with your friends. If you want to learn how to use YouTube for your business, we are running a workshop in Guildford on the 23rd May. The details are here.

Watch out for the next quick tip soon.

If you think creating video for your business is hard, expensive and take ages to do, think again.

In preparation for the Using YouTube for Business Workshop in May. I have been researching different ways to create video easily. Here’s a video that I created for my Facebook Course as an example of what you could do using Animoto

Time: About ten minutes, allowing for me to do a few versions adjusting the theme and background music.
Cost: Nothing,I purposely stuck with the free version which limits you to 30 seconds.
Difficulty: Easypeasy, it is incredibly simple to use. And it is fun!

If I can create this short video in a few minutes and for no cost, what’s your excuse for not using video for business?

Are you wondering how to get more comments on your Facebook Page?  The more interaction and engagement you get on your Page, the more visible it becomes and the more likely it will reach your ideal customers.  You can’t force people to comment, share or like your posts, but by changing and tweaking a few thing you do on your Facebook Page, you can get a far better response and improve your visibility of your Page.

1.  Consistency

Post regularly on your Facebook Page.  Aim to post at least 3-5 times a week.  So many Facebook owners are sporadic about their posting.  They will post three posts within minutes of each other and then nothing for days on end.  Set yourself a manageable goal like an update a day and stick to it.  It is easy to get despondent, but remember consistency builds momentum.

2.  Content

Start with your Fans in mind.  You have to give them a reason to keep coming back to the Page.  Make sure you post quality content.  Are all your posts at least one of these:

• Entertaining,
• Engaging,
• Enriching
• Educational?

Are all your posts the same?  Remember that variety is the spice of life and that you can mix up the types of updates you post.  How many of the following have you posted recently?

• Questions and polls
• Pictures – Pictures get the most shares on Facebook.
• Videos – YouTube is a great source for content.  You could always record a quick video directly onto Facebook to let people get to know you a bit better.
• Audio – Free tools like Audioboo allow you to record a short message for your fans or how about sharing an interview with an expert?
• Links – to blog posts or interesting articles
• Something silly – Just because it is a Business Page, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be light-hearted sometimes.

3.  Caring

It is easy to forget that building a community on your Page works both ways.  You need to show that your care about your fans.  Do you respond back to comments that people leave within a short time?  Many business page owners view their Business Pages as a way to broadcast their message to potential customers and forget that it is a great way to build relationships.

• Show that you have read each comment by either commenting back or liking the comment.
• Don’t ignore negative comments.  By responding in a helpful way, you can create a more positive outcome.  Others who feel the same way may be watching how your respond.
• Be interested in what your fans want to know about.  Ask them questions to find out more about them.
• Everyone loves the opportunity to talk about themselves or their business.  I have a Fanpage Friday every now and then to encourage people to interact with my Page.
• Allow people find out more about you.  Let them see behind the company logo.

4.  Questions

When you post an update, do you just post a statement or do you ask a question?  We are programmed to respond to questions even if it is answering it in our head.  Questions help to build engagement.  There are a few things to bare in mind when you ask questions:

• Most people don’t have that much time to respond to your question
• The quicker and easier it is the respond to the questions, the better the response
• Nobody wants to write an essay as a comment
• For the best response:  Ask questions that need a yes, no or a word or a short phrase as an answer

5.  Call to Action

If you want people to comment, like or share a post, the best way to do it is to ask them to do it.  Call to actions aren’t just “buy my product” if you want more engagement with your Page, you need to explicitly ask for it.  Some suggestions of call to actions are:

• If you agree with this, click like
• Share this with your friends
• Leave a comment below
• If you find this useful, share this post so that your friends can find out about it too.
• Let me know what you think by leaving a comment

Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

Remember not to give up.  Sometimes you will be the most comments from unexpected sources.  Pay attention when you get a good response and do more of the same.  Let me know which tip is the most useful to you.  And don’t forget to share this post with your Facebook Friends. (Couldn’t resist adding this call to action!)

The new Facebook Timeline for Business Pages has meant that tabs have become more dominant than they were before and many people have asked me how to use tabs to add links to their websites.

I have found four apps that can help you add value to your Facebook Page.  And the best part of it is that you can add them for free.  They all have paid version if you want to do something a bit more sophisticated.  If you have never played around with apps before, these ones are a good place to start.

It is free easy to add your add your own imagse and captions to the tabs, read my previous post New look Facebook Pages: Understanding Tabs

1.  Involver

Involver allows you to add two apps to your Facebook Page for free.  You can change the applications around at any time and the five that you can choose from are

• RSS Feed – which allows you to import your blog posts into Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube Channel – let people view your YouTube videos on your Facebook Page
• Flicker – import your photos
• Static HTML – (for people who know what they are doing!)  It allows you to convert HTML into iFrames on Facebook or, in other words, have a website page on Facebook.

2.  Contact Me

Facebook now allows your Fans to message you directly, but most Fans don’t know that they can do it.  This form is an easy way for people to contact you directly.

• Easy to customise
• Can add your address and telephone number
• Can add your Social Media Links
• Can add Skype
• Can use with MailChimp or Constant Contact to add people to your mailing list

3.  Fan of the week

I love this app.  It makes it very easy to reward your loyal Facebook Fans.  Each week this application will select the fan who has interacted most with your page.

Warning:  Don’t forget that this application post automatically at the same time each week.  I have made the mistake of posting something to my Page within a few minutes of this being posted.  Ideally, you make sure there is at least 4 hours between postings because the biggest reason for people unliking a Page is: Too frequent posting.

4.  Lujure

This is a very clever application which I found out about through Amy Porterfield.  It allows you to import your web page into Facebook.

I have imported my YouTube Workshop which allows people to book directly onto the training without ever having to leave Facebook.

• To do this sign up with Lujure
• Choose the iFrame widget.
• Add your website URL
• Resize the page
• Add other widgets to it.

Here’s a video that shows you just how easy it is.

You can create one tab for your Facebook Page for free and it could be a Landing Page, or could include your YouTube videos or even be a online shop.  What I like is how easy it is to use.

There are substantially more applications you can use. Let me know if you like one that isn’t mentioned or if you have been inspired to try one.  And don’t forget to share this post with your friends.

Do you have a Landing Page for your Facebook Page?  There is one change to Facebook Pages that will make a big difference to you.  If you have a landing page for people who haven’t liked your Page yet, it will no longer be the default page.  Everyone will now views your Timeline or wall whether they have liked your Page or not.

• Your Cover image needs to make the right impact for your business.  If you haven’t read New Look Facebook Pages: 3 Things you need to know about the Cover, read it now.
• If you used applications to customise tabs, they are still there, but they have moved to the top below your cover.

What you need to know about the tabs

• Your Photo tab cannot be changed – the position is constant and the photo will be the last photo you uploaded
• You can move tabs around so that different ones are displayed – four can be displayed at once
• You can have twelve tabs
• You can change the image of your Tabs
• You can change the words below the Tabs

How do you make changes to your Tabs

You first have to expand the the tabs by clicking the arrow on the side

You will see up something like this

When you hover over the individual tabs, a pencil will appear and click on it will give you some options to switch the tabs with other tabs or edit settings.  To make changes click edit settings.

Opportunities

• Tabs are displayed more prominently than they were before.
• It is worth thinking of images to attract your fans attention and interest to find out more.
• Tell people what they will get when they click on the tab with a strong call to action.
• Potentially, the tabs are like free adverts for you.
• There are many different applications you can use, but I will cover this topic more fully in another blog post.
• You can link directly to your tabs.  For example, if you are placing a Facebook Ad to attract more fans, you can get them to land on a welcome tab for your Page

An example of how powerfully you can use your tabs:  See how Amy Porterfield uses them.

Let me know if you find this series helpful by leaving a comment or sharing it with your friends.

The other posts in this series

New Look Facebook Pages: 3 Things you need to know about the cover

New Look Facebook Pages:  The About Section

New Look Facebook Pages: Pin, Highlight and mark Milestones

Did you know that when you move to the Facebook Timeline for Business by 30th that you can give certain updates more prominence?  The changes to Facebook Pages for Business have also bought some new features that you may find very useful.  You can now draw more attention to certain posts.

This is the third in the series for the New Look for Facebook Pages and if you missed the first two there are links to the posts at the end of this one.  This one is about pinning, highlighting and milestones.

Pin a Post

If you hover your cursor to the right of any post you will see a little star and pencil icon.

When you click on Pin to the Top, that post will stay on the top position for the next seven days or until another post is pinned.  This means that any visitor to your Page will see that particular post even if you have posted more recently.  This is what a pinned post looks like:

Highlight an Update

You may have noticed that Pages have two columns now.  You can now make updates extend over both columns to feature of that post.  The star icon creates the highlight.

This what a highlighted update looks like:

Note:  There will be blank spaces on your timeline, see the right hand column above the post.

Unfortunately you can’t pin a highlighted post, so even though it creates a feature of the post, as you update your Page, it will move down the Page.

Milestones

The new Timeline allows you to add milestones for your Business or Page.  You can do this by either choosing the Milestones options in your status box

Or by clicking on the Timeline which goes down the centre of your Page.  The cursor will become a cross and you will get the following prompt.

The first time you use this feature it will ask you for the date your business was founded. Milestones spread over both columns.  When you choose the milestone option, this dialogue box appears:

Note: You can add photographs to make a real feature of a Milestone.

It is worth adding a website address that might be relevant for the milestone. Don’t forget to add the http:// to make it click-able.

Think about how you can use this for your business.  Do you have any events or products that you want to feature?

Other Things you might need to know

Navigating your Timeline

Just in case you haven’t played around with your Timeline on your profile; I thought you might find it useful to know that you can get to certain dates on your Timeline in two ways.

1. You can scroll down the Page
2. You can go the Timeline on the right hand side of the Page (see below).  Click on the relevant year.  This will expand the Timeline to include the months and allow you to click on the relevant month to take you to those updates..

Other People’s Posts on your Page

On the new Timeline for Pages, your fans posts to your Page or mentions of your Page appear on the right hand column.  It is called “Recent Posts by Others”.  If you have many people posting on your page, you will need to click on the see more to make sure you don’t miss any posts.  If you have a Facebook Friend who tagged the Page or posted to the Page, their post will appear at the top right above the rest of the Recent Posts by Others.

What this means:

1. Your posts will be more dominant on the Page than your Fans.
2. Your fans are likely to get less interaction when they post to your Page because other people visiting the Page may not notice their posts now.
3. Make sure you respond to all the posts from other people to encourage engagement by checking your notifications and “Recent Posts by Others”.

Let me know if you find this series useful by commenting or sharing this article.

If you missed the first two in the series, you can find them here:

New Look Facebook Pages: 3 Things you need to know about the Cover

New Look Facebook Pages: The About Section.

Have you noticed that your Facebook Business Page is going to look different from the 30th March?  This is the second in the series to take you through the changes you need to know about in bite-sized pieces.  If you missed the first, it was about the Cover Image.

The second one in the series is about your About Section.

In the current Facebook Page design, the About Section is fairly obscurely hidden in the left hand column.   With the new design, the About Section gets prime positioning so it is time to review what you say in this section.

Checklist

• You have about 165 characters to say what your page is about.  If you were visiting your Page for the first time and read what you have written, would you know what your Page or your business was about?
• Make sure you include your website.  Remember to add the http:// to make it a click-able link.  You can add it to the start of your text to make sure that it fits into the description.
• Do you want them to do something specific when they land on your Page?  Make sure you have a call to action if you do.
• The About Section gives the meta description for your Page so make sure it contains your keywords.

Make sure you come back tomorrow to read the next in the New Look Facebook Pages  series or subscribe to the newsletter to make sure you don’t miss any.

Here is the first one: 3 Things you need to know about the Cover

Are you a Facebook Business Page Owner?

Have you heard that the look of your Page is going to change by the 30th March?

Would you like some tips in bite-sized pieces?

For the next week I will be blogging on a daily basis about all the tips you need to know about Facebook Timeline for Business.  The first in the series is about your Cover Image for your Page.  Make sure you come back daily for the next tip or subscribe to my newsletter to get the full series of tips.

Three things you need to know about the new Cover

1.  Dimensions

On the 30th March, your Page will automatically change to the new look, so get your Cover Image Ready.  The dimensions are

851 x 315 pixels

Make sure that you use a high resolution photograph or image and that you own the rights to the image.

2.  First impressions Count

When people land on your Page they will see your Timeline.  So the images you display will need to be powerful and appropriate for your business.

• Facebook has done away with default landing Pages.
• Previously you could direct people who hadn’t liked your Page yet to a Welcome or Landing Page where you could have a strong call to action to Like your Page or a special offer.
• Now they will go straight to your wall.
• (There are ways to direct people to welcome tabs, but I will come onto that in a later blog.)

Action Point:  Spend some time looking at other Pages to see what they have done.  What will work for your business?

Remember that your profile picture and tabs can be part of your image too.  It is worth investing a bit of money to get your Page designed for you or good quality photograph.

Mashable had a great article 20 Facebook Page Cover photos to inspire your Brand if you are looking for inspiration.

If you are on a shoestring budget, I found this useful article. http://tweeting.com/top-10-abstract-digital-art-facebook-cover-free-download-websites-for-your-timeline

3.  Restrictions

These are the rules according to Facebook:  They will remove your Cover if they don’t feel you have complied with their terms.  Cover photos cannot include:

• Price or purchase information such as 20% off or Download it at our website.
• Contact information such as a website address, email, mailing address or information that should go in your Page’s About section.
• References to Facebook features or actions e.g. Like or Share or have an arrow pointing from the cover photo to any of these features such as the Like button.
• Calls to action e.g. Get it now or Tell your friends
• Covers must not be false, deceptive or misleading, and must not infringe on third parties’ intellectual property

Here is an example of how your image doesn’t have to be about you, it can be about your fans.

Mari Smith

Mari Smith has decided to highlight her Fans on her Page

Here is an example of how a Page has been used to promote an Event.

Amy Porterfield

Amy Porterfield has used copy to promote her webinar and I think think that she is pushing Facebook’s terms a bit by having the word “Free”. The problem with this approach is that it’s already out of date!  I like the way her design of her cover flows into her tabs.

Let me know if you have found this useful, by leaving a comment or sharing it on Facebook and Twitter.  Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for the next post or to sign up the newsletter to get the full series.

Are you uncomfortable about being filmed?  Maybe you have decided to film an “About me” video for your website, but you’ve got stuck.  You don’t know what to say.  I asked my friend, Alan Donegan, who is a presentation expert if he could give us a few tips.

This video goes more into the thought behind the series of tips.

So Here’s -
Top Tips for what to say in an About Me video: #1 When to say your name

Top Tips for what to say in an About Me video: #2 Getting Engagement

Me

Top Tips for what to say in an About Me video: #3 Getting Attention

Top Tips for what to say in an About Me video: #4 Telling Stories

Top Tips for what to say in an About Me video: #5 Think of your audience

And finally, my About Me video.

If you want to contact me http://www.nickykriel.com/contact-me.

To find out more about Alan Donegan, his website is www.enjoypresenting.co.uk and you can find him on Twitter @AlanDonegan.
I would love feedback about my video, thank you.  Do you think I listened to Alan’s tips?