Today, while I was reading Amy's latest post on 'Social Media Examiner', I was very surprised to glance upon this at the sidebar:

9 Ways to Enhance Your Facebook Fan Page

10 Ways to Grow Your Facebook Page Following

Although maybe by minutes or seconds later, other posts might take their places but to me, at this very moment, it's one of the biggest encouragements I could ever ask for. I was just over at Christie's blog about 'How do you know when it's time to give up on your blog?', I can't help but remembering the time when I almost gave up of blogging due to life circumstances. There were a lot of struggling moments in these 2 years of blogging, but also lessons to be learned along the process. Prayers and encouragements from close ones got me through the down points of my life, also, the opportunities given by all of you wonderful friends, blogger friends outthere who made me who I am today - Thank You all SO MUCH.

If you're a blogger too, give yourself a clap, a pat at the back for working hard to make your dreams happen. I'm now a full-time blogger, freelancer for facebook page setup, none of these are in my plans but here I am! Life is a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get. Why not embrace life, make full use of your talents. Learn to be better as you go along. Life is an adventure, have you discover yours yet?  :)

Make this a day to remember - appreciation & gratitude for your courage to make life a trip to remember!

Having to deal with a technical issue with my blog's hosting server from 2-4a.m. yesterday morning, later, a missing Twitter lists counter:

And now ZERO followers/following!

And how can we forget what happened few days ago with the Facebook Page?

It may be just a glitch here and there. But it does ring the alarm to never get too comfortable and dependant on any social media sites. Good to have precautions and daily back-up is needed. We may not be in control of the platform management, at least we should think about 'back-up' plans BEFORE disaster strikes.

And this applicable in real life too.

Courtesy of Jeremiah Owyang. Build trust among the community, be interactive before call to actions.

This video sums up social plugins brilliantly:

I am intrigued with Clobby ever since I heard about it. Not that it's the first time Facebook had a chat application but to involve a public chatroom apart from your friends? It's something worth checking out.

Clobby Startup & Installation

To install Clobby is the same as adding any Facebook Applications to your personal or fan pages. Here's how you can create your very own chat tab: 

1. Go to Application Settings > Profile > Tab (click add).
2. Notice  the ‘Chat’ tab is now visible, click it.
3.  Click ‘Start Chatting Now'.
4.  You’re now in the chatroom created by you (as admin).

A little loney inside the chatroom? Invite your friends over or post the announcement on your Facebook Fan Page.

(download)

Click here to download:

clobby-facebook-group-chat-for-fan-page-and-personal-account-xhzbejrtjydlcdGncnjg.zip (176 KB)

Do I have to ‘Like’ the page to join the chat?

No, the chatroom is public. You can jump in straight away after authorizing the application to access your account.

Will Clobby keep our chat history?

Not exactly. However, it does keep a list of users who entered the chatroom you created. As for the chat history, it can still be retrieved if you just logged out and re-entered after a few minutes. After a day (probably less), it’s gone completely.

Do we really need a public chatroom?

No definitely answer on this but it sure gives a good alternative to bond with people who liked your fan page, without having to add them as friends. A networking opportunity but do beware as this can be another time-sucker too.

The good thing about Clobby is you can select people to enter your chatroom. Set up moderators and since you’re the admin, it's all about taking control and monitor the subject discussed. I doubt Clobby would be as widespread comparing to Facebook social plugins – LiveStream, for example. 

What do you think?

P/S: Speaking of Facebook fan page, do you know there are methods to indirectly promote your fan page from personal account?

Obviously the hot topic for Facebook today is the 'Like' button. Just wrote an article about it : 3 Important Things About Facebook ‘Like’ Button

But that's not the only new feature introduced, isn't it? Did you notice these two new updates in your personal account?

1. 'Manage Page' added so we can navigate to our fan pages easily.

2. News Feed: Newly added friends are now showed in thumbnails. (hover card coming soon?)

Did I miss anything else? Enlighten me.

Social media works. It's how the people network with one another, not just the tools alone. Don't blame social media for being a time-sucker, review our mistakes and focus. Here's a fantastic slide I came across from Bloggertone: It's about People not Tools, brilliant post by the way:

Chris Garrett strenghtened this point further during the interview - it's the engagement between people in social media:

Chris Garrett interview from Michael A. Stelzner on Vimeo.

Simple methods but never fully utilized; simple reasons but overlooked. A lesson to be remembered. I'm inspired, you?

You can't be ignoring such a sweet name, can you? :-) So I was told not to judge a book by its cover, but after reading this informative article by Cindy King, my instinct tells me this could be something worth trying out for. Especially if you are a business blogger, nothing should be in your way to earn online visibility & branding. And I haven't got to the prizes just yet.

Bizsugar & Bloggertone Go Hand-In-Hand

For those who are not familiar with them:

BizSugar - the social bookmarking site for business articles.

Bloggertone - the business bloggers community.

Perfect match. Don't you think? I'm just excited to hear both are partnering to put on Sugartone, the Sweet Business Blogging Contest ! 

Is It True What They Say - $6921 In Sugartone Prizes?

Yes, that's right. I'm going to quote what Cindy said onwards, including the prizes so buckle up:

... there are lots of prizes specifically for professionals blogging to promote their businesses online. Professionals are busy people, so there are 2 ways to participate & win the prizes:

• Write an original business article writer with a great title
• Vote and comment on the business articles submitted for the contest

$6921 In Sugartone Prizes, including:

• Lead Page Machine – a software to automatically generate squeeze pages so that you can use this to tailor your squeeze pages to specific audiences, to build your email subscribers and increase your sales conversions. Valued at: $5200
• Animoto – a year’s membership to this easy tool which creates videos from photos. Valued at: $249
• Traction Call – a 45 minute call with the Traction Coach Gary Barnes to help you to quickly get some “sand under your wheels” so you can move forward toward the life you want to live. Valued at $175
• ClickMillionaires – 2 x 6-month membership to Scott Fox’s social network helping business owners upgrade their marketing to make more money online. Valued at $174
• • 5 Critical Tactics for Business Blog Success – this CD and report by Denise Wakeman reveals how you can easily make your blog a winner. Valued at $97 
• Start.Grow.Run – 8 x a software package with 45 essential tools and services for the 3 different phases of your business. Valued at $49.95 each

Plus there are 2 books for both the winners of the Top 10 Titles and the Top 10 Commenters. And the books include:

• Wordtracker Masterclass: Blogging For Business – 50 Steps to Building Traffic and Sales by Chris Garrett. 5 books valued at $39 each
• Sociable by Shane Gibson & Stephan Jagger. 5 books valued at $25 each
• New Community Rules by Tamar Weinberg. 5 books valued at $16.49 each
• Guest Posting by Chris Garrett. 5 ebooks valued at $10 each.

Are you convinced yet? You don't get to see me write this much in Posterous, obviously I'm all hyped about it. :) Now it could be a good time for you to find out more about the sweet Sugartone and how you can win the prizes.

Obviously Google Buzz made big G proud today. The term is all over Twitter. Still, I'm glad that people never stop concerning about Haiti... ...

Huh??? V-day is coming??? Why hasn't anyone told me???

After publishing  6 Points To Ponder Before Using Automatic Status Updates, it's exciting to see all the feedbacks, comments.. most are opposing to the idea of auto-DMs yet few are quite 'ok' about proper intentioned scheduled status updates. Status updates and auto-DMs are very different in nature. Bottom line, not many people are excited to receive lifeless-DMs so if you're practicing that, may need to reconsider your options. (Someone just sent me an auto-DM just as we speak.. hmm.. coincidence?)

I like to practice scheduling to acknowledge quality posts and friends from time to time, that will be a good thing to do right? So I did. I fixed 2 scheduled tweets before I went to bed yesterday and to my excitement, both tweets were found & got RT-ed. Yay! I think @remarkablogger & @AussieSire will be pleased.

Yup, it's all about ethics.