It was such an honor to be invited to speak at POC’s Halton-Peel Chapter Meeting last week! Since the Q&A portion of a presentation is often the most valuable, I decided to devote the entire session to answering the group’s questions about social media. I’ve posted those questions, along with my answers, here today.

Facebook:

What changes were done to Facebook pages?

On March 30, Facebook pages were converted to the Timeline layout which has been available for personal profiles for several months now. This new layout has a spot for a large “cover photo” at the top and places the page content in two columns with the posts arranged in reverse chronological order.

Why were these changes made?

Who knows why Facebook does anything?

Should we have a cover picture on our Facebook Page?

I recommend it, because it’s a good way to brand your page. And if you don’t, there will be a big empty white space at the top.

How do you add a cover picture on your Facebook Page?

When you are on your page, you’ll see an Add a Cover button near the top. Just click on it to upload an image and position it so that it displays nicely.

Is there a website/service that can help us to create the cover picture?

If you Google facebook cover photo you’ll find lots of sites that offer tips for creating a cover image.

Do you think the Facebook improvements are for better?

I think so. As I mentioned earlier, the cover image offers more opportunity to promote your brand than the original page style, and Timeline organizes your content very nicely.

How do you create a business page on Facebook?

Go to https://www.facebook.com/business/pages/set-up , and at the top you’ll see a Create a Page button.

Is there a way to separate your business friends and your personal friends on Facebook?

From your News Feed, click Friend Lists in the left menu. If you don’t see it, click See More. You should see lists for Close Friends, Acquaintances, and Restricted. Add anyone you want to share all your posts with to the Close Friends list, people you want to share less with to Acquaintances, and anyone you only want to see your public posts to Restricted.

Once you’ve created a list of your Close Friends, you’ll want to edit your Privacy Settings, which you’ll find in the drop-down menu under Home, at the top right side of your screen. Where it says Control Your Default Privacy, choose Custom.

Next, set your default privacy so that only people on your Close Friends list can view the items you post (see below).

When you post something you’d like everyone to see, set the privacy on that item to Public. Be sure to check the privacy setting before you post something personal again, as you may need to change it back.

If you don’t want your personal contacts to see business-related items you post, you can create a second list for Business Friends, and set the privacy setting on those posts accordingly, but that’s a lot of extra work. I think it’s good for our personal contacts to understand what we do in our businesses – you never know who might know someone who can use your services!

Someone I know who uses Facebook exclusively for business decided to unfriend all of her Facebook friends and ask them instead to connect with her through her business page, so that’s another option.

How do I make sure that my Facebook friends don’t see my other friends’ posts?

This is also controlled in your Privacy Settings. Under Timeline and Tagging there are a number of settings available, including one to control who can see what others post on your timeline.

Be sure to check your privacy settings from time to time, as they often revert back to the default settings when Facebook rolls out updates.

Can you schedule Facebook posts?

Yes, you can!

One way is by using Hootsuite. When you post something, you can choose for it to go up right away or schedule it for the future. You can even use it to access your other social media accounts, including LinkedIn and Twitter. For each post, you can choose which network(s) you want to send it to.

Lately, I’ve been using a service called Buffer, which also works with all three of the major social networks. Rather than setting your posts for a particular time, you just add posts to your “buffer” and they’ll go out according to a schedule you’ve created.

Keep in mind, however, that your posts have a better chance of appearing in your friends’ news feed if you create them manually.

LinkedIn:

Do you think there is a benefit of having a business LinkedIn profile along with your personal one?

I don’t really see a big benefit to solopreneurs having a business page on LinkedIn.

Pinterest:

Is it good, businesswise, to be on Pinterest?

Pinterest is quickly becoming one of the most popular social media sites, and it’s a great tool for organizers because you can give visual links to organizing products, as well as showcasing your own work.

How do you pin?

You can add a bookmarklet to your browser which makes it easy to pin pictures from nearly any website. You can also click on the Add link at the top of the Pinterest screen to either upload a picture from your hard drive or enter the URL for the page where the picture appears.

Can you pin?

That is a very good question! There are major concerns about whether pinning an image from a website is a violation of copyright. On the one hand, you’re linking back to the source, but is that sufficient? I know of people who were really into Pinterest but have deleted their accounts just to be on the safe side.

If there is a Pin It button on a website, does it mean I’m allowed to pin anything I want from there?

I would say that someone who puts Pin It buttons on their site wants you to pin their content. It would be wise, however, to make sure that they have the rights to use the images which appear on their site!

Can you pin web images only? Is there a way to add magazine clippings?

You would have to scan the clippings and upload them, but that would most likely violate copyright. I suggest going to the magazine’s website and looking for the content there.

Would you agree that Pinterest is designed for younger audience (18-35)?

Yes, that is my understanding, though of course that can change at any time.

Twitter:

I found that Twitter is lots of talking about nothing. How do you find people that are worth following?

When deciding whether or not to follow someone, the first thing I check is their bio to see whether they’re likely to be of interest. I also look at their recent tweets to see what they tweet about, and whether they engage with their followers. I’ve seen bios that made me think someone would be a great source of valuable information, only to find that their tweets were trivial.

Do you know the people you follow?

I’m following more than 1600 people, and I definitely don’t know all of them. That doesn’t mean that I read every tweet posted by every person I follow either! I have them organized into lists such as women-helping-women, organizers-cda and Blog/Social Media/Mktg and I decide which list I want to view at any given time.

What is Tweetstock? Have you been there?

Tweetstock was a social media conference which was held in Brantford on April 12, 2012. Unfortunately, I didn’t go, but I heard it was really good!

To supplement this information, everyone who attended was offered a free copy of my Basic Guide to Networking on Twitter as a gift for joining my mailing list.

Since the other speaker was unable to make it, there was time for plenty more questions! Be sure to catch next week’s post when I’ll share those related to blogging, email marketing, virtual assistants, and more.