Category5 Technology TV - Social Media for Your Business

Social Media for Your Business

S06E21
February 12, 2013

Getting started with Twitter and Facebook doesn't have to be overwhelming, and you can even amalgamate the two (along with other social platforms) into one interface.

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This episode is sponsored in part by: netTALK DUO, Netflix, Eco Alkalines and Cordery Electric.

Topics Covered:

Robbie Ferguson and Christa Wells present from the Category5 studios in Barrie, Ontario.
Greetings to Jim, who is 86 years old and running Linux!
{play 5:56}Shouts out to our viewers on YouTube, and news about our new YouTube channel, LinuxTechShow.
{play 8:46}Why Category5.TV has Google Ads on its web site.
Send in your viewer postcard.
{play 12:19}Robbie and Christa do the Harlem Shake.
{play 14:17}Discussing Robbie's concerns about encrypted external hard drives from Robbie's blog at BaldNerd.com.
Thanks to PES Data Recovery for their discussion.
External hard drives as a true backup: make it redundant, and disconnected.
{play 20:01}Prize Giveaway: A box of Theobroma Fine Chocolates.
{play 21:27}Recognizing email scams: Category5 receives an email from Daniel, who is in big trouble in Madrid, Spain.
- Why these emails are so convincing: they appear to be from someone you know.
- How these scammers get a hold of your contacts.
- Two scenarios of how your email could be compromized to send out these types of scams.
- When in doubt, email the suspicious email to the Category5 studio and we will look into it for you.
{play 29:13}Top Stories from the Category5.TV Newsroom
{play 36:36}Feature: Using Social Media to improve communication with your customers.
- Twitter and Facebook are not a place to simply post advertisements (spam) about your business.
- Why social media is important to business: it's how your customers communicate, and how they monitor the services and companies they frequent.
- Twitter:
  - Creating a Twitter account.
  - Following an initial list of people on your Twitter account.
  - Composing our first tweet, and using a hashtag.
  - Setting up your Twitter profile to make it match your business image, complete with logo.
  - Determining which hashtags to use on Twitter using the Twitter Search feature.
- Facebook:
  - Creating a Facebook account.
  - Skipping over some of the initial profile setup because we are wanting to build a business page, not a personal profile.
  - The hard-to-grasp differentiation between your Facebook Personal Profile and your Facebook Business Page.
  - Creating a Business Page on Facebook.
  - Writing our first wall post on our Facebook Business Page.
- As a business person, you should always keep your business and personal profiles separate, and Robbie explains why.
- Now that we have Twitter and Facebook setup, we want to amalgamate them into one interface so we don't have to keep going back and forth between the two Social Media services. That's where HootSuite comes in.
- HootSuite:
  - Creating a HootSuite account.
  - Adding our Twitter profile to HootSuite.
  - Adding our Facebook Page (not our personal profile) to HootSuite.
  - Posting your first cross-post to both Twitter and Facebook using HootSuite.
  - HootSuite allows you to see analytics when people click the links you post, if you post them using the tip Robbie shares.
  - HootSuite allows you to schedule your message to go out either at the best possible time (with maximum reach), or on a firm schedule (such as next Tuesday at 5:05pm).
  - Telling HootSuite which services (Twitter, Facebook, etc) to send the message to. You may choose one or multiple.
- The Twitter message length limit is 140 characters.
{play 61:53}Prize Announcement: Win a netTALK DUO WiFi complete with one year of service and unlimited long distance. Cast your ballot at cat5.tv/phone.