There are times when you want to comment on your Facebook page as yourself but usually as an admin the comment will show up with the page photo and name. This isn’t great when you want to start or create a conversation. (Of course this also depends on the settings you have selected for the page.) Here’s an example of two ways to comment on a page.

However you can swap between settings to make comments on a page both as a page and as yourself. Here’s a quick tutorial on how to comment with your personal profile on a Facebook page.

1. Click on the ‘Edit Page’ option (top right corner).
2. Click on the ‘Your Settings’ option (left column).
3. Remove the check mark from the ‘Posting Preferences’ option.
4. Click on the ‘Save Changes’ option.
5. Return to the page by clicking on ‘View Page’.

After you have made your comment as yourself, follow the above steps again, only this time add a check mark to the ‘Posting Preferences’ option and Save Changes.

You can now create a conversation on your page – something like this

Special Note: Thank you to Tarunjeet of Nucleus India for asking me about this at the HEN India Social Media Strategy session. Hope you find this helpful Tarunjeet

I’ve been to Calcutta a few years ago and I loved the city even though mustard oil doesn’t suit my tummy Che’s first ever wedding video collage reminded me so much of the place. This one’s for you Calcutta

A couple of days back I received some Marketing Charts from HubSpot. Here are some stats I found very useful for small businesses and entrepreneurs to know. Keep in mind that most of these numbers are from U.S. web users but with the internet aren’t you selling/offering services to the world? (and India is headed here in the future so better start early!)

• Social media site users spend an average of 5.4 hours a month engaged in networking sites.
• 53.5 billion minutes per month spent on Facebook
• The average Facebook user spent seven hours, 46 minutes on the site monthly
• 734.2 million unique visitors to Facebook.com globally in June 2011, an increase of 33% from the previous year. Twitter.com comes second reaching 144.4 million visitors (up 56%). LinkedIn.com is fourth with more than 84 million visitors
• Facebook, has an average monthly audience of more than 140 million vs its nearest competitor Blogger with 50 million. That means Facebook reaches 70% of active internet users.
• From 9% of US market share of visits, Facebook has now reached about 65%. YouTube has gone from 9% to 20% and is steadily climbing. Twitter and LinkedIn seem to be staying constant at 2 to 3%.
• Globally Europe leads in the average hours spent on social networking sites by 38.1%. N. America has 21.4% and Asia-Pacific has 16.5%.
• According to the 2011 American Customer Satisfaction Index Facebook scores the lowest satisfaction score. Google on the other-hand was one of the highest scoring companies.
• In just one week, Google+ went from ranking as 54th most visited site to 8th place.
• Women make up majority of visitors to social networks, and people aged between 18-34 have the highest concentration of visitors among age groups.
• Mobile users accessing social networks on the phone in the older generation (+55) have doubled since last year.
• 41% of both video and search ad viewers have taken some type of action from an, while only 28% of social media ad viewers were inspired to act.
• 63% of Facebook users what something in return when ‘Like’ing a page.
• 80% of social network users prefer to connect to brands via Facebook.
• 6 in 10 online shoppers say user-generated customer product reviews have a good impact on their buying behavior
• An average of 29%, that’s 3 of 10 consumers seek buying advice.

That’s a lot of numbers but it’s clear that for now Facebook cannot be ignored. Customers are talking and connecting on Facebook and companies need to be there engaging with them or they will be missing out! YouTube and videos are a great way to engage with your audience and its steadily growing in usage. Not to be left out is Google+. I’d like to see how it fares a year from now; instinct says it’s just gonna keep climbing the usage charts – so get your Google+ Corporate Page Now!

You can download the entire report at Hubspot.

This Saturday (19th Nov.), FoxCrime channel ran a Dexter contest to promote the start of Dexter Season 6. They ran an ad on TV asking fans to click a photo of the Dexter Tool when it showed up in the show and post it on their Facebook FoxCrime Asia page to win some cool Dexter swag.

I like Dexter and overtime I’ve seen its fan following in my friend circle grow. Since I was planning to take part I thought I’d watch and see what response it got and if it did turn out to be a good idea for FoxCrime.

Here Are Some Numbers

Page ‘Like’ definitely went up (I recollect seeing the number as a thousand figure last night, now its 2742)
108 photos were published on their wall in about 12 hours.
There a quite a few posts from India and Indians across Asia.
One guy saw the image 7 times and created a collage of all seven!
Mine was the 20th photo to be posted and I had posted it fairly early at 9pm IST.
None of my friends on Facebook took part!

Did It Work

I think it did. The numbers aren’t huge but keep in mind that it was targeted at a niche audience – people in Asia who like Crime series – that’s not a large number in the larger scheme of things. Contests aren’t the best way to increase ‘Likes’ on Facebook but they help in gathering critical mass. The page also saw a lot of activity in a short span of time – 108 posts in 12 hours.

FoxCrime is quite a new network – it started in 2005 in Italy and launched in India in 2009. Right now they air the Asia Feed in India. Interestingly they didn’t run the contest on their Facebook FoxCrime India page which has a following of 90,764 and 9,492 people talking about it. Thats a huge audience to lose out on but then I think the contest was aimed at Asia excluding India; a way to get more fans for their Asia Facebook page. They have the critical mass in India already.

They could have used their India numbers to increase traffic to their Asia page with a mention and redirect on the India page. But they don’t seem to have done so. I wonder why!

Ofcourse it’s to be seen how FoxCrime will go about giving away the swag. Their page doesn’t say anything about how winners will be chosen or rules if there were any. It also remains to be seen how FoxCrime will engage with the people who Liked/Followed their page last night. That I think, will make or break their entire campaign.

A friend who is planning a trip to the Rann called the other day and the call took me down memory lane. My experience of the Rann or Land of White Souls ranks second to only the Himalayas. The Rann is an experience you will never forget, its leaves you with a feeling of accomplishment and yet humbles you with the power of nature and just much you are the mercy of it.

I did do a write-up after the ride and you can read it here but the photo service I used back then has disappeared, so here are a few photos.
If you want to read up on the Rann you can read about it here on Wikipedia.

The Rann is so vast and sees such extreme temperatures that if a local is lost in it, no search is done. They are just considered lost and the locals call those lost in the Rann white souls. The Greater Rann borders Pakistan and the Indian Army here cannot patrol the border all the time. The patrol method is to walk the border on camels in the early morn and if footprints are seen, a search is set-up to check who crossed the border at night. (This I heard from locals but ofcourse there was no way for me to verify it but having seen the Rann I believe them.)

Sunset at Tikar

Me

Salt Pans in the Rann

Salt Pans that Look like a Mirage

The Real Wild Ass and Other Asses

Boats used when the Rann Floods

Riding in the Rann

The Rann, Musafir and Me

The Rann, Musafir and Me

A Chakara - the local transport

Local Fauna in Rann

The Line-up

Line-up with a Chakara

The Land in the Rann

The Land and Modern Art

Me and the Rann

Salt Pans in the Small Rann

Salt Pans

Small Rann

The Rann from Varnu

Varnu and the Small Rann

Sunrise at Kala Dungar

The Greater Rann from Kala Dungar

India Bridge in Greater Rann separating India and Pakistan

The Dattatreya Temple on Kala Dungar

Arrow Straight Road between Kala Dungar and Bhuj for about 100km

170 km for the first time