Do you back up your Social Media accounts?

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Posted on January 20, 2013 by Nicky Kriel

Have you ever thought about what would happen if Facebook shut down to all your photographic memories? Or what you would do if your LinkedIn account was suspended and you couldn’t access your contacts? Or imagine if someone hacked into your Twitter account and they changed the password and username overnight? Could you prove that it was your account? So, have you ever thought of backing up your Social Media accounts?

If you are using Social Media for marketing your business, you need to consider backing up your Social Media data. The benefits are:

You can keep a record of all your updates and Tweets
You have a record of your connections, friends, likes and followers
Makes conversations easier to find
You can review your past activities
Your memories are yours to keep especially your photographs

Now, when I first looked into backing up my Social Media accounts, it sounded incredibly complicated. You had to do a separate thing for each account and it relied on me remembering to manually back up each account from time to time. I tend to be a bit useless at manually backing up anything. [Note to self: Must remember to back up my mobile telephone numbers!] It’s always something that I feel that I should do, but avoid doing because ….

….it’s not that exciting and I can think of thousands of things to do instead.

I have since found a far easier solution. I have been using SocialSafe for a while now and it automatically backs up

my Facebook profile,
my Social Media for Newbies Facebook Page,
my Twitter account,
my LinkedIn account and
my Google+ account

Each day without me doing anything other than switch the computer on.

I love the ease of use, their help desk is very friendly and it is very affordable. If you are considering backing up your Social Media accounts, you can do if for free by manually backing up each site or using a series of tools, but I thought it would be silly not to tell you about SocialSafe if you are like me and don’t want to think about it.

I don’t spend much time referring back to my past but I have found it reassuring knowing that it is all there.

Some things that I have use it for

Checking DMs, Twitter has an annoying habit of only showing the last 20 DMs and I often receive contact information from clients via DM
Checking conversations with a particular person. It will show all the conversations across different Social Media platforms.
Finding testimonials

They have a 60 day free trial so you really have nothing to lose if you want to try it out for yourself.

I would love to hear your thoughts about backing up your Social Media. Have you thought of doing it? Or are you already backing up your accounts?

Nicky Kriel

Nicky Kriel is a Social Media Coach & Trainer inspiring, educating and empowering Business Owners to use Social Media more strategically. She is also the author of How to Twitter for Business Success. For more information visit http://www.nickykriel.com or to find out about her courses that she runs in Guildford visit http://www.nickykriel.com/courses

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Facebook Tip: How often to update your Facebook Business Page

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Nicky Kriel

If you have a Facebook Page that you are using for business, you may be wondering how you should be updating your Page. Well, it depends…

Sorry, I know you that you probably want a more definite answer but the answer is not a simple number. It is a balancing act between posting too frequently and not enough. So here are a few questions you need to ask yourself:

1. How often you can commit to updating your Page a week?

If you are starting out 3 times a week may be a big stretch for you, but if you use Social Media all the time you may be able to commit to posting 3 times a day.

Think about what is realistic for you to do on a consistent basis. Social Media is a marathon not a sprint, so you need to be able to maintain your activities over a long period of time. It is better to start slowly and increase your frequency of updates over time than start with a spurt of activity and then stop because you become overwhelmed with it all.

2. How often do you think you can produce good quality engaging updates?

Having a clear idea of what content you are going to share on Facebook will help you to collect great articles, YouTube videos and pictures for your Page so that you can plan your content in advance.

Remember: You are more likely to get more fans when you give your fans content that is relevant to them.

Get the balance right between too frequent posting and not posting enough

The biggest reason people give for unliking a Page is too frequent posting! Most people are on Facebook to be connected with their friends and family, they don’t want their feed to be filled with what they consider spam. It is not that they mind being connected to your business page, they just don’t want to miss their friends news because their News Feed is filled with your stories.

On the other hand, if you post too infrequently, you are unlikely to get much activity on your Page and your visibility of your Page will be low. Posts might not be seen even by people who liked your Page.

Did you know that even if someone has liked your Page, they may not see your posts because of the Edgerank system that Facebook uses? Read the following post to find out more about how to increase your visibility. 5 Facebook Tips to increase your Visibility

The number of friends your fans have will also have an impact on the frequency that you can post. If your fans have liked a large number of Pages and have loads of friends, they will probably not see your post unless you post very frequently. If your fans have only a few friends and a few Pages they are very likely to unlike your Page if you post too frequently. You will only get the balance right by getting to know your Fans.

So what do you do?

There is no absolute figure for how many times to post on Facebook, it really depends on your business. SocialBakers suggest the optimum posting is 5-10 times a week.

If you post more than once a day, I would suggest you leave at least a few hours between posting.
If you post once a day, I would suggest you think of posting at the time your audience is most likely to be using Facebook.

The best way to find out how often to post is:

Get to know the analytics for your Page.

Facebook Insights makes it really easy to see how effective you are on Facebook, but you need pay attention to what the figures are telling you and be willing to experiment to see what works for your Page.

(You need to have 30 Likes on your Page before you can see your Insights)

Test and Measure.

If you have a new Facebook Page and post three times a week

Test which days of the week give you the best response
Test which times of the day give you the best response.

If you post once a day.

Test the time that you post and see if that improves the reach for your post.
Test posting twice a day and see whether it increases the activity and likes for your Page or has a neutral or negative impact.

If you post more than once a day

Test which types of post give you the most response.
Test which times of the day give you the most visibility
Test what happens if you only post once a day (at the best time)
Test to find at what point people start to unlike your Page.

On Social Media for Newbies I tend to post every day, but I have found that twice and up to three times a day works for me because I have fans in different time zones. First thing in the morning gives me the best response with UK people. Early afternoon and late afternoon gives me a good response with American people. Late evening tends to get me very little response.

Personally, I would rather post when I find a good quality article to share than just because I have to. While I have seen good results from posting more frequently, I cannot do it consistently because time is a precious resource to me as a business owner and sometimes earning money gets in the way of being prolific on Facebook. The point is to use Facebook as a tool for marketing my business, not to be good at Facebook.

Let me know what works for you by leaving a comment below.

Nicky Kriel

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Twitter tip: Is your Twitter Bio attracting customers?

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Nicky Kriel

When you set up your Twitter Profile, how much thought did you put into your bio? Maybe you filled in a few words and thought you would come back to it later? When was the last time you looked at what your Twitter profile says about you and your business?

Here’s why you need to put a bit of thought when you write your Twitter bio:

Your Twitter bio is Searchable

Did you know that your bio appears in Google searches? Search Engines will search for keywords within your bio. How many of your keywords (or keyword phrases) for your business are in your bio at the moment?

People search on Twitter

People use keywords when they are looking for people to follow on Twitter. Twitter will suggest tweets and people that are relevant to the search. Are you likely to found in Twitter for your keywords?

Remember: Use words that people are likely to use when they are searching for your service or product rather than industry jargon.

Twitter suggests people to follow

Twitter recommends people to followed based not only on who you follow and are following, but also by the words used in your bio. How will Twitter know unless you use the right words.

Your bio may be stopping people from following you

Unless you are a celebrity or a household name, people will not follow people without a bio. You need to give people a reason to follow you and what you say in your bio will make the difference whether people follow you back or not.

Here’s some other things that may be stopping people

You don’t give enough information about who you are and what you do:- Don’t make make people guess that you are worth following.
Your bio is a sales pitch:- Most people do not like being sold at. They may think that you are going to spam them.
Your bio is very kittens and rainbows:- Okay, if you are just tweeting for fun, it is alright. But, if you are using Twitter to grow your business, you need to tell people about your business and what you will be tweeting about.
Your bio lacks any personality:- people want to feel that they are talking to a real life person, not a company logo.
Your bio is full of corporate mumbo jumbo:- Have you ever been at a networking meeting and heard someone deliver their sixty second pitch and still been in the dark when they sat down? Avoid language that appears to be generated by a committee. Speak in the language your customer uses.
Spelling mistakes – you may not feel it’s important, but it may be putting off your potential customers.

Your Twitter bio should encourage the right people to follow you and also include your keywords.

What type of bio encourages you to follow someone on Twitter?

Nicky Kriel

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Twitter housekeeping tips: Are you dodgy on Twitter?

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Nicky Kriel

Apparently over 40% of the people I follow are “Dodgy“. If I am following you, there is a good chance that you are showing antisocial behaviour on Twitter. Did you know that you might be appearing on someone’s Twitter list to be cleaned up?

One of the questions people ask me is:

“How do I stop Twitter being so noisy?”

They have enthusiastically followed people and then get overwhelmed with the number of spam like tweets in their feed. A bit of housekeeping is useful and there are tools that can help you do this. One of the tools that has recently caught my attention is Twit Cleaner.

What I like about Twit Cleaner

It allows you to check yourself out to see whether any of your Twitter behaviour would put you on a naughty list.
It says I’m awesome. Okay, I am a pushover with a bit of flattery
It allows you to unfollow people in an intelligent way. You would be surprised how many people I know quite well pop up in the reports.
It gives you guidelines for what is considered acceptable behaviour and tips to improve your tweeting.
It slowly unfollow people you select rather than all in one go.

Twitter doesn’t like mass unfollowing because it is used by spammers who will follow people just to get a follow back and then unfollow them automatically.

Caution: The dodgy behaviour is just Si Dawson’s (@SiDawson) opinion, it doesn’t make it the truth. Use his report as a guide.

Let me know if you would like some more housekeeping tips for Twitter, thank you.

Nicky Kriel

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5 Facebook Changes you might have missed

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Nicky Kriel

If you have been on Facebook for more than five minutes, you will know one thing…

…Facebook changes!

The one thing that is certain about Facebook is that it will change again. Here are five recent changes you might have missed.

1. Your default email on your Profile has been changed

If you look in the about section of your Profile, you will see that your email has been changed to a Facebook email.

It doesn’t mean that your notifications won’t be going to your normal email. (To see which email this is; go to the Settings part which is at the top right hand corner of the blue bar.)
To see the visibility settings or to change your email in the About section (it’s below your profile picture) and edit Contact Info.
The Facebook email gets delivered to your Facebook inbox

I have left mine as it is and here’s why: My previous email was hidden and the settings for the Facebook email are so that it’s only visible to friends. Facebook Friends can inmail me anyway.

2. Ability to schedule posts

This is a brilliant addition for Facebook Page owners.

When you click on the clock, it will give you the option of adding a year.

Add the year, then you get the option of the month.
Add the month and you will get the option of the day
Add the date and you will get the option of the time

Okay, it is a bit cumbersome, but it does allow you to pre-schedule your posts directly within Facebook. Facebook tends to give more visibility to posts that have been generated directly in Facebook.

3. Administrator

In the past, when you made someone an administrator of your Page, you gave them complete access to everything including being able to delete the Page. Now you can now allow people to have permission to do certain functions only.

Choose between Manager, Content Creator, Moderator, Advertiser, Insight Analyst.

4. Editing Comments

Have you ever commented on something, posted it and then realised you had spelled something wrong or left out a word? Previously, your only choice was to delete it and start again. Now you can edit your comments.

Hover your cursor over the comment
You will see a pencil appear in the right hand corner of the comment
Click on the pencil and edit

If only they would add this function to editing an post or update!

5. Voice

Facebook have added something called Voice which will make things easier for Page Owners and especially people who have multiple Pages.

When you visit your Page, you may have notice a blue bar at the top. Your default setting for the Page will show as the voice that you use on the Page. For example, on Social Media for Newbies, I always post as the Page. However there are other Facebook Pages that I will always post as Nicky Kriel.

This bar makes it incredibly easy to switch between commenting as the Page and commenting as yourself.

So for example: As an administrator of the Toastmasters International UK & Ireland Page, I need to be mindful that I am representing Toastmasters International, yet as Nicky Kriel, I can express my opinion as a member and talk about my local clubs.

It use to be possible to use both voices, but took a bit of fiddling. Now it is easy to click between representing your Profile and your Page.

Let me know if you like the new changes. Which ones do you think will be useful to you?

Nicky Kriel

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Twitter no longer feeds automatically into LinkedIn: Yay!

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Nicky Kriel

LinkedIn announced last week that Tweets will no longer be displayed on LinkedIn.

No more automatic feeding of your Twitter activity into LinkedIn
No more broadcasting of Tweets with #in or #li on LinkedIn

Some people seem to think this is awful, but I think it is a good thing and here’s why:

The LinkedIn News feed was getting very noisy with Tweets from people who never visited LinkedIn – People tended to set their Twitter to feed automatically into LinkedIn and then forgot about the platform.
Not all the things you say on Twitter are appropriate for LinkedIn – Each Social Media platform has its own personality – On LinkedIn you are always a business person whereas on Twitter you are a business person but also show your human side. Conversations about walking your dog or chatting to other people on Twitter were not suitable for LinkedIn.
Frequency of Updates – Most tweets only have a short life span and so it is okay to tweet frequently. Updates on LinkedIn last longer. Many LinkedIn users were annoyed by the number of automated tweets drowning the updates by genuine LinkedIn users.
Twitter has its own language and jargon – Not everyone understands hashtags or what RT and DM mean.
Many updates were duplicated. People often set up Twitter to feed automatically into LinkedIn and then used a tool like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to publish the same content into LinkedIn again.

If you want to broadcast the same content to both LinkedIn and Twitter, you still can by:

Posting on LinkedIn and make you sure you tick the Twitter box
Use a third party dashboard like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to publish content

What do you think about LinkedIn’s announcement? Did you use to have your Twitter feeding automatically into LinkedIn? Love to hear your viewpoint in the comments below.

Nicky Kriel

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LinkedIn: How to add Slideshare to your LinkedIn Profile

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Nicky Kriel

Did you know that you can showcase your business within your Profile in LinkedIn? You have the opportunity to add a presentation to create visual impact to your LinkedIn Profile and it is incredible simple to do it. Here’s how in three Easy Steps.

Step 1 – Create a presentation

Create a presentation using Powerpoint (or a similar presentation tool) for your business. It doesn’t have to be long and you may have one that you can use already. Here are some things to consider.

You don’t have to say everything in one presentation. You can always create more presentations.
Tell a story with an introduction, middle and a call to action at the end
Make sure it has visual impact. What images can you include?
Use a font size that can be read easily. People are going to watch this in a smaller format than when it is projected onto a screen.
If you use an existing presentation, does it stand on it’s own feet without you speaking about it? You might want to make a few changes to it.

Step 2 – Add it to Slideshare

If you haven’t set up a Slideshare account, set one up now. Go to http://www.slideshare.net, it will only take a few minutes to set up a free account.

Upload your presentation, by clicking the upload from the Home Page

Choose your presentation from your folder and make sure you add

a suitable heading
and description
and tags.

Millions of people are searching on Slideshare and your presentation could be found by a potential customer.

Step 3 – Add Slideshare to LinkedIn

Go the More section

Choose Add More Applications from the drop down menu.

Choose Slideshare Presentations and follow the instructions.

Every time you add a new presentation to Slideshare, it automatically updates your LinkedIn profile.

That wasn’t too hard, was it?

If you found this tip useful share it with your friends and let me know by leaving a comment.

Nicky Kriel

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Twitter: Why I hate automated DMs!

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Nicky Kriel

Rant Alert!

If you are on Twitter and you are sending automated messages to your new followers, then this is blog post is directed to you.

Just because technology allows you to do things doesn’t mean you should do them. If you have been advised to send an automated message to everyone who has followed you, you have been given bad advice.

An automated “Thank You for following me” leaves me cold.

A thank you without any thought that is obviously automated is not going to make people feel all warm and fuzzy about you. In fact, it could have the opposite effect.

An automated “Thank you” followed by a request for me to Like your Facebook product, visit your website, read your blog annoys me.

If I am interested in you and like you and we chat on Twitter, then I will do all those things, but all I have done is click a button to follow you. We don’t have a relationship yet!

Imagine if we were at a networking meeting. What would you think about me if the first thing I said, as soon as we had shaken hands, was “Visit my website”?! Go on, try it. Ask the next person you meet at networking to Like your Facebook Page straight away and see how many fans you get.

Human nature hasn’t changed. Normal rules of engagement apply. Don’t do things online that you wouldn’t do offline.

An automated “Thank You” followed by a Sales Pitch will get you unfollowed from now onwards.

Following you does not make me your customer. Often the reason I follow people is because they followed me first. If I am polite enough to follow you back which is my way of saying that I am willing to start building a relationship, don’t sell at me. It is just rude!

Why don’t I just ignore Messages?

Well, every time I get a Private Message, I get an email. I haven’t switched off this notification because:

I want to be able to have private conversations with people I like
and I get a lot of new business this way.

When you spam me with an automated message, you are cluttering up my inbox and I might miss a message from a real customer or a person I like!

If you feel absolutely compelled to automate a thank you, please come up with something witty, charming or original. I’ll forgive you then, but I would rather you…

Send me a personal DM or not one at all.

I know I am not the only person who feels this way. What do you think about automated DM’s? Let me know in the comments below.

Nicky Kriel

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Pinterest for beginners: 4 Ways to avoid Wasting your Time on Pinterest

Posted on May 27, 2012 by Nicky Kriel

Pinterest is becoming very popular and more and more friends are jumping on the bandwagon. I have notice many people are making time wasting mistakes. If you are new to Pinterest and you want to use it to drive traffic to your website: Don’t make these four novice mistakes!

Mistake #1:Pinning photographs rather than websites

People new to Pinterest see boards with pictures and then create their pinboards with photos they have stored on their computer. You may end up with pretty boards, you won’t get any traffic from the Pinterest community. The strength of Pinterest is that the pictures are links to websites.

What to do:

1. Click on the Add button.

2. Choose “Add Pin”copy the URL of your website page

3. Copy the URL of your website

4. Pinterest will then give you options to:

Choose the image you want if your page contains multiple images.
Choose the board you want to pin it to
Add a description

Which brings me neatly on to Mistake no. 2

Mistake #2: Not adding a proper description

So many people don’t bother to fill in the description or add only a very short description. You can 500 characters to your description. Make sure you spend the time to add the following to each of your pins.

A description containing your keywords – Pinterest has a robust search function make sure you add words that you think people might be searching for.
An URL! Yes your picture contains the URL, but not everyone knows how to use Pinterest so make it easy for them to find your article or product.
A price (if appropriate) – If you are selling products on your website then you will want to add a price because it displays the Price and it adds it to the Gifts section of Pinterest. See below.

Mistake #3: Not Installing the Pin it button

The Pin it button makes Pinning very quick and easy to share content on Pinterest. You will find it by click on the About Section and choosing the Pin it Button.

What’s really clever is that they will show you how to install the Pin it button according to the browser you are using. They even show you a video to make it very easy to install.

This makes it incredibly easy to share content from any webpage. When you find content you want to share:

click on the Pin It button
Select the Image you want from the available images on the page
It will then allow you to choose which board you want to add it to. The default is always the last Pinboard you used. Make sure it is the right one! I have added so many pins to the wrong board, by not paying attention to this! You can repin them to the right boards, but it wastes some of your time.
Make sure that your description has keywords
If the content is from someone else’s website make sure that it contains their orginal headline and it links to their website.

Mistake #4: Not using Pinterest to source pins

Pinterest is not just about you and not all your pins should be links to your website. Millions of beautiful images and useful articles have already been pinned.

Use the Search function on Pinterest to find Pins or Boards that will be useful and repin from theses boards. Repinning is like sharing on Facebook and Pinterest users love being repinned. If you want to create an inspirational board such as Dream holidays or your Bucket list, you can spend hours trawling around the web to find suitable images or you can use Pinterest for inspiration and speed. Your choice!

These are just some tips about Pinterest. Let me know if you want more by leaving a comment.

P.S. You are very welcome to Pin this post.

Nicky Kriel

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1. How often you can commit to updating your Page a week?

2. How often do you think you can produce good quality engaging updates?

Get the balance right between too frequent posting and not posting enough

So what do you do?

Test and Measure.

Your Twitter bio is Searchable

People search on Twitter

Twitter suggests people to follow

Your bio may be stopping people from following you

What I like about Twit Cleaner

1. Your default email on your Profile has been changed

2. Ability to schedule posts

3. Administrator

4. Editing Comments

5. Voice

Step 1 – Create a presentation

Step 2 – Add it to Slideshare

Step 3 – Add Slideshare to LinkedIn

Rant Alert!

An automated “Thank You for following me” leaves me cold.

An automated “Thank you” followed by a request for me to Like your Facebook product, visit your website, read your blog annoys me.

An automated “Thank You” followed by a Sales Pitch will get you unfollowed from now onwards.

Mistake #1:Pinning photographs rather than websites

Mistake #2: Not adding a proper description

Mistake #3: Not Installing the Pin it button

Mistake #4: Not using Pinterest to source pins