Understanding Facebooks recent changes...

Facebook has revealed two major changes to the social network’s design in a bid to give its 30 million UK users more “real-time” information.

Now when you log in, you will find a new ticker in the top right of the screen providing “live” details of what your friends are doing.

This can include items such as comments left on other people’s statuses, pictures and video your pals may have added and any new friends they’ve accepted.

Facebook bosses hope these changes will encourage users to respond more quickly to what is happening on the site.

As well as the Ticker, a new-style News Feed has also been introduced. It now ranks updates by what Facebook believes are your ‘Top Stories’, rather than putting them in chronological order.

The more you interact with the automatically chosen Top Stories, telling Facebook which are important and which aren’t, the more the technology will learn what you want at the head of your News Feed.

On Facebook’s blog, its bosses promised: "Now, News Feed will act more like your own personal newspaper. You won’t have to worry about missing important stuff any more. All your news will be in a single stream with the most interesting stories featured at the top. If you haven’t visited Facebook for a while, the first things you’ll see are top photos and statuses posted while you’ve been away."

These updates are slowly being rolled out over the next few days so if you don’t see it on your account yet, have patience.

And to help you make the most of this latest Facebook redesign, we’ve come up with some handy tips below. We also want to know what you think about it too. Do you like what Facebook has done or should they have just left things as they were? Leave us a comment.

1) You cannot remove the Ticker but you can make it smaller Just click over the double line at the bottom of it until a double arrow appears and then move it up and down.

2) Hovering over an item in the Ticker will bring up a larger window on the left of it showing any comments, photos, video, maps or other images associated with that post.

3) If you’ve not logged in to Facebook for a while, the News Feed will display the best posts from your friends for the period of time you’ve been away. It automatically places posts higher in the list according to a number of factors including the type of update – for example a birth, marriage or engagement – or those with lots of comments and Likes.

4) A small blue triangle in the top left of a News Feed post signifies it as a Top Story. Clicking it unmarks its Top Story status and tells Facebook not to put others posts like that one at the head of your feed. The more you do this, the more Facebook learns what type of updates you consider most important. You can also choose to make something a Top Story by hovering over the top left and clicking the blanked-out triangle to make it appear fully.

5) Hovering over the top right hand side of a News Feed post brings up a downward pointing arrow. Select this to display a menu of options. This allows you to choose what updates you wish to see from any particular friend or page you’re subscribed to and allows you to remove their posts totally from your News Feed.

6) Facebook now displays photos and videos much larger in your News Feed. Clicking one creates a bigger pop-up of the image. This can then be tagged, commented on or Liked. To close it, just click outside of the pop-up box.

7) If you don’t want details of how you are using Apps to show up in the Ticker, go to Application Settings and click Only Me under the Customise menu. This means no one else will receive updates on your app use but you will need to do this for each app you interact with.

8) Top News and Most Recent are now combined as two separate elements in one News Feed. You simply scroll down to see the recent ones rather than clicking a button to make these appear in their own feed.

9) If you’ve hidden posts, friends or other updates from your News Feed, you can call them back again by editing it. Click the pencil icon next to the words ‘News Feed’ in your left hand menu and then select Edit.

10) To customise your News Feed even more, you can use the Lists option. It is on the left hand menu. Add people to different Lists that already exist such as Close Friends or Family or create your own ones by selecting “More”. Then by clicking the List name, you’ll generate updates in your News Feed only from the people in that list.

Hope you find this useful.

By Milli

I Just Dont Have The Time For An Online Business!

Hey,

"I can't start a business, I just don't have the time!" Sound familiar? We hear this all the time and its no excuse! We are all busy. We have children, we have two jobs, we have family and we have friends. There is always something to do. Then if we are not busy we need to relax! I know the story... I know it well! I have a family and a busy home life and I get tired! So how do I run a business online as well as leading a busy life? Well it all depends on how much you would like an extra income that will eventually completely free you up to live the life you really want. It is possible. I am not saying it is easy but let me tell you it is possible and it is possible for anyone! You don't need to be one of these super disciplined people that seem to operate like a robot. But we do need to be working on our online business every day. It just becomes habit.

One of my coaches Michael was telling me the other day about on of his other students and how she is now financially free. Firstly let me just clarify what financially free means. I like Robert Kiyosaki's definition which is taking our total monthly expenditure including all our bills, outgoings, car payments, loan agreements, money for entertainment, clothes, saving money, every cost that we incur every month and then doubling it. Once we are making that figure from our business every month and we can step out of that business so it runs itself we are financially free. When I say it runs itself I mean it is automated. Either by outsourcing to another who manages our business or we put into place systems so that it works without our input.

So back to my conversation with Michael. He was telling me about one of his students who kept talking about the business she longed to pursue. She had everything she needed in terms of knowledge but she just did not have the time in the day. Michael asked her to write out her exact schedule of activity during a typical week. Not only her work and family commitments but also her leisure time. Michael noted that each evening she spent half an hour watching her favourite TV show after she ate her evening meal. "There is your business!" he told her. There was some initial resistance as I'm sure you can imagine but then she saw the opportunity and she began to solely dedicate that half an hour to her business. That lady is now financially free in the exact sense I have just described.


So which part of your day are you letting slip by that is your opportunity to build your online business? Now I am not suggesting that Michael's student I have used as an example did not sometimes spend much more than half an hour on her business but it was certainly all she had at the beginning. I also accept that perhaps you are thinking she was very lucky to be able to sit down and watch a TV show in the evenings! I am illustrating that initially she spent the time to fill in her weekly schedule as she went about her day to find the time that was available to her. She told her family that this was her time, that it would be of benefit to everyone in the family and that she was not to be disturbed for this precious half an hour each day. Once we start and make the commitment to ourselves you will notice how things begin to snowball. You will notice how more slots appear in the day. For instance getting up half an hour earlier, or kindly telling a friend that you can't speak on the phone just now because you must work. "I will call you on Saturday and we can catch up properly". A commitment to ourselves and what we value most is not only a great gift to ourselves but becomes a benefit to everyone around us. So take the time to schedule your week. Find the patterns in your life and notice where the slots of time are. I don't care how busy you think you are if you want it enough I promise you the time is there...

To inspire you I would love to share with you one of my favourite pieces from Goethe -  

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in ones favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

The Importance of Listening...

Hey Guys,

Watch this... Short and sweet but a key part to success in Social Media :-)

Video by Michelle Carvill

How To Write An Interesting Tweet

How To Write An Interesting Tweet

Have you ever wondered what the secret is to writing good tweets that will result in your link being clicked?

The importance of learning how to write a good tweet should not be under estimated. No matter how interesting the page is that you want to send your followers to, unless you have an eye catching tweet, you will get a very low click through rate to the site.

I have great success with getting people to click through on my links. I have received over 13,000 clicks through to a site in seven days.
What’s the secret??

Here are some tips I recommend:

1Write in a non obtrusive way
2Do not make it sound like a sales pitch
3Grab your followers attention and peak their interest
4Make it sound like there could be an interesting article to follow
5If possible, make it funny so that it will be retweeted also for a viral effect!
6Write about topical subjects such as big celebrity bust ups or major news!

An example of a tweet I used for the Subliminal Power product (http://www.bit.ly/L5tln) was “People fear public speaking more than death! At a funeral, people would rather be in the coffin than giving the eulogy! ”. It’s the subtle differences that can make the difference of 1 sale a week to 50 sales a week to the same followers purely by getting people to click into the sales pitch or other.

 
By Mili & Paul