How to create a Facebook Group and a Twitter account to promote your business or social group.

This article is a quick 'How To Guide' for setting up a Facebook Group and a Twitter account for low cost marketing on a budget.

In this recession based economy it's very important to capitalize on some of the free marketing tools available for business and social groups. Not only are Facebook and Twitter free, they are also some of the most cost effective means to reach out to your audience while consuming very little or your precious marketing budget or other resources (although time can get consumed at a rapid clip if you get too immersed within social marketing, so use good judgement).

To create a Facebook Group:

1. Go to the Search box on Facebook.com (upper right hand corner).


2. Type in the word 'groups' (or simply click on the image provided here or this link: Facebook Groups page).


3. Click on the 'Groups' option in the drop down box (from the Search box on the main page this takes you to the Facebook Groups page).

Groups page on Facebook where you can create a new group.

1. Click on 'Create New Group' (the new group button is located just below and to the right of the Search box).


2. The rest is simply a matter of populating your group with a name, logo/image, description, etc.


3. Set up the moderation rules for your group (determines whether others can join without an invitation, and whether it is a public or private group).


4. Then you can invite members to join your group by sending them invitations from within Facebook. It's helpful to use the tools that Facebook provides to search your online email accounts (Yahoo Mail, Gmail, etc.) for other Facebook users that you know (they don't have to be current users of Facebook, but it helps since you are more likely to get them to accept your invitation).


5. To keep the attention of your members (and to gain new members) you should post lots of content like news articles, discussions, and photos as much as possible.


6. Be sure to put links to your new Facebook Group on your main website.


7. There is a handy free iPhone Facebook application available on the iTunes App Store that lets you view and update your Facebook info from your iPhone. (See how I used the iPhone Facebook app during a power outage to keep in touch with my friends on Facebook and LinkedIn).

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To create a Twitter account:

1. Go to www.twitter.com.


2. Click on 'Join'.


3. Enter your username, password, email address, etc. (be careful to pick a useful username since this will be your Twitter identity, such as: http://twitter.com/milehighmarketing)


4. Invite others to 'follow you' on Twitter by sending them an invite from within Twitter. Just like Facebook, it's helpful to use the tools that Twitter provides to search your online email accounts (Yahoo Mail, Gmail, etc.) for other Twitter users that you know (they don't have to be current users of Twitter, but it helps since you are more likely to get them to accept your invitation).


5. 


6. Add a logo or other image such as a photo of yourself; this is done from the profile page. Twitter will size the image automatically, but you may want to edit your image outside of Twitter first so that you can get a good arrangement for the square aspect ratio postage stamp-like size allowed).


7. Start 'tweeting' by sending out status updates and other useful tidbits of information like your current goings on at your company or social group. Keep in mind that 'Tweets' are like SMS text messages in that they are limited to 160 characters, so use your letter count wisely.


8. Select other people you want to 'follow' on Twitter. This makes you more likely to gain 'followers' for yourself as Tweeters reciprocate (often a kind of a 'tit-for-tat' experience). You can also add famous people you want to follow like John McCain and Barack Obama or other famous people (there are several others suggested for you, plus you can search for more). I'm following John McCain, and he is also following me! (Well, someone from his camp is, anyway.)


9. There are handy free iPhone applications available on the iTunes App Store such as TwitterFon that let you send and receive Tweets from your iPhone.


10. Happy Tweeting!

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Jeff Kemp (Golden, CO), www.jeff-kemp.com.

For more info:

Jeff Kemp's website: http://www.jeff-kemp.com

Email Jeff: jeff@milehightechguy.com

Having an iPhone comes in handy during a blackout.

We live at 7500ft elevation in the foothills of the Rockies in Genesee, a community within Golden, Colorado. On Friday April 17th at 10:30pm our power went out due to the recent 3ft of heavy wet snow we had received over a period of a couple of days.

 

The power remained out for over 27 hours, which meant that all through Saturday until 1am Saturday morning we had no lights, no heat (except for our gas fireplaces), no stove (ours is electric), no refrigeration, no TV, and no land line phone. I'm sure though that the folks at Xcel Energy did their best to get everyone's power back on as quickly as possible.

Amazingly my iPhone not only had a good 3G connection so I could use it for phone calls to alert my family about the power outage, but I was also able to keep up with my email, Facebook, and LinkedIn updates throughout the weekend without skipping a beat.

With my iPhone, even though we had no power and we're buried in 3ft of snow, I was able to keep connected to the world.

An added bonus is that the iPhone gives off a good amount of light,

so I sometimes use it to get around the house instead of a flashlight since it is always at my side in it's handy holster.  In extreme cases when I really need more light I use a free iPhone application that I downloaded from iTunes some months ago aptly called 'Flashlight' that is a very simple full screen of just white that gives off an optimum amount of light, more than say, if you were looking at your email for instance. 'Flashlight' is really handy for giving you the light you need for getting your key into the door at night, or for helping you find something you dropped in the parking lot in the dark.

I didn't worry too much about running down the battery of my iPhone even though our power was out since I knew that if the battery ran too low that I could plug it into my car charger for a bit and it would be good as new. I happen to have a cigarette lighter type plug in my Nissan Xterra that works without requiring to turn on the car's engine.

Another nice feature native to the iPhone is the alarm clock. That comes in handy too when the power is out.

Okay, now that my iPhone and I can't be separated during even a blackout, I'm ready to make one of stupid those commercials where the person says: "I'm an iPhone". Oh, right, that's Microsoft's stupid commercial where they say: "I'm a PC". But you get the gist. Me and my iPhone are becoming 'one'. It's getting kind of scary.

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Jeff Kemp (Golden, CO), www.jeff-kemp.com.

For more info: 

Jeff Kemp's website:  http://www.jeff-kemp.com

Email Jeff: jeff@milehightechguy.com

Using LinkedIn and Facebook for Effective Business Promotion.

Social and professional networking tools are now some of the best ways to get the word out about your product or service as a business; not to mention that it is free! LinkedIn and Facebook, among other professional networking sites and internet tools available, offer a prime low cost solution for putting your business’s message onto the internet while consuming very little of your company’s resources.

LinkedIn has emerged as one of the top professional networking websites, while Facebook has emerged as one of the premiere social networking sites. What many people don’t seem to realize yet (or at least aren’t taking full advantage of) is that in addition to promoting your professional profile or keeping in touch with friends or colleagues, LinkedIn and Facebook can be a very effective marketing tool for promoting your business. The reach of these networking sites is global, yet depending on your business and the type of content you post, with these networking sites you can easily target your local area as your primary focus.

By creating a LinkedIn and/or Facebook group, your business can have an extension of your corporate website that can be used as a marketing tool. If you have a smaller company you might even be surprised to find that your new networking group attracts more web hits than your corporate website, and that it enables you to reach your local market better than many of the other marketing vehicles available such as phone books or online yellow pages.

These networking groups can succinctly promote your business’s product or services, contain links to your main website, and perhaps most importantly provide a platform for providing collaboration that allows others inside and outside of your company to post content such as videos, photos, notes, and links.

This collaborative posting and managing of content, part of what makes ‘Web 2.0’ what it is today, is an invaluable resource that should be leveraged by your business. These groups are also a great place to post job openings, and can provide loyalty to your brand while connecting current fans as well as current or past alumni (employees, vendors, contractors) associated with your company (see the D-Link Alumni group that I created recently in order to get back in touch with former colleagues). Even old forgotten customers may come back into the picture that you have lost contact with!

So if you haven’t yet tapped into the valuable resource of a LinkedIn or Facebook group for your business, there’s no reason not to get started today!

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Jeff Kemp (Golden, CO), www.jeff-kemp.com.

WAYN.com is a malicious spam scam!!! (stay away!!)

NOTICE: This blog is no longer currently maintained. This article has been re-posted to my new blog MileHighTechGuy here (please post any comments there): http://milehightechguy.com/wayncom-is-a-malicious-spam-scam-stay-away/


Stay far away from WAYN.com, it is a malicious spam website that pretends to be a legitimate social networking site by helping you to 'Keep track of each others whereabouts, friends and meet people around the world.', but it appears to be a malicious spam scam!!!

Today my wife received an email invitation from WAYN.com (stands for Where Are You Now), claiming that a friend of hers had added her to their 'friends' list on this so called social networking site.

So she went to the site and signed up by creating a password. Then apparently the site brings up a pop-up that shows all of the contacts in your POP3 email account such as Yahoo or Gmail. I'm not sure how they get the address list, but the site automatically selects ALL of your email contacts (including those from work) in order to send them an email invitation to join WAYN. My wife didn't want to send invitations to all of her contacts, and allegedly the site doesn't show a clear choice for not sending them all invitations, so she simply deselected all of the contacts, deselected the 'Select All' option, then clicked on the 'X' to close the window.

The next thing you know, later that day I received an email invitation in MY email saying my wife had added me as a friend, and asking if I wanted to join, and also that I had 6 messages waiting in my WAYN inbox.

To be perfectly clear, my wife DESELECTED all of the contacts, did NOT send the invitations, and did NOT add anyone as a 'friend' in her WAYN account. This apparently malicious website allegedly took over and apparently added all of these contacts on its own, and spammed every contact from her computer it could get a hold of (over 800 contacts).

One thing is not clear, and that is how did WAYN get these contacts? My wife says that it was not really a complete list from her Yahoo account or from her Outlook, but a mish-mash of emails/contacts. (This site even sent an invitation to my son from her address book.)

What made it even worse was that by the end of the same day I had received over 13 emails from others in my wife's address book saying they had signed up to WAYN. So I can only guess that these other 13 people (only 1 day so far) had also received the fraudulent invitation saying my wife had added them as 'friends' and that she wanted to invite them to join, and that they too had filled out a profile. Doubtless to say, these people will likely have their entire contact list spammed as well.

One person that had received the invitation (that was supposedly sent from my wife) responded to the invitation via email. This enabled us to see what the invitation looked like. It clearly said that she had 'added you as a friend on WAYN', which was a misrepresentation and a lie:

"FirstName LastName has added you as a friend on WAYN."

And the site sends the email like this:
"From: FirstName LastName [mailto:invitation@whereareyounow.net]"

(FirstName LastName is the First and Last name of my wife, hidden here for protective reasons)

So the email appears to come from my wife, but in reality it is the website sending it on her behalf but disguising this.

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I did a little research on the web after I received over 13 emails in one day from this site (around midnight, so it was not an exhaustive search). I found several other complaints out there about WAYN, and I found a few people defending the complaints...but I don't buy it. Especially after what I saw happen to my wife and the way the site misused her contact list.

I recommended she needs to send an apology email to all of the contacts in her Yahoo account (as a start) to warn them to NOT sign up for the WAYN website, state in the email that she did not add them as a 'friend', that this site is apparently using web trickery to maliciously crawl her contact email list and spam everyone with the intent of building their registered user list, and finally that if they really are interested in social networking that there are sites like LinkedIn, FaceBook, or even MySpace that are much better social networking sites than the SPAMMING WAYN!

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The horror continues... My wife tried to opt out of the site. The only choice you have to cancel your WAYN account is to email these people and rely on them to cancel your account. Meanwhile my wife's entire address book has been compromised and WAYN has apparently spammed all 800 of them.

While she was on the wicked WAYN site for purpose of opting out and canceling her account, she noticed that it now had listed all of her work contacts from Outlook. She is now in the process of contacting her work IT department with an urgent message to see if there's any way to defend against this allegedly malicious spam scheme before it takes over her work contacts.

I've heard of viral marketing and gorilla marketing, but this site seems to be intent on malicious spam!

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At this point I'm not willing to sign up for WAYN for myself to test it out (maybe I'll try it later with a fictitious email account). So I'd like to hear of other people's experiences...(please leave a comment). Since after deselecting all of her contacts my wife closed the contact list by selecting the 'X' button to close the window without continuing, maybe her incidence is isolated??

You can draw your own conclusions, but as a precaution you may want to warn your friends and co-workers to stay away from WAYN.

NOTICE: This blog is no longer currently maintained. This article has been re-posted to my new blog MileHighTechGuy here (please post any comments there): http://milehightechguy.com/wayncom-is-a-malicious-spam-scam-stay-away/

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Jeff Kemp (Golden, CO), www.jeff-kemp.com.