Archive for social media training

Do You Love Yourself Enough?

How do you love yourself? Do you give yourself permission to seek training, education and resources to expand your knowledge base and online presence?

As a social media coach that has trained privately and in groups’ adults since 2009 on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, I’ve been told over and over how the style of my social media coaching, the patience and focus I extend to the participant during the training pays off in dividends. Unfortunately, many have spent countless hours in time, and often financial investment before they ask for help! Are you one of these individuals / small business owners?

So many adults in today’s world know they need to be online, but don’t give themselves a chance to learn before diving in full force. You wouldn’t jump in a lake without swimming lessons would you? What about skiing? Lessons for that too … right!

Often times, you dive in unprepared and become overwhelmed, discouraged and intimidated. You spend day after day using social networking sites, getting limited or no results and all they are getting is nowhere fast!

This is where loving yourself comes into play! You need to give yourself permission to not be perfect in everything. You worry about what other professionals think if you don’t have all the answers, so they don’t seek out the training, education, information and ask questions to help you succeed online.

You can’t be all things at all times – at least not without some training to get you started. Perhaps the investment isn’t monetary. It’s an investment of your time.

  • Reading blog posts is a great way to learn more about the power of social media. I recommend Social Media Examiner, Social Media Today, Windmill Networking and of course my own blog, LissaDuty.com, to get you started.  There are countless other ones out there that I love and read.
  • Google – use Google and search out your questions! Seriously, I use Google all the time and ask it questions like “HTML Code to change Link Color”. Google will come back with tons of references that I can review on how to complete this action.
  • Follow Other Social Media Influencers and see what they are doing online. I have to add here, realistically, you are not going to be one of these influencers anytime soon, just follow them and learn.  You will get ideas to incorporate into your social media strategy.
  • Seek out a Social Media Coach. This is where I come into play.  I teach individuals and small business owners step by step hands-on how to use and understand these social networking sites. The 1st part of each one of my trainings focuses on understanding what each aspect, link, word, etc. means to the individual / small business owner. To effectively use a social networking site, you need to understand what everything means and does – no assumptions! The 2nd piece of that is teaching them how to use the site for their purpose.

So do you LOVE YOURSELF enough to INVEST in yourself?

If you need some social media coaching and have decided to invest in yourself I can help you.

Your turn …. What steps are you taking / have taken in your business and online to expand your knowledge. What kind of training have you taken?

PS. Those that follow my blog know that stuff that happens in my day to day life is my inspiration … a friend (a guy – not a date, but kinda, maybe a date – if that’s possible) cancelled on me for tonight – Valentine’s Day of all days! He had a last minute business trip – duty calls – I guess! I must thank him since he inspired this blog post – he’ll remain anonymous at this point. I knew I wanted to write a Valentine’s Day post, but wasn’t quite sure how to spin it.  When he cancelled – I loved myself enough to tell him “Ok. Be safe” and move on. I didn’t spout off any tacky comments to guilt him. (Notice, I didn’t say I didn’t think any tacky comments! I came up with a few! LOL!) Hence, the title of this post, “Do You Love Yourself Enough”!

Are you really secure online? or Do you just think you are?

Are you secure online? or Do you just think you are?

In teaching social media training sessions, I discuss online security and safety. I especially discuss sharing personal information and privacy settings on Facebook and other social networking sites, i.e. LinkedIn and Twitter.

More often than not, clients and attendees are absolutely convinced their social media profiles are safe and secure. I immediately have them check a few Facebook settings. Then they start to listen closer and start making adjustments to their privacy settings. I haven’t found anyone that doesn’t have at least one thing they should be doing differently. A new set of eyes can provide a perspective and insight you hadn’t thought about.

Before I get started, I need to recognize Michelle Ketterman of The Inventory Experts. Her company inventories residents and business property, furnishings, equipment and valuables. In case of theft, fire, flood, tornado, etc …. Her clients will be able to quickly get their inventory to their insurance company and get all their damaged inventoried items replaced promptly and at a the right value.  As Michelle says, “a picture can be worth literally a $1000.” Every time I hear her say this I snicker. What a tagline …. that is another whole blog post! LOL!

While Michelle’s focus is on offline security, she suggested I write a blog post about online security, specifically relating to social media because like many others, she thought her profiles security settings were configured correctly. Needless to say, she realized how unsecure her settings actually were after only 10 minutes of reviewing basic settings with me.  With the seemingly constant changes, as part of her normal business, Michelle now has me regularly double check her social media security settings.

I couldn’t cover everything one post, but the following are the most common security threats:

Facebook

  • Date of Birth.  Facebook requires your date of birth, and often people have it set to visible to their Facebook friends.  Change this setting to make the year of birth not visible. Several of my clients use a fake year making them a few years younger or older.
  • Address.  Don’t list your physical address on Facebook and don’t share your real city if you live in a small town.  i.e. Frisco, Rockwall, Royse City, Allen, etc….  List a major metroplex area like Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, San Francisco. You get the idea. Yes, again, they could probably go out to Google and find your exact address, but let’s not make it easy on them for Pete’s sake!
  • Information your friends are allowed to share about you. See One of My Facebook Secrets for details how to view and correct this issue.
  • Friends. Restrict who can see your friend list to at those that are at least your friends already. You can even break this list down further and make it so they can only see mutual friends.

Passwords

Do you need a Facebook Privacy Tune Up? In one hour I show you hands-on techniques to optimize your Facebook Privacy Settings (order the Social Media Evaluation). This social media consulting session can focus on what you choose to discuss from Facebook Privacy to content to share on Twitter. You can also get a Tune Up of your Facebook Profile and Privacy settings that I complete independently. Contact me for details Lissa@LissaDuty.com.

In my consulting sessions, the client tells me their needs and the training is focused on those areas. Yes, you read that RIGHT, a social media consultant that will teach you what you want to learn, vs. what they think you need to LEARN!

Now it’s your turn – share a tip below regarding something you learned about your online security and how you fixed it! Look forward to hearing from you!

One of My Facebook Secrets

Do you want to know one of my Facebook secrets that I only share in my Facebook training class? First you are going to have to read some background and inspiration for this blog post before I give you my secret. I know . . .I know …. I am so pushy! LOL!

I teach Facebook using the phone/Skype and remote connection software to teach my clients how to use and customize their Facebook accounts hands on. I also teach Facebook in a classroom environment. Facebook users from all skill levels take my class and they always learn something new; even long-time users. I have to admit I love, LOVE, love it every time and it does good for my ego!

Last week I was talking with my friend on the phone, Jane Doe (she will remain anonymous in this blog post)! She is quite social media savvy, on Facebook and Twitter both. We were discussing Facebook lists, fan pages, etc … I asked her this simple question:

“Have you customized your privacy settings on Facebook?”

Of course, her response was yes.

I followed up with “Have you gone into Applications & Websites and customized the settings to limit what information your Facebook friends can share about you?”

She responded yes, but I could tell she wasn’t quite sure of the question I was asking.

I walked her through checking her settings and we found that she hadn’t tweaked this area. According to her current settings, her Facebook friends were allowed to share everything about her with third party applications (i.e. games, websites, etc …)

She hadn’t even seen this area before, just as many times in many other conversations I have had, others haven’t either. Of course, we fixed her settings and she is nice and protected now!

Have I tortured you long enough to share the secret yet? Here are the instructions and screen shots to show you how to check your settings for this area and fix them.

  • Log into your Facebook account
  • Click on Account on the right hand side
  • Click Privacy Settings

Click Edit Your Settings under where it says Applications and Websites. It’s on the bottom left hand side.

Click Edit Settings

I recommend deselecting all boxes, except your Website, Education and Work.

I figure if third party apps want to know my website and share it somewhere, more the power! I also welcome them to share the name of my business, since I am self employed.

Of course, click Save Changes! This is important!

I recommend you look through each of the areas on this page and customize your settings. It is important you understand what you are sharing with Facebook, but also with all social networking platforms I pay close attention and detail in all my training sessions what each item means and how to determine what you want to share.

Now that I have shared one of my Facebook training secrets with you, share with me! Ask yourself these questions:

  1. Do I really understand Facebook? Do I know the difference between a Status Update, Wall-to-Wall update and a private message? Do I feel vulnerable when I am online?
  2. Do I know how to customize my status updates by targeting lists? When I share something personal about my family am I sharing it with everyone? What kind of risks am I exposing myself to? Also, what about your friends & family? What are you allowing others to know about your Facebook friends?
  3. Do I have my photo album settings set so that I only share what I want and with whom I want?

If you answered NO to any of these questions, check out the details for my Facebook Coaching session.

Get the social media help you need TODAY …. Before you REGRET it in the FUTURE! You might not even realize you need it until we talk! Feel free to email me any questions.

Friends, I would ask one last thing: Please share will me if you feel comfortable, did you have this setting already adjusted properly? If so, did you find it on your own or did someone tell you to look for it? Do you have a Facebook secret you want to share? Comment away …..