Laurie Boettcher Speaks Facebook Changes

One of Facebook's recent changes is increasing their character limit from 400 to 5,000. Although a report from Buddy Media revels that posts 80 characters or less have a 27 percent higher engagement rate, this does present unique opportunities. 

Starting later this week, I will be doing something different with the Laurie Boettcher Speaks Facebook Page. Each week I will be doing a blog posting on a topic of interest from Facebook privacy to using LinkedIn groups, experimenting with FourSquare to how to actually use Twitter, and building followers on Facebook to engaging and interacting tactics.

Also, if you have attended one of my workshops, you know I have an E-E-I strategy. Posts should be one of three things: Engaging, Entertaining, or Informative. If they are not one of these, then they are a waste of your time and your followers' time. This may sound easy, but considering this type of social engagement is more of a mindset than a tactic, it requires practice.

So, each Friday, I'll be doing a fun exercise. I'll post a scenario on Facebook and invite followers to respond with an E, E, or I post. My fabulously festive followers and I will provide valuable feedback on what makes the post amazing or could make it more amazing. It's a great way to learn from each other.

If you would like to be part of this fun and informative conversation, please join me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/lbspeaksonline. 

Facebook Changes: Part 1

Last week Facebook unveiled extensive changes to their current platform. This post is the first in a series that will walk through changes we need to review to maintain our privacy, as well as educate ourselves about new sharing features.

Privacy

First things first. I'm all about privacy. The settings we chose for our privacy have not changed. However, there are new privacy features we need to be aware of, one in particular. To get to our Privacy Settings, click on the down arrow next to the word 'Home' in the top navigation bar. Click on 'Privacy Settings.'

The Privacy Settings page has a new look and features five categories of settings. Take a few moments to go through each one of them to ensure you know what you are sharing and who you are sharing it with.

The second category, 'How Tags Work,' is new. Review these settings because they determine how our photos are tagged and viewed.

Friends
After we are comfortable with our privacy settings, we're going to move on to Friends. We may have noticed that our News Feeds are clogged with all of our friends' activities, including comments they make, who they are friending, and even game activity which we may have previously hid. There are a few adjustments we need to make to calm the chaos.


Start by going to our personal wall. On the left side, we see a list of our friends. Click on the word 'Friends.'

This brings up a list of all of our friends. Let's mouse over the picture of the first friend in our list. As indicated in the photo above, a box appears. Mousing over the word Subscribe, offers a drop down menu. By default, we receive 'Most Updates' and all of the types of updates from every one of our friends. However, we can choose what information we want to get from each friend. This may vary by friend. And, the more friends we have, the longer it will take.

If, during this process, we decide to remove a friend or two (or 10 or 100), that's fine. Simply mouse over the word 'Friends' to the right of the friend we want to remove. A drop down box appears. Click 'Unfriend.' That's it. That person does NOT receive notification we have removed them. Although, if they are hanging on our every word, they may notice we are no longer in their News Feed.


To ask questions or participate in a discussion about this post, please visit www.facebook.com/lbspeaksonline. More to come in Part 2.

Just Because You CAN Mass Post, Doesn't Mean You Should

I (deeply) love HootSuite. Social media management tools like it can help save us time and resources in our social media endeavors. However, we need to proceed with caution. Just because we can schedule posts and check those little boxes to appear on all of our social media presences, does not mean we should. In fact, we shouldn't.

Instead, we need to understand that different social media platforms have different audiences, therefore require different messages.

Twitter, for instance, has a 140 character limit. We need to be creative in getting our messages across, making it enticing for further follow up, and often times providing a link. We can post on Twitter as often as we like.

Facebook is about engagement. Here, we have 420 characters to get our messages across. (Although messages with 80 characters or less get 27% more involvement.) Our followers, by following us, have already expressed interest in building relationships with us. Our posts should foster that relationship-building. Leave room for followers to respond and interact to our messages. With Facebook, we should be posting 3-5 times per week.

LinkedIn is all about business. Post for business purposes only and once per day is enough for most followers. Don't annoy or irritate followers, because we are easily removable.

Instead of using HootSuite or other social media management tools for mass messaging, take advantage of the ability to schedule posts, but cater to each audience for maximum effect.

Are you mass messaging?

ALERT: Facebook News Feed Change

Facebook has changed its News Feed. By default you only see posts from people you have interacted with recently. To change this, simply scroll to the top of your Facebook page, click the dropdown arrow next to 'Most Recent,' select 'Edit Options,' and then check the box to receive updates from ALL friends. You may want to share this note with friends by reposting.

For more updates like these, please follow www.facebook.com/lbspeaksonline.

New Facebook Security Feature

If you are reading this, you know I am a huge cheerleader for educating yourself about your privacy settings - no matter what the social media platform. Well, Facebook has added a new security feature. It's not a 'privacy' feature, so you do not see the blue privacy alert box on the top of your account.

So, what do you need to do? Protect yourself and follow these simple steps:

1. Log into your Facebook account.

2. On the right hand side, click on Account and choose Account Settings.

3. Scroll down to Account Security and click on the Change link.

4. Check the box. This box ensures that you browse Facebook on a secure connection whenever possible, thus giving you another layer of privacy protection. Please remember to click Save.



Jake, from the Facebook Integrity Team, posted a handy video on YouTube that walks you through this process as well as gives you some additional valuable information. Check it out.



Questions about your privacy settings? Post them on my Facebook Page, get tips and tricks at www.facebook.com/lbspeaksonline.