What’s the difference between a Facebook Fan Page and a Facebook Group?

This was the question posed to me by a member of the audience following my presentation on Social Media Marketing at a business networking lunch earlier this week.

To be honest I must admit that I did waffle a response to the question presented to me which no doubt didn’t give anyone in the room any satisfaction. Still no one let on! Phew!

So being the inquisitive person that I am and not wanting to be put on the ’spot’ like that again; I decided to do a bit of research and find an answer to the question:

“What’s the difference between a Facebook Fan Page and a Facebook Group?”

Here’s my findings

Fan Pages vs Groups

Facebook in its Help Centre summarizes the differences as;

“Groups and Pages serve different purposes on Facebook. Groups are meant to foster group discussion around a particular topic area while Pages allow entities such as public figures and organizations to broadcast information to their fans. Only the authorized representative of the entity can run a Page”

But surely there’s more to it than that?

Digging a bit deeper on the official Facebook Blog, where I found an informative post which talks about this very subject. You can read the full post for yourself here but to pick out the salient points of their features, here’s a comparative table;

For more information on this subject, take a surf over to the highly respected Mashable blog with its vast library of posts related to Social Media.

One pertinent to this subject may be found here and includes a nice definition of what Facebook Pages and Groups actually are. (Just in case you’ve read this far into my post and are thinking “What the…?”)

Just be aware that Facebook is always tweaking the features of it Pages and Groups so these and any other posts you may read on the subject, will degrade in their relevance over time.

Anymore for Anymore?

If I’ve missed out some key differences between these two Facebook features or if you’ve discovered any quirks yourself through your own efforts or research, then feel free to post them in a comment below.

Whilst you’re thinking about that, feel free to become a Fan of iNet’s own Facebook Page.

Interviews in Progress

Tomorrow morning I’m taking part in some ‘Mock Interviews’ which form part of an ‘Industry Day’ at a local high school; the Appleton Academy, in Bradford.

The whole idea is to help these kids get some real experience of job interview situations by exposing them to some of the potential questions and feedback from real employers (as opposed to teachers) such as myself and a few other representatives from local companies. In doing so the students will hopefully gain an understanding of real-world interviews before they’re unleashed into the world of unforgiving world of employment.

A good idea in my book and something that I wish I’d have been privy to in the early 80’s when was just about to leave school.

Coming from a wide range of sectors, there’s a whole group of employers taking part in the day. I’m covering the “digital sector” and will be interviewing students who want to work in the web development, IT, gaming and the design industries.

Having worked in and recruited people from within these disciplines in the past (apart from the ‘gaming’ aspect); I can safely say that I am well placed to fill the role of interviewer and have prepared some good interview questions for these kids.

I just hope they’ll be gentle with me in return!

Wish me luck.

Going Cold Turkey Without Twitter

Despite being active on Twitter for just over a year now, I’m starting to feel that it’s not the social media site for me or my business and as such, to test this theory out; I’ve decided to see if I miss it and kill my Twitter activity for a period of a month by way of an experiment.

In doing so I’m expecting to go through various stages of ‘cold turkey’ which will no doubt include addiction withdrawal symptoms that will start to manifest themselves once I start to resist strong urges to ‘check-in’ to see what people are ‘talking about’, the compelling desire to ’share a link’ with my followers or perhaps tweet what’s on my mind at any particular time of the day, or perhaps announce what my plans are for the following day.

You know what it’s like I’m sure!

Now before you start getting on your high horse proclaiming that perhaps ‘I don’t get it’ or I’m deploying the ‘wrong strategies’ or even that I’m not engaging people enough nor understand what Twitter is; hear me out.

Getting a Return

The primary reason I’ve decided to even entertain the idea of junking Twitter altogether is that I feel it takes up a lot of time, brain power and attention for what seems to me, very little return when it comes to business generation or even building an effective network of people that can help me build my business.

A harsh opinion to digest I know for you Twitterphiles, but that’s my observation.

Use the Right Tools Then!

Yes I use all the right tools to manage my account; firstly Tweetdeck when I first got going and more recently, Hootsuite. Both are very powerful Twitter clients to use in their own right when using a desktop or laptop computer, whilst ÜberTwitter does a sterling job of helping me keep me in touch with my followers whilst I’m about and about on my Blackberry.

It’s fair to say that I’m an advanced “sharer” with Hootsuite’s RSS feed distribution feature (and before that Ping.FM and Twitterfeed) helping me to easily automate the sharing of links, blog posts and the articles that I flag up or want to share through my Google Reader account.

Trust me – I know what I’m doing when it comes to using Twitter and have passed on this knowledge through the delivery of a number of workshops on the subject. So it can be said I’m all tooled up.

Follow the Right People Then!

I hear what you’re saying and it’s a good point! However to be fair I’m fussy about who I follow and have invested time seeking out and searching for the right people to follow which includes people in my locality, people I’ve actually physically met (remember doing that?) through real-world business networking activities with people I feel may be interested in my services. Regular readers of my blog will know that I’m on to my second Twitter account having decided to kill my original one due to excessive ‘noise’ and untargeted followers. (Read the relevant post). So you can tell I’m keen.

However the problem is this: Twitter seems to be generally populated with very small or very young businesses in my book. The larger ones that are on there don’t interact on a personal level (which defeats the objective of Twitter for me) and are more concerned with “building their brand” rather than engaging with folk. The smaller and younger ones, whilst happy to engage, are generally limited on their budgets or simply don’t understand what I can do for them. Either way, they are happy to engage and share knowledge with me, but when it comes to getting their cheque book out. Perhaps not!

Who Currently Uses It?

A quick survey amongst my existing clients, particularly the larger spending ones, indicates that Twitter plays no part in their daily business activities with many proclaiming a complete lack of knowledge about the micro-blogging site, or even a desire to know anything about it altogether!

So if by enlarge, my current clients aren’t using it, then replicating their profile to other potential clients, it seems to me that others won’t be either.

Has Twitter had its day? Many would say so.

Irrelevant Noise

This post is at risk of becoming a bit of rant, but hey ho! I’m enjoying myself here so perhaps I should consider it to be a therapeutic exercise in preparation for my forthcoming cold-turkey experience.

I’m following some serious business people on Twitter with many of them active offline networkers. But there’s only so much news one can take about someone’s tweet by tweet pregnancy monlogue from a person I’ve never met, the narrative of what’s happening on X-Factor or a ‘live’ edition of Eastenders, a kick-by-kick account of footy on the tele, which coffee house they are meeting their mate in, through to a discussion about ‘which outfit to wear’ for a forthcoming awards ceremony. This noise outweighs the real value of anything worthwhile or useful they may have to say.

There’s only a certain amount of trivia, personal brand building, ‘please visit my site/blog’ and self proclamation that one take. Please, I ask you!

Relationship Building

Now you could argue that this ‘noise’ is all part of relationship building and yes the voyeur within us all helps make sure such life-streaming activity is addictive to a large degree for many and is the glue that forms human relationships some would say. Think of gossip over the garden-fence, or watching a soap. It’s that sort of psychology.

But if all this amounts to nothing when it comes to business being delivered on the bottom line, then it’s all noise. If I want trivia – that’s what Facebook is for.

One Month and Counting

However, despite what I’ve said above, we’ll see and report back after my months abstinence from Twitter.

So there you have it!

Wish me luck! Gulp!

Email - A Staple Business Tool

In today’s business world most people have the staple tools needed to conduct business with other people on a daily basis.

Such tools inevitably include the obligatory diary (electronic or otherwise), a pen, a notepad (electronic or otherwise), a telephone (landline and mobile), a car or some other form of vehicle and of course a computer of a description with an internet connection and associated email account.

Fifteen years ago you could have probably omitted the email account for some folk and any connection to the Internet would have been on dial-up rather than broadband. Twenty years ago pagers were the ‘away from the office’ communication tool of choice for many unless you were either a Yuppie or a keen early adopter who owned a mobile phone. Computers whilst becoming more common place, hadn’t quite penetrated through to every nook and cranny of business life as they do today and Lotus Smartsuite ruled the roost when it came to office software applications.

Today, technology has spread throughout the business world and is not purely the domain of early adaptive geeks. You don’t need me to tell you that I’m sure.

Take a straw-poll of business bodies in a room to find out who uses a Blackberry™, iPhone™ or other type of smart-phone to email and surf whilst on the move and I’ll wager that most of the hands will go up. Similarly, notebook computers and netbooks are outselling desktop computers by a large margin and mobile internet access is common place through 3G and WiFi coverage. Tweeting and messaging through the social networking sites (SNS) is the new kid on the block and are deemed to be a more flexible and superior substitute for email by some.

Phew!

Voice-Mail Hell

So I was amazed at the outcome which resulted from being trapped in the hell of a voice-mail loop with an associate of mine. You know the score; someone leaves you message on your voicemail, you return the call, missing the person but getting diverted to their own voicemail and so the circle continues. Nightmare!

This went on for a couple of days with this particular bloke, both of us listening to a one sided message from the other. Frustration gradually creeping into the tone of our delivery.

So, as one does, I thought; “I know, I’ll send this guy an email with the information he requires!” Out came his business card, “ah yes an email address”. Tap, tap, tap! Gone!

That should illicit a response.

Er, no! Nothing!

Another day goes by without contact, but at least I was safe in the knowledge that he had the information he needed on email.

I don't do email

Then, one morning the phone goes. It’s him, sounding angry now!

“In my defense”, I retorted, “because I couldn’t get to speak to you – I dropped you an email instead. Did you get it?”

“I don’t do email!” bounced back the reply. “I will check it later and get back to you if I didn’t”. I called him later regardless to check. Yes, he’d got it and was happy with the details I’d emailed to him two days previously.

“That’s okay, we got there in the end.”

So in a world where email is a staple commodity of business, this fellow obviously still lives in the late 1980’s. Just imagine how more efficient he could become and less frustrated into the bargain, if he just “did email.”

Which beggars the question of course; if the subject in this post “doesn’t do email”: then WTF does he have an email account for?

Now texting, there’s another story!

Google Spits Its Dummy Out

Internet Explorer, the decreasingly omnipotent web browser from Microsoft with its old version 6 has been causing Google some issues recently and as result the search giant has spat its dummy out and is phasing out support for the old browser.

The story started earlier last month when many of Google’s gMail accounts, run by Chinese human rights campaigners, were hacked using a security flaw in IE6. This led to Google threatening to withdraw from the Chinese market following the “sophisticated and targeted” attacks, which it said originated in China.

Microsoft, who apparently had known about the issue “since early September” 2009 reacted quickly to issue a security patch update. However this wasn’t good enough for Google and they’ve now stated that they’ll no longer be supporting version 6 of the browser after the 1st March 2010.

In otherwords, if you use Google products (gMail, Google Docs etc) or visit Google websites which includes not only their main search site, but websites such as YouTube (a Google company), Picasa and Blogger.com to name but a few, then don’t expect them to work or display correctly all the time if you continue to use Internet Explorer version 6.

Here’s what they’ve emailed their Google Apps users with on this matter;

“Dear Google Apps admin,

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 ​as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser. We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience. We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,

The Google Apps team”

Oh dear! Toys definitely out of the cot on this one then!

Who Can Blame Them?

For those not in the know, version 6 of Internet Explorer is pretty old hat when it comes to web browsers and even though it was only launched in August 2001 and replaced by version 7 in October 2006, it is ancient technology when it comes to the Internet and as such it produces some strange results when used to view some modern coded websites.

So on one hand, a company like Google trying force the User to drop useage of version 6 of the browser is a good thing in mine and many peoples’ books. However on the other hand, as my day to day experiences demonstrate; IE6 is very much alive, well and kicking in many organisations such as government departments, the NHS and many large corporations and academic institutions.

Rolling out a software upgrade across such a large User network as the NHS is no mean feat and if such organisations are still running Windows 2000 as many of them are; then the browser upgrade will on the whole, only come during an operating system upgrade. A big job.

However I would say kill IE6 regardless!

Isn’t it time your Users were able to benefit completely from the full “Internet” experience? If the answer is yes, then it’s time for a change. At best switch to Firefox but at least get an upgrade, flaws and all, to the current version of Internet Explorer which is version 8.

You know it makes sense!

Last Thursday was a busy day of networking and presenting as I made an exhibition of myself at the GRID* Enterprise Expo in Bradford.

The day started off in the dark at 7 am with a busy business networking breakfast courtesy of proNet which was immediately followed in the same building by a small business Expo organised by those folks at the Bradford Grid* Park Lane.

Despite early pre-match nerves regarding low advanced bookings, minds were set at rest on the day as numbers through the doors proved to be plentiful and steady.

iNet shared exhibiting floor space with support agencies such as Bradford Kickstart, Business Link and service providers ranging from HSBC, a couple of marketing companies, an IT provider, an accountant and a HR consultancy to name but a few.

Wide Range of Interests

Interest from those that came to say hello ranged from a health counselor who wanted to know about the the ins and outs of blogging, through to a web designer start-up wanting advice on the logistics of running a web design business and a private healthcare provider wanting to get to grips with LinkedIn.

Mid-way through the event I contributed one of the mini bite-size seminars that were being run throughout the day by talking to a packed room of small business owners about the ways in which they can promote their website for free. This presentation may be viewed again on our slideshare account.

Pleasantly Surprised

Traditionally I’m not a great lover of exhibitions (both as an exhibitor or as an attendee) – however, this one proved to be a good one as not only did we run a busy stand but we picked up a few enquiries as well.

Lovely jubbly!

Currying Favour

Being in Bradford, the curry capital of Britain in my book; exhibitors and attendees were treated to a scrumptious curry buffet meal at lunchtime. None of this pre-made, politically correct manufactured rubbish either, the real McCoy with a bit of a kick to it. (You can tell I’m a curry fan).

What else would you expect in Bradford!

What a way to curry favour with local businesses? Great networking, a great mini-Expo and a great lunch.

Thanks to everyone at the Grid* for their hard work in pulling it all together.

Photos

The above pictures were taken by John Steel Photography. You can view more of John’s pictures of the proNet networking event here and of the Expo day here.

Business Success Stories on Twitter - What's Yours?

I’m reaching out to my network, which of course includes you, my blog readers; for some real life success stories on how you are using or have used, Twitter for the benefit of your business.

Why am doing this? Well quite simply I want to use your stories as practical, real-life case studies during my Twitter and social media workshops.

Yes I know that a quick Google search will unravel a number of such examples; but these are either related to the big multi-nationals such as Dell who use it to improve “brand recognition”, small US based businesses who are relevant to we UK folk, or ropey MLM schemes who’s claims I wouldn’t believe anyway! All of these I feel are distant from my own business and those of my clients.

Instead, I’m after some real-life examples from real business that are based here in the Blighty. Some stories that people can empathise with.

I want to know how you use Twitter to boost your own business either in terms of increased sales, improved communications, improving your network (which may in turn lead to more sales), recruiting or increasing your knowledge etc.

Tangible Examples

Ideally I’d like to see some tangible examples that one can put a value on. So please post your examples as a comment to the bottom of this post or if you’re feeling a bit shy, you can send them through to me via this website.

To get you thinking, here’s some possible ways in which some business types may be using Twitter to boost their businesses.

• AuthorsYou may be an author and use Twitter to directly sell your books or improve awareness of a new book launch. How does that work?
• Public RelationsPR professionals. How are you using Twitter successfully for your own or your clients’ businesses?
• Creative IndustriesIn the design, web development or photography sectors? Twitter is great for sharing knowledge with your peers, but how else are you using it?
• RecruitmentPerhaps your job or your business is involved in the recruitment of people. Tell me why Twitter is good for your business when it comes to getting a placement.
• Leisure IndustryMany restaurateurs, holiday companies and even nightclubs and music venues are active on Twitter. But why? What do they get from it? If this is this you, tell me more.
• Virtual Assistants. Having a virtual assistant is all the rage these days for the time strapped business owner and I see plenty of them on Twitter. If you’re on of them, I’d love to know how Twitter helps you grow your business.

Measurable Results

This list isn’t exhaustive of course, it’s just there to get you thinking. So whatever business you’re in, if you use Twitter to give a measurable and beneficial results for your business, then I’d love to hear your story.

Post your comments below.

Many thanks for your help and don’t forget, you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/inetinsights

My regular blog readers and Twitter followers will know that over the last couple of weeks or so I’ve been housebound as far as work is concerned because of the atrocious weather conditions which in themselves have been exacerbated by the combination of ungritted roads and sub-zero temperatures.

Subsequently I have now gone stir crazy!

Amazing when you think about it really! I live in one of the most densely populated areas of Britain with the major cities of Leeds, Bradford and Huddersfield on my doorstep; yet my own car hasn’t ventured more than a mile from home over the last couple of weeks due to the snow and ice. It seems the whole country is in the same boat and as a result everything has ground to a halt if the TV coverage is to be believed.

Now it has to be said that I’m used to working from home, having done so for a number of years (a subject I’ve blogged about before). However despite all the banter over Twitter and Facebook (mainly about the weather to be honest) with my network of associates; the craving to speak to another human being, above and beyond my partner on a face-to-face basis, was starting to build and I began to recognise the signs of cabin fever as it took a grip.

Wibble!

So it was a welcome relief to attend my first business networking meeting of the year, namely; proNet which met at a local hotel on Tuesday of this week (meetings are every two weeks by the way). proNet is a business to business networking group that meets over breakfast and proves to be a great source of not only business leads, but actual contact with other human beings. An important issue for we home workers who might not otherwise get to meet kindred spirits when it comes to business.

It’s an aspect that office and factory workers take for granted and is one of the first things new start-ups, used to to the social environment of a shared workspace, say they miss when entering the world of solitary self-employment.

So its networking events like proNet that help fill the void left by the lack of regular human contact that we as animals, need in order to maintain our sanity and motivation. With that in mind I’m now can’t wait for the snow to melt, my routine to return to normal and the opportunities of additional human contact through business networking events.

I’ll think I’ll keep those pencils in my drawer for a little while longer.

Wibble!

The Park Lane Centre, Bradford

The first major business event of 2010 in Bradford will be held at the Park Lane Centre on January 28 and its an event iNet inSights is supporting and exhibiting at.

The event will include a networking breakfast featuring an “ask the experts” Problem Platform, an exhibition, free information and advice sessions and several workshops and bite-sized interactive sessions on key issues affecting local business people right now.

“Bradford Expo has been designed to give people that “buzz” they’re looking for to get things moving in the new year,” says Charlotte Bourke from Bradford GRID*, one of the organisers.

The Expo starts at 7.30am with a breakfast networking event from Pronet. This will include a Problem Platform, a knowledge transfer slot, informal networking and the opportunity to make a 60-seconds pitch about your business to the rest of the room.

This will be followed by an exhibition in the main hall at the Park Lane Centre, where specialists will be offering information and advice on

• Bookkeeping and accountancy
• HR and recruitment
• Banking and finance
• Marketing, advertising and PR
• Internet marketing solutions and training
• Legal matters
• IT solutions
• Social enterprise
• Business advice, coaching and mentoring (from Bradford Kickstart and Yorkshire Business Link)
• Personal development and training

In addition there will be a series of short, drop-in workshops on these and related topics.

Admission to the Expo is £10 on the door or £5 in advance online with all visitors entered into a free prize draw – drawn at the end of the event at around 2pm.

Each of the “experts” on the day has offered a free 2hr consultation as prizes.

Charlotte Bourke says: “We believe this is the first event of its kind in Bradford that provides local business people with the opportunity to acquire valuable knowledge and information to sustain and grow their business, do some networking, bring along colleagues, contacts and clients and get that little bit of extra support we all need in times like these.”

To book a ticket into the Expo click on the button below to book online.

To book at place at the business breakfast networking meeting go to: http://pronetbradford.eventsbot.com or drop an email to membership@joinpronet.com

Photo Credit: John Steel Photography

It's been snowing

Unless you live in a cave without a TV, internet connection or even a window; then you’ll have noticed that the UK is currently covered in a blanket of snow which is causing major disruption to the working populous and economic damage to the tune of £600 million a day according to the FSB (video clip below).

Airports are shut, schools are taking “snow days”, cars are being abandoned left, right and centre and millions of commuters are staying at home rather than brave the elements to get into work. Who can blame them?

Work from Home

Working from Home

I work from home as a matter of course; my daily commute takes me up the stairs into my office at the back of the house and as such, I’m little affected by the current atmospheric behaviour. To be honest, my car hasn’t moved off the drive since before New Year’s Eve and if the present weather continues, it’s unlikely to.

As you’d expect, I’m all tooled up when it comes to working from home. I have a decent broadband internet connection which allows me to connect seamlessly with my remotely placed associates, I’m mobile courtesy of my Blackberry and I can share and access files amongst my peers and clients thanks to the delights of cloud computing.

Remote Working

However, many of my clients don’t have this luxury as they are tied to their office. So if they can’t get in, they can’t work (a luxury in itself some would say!).

But it doesn’t have to be this way; and if there’s one thing the current conditions have conveniently demonstrated is that more and more companies are grabbing and using the available technology such as VPN’s, cloud computing and IP telephony to deploy an infrastructure that allows their employees to work remotely from the office.

Great for snow days!

Evidence of this can be seen from the public Twitter stream. People are talking about the weather yes (as we Brits like to do anyway), but people are also proudly boasting that the commuting adversity is not an issue for them as they are “working from home”.

Get Tooled Up

So if you’re in business for yourself working out of an office or if you run an office based business that employs people; how badly are you affected by the snow? Is their scope for yourself or your employees to work remotely from home in the event of continuing snow days?

If you’re not already tooled up to cope then perhaps you should be. Think of all that productive time being lost because of a few flakes of snow!

Drop me an email if you’re interested in talking to someone who can get your people all tooled up with the right IT infrastructure that allows them to take guilt free snow days.

So much global warming huh?