To change the URL name of your Facebook Fan Page, follow these steps:
1. Go to http://facebook.com/username
2. If you’ve already changed your personal url, there will be a yellow box that says so. Underneath that, it says Set Username for Pages. Click there.
3. There will be a drop down menu of all the pages you administer. Pick one and click Check Availability.
4. Make sure you are sure about this change, you can’t redo it later.
I want to talk about self-reliance. Specifically, website self-reliance. As a small business owner, how many times have you wanted to change or add content to your website and not been able to? If you had your website built even 2 or 3 years ago, that is ok. Today, it is unnecessary.
Many of my clients and friends know, I am a GIANT WordPress fan. The ease with which non-coders can edit and adjust web content is stellar. I know some people like Joomla or Drupal better. That’s cool, the theory is the same. A content management system (CMS) lets a business owner edit content for both pages, blog posts, and sidebars. The content is not hard coded into a website, so changing certain parts is super easy.
Take a look at some examples of websites built on WordPress:
Timbuk2
WooThemes
Altitude Branding
Love and Kale
There are many people/companies that can take a design and translate it into a WordPress/Joomla/etc theme. But as a client, you have to ask for this. If you don’t ask, you may get stuck with a website you have to pay to update. When cash is tight, spend the money for a great theme in which you can control the content.
There are also excellent themes (free and paid) that already exist. This is another way to get started. Google WordPress Themes for lots of examples. WooThemes is one of my favorites because they build extra functionality into their themes. WooThemes takes extra time to make sure that you, the small business owner, can change a lot about the look and feel of your theme without having to be a code master. I’m using the Canvas theme on my site now.
Whether you decide to go with a theme that was custom designed, or buy one WordPress will allow you the freedom to update on a whim without worrying about breaking your site. Because let’s face it, small business owners are not often web developers.
What is it?
Location based competition + social networking. Foursquare is part tour guide, part social network, part coupon. Users check in at locations via their mobile phones (apps are now available for most phones), mention something about the establishment, and get points for checking in. Foursquare crowns the person with the most check-ins as the Mayor of that location.
Why should you use it?
Foursquare connects with Twitter and Facebook to broadcast check-ins of users. Foursquare is one more way to get users talking about your business.
Who can get the most out of it?
Restaurants, bars, coffee shops, hang outs. Foursquare is best for socially oriented places.
Where do I find more information?
Businesses should visit Foursquare for Business.
Consumers should visit Foursquare.
Apps can be downloaded in their stores, except for Blackberry download here.
What is it?
Social Media account management. HootSuite allows you to manage most of your social media in one place. Submit one post to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn all at the same time.
Why should you use it?
HootSuite is easy to use and web based. It supports lists in Twitter. Most importantly, it has analytics built in. By using the built in URL shortener, HootSuite will track how many clicks an individual link is getting. You can also schedule tweets for later.
Who can get the most out of it?
Anyone wanting to track the effectiveness of Twitter campaigns. Anyone managing more than one social media account.
Where do I find more information?
HootSuite Website
I’ve been using Posterous for several months and I recommend it to someone almost every day, I’ll explain why:
1. Post from any email enabled device. I am creating this entire post on my BlackBerry. I know many people have iPhones and can do lots of cool things, but I don’t. But I can email with the best of them. And so can 90 percent of the rest of the people I know. When I was travelling across the country I could email pictures and posts from my phone without wifi access, good times. 2. Pictures. To add pictures to this post I have to attach them to this email. Posterous sizes them and puts them in an excellent gallery, which you can see on my posterous site. 3. Autopost to Everywhere, or only some. Posterous allows you to autopost to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, hosted and unhosted WordPress, and many many more. But I also like that by saying facebook+twitter@posterous.com I can post to just those two places. Autopost plus selectivity. Those are the big ones for me.Seth Godin worked with some really talented people to compile an e-book entitled, What Matters Now. Take a look at his post about it here, and a list of the authors here. I’ve also uploaded it so you can download it here.
In the spirit of this work here is my list of the things that I think matter now:
Believe – in yourself, in others, in the capacity for goodness and change
Laugh – with your soul, until your face hurts and you’re crying your eyes out
Apologize – and mean it
Forgive – even long standing wrongs
Empower – everyone you can
Be Scared – at least once a day, maybe more
Authenticity – be true to your core beliefs, personally and professionally
Grace – forgive your own mistakes
Learn – something new, be better tomorrow than you were today
Move – in a direction, fail forward
What are yours?
Here’s another set of articles and videos that I’ve found worth sharing.
Google Wave confused me to no end. I’ve had my invite for a while, but didn’t really have the time to deal with figuring it out. I had a minute and I came across this video by Epipheo Studios (@epipheo). They do some brilliant work and I’m excited to keep up with them.
Stuff I’ve Learned at Microsoft by Sriram Krishnan has super useful insight for all businesses and businesses people. Well written and insightful.
Seth Godin discusses what brands are in today’s society in a very accessible and useful way with define:Brand by Seth Godin (@thisissethsblog)
My Own Tiger’s Tale by Matthew E. May (@matthewemay). Matthew E. May is one of my favorite writers these days. I like this discussion of the pursuit of perfection.
I’m reminded once again how fortunate we are in the US. With rare exception we have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink.
I was recently certified as a wilderness EMT. Part of that course talked about disease and children (among many other topics.) The relevant part to this discussion are the following 2 facts:
1. Trauma is the leading cause of death for children in the US.
2. Diarrhea is the leading cause of death for children in the rest of the world.
What causes diarrhea? Unclean water, mostly. And what most people don’t realize is that it doesn’t have to go on very long to kill children. Our bodies have a certain amount of fluid and we function super well with that much fluid. But the balance is delicate. If there is too much out and not enough in, we go into shock and die. We’re pretty good about recognizing that blood loss is bad, but fluid loss can be every bit as dangerous.
Why am I telling you all of this? Because, yet again, I am inspired by something happening on Twitter. Charity:Water is one of my favorite examples of Twitter use for actual good. They are able to reach a much larger audience than they would without Twitter. Plus, they post pictures of wells they’ve built. If you don’t already follow them, you must.
Today, Alyssa Milano posted a link on Twitter to what she really wants for her 37th birthday. She wants clean water for 5 communities. She’s a great example of someone using her celebrity and social media savvy to make a genuine difference. It is impressive.
December 20, 2009 Edit: Alyssa crushed her goal three times. As of today she’s raised more than $78,000 for clean water. If you look at the list of donors there are a couple people who gave a couple thousand dollars but most of the donations came from people giving less than $37. Many gave $1.
I also came across Laura Fitton‘s Well Wishes campaign. She is another person on Twitter using her influence for this great cause.
Does anyone else use Twitter as a note-to-self? I retweeted links that I thought were excellent and didn’t want to forget. I was SUPER busy last week, so I feel like I’ve just caught my breath. Sort of. I’m leaving for the life-change on Friday, so a little busy. I don’t want these links to get lost because there are some excellent ones.
Before I get to the list, I’d like to give a big shout to Trey Pennington (@treypennington). We had an excellent conversation that spanned topics like social media and great TV. Also the limits of the Apple TV and iTunes’s inability to reference more than one hard drive at the time. I look forward to more conversations in the near future.
And now my list…
Dan Roam creates winner of Best Slide Presentation contest by Adobe and Slideshare. Dan Roam is the author of The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures. I love looking at great presentations, there are always ideas to put into motion. I wish Dan Roam would do more on Twitter (@dan_roam).
The Seven Laws of Projects and How to Break them by Matthew E. May (@matthewemay). This is a great piece about challenges of projects. I think being smack in the middle of my own projects helped me appreciate this insight. Tweeted by Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki), I am always impressed by his variety. I find his tweets to be insightful with a great mix of funny, serious, knowledgeable, and esoteric. I know he is one of the best, but I am always happy to see it in action.
Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. Again, he is great. This is the text of the speech. It makes me want to rework every deck I’ve ever made. Although, I think there are different rules for decks that are meant to be read online (via something like SlideShare) versus given as a presentation. Brevity is still key, either way. Although I call it ADD friendly.
And to prove that Guy is too well-rounded for one human, he posts this link to a 4 year old giving the Herb Brooks speech from Miracle flawlessly. It is a must see. Too funny.
Those are the ones for the moment. This week is crazy busy in my world, but I’m planning to blog my road trip next week.
I’ve had the following conversation a number of times recently:
Liz: I love Wikipedia.
Liz’s Friend: I don’t, it’s not True. OR, I can’t tell where the bias is.
Encyclopedia Britannica was not True either. Nothing ever written is 100% true. With Wikipedia lots and lots of different people are contributing to the same work. So, there’s a lot more opinion and chance for usefulness. Also, no one thinks Wikipedia is 100% true, so everyone is skeptical.
Skeptical is good. We should be skeptical of every news outlet, media source, book, or blog out there. So, I maintain, I love Wikipedia.
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