by Heather T. | Sep 9, 2023 | Business, Marketing, Observations, Operations, Safety, Security, Social Media
This is my 2 cents based on what I know about AI so far. Since I am still spending several hours per day learning new AI platforms, and new information it’s going to be a moving target info wise, this is my knowledge and my personal take on all of this so far.
AI Platforms output is not always correct, ALWAYS fact check especially if you are using it for a research tool. Hopefully that information is out there already for most people, but I’m still running into people just testing the waters for the first time that don’t actually know that.
Keep in mind anything added to AI engines is being used to train the AIs; don’t ever put confidential or private information in. Also, be cognizant of putting any personal information in. Just like you shouldn’t be using your favorite vacation spot as a password, hackers are also using personal information to train AIs to hack into accounts.
There has been a recent uptick in hacked social media accounts that is being attributed to AIs being trained by hackers to browse for personal information used publicly online, and that can include data being put into AI generators.
Some AIs are allowing you to opt out of data gathering as well as some platforms and programs that also integrate AI into their software.
To opt out of ChatGPT
- Go to your account at far left bottom, click on the three dots
- Go to settings
- Go to the Data Controls tab on left
- Slide “Chat history & training” to off
Meta/Facebook
Adobe
Don’t use text straight from an AI platform for website text, blog text, or any other online published article text (social media posts are an exception as far as I can tell). Always rewrite and reword a bit. Google can tell it’s AI-generated content, and it can affect your Search Engine Optimization (i.e., how a business website gets found in Google search)
Don’t sign into any AI platform with your Google account or social media accounts, ALWAYS use an email and a unique password to login. Giving access to your Google account creates a backdoor which from a business and personal standpoint, can compromise your email account, and any other Google accounts you own: (Google Suite, Google Drive, Google My Business, Youtube, Google Docs, etc.).
If you are not familiar with Data Breaches and the cost of how it can affect a business (The global average cost per data breach was 4.45 million U.S. dollars in 2023.), please read https://www.upguard.com/blog/cost-of-data-breach and https://www.statista.com/statistics/273575/us-average-cost-incurred-by-a-data-breach/ .
This is also how many social media accounts get hacked. Granting access to Facebook through a backdoor can cause an account to get hacked, and just changing the password to the account, does not remove access, you have to remove app access too.)
If someone does give access to a Google account, and needs to unlink it/revoke permissions , here is a walkthrough https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/2541991?hl=en#:~:text=Select%20Connected%20accounts.
Revoke app access/external Access (social media)
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/help/942196655898243
Instagram https://help.instagram.com/588549329146493
Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a519947
Pinterest https://help.pinterest.com/en/article/connect-to-other-apps-with-pinterest
X (formerly Twitter) https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/connect-or-revoke-access-to-third-party-apps
Tiktok https://support.tiktok.com/en/safety-hc/account-and-user-safety/connect-to-third-party-apps
Please be extremely careful adding browser extensions to your browser to extend AI capabilities, there are A LOT of unsafe, unsecure and malicious browser extensions out there that can compromise people’s computers and contain malware or keyloggers, a good overview of browser security can be found here https://security.berkeley.edu/education-awareness/browser-extensions-how-vet-and-install-safely .
Malware can use known software vulnerabilities to infect your PC. A vulnerability is like a hole in your software that can give malware access to your PC. When you go to a website, it can try to use vulnerabilities in your web browser to infect your PC with malware. Apple computers can also be compromised as malware and virus programs designed specifically to attack Macintosh operating systems can be even more malicious and destructive than ones designed to attack PCs.
A keylogger is a form of malware or hardware that keeps track of and records your keystrokes as you type. It takes the information and sends it to a hacker.
A best practice is to NOT download any AI software. If there is a web-based version, use that instead. Before downloading any kind of software, do your research. Just Googling the name and reviews, or the name and whether it is safe will not give you legitimate search results. Insecure and malicious sites and software have a lot of sites that are either set up by them or paid to have them set up to make software come across as safe and legitimate. If you do download anything, make sure you have a good antivirus AND a good malware program, and it’s up to date; scan the program files before installing. When in doubt (even a little) don’t do it.
*Most antivirus programs say they cover malware, but they only cover a fraction of what’s out there. It’s best practice to have both. On average, over 500K malware and virus programs are created daily. I recommend Malwarebytes (free and paid versions are available). There are other good ones out there as well.
Be cautious when using AI photo editors/generators. This is a big gray area online at the moment, but watermarks and digital watermarks are being pulled into AI-generated works. Remember that AI-generated art aggregates other online media and creates something with it, including copyrighted artwork and photos.
Currently, it’s best practice not to use AI-generated art on anything online “owned” by a business—a website, blog, etc. There is a spate of lawsuits going on currently regarding copyright, and until things are officially ruled on, it’s better not to take a chance. I look at it this way: if a business gets sued for using a copyrighted image that was integrated and generated by an AI platform, the AI platform has Terms of Service that give themselves a waiver (the platforms) from liability but not the business, and even if the suit does get dismissed, there is the time, money and reputation of the business that is risked.
Until the courts have consistently ruled about this and more AI art generators start to accept their own liability for using copyrighted art in generated work, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
If a business gets hit with a claim by Getty images, the beginning claim will start at around $1500, they don’t care if you remove the image online, they WILL send collections to harass a business until they pay up. If you want some background on Getty copyright claims just Google: “Getty images copyright claims small businesses” or email me. I’ve been told horror stories by hundreds of businesses, and had to help several dozen businesses over the years who have been hit with Getty claims.
Keep in mind as well that many AI art generators claim copyright to the images produced and many only state that you can use the generated images for non-commercial use.
(September 7, 2023) Microsoft announced it will protect users from Copyright claims. (Which is terrific news, hoping additonal platforms will step up to this).
https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2023/09/07/copilot-copyright-commitment-ai-legal-concerns/
Canva (Canva.com) terms of service regarding AI generated content (as of 9/8/2023)
https://www.canva.com/policies/text-to-image-terms-2022-12-06/ *Note: Read the Legal Notice
I’ve talked to Canva about this, and they refer to this (above link) and have stated by email that to date, they will not be liable for any copyright claims. I first found this as a potential issue because certain prompts in their text to AI image generator, particularly using the watercolor feature, return a large portion of the time images that look like they have copyright signatures in them. From our 17 email exchanges about this topic: “We understand that the appearance of signatures on AI-generated images can be surprising and even concerning. We’re exploring solutions to mitigate their occurrence. However, the signature generated by Text to Image is just that: generated by the AI model. The AI model (Stable Diffusion) has learned from reviewing billions of pieces of data that some forms of images, such as paintings, often have a signature in a bottom corner, so it generated its own variation of one in response to the prompt.” Interesting that the AI platform only seems to be assigning “create a watermark” to the watercolor feature and not concept art, color pencil or ink print, to name a few options, and it doesn’t explain things that pop up like on the image to right where you have a double signature……. I have noticed (so maybe they paid a little attention) that the number of images has decreased in recent testing, but the one on the right I generated on Friday in Canva, so they still have some work to do. And since Getty Images is in the midst of a lawsuit with Stable Diffusion about this very topic…….
Example:
I love Canva, it’s incredibly useful, don’t get me wrong, but I also have a much greater concern that someone i.e. a small business, will use an image generated by the Canva Image generator and get sued not understanding that Canva isn’t going to protect them. So make sure the TOS is read and more importantly understood!
Stability AI https://stability.ai/terms-of-use (as of 9/8/2023)
Midjourney https://docs.midjourney.com/docs/terms-of-service (as of 9/8/2023)
DeviantArt https://stability.ai/terms-of-use (as of 9/8/2023)
The better the prompt the better the results, a good resource for learning how to use prompting is https://learnprompting.org/
I found using several AI platforms at once and putting in the same prompts gives in some cases, very different and varied feedback/results, if you’re using it for marketing, use it to cherry pick the best of the best.
Useful AI Platforms (there are many many more)
https://chat.openai.com/ (free and paid versions, the paid version is $20 per month)
https://claude.ai/chats
https://bard.google.com/
https://www.bing.com/?scope=web&cc=US
https://elicit.org/ (for research from papers and publications)
How can it help small businesses? and What can AI be used for?
To date this list (and it’s the tip of the iceberg) is what “I” have used AI platforms/generators/sites for and found useful. There are 100’s of additional uses besides these listed, these are just the ones I’ve used so far. I find I’m using AI on a daily basis as it is so incredibly useful for a wide variety of things.
For marketing and business development:
- Research (always fact check)
- Business and consumer trends (always fact check)
- Article rewrites (see above #3)
- Social Media Posts
- Email scripts and scripts for autoresponders
- Keyword Research (always fact check)
- Generate video scripts
- Creating chatbots for customer service
- Automating emails
- Writing social media ad copy
- Writing print ad copy
- Writing Google Ad words and Bing Ad words copy
- Create, edit, and modify media and video files (mostly paid AI platforms including ChatGPT plus)
- Blog titles
- Blog posts (see above #3)
- Email marketing subject lines
- Email marketing content
- Website content* (see above #3)
For operations:
- Training Manuals
- Employee Manuals (always run by an HR pro)
- Transcribing text
- Automating tasks
- Voice assistants
- Help with grant writing/grant writing
- Cover letter and resume writing
- Inexpensive marketing ideas for small businesses
- Generate customer surveys
- Proofreading and Editing
- Create contracts (always run by a business lawyer)
- Scripts for lectures and talks (or a speech for an event or wedding)
- Lesson plan outlines
- Writing and debugging code
- Creating WordPress plugins
- Creating WordPress themes
- Write product descriptions
- Create tests
- Explain complex topics in layman’s terms
- Create content in other languages (please use a human being to double check)
- Create Interview questions
- Translate text
- Create outlines for a book or other content
- Creating job descriptions
- Creating job applications
- Creating job search listing content/text
- Extract data from text
- Product/service name ideas (same caveat as business name ideas below/Please check!)
- Business name ideas** (see below screenshot). Please make sure any business names are checked online before registering, in testing most of the major AI generators/platforms they are ALL making suggestions that when do a search in Google, many of the business names are already being used. This is a screenshot from the paid version of ChatGPT. Highlighted names for example are names already in use (9/8/2023)
Again this is the TIP of the iceberg on what a business can do with AI, with the exception of the video editing, all of the above were done using the free versions and free tools that were out there without adding browser extensions, or giving access to my Google account. So until the wild west of AI platforms has some more security and rules and regulations in place, how safe do you want to keep your business??
AI Program/Platform Directories (Many more out there, I found these useful to start)
One of the good Newsletters I subscribe to: (there are hundreds +++ out there. This one is an aggregate)
Articles of Interest:
by Heather T. | Sep 27, 2022 | Business, Facebook, Operations, Safety, Security, Social Media
1. You allowed unsecure or compromised apps (applications) access to your personal Facebook page (and, through it, your Business page). These can be old, outdated Business page add-ons that are no longer supported by the developers or by Facebook, or they can be malicious applications that deliberately want to gain access to your account.
2. You had an employee or used an external company, and you gave them full access to your Facebook business page. You had a falling out with them or fired them, and they kicked you off your Page as an administrator and then compromised your Page or deleted the Page.
Reason One (more information) and what to avoid.
It would be best if you give as few external applications as possible access to your Facebook account (and, through that, your Business page). Most people grant app access in a variety of ways, to play Facebook games or to take silly quizzes (please do NOT do this!) as many of these are purposefully malicious or they are easily compromised, and though that can compromise your account.
The other way to be compromised is to log in to external sites using your Facebook account. Zoom, for example, gives you the option to log in with Facebook; it also gives you the option to log in with your Google account (please DON’T do this either, it’s even worse). Always create a new account using your email address and a unique password, don’t ever connect social or Google apps. Some newspapers and blogs offer social sign-ins and Google sign-in options as well; please create a unique account with these platforms. An external account gets hacked or compromised, so can any accounts it has access to from the back end.
If your account was compromised through an external application, changing your password in Facebook does not stop the hack; you need to remove the app at fault (I always recommend disconnecting everything and readdressing and reconnecting if there is one you need later on) and then change your password.
See the link at the end for how to access where your app access is located so you can check and disable them.
Reason Two (more information) and what to avoid.
A Facebook business page owner should be the only person with “full” access to the Page and at least one additional person who you implicitly trust: a spouse, a business partner, or your BFF from grade school.
Why have that? What happens if your personal account is hacked or you get locked out of Facebook, either temporarily or long-term? Facebook has no support system per se, no phone number to call for help, and the only way to “sometimes” get them to respond is multiple support requests, and I mean dozens of them. Sometimes…….
Giving an employee or manager, or external company full access to your Facebook page can be a recipe for disaster. If you do, please make sure you trust them! I could tell you countless horror stories about employees or managers being fired and still having access to a page. You can guess what happens from there. I know one marketing company in New England that had a tiff with a tourism group about seven years ago, and they deleted the tourism group’s Facebook page, of which there were over 6000 followers on the Page. Facebook will not restore a deleted page if you don’t have access to it as an administrator. And now, with the New Page Experience, it looks like it can’t be restored at all.
Anyone helping with a page can get more limited access (which means they can’t delete the Page or add or remove admins).
Currently, most pages still have multiple levels of access:
- Admin: Can manage all aspects of the Page. They can publish and send Messenger messages as the Page, respond to and delete comments on the Page, post from Instagram to Facebook, create ads, see who created a post or comment, view insights, and assign Page roles. If an Instagram account is connected to the Page, they can respond to and delete comments, send Direct messages, sync business contact info and create ads. This person can manage everything you can, including the ability to give access to others, remove anyone from the Page (including you) or delete the Page.
- Editor: Can publish content and send Messenger messages as the Page, respond to and delete comments on the Page, create ads, see who created a post or comment, post from Instagram to Facebook, and view insights. If an Instagram account is connected to the Page, they can respond to and delete comments, send Direct messages, sync business contact info and create ads.
- Moderator: Can send Messenger messages as the Page, respond to and delete comments on the Page, create ads, see who created a post or comment, and view insights. If an Instagram account is connected to the Page, they can respond to Instagram comments, send Direct messages and create ads.
- Advertiser: Can create ads, see who created a post or comment, and view insights. If an Instagram account is connected to the Page, they can create ads.
- Analyst: Can see which admin created a post or comment and view insights (i.e., statistics).
The “NEW” Facebook Page Experience:
People with Facebook access
- Content-Create, manage or delete posts, stories, and more as the Page.
- Messages-Send and respond to messages as the Page.
- Community Activity-Review and respond to comments, remove unwanted comments and report activity.
- Ads-Create, manage and delete ads for the Page.
- Insights-See how the Page, content and ads perform.
- This person can manage everything you can, including the ability to give access to others, remove anyone from the Page (including you) or delete the Page.
And some other actions that still seem to be in a bit of flux, you can now control a bit more than you could last year. Last year it appeared that anyone with full access had full control of everything and you couldn’t change it, now it appears you can set access levels with “Facebook Access” and they have added some additional options.
Task Access:
- Community Activity- Review and respond to comments, remove unwanted comments and report activity.
- Messages-Respond to direct messages as the Page.
- Insights-See how the Page, content and ads perform.
- Ads-Create, manage and delete ads for the Page.
Community Managers:
- Community managers can moderate chat comments, suspend or remove people who violate community standards and see all admins of this Page.
As Facebook continues to make changes to the “New” Facebook experience, I would make a note to keep checking access levels and who has access to what. When the changes first rolled out last year, anyone who had any kind of access level to a page automatically got bumped up to “full” access. It appears (I hope) that they have fixed this and added additional levels and options, which is great.
What is not so great is that anytime Facebook makes a change, especially to options in the administrative section, they don’t tell anyone about it. I’ve been tracking the changes with the roll out to the new format since last year, and as usual, anytime a minor (but sometimes very important) change is made to business pages, they don’t make any kind of point of informing users about it.
Even worse is it appears they have now totally deleted the holding period for deleting a page (definitely moot if you don’t have access to it anyway, but….). In the old version, You’ll have 14 days to restore it in case you change your mind. After that, your Page will be permanently deleted.
Old Page Version
In the new version it looks like once it’s deleted, it’s gone.
New Pages Experience Version
While it’s a lot harder to actually dig down to where to get to delete the Page in the new version vs. the older version, this is still NOT a good thing. So please stay on top of your access levels!
Tied into this, you think your personal Facebook account got hacked because you started getting reports from your friends that you were sending weird requests or odd messages to them.
There is a huge number of fake Facebook accounts, far more, I think, then Facebook will ever admit to. With the fake accounts, they take the name of someone, create a new account, and then take the profile picture and header image from the person they stole the name from and use it on the fake account.
They then target your friends (because your friends list is open to anyone logged into Facebook) and start sending them friend requests. Many people accept the request because they see a name and photo of someone they recognized, so they don’t necessarily remember if they were already connected and hit accept. This is the way these fake accounts spread. Most people automatically assume they have been hacked, panic, and change their password. No, folks your account has not been hacked; it’s been cloned. Have friends report the fake profile ASAP. You need to lock down your friends list and also be very aware of what you post.
How can this hack your business account? It usually doesn’t directly, but it can cause identity theft of both your information and your friends’ information, and an awful lot of people have gotten scammed from these both identity-wise and financially.
And I do know two businesses that had employees that got their employee’s Facebook personal accounts cloned. The fake accounts messaged the owner of the business pages they worked for, and the business owners granted the fake accounts access to the business page, thinking they were the real employees and then had hacked pages and deleted pages. One more reason to limit access in the backend of Facebook.
Locking down your friends list and near the end (because it’s in the same section) how to see what apps have access to your personal (and business account with that).
by Heather T. | Nov 9, 2021 | Blog, Marketing, Operations, Social Media
This is an updated post on one I had done way back in 2010 (yikes it’s hard to believe that it’s been over decade, but still relevent) with bit more information and a couple of additional ideas.
I thought it might be time to update it, as it’s one of the most common questions I get from people, even when I tell them you know………. there are a ton of ideas and post ideas out there already floating around and don’t forget to look at what your competitions doing,
Sometimes people want some more specific ideas, so I thought it was time to give the post a little spiff up. I do find it kind of amusing that the old post refered to “fan pages”, Facebook’s original name for a business page.
(Keep in mind many of these could be in visual or image formats including video) Many can also be used for blog posts with some additional information and content. Visual/Image posts are best for Instagram. Linkedin business and personal pages, Facebook business pages and groups, and Twitter, it is best practice to try to share an image with text.
*Don’t forget to share links to your website often as well.
The number one mistake in using social media is forgetting to add targeted links to posts. People will not look for your website link if they don’t see it in the post itself.
If you have a product or service, you are promoting on social media make your links count. If you are talking about a particular service you offer, have the post link go to your services page where you talk more about the service, NOT to your homepage, you don’t want to make people have to hunt.
- A promotion.
a. Come and stay during the month of March and get two free ski tickets.
b. St. Patrick’s Day Special, get a complimentary green beer & popcorn with an order of bangers & mash (*must be 21) = 117 characters, still room for using a shortened link on Twitter.
c. Get double points on your Ace rewards card with every hardware purchase the first week of March.
d. With a purchase of any Don Fredo jewelry, get a free earring cleaning kit.
e. Get a full hair coloring treatment and receive a free trim.
f. At your next tire alignment, get a free oil change.
g. New accounting customers get a 10-minute free business analysis.
- A sale.
a. Thursday nights are half-price appetizers.
b. Sale though March 31 on Dunlop All-Season Radial Tires, save 20% off.
c. All Michelle Leslie tops and slacks on sale $15 off through this Sunday.
d. Stay 2 nights get the 3rd night 1/2 Off.
e. Two for one wool sock special every Saturday.
f. Mini-mart Super Gulps 99¢, 5-6 pm every Monday – Friday.
g. Photography special: Book a wedding with us and get an extra set of CD’s with your photos now through May 3.
- New products, services, specials, rebates, vouchers, offers, packages
- Recipes (recipes get one of the highest rates of pass-alongs in social media, if you are a retailer, share your Grandma’s killer brownie recipe and make it the next time you have a sale at your woodworking store. It doesn’t matter what business you are in. Also, Recipe failures with a funny story make great shared content.
- Guest, customer, or client comments or testimonials (with permission if sharing the full name).
- Your business in the news.
- Your business is getting or received an award.
- One of your employees is getting/or gotten an award, even if it’s of your creation, i.e., best salesperson of the month.
- Your area in the news.
- Promote any upcoming events. Open Houses, classes, workshops, webinars, networking, etc.
- A frequent and loyal guest, customer, or client in the news, please be aware of privacy though, depending on your business, a client may not feel comfortable with you sharing the information unless you know them well, it’s best practices to ask if it’s ok.
- Pictures of your business, interiors, exteriors, products (if applicable).
- Pictures of your employees.
- Pictures of happy guests, customers, or clients (with their permission and preferably in writing or verbally but documented).
- Area Events going on, you can also tie this into specials and promotions you are holding.
- A brief, “we get frequent questions “about” and put in answers.
- What does your business do to differentiate itself from others.
- Holiday Posts, a nice graphic or photo and a wish for a Happy Thanksgiving or other Holiday.
- You just found a new product you are using and love it, be it food or a new fabric softener or a new electric cordless drill; describe it and explain why you love it.
- Day of the Year posts. National Calendar days. May 20 is National Rescue Dog Day. It’s helpful if it ties into something related to your business. Two of your own dogs are rescues. One of your employees volunteers at the local dog shelter.
- Funny Loyal Guest, customer, or client stories. *caveat: make them funny and only funny, proof heavily to make sure they are not harmful or negative in any way. While someone may go into the wrong changing room by mistake at a store, and it may have had very amusing consequences, it raises things like, “don’t they have locks on the doors?” (even if you do and point out they didn’t lock them).
- Do some product/area/service-specific reviews. You have a couple of apple orchards nearby. Do some write-ups on the apples, do some research on types of apples, link to sources. You carry a particular line of clothing or cordless drills or snow tires; what is special/different/better/unique about them.
- A bio of your self or other owners or management.
- Bios of your staff.
- Interview customers. Keep in mind using video is always a bonus.
- Interview vendors.
- Helpful Tips: examples: restaurants; a good wine, lodging; cooking/baking tips, realtors: home buying tips, Landscapers: gardening tips, mechanics: car care tips, drycleaners: stain removal tips. For every type of business, there is always helpful information out there that someone can use.
- Industry News.
- Ask for feedback from blog readers, fans, followers, and from prior guests, customers, or clients. You just went from goose down pillows to memory foam pillows. If asking on a blog post, ask for some thoughts from people, and don’t forget to include the link to the blog article or post link when you do your next email blast. You just switched from using Redken products to Matrix Biolage in your salon. People love to be able to give feedback and asked what they think about things; this is an excellent medium for doing that, exploit it. Questions asked are great prompts, and you can get valuable information on your own business or something new you may be considering doing.
- Help wanted posts.
- Lists. List posts get high engagement. 10 of our top selling products. 12 of our favorite woodworking bloggers, 15 tips on saving money, 7 best places to go to get Sushi, etc.
- Links to resources, also great in list post format. 10 places to save money on your business insurance.
- If you are blogging, don’t forget to share your blog posts on your Facebook business page, your personal Facebook account, Facebook groups (if it’s permitted), Twitter and Linkedin personal and business pages. If blog posts have images (highly recommended), don’t forget to pin the image (with your blog post link) to Pinterest if you use it.
- Videos from Youtube, Vimeo and Tiktok.
- PSAs, especially ones that are relevant to what’s going on in the world today. Try to stay away from politics or religion.
- A Non-profit or charity you support.
- Your business contributing to the community or donating a product or service.
- A giveaway, contest or drawing. Please make sure you check each social media’s T.O.S (Terms of Service) before promoting these online, each has different requirements and disclosures.
A few ideas for Business Social Media Platform Shares
(Facebook (Personal, Business & Groups), Twitter, Pinterest, and Linkedin (Personal and Business)
While Instagram does have external apps to share posts, PLEASE ask permission first of the Instagram author. On Youtube, you can add videos to “Playlists”
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/57792?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop
and
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/57792?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid
If sharing on Facebook from a personal account, please ask permission first.
- A gorgeous photo taken of your town, your area, your state (make sure the author gets image credit, shares from a page, or their own group rather than uploading a photo are highly recommended so you don’t violate copyright.)
- A vendor or a company you buy from shares something of interest related to your product or business.
- Funny or amusing content, try to keep it clean.
- Helpful tips (not the same thing as Educational content as these are generally short form posts) from non-competitors.
- Educational content. A blog post from a Leadership expert with a little of your personal feelings about why you liked it or something that stood out about it.
by Heather T. | Aug 10, 2021 | Operations, Reputation Management, Social Media
Unfortunately, yes you probably should, but before anyone yells, “invasion of privacy,” I mean the public face of your employee’s social media, so what they post on public forums, Facebook pages, and groups, Twitter, Instagram, etc. You legally can’t ask them for passwords and access to closed accounts, so I wouldn’t recommend it.
This periodically comes up when I see employees posting negative content about their employers or, even worse in the case of a boutique hotel many years ago in Maine, posting about guests, by name!
One of my favorite examples is the infamous Damian Cardone, who almost caused the restaurant he worked at to close down because of his public Facebook comments about serving gluten dishes to gluten free guests. And this wasn’t Tavern on the Green, but the restaurant he was working at when he made the posts.
I know it’s one more thing to do on top of trying to do your regular marketing, plus run a business, But…. If any employee’s posts can very negatively impact your business, it’s worth periodically double-checking. Loss of income, especially now, is never a good thing.
Yesterday on a local very active Facebook forum with over 18 thousand members, someone posted a picture of a few people picketing about their workplace’s new mask mandate. Whether you wear a mask or not, or believe we should be vaccinated or not, I’m not going to comment. As someone who last year lost several relatives and friends to Covid, I think you can probably tell where my thoughts lie, and I’ll leave it at that.
On the post, a very vocal young woman was ranting about not getting the vaccine and refusing to wear a mask, and when you hover over her post, you can see where she works.
As someone quite concerned about safety, especially with the Delta variant circulating, this was quite disturbing. She presently works at a local convience store (with the town listed on her profile), and even worse, is a housekeeper/cleaner at a large lodging facility (business name listed on profile). I certainly know I won’t be visiting that local convience store anytime soon nor booking a room at the facility which is in a neighboring state. Which, according to their website has both a mask mandate and an employee vaccination mandate.
I think other people may have commented/messaged both her, and possibly her workplaces about this already because she had removed the information about employment from her Facebook profile as of this morning. I did not report this, but was seriously thinking about it which is why I looked, but someone or someone(s) apparently already did. And I think they posted on the Facebook Business lodging pages reviews tab as well, which was public yesterday, because the review tab is now hidden.
So how many people have those businesses potentially lost or people who have now a negative opinion of the business? Even one is a potential lost customer and loss of revenue and future revenue. From this reference point, on this forum of 18K people, this thread already has 199 comments and who knows how many hundreds or perhaps a thousand or more people have read the post AND the comments and perhaps also saw who this person who ranted worked for…. Food for thought….
If your business falls on that side of the fence where you don’t care if you dissuade people from using your business (for whatever reason), that’s your prerogative and nothing I say or anyone else says will change your mind, so be it. But if you care about your business’s reputation, you should be keeping an eye out.
Sadly, Covid, masking and vaccinations are not the only reason, and the only time, you should be monitoring your employee’s public-facing posts. I have documented hundreds of instances where employees are publicly badmouthing employers, managers, and the businesses that they work at. Great examples for reputation management workshops and I do try to be cognizant of not sharing names of people or businesses unless they are permently closed, like Union Street Guest House, not a case of an employee misstepping online, but instead the owner’s misstepping, but a perfect example of what can backfire online and come back to haunt a business.
This boils down to essential reputation management of your business, where you should be monitoring what people are saying about your business, whether its customers, guests, clients OR employees.
I’d recommend you check your state for what is allowable and what is not in terms of social media and access, as well as specifics on what you are allowed to view on your own company’s computers in regards to employee’s social media. I’d also recommend checking what is considered just cause for termination or fines for employee’s posts.
Posting about bad working conditions or harassment at work falls into personal postings that can’t, and in most cases shouldn’t, be a fireable or finable offense. If an employee is tweeting about being harassed at work, as an employer, you need to look into this pronto, not punish the employee. I’d recommend reading Can You Get Fired if Your Boss Doesn’t Like What You Post on Social Media? from Jackson Spenser Law Group.
NOLO also has a good overview by state, but I would check on your state government-specific website for specifics and the most up-to-date laws as they do change when asking about permissible information to ask and have access to in regards to employee personal accounts.
As a business owner, setting up Google Alerts (free) for your personal name and your business name is suggested. Putting the information in quotes will give you better results.
Periodically doing a Google and Bing search for your personal name and your business name is also suggested (again putting in quotes gives you more specific results), Google Alerts and even the other paid monitoring tools don’t catch 100%.
In terms of employees, before hiring, take a gander at their social accounts (the public side) before hiring. Over 70% of employers do look at that information before hiring, and I have many clients that will ask me to take a look at possible employees who are applying and see what I can find. Considering I’ve found public posts about drinking on the job, stealing products from a current workplace and a lot more that for an emploer would raise some big red flags. It’s scary what’s out there and what people will post publicly.
A tip on looking for a potential employee’s or current employee’s public-facing social media accounts, most people use the same handle or username across most platforms.
Know the law before acting on something that an employee posted. And protect yourself by being proactive; your own business reputation can be at risk. And loss of revenue as well.
From an employee’s perspective, consider what you are posting and where, and who can see it, and the potential repercussions. If you don’t care, again just like an employer’s prerogative to post or believe what they want, that is entirely up to you, but if it meant the potential loss of a job, only you can decide whether it’s worth it or not. If it’s harming the business you work for, that IS on you.
by Heather T. | Dec 23, 2020 | Marketing, Social Media
A common question I get from friends and clients is what happens if my business page or personal account gets deleted or I get locked out or banned from Facebook? Well in some cases it can be recovered, but in some, it can’t. Most of the concern understandably is about photos that might have been uploaded to a page or profile from a mobile phone and in many instances the copy on Facebook is the only copy.
From a business perspective, it’s not just photo loss, but what if you want to find a copy of a post from last year? Or two years ago? You can sit there for an hour plus and scroll back through all the posts in your insights, but having done that myself several times looking for past post information, set aside an extra hour (or two) to be able to find something, It’s ALOT of scrolling. Being able to download (and sort easily) that information can be very helpful.
Let’s start with the Facebook personal page, Facebook changed how you get to this option fairly recently for both profiles and pages. The last time I reviewed this was back about 3 years ago and there are some definite changes plus it’s always a good reminder.
Step one for a personal profile: Go to the top right of your Facebook account and click on the small downward-facing pyramid to “Settings & Privacy”
Step 2: Go to “Settings”
Step 3:**** Go to “Your Facebook Information” and than “Download Your Information”
****Facebook frequently changes the options (and many of the settings) in the backend of accounts without letting anyone know, I highly recommend Facebook users go and review what the options are in here at least once quarterly if not more often.
Step 4: if you have everything selected, be warned, it’s going to take a long time to process. So deselect all and than do the ones you have an interest in backing up.
You will get two emails from Facebook, the first saying it’s processing, the second will come when your Zip file is ready to be downloaded. You will also get a red notification on the page above when it’s ready. If you get the second email saying it’s ready and you still had the above page open and it says “pending” refresh the page on your browser.
For a business page:
Step 1: On the left hand side of your Business page when you are on as an admin, go to “Settings”
Step 2: On the General tab, go to the middle of the page to “Download Page” and than “edit”. When you click on that there will be another option to hit “Download Page”.
Step 3: You will get a very similar looking page to the personal profile options, but it will say “Download Page” at the top to make sure it’s being differentiated from your personal account.
I’d recommend doing this at least once per year for both personal and business at the very minimum, I do this quarterly for any accounts I admin as the last thing you want to have is information that is not recoverable in any way.
I can’t stress enough the importance of backing up not just your social media information but all of the information on your computer on a consistent basis. I’ve talked to so many businesses who say they know they should be doing it and don’t and very much regret it when their computers fail, they have a break-in and their equipment gets stolen or there is a disaster like a fire or flood. If you are on of those people who know you should be doing it, but don’t, I would ask you to ask yourself, “Can my business function and how long will it take (and can I, and my business) recover, if my information is lost, maybe irretrievably forever.
by Heather T. | Dec 9, 2020 | Bed and Breakfasts, Blog, Marketing, Operations, Social Media
About 4 years ago I had written a blog post about Planning Ahead for Your Bed and Breakfast Promotions and this ties into the new calendar I’ve put together (below) and your content scheduling, or you can adapt or just use one format or another. Here is the online spreadsheet from that post (don’t forget you can download it and it does have multiple tabs). Tips on downloading or copying if needed near the bottom of the post.
At the beginning of this year with Covid hitting and B&Bs being closed or having a limited business, the big question was what to post, so I had designed this campaign with posting ideas https://betterwaytostay.com/campaign/. And the idea can still be used at any time.
I’ve had several questions from friends and other B&Bs if I was going to do the annual National and other Days of interest list that I do once a year compiled from a bunch of sources around the web. Since I had just finished next year’s calendar I am happy to share, but I also added some other tips (in the additional documents in the post) that might make posting and figuring out when to post for specials and other events (like Holidays) a bit clearer and hopefully easier.
It’s much easier to take about an hour at the beginning of the year, if not before, and develop at least a rough outline for your content calendar for the year and add to it (or subtract) as needed. Here are some content calendar ideas that I hope will help you start to develop a content calendar. The National Days is just a starter and I know every marketer under the sun pushes it, but it is admittedly a great “starting” point. I spent about 4 hours collating National, International Days and other Days of interest including as many food ones as I could find. This might be useful for restaurants as well looking for a few ideas to post. If you know of any I missed please let me know and I’ll add them in.
National and More Days for B&Bs (with some specific days as prompts)
National and More Days for B&Bs (no selections/prompts)
Calendar Example for a B&B. This is an example of a property going through the list and leaving the ones they might be interested in using for potential posts or blog or video posts. It doesn’t mean a property will do them, it just means a property found something interesting in the list, something that speaks to them (military family), a love of fun (Soylent Green Day or UFO Day for those with a sense of humor and love of Sci-fi), particular food days that resonate with things the B&B serves for breakfast, etc. Note this list is 11 pages pared down from 17.
Calendar Example for B&Bs with Specials. This is an example of preplanning your yearly calendar for posts and promotions that can be used stand-alone or in conjunction with the spreadsheet mentioned at the beginning of the blog. I only did the first couple of months but hopefully, you can get a good idea of how to go about adding information both for notes for yourself and scheduling posts for any ongoing specials or holidays you want to promote.
This is a PDF fillable calendar. (please download to fill) that you can fill in and print off or just print off and write in ideas (note please save it as a separate document or it may not save any inputted text). I would suggest making a checkmark next to the ones you’ve done, plus making any notes about engagement, likes, shares, and comments, these will help direct you in the following years if you want to do similar posts or promotions.
Content Calendar Sample Format. If you prefer a calendar type format instead of a spreadsheet or word document for figuring out your posting schedule you can use a format like this. There is no wrong way to do this, you find the format that works the best (and easiest) for you and go from there.
Blank Calendar-Sample Tracking. (I like to track likes, comments and shares on a seperate sheet, but you can also handwrite if that works for you (see below example). It helps if you note what you started with for each channel and ended with for each channel. Facebook January 1-352 Likes, January 31-386 Likes, etc. this will help you track progress and you can review quarterly to see whether what you are doing is actually working or not.
Content Calendar with Handwritten Notes *note circles mean a link to the inn’s website main or sub-page or blog post on the website.
Something some B&Bs don’t do is link to their website or a specific page on their website in posts at least once a week. If you are wondering about conversions and clicks from social media (and why you are not getting many or any) it’s something you need to look at.
I was talking to an innkeeper earlier this week and she was complaining that while her posts on Facebook were getting a lot of engagement, she had not gotten a single click through from Facebook in more than 3 months according to her Google Analytics. Not one of her over 100 posts had a link to the website in the post body itself. People tend to forget once someone has liked a page, the only link (unless you remind them in the posts that show up in their Facebook personal feed) to your website is back “on” the business page itself. People will not double click to search for the link.
This is How to make a copy or download a document (for reference if you want to use anything mentioned here offline or copied digitally)
I’d also recommend checking out You Need This 2021 Marketing Calendar [Free Templates] and his spreadsheet of helpful links and dates which does have things like the NHL Winter Classic, PGA Tournament of Champions, and the Grammy’s dates if these are things that you want to tie into your marketing but does not have the majority of the food dates that mine does. My calendar has most of the same information plus food but is missing sports and TV related events.
If you find any of the information above useful, we always appreciate a follow/like on our Facebook page (we don’t post a ton there as I personally prefer being able to chat with people but I am on FB pretty much all day during the week and your welcome to message me anytime) but would appreciate a page like and happy to reciprocate if you let us know your business page link, or you can connect on Linkedin or Twitter or just come say hello .
If you know someone that can use some social media help and would like to be able to learn it and manage it themselves (that’s what we do, we teach it) instead of paying an external company to manage it, please give me a call (860-326-0721) or email me, we are happy to help. Cheers and Happy Holidays. Please stay safe out there!
