I was in the bay area today, on our weekend Thanksgiving Trip to visit my family.  My husband and I like adventure, but didn't expect the events of today to transpire - and definitely- didn't expect to be posting a "LOST DOG" poster online! 

We have 2 dogs:  Chelsea, a 7 year old Great Dane Mix and Rocky, an 8 year old "Heinz 57 variety" (we were told at the shelter when we adopted him as a puppy that he was Shepherd and Rottweiler mix, but he's only 40 lbs, is very "cattle dog like", very similar to a breed called "Kelpie" 

So, our Great Dane, has some arthritis issues and today, seemed to be in a lot more pain than usual. She was grunting and moaning and could not seem to get comfortable. So, we decided to take her to a nearby vet. We left Rocky in the back yard, at my Mom's house, while we all went to her appointment. We were gone approximately 2 hours and when we returned.... no Rocky. 

So at 5:30pm, we had a large dog doped up on pain medication to worry about and now, trying to find our other dog (fur baby as I like to call them) in a neighborhood he doesn't know! SCARY! 

It appeared that he somehow managed to get under the house and escape out of a grate he pushed through at the front of the house (probably chasing the cats my mom has had inhabiting under there). 

We spoke to some people outside at a neighbor's house who said that Animal Control had been by a little earlier asking about a Shepherd dog, and if they knew the owner. They didn't because we were just visiting. They gave us a good clue that he had probably been picked up by them, but of course, the shelter doesn't open until Tuesday (3 whole days away) and like any good "mom", I couldn't just sit around and wait... "What if he didn't get picked up?" "What if he's out there lost?" So, I had to take measures of my own, just in case. 

While my husband and sister drove the neighborhood, and my 9 year old nephew made home made posters, I took to the avenue I know best: social media. I first went on the Animal Control Website where you can search to see if your pet was brought in (actually, it's a link to PetHarbor.com). It was too early yet, for Rocky's picture to be there, so I submitted a lost dog alert and then took to Craig's List to post in the Lost and Found. 

I did, almost instantly, get a call from a wonderful community member, named "Marilyn", who was just a volunteer who was passionate about animals, who had seen my posting on Pet Harbor. She thought she had spotted him, but it turned out to be a similar looking dog who's been there since November 5, 2013. 

From there, I got an email, suggesting I post on the Facebook Page: Fido Alert: East Contra Costa County .  I did as she suggested, and with-in minutes, she created the flier that you see above. That was wonderful in and of it's self.  Within 31 minutes, it had been shared from her page, 30 times!! There are 4,000 plus "fans" on this Facebook page, and they proved very quickly how passionate they are about connecting fur babies back with their parents. 

If that wasn't exciting and supportive enough, I got a text at 8:54pm from a leader of the Fido Alert Page, "Cat" (ironic huh?) who stated that it appeared that the shelter had posted Rocky on the Pet Harbor website, sometime within the last few minutes. I jumped on there and sure enough, there he was. My little jail bird.  He is micro chipped (with unfortunately, the wrong contact information) so they were able to know some things about him before posting him online. 

You can see his mug shot here: 

I am so truly thankful for the support of complete strangers tonight. It has restored my faith in humanity knowing that they are so willing to help someone they have never met, and probably never will.  As an animal lover myself, and one who will stop just about anywhere to try to rescue a "lost" dog, I am grateful for those who go beyond themselves to help others. Please, if you are an animal lover too, consider supporting your local shelters and rescue organizations like Fido Alert and Pet Harbor. They truly do make a difference in the lives of people and pets, both on and offline! 

Because of Social Media, texting and the shelter website, I am able to sleep a little easier tonight... 

I am always fascinated by the data that is collected on Social Media Platforms like Facebook! I stumbled upon this website called YouAreWhatYouLike.com  that analyzes your personality just from the pages you chose to "Like" on Facebook. 

Out of 1001 things I chose to "like", it took 75 of them and came up with a quick personality profile of me!

According to the image below, I am: 

• Liberal and Artistic 
  
• Well Organized (man do I have them fooled!) 
  
• Outgoing, Friendly and Active
  
• Calm and Relaxed 
  
• Warm, Trusting and Cooperative

What do your likes say about you? 

Drum Roll Please... 

We have a new feature that I am loving on Facebook! It's a change that I think you will like- GO FIGURE! 

Introducing, Facebook's PAGES FEED! 

So now, all of you who were so worried about not being able to show up in "feeds" on this famous social media site, can breathe a little sigh of relief! 

It's in the left hand column of your home page under "Pages" (See the screen shot below). When you click on that, you can now see the feeds from ALL of the Pages you are connected too! 

What does this mean for you as a page owner? Not much, except for the fact, that your "fans" or followers have a place they can go to get the latest information from great products, services and brands that they love (including YOU!). 

Now, you still need to make your content engaging; i.e. posting pictures and content people can relate to. If your content is engaging enough, Facebook will plop it into your fan's news feed (at least for now). 

So the moral of this story is:  don't give up on your fan page! 

I just received this question and thought "Im sure other's are wondering this too".  So here you go!

Q.  I get a crazy number of friend requests on Facebook and have over 2000 friends but very little comments on my posting since it all goes by so fast. Any simple advice on how to better manage. I have 70 people waiting for a friend reply and I'm not sure I want to say yes!


Here is my response: 
A: Just from looking briefly at your page it looks like you are pre-scheduling through Hootsuite and which Facebook doesn't like. They want authentic real time communication, especially on your Facebook Profile Page. It's silly, but they set their algorithm up to make sure "real" people get priority in the news feed. 

To resolve that issue, I would suggest using Hootsuite to schedule out Twitter posts and set your phone up to engage more on Facebook in real-time.

As for the friend replies. It's really up to you. I am careful now, who I add, but it's a personal choice on how you decide who to "friend". You can always send them a message and ask them to "like" your fan page instead to connect; but that can be time consuming too. There is also a "subscribe" option where you can allow people to subscribe and only things you make as "public posts" will show up in their feed. That has slowed my number of requests down quite a bit too.

Hope that helps! 

Facebook recently added a new feature called "Interest Lists" to our Bookmarks on our home page (you know, those links on the left hand side of the page when you are reading your news feed?)

Many page admins have been putting a plea out to their fans that they MUST add their page to the Interest list in order to see any posts from that particular fan page. This is not entirely true, as I pointed out in my last blog post. 

I have seen post after post of how daunting of a task it can be for folks wanting to do the "right thing" by page admins, and individually adding pages to their interest lists. 

In testing this theory out, I found that there are 7 easy steps to creating an Interest List on Facebook. 


YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO THIS ON EACH INDIVIDUAL PAGE!! 


Step 1: Find a page that interests you and go to their page. Next to the "Like" button, you will see a settings icon, click on that and a drop down menu will appear 

Step 2: Click add to interest lists

Step 3: Click add to New List and it will take you to this page. If you click on "Pages" it will bring up all of the pages you have liked and you can then select similar pages to the one you started with and group them accordingly.

Step 4: Just click on the pages that you want in this list and a "check mark" will appear and indicate that the page has been selected. When finished click "next" at the bottom of the box. 

Step 5: You will then select a list name. I have one for clients, one for networking, one for Sacramento etc. 
During this time, you can also select the privacy settings. Making this public, people can then subscribe to your interest lists and follow it. 

Step 6: Once you have clicked "done" you will be redirected to your Interest Home Page which will list your different lists (Clients, community, business etc- much like your friends and family lists), so you can click on them and see only posts that come from the pages selected for that particular list. 

You can then access your Interest lists at any time by clicking on them in the left hand menu when you are on your home page. Be aware that they could be hidden under "More". 

Why an Interest List? 


According to Facebook: "Interest lists are an optional way to organize the content you're interested in on Facebook."
They suggest it because it's an easy way to "Simply click the list's name to see all the recent posts and activity from the Pages and people featured in the list, without overwhelming your main news feed."

Here is the latest FB message  flooding our newsfeeds and wasting some of our time (or is it?) 

FACEBOOK now requires page administrators to pay to promote their updates if we want our content to be seen by our fans. If we do not pay to promote our posts, only about 10% of the fans receive the updates on the Facebook home page feed.

To keep RECEIVING ALL POSTS FROM US you have to hover the mouse on the "Like" button near our name. In the drop-down menu select "ADD TO INTEREST LISTS". Then create an interest list (and make a name for your favorite pages). When you select that interest list you will see ALL of our posts and you won't miss anything important!" 


Yes, it is true, Facebook has changed its Algorithm (see previous blog post about that here) and it does "pay to play" if you have something worthy to promote, this notion that you MUST create and add your favorite pages to an "Interest List" in order to see ANY posts, is not all that accurate.


According to Facebook, "Interest lists are an optional way to organize the content you're interested in on Facebook." The operative word being OPTIONAL!

It also states: " When you create or subscribe to a list, you'll see the best posts from that list in your main news feed." Again, this does not guarantee that you will see ALL posts from any given page, nor will your fans see all of your fan page post by adding your page to  their interest lists! 


To boot, I have seen post after post of people saying how daunting the task is of adding "all" of their pages to an interest list- upon the demand of many page admins freaking people out that they may miss out on some life altering information if they don't do it. 


**I have found an easy solution, if in fact, you want to create and interest list. I will be posting that in my next blog. **


In the meantime, don't stress. Continue to find and provide good content and engage your fans on your fan page. Facebook is favoring posts with more engagement! 


If you want to create an interest list, I say go for it. It's much like when you put people into category lists (Friends, Family, Church, Work) and when you click on that list, you get news only from those people. I think it is worth while, especially if you don't want to miss news from your clients, community organizations or the like. 

We all know that Facebook likes to keep us on our toes by changing things up every once in awhile. 

Well, this time, they made a change that you may or may not have noticed. 

In the last two weeks, Facebook engagement has dropped for individuals anywhere by 6% to 45% depending on what individuals and brands post.  Apparently, Facebook quietly announced on Sep 20th that it had changed its EdgeRank algorithm on Sep 18th, 2012. Even those of us who pay attention to things like this, missed it. 

Why did they make this change? 
Facebook advises that the changes were made to reward content-rich brands- meaning the more engaging content the content the more News Feed exposure. 

According to Facebook: Some of the strongest factors that influence this are how engaging an individual post has been for other users who have seen it, and how engaged a user has historically been with other posts they’ve seen from that page. Feed also takes negative feedback into account, which is the number of people who have hidden a post or reported it as spam.


I personally noticed this change yesterday when I posted about my anniversary. In a matter of 12 hours, I had 168 "Likes" on my status and 55 comments. I was amazed at the "interaction" I was receiving from that post! 


But what does this mean for us as business fan page admins? 

This change means that Facebook wants us to "Pay to Play". In their words: 
Finally, if a page has a piece of content that it feels will be very engaging e.g. A good offer, a great photo, an announcement, etc. then using paid media to “boost” that post to fans in newsfeed can be an effective tool to increase engagement with fans.


So much for "Organic" reach on Facebook! 

What do we do now? 

• Keep engaging! Know your fans! Continue to post things that they "like", comment on and share! 
  
• Pay attention to your analytics and insights on your Fan Page! Under each of your posts on your Fan page, you will see "222 people saw this post". If you hover over that line, you will see how many were organic and how many were viral. You will also see how your number on this post compares to your most popular post on your Fan Page!
• You can also click on your Insights tab at the top of your fan page and take a look at all of your numbers. As long as your "Engaged Users" and "Talking About this" numbers are up, you know you doing ok. 
• Don't post too much- that will decrease your reach. Carefully pay attention and select times that your audience is "listening" and choosing to engage and post during those times. 
• Consider promoting a special offer or using Facebook Ads. Just be sure to select “People who like your page and their friends” and make a pointed “share” or “like” ask in your post to get the most from your investment.

Changes like these means, now- more than ever, you need to create a social media marketing strategy. No more- posting now and then and hoping for people to see it. We have to stay ahead of the curve to stay in front of our customers! 

Right now, we are in the thick of it. Political Debates, the advertisements, the newspapers and now, our social media news feeds. 

I have been seeing more and more pleas from my friends on Facebook about unfriending/ deleting people from their Facebook accounts because of "over the top" political rants being posted online. 

While I am a firm believer in free speech, I am also a firm believer in respect for other's feelings and opinions. I have seen so many hateful statements come across my own newsfeed that it caused me to want to write about it! 

I personally try to stay very neutral on Facebook. I have so many friends, acquaintances and even clients that I am connected with on Facebook- and just as they are all very different people, one can assume that they may also have varying political views.  

Particularly, if you are using Facebook for business, you want to stay as neutral as possible. Posting politcal rants on your Fan Page or Personal Page with customers on it, may cause a sense of disconnect for people just based on the fact that they don't agree with you politically. 

DickensonInteractive.com posted a great article back in March 2012 about this very subject and suggests: 
Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Not Post About Politics On Facebook. 

I love his #5 Reason: " There’s enough politics in the media. One of the reasons I use Facebook is to laugh, have fun and converse with my friends and family. I don’t use it to get worked up or stressed out over something I see that I disagree with. There’s enough political coverage in the mainstream media. More than enough. Keep it there and leave the politics to the pundits."

What do you think? 

I keep seeing this status update creep back into my newsfeed: 
"PRIVACY NOTICE: Warning – any person and/or institution and/or Agent and/or Agency of any governmental structure including but not limited to the United States Federal Government also using or monitoring/using this website or any of its associated websites, you do NOT have my permission to utilize any of my profile information nor any of the content contained herein including, but not limited to my photos, and/or the comments made about my photos or any other “picture” art posted on my profile.
You are hereby notified that you are strictly prohibited from disclosing, copying, distributing, disseminating, or taking any other action against me with regard to this profile and the contents herein. The foregoing prohibitions also apply to your employee , agent , student or any personnel under your direction or control.

The contents of this profile are private and legally privileged and confidential information, and the violation of my personal privacy is punishable by law. UCC 1-103 1-308 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WITHOUT PREJUDICE" 

Posting this does NOTHING For You! 

Yourr personal data is governed by Facebook’s Data Use Policy, which YOU AGREED to when you signed up for your Facebook account! Posting this on your profile does NOT supersede this agreement! 

As per this agreement, " We [Facebook] use the information we receive about you in connection with the services and features we provide to you and other users like your friends, our partners, the advertisers that purchase ads on the site, and the developers that build the games, applications, and websites you use." Read the entire thing here!

Please, please, please do your research before posting things like this on your wall! It will not only assist you in learning the truth, but it will prevent mis-information being spread like wildfire. 

How do you know if the information you are about to repost is true?  Google It; Check Snopes or Facecooks.com!