This course has over an hour of videos to get your started on the right foot with Facebook to start bringing in more business!

Here’s what you find there:

• Intro to Facebook
• Personal Profile vs. Business Page vs. Group
• Setting Up a Personal Profile
• Adding Friends
• Avoiding Time Wasters
• Setting Up a Business Page
• Setting Up a Facebook Group

In the first 4 courses on New Media Profit Path there is 6 hours of video training already available! If you are looking for the tools you need to get ahead in this new and rapidly emerging marketplace then you’ll want to check it out.

Wanna learn more? Then check out the free offer I’ve put together.

However did you know that there are lots of other video sharing sites that you can use to get your video content further out there on the web?

Lets take a look at some other video sharing sites along with examples of how the embeds look from those sites using the same video from ChrisCree.TV for comparison.

YouTube

I know we’re specifically not talking about YouTube in this post. But I thought it would be a good idea to embed the video from YouTube for anyone who wanted to compare the players. (And here is the video page on YouTube.)

Viddler

Viddler is the site I use to share all my videos on ChrisCree.TV. I like the fact that they let me customize the default player so that it matches the look of my site. But more importantly I like that with Viddler I can upload my logo and, not only will they automatically insert it into my videos, but the logo is actually clickable.

That means no matter where my video gets embedded anywhere on the web, there will always be a link back to my main site. I see that as a big deal when trying to increase brand exposure. Here is the video on their site

Vimeo

Vimeo is another video sharing service that is popular for businesses. They have a very clean player and you can upload your videos in HD. A free Vimeo account limits how many videos you can upload each week but their “Plus” account is very reasonably priced at $60/year.

Here is the video on their site.

Blip.TV

Blip.TV is another video sharing site that should be more popular with businesses than it is. Blip.TV lets you customize your default embed player and gives a clean video presentation. You have the option of activating advertisements within your videos or leaving them off.

A bigger advantage of Blip.TV is that they are also a distribution point. You can set up your account so that when you upload your videos to Blip.TV they are automatically distributed to 21 different distribution points. These include places like YouTube, AOL Video, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and also web television outlets like Boxee and Tivo.

Blip.TV can really extend the reach of your video! Here is the video page on Blip.TV.

Yahoo Video

Yahoo may be struggling but they still have a huge user base. Posting your videos on Yahoo video can be another way to get more visibility. Here is the video page on Yahoo.

Metacafe

Metacafe is another video sharing site that is growing in popularity. It’s another way to get in front of more people. Their site is pretty full of ads, as you can see here on the page for this video.

Facebook

You probably knew you can upload your videos to Facebook to share with your friends there. But did you know you an embed your Facebook videos on other sites as well? Although there is no option on embedded videos for others to embed them as well so it does limit the potential viral spreading of your video somewhat. Here is the video on Facebook.

Flickr

Everyone knows that Flickr is for photo sharing. But did you know you can also share videos on Flickr now too? Yep.

But there’s a catch. Flikr will only play the first 90 seconds of uploaded videos. When you think about it, it makes sense. Sort of. Most digital cameras will let you shoot videos now. And most of those are probably pretty short.

So, while it may not be the best option for most uses, Flickr is another place to get your content out. Just be sure to post a link to somewhere that folks can see the video in it’s entirety like I did for this video.

And there you have it. 7 video sharing sites that are not YouTube.

Which one do you like best?

If so, you might appreciate this video created by Common Craft.

Common Craft

This video was produced by a company that is creating instructional videos that they are licensing for others to use. Their about page explains:

Common Craft is a small company owned by Lee and Sachi LeFever in Seattle, Washington, USA. The company was founded by Lee in 2003. We started making videos in 2007 with our first video: RSS in Plain English. Since then, we’ve created over 30 videos that have been viewed over 15 million times online. Our current focus is building a library of educational videos that can be licensed for use in classrooms, on Learning Management Systems, Intranets and on websites.

This course contains all the info you need to know to get started with WordPress in 8 videos and a total of an hour and forty-five minutes of instruction!

Here’s what you find there:

• Why .org is Better for Business
• How to Install WordPress in Under 2 Minutes
• Manual Installation & Setup
• Walk Through the Menus
• Editing Your Content with the Post & Page Edit Screens
• Adding Functionality with Plugins
• The Art of Selecting a Good Theme

Oh, and I’ve included a bunch of additional resources to give you everything you need to master WordPress completely.

That’s a ton of great content (if I do say so myself.)

And even though only 3 of the 8 initial courses are live yet there is nearly 5 hours of training already available on New Media Profit Path! If you are looking for the tools you need to get ahead in this new and rapidly emerging marketplace then you’ll want to check it out.

If you’re still skeptical then check out the free offer I’ve put together.

Now some folks may find it strange, seeing that I have a social media training product on the market, that I would recommend what cold be seen as a competing product. And normally I’d agree with them.

However in this case I can make an exception.

For starters I’ve know the founders of Tourism Currents, Becky McCray and Sheila Scarborough both for years now. Not only did I meet them at the first SOBCon, a conference I helped found back in 2008. But even beyond meeting them in person,  I was on a mastermind call with both of them for the better part of a year.

So I can say with full confidence that they know their stuff when it comes to blogging and social media.

Different Personalities

Different people resonate with different personalities. As much as I hate to admit it, there is a possibility that there might be some folks out there who don’t resonate with my personality. (Shocking, I know!)

There is no reason why that should keep someone from learning how to tap into social media for their business.

Because there is plenty of business to go around. For all of us.

Niche Specialties

I believe there is something to be said for niche specialties too. While the basic principles and best practices of social media marketing hold true no matter what market you are in, having someone who is familiar with the ins and outs of your business can sometimes be a big help.

Becky & Sheila are very knowledgeable in the travel and tourism industry. Becky is a longtime entrepreneur with four businesses currently who has been working with small city governments on project planning and grant writing. Sheila has been a freelance writer, both in print media and on the web, specializing in the travel and tourism industry.

Social Media for the Travel and Tourism Industry

The bottom line is, whether you work for a chamber of commerce, a convention and visitors bureau, work in hospitality or the restaurant? business, these two ladies at Tourism Currents are perfectly positioned to help you tap into social media and attract more people to your business (and to your community.)

There was a time, not that long ago in fact, when LinkedIn was little more than a glorified Rolodex. But they have been steadily, and fairly quietly, adding quality features to the site. And they’ve resisted adding copies of every new feature that comes down the pike like some social media sites (*cough* Facebook.)

Follow Company

With the new Follow Company feature LinkedIn has once again added a feature that is ideally suited to the site’s target market of corporate employees. According to the LinkedIn Blog some of the benefits you can see by following companies on LinkedIn are:

• Getting the early scoop on what’s new at the company
• Learn about job openings before your competition
• Keep your finger on the pulse of potential business-to-business opportunities

How to Follow a Company

LinkedIn has made it very easy to follow a company. If a company listed in a LinkedIn profile has a profile page too then you will see a little icon next to the company name. When you hover your mouse over those company names a little box will pop up which you can click on to view the company profile page.

Hovering over company name will pop up company profile page.

On the company profile page you will see a link near the upper right that says “Follow Company”. Just click that link and you’re following. It couldn’t be easier!

Location of the follow company link on LinkedIn company profile.

So what do you think? Are you going to start following companies on LinkedIn?

I happened to be driving home from a meeting (a planning meeting for WordCamp Savannah that we’re holding in August. Very exciting stuff!) so I headed over to the station for an interview.

Here’s the segment they put together:

They also posted the story on their website under the title Will You Delete Your Facebook on May 31st?.

Review Your Facebook Privacy Settings

As I said in yesterday’s post, Facebook Privacy – What You Need to Know, the key is to review your own privacy settings on a regular basis. In that post I have links to all of the resources mentioned in the news story, including the New York Times graphic showing how complicated Facebook has made privacy management for users, and the tool they mention at the end of the interview to reclaim your Facebook privacy.

I also posted a video in that story where I show you where to click so you can check your Facebook privacy settings and make sure you are sharing your information only with those you want to.

So, do you think privacy is a concern on Facebook?

The issue seems to be coming to a head. Some prominent tech folks are deleting their Facebook accounts in protest.

In fact, there has been a big spike in search traffic on Google for people looking to “delete facebook” or “delete facebook account” as you can see here in this graph:

Facebook Privacy

What’s the fuss about?

Well over the years Facebook has steadily made more of their users’ data more publicly available, and most folks probably don’t realize it is happening. Matt MaKeon did up a Facebook privacy graphic that makes it easy to see the changes.

Not only is Facebook making things more public by default, but they have made managing your privacy incredibly complex. At the same time their terms of service keep getting longer and more convoluted. The New York Times has a great graphic that shows the Facebook privacy madness. You’ve really got to click through that link on the NYT. Some feel that Facebook has intentionally made managing privacy overly complex with the expectation that users will not bother and keep everything open and not private.

That way Facebook can sell more targeted advertising.

Beyond Privacy on Facebook

There are even some in the industry like Jason Calcanis who see bigger problems with Facebook. Jason claims that the core issue is a lack of integrity with Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Now I don’t know if all Jason says is true or not, or if he has any personal motivations behind his anti-Facebook stance. But he makes a rather compelling case. And Jeff Jarvis over at BuzzMachine points also out some glaring problems with Facebook.

What I do know is that trust is the foundation of a successful business. Should Facebook loose their users’ trust they may find a mass exodus taking place.

Well, unless you have a monopoly, that is. You don’t need your customers to trust you if you are the only game in town. Right now, at this very moment, Facebook has near monopoly status because they are so massively huge.

However things can change rapidly on the internet. It is entirely possible that another site could come along and displace Facebook as the social media site of preference, just like Facebook pushed aside MySpace.

What You Need To Know

What does all this fuss mean to you?

For now, the bottom line is you need to keep an eye on your own privacy settings on Facebook. That means you should go in and check them every couple of months. Make sure you are sharing the information you want shared with the people you want to share it with.

Personally I don’t have a problem with much of my Facebook info being shared. But you might have a problem with that.

Don’t trust that the settings will necessarily stay where you set them either. In theory they should. But in the immortal words of Yogi Berra,

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice there is.

Last week’s video on ChrisCree.TV I showed how to check your Facebook privacy settings. You can watch it here:

One thing I found since I recorded that video is a great tool to help you keep an eye on your settings: the Facebook Privacy Scanner. Just drag their bookmarklette to your browser bookmarks bar and you can click it to see a series of scans of your Facebook privacy settings and get warnings about your settings anytime you want.

And that’s what you need to know about your Facebook Privacy settings.

What’s your opinion on all the fuss?

Are you ready? Here you go!

Basic Truth

Before we get to the plan we need to understand this basic foundational principle.

People do business with you because they know you, like you, and trust you.

Unless all three things are in place you will have a tough time having a sustainable business. Miss any one element to that and, unless you are selling a commodity that people are buying purely on price, people will nearly always choose to buy from someone else.

Get In Front of People

In order for people to know who you are you have to get in front of them. Most all business people understand this, that’s the whole point of advertising. The more eyeballs that see an ad, the more valuable, and expensive it is.

Right now there are hundreds of millions of people on social media sites every day. This year social media sites passed pornography sites as the number 1 web traffic sites. As far as the web is concerned now, social media is the biggest traffic driver out there.

And the best part? We can get in front of those people without spending any money! All we have to do is join those communities, and engage them by becoming a valuable member.

Then people with know us and we’re 1/3 the way there.

Build an Audience

The second part of the equation is having people like us. That means we have to build an audience. We do that by being interesting.

For example, a quick scan through the top 50 most followed Twitter accounts on Twitterholic shows the most popular accounts are overwhelmingly celebrities, media companies, and big name brands, all with over a million followers.

Think about why celebrities command such big audiences. People find them interesting.

Now we may not be able to command nearly 4 million followers on Twitter like Ashton Kutcher does, but the more interesting we are, the larger an audience we’ll attract.

That means just droning on about our business, or “automating” the process won’t really help us in the long run. We may see some short term gain. But people see through that kind of thing fairly quickly. Instead be your interesting authentic self.

Interesting Builds an Audience.

That gets us two-thirds the way there. But there’s still one more piece…

Be Helpful

One the best ways to build trust is to be helpful. When you see people asking questions in your area of expertise give them the answer. Point them in the right direction. Volunteer info.

And you don’t have to point them back to your own website all the time either. Only point to your own site if it is the best resource you can think of to solve the problem. People generally remember folks who do nice things for them.

Over time people will begin to respect your expertise and see the value in what you have to offer. With consistency you build trust.

Eventually you’ll find that people start referring their friends to you as the one to talk to when they run into a problem you can solve. Those referrals will translate into increased business.

It all starts with being helpful to build trust.

In Video Form

If you’d rather see this in video form check out this one. It’s less than 3 minutes and is just an example of the great stuff you can get, for free, over on ChrisCree.TV. Did I mention they’re yours to watch for free?

Even though I prefer text, I get that most of you probably prefer video. So I thought, why not start making videos to help people get the info better?

Launching ChrisCree.TV

It seemed a better move to create a new “video only” site rather than confusing things here by mixing video & text posts. I’ve been working on it for the past several weeks to get everything ready. And today is the day the veil gets pulled back.

ChrisCree.TV is now live!

The site already has several videos and we’ll be focusing on New Media topics. We’ll be covering a range of topics from social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, blogging and the search engines to the latest tools, as well as strategies and techniques for more effective business and marketing communication online.

Hopefully “New Media” will strike the right balance and allow enough variety to keep things interesting. For all of us.

There’s More!

As the late Billy Mays used to say, “But wait, there’s more!” (OK, so he probably said it in all caps.)

There is more juicy goodness to sink your teeth into over at ChrisCree.TV.

One of the cool things were doing over there is offering a free Weekly Digest email. Yes I said free. I’m a big fan of free so just had to give something of value away.

The Weekly Digest is a newsletter, but with a twist.

You see with just about every video I produce I am also creating a downloadable PDF document with extra info. Some of the things that the PDF’s have include:

• Summary of the video content (for you 10 percenters who prefer text)
• Links to sites and tools mentioned in the videos
• Extra info that couldn’t fit into the video
• Insider info

Once a week, usually on Sunday afternoon, I send out a the Weekly Digest email that will recap each video, provide links to the videos and the PDF downloads, AND recap posts from over here on SuccessCREEations too!

Not only that but I occasionally make special offers and discounts available only to subscribers.

Here’s the thing. The only way to access all that extra content is to subscribe via email. The PDF’s are a subscriber only benefit.

You can subscribe right here at SuccessCREEations. Simply fill out the form at the top of the page with your name and email.

Or better yet, head on over to ChrisCree.TV, check out a few videos, and sign up over there.

Enjoy!