Back in the old days we were able to help our clients convert a personal Facebook page into a Business page, but Facebook has stepped up security measures.  Now if we try to make this type of change, Facebook doesn’t recognize our IP address and blocks account access.  This makes it a little difficult running social media campaigns for our clients.  Yay for security, boo for accessibility.

At any rate, if you accidentally started a personal Facebook page for your company and want to switch it to a Business page so you are in line with Facebook’s Terms (and get the benefits associated with having a Facebook Business page) follow the steps below:

Before starting please reference the information on Facebook regarding converting a Personal page to a Business page: https://www.facebook.com/help/175644189234902/   Note there is some information that will not transfer.

Step 1:  Log into your Facebook account where the Personal page is you want to convert.  Click on the “gear” on the top right.  Then click “Help”.

Step 2: Begin typing the word “convert” into the search field and suggestions will begin populating. Click on “How do I convert my personal account to a Facebook page?”

Step 3: Down at the bottom, click on “start converting”.

Step 4: Select “Local Business or Place”

Step 5: Choose “Professional Services”, complete business information, check that you agree to Facebook Terms and click the Get Started button

Step 6: Enter your password to complete the process.

That completes the process!  Now go on your new Facebook Business page and complete your business information as much as possible, make sure your Profile and Cover photos look great and match your company’s brand. You’ll also notice you now have access to analytics which tell you how people interact with your page.  Happy marketing!

More help:  Need to merge Facebook Business pages? 

The post Converting a Personal Facebook Page to a Business Page appeared first on from the Webtivity Blog.

If your company has more than one Facebook Business page, don’t worry!  You can merge them together, and the process is actually pretty painless.  If you want to merge these rogue Facebook Business pages together to control your social media presence, follow these steps.

Before starting please reference the information on Facebook regarding merging Business pages: https://www.facebook.com/help/249601088403018/

Step 1:  Log into your Facebook account where you manage one of your Business pages.  Click on the Edit option.

Step 2:  Select the page you want to keep at the top.  Then select the other page(s) you want to merge with it.

Step 3: You will receive a confirmation message.  Now it’s a waiting game for Facebook to review your request and hopefully approve it!  This process may take a week.

That completes the process!  Now go on your Facebook Business page and make sure all of your information is correct and you’re happy with the result.  Happy marketing!

More help:  Need to convert a Facebook Personal page to a Facebook Business page?

The post How to Merge Facebook Business Pages appeared first on from the Webtivity Blog.

The whole premise of social media is to meet people you may never have otherwise met.   It can open business opportunities, introduce you to people all over the world, and perhaps help you meet your future spouse.  It can also open you to significant risk.

Think about your Facebook page or other favorite social media channel of choice.  I bet you’ve exposed lots of sensitive information over time and didn’t even realize it.  You provide personal information right in your profile:  the town where you grew up; where you went to high school/college; your birthday.  Beyond your profile, what pictures have you posted in your social media accounts, and what kind of information do you share about yourself?  Do you root for your favorite sports teams?  Did you upload pictures of your first car?  Do you talk about the first job you ever had?

Now think about the “security questions” you’ve been asked by a website (say, your online banking website) when creating your profile.  These are the Challenge Questions they ask to allow you access into your account if you forgot your password.  In what town did you grow up?  Where did you go to college?  Your favorite sports team?  Your first car?  Your first job? 

Sound familiar?  Are you getting a sinking feeling yet?  You should be. 

With your email address and the information you freely shared on the web, someone can fairly easily get access to some pretty sensitive accounts.  That’s why security experts have been shaking their heads about Facebook’s Social Graph.  It is a phisher’s dream.

So how do you combat it?  You can close down every social media account and never share another thing about yourself online ever again.  But that’s probably not very practical.  So here’s an alternative that can actually be a little fun:  create an alter ego.  Write a whole new life story about yourself.  Maybe you were born in Bermuda and your first job was as a barber pole painter.  Your first pet was a salamander named Gustav and your first car was a 1957 BMW 507.  See how you can have some fun with it?

Now, when websites ask you to complete your Challenge Questions, answer them with your alter ego answers instead of answering them honestly.  Obviously you never want to share your alter ego story with anyone or you’re defeating the purpose.  And don’t forget the old adage about dishonesty:  when you lie you have to remember what you said!

The post Fighting Facebook’s Social Graph With Dopplegangers appeared first on Webtivity Internet Marketing Blog.

Helpful? or Diversity Suppressor?

Search engines and social platforms have been stridently moving toward a “recommendation engine” model over the past several years.  That means they track past behavior and try to figure out what information to serve to you based on that past behavior.  In other words, instead of giving you a ‘true’ set of results based on their algorithm, you’re provided with a set of results based on what they think you want because of what you and others have done in the past.

How do you feel about that?

In order to provide recommendations based on your past behavior, that means Google, Facebook, and other platforms using this model must store data about your past online behavior.  Searches you’ve done, websites you’ve visited, how long you’ve stayed there, etc.  Privacy advocates aren’t too happy about that, but the companies in question promise the data is stored without identifiable information attached. 

But beyond privacy, what do you think about the fact that results are based on your past behavior?  This model assumes that your tastes will never evolve, and assumes they can predict what you would like. 

I don’t know about you, but I have a diverse set of tastes.  When I go my favorite restaurant (we’ll call this restaurant ‘Google’) I may have a favorite menu item, but I may want to try different things on the menu just for the sake of trying something new.  But if the restaurant staff immediately serves me Two Friends Panang every time I walk through the door, I won’t have a chance to be exposed to other things on their menu.  Other things I may like better.

Even worse, what if my favorite waitress (we’ll call her ‘Facebook’) forced me to eat what she wanted me to eat every time I came to the restaurant?  I’m pretty sure I would build up some resentment over time.  I don’t like people making decisions for me. 

So while I understand the need for fancy algorithms to aid us in accessing the volumes of information we seek every day, do we need all these “personalization” algorithms?  And anyway, can you fancy schmancy programmers really guess what I want?  Am I that predictable?  When I log onto iTunes and see the ridiculous suggestions displayed by their Genius, the answer is a resounding “no”.

What’s the trade-off?

Have you ever stopped to wonder how one company can offer a product at a much lower price than another?  As an internet marketing company, we are exposed to many businesses in many industries that operate under many different business models.

As we delve into the discovery process with each of our clients we uncover their core business strategies and how they position themselves against their competitors.  The conversation almost always arrives at a point where our client talks about a competitor whose primary strategy is to undercut everyone on price.  The natural question is, how do they undercut everyone on price?  This is when our clients begin listing all the shortcuts their competitor takes and laments “if only their customers knew….”

Everyone understands that just because you spend more money on something, it doesn’t mean it is a better product or that you get more value out of it.  But if something costs less than normal, what does that imply?

Over the years I have acquired exposure to more industries and niches than you can imagine.  The stories I’ve been told by credible business people about their competitors and the types of shortcuts they take to position themselves as ‘the cheapest’ has made the hair stand up on the back of my neck more than a few times.  It has also made me a much better consumer, because in many cases I know the right questions to ask before hiring a service company or buying a product. 

There are plenty of shortcuts in our industry too.  We are a technical field, after all.  Automation is something that techie people can accomplish with ease.  So if you are shopping around for web development, social media or SEO services and some of the companies you talk to are much lower-priced than the others, you need to investigate why that is the case.

For example, you’ve probably seen all the “build your own website” commercials where you choose a pre-built template and have your website up in a night.  From a marketing standpoint that means your website will not have a unique identity because there are likely thousands of other people out there with the same design you have.  What consumers also don’t understand is that your website is going to be on the same IP address (the unique identifier the search engines use to differentiate your website) with hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of other websites.  That means you are starting at a major disadvantage with the search engines from the start.  If one of those other websites are using untoward tactics to get their website to rank high on the search engines, it can impact all the other websites on your IP address.

For social media, it may mean they are setting up automatic feeds to populate your social media channels.  That means they are just regurgitating the same information in your social media channels that exists everywhere else on the web.  Why would people want to get that information from you when they can get it from their normal media channels?  It also positions other people as experts instead of your company.  Why are you spending money on this if it isn’t going to show a maximum return?

Search Engine Optimization is especially notorious for shortcuts and automation.  Everything from software that takes real articles found online and “spins” them into a new article, to programs that crawl the internet looking for unsecured websites, automatically hacks them and installs links to your website.  The problem is that Google is very aware of these tactics and can detect them.  If they see your website participating in these tactics it may get you banned from Google altogether.

So it may not be sexy to talk about the work required to make online marketing truly work for your company.  If you are making short-term decisions based on budget, make sure you are adjusting your expectations and planning to allocate appropriate budget toward your online marketing in the future.  But don’t wait too long, because you can’t afford to short-change your company by not paying attention to your online marketing.

Social Media Security and Success

On Thursday, September 8, 2011 Troy Newport of Webtivity Design Solutions will be one of the Featured Speakers at Suncoast Technology Forum’s Quarterly IT-Educational Seminar.

Where: Keiser University Auditorium (map)

Date/Time: Thursday, September 8, 2011 from 5:30pm – 8pm

Register Now!

Learning Objectives:
1. Understand how to embrace Web 2.0 apps and maintain complete visibility and control, while significantly reducing total cost of ownership through Firewall/IPS and associated device consolidation.

2. For the first time, accurately identify thousands of applications – regardless of port, protocol, evasive tactic or SSL encryption – and scan content to stop threats and prevent data leakage.

3. The Internet has spawned a new generation of applications being accessed by network users for both personal and business use. Learn how many applications help improve user and business productivity, while other applications consume large amounts of bandwidth, pose needless security risks, and increase business liabilities.

About Suncoast Technology Forum:
Suncoast Technology Forum is a professional association and the tri-county area’s regional resource where technology-based businesses connect and innovation thrives.  STF’s mission is to create a technology-rich community, support technology entrepreneurship and connect business professionals with appropriate resources in the Florida Gulf Coast Region: in short, to accelerate our technology economy.  Visit suncoasttechnologyforum.com for event info and membership.