Cheryl Waller &#187; Facebook Updates

Social MAX Boot Camp for Real Estate Agents

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Facebook Events | Preventing Event Communication Spam

Cheryl Waller — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:14:39 +0000

Did you know that when you respond to an event that you ‘are not attending’ that you are actually giving that event coordinator PERMISSION to continue to contact you regarding that event?

Yup that’s right! Whether you respond that you are ‘attending’ or ‘not attending’ a Facebook event, you are actually giving event coordinators permission to contact you in the future regarding that event!

So what if you do not want to attend the event and you also do not want to receive any further information about the event? Well, event coordinators are hoping that you don’t find out.

Watch this quick video to learn how to prevent future communication from events that you do not wish to attend.

Cheryl Waller
Marketing Consultant SEO, SEM, SMM
www.CherylWaller.com

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Facebook: You Must Register Your Computer. The Borg is Watching You!

Cheryl Waller — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:14:19 +0000

Normally I am a Facebook enthusiast for using the social network in your online real estate marketing strategy. Lately, however, I’m starting to have some doubts.

This morning, as I was managing my client’s accounts, I had to log out of Facebook for just a moment and then log back in. That’s when I saw it; a mid-login notice to ‘Register your Computer’. You can’t get past it (I tried). They might as well have put a notice that “resistance is futile”.

Nope, sorry, no way around it. You are not getting on to Facebook unless you ‘name’ your computer.

Is this Facebook’s sudden ‘answer’ to all the controversy over security issues and spotlight in the news as to their use of private information? With so many people getting upset about privacy issues and talking about completely deleting their Facebook accounts, I can only image that this was somehow Facebook’s alternative to actually taking the time to educate users on managing their privacy settings and taking control of their accounts.

What is your take on all the Facebook controversy? Will you still use Facebook to market your real estate business?

Social Networking for Real Estate Agents

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Facebook: Fan Page Change… What???

Cheryl Waller — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:42:36 +0000

Recently, Facebook made changes to Fan pages which affect the way that people, brands, public figures, topics, etc. are connected as it relates to pages on Facebook. With these changes comes the introduction of Community pages and new restrictions set forth on what are now ‘Official Pages’.

(Yes, I know I wasn’t sure in my last post on the subject of ‘Official Pages’ however it’s now… well… ‘Official’)

What used to be ‘Fan Pages’ have now become ‘Official Pages’ or ‘Community pages’. ‘Official Pages’ are now restricted to being created by authorized representatives of an entity, while ‘Community Pages’ now have more of a ‘Community’ feel (and are controlled by Facebook).

Both types of pages have changed the ‘become a fan’ language to simply ‘like’. Facebook states that this particular change offers a more ‘light-weight’ way for people to connect with entities.

According to Facebook:

“Only the official representative of an organization, business, celebrity, or band may create a Facebook Page. The Page creator can then add other representatives to help them manage the Page. Each Page admin will be able to update and edit their Pages from their own accounts.”

Community pages on the other hand are designed to allow people to connect and discuss topics, experiences and causes. These new Community Pages will beconnected with Wikipedia under the creative commons license and will display logo and profile information based on the Wikipedia article for that community’s topic. Facebook will also be displaying related posts in real time on Community Pages.

So what is the difference?

According to Facebook:

“Community Pages are built around topics, causes or experiences. Official Pages are maintained by authorized representatives of a business, brand, celebrity, or organization, and they can create and share content about the entities that they represent. Community Pages, on the other hand, won’t generate stories in your News Feed, and won’t be maintained by a single author.”

What this means to you..

You can still create an ‘Official Page’ for your business or brand, however if you would like to create a generic page to discuss ‘all things real estate’ or ‘all things foreclosure’, then you would do best to start a community page on the subject. When people like your business or brand, they simply click ‘like’ to connect with you and/or your business/brand. People can ‘like’ up to 500 pages and that comes out of their 5,000 connection total for people and entities combined.

What’s my takeaway on this change?

I personally like the change.

For one, the change of the terminology ‘become a fan’ to ‘like’ offers a more ‘non-committal’ way for people to connect with your business. To me, ‘become a fan’ seems more of a commitment than someone simply clicking ‘like’. I think this gives businesses more of a reach in the long run. People are making the same connection to your business, but to the consumer it is less of a commitment to ‘like’ something than it is to become an all-out fan.

Also in my opinion, what the ‘Official’ and ‘Community’ page change does is clean up the mess.

For example, this eliminates the annoying… “Become a fan of”…

‘Can this page get more fans than [fill in the blank]’

‘How many [fill in the blank] does it take to [fill in the blank]‘

‘I hate my [enter brand here] cell phone because_____’

‘Farmville fanatics fan page #99,999,999′

‘Mafia Wars fanatics fan page #99,999,999’

You get the picture. Pretty much, now you will either have to have a company, brand, or be a public figure in order to set up a page. If you really feel compelled to talk about Mafia wars or Farmville, you can visit the one (1) community page designated for that topic.

What do you think about the change?

Cheryl Waller
Marketing Consultant SEO, SEM, SMM
www.CherylWaller.com

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And How to Add Your ActiveRain Blog to Your Facebook Fan Page in 10 Mins

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Facebook: Profiles, Fan Pages, and Groups… Oh My!

Cheryl Waller — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:58:03 +0000

Maybe you are new to Facebook and maybe you are not, but maybe you still wonder whether you should add a Fan page, start a group or even bother with any of it at all. I mean what’s the difference anyway? Right?

Actually… Quite a bit.

Let’s start with personal profiles

First and foremost; if you are currently using your personal profile to promote your business by using a business name and/or logo on your personal profile…. STOP! Personal profiles are for individuals, not businesses. Not only is it against Facebook terms of service, it also detracts from the whole idea of being ‘social’. Guys, really? It’s not called ‘Logobook’ or ‘Brandbook’. Personal profiles need to have a picture of you. No and ifs or buts… use your college photo if you want, that’s fine…

Your personal profile is the first profile you set up on Facebook. (In very rare instances there is a business management account, but I will not go into that with this post)With your personal profile you post an image of yourself, post information about you and share pics, links, information etc with other friends in your network. Personal profiles are only allowed up to 5,000 friends and pages combined. So that means if you are a fan of 100 pages, your friend limit is 4,900. Become a fan (now this has been changed to ‘like’ a page) of 200 pages and your friend limit is 4,800. You get the idea. Basically, you can only have ‘connections’ to 5,000 people, entities or brands COMBINED on a personal profile.

Why would you want 5,000 friends? Ok, this is where the lines get a little burred between business and personal. You can also get your account deleted by Facebook if you go about it the wrong way or try to do it too quickly. Having 5,000 friends in the same industry as you is a quite powerful business tool. I won’t get much into it in this post, but start seeking out 10-20 people inside and outside your industry each day and send a friend request with an introduction. Try to make as many professional connections as you can. Believe me 5,000 people that play Farmville is NOT going to help you in the long run.

That’s about as far as I am going with personal profiles for this post. Right now, if you are currently using a business logo, brand, trademark or emblem on your personal page, I highly suggest you jump over to FaceBook right now to upload a personal photo and make sure that you are using your real name and not your business name …then come back to read the rest of this post.

Fan Pages

Fan pages are for real businesses, brands, artists or public figures and essentially are their own identity. You must be an official representative of that entity in order to create a page. Once a page is created it essentially IS its own person. Pages cannot be publically tracked back to the creator of the page or the admins unless you choose to reveal that on your page. Pages allow you to update fans by demographic, which is really useful for target marketing. Fans can interact with your brand and have discussions, leave reviews, watch videos etc. etc.

Using an application called static FBML, you can add a custom tab to your fan page which is essentially a mini-website within Facebook. You can create your own custom fan page or have a custom fan page professional designed and uploaded for you. You can then set the default landing page for new fans to be sent directly to your custom Facebook business page. Current fans will always be taken directly to your fan page wall.

Also see Video: How to Create Your Own Facebook Custom Fan Page

There is no limit to the amount of fans you can have for a fan page and you can mass update all of your fans via email and on your fans walls via the fan page wall. Fan page updates are also integrated into Google real-time search results, whereas personal profile wall updates are not. Fan page content is publically visible (and searchable by search engines) regardless of a visitor’s status as a fan. (This is controllable using FBML, however that is beyond the scope of this post)

Groups

Groups are different from fan pages in a couple of ways. While they also have no limit to the number of members within the group, you will not be able to email update the members of your group once its size reaches 5,000 members. Groups also give you control over membership to the group. With a fan page, fans just click to become a fan and that’s it. Presto. They are a fan of your page. With groups, you can control who can become a member. You can choose to make it a private group, open to the public or limited to a certain network of people. If you choose you can also require an admin of the group to approve each group member before they are allowed access to the group. You can change these settings at any time and also choose to block specific people from joining at all. The only setting that cannot be changed is a network-specific group. Once a group is network specific, it cannot become global.

Membership types in a group

Members of a group can see content of that group based on the privacy settings set by the admins of the group. The number of groups a person joins does not affect their friend/pages limit but each person is limited to joining 300 groups in total. Group officers are listed on the group’s page and are essentially the same as any other member, besides being listed as an officer. Only group admins can make changes, send updates, set privacy or appoint other admins to the group.

So there you have it. There is a quick overview of the difference between personal profiles, fan pages, and groups. Keep your personal profile personal, your fans (potential clients and customers) updated and your members (current customers and clients) connected to your business through the use of these powerful business tools!

Cheryl Waller
Marketing Consultant SEO, SEM, SMM
www.CherylWaller.com

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Social Networking for Real Estate Agents