ALL POSTS
A funny thing happened on my way to my email account this afternoon. I got this email from Facebook:
Thank you for your Facebook Ads payment. The details of the charge are below. Please note that, due to processing delays by some credit card companies, this charge may not show up on your statement for a few days.
Transaction Details:
Payment: $51,313 CLP
Date(s) of advertising services provided: December 23, 2009 at 12:00am to Today at 12:00am (Pacific Time)
WTF? I owe $51,313 to Facebook for running two relatively small ads for three weeks?!
I currently have two ads running on Facebook. They look like this (and yes, please feel free to click them; thank you!)
Together, they generate a fair number of impressions but relatively few clicks. Certainly not $51,313’s worth!
And then I remember that Facebook is frequently confused when it comes to its advertising.
Turns out, Facebook was billing me in Chilean Pesos. I really owe a little more than $100.
So as to not stop my heart again, I try to change the currency to my own. Guess what? Facebook has a way of screwing that up too:
Nice.
In my ongoing quest to morph into Steve Jobs, I now have my own iPhone app. (It also works hella fine on iPod Touches.)
It’s got my latest blog postings, tweets, and YouTube videos. You can even “favourite” items you’d like to read later. I’d have put more info into it, but, sadly, the iPhone’s tiny screen didn’t accommodate the size of my enormous ego. 
It’s very useful for killing time in airport lineups, showing to your kids as an example of how to not grow up, and opening once then deleting. 
You can download it at http://iphone.todmaffin.com [link opens in iTunes].
I can’t figure this one out.
I’ve got a Facebook profile with about 660 friends on it. Those friends are a mixture of “real” friends, people who’ve seen me give a presentation
, heard me on the radio, or just randomly shown up.
I’ve also got a Facebook fan page with a few dozen people on it.
The fan page, of course, has better marketing tools (tabs that let people sign up to my newsletter, ability to send an email to all fans, and so on), so lately I’ve been hiding my “real” profile from searches, hoping people will join the fan page instead.
I don’t know. It just seems so.. so… unCanadian.
Are you an independent professional in the same boat? What do you do? Do you let anyone friend your personal Facebook profile or direct them to a fan page?
UPDATE: Darren’s right. I’ve deleted my fan club, and now I’ll just use my regular profile for everything and use Friend Splitting to manage my Facebook lists.
SOLD OUT
Get alerted (one-time, no-spam) when I
hold my Blazingly Effective Email Marketing workshop in your city.
Email marketing is one of the most effective tools, with one of the highest returns on investment, yet so few companies do it right. (Or at all.)
Let me show you the ins and outs of email marketing — from the very basics, right through to advanced techniques like click-weighted A/B testing, and integrating your newsletter directly into your web site.
I’ll show you how to get subscribers the right way, or double the number of followers you already have. This isn’t a high-level 30,000 ft view of email marketing and its place in the world. These are fast and effective tips to make sure every effort you spend in email marketing returns many, many more.
ALL-MORNING SEMINAR
This Wednesday, January 20
UBC Robson Square, Vancouver
LIMITED SEATS AVAILABLE!
$79.99 (price only guaranteed until Friday, Jan 15 at 5pm Pacific)
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Workshop Agenda
Wednesday, January 20, 2009 • 9:30 a.m. • UBC Robson Square, 800 Robson Street, Vancouver
Part I: The Basics
- Starting your first email newsletter
- Using a provider vs doing it yourself
- How to get subscribers
- How to craft a subject line that your recipients will respond to
- Promoting your newsletter
- The “no-effort newsletter” — merging your newsletter and your blog
- How often should I send?
- About using a purchased mailing list
- Sending in advance, and setting up a regular automated schedule
- Complete screen-by-screen walkthrough of Mailchimp.com
- What to write and how to find material
- Sending coupons for offline (“real world”) redemption
- Giving your newsletter a professional design in two minute
- Personalizing your newsletters (“Dear Tod,” instead of “Dear newsletter subscriber”)
Part II: The Secrets
- 14 tips to increasing your open rate
- Integrating your newsletter directly with your web site without being a programmer
- Boost your open rate using A/B testing (via name, subject line, or date/time)
- Tying newsletter-opens directly to purchases or lead generation
- Staying out of spam folders
- Using Google Analytics to track your newsletter’s success
- Using plug-ins to connect your newsletter to your Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, or Movable Type CMS
- Segmenting your newsletter for stronger personalization — send only to specific sub-groups
- Create auto-responders that automatically send content to your subscribers without you lifting a finger
- Keeping it Legal: Staying within the bounds of the CAN-SPAM act
- Affiliate marketing: Earn cash with your newsletter with a single link
- Integrating Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn into your newsletter
- Integrating events registrations and surveys right in the newsletter
- Integrating other services, such as Salesforce, Freshbooks, HighRise, PayPal, and more
Part III: No Question Is a Stupid Question
- Lively Q&A session, where every question is answered and discussed among attendees.
Every attendee will receive a workbook with a summary of content covered, and access to a private web page full of resources, links, and a summary of the workshop content.
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A lot of my business is in helping realtors grow their business using social media. As part of that, I’ve created a very short 60-second survey to find out people’s opinions about realtors. If you can spare a moment, I’d love it if you’d help out by answering the three quick questions on it.
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P.S. I’ll pick one person who answers the survey and will send them $25. Cold hard cash. I’ll also publish the results in my email newsletter.
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