Unless You’re a Rock Star Your Facebook Page Should Shouldn’t Have Your Name

We all get Facebook friend requests everyday (well…except for those 4 of you who are still not on Facebook) and we most likely look at and accept many of them. We get invited to events and ignore most of them since they are being held 8,000 miles away (you CAN target who you send those to, you know…but that is another blog post all together). We even tolerate those pleas from farmers everywhere to help them plant their corn or put mud on their pigs, but when I get a Fan Page request that just says “Become a FAN of Bob Smith” I ask WHY?

What will I gain by becoming a FAN of YOU? Now don’t get me wrong- I manage 4 fan pages myself, and I believe every business and entrepreneur should have a fan page (now just referred to as a PAGE), but if I sent out a request to my friends, colleagues, and clients asking them to become a fan of GINA SCHRECK, I don’t even think my mother would become a fan (partly because I still haven’t mailed her birthday present).

If you are a celebrity, like Vin Diesel (who has 7.5 million fans on his page) or Michael Jackson (who has over 11 million fans on his page) or you have reached ROCK STAR status in your career like, Bill Gates….okay never mind that example, like Gary Vaynerchuk (who has over 39K fans), then you will have no problems getting folks to join your fan page, but until you reach that status, you might want to consider naming your PAGE something that tells me what I will get or benefit from becoming a fan.

It is a lot of work to market your fan page-people are just getting too many requests for connections, to click BECOME A FAN, unless you tell them WHY they should. If your fan page is “Frazzeled Parents of Teens” you will get thousands of parents joining you. If it is “Clean Houses without Lifting a Finger” and you provide tips on getting my daughter, the Schrecklet, to stop leaving her clothes in the middle of the floor, I am clicking that JOIN button so fast my fingernail will break. Do you see the difference?

HEY BECOME A FAN OF ME

Give me an inkling of a clue as to what kind of information you will provide IN THE NAME OF YOUR PAGE, unless you are only after those who already know you. It will just make it harder to virally grow your fan page audience.

So what do you do if you have already named your PAGE, Joe Cook? Well, the bad news is once you name a PAGE you CANNOT change it. I would suggest, unless you already have hundreds or thousands of fans there (which would indicate you are on your way to ROCK STAR status), create a NEW page. Ask your fans to join you there and explain that you don’t want to confuse people with your personal profile and your page being the same name~or you could explain that you ate some really bad Chinese food the night before you created your first page and it caused delusional thoughts of touring with Barry Manilow and Rod Stewart.

Like always I love arguing…I mean having deep discussions with folks here, so share your thoughts and opinions, and if you have a fan page…go on PROMOTE IT HERE YOU ROCK STAR! I’m going for some Chinese food!

Gina (no last name needed…it’s like Cher!)

Manager of

GETTIN’ GEEKY

My VSTA (Virtual Speaker’s & Trainer’s Association) BRAND NEW PAGE!

YOUR SUCCESS

MARRIAGE MECHANICS

February 23, 2010 | Filed Under Facebook, Social Media | 2 Comments

Speakers and Trainers are a CHALLENGE to Event Planners

I am attending a great conference today, The Virtual Edge, which is going on physically in Santa Clara, California and also being webcast and brought into several virtual platforms so that people can attend from all over the globe.

A planner from Disney was on a panel and he said that one of the challenges to pulling off successful virtual events is “Getting presenters or trainers up to speed with the technology. Most are not there.” This really hit me and made me sad to think that professional speakers and trainers are seen as a CHALLENGE to pulling off successful events using the latest in technology.

Experts are Chasing the Bus

As professional content deliverers, we need to be leading the way, not chasing the bus! Whether it is webinars, teleseminars, live video-streaming, or virtual world events, it is time to get out front and lead the way. Quit being one of the challenges.

If you need someone to walk you through any of this give me a Tweet- a Facebook shout out or even an old fashioned email or phone call! We hold regular MeetUps in our virtual world campus where you can practice as you learn to grow your biz–ask me for information on My VSTA (virtual speaker’s and trainer’s association)

February 22, 2010 | Filed Under Second Life, Second Life Events, Social Learning, Virtual Worlds, Webinars | Leave a Comment

Before You Give Up on LinkedIn Groups…

I have to admit, as a social media consultant and technology speaker, I have accounts on most of the sites, but I have used LinkedIn the least. I know, many of you LinkedIn lovers are going to have a field day on the comment section! As a business owner I have always thought of LinkedIn as today’s rolodex or having a brochure for your business online. Pretty static, except for the groups. Now I know for job seekers and those employed, it is a great tool to connect with recruiters and hiring organizations, but for most businesses you really have to get involved in, or better yet, CREATE YOUR OWN, group in your specific industry where you can share your expertise and learn from others.

LinkedIn Groups

I hear from people all the time complaining that the groups are spammy and there is no real value in them. First you must find the right group, and second, see if the group has any “ground rules” or policies about members not selling or spamming others. Third if there are no such rules and you can’t find a great group that shares info without spamming the members, CREATE ONE!

I have found a few key pieces of information that will help your group be found once you have it created:

Add keywords in the description of your group to increase your search rankings on LinkedIn’s search.
Add keywords in the title of the group to be found on Google.
Add your blog RSS feed to the group so new posts are shared with group members.
Send a weekly message that adds value for group members.
Be the host/hostess. Connect people in the group by making introductions to those who could potentially do business with one another.

If you are a speaker, trainer, or educator interested in joining a virtual community of peers and having fabulous programming that will help you build your speaking, training or coaching business check out our new LinkedIn Group or join our community page on Facebook and of course join us “in-world” on our SecondLife campus.

February 22, 2010 | Filed Under LinkedIn | Leave a Comment

WARNING! Twitter Phishing Scam Filling DM Boxes

If you open your direct message column or link on Twitter you may see several “Get Bigger and have Sex Longer” messages, or “LOL, this is funny!” messages–DO NOT OPEN THEM.

Twitter Attack

If you click on the link, it will ask you to confirm your login information and that is when your account is taken over by the scammers. They will then send one of these messages to all of your contacts.

As soon as you are notified by someone that you are sending these messages, quickly change your password.

Twitter has been notified and they are after these trouble makers, but for now you are safe as long as you DO NOT click on any of the links in a DM that look suspicious.

If you’d like a great book on dealing with these Twitter Glitches and how to fix things when they go wrong, check out TWITTER GLITCH Only $7 Well worth the price!

February 21, 2010 | Filed Under Twitter | Leave a Comment

Are You Strategically Creating Google Tracks?

In business it takes effort and intentional activity to lead people to our doorsteps. It’s not just about having a great product or service. We all know of many brilliant people who have fabulous products sitting on the shelves or services that never get delivered. It’s about leading people to our doorstep with tracks that we have laid all over cyberspace.

Many people will write a great article and the only identifying markers on the article are the person’s name and e-mail address. Part of the difficulty comes from not knowing which tags or keywords to use to describe our businesses. There are thousands of people writing eloquent phrases like “Strategic Partnering” “Graphic Engineering” or “Change Agent,” but unfortunately the people who have money to spend are searching for “Business Building Coach” “Designing Great Marketing Material” and “Expert on Change.” Do you see how your tracks are not hitting the mark?

Once you create a list of keywords that you feel customers are actutally using to search for your product or service, you need to use those keywords as TAGS in everything you post. If you want to know some of the places you can lay your Google Tracks, take a tip or two from the Schrecklet in this Gettin’ Geeky episode!