Social Networking Archives - The At Home Couple

Latest Facebook Page Updates In Plain English

Alright – this is going to be really straight forward.

There are lot’s of updates coming up with Facebook – pretty epic stuff. The main three areas I’m concerned with are Facebook Pages.

Changes To Facebook Pages

Photos – Everyone’s noticed this change to personal profiles, and now pages – photos that are tagged as well as most recent additions will be seen in thumbnails across the top of your pages main content area.

Navigation – Next up, we have a major change for marketers (in my opinion) – Facebook as taken the “tabs” which use to be where the new image thumbnails are, and moved your tab navigation to below your profile picture and description etc… I guess us marketers got carried away (ha!).

Wall Filters – Next up, you can now choose to show the top posts from your page, or posts from everyone, on your Page wall. Most popular on your wall vs. most recent in chronological order – the choice is yours and can be toggled if you click on the Most Recent link below the featured thumbnails.

Admin View – This is MASSIVE! Finally you can use Facebook as your Page. Add comments on your fans walls, like and share content as your page, get notifications when people interact with your content etc.. This is huge for online marketers because we can now actively promote the page and engage people in a very personal way.

New Settings – Despite what people may believe, Facebook has worked really hard over the last few years to give it’s users more control over how their content is displayed on pages. You can now edit the order of your “liked” pages in the left sidebar area of your page, as well as featured users etc. More control for marketers to align themselves with other power users on Facebook.

Facebook Changes For Designers

If you’re a design junkie and like customizing fan pages (me) then there is a HUGE update coming regarding the degradation of the FBML app/tabs and the mass switch over to iFRAME.

This is great, overall. It means that with some coding knowledge, one can now embed almost ANY website or content into their Facebook Page. March 11th is the big day.

Anyways – that’s the latest with Facebook. Visit the links below for more info.

Click here for more on the Facebook Pages iFRAME update.

Click here for the latest updates for mobile users.

Click here for more on the changes to Facebook comments.

How are these changes affecting you?

Become A Ninja Link Master By Combining Social Bookmarking Tools

I’m sitting here waiting for my man D to come through so we can rehearse for our show tomorrow night, so I figured I’ll bang out a post while I’m waiting. If you guys don’t know Mark Hansen by now read through my 20 questions session I did with him, and visit him over at TheNicheStoreBuilder.com – Mark is the man when it comes to building niche affiliate websites, keyword research tactics and keeping the public up to date with eBay’s wonderful (sarcastic) affiliate program. Mark is usually pretty sharp in regards to finding out about cool little programs and services that make our lives online easier, and he recently posted up about another social bookmarking tool that I knew you guys would be interested in.

Remember when I introduced a few of you to SocialMarker.com and their awesome social bookmarking service? Well, take that concept but add the ability to securely input and save your account info, so you don’t have to manually enter it every time you want to bookmark something! Yes sir, OnlyWire.com does exactly this! I’ve just gone through the sign up process and after creating my log in it immediately took me to a page when I enter in my user/pass for 19 top social bookmarking sites listed as follows:

Backflip
Bibsonomy
Blinklist
Blue Dot
BookmarkSync
Connotea
del.icio.us
de.lirio.us
Diigo
Furl
Google Bookmarks
Jumptags
linkatopia
Linkroll
ma.gnolia
MyWebYahoo
Simpy
Spurl
Twitter

I could very well have hyper-linked each of those for you, but I think it would be safe to assume that the majority of you know these bookmarking services, and how to find them! Right? Right. Copy and paste the name into your address bar and add a .com at the end of it, and hit enter!

Now obviously you don’t have to fill in all 19 services for OnlyWire to work it’s magic, but if you really wanted to get 19 free backlinks in a few minutes than this site is the way to go. Combine the speed of OnlyWire with the selection of SocialMarker and you have yourself a well oiled social bookmarking machine! Talk about easy link building for new sites. Services like this really make what used to be such a tedious task easy enough that you could work it into your day without breaking a sweat.

I’m going to put together a short Camtasia tutorial once I get my accounts up and running – there won’t be much to it as the OnlyWire interface is super simple, and there’s not much to it at all. Put in your social bookmarking account info, save it, add the bookmarklet to your toolbar, and start bookmarking!

Take a peak and let me know what you guys think!

Cheers,

Elijah

Building Your Team Of Criminal Masterminds

There are two types of people in any work industry, whether it be online or in a cubicle: Those who work better alone, and those who work better as part of a team, and when it comes to blogging there’s really no choice for the earlier option – providing you want to be successful. Building a team of collaborators and joint venture partners is vital to the systematic survival of your brand and motion within the blogosphere. You need people to bounce ideas off of. You need a people to fill your weak spots and promote growth. You need to become part of something much bigger that your little blog.

Little blog?

Yes, little blog. I don’t care if you’re John Chow or Shoe-frickin-money, on the greater scale of all things Internet, we’re the equivalent to a gnat on a donkey’s ass. Pay very close attention to what I’m about to say: You cannot be alone in this vast domain.

I’ve read countless ebooks, hard and soft covers, journals, reports and manifestos in my year or so pursuing business online, and teamwork is the one element that 99% of them forget to include in their “Top 37 ways to make money online” or “secret formulas” and frankly I think it’s all a load of bullshit. If you remember my post on how the rich stay rich and why there will always be that divider between the top dogs and everyone else, it is their network that keeps them all on top. Everyone has a role to play in order to keep that network tightly knit and circulating. The bigger the network is, the stronger it becomes and the more influence it will have.

Let’s go back to the donkey’s ass for a second…

Imagine that across the donkey’s entire body there are one million gnats spread out individually, and in small groups. You could stand two feet from that donkey and not see a single one of them. You might even go right up to this ass with a magnifying glass and be lucky if you notice one or two of these little buggers minding their business. Now let’s imagine that a movement was spawned, and the gnats realized that the only way for them to be noticed was if they huddled closely together in large groups while screaming as loud as possible. What do you think would happen? I can imagine three possible reactions:

You would begin to think “what are those screaming dark spots on my donkey?”
Word would spread and the gnats would join forces to form even bigger groups.
Gnats on other donkey’s would notice as they pass, and incorporate this concept to continue the cycle.

I don’t know what just happened, but it made sense five minutes ago.

Even though Veronica doesn’t post on here, or isn’t as visible as I am online, she is part of my team. Every post I publish and idea I stumble upon is filtered through her first. I also have been building a team of other ninja marketers whom I communicate with on a daily basis. We have a brainstorm forum that provides a common place for support, resources and creative development. All of these factors will greatly affect my success as an online businessman, and in turn the people around me because this cycle is self sustaining.

Take a moment to think of the people around you whom you admire and the blogs you are inspired by, as these are usually the prime candidates for future joint ventures and diving partners off the coast of Costa Rica. Find people who share a similar status and take that chance because you never know who else was thinking the same thing that you were.

The number one way to make money online is by building a team. Period.

Cheers,

Elijah

Real Social Networking

It’s funny, because when I think of social networking in 2008 and what it means to the web 2.0 crowd, all I see is a bunch of people hiding behind computers with a jpeg for a face, and a keyboard for a mouth. We all fall into that category of course, because our business is based on the computer – but does it have to remain there? I look at someone like Lynn Terry from ClickNewz.com who, whenever she’s attending an industry event, invites her readers to meet up with her for lunch if any of them are local to where the event is happening. Talk about extending yourself and increasing availability – Lynn is connected with some of the top dogs in Internet marketing and still makes it a priority to pow wow with her available readers whenever she’s on the road. I definitely encourage you to extend yourself to your regular blog readers and swap phone numbers. Get acquainted with each other because the relationships we build now are the most important, and going beyond the computer is something I practice as often as possible.

Let’s take a closer look at the term “social networking” a little closer: You have social, or socializing, which is an interaction between 2 or more people without any defined objective or purpose – you’re simply talking for the sake of the moment. On the other end you have networking, which can start off as socializing but eventually will lead to end-goals from that particular conversation. If you caught that last bit, then you will know that the core difference between socializing and networking is the objective or goal – why are you talking to this person? One can argue that every interaction has some sort of objective whether it be to prevent that greasy guy at the bar from approaching you, or to keep your wife occupied while your friend sneaks your golf clubs into his truck – because your wife thinks you have a doctors appointment and your friend is driving you.

Learn to balance the two…

With so many mediums of social networking available on the web, it can become quite challenging to find a healthy balance between the two. One thing I haven’t done yet is download some sort of third party Twitter application like TweetDeck, because I don’t see anything positive coming out of me having access to Twitter every minute of every day. Is it really that important that I respond to tweets or direct messages right away? No. Do I really need to have Skype open all day while I work online? No. If anything of dire importance needs my attention I will either be notified as soon as I log in (literally) or that individual whom I am waiting to hear from will contact me by other means, like phone or personal email. Choose when to be connected and when to skillfully disconnect in order to promote a more productive day.

The reality…

Unfortunately, most of what we do online in regards to social networking and communication is merely glorified socializing – and that my friends is the ultimate enemy of productivity. When you choose to engage in social interaction, be conscious of the goals and objectives behind that encounter. Why are you talking to this person? If there is a specific reason, make sure it gets addressed within the first 2 minutes of digital conversation and if someone wants to tell you about their trip to the petting zoo, let them know that you can’t chat right now and to send you a brief email telling you all about it. Knowing when you make your exit will greatly improve your online performance, but also set the guidelines for others to know what to expect from you.

Try to encourage more networking and less socializing, and you soon realize how much time you were wasting doing the later. I know it’s hard to not jump on every new micro-blogging platform that enters the market, because we’re all nerds for that type of shit! It’s what we look forward to! Just know when to bow out gracefully if you do happen to indulge on a daily basis. Having an addiction to social networking sites is a serious problem – not only will it potentially cripple your business, but your home life as well, so be careful!

Cheers,

Elijah