So you may assume from my activities that I am Mr. Current, you know, all the latest gadgets etc. Well I may be quick to adopt soft technologies, but I take a while to jump onto new hardware… like phones. So I still carry around a Blackberry Curve. I’m used to it and its easy to use, maybe because it does not do very much. But Blackberry does have some apps for it and I have a few installed. For example, I have apps for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Skype and a few others. The template I use shows 6 icons across the bottom of the screen for quick access, I have to push a key to see the rest of them. Anyway, in order on this quick list I have: Mail, Calendar, Contacts and Skype, all of which I use all the time. The remaining two spots are for Social Media, and up until yesterday I had Facebook and Twitter in those spots. This worked great for quite some time. Recently, I noticed that I was having to click that key to show the other apps quite often to get to LinkedIn. Yesterday afternoon, I switched LinkedIn to the top and moved Twitter down because I seem to be accessing that more often. I felt a little strange afterward, even a little guilty that I would do such a thing to Twitter and it occurred to me that “This is Twitter’s fault”.

I know there are distinct camps out there. Oh sure we may all have accounts on all the social media sites, or at least the major ones. But most people seem to have gravitated towards one or the other as their favorite communication tool. Some of you are quite zealous about it. It reminds me of the Mac vs. PC user war. I find it interesting that PC users just bop along, but Mac users feel the need to climb up on a soapbox and tell the world, not how great Macs are, but rather how crappy PCs are. The same goes for iPhones vs, Android and iPad vs. anything else. I mentioned to an iPad user friend of mine that I thought the new Motorola Xoom looked pretty cool and you would have thought I just said I was joining the Nazi Party. Zealots permeate social media also, and I see a similar war of opinion going on in the Facebook vs. Twitter user world. LinkedIn just sits on the sideline, watching quietly. I saw an interesting study the other day about the traction of mentions. Mentioning Facebook or Twitter within Facebook got about the same traction. Mentioning Twitter within Twitter got a lot of traction, but mentioning Facebook on Twitter went nowhere.

I have never been one to take sides, I gravitate towards the tools that solve my particular problems and could care less about someone else’s opinion of the tool. I am a PC user, not because I don’t like Macs, but rather because that is what I have always had, I know how to solve my problems with it, and I have no interest in learning a new piece of hardware. I have nothing against Macs, never used one. Probably why I still carry around the Curve, it solves my problems. When it comes to the Facebook vs. Twitter user war, I don’t have a dog in that fight either, I just use what solves my problems the best. Let me go ahead and reply in advance to those of you who may be thinking about commenting that there is no war and that everything is just wonderful… you’re full of crap. You may not have taken a side, but sides have been taken. I see the zealots all over the place, more often it is the Tweeters talking about how much better Twitter is than Facebook. I would like to see a study of the ratio of Twitter users on PCs vs. Macs, I have a sneaking suspicion that Mac usage among Tweeters is high.

Anyway, I can only speak for myself and my own needs, and I have never found Twitter to be as much help in solving my problems as Facebook, and of late, LinkedIn has been better for my needs than Twitter. So Twitter drops to second row on the phone. I also turned off the new tweet notifications. I think that it may not be long before I delete the app entirely, Oh No!!

So is this the beginning of the end for Twitter? Does any of this resonate with you? Or am I just a boob.

One of the things I have learned, often the hard way, is that is does not really matter how good an idea seems to you. That goes for any idea: a product, a website, a logo, marketing copy… your opinion don’t mean spit.

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but so are ideas. Many times in the past I found myself driving along and all of the sudden, whammo, the idea of the century slams into my brain, and I literally wet my pants thinking about all the money it will make me. So I run back to my office and start working on my version of a business plan. My version of a business plan is usually a website. I grab some domain name that seems remotely related to my idea, throw up a wordpress install, start bolting on a bunch of random plugins, tweak, customize etc. Fortunately, I have enough practice that I can generally knock this out in a weekend. Come Monday, I launch. Email blasts, tweets, google and facebook ads, you know, the whole shebang. Then I sit back and wait.

99.9% of the time nothing happens. As a result, I have about 25 or so businesses floating around out there doing absolutely nothing. When I don’t see that immediate result, I quickly move on. Every now and then I go back to some old idea, turn it over in my head, but seldom have the time to figure out what is wrong because I just thought of 3 more ideas. For those of you who have trouble coming up with ideas, I assure you it is more of a curse than a blessing.

Oh, I know what I should be doing. If any of you listen to Jason Calacanis’ “This Week in Startups” podcast, you know also. Jason is a pretty smart ass guy. He preaches every week to people with ideas that “Ideas ain’t shit”. Completely worthless if either; a) You have no way to execute, or b) Nobody else want its. B being the primary issue as A can be solved. I can handle A, it’s B that I have trouble with. What I should be doing with an idea is floating it out before I do anything. Just to see if anybody gives a shit, before I waste another weekend.

But I got this idea, about how to help people float ideas without spending any time on them. I think I will spend next weekend putting something together on this…

I don’t know about you, but I’m simply not as productive as I could be. At the end of every day I feel like I have not accomplished anything and the day just flew by. My problem? Shiny Objects.

Basically I spend my day on the internet and social media sites in particular. As a speaker/trainer of social media, I obviously need to keep myself up-to-speed, but that does not explain my problem. Well they say the first step is admitting it, so here goes. When I run across an interesting update or tweet linking to something… I click it. There you have it… I am a Click Addict. One click, usually leads to another click and before you know it I have 40 tabs open in my browser. When I see something interesting, I bookmark it so I can come back to it and feed my addition more later. As a result, I have over 1,000 things bookmarked. But I never seem to have the time to actually get back to any of them, because there is always new stuff. I have concluded that bookmarking is actually a waste of time for an addict like myself. Those bookmarks are old and there’s new stuff coming at me a too rapid a rate to look back anyway.

When I am not at my computer.. it’s even worse. You see, I’m also a podcast addict, which of course enables my click addition. I listen to a whole bunch of podcasts about internet business and social media. I listen while I’m driving, at the gym, in the grocery store, on the phone with boring people, and of course when I’m in front of my computer. These people are talking about sites and companies and their links and names so fast I can hardly jot them down fast enough. The worst part is, when you’re driving and hear about something really cool, and then later have to re-listen to five podcasts again to find it.

So if you, or someone you know suffers from Click Addiction, please let them know… there is no hope.

Take our Facebook Ads module for example.

First we add to what we already know by scouring the web collecting every single method, tip, example, training product, video, pitfall, success and shortcut we can find, running down every rabbit hole and dead-end for weeks. I have personally watched hours of video miss-information, some even suggesting techniques that will not only fail, but probably get you kicked off of Facebook entirely. Then, my partners and I go through all of the collected information with our entrepreneur’s hats on (yes, we are all actually entrepreneurs first). We cull out the out-of-date and just plain bad information to distill the best information for business success.

We develop and add our own implementation strategy layers (lot’s of arguments here til we reach consensus). Then we test every strategy and step to make sure they work as intended and absolutely better than anything else out there.

Once the data passes these tests to every partners’ satisfaction, we assemble it into a step-by-step comprehensive plan that anyone can understand and lay it all down in a professional video track.

The result of these hundreds of hours of blood, sweat and tears? About an hour of video we believe to be the world’s best training on Facebook Ads for Business.

BTW, that’s ONE module, we have over 30 in our training system.

So for the guy who asked me how our training is different from him just watching YouTube videos on the topics, now you know.

It is very easy when you are in a space, to forget that there are a lot of people who have no idea what you are talking about. Sometimes the simplest explanations, are not simple enough for someone who has not grasped the basic concept. If you don’t understand what “Poaching” is, the fact that all that is required is an egg and hot water doesn’t help you much. For most of you who follow my stuff, you can probably click off here as this is going to be very elementary. But for those of you who still are having trouble grasping the very basic fundamentals of Facebook, I will try to fill in the gaps for you.

Facebook Defined: Facebook is a web-based social media platform that provides a digital means for people to connect and communicate with each other by forming “social networks”. A social network is essentially the digital equivalent of the ordinary real life relationships that we all have. Facebook uses the concept of “friends” to establish symmetrical relationships between 2 people. For example, if you are a Facebook user, you can send a Facebook “friend request” to someone you know who is also a Facebook user. If the friend confirms your request, the two of you are now “Facebook friends”. Pretty simple so far.

As a Facebook user, you can post comments on your Facebook “wall” concerning your daily life. Likewise, your “friends” can make comments on their own “walls” as well as your wall and vice-versa. Your Facebook “wall” is like a personal bulletin board and is generally what “friends” will see by default when they visit someone’s profile.This is what drives the voyeuristic aspect of Facebook. This is how moms see what they kids are doing for example. By going to their kid’s page and seeing what their kid posted on their wall as well as what their kid’s friends may have posted on their kid’s wall.

But it goes farther than that. By posting something on your wall, your Facebook friends are able to view it in their “news feed” without having to go to your profile. This is where i find a lot of people getting lost. The news feed and the wall are two different but connected things. When you log in to your Facebook account you are taken to your own “Home” page. On that home page you are looking at your “news feed”. If you clicked the link to look at your profile, which is your public face on Facebook, you would be looking at your “wall”.

The Facebook news feed is the heartbeat of Facebook and is composed of the aggregate wall posts (sometimes called “status updates”) made by you and your friends. As you view your news feed, you are kept informed of the day-to-day comments made by your network of Facebook friends in a sort of ticker tape fashion without the cumbersome task of serially browsing from wall to wall of each of your Facebook friends. Likewise, as your Facebook friends view their own news feed, they are kept informed of messages you have posted on your wall.

Let’s take it a step further now. Facebook is the clear leader in social media. Facebook now boasts over 500 million active users and the average Facebook user spends an hour a day on Facebook. The impact and potential of Facebook rests on its “viral” nature. As Facebook users accumulate more friends, they approach a point of activity and exposure whereby they start to receive friend requests from “friends of their friends”. As they accept these friend requests, their personal social network continues to grow even though they are not actively soliciting new friends. This phenomenon was so profound that Facebook imposed a limit of 5000 friends to protect their infrastructure from melt down.

At first, Facebook users mostly posted information concerning their personal lives. The majority of news feed posts were personal and perhaps even shallow. Posts such as “having coffee with so-and-so”, “my child is running a fever”, and other such posts were common. However, with the growth of Facebook, business interests were quick to catch on that Facebook is a viable communications platform for their advertising. Given the audience that can be accumulated, it is easy to see why commercial interests would soon pervade the Facebook news feed.

In order to protect its “social” intent, Facebook created a new idea of the “fan page” (recently renamed to just “Pages”) which are separate and distinct from your personal “Profile”. So, to be clear we now have “Profiles” which are people and “Pages” which are businesses, often people, even experts, use these terms interchangeably, but they are two different things.

Advertising on Facebook was a violation of the Terms of Service, but was running rampant and unabated on Profiles. By offering Pages, Facebook gave businesses a vehicle to advertise themselves to as many “fans” as they could attract – thus presumably preserving the “social” Facebook experience by diverting business related content to these Pages. To keep things unnecessarily complicated, Facebook recently changed the concept of a “Fan”, to just someone who “Likes” a page. Apparently it is less of a psychological commitment to simply “Like” something than to declare to your friends that you are a “fan” of something. While a lot of people still use the deprecated term “Fans”, the correct term now would be “Likes” or “Likers”. I know, it doesn’t flow as well.

With Facebook Pages, any organization with a message could benefit by taking advantage of a Facebook Page. After all, it’s free and easy to set up. Once you have a Page, you solicit Facebook friends to “Like” your page. Liking a Page is as simple as visiting the Facebook Page and clicking a button. Once you accumulate “likes”, you are able to post messages to the Page wall which will then become a part of your “Likers” personal news feeds.

Pages have met with varied degrees of success. Unless you are willing to invest in some bells and whistles design, your page will look like all other pages. The only difference is the label at the top identifying your organization. There is little compelling incentive for someone to “like” your page since the likely result is that they will receive commercial messages from you in their news feed. There are several recent schemes to attempt to overcome this, mostly consisting of nicely designed “teaser” pages that greet a visitor offering them something if they “Like” the page, and these are useful tools for the Page owner. But users are getting wise. Often before liking a page, they will first take a look at the page’s wall to see what kind of content they might expect to be dumped into their news feed. If it is all promotional content with no interesting information, they are not likely to “Like” the page.

So, if you have a Page for your business, how would you go about increasing your audience? Well, it is likely that it has attracted a few likes, even if only from your requests to your friends. While no case is typical, for purposes of illustration, let’s assume your page has 60 “Likes”. Now you can post a message on your page wall that will in turn become part of the personal news feed of those 60 people who like your page. Impressive since it’s free. Each of the people who see your message in their personal news feed, has the opportunity to pass it on to their friends by “Sharing” your post. So now your information has landed in the news feeds of their friends. So why would somebody “Share” your information? Because they felt it was “share worthy”, or maybe they are just a friend trying to help you out.

So think about this. You create a post of some kind, which can be text, a video, photo or whatever, that turns out to be “Share worthy”. The 60 people who like your page see it in their news feeds. Lets say half of them decide to share it with their friends, and for simplicity sakes let assume everyone has 60 friends (even though the actual average is more like 130 friends). Okay so now your post, with your page link attached just went out to another 1,800 people. If it was good enough for half of the original people to share, why wouldn’t half of those 1,800 people share it, so it bounces out to another 54,000 people, and so on. If anyone along the way likes what you posted enough, maybe they click on the link and go to your Page. If they like what they see, maybe they “Like” your page and the cycle continues. You get the idea.

If what I just said sounds easy, I apologize, because it is not. People are fickle, many will like your information and your page, but never share. Many will like what you have to say and come to your page often, but never “Like” it, therefore denying you that ongoing dialogue access we all desire. Many Page owners will turn to Facebook Ads as a way too “kick-start” their pages, but that is an advanced topic beyond my premise for this post.

So there you have it. Facebook, oversimplified in a nutshell. Hopefully I was able to clear some fog for you.

If you would like to learn more about how to Master Facebook, check out our training systems .

I welcome any comments, feedback or questions.

Oh sure, I could probably just ask Phil to sit down and detail it out for me, but frankly if I pulled that string on Phil it would lead to hours of listening to him detail every single aspect of these techniques. Someday maybe, but right now I am way to busy to block out two days. Besides, I’m a smart guy and I think I can figure it out just from the titles.

Let’s see… “Guerrilla Marketing”. Well we all know what Marketing is, and we know Guerrillas are generally people who create a lot of havoc with little or no financial backing. So to me, Guerrilla Marketing is the idea of creating a lot of buzz and attention for yourself or your business with little or no money. Simple enough… conceptually anyway.

“Attraction Marketing”… hmmm. Well Phil is a handsome fellow, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what it’s about. Again, we all know what marketing is, but how does “Attraction” plug into it. A quick jump over to Dictionary.com defines “Attraction” as:

1. the act, power, or property of attracting.
2. attractive quality; magnetic charm; fascination; allurement; enticement.
3. a person or thing that draws, attracts, allures, or entices.
4. a characteristic or quality that provides pleasure; attractive feature.
5. Physics . the electric or magnetic force that acts between oppositely charged bodies, tending to draw them together.

I see the word “Magnetic” used a couple of times, and that concept is pretty easy to grasp, so applied to marketing that would lead me to the thought that “Attraction Marketing” is the idea of presenting yourself or your business in such a way that instead of pursuing business, business pursues you. Again, Simple enough… conceptually anyway.

Phillip is obviously very experienced with these techniques, if you have not met Phil, this is his picture on the left.

But how can the rest of us apply these techniques to our situations? How can we become “Attractive Gorillas” like Phil?

In the old days this would have been tough. I mean there was no free or low-cost marketing, and how could you hope to get the word out about yourself enough to attract? Direct Mail, TV, Radio or magazine ads? Hard to do that without looking like the pursuer.

Fortunately for both these techniques, technology has caught up with their premise. Social Media in particular. Social Media could not have been designed any better for Guerrilla or Attraction Marketing if that had been the intention. Think about it. You can market yourself or your company to everyone on the planet for absolutely nothing. You can also develop a persona through your Social Media activities, that will indeed drive people to want to connect with you, like a magnet.

So, you are welcome to go buy all the books on Guerrilla and Attraction Marketing as I am sure there are many facets that I have not covered here, particularly since I just made all this up. But whatever you do, take advantage of Social Media while it is still the “thing”. Because eventually, even Social Media will become just another marketing channel flooded with all your competition and your opportunity to grab some market share will have passed.

Stay tuned for future posts where I will again “Put Phil Over”.

Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly many more sinister efforts going on out there; attempts to capture credit card and password info for example, and obviously that is not cool. But how is using my data to serve me ads that are relevant to me a bad thing for me?

Let’s face it, in this day and age there are two truths: 1) Privacy is a Deprecated concept, and 2) Few websites or apps have figured out any way to make revenue other than ads. All of the effort now seems to be on making the ad model more effective, at least until someone figures out another way to make money online. And how do you make the ad model more effective? Targeting.

As an occasional Facebook advertiser, I know this, because Facebook tells me so. Facebook tells me that I can target an ad based on all sorts of data points of their users. Before you whine about that, remember, you provided all of this data yourself. Would you like your Facebook experience better if it did not have that row of ads down the right side of the page? Probably. Would you be willing to pay Facebook $29 a month to not see those ads? Probably not. So the fact of the matter is that there are going to be three or four ads shown to you on every page; get over it. But if you are a college student, would you prefer to see ads for “Denture Cream” or “Timberland Backpacks”?

Based on all the data you have provided Facebook, and continue to provide every day with your posts, likes and shares, as an advertiser I can find a 40ish, pregnant woman, who lives in northeast Baton Rouge, loves Nascar, George Clooney, green onions and just finished reading Wrestling for Dummies while watching the movie Terminator 4, who is sitting on the couch with her laptop open to Facebook while watching Millionaire Matchmaker on her birthday. I can actually create an ad that only this person would see. If I actually sold a product that had that person as a potential customer; is this a bad thing?

If you agree or disagree, please leave me a comment.

I typically start my presentations or speaking engagements by asking who in the room has a social profile of any kind. At the beginning of the year, maybe 10% raised their hands; by the end of the year it was more like 90%. So it is time for those of us in Social Media to finally, and thankfully, shift gears. I am already re-working my January presentations to focus on the Hows; How you use the tools to grow your business.

I am striking the phrase “So what is Facebook?” from my vocabulary. I am also planning to pull back significantly on my use of the phrase “Why should you be on Facebook?” and introducing the phrase “How do I capitalize on Facebook?”. If you somehow missed the news, you can only blame yourself as there were at least a million events last year on the subject of what and why… and that was just in my hometown.

Maybe I’m naive, but I’m sick of the economic doldrums, and I refuse to participate anymore. Apparently, so is everyone else I talk to. 2010 was not a bad year… but it could have been so much better. My plan is to move into 2011 convinced that it will be a kick-ass year, hopefully for everybody, but definitely for those in my space. So if you see me out-and-about, and you feel the urge to tell me that 2011 will be no better than 2010… don’t… or I just might punch you in the nose.

I can hardly keep up myself. Places, Deals, Revamped Groups, Revamped Profiles, Revamped Pages coming… keep it up Zuckerberg.

So why am I so damn happy?

Well, for one thing, I just got a whole bunch of new stuff to talk about at my event this Thursday. As a Social Media Speaker, I never give the same presentation twice. Which is good for my attendees… not so good for my workload. I have 3 days to completely revamp my presentation. I have been deep into the new features, following every rabbit hole to figure out not only how to use them, but how to apply them to business owners, which is my core audience.

My to-do list for this weeks presentation:

• Completely redo Profiles
• Completely redo Groups
• Update Places
• Add Deals
• Show soon-to-be-launched Pages changes
• Get the oil changed in my car
• Pick up another jar of pasta sauce from Publix
• Return sneakers that are too small
• Update Ipod
• Hide Christmas decoration storage boxes
• Replace wheels on sliding door screen

Man, I better get to it!

Later.

Steve

It is one thing to know what is good for us, and to truly believe that we aspire to these things as a “future” goal, but when faced with the immediate choice, most of us do the opposite. And so it is with Social Media for your business <-clumsy segue.

I have yet to meet a business owner who does not agree that their business needs to embrace social media to survive: “Oh yes… I’m definitely going to do that”. But most fail to act and simply continue doing what they have been doing. Just like the majority of the population, the majority of businesses are obese slobs lumbering on to an early death.

We know at our core that the health food nuts, vegans and fitness junkies will outlive us all. Business owners who are on a steady diet of Social Media will outlive their competition, and we know that as well. So why don’t more of them act on the health of their enterprises?

Oh, they know alright, as of this writing I just sold out an event titled “Social Media Business Strategies”. Fifty people signed up in less than four days. They too will be like many people I see at my events; busy taking copious notes, nodding like dashboard dogs, asking insightful questions, and generally “fired up” to get involved. However, which I know is rare for a speaker, I keep track. I make a habit of checking up on my attendees a month or so after my events. Out of some warped need for validation I desperately hope to see someone who has actually taken steps. But just as the salesperson at LA Fitness knows, most people who take the gym tour, will never come back. No matter how convincing they appeared in their plan to actually get in shape.

Fortunately, a small percentage do commit to implementing Social Media into their business plan. It is for these people who I resist the temptation to run my slides upside down just to see if anyone notices. Just as it is no secret that exercise is good for you, the value of Social Media is denied by few, but avoided by most.

So would you like an Apple or a Doughnut?

Guess what? Social Media ain’t your club. It Never was.

You early adopters simply had a head-start on the rest of the world which gave you the illusion that the space was yours to craft into a private Utopia.

I received a message from a Facebook friend a while back telling me that if I don’t stop face-tweeting, they will un-friend me because they don’t use Facebook like that. I thought to myself “Why should I give a shit about how you use anything?”

I recently helped Derrick Brooks sort out his Facebook page. One of the things we did was to connect Twitter to his page. Of course, why wouldn’t we? This step is even recommended by Facebook during the setup. I started following Derrick’s tweets as a result. As many of you know, Derrick is a guaranteed lock for the NFL Hall of Fame, an eleven time Pro Bowler and a Superbowl ring wearer. Personally, I feel privileged to be able to hear his thoughts through his tweets. Now Derrick is far from a Social Media elitist and he frequently tweets in all caps. Why? Because he feels like it. Occasionally, some nobody jackass will feel compelled to tell Mr. Derrick Brooks that he is doing it wrong. According to who? The idiot below actually felt so strongly about it that he tried to enlist Warren Sapp to support his cause. Warren told him to pound sand by the way.

I got news for the social media snobs. It ain’t your playground. Social Media is a public park were everyone is invited, like it or not. So gird yourselves for the onslaught of faux pas that will continue to leave you seething behind your lattes realizing you have lost control of the teeter-totters to the new kids.

Of course, one of the nice things about most social media is that we all have a choice of who we want to follow. If you are bothered by the way someone uses the tools, you can easily stop following them and the MADNESS WILL END for you. But, I suggest that you simply give into it. You really don’t have a choice anyway, there are way too many heathens over that rise.

Here’s an easy to implement Facebook marketing strategy to help you generate more interest in your business and drive traffic to your blog or website.

When someone arrives on your Profile Page for the first time their eyes are immediately drawn to your profile picture and “Mini Bio”.

(Located below your profile picture.) This presents you with an immediate opportunity to let visitors know who you are, what you have to offer, and drive traffic to your blog or website.

There are 5 key things you want to try to address in your “Mini Bio”, in 250 characters or less.

1. A greeting!
2. Your title (what your known by)
3. Who you can help.
4. Problem you can solve
5. Benefits someone would receive
6. Blog / Web Address.

#’s 3, 4, 5, & 6 are the most important.

1. Your Greeting

Since you only have enough space for 250 characters, be sure to keep your greeting short to conserve valuable space for your core message.

Examples

• Greetings!
• Nice to meet you!
• Great to meet you!
• Hi!
• Hello!
• Welcome!

2. Your Title

Next you want to add your title or what you’re known as or for. Keep it short and sweet.

Example: “I am a Social Media Speaker / Trainer”

Adding a title or known as in your “Mini Bio” is optional but recommended. If you do, don’t be afraid to add some personality.

Gimmicks are memorable and can help to break the ice and make people laugh.

3. Who can you help with your business opportunity or products?

Everyone that breaths, eats, sleeps, drinks, has a physical ailment , likes to have fun, markets a product or service, owns a business or wants to make money… RIGHT?

WRONG!

Even if this were true, it is a physical impossibility for any individual to be all things to all people.

In order for people to know what to come to you for, you have to become known for something.

If you want to grow your business and make money faster, focus the majority of your time, energy, and resources on low-hanging fruit. In other words, identify the audience that is the easiest to sell to.

4. What problems can you solve?

The #2 reason why people go online is to find solutions to their problems. Make a list of all the problems your product and/or opportunity will solve for someone. If you end up with several, home in on the biggest ones.

Example: I help businesses to develop their online brand and make their offers irresistible.

5. How will someone benefit from your offer?

Now that you’ve determined the problems you can solve for your audience, make a list of all the benefits someone would receive if they did business with you. Your goal is to identify the ultimate benefit(s).

Example: Generate more leads and sales!

6. Blog / Web Address

You can create a one-click hyperlink in your “Mini Bio” box that takes people directly to your blog or website. In order for your site address to be a click-able link you will need to type in:

http://yourdomainname.com It is not necessary to add www.

Example “Mini Bio”

Welcome! I’m a Social Media Marketing Speaker & Coach.

I coach businesses on how to develop their online brand, make their offers IRRESISTIBLE, & generate LEADS & SALES… spending little or no money.

Learn more at http://stevemordue.com/fm

I hope you found these tips useful. For more great Facebook Marketing Strategies like this, visit: The Facebook Training Center here

http://www.stevemordue.com/fm

Phillip Black (Shared by Steve Mordue)

Follow me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/paraphraser

So, you’re at a networking event with friends, having a wonderful time. There are jokes, quality banter,  laughter, and occasional insider info shared that only years of bonding together at these events can bring.

A stranger awkwardly stands behind you, as if wanting to be part of your conversation.

He seems familiar – you think you know him from somewhere, but have never met until now. Being a good networker, you invite him into your circle of connections and strike up a chat.

But he doesn’t seem to be interested in answering any of your questions, or listening to a word you or your friends are saying. All he does is talk about himself and his business, like some kind of robot.

It’s about this time that you’ll politely ignore that person for the rest of the event – and, if you’re lucky, the rest of your life.

And yet, most businesses are approaching social media with the exact same finesse. I think whoever coined the term “Social Media” has done us all a disservice.

Why? Because businesses tend to focus only on the ‘media’ part, and completely ignore the ‘social’ part. It’s become all ‘transactional’, and not enough about relationships.

For example, I often hear business owners ask how they can build up a large social media following so they can blast out more coupons and offers (just in case their target customers didn’t see the TV ads, direct mailers, websites, text messages, or e-mails).

Not only that, they want the communication to be one-way: they don’t actually want to respond back to customers (“just drive them to our website!”). To them, it’s just another media channel like all the others.

There may be a sense of déjà vu for many industry veterans, as ‘customer interaction’ was a war-cry of the early dot-com days. Social media should be a natural extension of that, so why have the lessons not been learned? In truth, social media is probably more the love child of Public Relations and the Internet, a fluid mixture of influencing conversation and the interactive Internet.

So there are some lessons learned that should apply if you want to use social media effectively. Here are five very basic concepts to get you going:

1) Listen. Before you even start talking, have you taken the time to understand what the conversations are about? Do you understand the setting, the context, and what is appropriate for the situation? If so, then…

2) Respond. Having a social media presence is not the same as a billboard or TV commercial; you are actually expected to be “social”. You may not always have all the answers, but at least giving genuine acknowledgment is a start. Which leads to…

3) Being human. Businesses are easy to hate: large, faceless corporations that care only about money. Humans however, have thoughts, feelings, emotions, dreams, hopes, and desires, and form communities around those. Humans also make mistakes – and they can be forgiven when acknowledged. Your behavior online determines what you are. To be more human, you should…

4) Have something interesting to say. Yes, I know, a business in a social media setting can only mean one thing – they’re here to sell something. That’s understood, and accepted. But it’s the way you go about it that determines if I want to buy from you or not. If your social media presence is the equivalent of talking to an automated phone system, or something I can already get from your e-mail newsletters, then I have no need to follow your social media presence. Here’s a clue though – people who do follow you are probably interested in the category of products or services you sell. Surely you have something interesting to say about your industry? If so, great! You should…

5) Share. Every company wants a viral campaign (usually because it’s the code word for maximum reach with lowest cost). But there is a simple word that lies at the heart of every great viral campaign: ‘kudos’. It’s the currency of the social world – whoever finds the coolest, funniest, most interesting information first and shares it gets credit for it. So don’t hoard information – make it interesting and set it free.

As a final word, not everyone goes from wallflower to life-of-the-party overnight. It takes is a lot of practice and a genuine love of conversation with others. If that doesn’t sound like you…well, there’s nothing wrong with hiding behind your computer and doing it.

I am sure most of you know Phillip, at least if you are in the Social Media space. If not, you have been living under a rock. Phillip’s training sessions always sell out and his Social Media Dojo program is amazing. He’s pretty intense in his presentations, but I can tell you he is holding back. In person, this dude is like a pack of lit firecrackers balancing on top of a spinning top. I chatted with Phillip for about two hours about his ideas for the future and kept having to remind myself to close my mouth.

Phillip is putting together something big. I can’t really talk in details yet, but you will freak when you see his vision realized. I am humbled, shocked and very appreciative that he has asked me to be a part of it. Now I have to prepare myself for the g-forces I am going to experience just trying to hang on to his coat-tail.

Stay tuned…

I received an email from Hubspot, an SEO company of sorts whose list I am on. I usually ignore any information from an SEO company, but Hubspot has sent along a few things in the past that I thought were interesting and this one peaked my attention. There is some kind of “inbound Marketing Summit” coming up next week in Massachusetts. In advance of this event the promoters (I guess) sent out a survey to Chris Brogan, David Meerman Scott and 17 other top Social Media and Marketing pros in the industry today. The survey asked these “experts” several questions for their thoughts about today and their predictions for 3 years out, 2013. Here are a few nuggets I found interesting:

The experts were asked “What Service or Website Drives the Most Business Value” today and to predict for 2013. Not surprisingly, 80% saw Google as the “king” today with Facebook as a fairly distant second. I have been telling anyone who listens to me that I think that Facebook will eventually eclipse Google, and indeed the experts predicted that Google will slide by 2013, but they also predict that Facebook would slide by a similar proportion! The experts predicted that “Other” will become a major force. “Other” as in something that may not even exist or at least is not on the radar today.

In response to the question “What Channel Drives the Most Business Value” the experts also gave some interesting assessments. Mobile Marketing and Social Media Marketing are expected to grow significantly, while Organic Search (SEO) and Email Marketing drop precipitously over the next 3 years. Interestingly, blogging stays about the same: not particularly significant.

There were a lot of different responses to “The Most Important Metrics to Track” across channels. For example “Comments”, seemed to be the most mentioned metric for blogs. “Interactions” for Facebook (I’m not sure how you even measure that). Re-Tweets was mentioned a lot for Twitter metrics. But for “Social Media Marketing”, “Inbound Marketing” and “Marketing Overall” I was pleased to see that good ole “Sales” was still the most relevant metric.

When asked their opinions on “Biggest Marketing Trends for 2011″, some responses were: Mobile Video, “Smart” Display Advertising, Geo-Location, Real-Time Search, Embedded Demographic Mobile Advertising, Curation and The Right Time Web. Based on this, seems to me like Mobile will be even hotter next year…duh.

I would love to hear your opinions on what this “Other” could be, let me know in the comments below.

To see the source go to

http://www.hubspot.com/webinars/view-insights-from-19-marketing-experts/

They will want your contact info, but some of their stuff is pretty good.

Everybody is doing a “Top Ten” list nowadays, it is a proven popular format, so I decided I would do a “Bottom Ten”. Seemed like a good angle so I did a search on it and found that I am way too late; seems there are already a bunch of posts on “What not to do”. But I had already mentally committed myself and it was too late, or I was too lazy, to come up with a better idea. I read all of those other posts and stole the best titles, added my own spin and a few that I did not see. Then to make my post stand out from the others I did something revolutionary: Eleven instead of Ten. (I tried to file a trademark for Eleven, but was turned down). This post is directed towards business people and probably will not apply if you are say… a rock band. By the way, at one point or another, I have been guilty of most of these, but as my grandfather used to say “Do as I Say, Not as I Do”.

So here are my 11 sure-fire tips for Social Media Failure in no particular order:

A lot of people come up to me after a talk and say, “Wow, that was great Steve, you are truly a Social Media guru and very handsome” (I am paraphrasing here) “I’m going to run back to my office and create a bunch of accounts and profiles and make a bunch of money”

Good luck; if that was all that was necessary, I would be rich already. You really have to look at Social Media like a toolbox. If your goal is to hammer in a nail, a wrench is not going to do you much good. Figure out what your true goal is, and “make a bunch of money” is not a definitive enough goal to give your plan any guidance. You need to back up a few steps.

In order to “make a bunch of money”, what would need to happen? More clients, charge higher fees, less competition? Great, now back up another step. For example, to charge higher fees what would need to happen? Be considered a better quality resource, an authority, in demand? Now we are getting closer. Let’s zero in on being considered an authority or expert as a possible way to charge higher fees. Now we have a Social Media goal and we can go to the toolbox and select the tools that provide the best chance of achieving our goal, in this case maybe LinkedIn should be a priority over facebook or Twitter.

Once you start any Social Media profile, you are going to be eager to get some kind of following. Let’s face it what is the point of sending out a tweet if there is no one on the other end to receive it. I am guilty. When I first got started with Twitter I started following a few people who I knew. Those were the days when I actually read tweets. It was interesting seeing what people I knew were talking about.

Then I decided one day that I needed to drastically increase my followers so I could push my messages out to a larger audience. It’s not hard, just start following people, many follow you back. When you get to a couple of thousand Twitter will pipe up and try to keep your ratio of followers to following somewhat even, so you stop following those people who never followed you back, and follow more new ones. And so this goes and eventually you have a bunch of followers… and this is worth what? I mean who are these people? I made similar mistakes on facebook and LinkedIn and now I get so many updates from strangers across all the platforms that I hardly look at them any more. Don’t try to send me a direct message in twitter if you need me to respond as all that is ever there are automated marketing messages. For me, the two-way interactivity of Web 2.0, has turned back into the old one-way push of Web 1.0, and its my own fault.

Introducing yourself with spam

“Hey Steve, thanks for accepting my friend request, I really like you a lot so here is a special link to my MLM Downline, Affiliate Marketing, Web Hosting, Crappy House for Sale, etc.”

Really!! Have you no shame… or sense.

I frequently have people tell me “Social Media is a waste of time, I keep sending out my pitches and nobody’s biting”. I will usually ask them how they respond to similar messages that they get from others and then stand back and watch the light bulb go on. It is just as easy to “un-friend” as it is to “friend”, remember that.

Begging for a job

Times are tough. A lot of people are out of a job. Unfortunately as a society we have a tendency to avoid people who are having a hard time. Pretending to check a phone message when the panhandler walks up to our car window for example. Letting the world know that you are down on your luck with a title like “Currently looking for work” will not get you a job. I would even go so far as to say it will move you even further from a job.

Instead, put on a happy Social face. Use a title like “Independent Consultant”, “Social Media Strategist” or “Professional Speaker”; sure we all still know you’re available, but it somehow seems less pathetic. No one ever hires anyone they pity. Get out in the social space and start socializing, pretend like you are a person people would actually like. Then reach out privately to inquire about opportunities to feed your family.

Hiding in Plain Sight

Privacy is a generational thing… my generation unfortunately. Social Media is Public Sociality (I might have made up that word). Boomers and up have a problem with this conceptually. Common themes include using fake names or company names and not providing any profile information or photos. Here’s a hint: nobody cares. In fact, I would say these people are actually hurting themselves more than if they did not participate at all. If I get a tweet from @acmecorp I assume that this must be a robot, unless your personal name is “Mr. Acme C Orp”, in which case Social Media is going to be a challenge for you. If you have not provided any profile information, you must be hiding something. If you have not uploaded a photo, you must be ugly.

If you are going to jump into this pool, you are going to have to be prepared to take some clothes off like everybody else.

Inconsistent Branding

In my mind, the only thing worse than not customizing your profiles on the various platforms and just using the generic themes provided, is using a different theme on each one. You are aware that there are a couple of other people on social media? Standing out is a bigger challenge than it ever was before. You spent the money and effort to create a website with a look and feel that conveys your brand… carry that through, to the extent that you can, into the social media masses. Aside from outrageous antics or extremely good content, it may be your only hope of getting noticed.

Duplicate posts

Automation is great. When things are setup properly your Twitter can feed your facebook updates…and your LinkedIn updates, and a bunch of other updates and they can all feed back to each other… in a potentially endless loop.

Resist the urge to connect everything too quickly until you understand how they talk to each other. Few things are more annoying than suddenly getting the same update from five different places dumped into my news feed. I speak from experience here. I still have something re-tweeting my updates that I cannot for the life of me remember where it is to turn it off. If this does happen to you, do not compound the situation by sending out an apology update… that to will probably get duplicated 10 times.

Inappropriate updates

Number one rule of tweeting? Don’t tweet when you’re drunk. Seems obvious enough, but a lot of sober people seem to say dumb stuff too. If you frequently find yourself regretting an update you made, maybe you should consider some sort of time-delay.

One of the primary things that social media lacks is the ability to see your smirk as you hit the enter key. Trying to be witty, sarcastic, profound, self-deprecating often falls flat and instead comes off as arrogant, narcissistic or just plain stupid. Of course if you are arrogant, narcissistic and stupid… knock yourself out, but beware, you may come off witty, sarcastic, profound or self-deprecating. I have also found that it is impossible to look at a tweet or update prior to sending, through the eyes of the receiver. I mean it came out of your brain, so no matter how many times you turn it over, it is going to feel right…right? Best advice, when in doubt, skip it. Like the saying says “Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to tweet and remove all doubt”.

Not engaging

I know of a bunch of people who have a lot of followers and give them nothing in return. Pro Athletes or celebrities for example. Seems like a wasted opportunity to get somewhere to me, but then again these people are already somewhere. I am going to take a leap and assume that no Pro Athletes or celebrities are reading this.

Most of you reading this will not comment at the bottom. Why… I don’t know. Maybe you cannot afford to take the eight seconds required to write something or the one second it would take to hit the like or re-tweet button. All I know is that I, like everyone else, crave feedback. If I do get a comment, not only will I bounce around my office in glee for half an hour, but I will seek you out and buy you a new car*. Engagement is not only free, but it accrues value to the engager. If you re-tweet anything I ever tweet, you can bet I will start following you.

Alas, Social Media is a reflection of our “what’s in it for me” society. We go to parties and ignore the people we don’t know. We attempt to build followings without following others. We lament that no one comments or re-tweets our morsels of wisdom, while we are reading some fascinating post only to click off without commenting or re-tweeting. I we do comment, it is usually along the lines of “Great post, check out this link for my better one.”

Remember Karma? I understand that you can’t pay the rent with Good Karma, but you can’t buy Good Karma either. Engage with others and they will engage with you… or maybe they won’t.

*I’m not going to buy you a car

Not filtering your feeds

A lot of people are automating their social presence these days. Generating their content by pulling feeds of other content since we all know that “Content is King” and most of us are too lazy to produce it. I too had some minor automation going on to offset my laziness. I learned about Yahoo Pipes, a tool that will let you take information from a feed, reformat it any way you want and produce a new feed. For example, you could take the search results from search.twitter.com for #publicspeaking, reformat it and have that feed to you twitter account so it looks like you are re-tweeting things you find interesting. Until you look at your timeline one day and realize you have re-tweeted:

“Anybody who hires a public speaker is a jackass #publicspeaking”

Quitting too soon

Social Media is not a quick fix. Shiny objects are indeed cool. I myself am fascinated by new things, wait a minute… what is that?…

I still frequently discuss the paid advertising options like Adwords as many people are still convinced that they need to be there, and of course the topic of organic search always comes up in any discussion of Internet Marketing, as well it should. But just how important is organic search anymore?

Take a look at the following image; this is an eyeball heat-map of searchers. This image has been around a long time and is a staple in any SEO consultant’s promotional materials.

Certainly, anyone looking at this would immediately understand the value of being at the top of the organic search results, right? I mean really, look at all the attention garnered by the organic results on the left, as opposed to the relatively little attention given to the paid results on the right. This made a lot of sense a while ago, but look at what has happened recently in this image:

On the left is the old results upon which the heat-map was generated; but do a search today and you will be given the new results page of today on the right. The red horizontal line indicates the “fold” (This is a newspaper term that refers to the area you can see without scrolling down the page and is obviously the prime are to be in). The green areas are the organic search and the red areas are the paid search. As you can see on the right, Google has encroached on the organic search, not just with more paid ads, but also with their Google Places Local map. At least in the old days people were more apt to scroll down a list of organic results, but now that list is interrupted not only with the local map, but also some video results from YouTube. You have to scroll down quite a way now to get to the rest of organic search. Based on this, I would argue that there are only 3 organic spots worth having, and even their value against all the paid stuff surrounding them is dubious.

Here’s something else to think about: Back in the old days of the left hand results, SEO had a clear value. Much of what was showing organically was not displaying due to any specific effort, and a case could easily be made that by applying almost any effort, some positive results could be achieved. This was true at the time. But now everybody is aware of SEO, most modern web development tools, WordPress, etc, already cover the basics pretty well, and so most everybody has done the basics and therefore the playing field has been re-leveled. The lucky three are spending more time, money and effort than most of us ever will, or could. Often these three spots are held by big companies with in-house SEO teams and bloggers spending a lot of effort on an ongoing basis. So why are so many small and mid-sized companies paying SEO consultants hundreds of dollars a month?

Naivete mostly. Let’s face it, most people do not understand any more about the internet than that “they need to be there”. I’m not saying that all SEO consultants are selling snake oil, just 95% of them. How many times have we heard the pitch: “Top of the search results in 30 days, Guaranteed”? Aside from the previously demonstrated dubious value of this goal, the uninitiated can still be swayed to part with their money in hope of reaching this internet holy grail. If you still believe that this is a worthy goal, those of us “in the know” understand that today there are only two ways to get there: quality back-links, and quality, consistently updated content. Neither of which are provided by 95% of SEO consultants. This is however what most in-house corporate teams do. So what do most SEO consultants actually do for you?

Managing Adwords. Using Adwords, anybody can “buy” their way to the “above the fold” search results in a matter of minutes. Many SEO consultants will take your $400 a month and spend half of it on Adwords campaigns. Voila, you are now where they said you would be. Again, those of us “in the know”, understand that anyone can create an Adwords account, learn the basics, and have “all” of their $400 go towards their own promotion. Oops, did I say that out loud?

The “long-tail” trick. Let’s say you are in the roofing business. As of this writing, if you typed “roofing” into the Google search box, your results will display the first few of 115,000,000 results. No SEO consultant is going to be able to get your company into any of those first three slots, not in 30 days… not ever. So what’s a roofer to do? Well let’s think about how people search. Obviously if I am searching for a roofer to fix my roof, I may start by entering that search term “roofing”. When Google shows me 115,000,000 results, I am going to start expanding my search term. Maybe I will enter “Roofing Repair”, wonderful, now I am down to just 6,060,000 results which is still not useful to me. So now I might enter “Roofing Repair Tampa”, because I am in Tampa; 467,000 results. Am I ready to start dialing yet? Nope. Okay, I know that if I enclose my terms in quotes it will give me a better result, “Roofing Repair Tampa” in quotes gives me 12,800 results. I continue to try and narrow my results by going all out with “Shingle Roofing Repair Tampa” in quotes… bammo, 4 results. Now I can start dialing. What I have done, and what most searchers do, was to create a long search string to narrow my results to something useful and manageable. This string is called a “long-tail search phrase” and this is the only hope for our poor roofer. The typical SEO consultant knows this and as part of his initial service he will have placed this string strategically about the roofer’s website including the page title, H1 headings as well as sprinkling the phrase throughout the website content. Now he will call his client and say, “Hey, type in the phrase “Single Roofing Repair Tampa” in quotes. Of course the client is delighted to see that he is in the top five results (he has now been added to the previous four). So how many times, according to Google has the term “Shingle Roofing Repair Tampa” in quotes been used? Five… once by our roofer, and once by each of the other four roofers with SEO consultants.

So what is a roofer to do? Fortunately, the future of search is moving to Social. A while back I noticed more traffic was coming to my website from Social networks than search results. This gap is growing, for me at least, because I am relatively active on Social Media. The other good news, Social Media is free; the bad news, your time is not and that is what you will have to invest. A recent survey by Edelman, called the “Trust Barometer”, concluded that only 13% of us believe what we are told in paid advertising. The remaining 87% of us think your ad is B.S., and this would include Adwords. More and more people are turning to their social networks first for a recommendation on say “a roofer”, before going to search engines. This is a trend that is going to continue. Google knows this, that is why we are all hearing about their supposed “Facebook” competitor that is in the works.

I will conclude this post by saying the Internet is the new home for con-artists, which will be the subject of my next post.

Please feel free to comment and let me know how you feel about this post.

Steve

I am sure all of you are aware of FBML…no? Well I wasn’t either, it stands for Facebook Markup Language. Already sounding confusing huh. If you have been to any of the really big companies’ pages, you may have noticed that they seem to have a lot more going on than yours. My first thought was that FB made a special concession for them, that they were not likely to make for lil’ ole me. That may actually still be true, but I did realize that some of what they were doing, or maybe even all of it, is available to anyone who discovers FBML.

Some of you may know that in addition to my presentation business, I also do some web development work. I am one of those “self-taught” developers, which means I don’t really understand how some things work, but if I can get it to work for me, I don’t care. I develop with the “Trial and Error” technique, and a lot of Copy, Paste, Edit of code snippets I find on the web, until I make things work for me. That is how I converted this website to a wordpress 3.0 platform, that still looks like the non-wordpress site that I started with. That is also how I figured out the really cool moving audience behind my head at the top. If you don’t think it is cool, then you are probably a “real” web developer, in which case you will be unimpressed with this entire post. But for the rest of you, I want to share how I made my micro-site on my Facebook page. BTW, while you are there I would really appreciate if you would hit the “Like” button.

I did a lot of looking around on the web for instruction on this, and as usual, I could not find a single, simple complete answer. But from about 20 different sources, and my copy, paste, edit methodology, I was able to figure it out. In this post, I hope to save you all of that trouble. Hopefully, this will be a complete and easy to understand “step-by-step” to save you a lot of time.

I will explain each step below, but if you are like me, sometimes you would like to skip all the hows and whys and just copy and paste something that you can edit yourself. So here is the exact code I used for my micro-site. (BTW, if you copy and paste this as is, you will have “my” micro-site on your facebook page).

Copy all green text from below this line:

If you like my page, please click the “like” button above!

Home
About Me
Services
Consulting
/div>

The Professional Paraphraser

There is an obvious disconnect between some of the truly innovative technologies out there and the potential client/users. If you are a developer or provider of such technologies, this is not news to you. So how do you
make that connection?


I am one of those unique individuals who can speak both languages. I can not only understand the complexities and nuances of your technology, but I can paraphrase and present these complexities and nuances to be understood and appreciated by your customer base. Connection Made!


When you engage my services, I will dive deep into your offering to gain a thorough understanding which I will use to craft a user friendly presentation that I will professionally present to your clients in one or more of several formats.


Why would you engage me to do this? Well, maybe you are not comfortable in front of crowds, or maybe you are not good at articulating your product features to laypeople, or maybe you are not a convincing spokesperson, or maybe you just have too much on your plate. Either way, there is no reason not to engage an expert presenter to help you make that critical connection, and create that “aha!” moment in your client’s minds for you.

egomaniac, narcissist, megalomaniac, comedian

Only my closest friends use these adjectives when  describing me. But since you don’t know me, you will have to make up your own mind. Granted, these are not traits that you would want to have in your neighbor, but they are the exact traits you want in a spokesperson for your company. It’s true that I do not lack in self confidence, but I am nowhere near schizophrenic, I swear.


Presenting is something I have done for 30 years now, and I have a knack and an ability to sway others to agree with my message. I focus my efforts in the technology space, but also serve other markets.


I enjoy the work, I am good at it, and I want to do it for you.

Services

I do a bunch of things, but primarily I produce workshops, webinars and seminars for tech companies.


I also do voiceovers and videos for your websites or other promotional needs.

Please go to my website to see examples of my work and to find out more about me: www.stevemordue.com

consulting

Do you have an important pitch coming up? I can join your team and assist with that specific task.


You may well be the best  choice for the client, but as you know, that is not always enough. You  are probably familiar with the phrase “Form over Substance”; you may  have lost opportunities to competition that was not as capable as your  firm, yet presented well. In the best case scenario, “Form equals  Substance”.


I can help your team organize and develop your  presentation, as well as acting as the lead, or sole  presenter to give  your clients a first impression that backs up your true capabilities.

Copy up to, but not including this line.

For the rest of us, here is my step-by-step and full explanation of above.

1. First, create a Page (formerly Fan Page) if you do not have one:
   • After Logging in to Facebook, click on the Home tab, and then the link “Ads and Pages”, which will be in the list below your profile picture.
     
   • On the next page, click on the “Pages” link below Campaigns.
     
   • Then click on the “+ Create Page” button.
     
     
   • Next click on the radio button for what kind of page, in my case “Local Business” and select the type from the dropdown. Give it a name, in my case “The Professional Paraphraser”. Check the box that you are the one who can do this, and click on the “Create Official Page” button.
     
   • You will then be brought to your new “empty” page. Click on the “edit Page” link below the Question mark.
     
   • Here you can go ahead and edit your settings etc., I am not going to go into detail here as this is similar to you regular profile page and you can figure it out.
     
   • If you scroll down to the bottom of this page you will see the “more applications” section and the “Static FBML” link. If the link is not there then click on “browse more” and search for it.
     
   • After clicking on the “Static FBML” link you will be taken to another page. Click the link to “Ad to my Page”
     
   • This will bring up a window listing all of your pages, if you have any others, and let you add this feature by clicking the “Add to Page” button next to the page you want to add it to. Click that and then close the window.
     
   • It would be nice if Facebook took you right back to your new page here, and there may be a faster way to get there that I don’t know about, but I just click the “Home” tab at the top, then “Ads and Pages” again, and finally “Pages” again to get back to my list of pages where, if this is your first page, only one will be listed. Click the the “Edit Page” link.
     
   • You should now notice in your Applications list, the FBML application as active. If not, repeat the above steps because you missed something. Click on the “Application Settings” link of FBML.
     
   • Click on “add” next to Tab: Available, and then hit “Okay” to close the window.
     
   • Now let’s click on the “Edit” link next to FBML and we get this window. The Box Title will be the name for the tab that will now be on your page where you custom content will be. I chose “Micro-Site”, but you could call it whatever you want. You can come back and change it anytime, so don’t worry about it too much. Below the title, where is says “FBML”, is where the new custom code will go and I’ll get into that next.
     
2. Okay so you should now have your new page and your FBML App installed so let’s talk about the custom code. Without getting too technical, FBML is kind of a subset of html which is the language used for creating websites. Facebook obviously wants to limit what you can do on their platform, which is why they created the subset FBML language. So there are a lot of things you cannot do on a Facebook page that you can do on your own website. But there are still a lot of things you CAN do.In this example I am gong to walk you through creating a Micro-Site with multiple pages and a navigation menu, which is what mine is, so let’s break down my code that I showed above. I will assume that you are going to create a page just like mine except maybe different colors, text and images.
   • The first part of the code is the style section, this is where you specify things like the background color, fonts and font sizes etc. and it looks like this (the green is code, the black are my notes, and red are areas you should edit for your needs) :
     

     This ends the style declaration

   • The next section is the Navigation buttons and it looks like this:
     

     If you like my page, please click the “like” button above!

     You can change or delete this line
     HomeYou can change the term “Home” to whatever you want for this tab and the same for the others below.
     About Me
     Services
     Consulting

     
     

   • The next section is the actual first page that appears which is the Home page, and it looks like this (the next three pages are similar):
     
     This is my image file of me standing to the right, you will probably want to change this. You are going to need to create an image and upload it somewhere and point to it, this can be your website or a flickr account etc. My images are about 200px wide and about 550px tall.
     

     The Professional Paraphraser

     This is my page headline and everything below this is my page text, just leave the items in the brackets <> alone and edit the rest
     

     There is an obvious disconnect between some of the truly innovative technologies out there and the potential client/users. If you are a developer or provider of such technologies, this is not news to you. So how do you
     make that connection?
     
     These tags creat a little space between paragraphs
     I am one of those unique individuals who can speak both languages. I can not only understand the complexities and nuances of your technology, but I can paraphrase and present these complexities and nuances to be understood and appreciated by your customer base. Connection Made!
     
     
     When you engage my services, I will dive deep into your offering to gain a thorough understanding which I will use to craft a user friendly presentation that I will professionally present to your clients in one or more of several formats.
     
     
     Why would you engage me to do this? Well, maybe you are not comfortable in front of crowds, or maybe you are not good at articulating your product features to laypeople, or maybe you are not a convincing spokesperson, or maybe you just have too much on your plate. Either way, there is no reason not to engage an expert presenter to help you make that critical connection, and create that “aha!” moment in your client’s minds for you.

     
     

   • The last line is also optional, but if you have a Google Analytics account, you can create a profile for your page and enter the analytics account number here for detailed statistics.
     
     
3. Alright, so are you thoroughly confused? At the risk of making this long post even longer, I will try and simplify this further, go ahead and copy and paste the entire code below into the FBML box and we’ll edit it there:
   

   If you like my page, please click the “like” button above!

   Home
   About Me
   Services
   Consulting

   

   Your Home Page Headline

   Your Home Page text
   

   Your Second Page Headline

   Your second page text
   

   Your third page headline

   Your third page text
   

   Your fourth page headline

   Your fourth page text

   The easiest way to do this is to open a separate window in your browser so you can switch back and forth from your FBML page to your Micro-Site and refresh your micro-site to see the changes as you go. So try my copy, paste, edit method for yourself.

4. Lastly you will probably want to set your new Micro-Site to be the default landing page for new visitors, so go back to your page settings and click on “edit” under Wall Settings.
   

   Then select Micro-Site (or whatever you called your page) in the dropdown for Default Landing page:
   

5. Hopefully this was helpful to you, one thing I have been asked in the past is about hex-decimal colors, so here is a link to a conversion chart

Please comment profusely about ways to improve this or your experiences with this tutorial. If you would rather just have this done for you let me know, I won’t do it for free, but I won’t charge you much to do it either.

Thanks for reading!

Steve

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