Liveblog: Apple October 2013 iPad, MacBook, and more announcements

Stay tuned for my liveblog on today’s Apple Event.

Liveblog: Apple October 2013 iPad, MacBook, and more announcements

How to Schedule A Tweet On Twitter

Scheduling a Twitter status update is now available from Twitter, not just Hootsuite or Buffer.  Twitter announced that scheduling status updates is available from the Twitter Analytics dashboard. Learn how to schedule your tweets in this video.

 

How to Schedule A Tweet On Twitter

Small Business Mobile Marketing with Facebook

As many as 70% of Facebook users follow local businesses, and 78% of users are browsing via their mobile phones. With those stats, it is absolutely important that your business incorporate mobile marketing with Facebook.

Your Small Business Facebook Page On Mobile

Have you viewed your Facebook Page from your smartphone lately?  You will notice that from this page, users can click to “like” your page, helping them quickly become a follower/fan.  They can “check in” to your location, which tells all their friends that they are visiting your business, they can call you and even get directions to your business.  It is important that you have your complete information in your Facebook Page settings to help visitors reach you.

While on your page, visitors can also rate and review their experience with your business.  They can be prompted for this same rating on the desktop version of your page, or promptings to rate businesses even appear on the sidebar while browsing around in other parts of Facebook.  Keep track of how many ratings, the average rating, the amount of likes, and how many check-ins you have.

Consider asking in-person visitors to like your page, leave a rating, or even check in to unlock specials.  Monitor also what photos others are taking at your business to see if they have shared something you may want to reshare for all of your fans to see.  This is also a great way to monitor your brand and see if people are having a positive experience at your location.

Also from your Facebook page, viewers can see when you most recently posted or shared something.  If you haven’t posted lately, they aren’t likely to see your business appearing in Facebook at all. They may not follow your page if you aren’t bothering to use it yourself.

Managing Your Facebook Page on Mobile

Beyond just viewing how your Facebook Page looks on mobile, you will also want to get the Facebook Pages app (iOS & Android) to help you share photos, post status updates, and respond to fans from your smartphone.

You will be able to easily get additional information about those interacting with your page, and even share updates that you can schedule in advance.

Know what your community is doing with your Facebook page.

Important!

While contests are a great way to engage with fans and attract new followers, be sure that you have a way for mobile viewers to participate.  If the contest drives traffic back to your own website or just to your main Facebook page, you are safe.  However, if you are sharing links that bring people to a tab in your Facebook page, remember that mobile viewers cannot see content that resides exclusively inside a tab.  For them, you’ll need an option to display the content for mobile viewers as well. Several 3rd party contest providers offer this service, such as Heyo. Alternatively, you can host all the content on your own website and attract others to view you there, provided that your site is mobile-responsive.

Mobile Marketing With Ads on Facebook

If you are ready to take your business to the next level, consider using ads that appear for mobile viewers in the news feed (not on the sidebar).  This can be to promote an event or special, like your page, or click out to a link on your own website.  After posting your update, look for “Boost Post” under the preview.  Otherwise, create your update from your page via a computer, then visit the Facebook Power Editor.

Thanks to Search Engine Journal for this great infographic.

 

Small Business Mobile Marketing with Facebook

Why I Love LinkedIn for Networking

I’ve been a LinkedIn member since September 18, 2007 and am just now loving LinkedIn for networking.  When I first joined LinkedIn, I wasn’t very active.  At that time, I viewed LinkedIn like many do – as a job board.  I set up my profile, but never used it to network with others.  Fast forward 6 years and a few weeks and now I launch LinkedIn multiple times each day to accept connections and update my status.

Until even the past few weeks, I was still mostly just building my connections and sharing content on my profile.  I follow a few groups closely, and am intentional about making my profile visible in search results.  However, I no longer see this as a way to get a new job but a way for others to contact me requesting services.

Then suddenly, I had quite a few requests at in person networking events to connect via LinkedIn.  The people I was speaking with use it like I do, to be discovered for products and services that we offer.  However, they each use it also as their platform of choice for extending networking relationships online.  While not wanting to muddy their personal Facebook, haven’t yet joined Google+,  nor having time to launch Twitter throughout the working day to continue engaging connections there, they prefer LinkedIn. This was a breath of fresh air for me.  I found them on LinkedIn from my iPhone and immediately made use of InMessages that come with my paid account to connect with them.  This didn’t leave me waiting to follow up with them, or vice versa, after the fact (which often I neglect doing).

I’ve also used LinkedIn to find a person that I met at a networking event.  She grabbed my business card but didn’t have any to share with me.  I had forgotten her name and didn’t get it written down in person.  I knew the name of her organization and searched for all people that worked at that location.  As a result, I have been requested to give a few presentations in the near future.

I have grown more fond of LinkedIn lately, and would love to connect with you there as well.

Related articles

• 3 Ways to Use LinkedIn in Small Business Marketing


• What’s a LinkedIn LION and Should You Be One? [VIDEO]

 

 

Why I Love LinkedIn for Networking

WordPress 3.7 Features

WordPress 3.7 is in development including much requested features and fast on the heels of the 3.6 release.  There are some great changes in store for WordPress users soon, but most will not be visible changes for website visitors.

Primary changes include:

1. Automatic updates of plugins, themes, and WordPress – the team of core developers has gone to great lengths to allow users to turn this feature off or even run SVN plugins (plugins acquired from sources like GitHub that are not in the WordPress Plugin Repository)


2. The password meter will now include a level of even stronger passwords


3. Additional language support


4. Faster release from the last WordPress update – rather than including many features into revisions, smaller incremental updates that are released sooner.

Matt Mullenweg, founder of Automattic and co-creator of WordPress, shared about some of these changes during his annual “State of the Word” speech at WordCamp San Francisco this year:

State of the Word 2013

▶

WordPress 3.7 Features