Facebook Pages vs Facebook Profiles

Today I received a friend request on Facebook from an organization using a profile with their branded name. This is a big no no, and surprisingly still something I see happen from time to time.

This is how I politely (or so I hope) declined their Friend Request:

Hi! Not sure who I am talking to, but I want to let you know that I am denying your friend request and why I am doing it.

I do not accept any friend requests from businesses, brands, organizations etc. that are using Facebook profiles. I teach my clients to NEVER use a profile for their official page. I preach about regularly. I can not accept a request from someone who is doing the opposite of what I teach.

The reason I teach people this is two fold. One, using a profile to represent a brand or business etc. is against Facebook's Terms of Service. If you have even one person report you for it Facebook will shut you down immediately and you will loose everything you've worked for.

Two, Facebook Pages have an amazing amount of data provided about who is connected to your page and how they are interacting with your page. Anybody who is using Facebook to promote something is missing out on a gold mine of information that will help you reach your goals. Without that data you are basically spending time and energy on something you can never understand or measure. You will never know if what you are spending all that time on is making any difference.

I suggest you convert your profile to a page, or start a page and change this one to your personal name.

If you choose to convert you will keep all of your photos and all of the people you are connected to, but all of the posts will disappear.

If you choose to change this to your personal page (nobody says you can't talk about politics on your personal page, you can talk about whatever you want) and start a page, you will start from zero but you can send an invite to everyone you are connected with.

Feel free to get in touch if you need any help doing one or the other.

When Facebook became available to any and all users instead of simply students there was no way to represent your company. Personal profiles only. As more and more people started to use Facebook businesses started to notice and many of them started accounts so they could stay in touch with their customers. And Facebook noticed. And they reacted quickly. And they did something amazing. They introduced Pages.

Until Pages began a Facebook user was capped at 5000 friends. Many large brands and celebrities were starting to create second and third accounts so that they could connect with more people. Not only did Facebook make it easier to let brands connect with more people through Pages, they also started to collect and give to brands information about the types of people who were connecting with them.

Since before I started teaching brands online media I've been telling everyone I know to start a Facebook Page if they have a business. Facebook introduced Pages in late 2007! There is no reason in 2014 for someone to be creating a Profile for their business or organizations interests.

Please, if you are still using a Profile for you business, get in touch with me so we can set you up correctly. Make sure your time and effort is providing you with results.

What I'm Reading - @GaryVee

It's Friday again, which means I start moving into relax mode. I've been working hard for the last few months to make more of an effort to enjoy the weekend instead of just using Saturdays and Sundays as catch-up on work days.

So I do more reading, cooking, watching of movies and shows and spending time with this guy when I can on the weekends.

As always I have both non-fiction and fiction books on the go, one non-fiction which counts as "business" and one which is for fun.

This week I've been reading my very first Gary Vaynerchuk book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy, Social World (Amazon affiliate link).

While I've certainly known about GaryVee for a few years now I neither follow him on any social media, watch his videos - Wine Library TV or have read any of his previous books. I have friends who almost consider Crush It!: Why Now Is The Time To Cash In On Your Passion (affiliate link) to be a lifestlye book rather than a business book.

I have nothing against GaryVee and I very much agree with what he says. It's just that for me I've never found his delivery style enjoyable. If you don't know GaryVee than go check out a video right now. He is very big. I appreciate that, he's very passionate and gets other people fired up as well. I have nothing against this style of deliver either, in fact one of my favourite people, Scott Stratten, would be described the exact same way.

Maybe I only have enough room for one loud mouth in my circle. Either way, I've never felt a strong need to read either Crush It! or The Thank You Economy (affiliate link). However, Gary's new book #JJJRH, I've decided to read.

This book is very much more hands-on, crunchy even. Gary is talking about how to effectively grab a social media fan and turn them into a consumer. He's doing it, chapter by chapter, and network by network, with actual posts from brands and breaking down what works and what doesn't.

This is way more helpful than a blanket statement of "Be more human". The reality is, some people really aren't good communicators and what seems like common sense to someone who is good at it is not to someone who doesn't have the skill set to write a post or take a picture. And I'm sure we all know people who say the wrong thing in every social situation.

"Be more human" and "Engage more" are very wishy washy statements.

I've talked about creating a podcast that is more based on what I do and part of the plan was to breakdown good and great marketing and explain what works about it. Give people some tangible advice. It's definitely needed, and more helpful.

I definitely recommend Jab Jab Jab Jab Right Hook to any person, business or organization using online media to spread the message about what they do.

You Do Social Media, Right?

My favourite question, which isn't really a question, is when people who haven't worked with me say "You do social media, right?"

I mean, I guess it's a question, or it usually leads to a question about either something they read or heard and are considering doing, why should they tweet, or they wonder how I make money "doing social media".

Yes I "do social media." I do it as part of my marketing strategy for my business Circle of Media. What my job is, the way I make money, is that I teach businesses and organizations how to market their business on the internet.

I always try to see this question as an opportunity to teach someone and maybe gain a new client, but honestly, some days it bristles. Let me help you understand before you ask me the same question.

After decades, and in some cases a century of advertising with print, radio, television and outdoor advertising people have become very comfortable and good at communicating for those mediums. But as we all know (and some people think heralds the end of the world) we have a new communication medium now which is the internet, the world wide web, cyberspace, online, digital - however you want to call it.

The rules online are different - mostly in that there are no rules save one - the consumer is in charge.

So I help my clients understand and navigate this new world.  I teach my clients how to use the tools there are, like Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Blogger, Google, and more. All of these websites have their own design and put buttons in places you might never look for them. I do hands-on tutorials to teach people how to use the websites.

I also help my clients understand how and what to communicate in all of these places. Twitter is a networking event, Facebook is a family or neighbourhood picnic, blogging is all about entertaining and informing readers, Google is about understanding what your consumers want from you. You cannot write your newspaper ad copy into a status, a blog or even into a display ad and expect to get people to buy from you.

So, yes, I do social media to meet and stay in touch with my clients, and to keep learning from my mentors, and to make life long friends. My job is to help you understand how to do the same thing and more.

Facebook Graph Search is Useless

A few months ago Facebook held a press conference. Rumours were that they were introducing a better search function for their site. Count me as really excited at the prospect of having a better search on the Facebook page.

As a person helping businesses set up pages I struggle to help my clients find other pages to follow that are interesting, relevant, and sharing good content. We try to find local pages by searching the name of the city, with okay results, but not great. Then we search the subject of some pages they may want to follow, with not great results, but with patience and time we find some to follow.

Wouldn't a better search feature be great for me and my clients so we can build up a great home feed and meet other local and complimentary businesses?

On the other side, as a person helping businesses set up pages I struggle to help my clients get found. Until they reach the magical number of 30 fans they can't change their unique URL to make it easier to tell people how to follow them. And I often work with small organizations of two to five staff. Even if they all like it, and ask their family to, it sometimes takes some time to get there. And once they've reached the number and have their unique URL, it's still a challenge to get people to connect with their page. They rely on shares and search.

So, I have clients who use that search bar to search their own business name and see if they show up in the first couple of automatic links. But they don't. And the average Facebook user doesn't realize there is a link at the bottom of the list that reads "See More Results" and they may find what they are looking for there. Every one of my clients wants to be the first automatically suggested result.

Wouldn't a better search feature be great for me and my clients and the average Facebook user to get the results they want right there at their fingertips?

So, Facebook introduced Graph Search, promising a more robust search feature. A way to connect better with other Facebook users and find out what your friends like. Sounds great until you start to look at it.

Graph search will help you find stuff your friends like, so if you want to find Facebook pages about video gaming or parenting, or your city the search results give very limited results. So then you need to change your search terms to fine tune what you are looking for. And then you still only get a handful of answers and none that you are looking for.

I recently wanted to check in with a friend who is a children's musician and see what he's been doing. I've worked with Music with Brian, performed shows with him, liked and commented on his page. But when I typed "music with brian" in the search bar (since that is the fastest way to get to a Facebook page or profile) I got results that sucked!

Brian's personal Facebook profile showed up at least, but nothing remotely like his page. So I clicked "See More" and the results became even more ridiculous.

Only when I hovered my mouse over the list did I notice there was a scroll bar. I scrolled through the option of finding Music liked by Brian's I had never met or even heard of, let alone friended on Facebook. It wasn't until the second to last item on the list (which is to give up on Facebook and go the Bing search page) that the official Music With Brian page showed up.

The worst part is that now that I've switched to Graph Search, I can't go back to the regular old, less sucky version of search.

I rarely complain about changes to Facebook, but this one has really created a challenge for me and I'm not sure how to overcome it.