Hi All,
We’ve all been busy – I know I have with my projects. So, not too much sharing going on. But I did want to alert everyone that I have started a Sharing Ideas Meetup group (http://www.meetup.com/SharingIdeas/) and I really feel this blog can work as well and so have a suggestion. I have requested that we do a Sharing Ideas forum at the AHP Convention this year. The thought would be that anyone who goes would have something that they could share in 5 minutes time. It could be about social media, web site design – you name it – and we should also allot time for questions. It should involve everyone who comes to this forum. I think we should each also be prepared to give out something outlining what we shared and how to do it so that those leaving have a step-by-step process to follow. I think it would also be good if we created a list of what we plan to share so that others know what is covered and what is not.
Why not give the members a chance to share some knowledge that might help another member. If you like this idea mention it when you fill out the Survey Monkey for the Convention.
It might also inspire us to continue to do a better job of sharing ideas once we leave the Convention.
Diana
Diana Derosa's Blog 
Celeste said,
August 19, 2009 at 6:21 pm
So starting a Fan Page can be found on the homepage of Facebook. It’s kind of hard to find because it’s in much smaller print and at the bottom of the homepage. The Fan pages are nice because they’re geared specifically towards a business but work much in the same way as a regular profile. The problems I had with them is that you have to have a regular Facebook page (meaning a page with friends rather than fans) in order to make one.
Then when you try to suggest Fans to get the page going, they have to come out of whatever friends you have on your regular Facebook page. Does that make sense? So you can’t just surf Facebook finding people that like horses and having them become Fans. You have to first friend them with a regular page and then suggest the Fan page to friends. Or at least this is what I’ve found. So instead I just made a regular Facebook page with friends, and have since made additional Fan pages for our variety of publications.
This would work if you’re the editor and want a personalized page as editor/publisher/etc. and then would like to make the Fan page for the publication. I know this sounds confusing but it just would’ve saved me some trouble if I knew in the first place.
I have a question about Facebook for anyone who might know. Each profile has tabs such as “Wall,” “Info,” “Boxes,” etc. I’ve seen some profiles have a personalized tab such as “Music” or “Pages” I can’t figure out how to do this. Does anyone know?
Thanks!
Christy Landwehr said,
August 19, 2009 at 6:24 pm
CHA has a group page on Facebook and I just love how you can message all the members at once! We send information out on new publications we have and on our events to let everyone know!
dianaderosa said,
August 19, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Christy – can you give us the link just to the group page? When you message how exactly do you do that? Are you able to compose an email and is there something that then says send to everybody. Or can you explain how it is you create a message and then send it.
Diana
dianaderosa said,
August 19, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Celeste you are beyond the best. This information is so helpful. Thank you for being the first to post. Now I have a question for you. If I understand correctly, you can’t start Facebook under a business name. You have to start it with you own name right? Once you do that and then start a fan page under a business name, can people just go to your business page or do they need to go to your personal page to get to your Fan page.
Diana
Erica Larson said,
August 19, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Celeste, there should be a little button with a “+” at the end of the row of tabs. If you click on that, you can add a tab for whatever you want to 🙂
You need to have a personal Facebook page in order to made a business page or a Fan page. Once you have your own account, you can make a Fan page or a business page. People will be able to find your page through searches, but they will also be able to see when their friends become a fan of the page through the News Feed feature. This will spark their curiosity and if they’re interested, they’ll take a look and hopefully become a fan of your page as well. Like Celeste said, send out as many fan invitations to your friends as you can…the more people you get looking at the site the better!
This goes for websites in general, but don’t forget to keep updating your pages as well. There are so many fan pages that just sit there and really don’t provide much current information. If people become a fan of your page, they’ll probably want to interact with you. Keep them coming back to find out what’s going on with you or your publications!
Hope this helps!
Erica
Celeste said,
August 19, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Hi Erica! I have tried to use the “+” to make a “Pages” tab but it doesn’t have an option for that. Maybe I’m missing something…It only has options for “Links” “causes” and a couple others. I’d like to have a tab that lists all of our Fan Pages on the Equine Journal profile.
I found that the Fan pages are separate from the founding Facebook Page. You can become a Fan of a page without first becoming a friend with the creator. It’s really just from the creator’s end that you can only suggest the Fan Page by first making friends. Fan Pages otherwise exist on their own. The creator can post messages like a regular profile page and those will be sent onto Fan’s “Home” pages with the rest of their friends’ updates.
Sarah Evers Conrad said,
August 19, 2009 at 8:25 pm
I have found that the Fan pages, versus the Groups, are more flexible and allow more options. The most popular thing on Facebook is the Feed that you get when you sign in. Let’s face it…most people eventually end up checking this over and over to see what all their friends are doing. The great thing with a Fan page is that it updates on that main feed. Groups don’t send a notice to anybody unless you specifically send a message. And I try to be careful about doing that too often since we know how many emails people get in a day. So the Fan page allows you to notify about even the smallest thing without being annoying, unless of course you do this over and over and over within one day and you fill up someone’s feed and then they click to Hide you. Plus you can add photos and add in extra tabs and such onto a fan page.
I hope this helps.
Sarah Evers Conrad said,
August 20, 2009 at 5:08 pm
I just saw this article about the 12 Most Annoying Types of Facebookers. Actually it was shared through someone I’m connected to on Facebook. I think anyone who uses Facebook should make sure they aren’t one of these types.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/20/annoying.facebook.updaters/index.html
annpringle said,
August 23, 2009 at 4:51 pm
We added a Fan Page for Driving Digest. I’m annoyed that Facebook provides such poor help. I’m not sure what all a Fan Page can do. Can fans post their own photos on a Fan Page?
dianaderosa said,
June 9, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Hi AHP Members,
Last year I contacted you after the AHP Seminar to attempt to start a Sharing Ideas flow of information. I got a lot of interest but not as much input as I was hoping for. However, in the meantime I started a local Long Island Meetup Group also called Sharing Ideas and it has been a major success.
I spoke to Chris about doing a Sharing Ideas forum at this year’s Convention. She agreed and scheduled it for Friday afternoon. I wrote up the note at the bottom which Chris sent out.
Now I encourage you to come if you are attending this year’s AHP weekend. The idea about Sharing Ideas is to just let us know what knowledge you have. Tell us something about Facebook or Twitter or SEO or PDFS or resizing photos for the web or whatever bit of information you can share and then give us the time to pick your brain. It’s not so much about the presentation but about us knowing where your knowledge lies so we can ask you questions about things we’d like answers for.
So, can you come and do you have something to share? Please take a moment to let me know if you can attend my Sharing Ideas forum and if so what bit of knowledge you would like to share and thus what area of expertise we can network with you about.
My Long Island Sharing Ideas Meetups are done in a Round Table set up and everyone offers something on the topic. It ends up being a lively discussion and we all walk about feeling like we’ve shared and learned all at the same time. I hope to see you at my Forum – take a moment now to email me and let me know your thoughts.
Here’s what Chris sent out for me.
COME SHARE YOUR IDEAS WITH US AT THE SHARING IDEAS FORUM
Friday, June 18 – 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.
AHP 40th Anniversary Seminar, Lexington, KY
Moderated by Diana De Rosa
If you asked me how to upload, rename, resize, lighten or crop photos I could tell you how in a heartbeat.
If writing a good press release was your question, the answer is at my fingertips.
Yet even though I’ve created web sites, SEO (search engine optimization) still has me puzzled.
Understanding analytics so that I can analyze how my web site is doing is still a bit fuzzy.
Like many of you, I am on Facebook, Twitter and LinkEdIn. However, that doesn’t mean I know how to take advantage of all they have to offer for my business, but you might.
Taking my knowledge and sharing it with you and you taking your knowledge and sharing it with me is what the Sharing Ideas forum will be about.
Think of some tid bit you could pass along that would only take you 5 -10 minutes to explain, or maybe even less, and bring that with you to our Sharing Ideas forum. And if you can outline it on paper and hand it out even better.
Or be ready to ask the group a question or two because I guarantee someone will know the answer to help clear up that fog for you.
There is no limit to what we can talk about. It could be any of the above or more. Pdfs, blogs, wordpress, podcasts, video and still photography, writing tips, grammar, anything that you want to know about or you want to share is welcome.
Come with your questions or your answers; we welcome both sides.
Last year after the Convention I organized an email list of people that were there and we made a hearty attempt to kick off a Sharing Ideas blog. It never really took off despite the fact that numerous people loved the idea.
I then took that one step further and started a Sharing Ideas local meetup group: http://www.meetup.com/sharingideas. We meet once a month and it is a wonderful gathering of prominent local businessmen and women in my area who come to both share and learn.
Everyone stays until the meeting is over and many even longer and each month they talk about how glad they are that I started this group. I’d like to do the same thing at this year’s AHP Annual Meeting.
If you have an idea to share, a question you would like answered or a topic you’d like to discuss, please contact me. I will start gathering topics to get a sense of what people would either like to share or learn. Email me at dderosa1@optonline.net and get ready to share!