What to Name Your Facebook Group or Fan Page

Posted By: dan | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in The Social Media Phenomenon

The name you pick for your Facebook group or Fan Page is critical to its success. If subscribing to groups and becoming fans of pages were a private thing, and no one knew that you did so – titles would probably not be as important. But on Facebook – becoming a fan or joining a group is a way to communicate to others what you like – and who you are.

Look at the Facebook Group called “I Went to Bellevue East High School” – there’s no real content value there. In fact all the posts are “Hey, I went there too and I went to X elementary school”. But,  what if that was the Facebook Group name of the school you went to? Would you click on it?

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...
Image via CrunchBase

Compare that to a Facebook Group named “My Favorite Place to Take Kids on Vacation Is. . .”. This is one of the most content rich, user generated Facebook Pages. There’s no spam, and users give great tips on places to take their kids on vacation. Awesome resource.

But if you think about the Buying Process, as we’ve talked so many times about, people don’t necessarily come to Facebook for content. You’re at Facebook to connect, write on people’s walls and show people pictures and tidbits about you. Having the title “My Favorite Place To Take Kids on Vacation Is. . .” on your Facebook wall doesn’t say anything about you. Maybe it tells people you have kids, but it doesn’t tell people what your favorite place is. The only reason you’d join that group is if you were actually looking for that kind of information.

Let’s look at the numbers. The Facebook group with the title that speaks volumes about who you are by showing people where you came from drew 486 people in a matter of three weeks. The heavily promoted Kids on Vacation site garnered 200 people in 9 months.

Aside from choosing a shocking title like “I Will Quit Facebook If They Start Charging Us”, choose a title that speaks volumes about the person who joins it.

Think about this. . . People talk about going to Legoland on the Taking Kids on Vacation group. It’s a great place to learn about it, but the Legoland California fan page has 2,016 people and the Legoland Billund site has over 5,900.

Would you rather tell your Facebook friends “I have kids” or “I’ve been to Legoland California and it rocks”? Tell me which group you’d join.

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Google Wave, Twitter, Facebook, Latitude and Outlook: The Future

Posted By: dan | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in The Social Media Phenomenon, the technical internet stuff

Have you seen what Google Wave is all about yet? It honestly will change the face of the internet forever. There’s no going back. Even if Google Wave fails, if no one uses it – there’s no way to put back the ideas they’ve presented.

Imagine if AOL had failed? Would the internet had failed? I don’t think so. The idea behind the collaborative sharing that AOL put together could never be forgotten and so it shall be with the Wave.

Will Facebook, Twitter and Outlook still exist now seeing what is possible? Or will they adapt and co-exist with this new technology? Can you imagine integrating Twitter with your Outlook account? What about integrating YouTube and Facebook with that?

And finally what really sets Google Wave apart – the blog. Turn an e-mail into a blog post instantly, and then allow commenters to be seen in your Outlook – and have people that know you on Outlook be able to comment on your blog without ever going there. And if they incorporate Google Latitude – you’ll never wonder where anybody is, where posts were made or where your true fans lie.

The saddest part about Google Wave is the fate of the engineers behind. They’ll be lauded in engineering circles. They’ll be applauded at Google conventions. And they’ll be heralded in internet chat rooms. But they’ll never be made into a poster on a teenagers wall.

There’s nothing sexy about genius, hard work – unbelievable ideas and concepts that will shatter what we know today. Nobody will take down their Lebron James poster. Nike will not feature Lars in a Superbowl commercial. And McDonald’s will not be giving out Google Wave Toys with the happy meal.

The price of genius is silence from our popular culture. So Cheers! Google Wave engineers. Thanks for this one big step for Google, one giant step for the Internet.

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How to Research Your Favorite Hotel, Resort Or Vacation Destination

Posted By: dan | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Turning Travel into Money

The internet is a wonderful place to research your favorite hotel, resort or vacation destination. In fact, because of this easy-to-access information hotels and tourist attractions alike are having to pay extra special attention to their customers. They’re now also forced to make sure their hotel rooms, park trails, and restaurant floors are especially clean. There are just too many ways for the common person to make his opinion known.
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Let’s start with the easiest place to do research…TripAdvisor. TripAdvisor has millions of reviews on everything. In fact, when you search for a hotel on Yahoo, TripAdvisor is who pops up after you’ve selected the hotel you’re interested in. And beyond the reviews, people have profile’s on TripAdvisor that you can access and actually ask questions about the person’s experience or review. It’s probably the most commonly used site to do vacation research.

Now for a bit more obscure but often more helpful…Flickr. Flickr is a photo sharing site where millions of people have posted their vacation and travel photos. If you’re headed to Jamaica and aren’t sure which of their waterfalls you want to visit, search Flickr for the name of that waterfall. You’ll likely find tons of photos from the place and will really be able to tell if the waterfall is just a trickle down the side of a hill, or a beautiful gusher off the side of a mountain.

Finally, Facebook is another great place to look. There are lots of groups on Facebook where people talk about their experiences. The group My Favorite Place To Take Kids On Vacation Is…has great postings about places I’d never heard of before. For instance the Strong Museum in New York is a museum that celebrates “play”. They have toys, games and lots of hands-on exhibits. They even have a Mr. Potato Head exhibit with a life-size Mr. Potato Head. Groups like this are awesome for finding new places you’ve never heard of and to ask others what their experiences have been like.

If you want to check out that Facebook group, go here: OR HERE

Otherwise, read about my favorite place on earth, great ideas for taking kids on vacation and my reviews of some famous destinations at

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Work From Home Doesn’t Mean the Work Will Be Easy

Posted By: dan | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Getting Things Done

Working from home doesn’t mean you’re going to have lots of time to play with the kids, watch movies and do the dishes. To succeed from home, on your own, you’re going to need a better work ethic than you did in your day job. The difference is every minute you spend will result in dollars in your pocket.

I’ve been working from home for a while now. Just like you the work started out as a part time job to make sure I had some income in case something went wrong with my job. I’ll tell ya, it’s a good idea to start before you quit or get fired, there’s a lot of work to do before you’ll really be making money.

Let’s take networking marketing as an example. While the network marketing model of old required home parties, discussions with family and friends and the inevitable loss of friends, the new model requires none of that. To be successful you’ll need to develop some “about me” style websites, sales pages, create Facebook accounts and Twitter followers. You’ll to have a variety of places on the internet where others can find and learn about you. That desire to hear more is where the sales come in.

To make money using Google ads, you’ll need to have a website in place that gets traffic. That traffic generation part is what takes a bit of time to create. Whether its posting your site’s photos on Flickr, commenting on relevant blog and article posts, writing articles like this one, or building pages that rise to the top of the search engine results – all of that takes time.

Affiliate marketing is the same way. In order to sell things through links or e-mails, you have to have built a list of people to receive these links. Whether that’s Twitter, opt-in pages, Facebook groups or purchasing e-mail lists, it all takes time – the kind of time you don’t have once you are unemployed.

If you’re interested in specific ways you can start making money at home, please contact me at tri4time@hotmail.com or follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/danrmorris

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Do You Have a Passion For Travel?

Posted By: dan | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Turning Travel into Money

Do you have a passion for travel? Is it in your blood and you’re always looking for new places to travel and visit? How about helping others travel? Do you love sharing your trips with people in hopes they go there as well? Have you ever helped someone plan a trip? If you answered yes to any of those questions, then this article is for you.

Travel is my passion; I’ve lived in 12 states, visited 25 countries and am looking for new experiences every day. I one day decided that I really ought to turn this passion for travel into an income stream. If I’m going to be looking at travel websites, suggesting places and clipping cool places to visit from magazines, what’s stopping me from turning this great hobby into a business.

So I checked out different companies that help you become a travel agent and found a great one that fits all my needs. You have to pay a nominal fee to get started, but with that fee you get a website like Travelocity, customer support, travel agency insurance, access to travel agent rate trips, good research, back-end booking tools, internet links to include in my blog postings and Facebook page and lots of training. (Fortunately training is more like fun to me, so bring on the training).

If you desire to take your passion for travel to the next level, check out the many internet companies that enable people to become travel agents. Be wary of any hype you see and be wary of any warnings you see. There are many internet travel agencies out there and they all like to ‘bash’ each other on the internet, so don’t believe what you read from third parties. Go directly to the different companies websites and learn what you can learn.

The method by which I’ve taken to turn my passion into profits has been very rewarding; the one thing I truly love is having turned my passion for travel into profits. I now enjoy teaching people how to do it on their own and enjoy writing about it in articles and on my blog.

Contact me if you’d like to do the same. tri4time@hotmail.com

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Who Wants To Go To Costa Rica?

Posted By: dan | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Ever Been There Before?, Turning Travel into Money

So I’m planning to take the kids to Costa Rica next March for a short adventure. I decided I’d better become a Costa Rica Specialist if I’m going to go there, so yesterday I finished all the classes and got my certificate. I must say there is a lot going on in Costa Rica.

For the kids, I think Costa Rica will be a fantastic vacation place. They’ve got volancoes that spit lava into the air, Macaw’s that fly from the jungle to the mangroves at night in a big swath of red flying across the sky, zip lines tours, aerial trams, monekys, sloths, butterflys, crocodiles, beaches, snorkeling. . .the list goes on and on.
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If you’re up for going to Costa Rica March of 2010, let me know. I’m going to plan a pretty fun trip for kids. In the meantime, if you’re just looking for fun places to take kids, check out My Facebook Group for that very purpose.

Otherwise, I’m also an Austria, Romania and Croatia Specialist if you’re looking to travel to any of those places! Now I can add Costa Rica Specialist to that list. Ciao!

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The Hub and Spoke Internet Marketing Strategy: A Twitter Clinic

Posted By: dan | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Internet Marketing: My Newest Ph.D.

I haven’t done one in a while, but spent some time at a biz strategy meeting tonite and feel like tonite is a good nite for a twitter clinic

Tonite’s twitter clinic is about your basic internet marketing strategy and how to create the structure. I’ll post this later on my blog.

So let’s get started. First of all I don’t think you’re going to get very far without a website. That means a blog, a sales page or a site.

There must be a place people can go to buy what you’re selling. That’s not a negative thing. If you’re selling shovels, you’ll need a place

for the guy buying shovels to go. So let’s call that page your money site. Let’s define money site again. You need a page, a Facebook group,

a blog site, a full blown website, a squidoo page – something! where the transaction can be made. If you’re doing affiliate marketing where

you only need people to click on a link – then maybe Twitter is all you need. But you won’t get far with that. A Facebook Group can be more

lucrative than Twitter (sometimes). I prefer a full blown website, but sometimes that’s very easy to put together. Now that you have a site

(or a page) the goal is to get people there. The more relevant traffic you get, the more buyers you’ll find.That’s where the structure comes

into play. Like FedEx, your structure needs to be hub and spoke, where your money page is the middle hub and everything else you do is the

spokes. Maybe you’ll write an article for ezinearticles.com pointing people to your site – that’s a spoke. Maybe you’ll start a Facebook grp

and you’ll send messages to the group with the link to your site (another spoke). The key is to build spokes where relevant traffic can be

directed to your money site. Sometimes you need to have two steps before your money site. Maybe you’re selling antioxidant drinks. . Build a

few articles that send people to a review site. One spoke to another spoke and then have links to your money site on the review site. You’d

do this when you’d expect the buyer to do research before actually buying. Attract the lead, give them research and a place to buy.

Other spokes are forum and blog posts, twitter links, facebook links, digg/delicious/stumbleupon links, blog articles, press releases

and spokes can be off-line as well. Infomercials drive folks to websites. That’s a spoke driving traffic to the money site. So basically the

ideal internet marketing strategy is to have a site where people buy and then a bunch of ways people can find you. This system works great

for network marketers. MLM folks can’t change their company site, but they can use the internet to drive traffic there. My favorite way to

do that is with a SiteBuildit Site. This is a site that’s designed to exploit a niche and get to the top of Google for that niche. If you’re

in a Candle MLM, maybe the niche is ‘bedroom candles’ from which you create a site all about different kinds of bedroom candles with links

to your network marketing site to sell them candles. Check it out for yourself http://www.ilovesbi.com/limitedtime.html It’s the best way I

know to drive tons of traffic to your site, while you’re working on another niche or spoke or business. So tonite’s Twitter Clinic has been

about creating an internet marketing strategy.

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The Live Birth of our Daughter: Millie Virginia

Posted By: dan | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Raising 5 Kids (if you count me, too)

This was the series of tweets I made “live” during the birth our fourth child, and first baby girl. I’m quite excited for having done this. Without it, memories of the birth seem to fade over time. Here we go, starting the day before.

FROM TWITTER

I’m 48 hrs away from being a baby girl’s dad. My first girl. – 10:08 AM Jun 30th

Inducement Scheduling has changed, now I’m 18 hrs away from being a baby girl’s dad. My first girl. – 7:35 PM Jun 30th

So my wife, who is giving birth in the a.m., is here at Kroger’s shopping for the “people who’ve come to help”. Can’t the relatives get their own cinnamon rolls? – 7:41 PM Jun 30th

Headed to the hospital for the induction of our first baby girl – 5:15 AM July 1st

They’ve started the oxytocin. We should be holding baby Millie in about 3 hours. Yay! – 7:21 AM Jul 1st

@donitabrown I’ll post my “having a baby” video at lettersfromdan.com probably. – 7:43 AM Jul 1st

My wife just told me babies are typically born with blue eyes, then they change later. Is that true? She thinks dogs are that way, too. – 7:44 AM Jul 1st

Contractions are 3 minutes apart now. We’re getting down to the Nitty Gritty. Soon all will be pink. – 8:15 AM Jul 1st

I had to leave the room while the epidural lady is in there. Needles give me the willies. After 3 natural births, my wife is trying painfree – 8:25 AM Jul 1st

@chriscobb thanks. She’s doing fine so far. The epidural is making her feel “warm and fuzzy” right now. And the grandmas are on the way. – 8:37 AM Jul 1st

Our doctor says her cervix is “wildly favorable” for giving birth soon. That “wildly favorable” made me laugh. – 8:44 AM Jul 1st

@OMGchronicles “that wildly favorable is how she got pregnant”, that’s funnier than the doctor’s comment. – 8:51 AM Jul 1st

My wife had her first contraction since the epidural kicked in and said ‘oooh that’s nice. I just had a contraction’ (with a wry smile) – 8:54 AM Jul 1st

@TraciKnoppe you’re right, our doc is not old, she’s a 30 something female with a “wildly favorable” personality. – 8:57 AM Jul 1st

The grandmas have arrived with snacks, sweaters, blankets and smiles. We’re 5 cm, Marcia is comfortable, and 4 minutes apart. – 9:04 AM Jul 1st

@twokidsandamap Grandma just said “oh you’re Tweeting. This will be your first Twitter baby”.9:11 AM Jul 1st

Had a brief “scare”. Marcia’s blood pressure dropped because of the epidural. Now they’re administering ephedrine. – 9:32 AM Jul 1st

Marcia’s blood pressure has normalized and we’re just hanging out. – 9:40 AM Jul 1st

We’re now taking bets on the birth time. Grandma #1 says 2:30 cst, grandma #2 says 12:15, Marcia and I say before noon. Stats next -0 10:13 AM Jul 1st

We’re 5 cm, 80% effaced, 3 – 4 minutes apart, water is broke, epidural in place, Marcia still smiling. – 10:14 AM Jul 1st

July 1st just sounds like a good birthday, doesn’t it? – 10:53 AM Jul 1st

Marcia is comfortably napping at the moment. I can hear the heart beating of the baby via the monitor. Just a pleasant moment. – 11:03 AM Jul 1st

@twokidsandamap at some point, my wife is going to tell me to stop tweeting and to tend to the birth, though the epidural experience is dif. – 11:10 AM Jul 1st

My dad and cousin Nicole are standing by taking care of the baby’s brothers-all 3 of them! – 11:23 AM Jul 1st

We’ve now been in the hospital for 6 hours, on potocin for 4 and now we’re at 6 cm! Yay! – 11:29 AM Jul 1st

My wife is so not in pain she just hummed the Empire Carpet Co. Jingle. – 11:38 AM Jul 1st

@formerfatguy yep, we’re hopefully having the baby in the next hour. – 11:45 AM Jul 1st

@vivavelo I’d certainly be up for letting Twitter name her IF she didn’t already have a name: Millie Virginia Morris – 11:47 AM Jul 1st

Contractions are now 2 minutes apart. (We’re 6 cm, 85% effaced) and she’s still smiling and as beautiful as ever. – 11:50 AM Jul 1st

@jrmoore13 Thanks for the kudos. My wife is still doing fine. Shouldn’t be long now. – 12:17 PM Jul 1st

Marcia went with the epidural (after 3 natural births) in hopes of avoiding the pain of the stitches afterward. Crazy, eh? – 12:18 PM Jul 1st

Contractions are still 2 minutes apart, but she called in the nurse because the . . . Oooh! We’re 10 cm! – 12:51 PM Jul 1st

The doctor is coming, the baby is coming out! – 12:59 PM Jul 1st

Millie Virginia popped out 1 minute ago. Very pretty. No stats yet! – 1:05 PM Jul 1st

Little Millie has the cutest cry. She’s got the pasty cheesy stuff on her skin and real long fingernails. Tiny little cute nose, too. – 1:23 PM Jul 1st

Little Millie weighs 7 lbs 12 ounces, 20.5 inches. I’ll have pics and video up momentarily. – 2:12 PM Jul 1st

So, she weighs 7 lbs, 12.5 ounces is 20″ and was born at 1:04 today. Here’s my video of her immediately after birth – 2:31 PM Jul 1st

It’s so strange to think I have a daughter now. I’m pretty excited and incredulous at the same time. – 4:30 PM Jul 1st

@SusanPreston I posted a link to a video of our baby on Facebook: www.facebook.com/danrmorris – 4:42 PM Jul 1st

Thanks for all the twitter love for our new baby today. Friend me on Facebook, I have posted a video of her. www.facebook.com/danrmorris – 5:52 PM Jul 1st

Headed back to the hospital, I went out to get my wife a smoothie, after having given birth a few hours ago. – 6:49 PM Jul 1st

So, she weighs 7 lbs, 12.5 ounces is 20″ and was born at 1:04 today. Here’s my video of her immediately after birth – 9:20 PM Jul 1st

@virtualcfo Thanks for saving the paper. I got the local Hermitage Daily today, but that’s all I had time to get.Can anyone save me USAToday? – 9:32 PM Jul 1st

@goatflavor I will do my best to be the guy I want her to marry. :) – 9:33 PM Jul 1st

Baby Millie is doing well, just a few hours away from being one day old. – 9:18 AM Jul 2nd from web

Baby Millie slept through the night other than her 3 feedings. She grasped breast feeding almost immediately, within 20 minutes of birth. – 4:28 PM Jul 2nd

Marcia came out of the epidural quite well. Within 2 hours she had complete feeling back in her legs. Only her back is sore now. – 4:29 PM Jul 2nd

Marcia was up and walking around the hospital wing today. She’s eating fine and loved the 2nd cherry smoothie we brought her. – 4:30 PM Jul 2nd

A lovely patron at the Custard Place on Lebanon Road bought the smoothie for us. Very nice of her. 4:32 PM July 2nd

For some reason, she’s not allowed to leave the hospital till tomorrow at 1:00 – so she’s resting comfortably at the hospital. – 4:30 PM Jul 2nd

We had a lot of help from relatives during the whole thing. My dad and niece helped watch our three boys during delivery. – 4:31 PM Jul 2nd

My mom and Marcia’s mom were in the delivery room with us. They got to be part of the experience and are a tremendous help now. – 4:32 PM Jul 2nd

Alex, our 18 month old, could care less about Millie. He said “hi” and “baby”; otherwise, he’d rather play. – 4:32 PM Jul 2nd

Cameron, our 7 year old, can’t hold Millie enough. He didn’t even want to go out to lunch and to the park. He just wanted to hold her. – 4:34 PM Jul 2nd

Cole, our 5 year old, got to hold Millie today for about 15 minutes. I think he’s hit his “holding the baby ” threshold for a while. – 4:34 PM Jul 2nd

I’m trying hard to divide my time between my 3 boys and my wife. But with help here, I’m also trying to finish some projects before tomorrow – 4:35 PM Jul 2nd

I think the hardest part about having multiple kids is managing to spend time with them all together, and separately. All while working. – 4:35 PM Jul 2nd

Those few moments I get between 5:30 and 7:30 are hard to parse. Between dinner and getting ready for bed, that’s not a lot of quality time. – 4:36 PM Jul 2nd

Anyway, I want to thank all of you for the well wishes you sent. Yesterday I got over 200 messages from you all. It was awesome. – 4:37 PM Jul 2nd

As I said earlier, Baby Millie is doing well, and is now 27 hours old. Thanks again! – 4:38 PM Jul 2nd

I just learned that some of my non-twitter friends joined twitter yesterday to watch our “live birth” tweets. – 5:39 PM Jul 2nd

@cynthiawebster That was her first epidural birth and she absolutely loved it. But, yes, she was a trooper. – 9:00 PM Jul 2nd

@chriscobb Marcia and Millie are doing just fine. Millie is such a mellow baby (fingers crossed) – she just enjoys looking around. – 9:03 PM Jul 2nd

So my new baby girl is much prettier now that she’s been cleaned up. Go to Lettersfromdan.com – 10:03 PM July 2nd

We get to bring baby Millie home today. Yay! (I think I’m more excited that my wife is coming home though). :) 9:15 AM July 3rd

Headed to the hospital to pick up my wife and new baby girl. 11:08 AM July 3rd

@marylmorris YEP! We all got back around 1:30. Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. 8:30 PM Jul 3rd

By the way, Millie’s head is the softest thing in the world. Not a chinchilla or our other 3 boys could beat that softness – 9:15 PM Jul 3rd

And now she’s sleeping in her mother’s arms. Thanks everyone for your love and support during the birth. All the messages we got were fantastic!

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Cool Places To Take Kids – A Twitter Clinic

Posted By: dan | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Ever Been There Before?, Raising 5 Kids (if you count me, too)

This Twitter Clinic was posted June 4 at 10:30 pm

Tonite’s Twitter Clinic is about cool places to take kids this summer for vacation without spending a lot of money. I’ll start with my most

favorite place: The City Museum in St. Louis. Let me tell you that a museum it is not. There is nothing in it that you’d even want to just

look at. The City Museum is like a huge, HUGE, indoor (and outdoor) McDonald’s playland. But none of it is plastic. There are conveyor belt

slides. There’s even one that’s 3 stories high. There’s a 10 story spiral slide in the middle. Outside there’s a plane suspended 100 feet in

the air, and lots of cool rebar ladders, wire mesh and steel steps to climb up to it. A big ball pit, a bus on the roof, tunnels as dark as

night, as furry as kittens, and tunnels made of hollowed out trees. Pizza that’s out of this world. It’s just cool. You should check it out.

My next favorite place to take kids on vacation would have to be Cedar Point, in northern Ohio on Lake Erie. If you’re kids are older and

love roller coasters, there is no better place on the planet to take them. Cedar Point is the roller coaster capital of the world.

In California, I think Legoland has a lot to offer, but I wouldn’t want you to skip the beach. It’s free, fun and relaxing for everyone.

Illinois has Chicago, but it also has Metropolis – the home of Superman – at the southern tip. Great highway stop and 1/2 day stop.
In Orlando, don’t just go to Disney while you’re there – drive 40 minutes, save money and take them to Coco Beach – they’ll love it, too.

Also in Orlando, just outside Disney on the way is a huge Walmart that has all the Disney souvenirs for 1/5 the price.

Anyway, come to our Facebook Group My Favorite Place To Take Kids on Vacation Is. . . to share your ideas as well:

Did I tell you about the Hocking Railroad in Southern Ohio?How about Sesame Street Land outside Philadephia?The Strong Museum of Play in NY?

There are so many great places to take kids. Just outside Springfield, VA is a farm with mazes, tractor rides, giant pillows,life-size chess

- that makes a great “less stressful” stop if you’re taking young kids to Washington D.C. for the week. Anyway come join our Facebook Group

and continue this conversation about cool places to take kids on vacation.


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Making Your Facebook (or MySpace) Group Go Viral – A Twitter Clinic

Posted By: dan | Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in The Social Media Phenomenon

This clinic was posted on May 4th at 8:00 p.m.  Follow me on Twitter; to see these clinics and converse live.

So today’s twitter clinic is on “making your Facebook group” go viral. The first step is the name. It’s got to be exciting. A name like.

People who like cheese” is not going to make it. “Cheese-heads Unite! and Take up Arms” might – the idea is exciting.

The second step is to pick a picture/graphic/avatar that exudes your group. A picture of cheese isn’t like going to do it. But a mouse. .

dressed like Rambo with two swiss cheese guns just might. The goal here is thousands, not 125 members. The third part to make your FB group

is taking advantage of your friends. You really need 500 people minimum to get it going. That might mean you have to partner up with your

friends who have different friends than you. The launch has got to be massive and quick so it shows up in a lot of feeds at once.

The fourth part is a bit like the third. Target high profile Facebook folks to join. Bribe them with Officer status – whatever you can do to

enlist their help. The key is big friends with big influence. You might even let them name the group.

The fifth part is to pre-sell the group. Talk about it in blogs, mention to friends in their feed. Get the buzz going before you decide to

launch it. An undercurrent of fervor will really help. This is an art, folks, not just something you can slap together and hope.

The next part is to make the launch an event. Use a teleseminar or Facebook Event, use Twitter to talk about. Do a live video feed as you

start. Give away a flip phone or two – but do enough that people tweet about whether her or on Facebook.

The 7th part of making your Facebook Group go viral is to have an irresistble offer. Maybe a free e-book about the topic, another flip video

or .mp3 player. Maybe everyone gets a free .mp3 copy of the launch or free tweets about them. Come up with a reason to join.

The final part is advertising – whether that be on Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Stumbleupon, YouTube – get the buzz going. That first 500 are

really going to stir the pot, but the pot in social media is QUICKLY forgotten. You’ve got to follow that up until you have atleast 500

solid members. After 500, well after 750, the momentum will likely keep itself going – but you have to work on it. The work shouldn’t stop

until you get to that 750 number and then focus the rest of the time on providing value so people don’t quit. So that’s a good 8 or 9 steps

to making your Facebook group go viral. Any questions? Bueller. . . Bueller?

I’m thinking that tomorrow’s Twitter Clinic will be about using Twitter. You should really have a grasp on the settings inTwollo, . .

Twitter, Tweetlater, Postlater.net, and a couple others. If you create custom backgrounds let me know and I’ll plug you in tomorrow’s clinic

At no point will we do a 16,000 followers in 90 days clinic.I think it’s dumb, and feels like your breaking the spirit of the Twitter rules.

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