You DON'T need to be on Pinterest (really)

There I said it. 

I hereby give you permission not to be on Pinterest.  Feel better?  Good.

I’ll bet that takes a heavy load off your back and saves you gobs and gobs of time.
You’re welcome.  Here’s my Amazon Wish List, buy me something.  Winking smile

Of course we’ve all heard that Pinterest is for women, guys don’t get Pinterest.  I almost agree.
But I love Pinterest as a guy (https://pinterest.com/mikemueller/).  I really do.
I search and peruse others boards and it makes me giddy as a schoolgirl when people repin and comment on my stuff. (ok, that came out really weird)

referral sourcesMy favorite board (of mine) is one I started while looking at getting a new Mountain Bike.  It consists of 13 Pins (bikes) and has almost 1,600 followers https://pinterest.com/mikemueller/help-me-pick-a-mt-bike/.

I have another board that is more of statement than anything else.  https://pinterest.com/mikemueller/the-social-media-experts-worth-actually-paying/ it has 1,500 followers and I’ll let you guess how many pins.

My least popular board is the one I’m actually using to try and drive traffic to my site.  It’s for blog posts.  Everyday, when I post a new article I also take the featured image of that post and Pin it to https://pinterest.com/mikemueller/blog-posts/.  In theory that should drive traffic back to me thereby creating more sales for what I do.  I can emphatically say, it doesn’t.

Want to know why?

Pinterest isn’t about SEO, it’s about visualizing a specific lifestyle.  As a person, or as a brand you have the ability to share that vision.  If it’s appealing others will repin, comment, tweet and share that same vision of yours.  If it’s not, that image will lay dormant and die from lack of exposure.

So here’s the thing. 
Pinterest away if it makes you happy.  That’s perfectly ok and much better than playing Farmville for hours on end.  Knock your self out.

However.  If you half assed listened to some sales webinar that told you HAD TO BE ON PINTEREST or your business was going to die.  You have a choice to make.

1.  Develop a well conceptualized plan in which you will create and maintain beautiful images that capture the attention of others and convey a sense of lifestyle as it directly relates to the product you sell.

        or…

2.  Spend your time and energy elsewhere doing and creating more worthwhile things.  Period.

Go ahead and read #1 again, nice and slow.  Does that make sense?  Maybe not?  Ok, how’s this instead.
My friend Ines has a Pinterest:  http://pinterest.com/miamism/   She sells real estate in the Miami area (hence the Miamism) and as you might guess, she has a fair number of listings.  Check out the boards that she’s maintaining.  Items like Miami Architecture, Miami Views, Miami Landmarks, Design, Shores, Shoes, Cocktails and Shopping…

Hey wait a second!  Where are the boards for each of her listings?

That’s right.  She doesn’t have them.  They don’t produce value.  Not in leads, or referral traffic, or sales.  Instead, she’s sharing the vision of what living in Miami would be like and she’s doing it well.  She wants people to visualize themselves on a beautiful beach, after a wonderful day shopping, wearing fabulous shoes, sipping a Mojito and when they do, she wants them to think of only one thing. Miamism.  See how that works?

There’s no shame in not being on Pinterest.  Your business isn’t going to die if you don’t.  I promise.

So make a choice.  It’s all yours to make.  Pinterest Well or Pinterest for yourself, or have a bunch of extra free time to do better things.  Or as Yoda said, “Do or Do Not.  There is No Try“.

May the force be with you!

* since time is money and I just saved you a bunch of time my fabulous wish list awaits! LOL!

 


This post brought to you courtesy of Mike Mueller.
Feel free to ReBlog or ReTweet as you like as long as you
credit the source (him).
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RealBird does some great things!      Mike says the Thesis theme ROCKS!      

Did you know?

3 commentsMike Mueller • May 07 2012 09:05PM

How to add an Admin to your Facebook Page

The question comes up time to time.  There’s actually three different ways to ad someone as an Admin.

By Name:   To do this they need to already be a friend of yours.

By Email:  To do this you’ll need to know what email address they use to sign in to Facebook with.

By Like: you can click any one of the people that have LIKE’d your Page (friend or not) and make them an Admin.

In the video above I use my Facebook Page as an example, it currently has almost 4,000 likes.  To add someone via the LIKE method would take forever.  On my Custom Page Apps Page (something I just use for testing out new custom Facebook Page Apps, I have only 9 likes.  In that case it’s easier to go with the LIKE method.

You’ll note that on my Page I added my wife as an Admin.  I do so as a safety measure.  She’s not really working my Page but if anything happens to my Profile – as in accidentally deleted by The Man (it happens all the time in FB!), I would have to create a new Profile.  Guess who could never get back in to their Page? With an Safety Admin on your Page, you can ask them to add you back.  Phew!

Coming Soon:  Facebook mentioned that Pages would soon have multiple levels for Page Admins.  They hinted at 5 different levels.  Why is that important?  Right now, all Admins are equal.  Worst Case Scenario, That young intern you hired a long time ago to Admin your Page?  You fired her yesterday.  Guess who went home last night and removed you from your own Page?  Yeah that happens.  When it does, there’s little you can do about it.

photo by: Fif'
 

 


This post brought to you courtesy of Mike Mueller.
Feel free to ReBlog or ReTweet as you like as long as you
credit the source (him).
Did you know?  He's for hire! He builds
Blogs, Graphic Images and Widgets and Facebook Pages and besides… He knows lots of really cool stuff.

Hire Mike (925) 456-4567

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Sample Facebook Pages:
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RealBird does some great things!      Mike says the Thesis theme ROCKS!      

Did you know?

15 commentsMike Mueller • April 26 2012 09:34AM

Responsibilities of Blogging: Part II

As I said in Part 1, Blogging isn’t Rocket Science.  A third grader could blog.

Take a step back and you’ll notice that the act of blogging consists of three very specific, very different compartments.   For lack of better terms I’ll refer to them as Content CreationDistribution, and Response.  Each of these is vital to the life of your posts and even that of your blog itself.  I maintain that if all you do is the first (Content Creation) you’re only doing a 1/3 of your job.  If that’s the case, why do it all?

Step 2:  Distribution!

So you’ve written a fabulous post and hit the publish button.  Yay!

Now what?  Are you expecting people to find your post?  While that may happen naturally we’re going to help it happen better and faster.   How?  We have a few ways to make that happen, some are automatic, some are not.  (that’s ok, the manual ones take so little time)

Let’s start with your email delivery system.  What?  You don’t have a list that someone can sign up for to get posts emailed to them?   Here’s an easy one.  Go to Feedburner and set up an account.  It’s free.  Once you do, you can direct your RSS output there but for now we’re looking at just creating a mailing list.  I’ll write a post on how to do all that if you want me to.

Once you’ve setup Feedburner, you post, Feedburner picks it up and emails it to everyone who has signed up for the list.  They’ll give you a simple form to put on your sidebar, or you can get real fancy and create an image that links to it like I did.

That’s the automatic part.  Next we’ll work on distributing our posts to various social networks.  This is going to be done by you AND those that read your post.

Plugins.  One of the greatest things about WordPress is the wide array of plugins. It’s a simple plugin that creates the series of icons at the top and bottom of this post for you to share with Facebook, Google +, Pinterest, and Twitter.

I could add more icons but I’m finding less means more these days.  As for the plugin itself the one I’m using is called ‘Really simple Facebook Twitter share buttons‘ but there’s plenty of plugins available in the WordPress Directory.  What these plugins do is allow people to easily share your post on their favorite social media platforms.  When we post, we’re going to do exactly that! (it’s ok to be first)

Here’s a video of me doing that live, just after I had posted.  I’m using Google Analytics in real time to also see if it’s working.

 There’s another way.  It’s old school.  Once you’ve written your post, ask your friends to comment on it.  You could do that via email, twitter, or like my friend Patrick Healy did, by tagging multiple people in a Facebook Post.

Does that really work?  Yes, it could.  The key to making it work is in having ‘banked’ enough social media favors so that when you ask a friend like this, they are receptive.  Patrick has done this by commenting and sharing other people’s stuff.  When he shares and likes and +1′s and tweets my stuff, he’s packing away favors he can redeem later (see The Whuffie Factor by Tara Hunt).  Ask too often or too many times and you can guess what will  happen.  Out of whuffie, eh?

Now go, get your stuff out there!  :)

 
photo by: billsoPHOTO

 


This post brought to you courtesy of Mike Mueller.
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RealBird does some great things!      Mike says the Thesis theme ROCKS!      

Did you know?

0 commentsMike Mueller • April 13 2012 09:34AM

Got Niche? Keep it going!

There is a saying out there, “Jack of all trades, Master of none“.

I believe there’s truth in that and it speaks directly to the idea of Niche and the idea of marketing to a specific segment of a broader audience.  I build Custom Facebook Apps for Business Pages and Advertising Campaigns.  I also build Discount WordPress Blogs. That’s my Niche.  I don’t build elaborate apps for facebook that connect your this to that and I don’t build fancy designer blogs.  I focus on a smaller subset within the larger whole.

While TV as a whole is good, and NBC may cover some sports from time to time, The SPEED Channel would naturally cover the niche market for Racing.  We could even take it one step further and have an F1 Channel (I’d be happy with that) if there was enough footage to run a channel everyday.  There isn’t, and the market isn’t large enough to support the costs so we have to settle for just SPEED.  For Niche to work there has to be a need or audience and it would have to be cost effective – right?

But the internet is different.  The web allows us to do things VERY inexpensively.  That’s why I can have a niche like I do and there are countless F1 groups and sites out there.

Coincidentally, I am a little perturbed at a niche website I have used in the past.  I’m an avid mountain biker and was very happy to find a site called ChainLove.com that offered up a single mountain bike related item for sale for a short period of time, after 20 minutes it was removed and a different mountain bike related deal replaced it.  I used to check in multiple times a day.  They also had other sites that dealt with all facets of bicycling but ChainLove was just fo the mountain bikers.  That was until they merged with another company and suddenly there are other products diluting the stream.  I’m not happy and have unsubscribed, judging by their Facebook Page I’m not alone.  To me, this speaks to the power of the Niche.

People like Niches.  The question is, how can you take advantage of a particular niche?
Now go do it!

 
photo by: Chris_Samuel

 


This post brought to you courtesy of Mike Mueller.
Feel free to ReBlog or ReTweet as you like as long as you
credit the source (him).
Did you know?  He's for hire! He builds
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RealBird does some great things!      Mike says the Thesis theme ROCKS!      

Did you know?

5 commentsMike Mueller • April 09 2012 07:52AM

33 Ways I'd use 33 Touches differently

* If I was a Keller Williams Agent.

For those that don’t know, Keller Williams has a cool piece of technology for their agents to use called eEdge.  Within that is a program called 33 Touches.  The basic idea is to make it easy for an Agent to stay top of mind with their clients; past, present and future.  I believe they have found that over the course of a year, 33 different touches is the optimal amount.  Goldilocks Science.  Not too much, and not too little – just right.

I maintain that while the tool is great, the instruction on how to properly use the tool has been lacking.  There’s a real problem when I get more than a dozen emails, exactly the same, from Agents I have never met or talked to, from all over the country.

When I posted my complaint on my Facebook Profile the other day quite a few others piped in stating that they too get nailed many multiple times each by different agents for each touch.  Remember, that’s just the people paying attention.

What about the general public?  Take an average American couple.  Let’s even say they spend a few weeks curb shopping.  They walked into a bunch of open houses, grab a bunch of flyers and along the way they sign in to a few KW guest books.   No big deal, eh?

Unsolicited Bulk Email or UBE is the general definition of SPAM.  Unsolicited is fine, Bulk is fine, Unsolicited AND Bulk is not.  While you may not agree with me that getting one UBE is bad, what if that couple went “open housing” weekend after weekend for a year?  How many UBE’s do they need to get before we agree that it’s SPAM?

Kathy Kenney spoke up with some very valid points.  I very much appreciate anyone who has an opinion and thanked her.  I’ll agree that I am bashing, not the program itself but like I mentioned above, the application of the program.
As for asking to be removed…  Why should I have to?  I didn’t ask to be on their lists.  Meh. We could argue the small points for days.

But she got me to thinking.  While I’ve been posting what’s wrong, I haven’t suggested anything they could do better.  So that’s the backstory.  Here is my attempt (as an outsider) to suggest 33 ways to do it better.

Warning:  The following instructions may actually contain something called WORK.  If you are allergic to WORK or may be allergic to WORK, see a Doctor and discontinue your use of WORK.  There are no substitutes for WORK.  In rare cases application of WORK has resulted in increased instances of INCOME.  If you notice a higher INCOME for periods over 4 months, consult a Travel Agent immediately…  (okay, I’ll stop there but you get the point right?)

Lists:
Let’s start with your lists.  Do you have a single list for 33?  If so, delete it and start again.
NOTE: We’re not deleting the actual contacts, just their inclusion in the list.

Now take a moment and think about how you could best segment your contacts.  Past, Present and Future Clients are easy places to start.  How about Buyers and Sellers?  How about Equity vs Short Sales?  Investors and Homeowners?  Condo’s, SFR and MultiFamily?  Experienced vs First Time Buyers?  The conversations with each of these groups is going to be different, right?  So why send them all the exact same material?  I just came up with 14 possible lists for you to create.  With a little thought you could eliminate some of them and add a few others.

Rebuild Your New Lists: 
You’ll still have everyone in your contact database – we didn’t delete them just removed them from a list.  Now we need to start adding people to the various segments we created.  One by one you should go through each contact and place them in the list(s) that apply to them.

As a bonus plan, why not call each of them up personally?  That’s a great way to reconnect – right?  Ask them what’s going on in their lives right now, what’s important to them, how the family is doing.  Mention that you have newsletters for various niche’s and ask them what they would be most interested in. No, you can’t outsource this and can’t automate it.  It’s old fashioned stuff and luckily it doesn’t need to be done in a single day.  Just do 10 calls a day.  That’s it.  You can manage that right?

The Open House / Networking / Conference Script:
Let me first say, I love networking and love conferences.  I hate the idea of having a script.  I offer up the following as an example as to what you might want to say, not in the truest form of a script.

I used to exchange business cards like everyone else.  These days I give out stickers.  Why?  To steal a quote from Chris Brogan who said, “I’m reaching out to shake your hand and you’re trying to put your tongue in my mouth.”  You see, after attending a conference I’d come home and start getting bombarded by all sorts of “Newsletters”.  It’s just plain wrong to put people on a newsletter campaign without their permission.  Yes, I know your “coach” told you to start doing it, but they probably meant to say “start doing it right”.  (I hope that’s what they meant to say)

When someone gives you a business card or signs a guest book we would never say something like, “Thanks for the email address.  Oh by the way, I’m going to put you on an automated system that sends you emails I don’t write, tracks when you open them and lets me know which links you click.”  Ewwwwww right?

But what if you had a better way of saying that?  Something like, “Thanks for the business card.  Would it be ok if I send you relevant information from time to time?“  Sounds much better right?  And since you are just learning about them, when they give you permission you now have an opening to the next question…  “Speaking of that, what would you be more interested in -  the Condo Market or what’s happening in the single family area?“. I know my example is cold an un-human sounding, I leave it up to you to Humanize it.  Obviously, I can’t write the script for you but that’s the idea.  This is called conversation – and the more of it the better.

The Newsletter:
Now that we have our new lists segmented for each audience, let’s also make sure what we’re sending them is relevant to them.

John engages me on Twitter and recently asked

 

Great question.  Here’s my answer.  It depends on what “I” am interested in.  I know you can pick and choose what goes out for each campaign.  While some pieces might be general in nature others are not.  Sending an article about Cap Costs to First Time Buyers doesn’t make sense (not that you would, just creating an extreme example).

But let’s personalize it as well.  I’m pretty sure you can include a paragraph of your own writing at the top, right?  So take a moment and write a little for each touch.  For the Cap Cost Touch I made up you could talk about what’s happening in the local commercial market.  For the Newbie’s Touch you could write 100 or so words on the appraisal process. (just 100?  We’re at 1,200 words now!)

Speaking of writing?  Do you have a blog?  Do you write to it?
YOU DO?  Triple Double Kudo Points for you!
Instead of sending out articles you clearly didn’t write (yeah they know you didn’t write that stuff) you could instead send them snippets to your blog posts.  I say snippets so that you include the beginning of your article with a “read more…” that links out to the full article on your blog.  Why?  It’s your home base silly.  It’s your money maker.  It’s where you have all those calls to action.  It’s where we want to drive people to.

Cross Promote:
So now that we theoretically have all the people in all the circles we think they belong in – what if we’re wrong?  What if Bob and Cindy said they were interested in multifamily back then but now that they have a teenager ready to move away to college they are thinking of buying her a Condo to live in?  That’s where the cross promotion comes in.  Not sure where, maybe underneath your signature and contact info, you simply mention that you also have similar newsletters available for the other topics.  Have them call you or send an email to get on the other list.  Is there a way you can place a link where they could see the latest version of each or sign up themselves?

Ready to Send:
Not quite.  With any mail merge campaign the magic is in the details.  Get the details right and we create ‘magic’.  Get them wrong and, well you know…  I’m talking about the little things like <first_name> <last_name> and <address>.  Those would be called fields.  Put the wrong field in the wrong spot and you’ll be sending email to Mueller Mike or worse yet just Mueller.

Remember, there’s three parts to a merge.
1. Your database
2. The template we are merging to
3. And the final output or product

DO NOT go through all this work and then send all your touches to “Dear Client,” or “Dear Homeowner,”

We also need to check the data within those fields.  Head on over to your database and make sure that the name is capitalized and where it’s supposed to be (i.e. first name in the first name slot).   It’s not the programs fault if you have Mueller in the space where Mike should be.  Next check the template to see you have the proper fields inserted where you want them.  Finally check to make sure the merge happens the way it’s supposed to work.  Nothing is worse than sending a mass email campaign out with an obvious error right at the top.

To Recap:
It’s not the tool I have a problem with, it’s the misuse of the tool.  Hopefully this posts helps.
That’s 14 lists + 10 calls a day + a few ideas on personalizing, blogging, and cross promoting and 1709 words.

While it doesn’t exactly add up to 33 ways it’s way better than just whining about it – right Kathy?
;)

 


This post brought to you courtesy of Mike Mueller.
Feel free to ReBlog or ReTweet as you like as long as you
credit the source (him).
Did you know?  He's for hire! He builds
Blogs, Graphic Images and Widgets and Facebook Pages and besides… He knows lots of really cool stuff.

Hire Mike (925) 456-4567

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RealBird does some great things!      Mike says the Thesis theme ROCKS!      

Did you know?

7 commentsMike Mueller • April 07 2012 09:34AM

Create a Playlist on your new YouTube Channel

The question comes up from time to time and especially with the new YouTube Channel format, 
How do I create a Playlist?

Pretty simple really.

Here’s a quick video on how to do that.

One of the cool things is that you can create multiple playlists. Right now I have only one and that’s How To’s for Facebook. But think about this, if you were in real estate, you could create a playlist for Sellers, another for Buyers, and even one for your Listings. For the tech dweebs, one for Twitter, one for Facebook, YouTube, WordPress and on and on. The possibilities are endless.

As a bonus, the videos in your playlist don’t have to be yours or even in your Channel. You can create playlists from other peoples videos (like mine)!

For Custom Facebook Page Apps that I am building, I can include what looks like a single video (that takes up a very small space) but is actually a playlist.  This give the channel owner the ability to change the video(s) and even the order that appear on the Custom Tabs. 

When the first video ends the next one will start and move through the playlist.  

The video below isn't the same as the one above, it's a Playlist!  Notice that small box in the bottom of the player below.  Right next to the little clock?  That is a pretty cool playlist control.  Click it and see what happens.  As embedded YouTube Playlists become more mainstream people will start seeing that and know what it does and what to do with it.

So know when you see that you’ll know you can click on it and zoom forward or back within the playlist picking what videos you want to watch.  How cool is that?

Have a playlist?  I’ve shown you mine, let’s see yours!


 


This post brought to you courtesy of Mike Mueller.
Feel free to ReBlog or ReTweet as you like as long as you
credit the source (him).
Did you know?  He's for hire! He builds
Blogs, Graphic Images and Widgets and Facebook Pages and besides… He knows lots of really cool stuff.

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Sample Facebook Pages:
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RealBird does some great things!      Mike says the Thesis theme ROCKS!      

Did you know?

5 commentsMike Mueller • April 04 2012 08:25AM

a Simple Facebook Page Timeline Checklist

So Facebook has converted over all your Pages to the Timeline style.

Hopefully you were prepared.  Just in case, here’s what you should have already done.

timeline

Update your Profile Image – It’s now a square 125 x 125px image.  You’ll need to upload a 180px square for it though.  Read: Cover Photos and Profile Images

Create a compelling Cover Photo – It’s a 851 x 315px image with no calls to action, no web addresses or phone numbers.  Keyword is photo, eh?

Update your About Section – Especially that little snippet that shows under the cover photo.  Make sure you optimize that and complete the rest of the boxes available.

Move your Apps – On your timeline and to the right of the “About” section there will be 4 boxes.  The first is Photos.  It doesn’t move and you can’t change it.  The next three do move.  Click the dropdown and you’ll see all your Apps. Hovering on the box where you want to move an App will show you a pencil edit. While you might have 20 Apps, only 12 will show under the dropdown.  More critical than that is the 3 you show at the top.  Of those 3, I’ll guess that the first one next to Photos is the most clicked.  Make sure your most important App is in that box.  Read: Move your Apps!

Change the picture on your Apps – You can change the image that shows for each of the App boxes.  That image is 111 x 74px.  It can contain text.  Might be a great place for a call to action.  “WATCH THIS FIRST!” is what my welcome tab now says. You can also change the Title for each App.

Check Your Apps – This is critical.  Check to make sure they render in every browser and in both PC and Macs.  Next check to make sure they work for people not signed in to Facebook (remember I might be coming from a Google Search).  Check to see if they render for SECURE and NON SECURE users.  (that’s the https vs https in your browser url).  Check for this in all the available browsers and on both Macs and PCs.  Why? Here’s what I just found…

For more on Secure vs Non secure read: http://areweconnected.com/facebook-pages/yet-facebook-app-post/

 

 


This post brought to you courtesy of Mike Mueller.
Feel free to ReBlog or ReTweet as you like as long as you
credit the source (him).
Did you know?  He's for hire! He builds
Blogs, Graphic Images and Widgets and Facebook Pages and besides… He knows lots of really cool stuff.

Hire Mike (925) 456-4567

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Sample Facebook Pages:
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RealBird does some great things!      Mike says the Thesis theme ROCKS!      

Did you know?

12 commentsMike Mueller • March 30 2012 05:19PM

Facebook Better (or at least Suggest to Friends Better)

I know you have one Page with only a few LIKE’s.

I know we would all like to have more people interacting on our Page. There are wonderful ways to make that happen and I share them on this blog.

And I know Facebook dangled that carrot in front of you, encouraging you to send a message to those 5,000 people you have as “friends”.  Tempting wasn’t it?  I know.

But considering the fact you’ve had ZERO interaction with them since the day they accepted your friend request do you think the best thing for you is to pop up saying “HEY LIKE MY PAGE!”  I know, that’s called marketing, right?

It also comes off a little self serving, doesn’t it?

suggest

Well, I always thought so. (Want me to LIKE your Page?). 

And then there’s another thing,  a small problem with that email Facebook just sent out on your behalf.  The recipient has one of three choices to make.

LIKE your Page?  With just a single click I can LIKE a Page that I’ve never seen?  Ooh I can’t wait to click! #not!

View Page?  While that’s a much better option, I certainly hope there’s actual content on your Page. Most often it’s brand new and there isn’t.  Have you ever been the first one to a dinner party, a party where you didn’t even know the host?  It makes me feel a little like that. 

Delete.  As in delete the email, mark as spam, and then go wash that funny taste out of my mouth.

So often we think social media is all about us.  Look at me, Look at what we do, Look at what we sell.  But it isn’t.  It’s about “them”.  It always has been.  Think about the tidal wave of spam created by all the “other” Pages doing the exact same thing?

Suggested You Like

Just because it’s easy to do, just because it’s available (again), does that mean you should?

Besides, would you rather have thousands of LIKE’s that don’t know you, don’t care and don’t respond or a 100 LIKE’s of your Raving Fans?  Me Too.

page suggestionsInstead, why not take a personal approach?  Here’s a…

“Making Friends with Friends I Don’t Know Plan”

Go to your Friends List.  Pick ten new people everyday. Take a few minutes to check out their profile, their likes, their life.  Find something the two of you have in common.

Send them a personal message.  Start by re-introducing yourself.  Explain a little about who you are, and that thing you saw on their profile that you both have in common.  This can be by email or by Facebook’s messaging.  DO NOT use a form letter.  This is not the time for cut and paste.

When they respond, BIG Congratulations you just started a conversation!

Next you can slowly move into what you like and maybe, just maybe down the road you can ask them to LIKE your Page.  Take it slow, don’t rush it.

If they become your newest Raving Fans they’ll be the one’s suggesting you to their friends instead and that’s one powerful suggestion.

The math: 10 new people a day x 5 days a week x 50 weeks a year = 2,500 new conversations and all with no SPAM.  How cool is that?



 


This post brought to you courtesy of Mike Mueller.
Feel free to ReBlog or ReTweet as you like as long as you
credit the source (him).
Did you know?  He's for hire! He builds
Blogs, Graphic Images and Widgets and Facebook Pages and besides… He knows lots of really cool stuff.

Hire Mike (925) 456-4567

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Sample Facebook Pages:
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Sponsored Links: (check these guys out!)


RealBird does some great things!      Mike says the Thesis theme ROCKS!      

Did you know?

13 commentsMike Mueller • March 22 2012 10:27AM

Staying ahead of the curve

I read a report that 1 in 4  brands have switched over to the new Timeline for Pages.  As of right now 8 MILLION Pages have switched.  You can switch yours now or you can wait till Facebook forces the switch on March 30th and start playing catch up.

curveballIt’s called Staying Ahead of the Curve and yeah I can read your lips… I know, “it’s tough to do”.  The truth is, if you are in business it’s not optional.

I flipped the switch on http://fb.com/MikeMuellerConsulting a while ago.

When you update your Page to Timeline you might see some funny icons under your cover photo for your custom apps.

Under your cover photo

Quick Tour:  Moving from left to right, you’ll have a snippet from what was your INFO Tab, now called your About.  You can adjust what is there but can’t move or delete it.  Next icon you’ll see is Photos.  The icon is the last photo you added and can’t be changed nor can the App be moved. The rest is up to you.

In the screen shot above the pineapple icon’d App is a custom built page App I recently built to replace the one to it’s right.  The pineapple image is just that, a custom image I created to represent the ‘”Replacement” App behind it.   We’re building a replacement for the Welcome tab as well.

But why build a Replacement App?

old fbml appsTwo reasons.  The first of which is StaticFBML.  Both of theses icons denote that the old app was built using StaticFBML.  These were actual apps (from Facebook) that you could put on your page.  They gave you an open box in which you could put basic code or html thereby creating a custom landing tab.  Weeeeee!

But Facebook announced recently they are doing away with FBML.  That means these style of Apps are going to evaporate!  Booooooo!

The other reason we rebuilt the App was to take advantage of the new full width that Facebook is giving us.  Instead of a confining 520 px width we now have 810 pixels of real estate to play with!  That means we can get a lot more above the fold.  The screen capture below is of my app on my page.  I reduced it to fit in this post but if you click on you can see the difference.

my page app

So back to the task at hand (Staying Ahead of the Curve) – what to do about your old Apps?

If you have an old StaticFBML App that I built, I can rebuild that in the new App style in two options.

  • We can keep it at the old 520 px width (it’ll be centered in the available space like this)
  • We can rebuild and adapt it to the new 810 px width

If you have an old StaticFBML App that someone else built, I can rebuild that in the new App style in the same two options.

  • We can keep it at the old 520 px width (it’ll be centered in the available space like this)
  • We can rebuild and adapt it to the new 810 px width

Or we can go with a completely new Redesign and start new and refreshed.  The choice is yours.  No matter what option you want, the new App will render in both secure and non secure browsers (read THIS) and follow along with my terms of service.

The cost?  Entirely depends on the options above and what’s involved behind the scenes.  It’s going to range from $100 to $400 if that helps.  Want a more definitive answer?   Just contact me.

Bonus:  If I created a new style App for you at 520px (Pre Timeline) your Custom App will work just fine in the new Timeline.  It’ll just be centered in the space.  If you want to upgrade to the 810px width, you know how to get a hold of me.  I’ll be happy to give you a quote.

AppIconBonus Bonus:  I’ve also been creating the custom app images and custom cover images for pages.  While I’m not a graphic designer, I have what they call great “photo chopping” skills.  Most often you don’t need a new design, just a new rendering from your old graphics.   I would be happy to help.  Just ask.




 


This post brought to you courtesy of Mike Mueller.
Feel free to ReBlog or ReTweet as you like as long as you
credit the source (him).
Did you know?  He's for hire! He builds
Blogs, Graphic Images and Widgets and Facebook Pages and besides… He knows lots of really cool stuff.

Hire Mike (925) 456-4567

Twitter Facebook Foursquare LinkedIn Blog Flickr YouTube Email

Sample Facebook Pages:
View on Flickr

Sponsored Links: (check these guys out!)


RealBird does some great things!      Mike says the Thesis theme ROCKS!      

Did you know?

2 commentsMike Mueller • March 15 2012 10:05PM

This is what a HACKED Facebook Profile looks like

shoe hack

Each of those photos has tagged 44 different friends.  Everyone who clicks on the links under the photo starts the process with their friends.  Please stop clicking on bad links.

BUT.. If you did, here’s how to get your profile back

How to kill a bad Facebook App



Read more: Has your Facebook Profile been Hacked? | AreWeConnected.com 
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Share Alike

 


This post brought to you courtesy of Mike Mueller.
Feel free to ReBlog or ReTweet as you like as long as you
credit the source (him).
Did you know?  He's for hire! He builds
Blogs, Graphic Images and Widgets and Facebook Pages and besides… He knows lots of really cool stuff.

Hire Mike (925) 456-4567

Twitter Facebook Foursquare LinkedIn Blog Flickr YouTube Email

Sample Facebook Pages:
View on Flickr

Sponsored Links: (check these guys out!)


RealBird does some great things!      Mike says the Thesis theme ROCKS!      

Did you know?

9 commentsMike Mueller • March 14 2012 10:53AM