Facebooking for the greater good; how to raise thousands of dollars online

Do you Facebook for the greater good? Or just for fun?

If you happen to be one of my followers or friends, no one is spared from seeing pleas for funds, donation requests for support, or dogs in need of homes. I support the causes I believe in wholeheartedly. I figure there's an unfriend button and an unfollow option.

But let's be frank for a moment, my clients aren't interested in seeing my sometimes expletive-filled, usually emotionally-loaded, VagueBooking ecards that I write when I'm having a rough day.  You may have dozens of friends from grade, middle or high school that you're not really in close touch with whom you don't really want to share your "complicated" relationship status updates. Nor do you want your teenage son or daughter, nor their teachers, seeing your post on the six best sex positions.


Think about it:

1. Are the images you post constantly being reported for content?
2. Has your profile been banned from commenting?
3. Are you trying to raise funds, urgently, but are frustrated by the effort?
4. Do you know how to use the "ban" feature on your pages?
5. Do you monitor comments?
6. Do you study your insights?
7. Are you on social networking to network? To be social?  Or because everybody else is doing it?

This is where we leave your profile and decide how interested you are in each of your friends on your friends' list.

This is a lot of work if you have 941 friends but if you do this as you realize that you might not want to see that your cousin really loves the Back Street Boys, just uncheck the "Music and Videos" option. Or if you just can't stomach graphic images of dogs that need donations but you don't want to delete that friend because your heart tells you to contribute, uncheck "Photos."  Easy.


Nothing like an election year to find out your friends' opinions. I have admittedly unchecked a whole lot of friends "types of updates" and posts on my news feed cause, well, you know.... I am fascinated by the massive, never-before-seen social experiment called Facebook and the psychology behind our fears which lead to chain-letter like status updates burdening your friends with the responsibility of your privacy. If you don't know how to manage your own privacy, you don't get to determine that, they do.

You are more limited in your options for fan pages, but you do have the ability to "like" a page without seeing their updates. 

Perhaps you want the group to know you support them but don't necessarily want to see how many homeless pit bulls will die today throughout your feed wall when you really want just to see the photos of your newest, baby niece of your brother in Nebraska, just uncheck "Show in News Feed." Voila!  Isn't baby Grace just darling and growing SOO fast?!

If YOU have something to hide from a select group of people, there are many options for postings and I utilize nearly all of them on my personal profile but I already covered that that in "Post sexually explicit status updates and graphic images without getting banned" which has nothing to do with sex, just so you're not disappointed when you get there.

Frankly, I use Facebook for networking purposes as I am a firm believer in the 80s Faberge Organics Shampoo commercial "And they'll tell two friends- and so on, and so on..."  

If you're a celebrity, sure this might work. Otherwise...

I watch carefully what others do and how they engage their followers.  Beating them up cause they're not forking over ten bucks is not a successful attempt.  Posting frustrated, expletive filled rants about how the graphic images are putting their account on lock-down is not the correct approach.  Posting graphic images directly to your pages because "that's the only photo you have" to show your potential supports will only get you banned, unfollowed or unliked, because it IS offensive.  

There are solutions to all of these problems. I know them, I use them. You can too.

Between the days of MySpace and Facebook, I can comfortably estimate that I have personally raised (with help of volunteers, friends, followers and supporters) hundreds of thousands of dollars for animals in need in the past seven-eight years. How do I do it?  Well, I can't give away ALL of my trade secrets. But with options like events, polls, crowd-funding, and interest groups, I have no doubt that people can raise the funds they need for their cause.

Only individuals who sign up, login, post, "like" and "share" can answer the questions above for themselves. If you find yourself not being sure how to answer these or you can answer but have no idea where to begin, we can help.

You should be engaging, not offensive.  You should inspire, not insult.  You should be positive, not pessimistic. You should be inviting, not accusatory.

"I said 'Somebody should so something about that...' Then I realized I am that somebody."~ Lilly Tomlin

What's YOUR purpose on social media?

Post sexually explicit status updates and graphic images without getting banned

Facebook 101: personal privacy settings

Just kidding but now that I have your attention, let's discuss privacy settings. Since Twitter, InstaGram and Pinterest (other than secret boards) are public, this blog today is specific to Facebook Privacy settings and the new, improved (that's debatable by some) Timeline.

I thought about making this a video blog but since my favorite place to work is behind the scenes (ask Shorty Rossi how many times I've turned down being on an episode of Pit Boss) I'll go with my comfort zone and post screenshots of this Facebook tutorial.

To begin, I'm sure you're really good at one thing, maybe two (if more, then come work for me), and consider yourself an expert and offer sound advice in that particular area of knowledge. I feel that way about Facebook. When I see others posting privacy warnings as their statuses, or requiring others change their settings under threat of being deleted for not "liking" a status or simply "liking" things that their spouse might not appreciate, I simply cringe. I really do.

I personally had to deal with a matter late into the night recently regarding a therapeutic venting session and rant that almost cost her a regular buyer of her products. I won't go into details but I beg of people: KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. Let's take that a step further: LIMIT YOUR AUDIENCE.  You may feel close to some people you've met online through some bonding experiences. I certainly have and count those people as, albeit long-distance, real friends.

When you have young children underfoot or work from home, often social media is your only social experience. And that's okay...well it is for me at least. I swear I can think of many times where I might have lost my sanity if not for a "friend" to reach out to but I don't necessarily want my children (whom I require to be friends with me online) to read every venting rant I post either, especially when it's in regards to their father.  Do I want my clients necessarily seeing every photo of me in a bikini with my kids at the beach?  Do I think that my animal rescue folk are interested in my son's latest magazine editorial photos or do my momager friends really want to  hear about the latest pit bull I'm raising funds for?  I'm known in the animal rescue world, but I don't enjoy getting back to my office after a quick pick-up run to gather up my kids from school to find 19 photos tagged of me, spamming my wall of a dog that's going to die at 5pm.

We use social media to be SOCIAL, for the most part but there is a time and a place for everything and you may want to take a walk through your own friends' list to determine what information you want the people on your list to see...

Nonetheless, on to the personal privacy, friends' groups and interest lists tutoring session. 

Before I delve into this, most of the following only applies to being at a computer, not via Facebook mobile. I'll admit, I'm not the girl to ask about Facebook Mobile and if I even attempted to do so, I'm sure one of my friends would be happy to remind me of the time 64 mobile uploads captured the interior of my purse. *waves, smiles and blushes*

The first screenshot is how to access your privacy settings. I'm not trying to insult anyone here, just making an attempt to be thorough so bear with me please.

Now that you're in (that's what she said) look around to see what your options are and which choice suits you best. I won't advise you as to what your personal default setting should be but will point out that if you're an animal rescue cross-poster don't make your default setting "friends only."  If you've just launched a KickStarter campaign, don't limit your audience.  You want people to share and network, correct?  Right.

On my personal profile my friends and I joke that it's R-rated, so I utilize my privacy options not just daily but with each individual post. I am very thankful for the changeover to being able to edit your privacy settings AFTER the fact. I think that is my favorite feature of the Timeline. No more deleting comments and complete status updates with 187 comments {[(*thud*)]}

A reminder: these are YOUR personal privacy settings for your posts only. These tools allow you to choose the audience for YOUR posts only.

I can't tell you how many posts I see of privacy concerns about public fan pages, tagging and liking images that aren't necessarily on your own personal profile.  Let me make this clear: YOU MUST CHECK THE OPTIONS OF THE PICTURE, STATUS, LINK THAT YOU ARE INTERACTING WITH.  Those privacy settings are what determine its visibility to people on YOUR lists. So, if you like scantily clad women or are a closet homophobe be aware that anything you like or comment on MAY be seen by your friends. You have no control over other pages' settings. You only have control of how you choose to interact with them.
That being said, on to tagging. 

"Review posts friends tag you in before they appear on YOUR timeline."  Let me reiterate "YOUR" - these posts may not appear on your personal "wall" (or timeline) but they will appear on the feed wall of the person's friends' list who tagged you.  Again, you can only limit your privacy settings. If you don't want to be seen somewhere with someone who's active on social media, it's time to step away from the keyboard and have one of those "real life conversations."

Again, social networking's intent is to be SOCIAL and to NETWORK.  All of us have people we don't particularly care for, we also may have others who've just caused us trouble online in the past, or you simply do NOT want your M.I.L. or ex-husband's current girlfriend to see what you're up to or where you're working.  This is why I love the "blocking" feature and the "restricted" list.

No need to cover blocking, it's pretty simple and self-explanatory once you're on the correct landing page, but let's talk about the "Restricted List" for a moment. 

You may be very private when using social media and you may be one of those people who "only add people I know in real life."  You're activity online reflects your personal beliefs and privacy and that's good.  Now for those of us who utilize social media for networking, cross-promotion and meeting and interacting with new people, we find ourselves cautious about the latest friend request.  The Restricted List is your solution.  If I don't know someone and see no mutual friends in common, it's your choice whether to add them or not, simply "confirm" or "ignore."  I'll add any new "friends" that request it, but they go on this list.  It does not prohibit them from viewing information I post publicly but they cannot see anything more restrictive than that. So you're "friends" but not really.  I usually, eventually, move people off this list on to another one once I figure out why they found the need to be friends with me.

When I add people, EVERYONE goes on to a list:

• If they're under 18, "Adults only"
• If they're a momager, "Industry"
• If they're a work colleague or client, "Content" etc... 

These are my lists, folks. You can create your own, naming them whatever you want, for example: "Dog Peeps" "Trolls" "Freaks" or whatever tickles your fancy

This is where all this work in creating your lists comes into play

This doesn't have to do with privacy but it's somewhat relevant to the subject matter.
So next if you're not familiar with Interest Lists you should be if you're an online networker. Interest Lists have their own privacy settings that the creator of the list determines. I keep several lists, some public specifically my "pit bull rescue" list which by following, others, based on my privacy settings, can just cheat and grab all the effort I've put into making this list of rescue groups and resources across.

Bottom line, if you don't find this information important you may risk losing a client or a job or wondering why those graphic images you post keep getting you banned from trying to raise funds for an dog in urgent need.  

If you want your friends to continue recommending medication or to keep cussing out your friends via the mightly status update, go for it.  If you want to be able to be social the way you need to be social, if you want to network your cause without offending friends who love you (but not your cause) take the time to adjust your privacy settings and monitor your audience online. 

Or you can continue to VagueBook as to not offend anyone.

If you have any Facebook tutoring questions, please post them as comments!

Upcoming Facebook Tutoring Topics:

• If I deactivate my Facebook account, does it also disable my pages?
• Fundraise online WITHOUT offending or losing fans
• Social media for the greater good

Why so serious? Let's talk about content

"All content should be linked to at least one of your products or services." according to @predaicker

I disagree.  I find fan pages and social media accounts who chronically post about themselves or their own businesses quite boring.  It comes across, to me, as self-absorbed and close-minded.  That being said, my rule of thumb in helping my clients with their social media presence is to make sure you are referring to your own business, products, cause, or project no less than every fourth or fifth post.  You DO need to remind people why they like, follow or support your business but in lieu of shoving your products (or self, in the case of celebrities) down your followers' throats, I subscribe to a good balance that can be found by utilizing nonesense and silliness when engaging your fans.

When 93% of the content that is going viral is photos, do you think it's best to share a link to your online store twice a week? Or inform your fans how many reps you did on squats at the gym this afternoon?  Let me just cut to the chase, NO.  

You can't afford to hire a Social Media Manager to handle your fan pages for you. Okay fine, but in a recent interview with an actress she disclosed to me "I'm scared to death of embarrassing myself online. I don't understand who can see what I post."  If you don't understand that fan pages, Twitter and Pinterest are public content, you need to NOT be on Social Media. Or hire someone to do it for you.  According to many bloggers and statisticians, you can't afford not to be engaging your followers.  How else will you spread the word about your crowd-funding campaign for your low budget film?  How else will you inform your (potential) audience of WHO YOU ARE?  CEOs, Board Presidents have very real concerns about the people who have access to their branded, corporate image and its adherence to their company's policy and procedure manuals.  Easy fix as far as I'm concerned, but that's because I do not fear social media and my clients trust me to have their best interests in mind as I hit publish.  Paranoia only leads to your business having check-ins on a blank page created from individuals who ARE living their lives online.  Care to join them?

According to SocialBakers, "This volume ... rose to 36.7 average 'Likes' by October 2012" per Facebook user.  You can post your status updates, preferably an original quote from the CEO of your business, feed a link or two a week back to your blog or website, but if you don't want to see an 'unlike' increase when people read that statistic and realize "OMG, I have WAY too many 'likes' on my profile, let's unlike some of these pages."  Do you want yours to be one of them?  What you want is to ENGAGE your audience, so go ahead and post something that makes them smile, chuckle, laugh, giggle or get goosebumps. These emotional responses lead to users clicking on 'like' and pressing that 'share' button 75% of the time (okay fine I made that up but look at George Takei! Come on...)

What we really care about is that little stat below "31% prompted to purchase" after connecting with a product via social media. 

The way I see social media, probably stemming from my background in sales, is that 'likes' are similar to cold-calling. Now this was way back in the days when we still used pagers but... for every 100 cold calls I made, I got roughly ten orders and for every ten orders (or 100 cold calls) I'd gain a loyal client, i.e. recurring, regular business account aka $$$$.

I can't imagine that social media isn't very much like cold calling.  I've had several people approach me with the desire of "5000 likes" or "10,000 followers" and I set them straight pretty fast that I'm probably not their type of girl and this is when I begin to talk dirty...

I am of the opinion (and I very well may stand alone) that having genuine, involved, engaged followers is far more productive than having thousands and watching your insights have a 1-2% interaction rate.  Are you sitting dormant, feeling like you're talking to a wall or are you finding like-minded individuals who will share your message for you? How many groups have you joined that are related to your company or what's YOUR engagement level?  Are you only posting when you need something from someone else, or is your business an active supporter? Maybe your project will be served better by a Private Social Networking site...?

My biggest pet peeve?  "We're only ten likes away from 1,000 fans!"  So...?

My favorite type of engagement? "For every new like in the next 24 hours, we'll donate one dollar to... Please share!"

See where I'm going?

Thank you MetEdge (at least that's who Google tells me to whom I need to give copyright credit) for taking the words right out of my head (and saving me hours of work from creating a fabulous infographic) 

Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.

Have you liked your own clients' fan pages? Are you retweeting your followers? Are you pinning to a collaborative group board?  Are you commenting back when your fans reach out to engage with your business?

Are you saying PLEASE and THANK YOU?

Self-indulgent, non-emotional, dry, mundane posts are NOT INTERESTING.  Your fans want to be moved, entertained or, at the very least, LOL once in a while. 

So go ahead, post a sarcastic ecard, share that meme that made you laugh on your wall.  (Don't steal and repost content, that's shitty - just share)  Hell write them like I do.  But business doesn't have to be so dry. Life doesn't need to be so serious.  Just keep it PG-13 if your corporation sells children's products and remember, that what you want is ENGAGEMENT and EXPOSURE.  Once you have them tearing up or giggling, liking and sharing with their friends THEN you can tell your newest fans and followers what they came there for.