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In the meantime, here is a way to add a link to your status update so that it posts the info box and doesn’t just include the http:// text, which takes up your characters:

Paste the URL into status box. Hold shift, and hit enter twice. It will embed the link into your post as if you were using the link ability.  This works sometimes and sometimes it doesn’t, but this is the best option as of right now!

Good luck and I’ll keep everyone updated should Facebook change this back!!  Let’s hope they do!

I purchased an amazing little Rottweiler puppy at the ripe old age of 22.   I probably should have thought about that before I purchased that dog, as at 22, I could barely take care of myself and I was trying to find my way in the crazy world we call “Adulthood”.   But this tiny puppy had a master plan that I was not aware of at that time in my life.  She started her life with me in West Chester, hopping with me along my journey from apartment lease to apartment lease and arriving in Center City Philadelphia when she was just 1 year old.  She became a City Dog and I became a City Rat.   I didn’t have much of a family so my beloved Kiya became my family.

It was only 6 months before she came into my life that I met a guy..  This guy later became my husband.   When I brought this tiny puppy home, he first said.. “You have no business getting a dog at your age”… He very quickly fell in love with this tiny puppy immediately thereafter.

As in any young relationship, we had problems.  We were both career-driven and our relationship often came 2nd, but that dog who was growing into this force and holding our relationship together had a master plan that neither of us were able to recognize.  She loved us both unconditionally, no matter what.  We could never end our relationship because of that dog and made the decision to finally give living together a shot.  From that point on, this dog sank her teeth into us with her love and we never discussed parting ways again.   After 4 more years of City-Living, we decided to once again bounce Kiya back to West Chester where she began her life.  We bought a house, got married and a year later had our first child.

On Saturday, August 20th at exactly 10:15, we laid our beloved to rest.  She was with us for 11 years.  Through all of the trails and tribulations of a young relationship, to beginning a marriage and then becoming parents to now 3 young children, she was there through it all.  You see, part of the reason why I’m writing this post has nothing to do with business, but has to do with life and a lesson I will take to my grave.  For anyone reading this, I want you to know that one simple decision in your life can write your entire life-story.  She knew what she was doing and in the end we did too.  Her plan as a dog was to build a family. Without her our family would have never existed. There would be no Evan, no Keira and no Reilyn, our three beautiful children. She lived long enough to bring our 3rd and final child home only 8 weeks ago.

We don’t have a crystal ball and often it is hard to explain why things happen.  But to all of my readers, trust the master plan.  Everything in life truly does happen for a reason and sometimes it takes 11 long years to figure it all out.  I believe that her plan isn’t over for us and we still have things we will learn in the future because of this dog.  She changed us and molded us into what we are today.  Today we are sad, but we are a happy family and we owe everything that we are today to her..

Rest In Peace my beloved Kiya.. We will NEVER forget what you gave to us as young adults and what you gave to us so many years later… A fantastic marriage and three amazing kids..   I will always hear your sharp toes going across the kitchen floor, I will never forget your smell or the way your fur felt in my hands, I will never forget the annoying sound you made when you rattled your metal bowls with your paws when you wanted more water and food, I will never forget the hours you spent in our pool even when we told you to get out, I will never forget how gentle you were with each child we brought into our home and most important, I will never forget your perky ears, wagging stub and the way you panted when you heard daddy walking through the door.

1.  Set up Google Alerts for keywords based on your industry. This is a great way to have great content in your industry emailed to you daily.

How it works for me:  I set up Google Alerts that are targeted to EACH one of my clients…Tons of emails, yes, but I focus on many different industries at one time.  If you are in one industry, this is a very effective tool that you can use for blogging, tweeting and facebooking!

2.  Allow yourself only one hour in the morning to read articles or blogs first before diving into Facebook or Twitter.  Otherwise, you can get side-tracked easily in the very addictive world of Facebook and Twitter.  Before you know it, you’ve just spent your hour breezing through other people’s profiles and status updates.  Stay focused.

How it works for me:  I’m a mom of three kids.  I get up earlier than the rest of my family. I make my coffee and go to my office and I devote my one hour to research and reading blogs/articles that pertain to each client.  After all of that, THEN I focus on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

3.  Use downtime effectively.  Almost everyone has a smartphone and you can bookmark webpages on your phones.  Use time that you spend in waiting rooms of doctor’s offices, sitting in the bathroom while your kids bathe, etc. etc. to read the blogs and articles that you’ve bookmarked on your phone.

How it works for me:  Over the last 6 weeks of bringing a brand new baby into our family, I’ve used feeding times to read.  I know I should be spending that time looking into my newborn’s eyes and soaking that all up, but I have two businesses to run, so I use a lot of that time to read.   I also have two other children under the age of 5, so I get up earlier than the rest of my family. I make my coffee and go to my office and I devote my time to research and reading blogs/articles that pertain to myself and my clients for one hour.

4.  SCHEDULE BLOG POSTS, TWEETS AND STATUS UPDATES!  This is a fantastic use of time!!  With technology at our finger tips and the ability to outsource almost anything, there is no excuse to blog once a month.  Outsource this to someone that can do all of your blogging for you and schedule everything so that you can focus on client satisfaction, retention and development!

How it works for me:  I use Hootsuite and WordPress to schedule everything.  I manage a ton of social media networks for clients and if I didn’t have the ability to schedule posts, tweets and blogs, I would be lost!  This is the best thing since sliced bread!  There are still some tricks that cannot be done on Hootsuite, so there’s still a ton of work that goes into effectively managing people’s social media marketing campaigns, but I don’t give away all of my secrets! 

These 4 tips should better prepare you for time management.  Most of us know these skills, but need a reminder..so here is your reminder!

Stay focused or outsource it!

That being said, with the ability to easily link your Facebook Profile page and Facebook Business pages directly to your Twitter account, I still HIGHLY recommend tweeting different things than what you are saying on Facebook.   It’s OK to link the two, just make sure that once in awhile, if not more frequently, your tweets are different than your updates.

If you’d like to link your business page to Twitter, go to:  Link Facebook Business Pages to Twitter.   As long as you are an administrator of the page, you can link as many business pages to Twitter as you want!

You can also link your tweets to your LinkedIn account!  Again, keep your LinkedIn updates fresh by manually updating it once in awhile if you do have it linked from Twitter!

Happy Linking  

While my family has been preparing and organizing for baby number 3 (yes, that’s right, baby number 3!) a lot has been going on!

LinkedIn went public and people made a lot of money in one day!   It’s initial listed public offering started at $45 per share.  The stock opened at $83 per share, rose above $90 and hung out there for most of the morning and hit the all time high of the day for them at $122.70.  It has since slipped back to $94.25 per share!   So even if you only bought 20 shares, you made a $985 profit in one day IF you got in at the $45/share price.  Not bad.   Not sure if it’s worth holding your money in or trading, however.   But it’s a good sign for Facebook and I DEFINITELY will be waiting and prepared to purchase stock the day they go public!

Facebook made a few recent changes to the business pages once again!   The one change I LOVE the most in recent weeks is the ability for page admins to target individual posts! by LOCATION and LANGUAGE.   There’s a drop down box next to the SHARE BUTTON.  Click CUSTOMIZE and there ya go!  You can also now tag your business page in photos!  This is great for Photographers!   I also came across this great read from ALLFACEBOOK!: The 7 Biggest Fan Page Marketing Mistakes!  Perfect read for anyone marketing on facebook, new or “mastered”.

The newest Tool that I love is Bre.ad!  It’s a URL shortener, but SO much more!  Not only does it shorten links, it syncs to Facebook and Twitter AND provides CLICK analytics!!  AND When somebody clicks on a Bre.ad link, he or she isn’t immediately taken to the webpage it directs to. Instead, it takes that person to a web page created by the person who originally shortened the link. The page displays a message from the person who created the link as well as a 720 pixel by 300 pixel billboard image. The user stays on the page for five seconds before being redirected to his or her link.  READ MORE about it on MASHABLE!

As always, we believe that social media marketing is a BIG job and most business owners do not have the time to keep up with it all.  You must understand that the time invested not only goes to attracting new fans and posting great content, but you also have to stay on top of the changes. A stagnant social media account is worse than not having one at all.  If you’ve created one or even paid someone to create one for you and you are doing NOTHING with it, you need to contact someone in the marketing business that DOES social media.  Make sure they have more than 10 fans on their own facebook page/twitter account first! Just because they have it listed as a service, it doesn’t necessarily mean they “perform” social media marketing correctly.

Please feel free to ask any questions!  We are always available!

I just read a great article, “How To: Spread You Business Footprint” on Mashable.  I tell my clients that more content is better than none.  If you are a new blog owner,  set a goal to posting a new blog every day.  Even if it’s just a few sentences.  This will help you gain confidence and comfort with your blog and how you want to build your personal brand.

The best piece of advice from the above-referenced article is this:  “Further, stagnation is a bad thing. If you can’t actively maintain your presence, it might not be a good idea to register an account at all. Social media profiles tend to rank highly in search, so you want to make sure yours is active and properly filled out.”

This is so true!  I’ve seen many people create business pages and then not maintain them because they either don’t know exactly how to maintain them or simply just don’t have the time.   My advice is don’t even get on the social networks if you don’t have time or the knowledge.  Either hire someone to do it for you or wait until you have the time to study it.  Social Media is something that constantly changes, which means you will have to constantly study, read and see what your competitors are doing next!  

You should also think twice before having your 15-year old son or daughter create your facebook page for you.   You are marketing your business and even though it’s in the non-traditional sense, it’s best to get someone who knows a thing or two about marketing.  All social media networks come with different marketing strategies!

If you have a facebook page or twitter account, but you haven’t done anything with them, it’s not too late.   We can take a look and restructure your goals and marketing strategy for you.  Social Media Marketing can cost a TON, but it doesn’t have to.  You need someone who is willing to take the time to get to know YOUR BUSINESS before coming up with campaign goals and strategies!  College Interns may not have those skills, but can tweet and facebook like no one’s business!  There are several ways in which you can get on track and at the same time, fit it into your budget!

Contact us if you are ready to take the social media leap!

Here is the URL for the application on facebook.   Please note that you must have IE8 and FLASH must be updated and of course, you have to have a camera connected to your computer!

http://apps.facebook.com/socialeyes/

Another thing I would like to touch on this morning is Facebook Profile Pages vs. Facebook Business Pages.   There is nothing that bothers me more than when I search for a business on facebook and it’s a PROFILE PAGE instead of a BUSINESS PAGE. #1, you are not allowed to promote business via a profile page. Sure you are getting away with it now, but when facebook catches you, AND THEY WILL, your profile page will be shut down!   and #2, (I find this to be the MOST important reason NOT to create a profile page for your business) I have to send a friend request and then WAIT for you to approve before tagging you in a status update, this SLOWS down the “viral marketing” speed, which is why you wanted your business to go on facebook in the first place, right? If you are paying someone to do this for you, STOP NOW and get in contact with me! If you have a profile page for your business and have NO idea where to even begin switching over to a business page, contact me now!  Set up a consultation BEFORE facebook catches you and shuts down your page.  Starting all over from scratch on facebook is the biggest headache.  I’ve seen friends of mine go through this very thing.  It’s NOT fun!

Contact me today to find out more about how I can help you!