Facebook Chasing Google Plus with Privacy Changes

Posted on August 30, 2011 by admin

Many have been watching Facebook to see how they respond to the Google Plus popularity. Though Google Plus has not taken off many non-tech users (according to various reports), those who have used it cannot deny they like many of it’s capabilities and features.

This is mainly in it’s “Circles” function. We won’t go too much into that, but we will look at what Facebook is doing that is similar and talk about it’s new privacy settings.

The Details

First, some of the privacy controls are now “inline”, or available when users are actually creating a post. So now users can decide who will be able to view specific posts with a dropdown menu. Users can control the post going to everyone, friends of friends, friends or they can customize in detail who sees the posts.

Now this is really cool. Users now have the ability to approve photos they have been tagged in before they are shown to everyone. No more surprises.

After you have played with your privacy settings, you can then use the new “View Profile As” feature in the top right to see how your profile looks to one of your friends. This might be useful if you’re a FB friend with your Boss, but you have restrictions applied.

Lastly, locations can now be associated to just about anything. They can even be assigned to past posts. This was previously only available when using Facebook via a smart phone.

Overall

We may have missed some, but that is certainly the bulk of the changes. It will be interesting to see how users respond to the changes and if it affects any migration towards Google Plus.

Personally, I think Facebook is to be commended for listening to the people, and implementing changes so fast. No doubt they had wind of some of the Google Plus features. I am concerned that they released many changes at the same time. FB users are now getting hammered with popups telling them about the new features.

The Importance of Listing your Business

Posted on June 26, 2011 by admin

What do I mean when I say “Listing Your Business”? I mean adding it to the many web site business directories that are available. There tons of websites geared just towards listing businesses in almost every category you can think of.

They most of the time offer free listings for 2 reasons. One, to get consumers to use their website to find businesses or products. Two, to then up sell their free listings, to paid listings to make money. Paid business listings is another story, we can talk about another time.

Many of the business listing web sites available have social features built in. Things like the ability to comment, post status updates & post deals. Some use plugins to integrate with your Facebook and Twitter. Almost all of them feature a review capability, which we know to be extremely valuable to local businesses. Their are even many free Panama City Beach Business Listing web sites that you could be taking advantage of.

So how does this actually help your business, and website performance? In a variety of ways. Your business is helped directly because consumers who might be using these avenues, can now find your business in its appropriate category (Ex. Carpet Cleaners in Panama City). Your website is helped, because almost every one of the sites you can list your business on, will “backlink” to your company web site. Google says “Hey, look at all these other sites linking to this company…”. Of course much of the value of this depends on the quality of the site that is linking to your site.

So you want to get started now I’m sure. There are a few things to note before you do. Many companies try and blitz these business listings. Copy and Pasting the same text about their company over and over again (Ex. We are a restaurant that sells burgers, fries, etc.) To really get good value from free business listings, is to write unique content for each one. This is in addition to ensuring you add photos, and your company logo if applicable.

This is a considerable investment in time. Especially if you take into account any changes that will need to be made to your listing. These are things like new services, etc.

That is why I setup ClicksCrazy.com to offer affordable setup costs, to get you on all the most important business listing web sites. We have put together a list of some of the top business listing web sites we have been talking about.

Google Places/Google Maps
Local.com
Yelp.com
SuperPages.com
Merchant Circle.com
Manta.com

These are just some of the most popular business listing web sites. Are you on them? If not, put together a plan to start making sure you are listed. Remember, the team here at ClicksCrazy.com is always available to help!