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How To Make Money With Facebook

Want to know how to increase your revenue from Facebook? Watch this video of a recent webinar that I held with guest speaker Robert Grant. It’s got some great information on the what and why, but more importantly, how to do it!

Plus, you can also download the slides (note, some of the pages throw errors, especially right at the beginning, but don’t worry about it, the key information’s there!)

I’ve put together a special bonus for anyone who buys Crowd Conversion through my link.

To qualify for these bonuses, simply buy through this link. I’ll email you with the details!

Like this? Want more information like it? Leave us a comment below, Tweet it, and click the Like button!

Filed Under: Bonuses, Business, Facebook, Internet Marketing Strategies | Internet Marketing Training & Tips | Solutions for Internet Marketing at DonCrowther.com, Online Marketing Strategies | Online Marketing Solutions | Tips & Training for Online Marketing at DonCrowther.com, Posts

How to untag yourself from Facebook posts and pictures posted by others

It used to be when someone said “Facebook” – people instantly thought of “status updates”. Or that trademark blue color. Or funny pictures from your friends.

But these days, the latest news headlines have a lot of folks instead thinking words like “invasive” and “no privacy”.

I’ve said it before but I’ll repeat it here. The only way to truly remain private on Facebook…is to not be on it at all. That’s not just true of Facebook, that’s true of all things Internet. You just never know where your photo might one day show up, so if you don’t want it everywhere – don’t post it ANYwhere.

Okay, fine. But what to do when someone posts a photo of you on Facebook? And – what if they tag you? Even worse, what if it’s a horrible photo that you never want any of your friends, parents and prospective employers (trust me, they ARE looking) to see on your profile?

Because, it’s a law of nature that every time you do something stupid, somebody’s going to take a picture of it. And social media makes it possible for that picture to be in the hands of millions in hours…

But you can do something about it! (That is, after you yell at your tag-happy buddy.) You can untag yourself and then you can even set your profile to be ‘untaggable’ from then on. Here’s how:

1.   Once you are logged into Facebook, click on your Profile page.
2.   Once there, look at your profile photo. Just beneath it will be a link called “View Photos of Me” Click on it.
3.   Locate the ‘offending photo” and click on it.
4.   In the caption under the photo you’ll see your name and just to the right of it, the phrase “remove tag”. Click on that and presto! No more photo tag.

To turn off tagging from your profile and prevent anyone from ever tagging you again:

1.   Go back to your profile page.
2.   Click on the top right “Account” link.
3.   A pull down menu will appear. Locate the “Privacy Settings” on this list and click on it.
4.   Then click on “Applications and Websites”
5.   Now, to the right of the “What your friends can share about you” option, is a “Edit Settings” button. Click on that.
6.   Find the checkbox next to the “Photos and videos of me” and UNcheck it.
7.   Save Changes.

When you complete all these steps, your friends will never be able to tag those horrible photos of you again. Then again, neither will your high school buddies be able to tag you when they scan in that great old team photo from the yearbook.

What do you think? Are people who turn off tagging smart and savvy about their privacy? Or are they vain killjoys who need to loosen up? Which camp do you fall into?

Photo Credit

Filed Under: Facebook, Featured, Posts, Social Media How-To, Social Media Strategy | Social Media Marketing Plan for Business | Social Media Marketing Training at DonCrowther.com Tagged With: Facebook, photos, pictures, tagging, video

3 Key Ways To Protect Your Privacy on Facebook

Much has been said lately about Facebook and their cavalier approach to privacy that clearly appears to be profit-, rather than community-oriented. Other than saying that they may want to try drinking their own kool-aid and conversing rather than forcing, I’m not going to deal with that here.

What we should focus on is the outrage people feel when they realize that their online photos of last week’s keg party might be – oh I don’t know – visible to their boss? Why are folks surprised??

There’s no way to 100% safeguard your Facebook information and photos!

The only way to completely ensure that unwanted viewers can’t see your info/photos is not post them in the first place. But there are settings you can play with that make your Facebook presence more controlled and reduce the ways people can see your stuff.

Here are a few basic tips:

If you don’t want your FaceBook profile visible to the public: Go to your search privacy settings page. Find the area that talks about “Search Visibility” and click on “Only friends”. Keep in mind that doing so will prevent people who might be searching for you on Facebook from finding you. But that’s a price most folks are willing to pay.
If you want some friends to see your stuff…and others not to: Work those friend lists! What are friend lists? They are categories in your friend area that you can group your friends into. That way when you post your ‘nerdy’ work stuff, you can keep your bowling team from teasing you next time they see you. And more importantly, you can keep your wild n’ crazy photos from showing up on your work colleagues news feeds.
If you don’t want everyone to tag you in photos they choose to post: Speaking of wild and crazy photos! Most people learn this next lesson the hard way. They log onto Facebook and get a notification that “you have been tagged in a photo!” And sometimes…. it’s not really a photo you are thrilled about. Maybe it’s unflattering or maybe it shows you in an uncompromising position, but either way – you don’t want it attached to your profile. So what to do? Easy. Go to your profile privacy page and find the setting about “Photos Tagged of You”. Now “Customize” it to show tagged photos to “only Me” or “none of my networks.” That will prevent all tagged photos from showing up to anyone but you.

There is much more you can do to your settings to ensure that your privacy is at least partially protected, but these three settings will help you gain control in a big way.

Photo Credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/luc/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Filed Under: Facebook, Featured, Posts, Social Media How-To Tagged With: Facebook, privacy, Social Media Strategy | Social Media Marketing Plan for Business | Social Media Marketing Training at DonCrowther.com

Social networking sites as evidence: Like it or not, your government IS spying on you

The right to privacy really isn’t a right, especially online, and even more especially if you’re expecting it to be true on social networks.

While we’ve known this, it has now been confirmed through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation

In response to that request, the Department of Justice has just released a document that indicates (either directly or indirectly through looking at the markups in the document and imagining where they could take this) that:

The U.S. government is very aware of and actively using social media to
- Track personal communications
- Establish motives and personal relationships
- Identify where you were at the moment of posting
- Prove and disprove alibis
- Gain evidence of criminal activities both from people claiming to have committed crimes and showing off the proceeds from that crime
Facebook is much more co-operative with law enforcement than MySpace or Twitter
Social network-posted pictures are being used to create image profiles for people (probably databased to enable easy identification of people from crime-scene and surveillance photos. Think about it, if you wanted to create a database of pictures of people, tying it to their names, and potentially getting multiple pictures of each person to show different profiles, maybe even height and weight indicators, what better place to get it than to grab the entire Facebook photo file? Supplement that with Flickr and MySpace, and you’ve just saved the taxpayers billions! And the pictures are lots better than passport and driver’s license photos!))
MySpace has a long history of “child safety concerns”
Law enforcement is actively using fake identities to go undercover, friending people so they can see and participate in conversations
Ironically, one of the ways they convict criminals is on charges of using fake identities, so they are doing the very thing they are convicting people for doing
The U.S. Government is questioning whether social networking is equivalent to publicly broadcasting information, determining the rights to use that information in court. Also, they’re questioning whether violation of a site’s terms of service is “otherwise illegal activity” and whether it is appropriate for prosecutors to friend judges
Government is actively investigating witnesses using social media telling prosecutors to “research all witnesses on social-networking sites”

Given all of the above, what ramifications does this have for us as users of social media?

If you do the crime, shut yer trap
I realize that if you’re smart enough to read this you’re smart enough not to do the crime, but, I still had to say it.

Actually, as a law-abiding citizen who really wants criminals to be locked up, I’m going to say exactly the opposite:

If you do the crime, please tell us all about it, and make sure you post pictures taken at the crime scene, and while you’re at it, be sure you post pictures of yourself holding the stolen property before you fence it off to others. And, make sure you list your occupation as “drug kingpin” while you’re at it. Please!
Even if it’s not criminal, if it’s stupid, it doesn’t belong on social media, as it can affect you for years
Whether or not you end up as the star witness for a national trial or just want to change a piece of the world by running for school board in 20 years, pictures of you doing shots in compromising situations, blogs titled “the drunken ramblings of ____,”and joking comments about illegal/immoral activities will eventually hurt you. Don’t put them up yourself and don’t allow your friends to post them about you. Better yet, be boring, and stay safe by not doing them in the first place!
Don’t ever cover anything up – the data’s too easy to obtain
Don’t violate any site’s Terms Of Service
Doing so may actually turn into a criminal offense someday and you may be convicted for something that seemed like no big deal back when you originally set up your profile, then forgot about it later on.

In other words, this goes back to one of Don’s Laws

Don’t be stupid

Enough said?

Want to see the actual PDF from the government?

Agree, disagree? Want to fight for your right to brag about doing stupid things? Tell me about it in the comments section below.

Filed Under: Facebook, MySpace, Posts, Social Media Strategy | Social Media Marketing Plan for Business | Social Media Marketing Training at DonCrowther.com, Twitter

12 signs that Facebook is ruining your life

It’s my daughter’s birthday today. So this morning I jumped on Facebook to leave her a witty birthday greeting before calling her, only to remember…

She killed her Facebook account several months ago.

After watching the negative effect that Facebook and other social media properties has had on some people, I’ve come to believe that there are many others who should do the same thing.

Don’t get me wrong – I love Facebook, I teach how to use Facebook, and spend time on Facebook. I just don’t believe it’s for everyone.

And unfortunately, it’s those who are saying to themselves right now “I’m certainly not one of those” who are right at the top of the list of the people who probably should kill their account (or at least alter their behavior to get a real life.)

Here are some signs that Facebook is ruining your life:

You have more communications with people in your tight circle of local friends on Facebook than you do in real life.
You spend more than 20 minutes a day on Facebook.
Facebook’s the first thing you do in the morning, then you’re back midday, then again in the evening, just to keep track of the lives of everyone in your friends group.
You’ve ever found yourself saying “not right now, I’m on Facebook” to your child, spouse, significant other, parent or friend
You’ve ever announced some important change in your life on Facebook before you picked up the phone or met in person with your closest friends and told them in advance (I’m pregnant, I’m engaged…)
You’ve cut short a real-world conversation with someone you’ve just met (and liked) so you could stalk them on Facebook
You’ve ever heard some variation on the words “I wish you would stop chatting on Facebook and spend time with me.”
You’ve ever revealed something deeply personal on Facebook that you’ve regretted later
You regularly find yourself together with friends, all accessing your own Facebook accounts instead of actually talking with each other
Your wall has more applications that your friends are playing than real communications with those you like.
You go on Facebook mostly to do applications
You regularly choose to chat rather than to pick up the phone and actually talk with someone (or, gulp, actually visit them!)

Tough words? Possibly. Do they apply to you? Probably.

Just wanted to make you think.

Now, what are you going to do about it?

(Remember I love Facebook, and think most people should too – I just think it’s not right for some people!)

I can’t wait to see your reaction to this one! Lay into me by leaving a comment below.

Filed Under: Facebook, Life, Posts, Social Media Strategy | Social Media Marketing Plan for Business | Social Media Marketing Training at DonCrowther.com

Geolocation and Social Media – Do You Really want to be THAT Transparent?

Want to rob someone blind with minimal risk of getting caught? Here’s a simple 3-step program: (Not that I recommend doing this, BTW!)

Find someone you want to burglarize who
a. Has a Twitter account
b. Uses a geolocation service, like www.foursquare.com
Watch their feed for an announcement that they’re someplace else, or better yet, out of town.
Break in, grab their stuff, and beat a quick exit – through they probably won’t even realize that they’re stuff is gone until several days later when they get back into town.

Think that’s impossible? Go to search.twitter.com and do a search on the following term:

4sq -@foursquare

Look at the second listing down, lankyguy – it’s looking a lot like he’s vacationing in Hawaii.

Jump to his twitter feed, sure enough, that’s what he’s doing. And look, his name’s Kyle Baxter and he’s from New York.

Now let’s google Kyle Baxter New York. Sure enough, the first result on the list shows his resume, including his phone number and enough data to indicate that he’s the actor who’s twitter page we located earlier.

I’ll stop here so as to not give more information to the stupid criminals out there who haven’t managed to figure out how to find his address on their own, but suffice it to say, I’ve only been working on this for 5 minutes, and I know an address of at least one guy who probably has some pretty sweet loot sitting unguarded in his apartment right now. (Sorry, Kyle, hope your stuff’s there when you get home, you may want to be more careful next time!)

Here’s the key question – are you being too transparent and in doing so, inviting every lowlife in the world to steal your stuff?

Or are you being wise and using social media with discretion.

For those of you who follow me, do you have any idea from my feed, my blog and other sources that I’ve been to Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Miami in the last 3 weeks? When I travel, I occasionally post articles and pictures from the trip, but never until after I arrive home. I recommend that you do the same.

Also, consider the value added to your audience by proclaiming that you are currently on your way to somewhere else. Yes, it may cause some jealousy, but what do they care that you’re currently in “Dulles Airport with 4 other people“?

This is a serious enough issue that insurance companies are announcing that they will increase your insurance premiums by 10% or more if you choose to belong to these services. Frankly, I think that’s low – you’re likely to see significantly higher increases than that, especially after the first time you get burgled.

I don’t know about you, but for me, the risk of revealing presence is too high. Plus, the potential for people unfollowing you because all you ever post about is where you’re eating lunch creates more negatives than positives.

My recommendation? Just say no to geolocation and don’t reveal your travels in your social media stream!

And those of you at Twitter, Facebook, etc.? Please think twice before making this technology public and absolutely, give those of us who are smart enough not to use it, the ability to opt out!

Agree or disagree with me? Think I’m shortsighted or not “social” enough in this opinion? Let me know by leaving a comment below!

Filed Under: Facebook, Posts, Social Media Strategy | Social Media Marketing Plan for Business | Social Media Marketing Training at DonCrowther.com, Twitter Tagged With: Facebook, foursquare, geolocation

How To Permanently Eliminate Facebook Requests

Are you one of the millions who isn’t interested in playing Farmville (congratulations on being a good steward of your time, BTW) and are tired of seeing huge numbers of time-consuming requests every time you get on Facebook?

If you follow a simple trick each time you get a request, your requests will steadily decrease and you’ll find the entire process of approving friends will be significantly less time consuming in the future.

If you’re like most people, when you get a request, you click the blue Ignore button. But that means that the next person who wants to invite you to participate in that time-sucking app can send you another invitation, causing you to have to ignore it over and over again.

There’s a solution to that. Instead of clicking the blue Ignore button, click the Block This Application link. That generates a popup asking you if you want to prevent others from sending you invitations and requests for this application and will prevent this application from getting any info about you.

Exactly what you want! So, don’t click Ignore, click Block This Application instead. It takes a few more seconds now, but prevents hours of having to click ignore for the same offer over time.

And there’s one more thing – if you find that you have a particularly obnoxious friend who wants to ruin your life by inviting you to every thing that comes along, (we’ve all had a few!) simply click the Ignore All Invites From This Feed link to block them from sending you future invitations.

Don’t worry, the person who invited you will never know that you’ve blocked that specific application or have blocked them all together. They may ask why you never participate in anything…

But that’s a whole different answer!

Filed Under: Facebook, Internet Marketing Strategies | Internet Marketing Training & Tips | Solutions for Internet Marketing at DonCrowther.com, Posts, Social Media How-To Tagged With: Facebook applications