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Facebook users may be wary after hearing that the social network is following up on a promise to cut a privacy setting that kept user names out of the social network’s graph search.

Here’s a quick guide to what changes are coming and which settings to review as they hit users’ accounts.

What’s disappearing? The social network announced in December that it was retiring the option for users to control whether they show up when others type their name into the search bar, but said Thursday that it would finally be notifying those who use it that the setting will be removed. The option, which shows up in privacy settings as “Who can look up your timeline by name?” was already cut for people who weren’t using it.

How was that setting useful? It wasn’t perfect. It would not have stopped, for example, Facebook users from being able to access those protected profiles if those users had been tagged in a public post or picture. Still, it did help those users to keep a lower profile on the social network, such as those trying to hide their profiles from abusive ex-partners or harassment.

For those who chose that option— a “small percentage” of its users, Facebook says -- the change now allows anyone to type those names into Facebook’s search engines to see their profiles.

Can I replicate that option with other tools?: No. The main feature of the setting was that people wouldn’t be able to find a user by name in the search bar. There appears to be no way to keep that function. But there are still some setting that can lower a profile on the site.

Facebook is trying to encourage people to control their privacy on an item-by-item basis. So, whenever and however you post, you should be checking to see if what you’re putting up is for public view or just for friends or specific lists of friends. Also, consider turning on Timeline approval, which shows you what your friends may be posting about your location or whom you’re with. You can ask them to remove your name from those posts. Facebook has settings that let you review posts and photo tags before they’re posted to your Timeline. If privacy is a major concern, use these tools and don’t hesitate to ask other users to remove posts about you that make you uncomfortable.

It’s also a good idea to create group lists of friends so that you can share some posts exclusively with certain lists and exclude other groups from seeing those posts. That’s particularly important if you spend a lot of time on Facebook’s mobile app, where privacy tools can be harder to finesse.

What else can I do for privacy? Another key option in the privacy settings menu is one lets users disable your search engines from linking to their timelines. That will at least cut down on the chance that someone looking for you outside the social network will be able to find your profile.

If your whereabouts or similar information are sensitive, particularly if it’s a safety issue, you should be very aware of locations on your posts — no check-ins — and be careful about writing posts that give clues about where you are.

Users should also remember that they can also always block specific users from seeing their Facebook page or from contacting them, but this is more of a reactive step than a proactive one. Plus, just as you could alter your name (yes, in violation of Facebook’s guidelines) to hide your identity, so could anyone who is looking for you.

If you’re concerned about past posts, Facebook has a setting that lets you limit the audience for posts and information that are already on your profile. You can also go to the “Activity Log” on your timeline to get an action-by-action view of how your activity shows up on the site.

And finally, as Facebook itself makes clear, remember that “things you hide from your timeline still appear in news feed, search and other places on Facebook.” There include some things you just can’t hide, namely profile pictures and cover photos, but also some news feed activity.

There’s been much discussion over how much social networks should expect users to fine-tune their settings in order to hit the levels of privacy that they want. Facebook has been evolving its settings to be more granular — which can be good for thinking about privacy at a more real-time pace. But it also means that it requires those for whom privacy is a major concern to set broader controls.

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Looking for some new ways to keep your web visitors interested and coming back for more? Get the most out of your website and maximize your earning and reach potential with these cool new website add-ons:

Live Chat - Interact with your website visitors in real time by adding a live chat feature to your website.

Google Calendar - Does your business or organization use Google Calendar? Now you can keep your customers and social followers informed about all your upcoming events.

Online Reservations - Customers love convenience, allow them to make orders and reservations right on your website.

Social Coupons - Create amazing coupons, reward your customers, get viral traffic and leads with the new social coupon app.

Instagram Feed - Now one of the most popular social sites on the internet, Instagram is gaining huge followers. Expand your reach by adding your Instagram feed right on your website.

From the small business owner to the large corporate marketing team there are some definite do’s and don’ts when it comes to implementing an effective marketing campaign.  Instead of casting your net wherever it may land with blind hope, you will reap a much greater catch if you knew which fish were best, along with where and when to find them.

Although each business and organization has its own specific marketing needs, they each share one common denominator. Before you can start a marketing to draw in new customers and sales, knowing who to go after and where to market ahead of time will save you a lot of time and hard earned dollars. Try these 3 marketing tips before you implement your next marketing campaign:

Epignosis – Know Your Audience

The ancient Hebrews and Greeks used this word epignosis to describe a precise and correct knowledge of something, in the case of the biblical author Paul he often used it to describe the deep and intimate knowledge we are to have of God. When it comes to marketing your products or services with a successful outcome, it’s imperative to have a proper knowledge of the people that you’re trying to reach.

Many small business owners often make the mistake of investing their hard earned dollars into a marketing campaign without even considering which target group would best benefit from what they’re offering. When you’re at the point to where you’re ready to advertise on T.V you will be asked some very specific questions in regards to your target customers in addition to your budget size before you launch your commercial. It would make no sense for a small plant shop to advertise on the business, finance, or sports cable tiers, but rather on a tier of stations that their average customer base would be more interested in. Take the time out to really analyze exactly who your perfect target audience is, once you have narrowed your list you will have a leg up on reaching the right people.

Observation – Pay attention to your audience

Once you have dialed in on who your target audiences are, its time to start paying close attention to them. Even though this particular step is often free to implement, it actually produces long term success as it pays to pay attention. Part of the secret to reaching new and existing customers is the committed observation of their customer’s habits.

Every personal naturally has certain habitual ways of doing things on a daily basis whether they are aware of it or not. You probably already know a lot more about your target audience’s habits than you think you do. So to zero in further on the habits that will benefit your business the most start by analyzing your own daily habits. Where do you shop, eat, relax, learn, and seek entertainment?

Synthesis – A proper fusion of the elements

Now that you have done your proper analysis it’s time to flip the script and implement a balanced fusion of your goals, objectives, and overall marketing plan. In order to effectively fuse your elements it will require patience and some trial and error while you observe what works and what doesn’t.  

If after you have done your analysis and concluded that you have some elements that are missing from your marketing plan, don’t be afraid to ask for help. There are companies that offer affordable business solutions that can steer you in the right direction by establishing a marketing plan that works or help to boost your existing one.

Is your business going through the same old motions on your social pages? Have you simply run out of ideas or just don’t know the best ways to reach new customers? If so, then what you might need to do is apply some minor tweaks to your media mix in order to enhance your business growth and potential.

The vast majority of businesses that fail at using social media sites effectively only need to tweak their approach a little without the need of investing tons of money to get quality results. To identify where the tweaks need to be made try the following 5 tips:

1.   Strategy

One major component to an effective social media campaign is developing and implementing a well thought out strategy. But before you run and apply any social strategy you must develop some specific goals that you want to have accomplished. After you have reduced your long list of wants down to your priority goals, now it’s time to think about application.

With your new or revised list of goals coupled with a balanced fusion of audience focus, your overall strategy of attack should become a lot more clear and precise. You may not find the perfect social media strategy the first time around, so pay close attention to the ratio in which you are achieving your goals or not and then apply the necessary changes.

2.   Image

Someone once said that “an image is worth a thousand words”, the majority of the online world is comprised of people searching for what they need by using certain keywords and phrases. What better way to knock out two birds with one stone?

When it comes to posting on social media sites, the eye scanning of most followers will shift toward the image post at a much higher rate than the post with plain text. Prepping your image before it gets posted with proper Meta information along with including a relevant keyword or two in the post will definitely boost your results. Also taking the time to choose the right image that best communicates your message visually is also going to increase your likelihood of reaching your target audience at the right time.

3.   Key Phrases

This step is probably the one that will take the most time and effort however can also produce the greatest results. Knowing what your new and existing followers are interested in and are searching for is going to require a dedicated effort in audience research.

Although it’s highly frowned upon by the major search engines like Google to over-stuff your posts with high ranking keywords, you should always fuse a fine balance of words and phrases that are most relevant to your audience and goals.

4.   Encouragement

Every businesses social media accounts have a following whether it’s large or just getting started. So without worrying about feeling shy or nervous about being interactive and requesting encouragement from followers, it’s time to just step up and do it!

One way to get the ball rolling is to occasionally include a request for people to share your post at the end of or as a part of your call to action. Another effective way to get people to actively respond to your posts is by offering something at a discounted rate or better yet for free. If you are in the position to do so, make your special offer available by having the recipients get a certain amount of people to like or share your post. Now your reach has just expanded beyond the small confines of your previous stage of social marketing.  

5.   Expand

It is not easy running a social media campaign for any size business and often times the frustrations can end up with a social tunnel vision. By taking the blinders off and putting some dedicated thought into finding out the various amounts of different individuals or businesses that can benefit from what you have to offer, the result will be your company expanding its market reach and C.T.R.

Make a list of 10 new categories of individuals and businesses that you can target, and then sporadically start to add new friends from each of your categories. After adding new friends to follow, you will want to spend a few extra minutes logged in so that you can listen to your audience’s conversations and observe their likes and dislikes. This will equip you with improved posting ideas and keywords to use in your newly “tweaked” social media marketing mix.

A few tweaks to your social media marketing may be all that is needed to energize and enhance the success of reaching your goals and expanding your sales or outreach. I hope these tips not only help with your campaigns but also inspire you to think outside the box and better equip you to custom tailor your marketing efforts to yield maximum results. Happy posting my friends!

Often when a business or individual is ready to have a new or updated website designed the first and often times only thought is geared toward the look of the website. Although the look and feel are crucially important considering most web visitors do not spend more than a couple of seconds on a web page, having pre-determined goals and objectives fused throughout your website design will surely maximize your potential to get noticed in the search engine results, keep your site visitors interested and ultimately increase your overall R.O.I.

The following are some practical goals that can be implemented into your website design. These tips can be useful if you are the webmaster of a website or to better equip you in asking your web designer the right questions to ensure a successful site for your business or project.

PURPOSE

The first thing to consider about your website is the overall purpose of your website existing on the internet. Does your website serve a purpose? Do you have a new product or service that you want to expose? Is your website geared toward providing relevant information only? Do you know who your target customers or audience is? 

These are just some of the things that should be running through your mind before you even begin the design process. If you don’t know the direction and purpose of your site, guess what? Your designer and web visitor will not know either!

FUNCTIONALITY

Sometimes you’ll come across a website that has an awesome design and really catches your eye, but when it comes to finding what you were originally looking for you simply cannot find it. Designing a website to be user-friendly should be at the very top of your website checklist. Whether you set goals for your website or not could be the very thing that keeps or detracts someone from doing business with you.

Your website should provide a simple navigation experience so that each visitor never gets lost, stays interested and ultimately finds what they want. This also means creating your page structure in a way that will prevent customers from getting lost within your site, get frustrated and end up leaving.

PERCEPTION

Wisdom doesn't come from only seeing through your own eyes, but by having the ability to see through the eyes of many. Why would anyone be interested in your website if it only looks good to you? Having a successful website means you have taken the time to put yourself in the shoes of the people you desire to reach. If you can imagine ahead of time how you would want people to view or think of your company and then incorporate that particular image, style and information into your website will significantly increase your C.T.R (Click-Through-Ratio). 

BUDGET

Nothing in life is absolutely free we all know that however you don’t have to spend a fortune to have a quality website with a clean and professional design. You should know ahead of time that there are some up front and recurring fees that you should prepare for i.e. Domain name which is less than $10 per year and Web Hosting is a few dollars per month. Next is the design and maintenance of your site which can be super expensive similar to how certain household name brands will over charge because they can, or you can search and find the good web designers out there who can produce high quality web design options without all the hefty fees.

C.T.A - Call to Action

The last element you should focus on after putting yourself in your customers shoes is to direct them into clicking, responding, calling or making a purchase to you. This is done by implementing effective Call to Actions in the right places throughout your website. Believe it or not your customers want you or will unconsciously expect you to tell them what actions to take, so why not lead your visitors into performing the actions that best coincide with your goals?

Open 365 24/7

It’s always available. A website is a 24/7, 365 days a year storefront; and it’s accessible from anywhere in the world. That means you are free to take off for vacation while your business is still running smoothly.

Flexibility

Having a website for your business keeps your audience informed. You can update your customers in real-time, announce new products, services and sales. You can add fresh content, a new video, product or service the same day it becomes available.

Builds Brand Awareness

By using the power of the internet to market your company, you can reach more people more often. A website is the perfect place for you to showcase a new product line and increase people’s awareness of your company.

Increase your Sales and Profit Margins

By increasing your reach and your customer base, a website can also increase your sales and profit margins. The bloodline of all businesses alike is the ability to produce new and repeat customers, having a well-designed website will better position you to be on the receiving end with your mitt in hand ready to catch.

Get Found in the Search Engines

There is a good possibility that you found this website through a search engine such as Google or Bing. Between 80-95 percent of all website traffic usually comes from search engines. Your website will be optimized to target visitors who are actively looking for you, your product, your service, and your information. A website is an extremely cost effective way to advertise to those who are already interested in what your business has to offer.

Target each Visitor Specifically

Providing effective solutions for your customer’s needs can be met with an effective website design. With proper targeting, you have their attention because they are already interested. By strategically planning your website, you can customize each area for a specific type of visitor who can benefit from it.