Facebook Page URL

A little over a year ago, Facebook began offering businesses the same opportunity we have on our personal Facebook pages - vanity urls. What is a vanity url? It allows us to give our organization's Facebook Page a personalized name. For example, mine is www.facebook.com/lbspeaksonline. I have secured it and it is mine.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Once we secure a vanity url that is the name we have. There is no opportunity (as of yet) to change it. So, we need to make sure the name is exactly what we want and our spelling is correct.

To take advantage of this great opportunity, a Facebook Page must have 25 followers/likers/whatever we are calling them today. Once we have that many, simply go to http://www.facebook.com/username/, select 'Set a username for your Pages.' The Facebook Pages we are admin for will appear in the drop down box. Select the page to name and enter in the name we would like to secure. Voila!

This is a nice feature in that it allows us to more seamlessly market our Facebook Page in our autosignatures, business cards, marekting materials, and such.

What is your Facebook vanity url?

Big Brother Watching Through Social Media Eyes

I don't know about you, but when I think of social media carelessness, my thoughts lean to immature teens or carefree college students who don't yet know the importance of protecting privacy, especially on the internet. Mary Madden and Aaron Smith of Pew Internet and American Life Project authored a great piece title, Reputation Management and Social Media, that makes us rethink this subject.

According to the report:

• 44% of young adult Internet users say they take steps to limit the amount of information available about them, compared to 33% of users ages 30 to 49 and 25% of those ages 50 to 64.
• 71% of younger social networking site users actively change their privacy settings to limit what they share with others online, compared to 55% of those 50 to 64.
• 41% have removed their names from photos of them posted by others, compared to just 18% of those 50 to 64.

"The prevailing notion of young adults is that they have a radically different perception of privacy, one that is very free," says Mary Madden, the report's lead author. "But this data shows they are every bit as concerned with privacy and are more engaged in monitoring their information than older users."

I find this wildly ironic since the majority of questions, concerns, and panic about 'Big Brother Watching' is from the 45-75 demographic. The solution is simple. Big Brother has nothing to watch if we are not posting or if we are educated about protecting our privacy. 

So, these are my questions: When is the last time you checked your privacy settings on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or other social networks you subscribe? Do you understand what you are sharing? Are you comfortable with those settings? Do the settings intimidate you? Share your thoughts on privacy settings.

Laurie Boettcher Speaks: The Web Site

There is a good excuse for my hiatus from blogging. Thanks to some truly amazing people (many of which are YOU, my readers), my career as a Speaker, Trainer, and Social Media Enthusiast is booming. Those who have attended my workshops, conferences, or training sessions have helped me grow significantly both personally and professionally, all the while singing my praises and earning me more opportunities. Thank you so very much.

This brings me to my excuse. It is with much excitement that I unveil my new web site at www.lbspeaksonline.com. I am simply tickled pink! I'm disappointed in the way the blog is appearing on the page, but very excited about everything else. Please take a moment to check out the web site and post your thoughts, comments, and suggestions either here or on my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/lbspeaksonline.

Thursday's blog, I'll be writing about 'Big Brother Watching Through Social Media.' Here are a few more topics you'll see coming up:

• Protecting Your Privacy with Facebook's New Settings
• Ideas for Using LinkedIn Groups
• Social Media Policies
• Features in the Paid Subscription to LinkedIn by guest blogger Jen Simon
• Social Media Tips that Work for Non-Profits by guest blogger Ben Richgruber
• Protecting Our Kids on Social Media

As always, if there is a topic you want to know more about, please comment so I may cover it in a future post. Thank you again.

Oldies But Goodies

I am working on a detailed post for Tuesday about recent Facebook changes and what we need to do to make sure our privacy remains protected. So, for today I am posting links to my most popular blog posts. I love comments and suggestions, so please feel free to share your thoughts on any post.

Connect @ Your Chamber: First and foremost, a community is only as strong as its leaders. The Chamber is where community leaders and decision-makers network, gather information, and form opinions.

Social Media Marketing Can't Help Us: Budgets are being cut and we need to increasingly depend on whatever free venues are available to us. Next to word-of-mouth advertising, social media marketing is arguably the best free venue.

Do You Want the World to See?: Everyone, especially those leery of social media, talks about privacy concerns. As well we should be. When we post/publish something on a social media site, or anywhere on the web, we need to be prepared that this is now out there for all of the world to see.

Web Sites Are More Important Than Ever: With all of this talk of Web 2.0 and social media, what about our web sites? Chances are that you, too, have spent a lot of time, money, and resources developing and maintaining a web site presence. So, what happens to it now if we are suppose to be on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, etc.?

Board Members on LinkedIn: Board members, just like staff, are a representation of our organizations. Whether we are a library, non-profit organization, or corporation, our board members help people gauge the credibility, strength, and structure of our organizations.

Protect Your Privacy on Facebook: Facebook was 'born' in 2002, so it is still just a tween. Although I think Facebook is highly responsive to the wants and needs of its 400 million members, it is still figuring out the best way to utilize privacy settings.

What's Allowed?: When people hear/read 'Social Media Policy' they tend to get intimidated and don't even know where to start. It really doesn't need to be an elaborate document. It simply needs to state your organization's stand on social media use and what is expected of your employees.


Come, Follow Me: Once we have decided to use social media as a tool in our marketing and image development efforts, we need to build a following. Unfortunately, it is not always a 'build it and they will come' scenario. So, how do we build followings that justify our time commitments?

Look for next Tuesday's post on recent Facebook changes and what you need to do to make sure you are still protected.

Did We Win?

Yes, social media is free. But what is not free is the time and resources to do social media. With a significant time investment, it is only fair we want to know if our efforts are worth it. Did we win?

Well, that depends on how we measure our success. Success for each one of us can be very different. For me, personally, success is engaging and interacting with my workshop attendees and clients to continually educate and foster relationships. By my own standards then, my social media efforts are definitely worth it. I watch my 'engaged' twitter followers number increase, get LinkedIn invitations from my 'peeps', read posts from followers both on my blog and Facebook Community Page, and see people at workshops who quote information from my blog posts. This proves to me that I am making the connection I want to make. I win! Granted, there is always room for improvement, but in this stage of my goals, I am successful.

Others may measure success very differently. Increasing sales/attendance/traffic/users prove success. Whatever your definition of success, know what it is. Define it. Take baby steps. Maybe the first step is presence. The second step is 25 followers. The third step is one or more interaction(s) per day through social networks. Allow it to grow authentically. Do not expect it to be the answer to your marketing prayers.

How do you define success with your social media efforts? What tells you that you are winning?