Friday, May 31

Looking for Big Numbers in Social Media? Why?

If your online goal is to conclude a sale to (or build your brand) with your social media friends and fans, you’ll have to give these folks a cold, hard look. Some believe that more is better. But more what? You need to focus on people who, at the end of the day, may purchase something from you directly or through your website.
Facebook Insights, Google Analytics, and other tools will help you decide if you’re playing in the right ballpark. If your message isn’t being received by the right people, you’re wasting time and money in social media.

Visit my website to read Big Social Media Numbers Don’t Always Equal Dollars for the cold hard facts - and just how to measure your numbers.

Tuesday, May 21

Step By Step Guide to Leaving Feedback on eBay

 Leaving feedback for the seller after your item arrives is an important end to every eBay transaction. Your leaving feedback lets the community (and the seller) how happy you were to do business with this person.
There are several ways to leave feedback for a seller:

  • If you’re on the transaction page, click the Leave Feedback link; the Leave Feedback page appears.
  • In the Purchase History area of your My eBay page, click the Leave Feedback link next to the transaction.
  • In the Feedback Forum, click the Leave Feedback link to see a list of all your completed auctions from the last 60 days for which you haven’t left feedback.
  • On your My eBay page, scroll down and on the left side you will see your purchase history. Click there to find the item that's just arrived. Under Actions to the right of the item, you will see a Leave Feedback link, which will take you to the Feedback page.
  • Click the Community-->Announcements link, in the main navigation bar, and then click eBay Feedback Forum. On the next page that appears, click the Leave Feedback link.
To leave feedback for a seller, follow these steps:
  1. Enter the required information.
    Note that your item number is usually filled in, but if you’re placing feedback from the user’s feedback page, you need to have the number at hand.
  2. Choose whether you want your feedback to be positive, negative, or neutral.
  3. Type your feedback comment.
  4. Fill in your star ratings by clicking the stars next to the questions (see further on, "Giving Detailed Star Ratings Properly ").
    If you decide that the seller’s description was inaccurate, you will have to explain why by clicking next to the explanations that appear
  5. Click the Leave Feedback button
In addition to a feedback comment and rating (positive, negative, or neutral), buyers should leave detailed seller ratings, too. After the buyer types a comment, he or she is prompted to rate the seller with one to five stars on four different factors of the transaction. The table below shows the specific rating factors, and a translation of what the stars mean.

To see the rest of the tips (and my personal take on the eBay Star ratings) please click visit the article on my website.

Wednesday, May 15

Personalize Mood and Activities to Facebook Updates and Comments

Believe it or not, emoticons (or Smileys) have been in use since the 19th century to punctuate written words with graphics simulated by characters. An historical newspaper specialist found what appears to be a sideways winking smiley face embedded in The New York Times copy of an Abraham Lincoln speech written in 1862  "(applause and laughter ;)";. There is some debate as to whether it is a typo, a legitimate punctuation construct, or an emoticon.

Facebook gives you options to adding your mood (or activity) – to your own posts – or to comments you write on your friend’s content. Below are keystrokes you can use to form emoji, and further on I show you how to use Facebook's new mood and activities emoticons within your own posts

When you’re commenting, or in chat, you can type in these characters to add punch to your words:


For a quick tutorial on the rest of Facebook's emoticons and how to add moods to your own posts, click to see the full story on my website: Add Mood and Activities to Facebook Updates with Emoticons

Tuesday, May 7

Opps! How to Re-Open that Browser Tab & 40 more Shortcuts For Web Browsers

I’m all about using keystrokes instead of clicking! I also love the controls available on my mouse. The tables below give you a list of documented shortcuts. You’ll see that whether you use Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer or Apple Safari that they have many of these shortcuts in common.

Each browser has some of their own specific shortcuts, but learning the ones they have in common will serve you well as you switch between browsers and computers. I have listed them by browser (as I know these work) and have bolded some of my favorites. Test  these shortcuts in the browser you are currently using and see if they work. Hopefully these tips help cut down your desk time.

Firefox Shortcuts

Press This Firefox Will
Backspace Go to the previous page you’ve viewed
Ctrl + O Open files from your computer in the browser
F5 Refresh current page
Ctrl + B View or search your bookmarks in sidebar
Ctrl + T New Tab
Ctrl + N New Window
Ctrl + Shift + T Undo Previously Closed Tab (oops command)
Ctrln + H View or search your History in a sidebar
Ctrl + U View Page source (to study HTML)
F11 Display full-screen, reducing the amount of icons and stuff displayed
Esc Stop loading the current page
Ctrl + P Print the page
Ctrl + S Save the current page to a file on your computer
Ctrl + F Find an occurrence of a word on a webpage
Ctrl and + or Ctrl and - Enlarge or reduce the text on the screen (Zoom)
Ctrl + 0 Return to default browser text size

View more in the full post at Cool eBay Tools