Know how to listen to #Facebook Pages without "liking?"

How to Follow A Facebook Page Without “Liking” It

By David Murray

Listening is the most important thing you can do when it comes to your Social Media implementation. In fact, I would argue that listening should be the first thing you do before launching your company’s Facebook Page.

But, how do you go about listening to Facebook Pages that may be relevant to your business? Well, not too long ago Facebook had an RSS feed option that they hid at the very bottom of the page. This was before Facebook introduced Timeline. After which they moved the RSS feed as an option in the small drop down menu next to the “Like” button. Then quietly and mysteriously, it disappeared.

Now the most obvious listening solution is to start liking a bunch of pages in hopes that 1) the content is helpful to you, and 2) it somehow falls into your news stream. However, what happens if you find that the page you liked isn’t helpful? Ever tryunfollowing a Facebook Page? It is not the easiest process.

Here’s how you can begin following Facebook Pages without hitting that darn “Like” button:

1. After logging into your personal Facebook account find a Page you might be interested in following. For this example let’s use our amazing Facebook Page 

2. Click on the options button that is sitting right next to the “Message” button

3. At the top of the drop down menu click on the “Add to Interest Lists” option

4. You’ll be prompted to add the Page to an existing Interest List you have created, or you can create a new list.

5. At the bottom of this drop down menu go ahead and click on “New List”

6. You’ll be taken to a new page where you will see your selected page highlighted in a blue box with a check mark in the lower right hand corner. Hit “Next”.

7. Now you can give your List a name – competitors, brands, sports, etc., whatever will help you organize your content streams

8. Now choose if you want your List to be public, shared with other people, or private. Hint: If I am snooping on my competition, I might want to keep my lists set to “Only Me”

9. Hit “Done” and you’ll be taken to your new list where you will see a stream of content from only the Pages you chose to add.

10. You can click on the “Manage Lists” button on the top right to edit and change your lists.

11. You can also, access and manage your lists individually under the “Interests” menu that will begin to appear in the lower left hand side of your profile. If you don’t see this, try clicking on the “More” option.

Bonus Extra Super Ninja Tip!!

Do you have a team of people who are responsible for listening? Should they all be listening to the same Facebook Page? Do they all need to create their own separate Interest Lists?

How can your team be sure they are covering everything they should be paying attention to on Facebook?

Well, remember those Public/Share/Private list options?

• Go ahead and choose a list you want to share with your team
• At the top of the list news stream you should see the title of your list, and your name below it
• Right next to your name you should see a tiny icon representing your privacy option. Go ahead and click on this.
• If you want to share a list with only certain people then click on “Custom”
• In the new window you’ll be asked who you want your list to be viewed by. Go ahead and select “Specific People or Lists”
• Begin adding names of people you want to be able to view your List. Note: For now it appears that you only share your lists with people you are friends with on Facebook

Facebook Interest Lists are a great way to add targeted data to your listening dashboards.

Using Lists will enable you to weed out the Facebook noise, and organize your news feeds in a way that is productive for you and your clients. Continue to build your Interest Lists using the above steps, and soon you will have a library of helpful news feeds at your disposal.

So, try it out, and let me know if this was helpful for you.

#Google+ #Hashtags #ChromeExtension Update

G+Hashtags Chrome Extension, which was no longer working, because of all the GPlus updates recently (Google Events and so on).

Here is the link to the extension:
- the G+extension 0.44 http://goo.gl/OWouH

Or goto your extensions page in Chrome and click update extensionsonly in developer mode. Otherwise you can deinstall and install the newer version by hand. But it should be updated automatically.

What is new
- Muted Hashtags are now red and show muted in the button
- Clicking on only button, just shows the posts with this hashtag, but this does not prevent Google+ from updating your stream
- Muted hashtags are now saved into the localStorage and are kept
- By clicking the View all button, als muted hashtags are cleared
if you are scrolling down, I have managed to clue the hashtags beneath the top bar, so you can see it even if the streams scrolls up.

If you have feedback, please let me know, so I can enhance the extension or fix bugs

If you like the extension +1 and/or share.

One last question: some people are telling, that they hate hashtags in text. Would you like to have an option to make the hashtags no so highlighted (grey instead of blue and # removed?)

Collapse this post

Custom URLs now also at CircleCount

Custom URLs now also at CircleCount

We have waited a few days and now it’s sure, the Custom URLs will stay at Google+ ;)

Seriously, +Grobler du Preez has shown us that our extension is generating a link like http://www.circlecount.com/p/+GroblerduPreez which wasn’t working before.
Now it’s working as you can see in the image below.

We are also forwarding the profile pages on CircleCount of profiles with a Custom URL to their corresponding URL on CircleCount automatically.
For example http://www.circlecount.com/p/111487545374003509241 is redirected to http://www.circlecount.com/p/+CircleCount

Thank you everyone for helping us to find this out and to enable the Custom URLs also on CircleCount!

One for the #grammarnazis

https://plus.google.com/u/0/

A Shitload of Ways to Get People To Show Up To Your Webinars Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33540/18-Ways-to-Guarantee-Nobody-Misses-Your-Next-Webinar.aspx#ixzz25aWnAupl

1) Pick a killer topic.

It's really, really hard to get people to attend your webinar if your topic stinks. Try to select a topic that's broad enough to attract a large audience, yet targeted enough to provide actionable advice that attendees can implement the second they hop off your webinar. For our recent webinar with Salesforce, for example, we decided that we wanted to select social media as the overarching theme (who doesn't love to talk about social media?) but focus on how to use social media and inbound marketing in unison.

2) Establish a good track record.

Having an established history of providing quality, educational content -- whether via your blog content, written lead generation content, or previous webinars -- can help boost your webinar attendance. If you've hosted plenty of webinars in the past, it also helps if you don't run into things like sound quality or hosting issues on a regular basis. I mean, things happen, but attending a webinar is a time commitment ... that occurs during their workday, no less. If there's a lot of negative sentiment around your past webinars, admit your mistakes as you market your next webinar, and explain how you'll do a better job this time around. It may not be easy, but over time you can regain a solid audience.

3) Set a registration goal.

Having a goal will inspire you to hit it, and help you measure success. In order for us to break the Guinness World Record for webinar attendees, for example, we knew we had to hit almost 30,000 registrants. You should track performance on at least a weekly basis to see whether your marketing efforts are moving the needle. That way, if you need to dial up your promotion due to low initial registration numbers, you'll know what to do to fix it. 

Note: Just because people register for your webinar does not mean they will attend your webinar. Which brings us to our next tip ...

4) Set an attendee goal.

Webinars typically get a 30% attendance rate, so to determine how many registrants you need, you should think ahead to how many actual attendees you want. Continuing with our Guinness World Record example, we knew we needed 10,000 attendees to break the record. So doing a little backwards math, we took the 30% attendance rate into account and figured out that we needed 30,000 registrants in order to hit 10,000 attendees.

You will see the word “remind” quite a bit in the rest of this post. That's because getting people to attend your webinar requires lots and lots (and lots) of registrant reminders. People often sign up for webinars weeks in advance -- they may have every intention of attending when they sign up, but with the myriad distractions that pop up every day, it's critical you play an active role in keeping your webinar top of mind.

5) Give attendees something special.

At HubSpot, we’ve given away tickets to events, free marketing consultations, ad spend coupons to Facebook and LinkedIn ... tons of cool stuff! We’ve also inspired the audience by asking them to be a part of something huge, like breaking a world record. Try to think of things that will get people excited, feeling special, talking with colleagues, and remembering their experience on your webinar in the future. Excited registrants turn into excited attendees.

6) Choose the right day of week.

Do not host your webinar during the weekend. Okay, you probably knew that one. But did you also know that it's best to host your webinars on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday? Monday and Friday always seem to get filled up with “catch up” and “last minute emergency” happenings around the office. In a recent poll done by WhatCounts, the data suggested that their audience preferred Wednesday or Thursday for webinars, and we tend to agree.

7) Choose the right time of day.

HubSpot typically runs webinars at 1 p.m. EST or 2 p.m. EST, because it's the most convenient time for the largest chunk of our audience. But if you have a huge audience in ... I don't know ... Jakarta, you might want to reevaluate your timing. Right? Right.

If you have no clue what time would work best for your audience, you can always ask. Include a field on your registration form that asks attendees to confirm the time slots that work best for them, and schedule your webinar based on that feedback.

Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33540/18-Ways-to-Guarantee-Nobody-Misses-Your-Next-Webinar.aspx#ixzz25aXGdYMB

"almost like he was trying to be offensive"

Angie Person

 10:40 AM  -   

Mobile

   -  Public

Today I worked with someone that is the exact opposite of everything I believe, politically, religiously and personally. He was very outspoken about his beliefs, and I did not agree with anything he said in regards to the above topics. 
It was almost like he was trying to be offensive. I just nodded and smiled, and didn't comment on the topics I disagreed with him on.
He finally asked me, "did I make you angry?"
I said "no. You have opinions, and you are just as entitled to them as I am to mine." 
We spent the rest of the shift talking about his dogs and his baby. He's actually a pretty cool dude. 
There is always middle ground. I wish more people tried to find it.

My reply:

Thanks for sharing this sentiment +Angie Person (and love your joke, +Dean Propst).  In a great convo with my guys+John Crow and +Dan Nichols, we, also, just figured out that we have plenty that we agree on, and plenty we can help each other, and we're better off moving on to that, when things get heated.
#loveit  
#cantweallgetalong  

Fit "this": my foot in your ass #hr #crm

Woman rejected over 30 times from job fires back with counter-offer: 

‎"Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not the best fit for your company. But here’s a nice fit, my foot in your ass."

MEENA HART DUERSON

Taylor Grey Meyer had had enough, and she wasn’t going to take it anymore.

The 31-year-old Southern California resident with a master’s degree in sports management had been trying to get a job - any job - since December when she got a letter from a prospective employer that made her snap.

After being rejected by the San Diego Padres baseball team over 30 times for a variety of jobs in every area from sales to selling tickets, Meyer received an email from the team inviting her to pay $495 to attend a "Combine,” or glorified hiring fair, where they told her she would meet employers and have a chance at one of 50 jobs they were looking to fill.

"I'd just had it," Meyer told the Daily News. “I felt like, in this market especially, that employers - the Padres - were preying on job seekers who were desperate for jobs.”

She quickly fired off a harsh response, full of the pent-up aggression that had been building up during her unemployment.

“After careful review, I must decline," she wrote back to the Padres’ email. "I realize I may be burning a bridge here, but in the spirit of reciprocity, I would like to extend you a counter-offer to suck my d---.”

She continued to blast the team’s hiring process, detailing her saga of rejection with heavy sarcasm.

"Let’s talk about why I wasn’t a good fit with your organization," she wrote.

"Was it my extensive education that made me less of a fit, that now paying $500 will allow me to overcome? My graduate work in sports commerce? Being a law student, working toward becoming an agent? Was it my past experience overseeing the execution of national and international events? Wait, I know, maybe it was my previous internship with Major League Soccer, and that I actually got my ‘start’ in professional sports at the age of 15 when I volunteered at a minor league ballpark in my hometown."

Meyer closed her retort by turning the tables.

"Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not the best fit for your company. But here’s a nice fit, my foot in your ass."

She didn't think twice about firing off the email, which she assumed no one would ever see.

“It felt good,” she said. “I was laughing while I did it - it wasn’t intended to be mean. It was nothing but cathartic.”

Support for the new folks on Googleplus: #googleplustips needed

1. If new users sign up for Google Plus and a popup tour (and reminders on the homepage and the circles page) would tell them to go to Google Plus's Get Satisfaction page to get one on one tours of Google Plus, then many of us that devote our time to help people get started on G+ could easily find those people and help them find their way on Google Plus. This could help more people stay on Google Plus instead of leaving it and calling it a ghost town or boring. 

or 

2. Google could dedicate a section in the Google Plus Group (Yes Google has Groups...they are more like forums.) to have help people that are needing one on one attention to get started right on Google Plus. Many of us could definitely help out there. We would still be using a Google Product and we could easily find new people. Google would need to point people to the Groups page for help from the homepage of G+ and from the Circles Page so that people could easily be reminded if they need help or a tour or help finding people to circle or need recommendations from actual active Google Plus users on who they might be interested in circling., they could go to the Google Plus Group for newcomers. (http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/google-plus-discuss)


We need something to help new G+ users that are confused or dissatisfied with their first initial experiences with Google Plus. 

I bet there are a good handful of Google Plus users that would be willing to help out on the Google Plus Groups page or on a Get Satisfaction page.  

Saul Fleischman8:55 AMEdit

I like the idea, I would actively promote it - since as it stands, I often "hand-hold," and share#googleplustips  informally, so, as a big believer in give-n-take, and helping our soon-to-be G+