Adding managers to your Google+ page
As the owner of the page log in and select the page you want to manage. Select the little gear in the upper right corner of the page and go to Google settings. You’ll see an option for mangers on the left side of the page. You can invite a new manager by putting in their email and Google sends them an email inviting them to manage your page.

• You can have as many as 50 manager per page.
• If you change your mind and want to take back an invitation before it is accepted, just click the x next to their name on the managers list.
• The owners and manager’s name are only seen on the management tab. They are not visible to visitors to the page.

Remove managers from your Google+ page
Removing managers is just as easy as adding them. Go to the same settings tab for the page and click managers. Click the small x to the right of the manager’s name and they will be removed from managing the page. Both the manager and the page owner will be notified of who removed them.

Transferring ownership of a Google+ page
Click Transfer ownership, select the manager you want to transfer it to and confirm the transfer. When an owner transfers the ownership of the page the previous owner becomes a manager by default.

Transfer ownership of a Google+ page
Click that settings tab and go to the managers tab. You’ll need to make the new owner a manager and they must accept before this next step.

Managing a Google+ page
If you receive an invitation to manage a Google+ page, click the link and it will take you to a log-in screen. You will need a Gmail account to log in with (you should create a profile so we know who you are). Log into Gmail and they’ll take you to another screen where you accept the terms of use and *poof* google+ you’re a manager. Once you become a manager for a page you’ll see a blue box in the upper left corner that says “Manage this page” and you will see the page stream, can create and manage circles and follows just as though you own the page.

Want more tips on Google+ and social media? Fan my page, Social Media Coach on Google+ and let’s talk!

Why? There are so many things business page can’t do yet. For example:

• A page can’t follow you until you follow it first or mention it in a post.
• A page doesn’t get notifications by email, text or in the Google+ bar, so it’s hard to keep on top of your discussions
• Hangouts don’t work on a mobile device for pages
• You can’t manage your page from a mobile device
• The only way to know if your page has new comments is to browse the feed for the page
• Unless you’re a big brand with Google Direct Connect you don’t own the page name
• Pages can’t +1 other pages or web sites
• Pages can’t comment or even +1 a conversation unless that person is following the page
• The creator of the page is the only administrator. If that person leaves the company they still “own” the page
• There is no facility to add admins to a page (like Facebook) so you either create an account just for this purpose or share your user name and password with other admins.
• If someone unfollows your page then your page automatically unfollows them
• Pages have to be administered from the page directly. Currently few social media management tools offer Google+ support, though Hootsuite will be soon. Apply here.

If you can’t grow your network on Google+ easily what’s the point? I understand Google is trying to protect people from getting spammed by millions of businesses, but in effect they’re making business pages quite useless and painful to use.

So why do all the big brands have Google+ pages then?

Because it’s easier for them. They actually get to reserve the name of their company on Google+using Google+ Direct Connect. Go to the Google search engine and type in Toyota+ to see what I mean. Good. Great. But what about a smaller brand? You’re outta luck for the moment. Google says they’ll be verifying more pages in future and I’m sure they will, but until then you’re just another page with the same name as anybody else who uses that name. Heck, there are several pages already called “Social Media Coach”! Maybe I was the first but I won’t be the last and it’s up for grabs for the first person who can get it verified.

There is a process called page verification. Here’s that works, but notice that you’ can’t apply for verification, they’ll let you know when you’ve been verified. Warning. If you change a character in the name of your page it will un-verify it and you’ll have to do it again. It also doesn’t seem to accelerate your entry into the Direct Connect pages so although it’s nice to be verified, it’s just the first step towards really being able to find your page.

What are the big brands doing with their Google+ pages?

That’s the really sad part. They participated in the land rush to get their Google+ pages defined and then many of them went right back to traditional marketing methods. Look at H&M for example.

It’s a long stream of ads pushed out to anyone who follows them.

Just when the business pages feature launched people collected the big brands into a circle and started sharing it around. I dutifully added the circle to my feed and now the feed is clogged up with an incredible amount of direct advertisements. Is this really what we want Google+ to be for business? Here’s a short list of just a few. Some are great, some are just ads, you make the call whether they’re doing a good job or not.

• Zagat
• Macy’s
• Ford Motor Co.
• Dell
• Pepsi
• Nasa
• Citibank
• Save the Children UK
• BMW
• General Electric
• Social Media Coach!

How about you? Are there brands doing a good job on Google+? Add them in the comments and give us some hope. Have you created a Google+ page for your business that is working for you? Share some best practices here. We’d love to hear about it.

Even though this is a Google product and we know they must have a lot of data and information collected on the conversations on Google+ that data is still pretty hard for the users to find. So how can you measure how effective your Google+ engagement is? How can you find the influencers on topics you want to discuss and get them to share your message with their network?

There’s not much out there to give you real information on statistics yet, but here are a couple of ways to find people interested in what you want to talk about and who frequently share information with their own circles and are re-shared too.

Ripples
A couple of weeks ago Google added a new feature to Google Plus called "Ripples". The idea is to give you an idea of how posts are being shared and what the effect of that post is on your network or the network of the person who posted it. Here’s a quick video to show you how it works.

What can we learn from how Ripples work? You can see how being in that "What’s Hot" category can quickly build your visibility, but does it really do you any good if the post being shared isn’t on point with your messaging? A few people may go look to see what you’re all about and it’ it’s all photos of cats and videos about Lady Gaga it’s probably not going to help your business so much. It’s really not much of a strategy to try to make the most ripples possible unless you have something deeper to share that will really attract people for more than a quick hit.

Dig through the ripples in your area of interest. Look for people who are getting shared a lot and see if there is an affinity. Do those people RE-share a lot too? They might be someone to connect to and share with.

Pay attention to your own ripples. Who is re-sharing you? Go give them some love by sharing their relevant content too. Social media is all about reciprocity and never more so than here.

CircleCount
Another tool to look at is CircleCount.com. The initial screens are all about who is most popular and it’s the usual suspects found on most of the social media networks. Guy Kawasaki, Britney Spears, the Dalai Lama are some of the most re-shared and commented people on Google +. Big deal! While those are people who get frequently shared and do actually re share a bit, unless you are a pop idol or a news maker it’s not likely they will re-share your message about your nonprofit or business now is it?

It’s still about the content
Of course none of this means a thing if you don’t carefully craft your messages for the audience you want to hear them. Titles are important and they don’t have to be the title of the a link you are sharing. Darren Rowse has some great tips on writing great titles for log posts and the same carries true here. Use a great title. Make it applicable to the people you share with. locate the best sharers in your network and create a message they will want to share because it’s valuable, fun and fresh to them.

Popular gets you shared, but is it your message?
A quick review of the what’s hot tab on the lower left of your Google+ profile reveals the truth of Google+ popularity. Just like other social networks, what gets shared the most is still videos photos and jokes. That may get re shared but what does it do for your business? Sending one of these once in a while can get your profile viewed, but please make sure your real message is strong when they get there!

What about my Google+ page?
Now if you’ve got a Google+ page as well as your profile you are even more challenged. Currently pages can’t circle people who aren’t following them. That makes it hard to get your message out there at all. One tactic I’ve seen is to share from your page to your own personal account and then that account re-shares with a carefully crafted circle you want to attract to your page. This can work if done consistently and not so often as to drive people crazy.

On your web site
Make it easy for the fans you’ve already got on your web site or blog to share your posts directly to Google+. You can put a Google+ badge on your blog for your Google+ page here. Add a +1 button to your web site to make it easy for people to share your content right to Google+.

The big news actually happened a few days ago. Twitter is promoting users success stories at stories.twitter.com. Users are encouraged to submit stories about how they’ve used Twitter in interesting ways and the ones they like will be featured on the site. Some of these stories really are great, like how Aaron Durand of Portland Or, wrote a blog post about his Mom’s bookstore and then tweeted it out with an offer to buy anyone a burrito who spent more than $50 on books. I love this. This is what makes Twitter… Twitter. Click on the link above and go browse a few. It’s fun!

There are changes to the interface too. Mentions

Your mentions tab now shows both mentions where people send a message to you and re tweets of your messages.

Following

You can get a closer picture of the people you follow. Click “Following” on the right side of the page and you’ll see a list of followers and their profiles. Click the “Tweets” tab and you’ll see the timeline of their tweets. Now on your own Twitter page, this is the same as the regular timeline, the cool part is when you browse someone else’s’ profile and click the tweets on THEIR following tab. You’ll get a much better idea of their network and who you want to connect with there.

Activity Tab

Before you go look, know that this feature is rolling out little by little so you may not have it yet. Instead of the re-tweet tab you used to have, now you’ll have a tab called “Activity”. On this tab you’ll see the recent activity of people you follow including,re tweets, favorites and new follows al on this one tab. It’s going to be a good way to keep closer tabs on your connections, even if you have a largish network. (note, if your acct is protected only those you allow to see your updates will see your activity).

@Yourname Tab

The user name tab is where you’ll see who is favorite and re tweeting your tweets as well as tweets to you and new followers. Pretty much all you, all the time!

The announcement of Google pages for business came just as people were beginning to bail on it as a time-waster, but this is clearly a direct assault on Facebook pages. As I scanned my Google Plus stream it quickly became clear that it was way more than that. People are creating topic pages where they will share information that they used to share with circles.

For example:

• Friend Mike Elgin created a page where he and his wife plan to share their new diet called The Spartan Diet and he says he’ll be sharing on this page instead of to the circles of foodies he had created.
• CJ Brasiel created a page for questions about San Jose real estate and she plans to use it as a Q&A channel as well as a place to post news and information about real estate in the south bay.
• Save the Children UK launched their nonprofit page and did a great job setting off their profile with moving photos (hmm, just like Facebook pages eh?)
• The online social media magazine Social Media Examiner didn’t waste any time creating a page, and neither did most of the regular users of Google Plus. How could we resist?
• As for me, I’ll be sharing as, guess what, Social Media Coach and post tips and tricks, starting of course with a series of video tutorials to show you how to make use of these new pages.

There is a avalanche of new pages being created at the moment as everyone starts the land rush to save their favorite names and protect their brands, and just like with “fan” pages i expect there will be some tussles over who owns the rights to what. It’s Probably not a good idea to create a fan page that uses a brand name for example. Google says “Google reserves the right to restrict the content on your Google+ Page at its discretion.” and I expect they won’t stand for copyright violations like using a Brand’s name in your page, and any contests or promotions must fit within the Google + Pages Contest and Promotion Guidelines.

As many cool new features as there are with the new Google+ pages there are an equal number of questions popping up from my clients. I’ll cover the most frequently asked ones here and then if you want help, just post your questions to my new Google+ page!

How do I create a page?

How do I find my pages again after I build them?
See that little teeny arrow next to your avatar? It’s a drop down list of all the pages you own. Select one and you are now using Google plus as your page.

Can I make someone else an admin of my page?
Nope. Not yet. According to reports from the Google engineers they’re working on this.

Can I share content between myself and my page?
Here’s a trick for that. Create a circle called “Me” or something creative. Add only yourself and your pages to this circle. Now you can simply share your information between your pages and yourself by sharing only with that “Me” circle.

Do I really have to use that silly long numeric user name?
Nah. You can use a URL shortener to get you a nice tidy URL to share with your friends. Here’s a quick video showing one option for a shortcut URL to your Google business page.

Is there a way to connect my pages with my web site?
You can grab the G+ Widget from the right side of the page when you create your page or create your own with your Gplus avatar and a link to your new page. Once you leave this page, just click “Get Started” under your avatar and you’ll find a place to create a custom badge for your website as well as some good advice from Google about making the most of your page.

How do I find business pages?
If you know the brand you want, say, Toyota or Angry Birds, just type a + before the name in the search bar on Google’s home page and it takes you right to their Google Plus business page! . This is part of Google “Direct Connect”, and for the moment is in beta, so it only works with Particular brands. Give it a try. Go to Google’s search page and type on +Toyota and see what happens.

Do I have to create a whole new set of circles?
Sort of. I feel like this is just a glitch, but for the moment you can’t share a circle with your own business page. Your profile settings overide the page and if you already have people in circles the page will not let you create one there too. You’ll have to find somebody else with a similar circle and ask them to share it with your page. Note that once the circle is moved it doesn’t automatically update, you only get the people that are in the circle at the time you move it.

There is a particularly amazing spreadsheet maintained by Google that lists all of the publicly shared circles, from A-Z right here.

Pros

• Easy for a user to quickly log in, reduces barrier to entry
• Allows you to integrate Facebook content and friend information on your web site (Ginny and 6 friends like this)
• Facebook users have a tendency to provide accurate information in their profiles and you can pull some of that information into your web site. (Hello Jane, Happy birthday!)
• Virality of signup, sharing and invitations
• Leverage the social graph of each user. Welcome your users by name and show them what their friends have “liked” on your site.

Cons

• Must be a Facebook user to use it.
• If Facebook goes down the user can’t connect.
• You cede the registration information to a third-party (Facebook) and you lose the ability to contact them directly through the site or by email unless you gather that separately.
• People are sometimes put off by the “Authorize this site to access your information” screen
• Facebook gets the data on any actions the user takes on your web site, not you
• Your users (and you) are bound by Facebook’s Terms of Use even while on your web site, if those terms change you’re responsible to update users.
• If a user terminates their Facebook account or is terminated, their access on your site disappears
• Duplicate accounts can occur if you offer a standard registration form in addition to Facebook Authentication
• Unlike some other SSO options, Facebook Connect is not built using open standards and can change at any time.

The best of both worlds

All this said it’s not black and white. You can use elements of Facebook Connect via their Social Plugins and Open Graph on your site without using it as your main login mechanism while maintaining a connection with your users and keeping their data safe.

Apps like Punchtab and Loyalty Plus allow you to offer a rewards program on your web site through Facebook no matter how they log in.

Add Sharing, Like and Commenting with Facebook social plugins.

Use social invites so users can invite their friends to join the site.

Add Like, Share and Send buttons to your content.

All in all I prefer to use a super simple login (name, email, password) to encourage people to join, and then leverage aspects of Facebook Social Plugins as it seems fitting to the site.

I think business people will quickly see that the new “cover” graphic can be a whole lot more than a picture of the family trip to the Rockies, it’s ready to tell the world all about your business like a big ol’ billboard. Please resist this temptation lest all your friends shun you.

Business will also see the value of running social ads based on the piles and piles of demographic and personal information they’ll be collecting and the filtering they’ll be able to do to target social ads to you, your friends and the friends of your friends’ friends. This will be great for businesses wanting to leverage the social graph, but could soon become annoying for users.

Facebook is showing off a brand new look and as usual everybody’s in a snit about it. Honestly, it amazes me that they seem to do their re-designs in a total vacuum. Any web developer knows the first rule of web design is to listen to what the client wants, collect their feedback and do a needs assessment. That’s even more true in a social network whose users are often less web savvy and thrown by major UI changes as well as concerned about privacy issues.

On Twitter today Myspace is trending, not because it’s about Myspace but because people are suggesting Facebook is doomed to the same fate as Myspace. People are migrating to Google plus now that it’s open and even though that interface just got a whole slew of new features it’s still got a long way to go to be useable for Facebook’s typical user base.

Facebook news feed changes
The most recent posts are no longer at the top of your news feed. Facebook chooses top stories for you.Top stories are based on how active people are on the story (remember the importance of edge rank!). If a lot of your friends have shared, commented or liked a story, or if you are particularly close to theperson, then it’s a top story for you.

If you don’t agree with Facebook’s choices you can demote a story by clicking the arrow in the upper right corner of the story to “unmark” that story. If you do that often enough it’s assumed you don’t want stories from that person or page anymore and you won’t see them as often in your news feed.

If you want to add that person or page back to your news stream, go to your home page, hover your cursor over the left side of the left hand news feed menu and you’ll get a pop up list of people, apps, pages and groups you’ve hidden and you can select the ones to start showing again.

If you want to hide an application or a type of post (games, quizzes etc.) click the drop down menu in the top right corner and choose “hide all or “unsubscribe” to hide everything from that person, “hide story” to hide just that story and of course you can still “report spam” here too.

confused about the changes? Here’s a link to explain the news feed changes on Facebook.

The Ticker
On the right hand side of your page you’ll see the news ticker. This is where you will see the real time comings and goings of your friends. You’ll see images, videos, stories, tags and friendings. You can control what is seen in the ticker by un subscribing from a person’s feed, selecting most important or Most Updates. If you really HATE THE TICKER here’s how to get rid of it. This is a joke actually, for now you’re stuck with it, but I thought their examples were great.

Lists
Very much like Google Plus circles, you can now filter your news feed by lists. Isn’t it nice that Facebook is now creating your lists for you based on your interests with the new “smart lists“? (yes, I’m being facetious) Click the name of a list and see just the posts from the people on that list.

Email alerts
Starting Sept 30 Pages won’t be able to email all of their fans but even better you’ll be seeing fewer email alerts from your friends updating their pics of the family BBQ.

Here’s Facebook’s intro video:

When you create a Facebook post you’ll have several options.

The first one is to tag the people you are with, or you want to make sure see the post. Just start typing your friend’s name and Facebook will locate them and add them to the post. (You must have connected with them on Facebook as friends already).

Next, you’ll be able to choose to add your location by Geo-tag. I highly recommend you’re careful with this one. Perhaps not using it when at home or a friend’s house to let the whole world see your address on a map? Of course there are a lot of times it’s very appropriate, like at a public event, restaurant  or conference.

You’ll also be able to edit the settings on a post for who gets to see that post, both when you post it, and be able to edit those preferences on a post-by-post basis from your main time-line at any time. MUCH better Facebook!

Just as a precaution here, it’s been my experience that every time Facebook changes a permission setting that other settings get disturbed. Take a minute right now and go into your Facebook settings and review the privacy settings you have set up to make sure it’s all the way you want it.

By the way, here’s a post about a nifty little app to check your Facebook privacy settings.

1. Log into Linkedin and click your name in the upper right corner. Select settings.
2. Select Account
3. You’ll see a link to Manage Social Advertising
4. Click it and get this dandy popup window.

5. Uncheck that box.

Linkedin will probably ask you to log in again but then it will go through. You might want to take a look at the rest of your privacy settings while you’re in there.

UPDATE:

Linkedin announced they are now not using your personal information opn these ads. Now it’s just “10 of your friends like this”. Bravo Linkedin for doing the right thing!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JdfSb9hD-Y

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bXhT7G9_38

This post is meant to be a getting started guide for those of us who got an invite and are now wondering how to use Google+ .  If you’re looking for an overview of Google+ check out Part 1 of this post: Google+ and World Domination.

Start with your Google Profile
Your profile is going to list your +1′s, posts on Google+ and more soon we don’t know about yet. Fill out your about section. Make sure you add links to your other networks, your blog and your syndicated content (here’s how). If you don’t want people to see your videos, photos, buzz, you can turn those tabs off in the settings. If you don’t have any, turn them off until you do.

To edit your existing profile click the blue edit button and then click the section you want to edit. Make your changes and set who you want to see that section. Make sure you click the “done editing” link at the top of the page to save your changes.

Account Overview
This is where you can add other email addresses to login with, decide what applications have access to your profile, turn Google+ on on non-Google sites etc.

Profile and Privacy
Edit the visibility of your posts and photos, what information in your profile is public, who can tag you in photos. You can add your interests (called “sparks”) so Google can feed you topics you may be interested in. Remember that only you see that list of interests. At least right now.

Scroll down to the bottom of the window to see your privacy settings. The dashboard is where you’ll make your settings, the Privacy Center tells you more about what that all means. I can’t stress enough how important it is to go to the dashboard and set your privacy settings before you dig into Google+’s features. This can be a very enlightening experience since it covers not just Google+ but all of your connections within the Google empire. Google+ has it’s own privacy policy, here’s a link.

Google+
This is where you set things like delivery preferences. It’s fun for about 12 seconds to have alerts when people

comment on your posts go to your phone. After that it will drive you batty. Same thing with email. If you get one for every time anybody comments it will drive you bats.

Here are my settings, but this is really a subjective thing. Less may be better. Pay special attention to the geotagging of uploaded photos and who gets to see tags linked directly to your profile.

Language
It wouldn’t be Google if there wasn’t an option like this. Self explanatory, but it is fun to add other languages just to add interest.

Data Liberation
Wow, this is pretty cool. Download a backup of all your data. This is going to be a list building goldmine. I can hardly wait for Gist to tie into this. It’s also very useful to archive your conversations in case something happens.

Connected Accounts
Hmm, this is interesting since the accounts are connected to your Google profile, but so far there’s no way to say, share a message from Google+ to Twitter. The other interesting thing is Google will use this data to “see relevant content your friends share on the web.” Hmm, Google will know even more about us, seems like socially targeted ads are obvious? Still, from a position of letting people know how to find you it’s useful.

Google+ Hacks and tips
OK, now you can start using it. In my roaming and poking about I found some cool stuff to share about using Google+. Many of them cement your relationship with Google products, like the Google Chrome extension and the Android app. Imagine that.

Google+ Settings
This drops down from the upper right of your screen. Really you’ve already covered a lot of this in your profile, but it’s very interesting to note the “web history” tab. You think Google’s got their eye on you now? Just wait. I left this feature turned off, with the number of different types of businesses I look up my history would be all over the map. Besides, I don’t want to be fed more of the same, I prefer to decide what I see.

Chrome Extension
Adds desktop notifications and you can post or respond from a popup window. It doesn’t have a button to share the page you’re on yet, but that’s got to be a given doesn’t it? Best yet it allows you to switch between different Google accounts on the fly. Get it here.

Circles
The circles feature has been much touted. Basically circles are groups of people you are connected to and you create circles that relate to your relationship with the friends you add to it. Some may be friends, groups around your business, a hobby or people you want to get to know better.

People can be in more than one group and when you send a message you can decide if you are sending it to everyone, all your circles, or specific circles. This way you can really focus your messaging and not bore your group of horse people with recipes you meant to only send to your culinary types. Nice. It reminds me a bit of the idea Diaspora had where you could create different groups for sharing particular information. Google did that much better. In fact there’s a hack to do the same thing with Facebook here.

Once you’ve created a few circles and you start adding more you may want to copy the friends in one circle into another circle. Easy. Just go to the circle’s tab, click on the circle you want to copy and select “View circle in tab”. You’ll see an option for more actions in the upper right corner. Select some or click “select all” all and drag and drop your friends to another circle.

Hide friends in Circles
If you want to hide friends in your circles from public view, go to the Google+ profile and click the edit button. Under your profile photo you’ll see the icons of people you’ve put in circles. Click the little earth icon and viola, you’ll see options on who gets to view who’s in your circles.

User profiles
When you hover over another user’s profile pic you’ll see a mini profile to get an idea about them. If they are already in circles you’ll see what ones you’ve added them to.

Sparks
Sparks are your areas of interest. Google use these to categorize you and suggest you to other people with similar interests. It also uses it to show you topics you might want to learn more about. Click on the “sparks” link under your profile pic and either search or browse for interesting stuff to spark your interest and share with your circles.

Photos
You can upload photos from your phone (easiest if you have Android, iPhone coming soon) or by dragging and dropping from your desktop. Click on a photo to edit who gets to see it, tags, captions, moderate comments and even some limited photo editing capabilities ala Picassa.

Control who you share with
Besides sharing only within circles you can set the sharing preferences on a post. You can disable comments or re shares, but only after the post is added. Click the obscure little arrow in the upper right of the post and you’ll see this menu where you can change the preferences on the post.

Sharing
Sharing a post is pretty straight-forward. You can add a link, a photo or a video just like Facebook, and you can also add a geo-location tag with Google Places.By default Google Places is turned off, and I recommend using this feature judiciously. Privacy and home security lean towards only using this on your laptop, not at home.

Click the timestamp on a post to get a permalink to share on your other networks, (just like Twitter)

Mute posts
When a post gets commented on again it can re-surface to the top of your notifications long after you’ve lost interest in the thread. (Just like Facebook) Click the arrow in the top right of the post and select mute and you’ll not get the notifications anymore. Click un mute if you want to get them again.

Formatting text
You can use limited text formatting just like you can in Google Buzz. Write rich text formatting like this *bold*, -strike through- or _italic_ . I expect there will be more options at some point.

Shortcut keys
Being able to use shortcuts when posting or commenting is very useful. Here are a few shortcut keys while in Google plus.

• Q open chat
• K scroll up within a single post
• J scroll down within a single post
• Return or Enter Start a comment
• Tab and Return End a comment
• Space Bar Scroll down your stream

Tagging
You can tag your friends in a post by putting either the + or the @ symbol in front of their name. Unlike Twitter this is their full name, so instead of @Jfouts you’d use @Janet Fouts. Just like Facebook a menu will show up once you start typing with suggestions from your connections. You can tag people you are not connected to which brings me to how to NOT allow people to tag you.This is controlled in your settings panel under “People whose tags of you are automatically approved to link to your Profile:”

Private messages
If you want to direct message someone use a +User name for the person you want to send it to and don’t include any of your circles.

I can see a big use for this in my team coaching sessions. Create a circle of only team members to share information semi-privately. (remember, there’s nothing stopping the sendee from re-posting it to the public)

Notes to yourself
Several users report using a private circle that has only themselves as a member. Then they bookmark items for later reading by sharing it with only that private circle.

Invite a user to Google+

• Go to your Circles tab and click on “add a new person”
• Enter their Gmail address and their name to add them to the circle
• Start a new post and mention them like this (no quotes) “@users name ” and share the post with the circle they are in.
• Click Share

Facebook is looking to see if you have common interests and the quality of those interests, and it does this with an algorithm. For example has this fan responded on your page before? Have you commented on something they posted? Have you exchanged posts only once or twice in two years? Are the topics you talk about on your page showing up in the fan’s daily activities? Are friends of the fan interacting with it?

Flatly stated, if nobody shares, comments or likes your posts, Facebook isn’t going to put it in their news feeds because you’re not interesting to them. Or at least they haven’t demonstrated any interest.

What does that have to do with numbers?
Facebook also looks to see how many fans you have and how many are interacting to come up with a ratio of interaction. The higher the ration there better your ranking and the more likely you will show up in people’s news feeds. Low ranking? You could be the proverbial tree falling in the forest. Nobody will hear you.

So, for the sake of discussion let’s say you have two Facebook pages.

Page one talks about reptile raising
Posts are about housing, feeding and caring for snakes, lizards etc. This page has 1,000 fans and 500 “interactions” per day.

Page two is about Wine
Posts are about enjoying fine wines, comparing regions, tasting wines and visiting wineries. This page has 10,000 fans and 500 “interactions” per day.

Which page would you say is the most popular?
If you guessed the wine page wrongo, back to square one you go! Those lizards are getting a 50% interaction rate while the wine page is at a lousy 5%!

If you fan both pages and so do your friends you will likely see a lot more posts about snakes than Cabernet in your news feed. In fact, without a real effort to go view the wine page often it may seem like it’s disappeared altogether.

What to do?
Quit focusing on getting more fans and start getting deeper engagement so your posts start showing up in people’s news feeds. THEn, and only then will you grow a valuable fan base on Facebook.

Encourage interaction
Whatever your page is about, find ways to encourage people to comment and share your posts and their own posts on your page. Be polarizing. Start lively discussions.

Post pictures, videos and jokes
I know, I know, but people love this stuff. Make sure there’s real content there too, but the occasional cat doing the macarena is going to get your page shared. Live with it or come up with something equally intriguing. Maybe an infographic?

Be timely
If we already read it on everybody else’s page what do we need you for? Keep it fresh and be the go-to person for the latest in your field. Toss in a dose of politics or breaking local and world news to get things shared.

Good content
Bottom line figure out what your page is about and make sure you stay on track with that. Use the hints above but add your own flavor so it suits the goals of the page.

Feature users
Face it, we all love a good stroke now and then. Find out what interests your fans and talk back to them. Show off their blogs and products, help them grow their pages and they’ll help you grow yours.

Now they’ve just released a new feature called “Power Tweets”. When you send a power Tweet Twylah automatically creates a custom landing page for the tweet, complete with related posts from your Twitter stream and others who are talking about the same topic. This is an excellent way for your readers to learn more about what you tweet about, find other tweeters who talk about the same subject and get a preview of the linked content, whether it’s a video, image or an except of the article.

Here’s a quick video tutorial on how to use Power Tweets and Twylah. Learn more about  it at Twylah.com.

I did a little rough surveying of my Twitter friends and it seems there are really only a few ways people make the decision to follow or not follow on Twitter. Here are some of the insights I gained from these discussions. I hope it will help you decide who to follow as well as understand some of they dynamics involved. Oh, and hey, if you do happen to follow me, I’d love it if you tell me why in the comments. It’s not an ego stroke kind of thing. I really want to know!

Auto Followers
Many seem to think it’s rude not to follow back everyone who follows you. Now I can see this back in the old days when there weren’t so many people and we all took it personally if we followed you and you didn’t reciprocate. Those days are over chum. These days if you automatically follow everyone who follows you you’re likely to find yourself following spammers and Multi-level marketing scams will clog up your tweet stream.

Celebrity Follow
It’s fun to feel in touch with your favorite celebrity isn’t it? I follow Steve Martin and John Cleese. Both of them crack me up and so they add value to my day. Do I really think we’re friends? Well, the other day Steve and I were talking about Banjo Pickin’…uh..no. Not really. But still I enjoy reading what they write.

Follow co-workers and friends
Need to hang out around the virtual water cooler a bit? Twitter is a great way to keep up with what your friends and co-workers are up to. Sometimes it’s an excellent way to get to know that person in the cube by the coffee machine too. That said, when somebody tells me they “just don’t get Twitter” I can easily guess this is exactly who they’re following and nobody else. You probably already know most of what they talk about right? Borrring. Get out and find some new friends too.

Follow people you want to learn from
This one’s my favorite, and something I tell my clients over and over. Follow people who are smarter than you are. Who can you learn from in your field? Who can you learn from in other fields? What about your competitors? Who’s curating all the news in your particular space and posting it to their Twitter stream? Get to know them.

Follow your friends’ friends
This may seem a little stalkerish but trust me, it’s not intended that way. If you really respect another Twitter user for their great insights you might want to look and see who they’re following. Who do THEY listen to? Where do they get their information? let that person guide you to some of the Twitter users they respect and save you the time of having to follow them yourself. I find some of my best resources this way.

I saw you in a TweetChat
If you participate in Tweetchats on a regular basis, or even just go look at the recorded #Hashtag later you might find some very interesting people. TweetChats are Twitter conversations that are focused around a particular topic and anyone who is interested can chime in. Lots of times the person being interviewed is a big deal on that particular topic, but the most interesting people are often the ones commenting from the sidelines. Here’s a list of Tweetchats to check out. http://www.gnosisarts.com/home/Tweetchat_Wiki

Marketing marketing marketing!
I know, there are people who say MLM’s are a legitimate business model with a bad rap. I’m not one of those. The whole idea of this form of marketing is repulsive and goes against everything that community stands for. You might as well stand in front of me and slap me with a salmon until I beg for mercy. Reciprocity, generosity, sharing and genuine discussion is what you should be looking for. If somebody promises you a million followers in 30 days? Run away. Oh, and while you’re running? Block them and report them for spam.

Search and ye shall find
The search engine on Twitter just got a little better and if you use advanced search you can really drill down to what matters. Do some searches on things you are interested in and see who’s talikng about it. Who are they talking to? Are either of them making sense? Join the conversation and then decide if you want to follow. They’ll probably follow you back too.

The serendipity of  Twitter
You never know how everybody finds you, but if somebody reaches out and engages you and you enjoy the conversation follow them. Some of the most interesting people I know on Twitter came from an out of the blue connection. Look to see who’s following you and find out what’s interesting about them. Be picky about the quality of their content and don’t fixate too much on “but I don’t know this person!”. Get to know new people, it’s half the fun.

Facebook fine-tuned a new version of groups back in October 2010. It was a little buggy at first but people have adjusted. Now Facebook is making a lot of changes again, and again forcing users to migrate to the new groups system pretty much without warning (or a lot of testing as far as we can see). I believe that one of the reasons these changes are being pushed through is that businesses are using groups when Facebook would prefer they use pages. Actually I agree with this in theory, but in practice it really bugs me that they do these things arbitrarily with little or no concern for their members. Ah well, that’s the Facebook way!

Let’s address the difference between Facebook Groups and Facebook pages as Facebook sees it.

The New Groups

If your group hasn’t been seeing much use lately Facebook may simply archive it for you. You’ll have to create a new group with the new system. Your old group photos, description and wall posts will still be accessible except for: recent news, officer titles, the info box under the group avatar and your members. You can add members to your new group by clicking “add Friends to Group.

If your group has been active you may see a message at the top of the group with options to upgrade the group. If you are a member and not an admin, you’ll see a request to send to the admin to ask them to upgrade.

Admins simply click the upgrade button and Facebook will switch the group and it’s members to the new groups framework. (Be patient, this may take a few minutes).

If your group does not have enough activity for Facebook to automatically upgrade it, or you choose not to upgrade, it will be archived. You will need to create a new group and re-invite members.

What’s the good part?

• Members will be able to chat with the whole group inside their group page rather than just one-one-one.
• The group can share photo albums and polls.
• The group will have an email address for connecting off of Facebook.
• As in the old groups, users will be able to share documents within their group.

And the Bad?

• Facebook still hasn’t fixed the bit that allows people to add their friends to groups “as a favor” without their permission. When the last iteration arrived on the scene people found themselves added to groups that people thought they would be interested in like it or not. We got a lot of unsolicited emails from these groups and you have to either “Exit” the group–in which case you can never re-join–or turn off notifications.
• If your group doesn’t make the cut to be upgraded you will have to re-create the group and invite all your members again.

While this is great for the user, many developers have been caught off-guard by this and if they didn’t set up a secure canvas page, their users may see a big red warning instead of their content!

Facebook announced today that on July 1, 2011 they’ll release an update to their developer Kit (SDK) that will use OAuth2.0 and a new cookie format that doesn’t require access tokens.

Developers for apps (that includes those iFrames) will be required to “migrate to OAuth 2.0, process the signed_request parameter, and obtain an SSL certificate by October 1, 2011″.

Here’s the current timeline taken from Facebook’s developer blog:

Migration to OAuth 2.0 + HTTPS timeline:

• July 1: Updates to the PHP and JS SDKs available that use OAuth 2.0 and have new cookie format (without access token).
• September 1: All apps must migrate to OAuth 2.0 and expect an encrypted access token.
• October 1: All Canvas apps must process signed_request (fb_sig will be removed) and obtain an SSL certificate (unless you are in Sandbox mode).

What about now?

As of now, in order for users who have enabled SSL on Facebook to see your tab you’ll need to make some changes to your iFrame settings.

Get yourself an SSL certificate. Your hosting provider should be able to sell you one as an add on for somewhere around $30/year.

Go to your application on the Facebook’s developers page.

Both the secure Canvas URL and the Secure tab URL must now contain a link to a site with an authenticated SSL certificate.

If in the past you let that slide and left it empty, admins will see the following message on their Facebook page where the iFrame should be loading.

All of the links within that framed content must be HTTPS and NOT HTTP URLs. Mixing secure and non secure content is…well it’s not secure! That includes images, CSS and script files, anything in your meta tags etc. It does not include outgoing links to content on other sites or relative links like this “/myfiles/somepage.html

You don’t really want users to be seeing something like this…

My honest recommendation here if you’re not a developer is to use one of the many services that can provide a framework for you or custom design content. Check out HyperArts TabPress application. For less than $100 you can let them deal with the headaches of Facebook’s ever changing policies!

I also like hubze’s iframe Engine and PageModo for quickly implementing template driven pages.