Critical steps BEFORE choosing a blog or website name

This past weekend I participated in a panel about blogging for a genealogical society. I also had a friend visiting who wanted to reserve a domain name for a blog/website.  This really got me thinking about how to choose a name for a blog, a topic I have written about previously.

The more I started thinking about it, the more I realized that a lot or work has to be done before you can reserve your blog or domain name.  This follows whether you are setting up a Blogger or WordPress.com blog or whether you are setting up your own domain.

Here are some things you should consider:

1. How unique is the name you've selected?

You can answer this question easily by Googling your chosen blog name and seeing how many hits come up.  Are there other genealogists already using that name?  Are the words too common and appear in thousands of search results?  Are there one or more businesses in other industries already using the same name?  You want your blog name to be as unique as possible so that when your audience searches for you, your site will appear at the top of search engine results. If there are too many occurrences or variations of your blog name then you might want to consider picking a different one.

2. Is the Facebook page already taken?

People get all excited when they choose a blog name and find that the name is available either in Blogger or as a .com domain.  Unfortunately, they are disheartened after they reserve the name of their choice only to learn that the Facebook page vanity url has been taken by somebody else.  Check Facebook before you finalize your name in Blogger or purchase a domain! You can do this easily by typing the url directly - www.Facebook.com/yourchosenname.  Obviously, replace your chose name with the name you have picked out.  All is not lost if the name is taken. You can do variations with hyphens or abbreviations but you will always have to deal with the issue that your audience might go to the other page instead of yours.

3. Is your name too long for Twitter?

If your chosen blog name is lengthy or has multiple words then it may be too long to use the entire name for Twitter. The Twitter username or handle, the word following the @ symbol, is limited to 15 characters. You have two options on Twitter - your username and your real name.  My username is @marianpl and my real name is Marian Pierre-Louis. Real names can be up to 20 characters.  When I set up a Twitter account for my Fieldstone Common show I had to make a decision because it exceeded the 15 character username limit.  I chose to use @FieldstoneComm for the username and Fieldstone Common for the real name. In my profile I link back to my @marianpl profile. It is not as essential that you use your full blog name as your username on Twitter but you will still want to give some thought to make sure you select the best option possible.

4. Test across all social media

Are you using other social media sites such as Tumblr, Instagram or other sites?  You will want to check those sites as well to see if your blog name is free.  Checking across all possible social media sites before reserving your domain name will help you ensure you have the most unique and easy to find name.

Good luck selecting your blog name! Do the up front work but also have fun. And let me know if you have come across any other considerations that should be checked before reserving your blog name.

New Help for Genealogists on Twitter

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THREE PROFESSIONALS UNITE TO PRESENT #GENCHAT; 

GENEALOGY TWITTER CHATS

Corn & Cotton Genealogy, Finding Our Ancestors and 

Ancestral Journeys Will Start Regular Twitter Chats in January, 2013

If you are interested in learning about resources, skills, methodology and techniques to further your family history research, the help you need may have just arrived. Three genealogy professionals: Stephanie Pitcher Fishman, owner of Corn & Cotton Genealogy; Terri O’Connell, owner of Finding Our Ancestors; and Jen Baldwin, owner of Ancestral Journeys; are reaching across state lines using the power of Twitter to answer your questions and create an environment of collaboration.  Beginning January 25, 2013, they will combine their efforts to bring you #genchat, a Twitter Chat focusing on genealogy related topics, skills and questions. The chat will be hosted every two weeks, beginning at 9:00pm CST, and lasting for one hour. The chats will be oriented towards hobbyist genealogists and family historians; all interested are welcome to participate. 

Between them, they bring 43 years of genealogy research experience to the Twitter platform. Individually, they each run a professional genealogy business and their areas of expertise range from the Midwestern United States, to integrating family history into home education, and the Rocky Mountain corridor. Each are also involved in various genealogy related projects, such as the digi-mag, The In-Depth Genealogist, and the upkeep of Conference Keeper, a site dedicated to compiling world-wide resources on educational opportunities for family historian’s.

A detailed schedule of the planned chats for 2013 can be found on the Conference Keeper website.

It's About Time, Facebook!

For the longest time when you hit "like" on Facebook, your connection with the page you want to follow disappears just as quickly into a black hole. If you are lucky you might see random updates in your News Feed. If it's a page that doesn't update very often you'll likely miss everything.

And what about trying to find those pages that you've liked? It's one of the most confounding experiences on Facebook even today. You knew you liked a page once upon a time but darned if you can find the list of all the pages you've liked. Unfortunately, I can't even tell you how to do it. Maybe someone will post the instructions in the comments.

For a month or so I've been thinking about writing a post that explains how to use lists in order to filter and view pages that you've liked. Thankfully Facebook has come around and spared me from having to do this (though it's still a good idea, more on that below).  In the interim, Facebook has created a new link on the left side of your Facebook wall called Pages Feed. I learned about this from the amazing, funny and ever helpful George Takei. It looks like this.

When you click on this link you will see updates from all the pages you have ever liked. Granted, you might not actually want to see updates from half the pages you have liked but now at least, in one click, you have the option. It took a long time but thank you Facebook for finally providing this option.

The most effective way of using Facebook and being able to see updates from people/pages you actually want to see is by using lists. Facebook automatically creates some generic lists  but I don't use those. I prefer to create my own.

Lists are found under the Friends header on the left hand side of your wall.

You can see that I've created ones for my Boston friends, some of my family, History Groups and Publishers.  There are more lists but Facebook doesn't show the entire list.

Click on the word Friends. Now you'll be able to see all your lists and be able to create new lists.

The lists featured at the top of the page are the ones automatically created by Facebook for relationships, work, schools and location based on the information you supplied to Facebook. Like I said I don't use these lists. I create my own.

You simply press the Create List button, give your list a name and add friends or pages to it.

Once your lists are set up you can view status updates from those specific people just by clicking the list name. No longer will you miss updates from your family or close friends.

However, I also use lists in regards to Facebook pages. Yes, I am happy that they have given us the Pages Feed button described above. Unfortunately, as of this date, I have managed to "like" 268 pages on Facebook.  That's just too many to be manageable.

So I created two lists to ensure that I won't miss updates for the pages that are important to me. The lists are (you can see them in the image above) HistoryGroups and Publishers.

HistoryGroups is full of museums and historical societies that I follow and want to keep track of. Sometimes I just want to know about their activities and sometimes I want to see how well they are doing using social media. With one click I can check all the status updates to be sure that I don't miss any. I check this several times a day.

Publishers is a list of publishers that I follow to track the new books they are publishing. I am in constant need of guests for my weekly Fieldstone Common radio show and this list helps me stay up to date with publishers who produce books that are likely candidates for my show. I check this list about once a day.

Well, there you have it. I hope you will save time and enjoy using the new Pages Feed on Facebook. And I hope, if you're brave, that you'll consider fine tuning your News Feeds even further by creating useful lists. Let me know if you found this helpful.

Oh, Yeah, Everyone Has an Opinion

Are you a professional genealogist or an officer in a genealogical society or perhaps a family historian who is trying to find distant cousins? All of these people are using social media to connect with other people.

In order to connect with people, you need to engage your audience or your potential audience. There are lots of ways to do this.

Have you ever noticed that everyone has an opinion? One of the simplest ways to engage your audience is to ask them their opinion.

Yankee Magazine, a publication that celebrates New England life, has the most brilliant social media campaign going on right now that demonstrates this point perfectly. On their Facebook page they are asking their followers to decide which Classic Yankee Magazine Thanksgiving covers were the best. Each week they pit two historical covers against each other and ask their audience to choose their favorite one.

Everyone has an opinion! And everyone wants to share their opinion. I couldn't help myself from stopping to write a comment and tell them what I think. Neither could the other 200+ people who have left comments.  Now that's engaging your audience.

Their approach was so simple. They created no new content. They simply dove into their personal historical archives and asked their followers to share their opinions, turning it into a contest.

Now think about your audience - potential clients, society members, distant cousins. How can you ask them for their opinions? Here are a few suggestions to get your started.

Potential  Clients - try comparing two documents side by side that relate to your niche. Ask your followers which is a better source and why. If you are changing your logo, involve your audience in helping you choose the best one.

Society Members - Post two books related to your region and ask your members which they found more helpful. Then change the books each week. If you are a society hosting webinars, feature two potential webinar topics and ask your members to choose.

Distant Cousins - photos work great when trying to attract distant cousins. Post two photos of the same person at different stages of their life and ask the cousins to confirm whether it is indeed the same person. Likewise post an identified photo next to an unidentified photo and get your cousins to figure out if it's the same person or even the same family.

The responses from all these people will be opinions and they will feel happy to give them to you. Opinions don't cost a cent but they certainly do bring a priceless reward. Start thinking about how you can engage your audience by simply asking for their opinions.

Why Should I Follow You?

I've been either traveling or dealing with a hectic schedule the last two weeks. I finally had the chance to spend some time this morning catching up with Twitter. I like to check out Twitter first thing in the morning to get the buzz on what's going on in the genealogical community and the rest of the world.

Since I am so far behind I had to take some time to sort through my list of new followers. This is decision time. Do I follow them back or not? Since Twitter can be kind of confusing until you get the hang of it I thought I would describe the process I go through to pick new people to follow.

Making the Cut

First off, let me say that if I don't follow someone back the first day, don't worry about it. I have a busy schedule and I'll get to it when I have free time. Some people live and breathe the "instantaneousness" of Twitter. If you don't follow them back right away, they unfollow you. I don't believe in that method. I don't live and breathe Twitter. It's a tool to serve me and I'm not going to get caught up serving it.

I will say, though, that once I follow someone I am unlikely to stop following them. They would have to Tweet something offensive or be repeatedly annoying for me to go so far as to unfollow. So there you have it, I'm loyal if you can catch my attention.

Locked Accounts

I don't follow private (locked) accounts. I say locked because it shows a little padlock to indicate that it is private. I see that you want to follow me, and that's great. I'm assuming you are new to Twitter and not certain about what is going on and that's why you prefer to keep your tweets private. I'm not going to go to the effort of requesting to follow you because I'm not sure if you would welcome it or not. If anyone has a private account and wants me to follow them back then they need to send me a private direct mail and invite me to follow them back. End of story.

Your Profile is Key

My first tier of decision making is your profile. It's that really brief sentence after your Twitter username and, hopefully, your real name that gives you a little chance to explain what you're about. People who leave that blank typically don't make the cut for me to bother with a second tier of decision making, especially if you haven't customized your profile icon.

I follow most people who say something about genealogy or history. I will follow other people who have an interesting mix of topics listed or maybe even just something witty or intelligent.

The Second Cut

I don't necessarily decide simply based on  the profile information. Next I will click through to see what your last 10 tweets or so have been like.  If you say you like genealogy in your profile but then you have lots of tweets about getting a haircut or going to the grocery store then I will probably not follow you.

I'm not looking for people who post just about genealogy. Your last 10 tweets could be on all different topics but they need to be interesting.  Your day at the hairdresser is not interesting to me unless you happen to be a particularly funny person. Some people can pull that off, most can't.

Twitter is a rapid fire environment and people make a decision to follow based on whether you are bringing added value.

I followed a cartoonist once. He had nothing to do with genealogy or any of my other interests. But I found his profile and his tweets to be fascinating. That's what I want. Someone who will expand my horizons or give me something to think about.

Attracting more Followers

If you want more people to follow you make sure that 1) you have your profile filled out (check out other people's profiles to see what they do) and 2) make sure your tweets reinforce what you have said in your profile. If not, you might confuse people. Lastly, 3) let your personality shine through and tweet items that will be of value and interest to other people not just yourself.

Good luck and happy tweeting!

My Social Media Pet Peeve

I was just reading "Easy & Fast is the name of the Comment Game" over on Caroline Pointer's For Your Family Story blog. Caroline was talking about the challenges of leaving comments and also her unhappiness with companies who shut comments off.

I thought I would take a moment and share one of my social media pet peeves.  Many of my friends are dabbling in social media and don't always "get it."  I understand that social media can be a challenge because it's not intuitive for some people.  Give it time! I promise it will get easier.

The problem I have - yes, my pet peeve - is with the big time folks (I will leave it vague at that) who embrace social media but make it a one-way street.

These people use all forms of social media - or at least the ones that I monitor - Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn.  They post their blogs links, etc to keep their fans up-to-date.

But here's the ironic thing. It's all one-way. If you reply via twitter, Facebook or other means you will not get a response.

I replied to a tweet or facebook post one time that a certain person had posted. A few weeks later I got a reply that said if you want to contact me send me an email at this address.

If you are not going to be monitoring your social media accounts you shouldn't be using them!

In a way, the companies that Caroline was talking about are at least more honest.  They are letting you know that you can't communicate with them.

Social media is a two-way street.  If you are going to use a social media channel you need to expect that people will reply to you using that channel. If you are going to tweet, be prepared to tweet back.  Otherwise you're not really doing social media.


Photo credit: photo by satguru and used under the creative commons license.

New Frustrations with Facebook

When it comes down to it, Facebook is not really that difficult to use.  A few clicks here and there and you are on your way to communicating with friends, family, colleagues and the world at large. Human nature, on the other hand, can be very complicated.  Combine Facebook and human nature and you have a potential recipe for disaster.

Here are my latest conundrums.

1) Lists

Despite the fact that Google+ is touted as allowing you to keep your "circles" separate, I've been doing this on Facebook since the beginning using lists.  The tricky part about Facebook (which you don't encounter so much on Google+) is that everyone uses Facebook differently.  Some people use Facebook to connect with a closely guarded group of family and/or friends.  Others use facebook to connect with a wide group of friends or old acquaintances from high school or college. Others like to connect with their colleagues or people who share similar interests.  Each person uses Facebook in their own way and staunchly sticks to that.  With so many people using Facebook in so many ways the human nature factor gets complicated.  For instance, you want to friend someone who is a colleague but then you get the awkward "I only use Facebook for family" response or something similar.

I use Facebook primarily to connect with colleagues and other people who have a shared interest in genealogy, history or something similar.  The challenge is I also have Facebook friends who are family and plain old regular friends. Up until now I have used lists to keep them separate.  I know for a fact that my friends and family are not going to be interested in seeing my historic gravestone photos.  So I've displayed those just to my genealogy friends.

This system worked pretty well until Facebook took away my genealogy list. In fact, it's worse, Facebook taunts me with it.  On the left hand side of the main page, Facebook lets me see that my list still exists but no longer can I actually select it as a target list when targeting my status updates. 

What should I do?  Display all my posts to everyone and potentially annoy my friends and family. On the other hand I can just post less, leaving out those really specific genre posts.  Needless to say Facebook is messing with my lists and it's affecting my ability to communicate. 


2) Subscriptions

After Google+ started, Facebook reacted by introducing subscriptions.  This means that people can start to follow you without friending you and thus eliminate some of the human nature difficulties mentioned above.

I've been thinking about this a lot and it's not as simple as you think. At least for me.  Over on Google+ nearly all of my posts are public.  I have no problem with that.  Neither do the people who follow me over there because they are used to a more open environment.

On Facebook, however, I'm feeling a bit like a protective mother hen.  Typically people comment  a lot on my status updates.  In the safe, closed environment of my wall people have been free to have discussions without having to worry about it being open to the public. (Maybe I'm wrong to feel so protective?)

I toyed with the idea of using public posts.  I even tried it a few times.  I found that my Facebook community continued on as normal with their discussion.  The disconcerting thing for me was that I was not sure any of them were aware that certain posts were public.  And this is where I get very protective.  I want to maintain that freedom to discuss what's going on within the genealogical community without anyone having to worry whether their friends or family or non-genealogical associates can see their comments.

So I've opted on my own not to do public posts on Facebook.  It really has nothing to do with Facebook and everything to with the trust I've developed with my Facebook friends.

The Conundrum

So here's the conundrum.  Between the lists that are getting messed with and the upcoming change to timeline I'm losing faith in my being able to control and target certain posts to certain people.  It's getting to be too much work.

And with the trust I've developed with my Facebook friends I'm not willing to make my wall public.


The Solution

To make my life easier I did what I never thought I would do - I created a Marian Pierre-Louis Page on Facebook.  That way anyone who wants to subscribe to my posts can find them all there.  And now I have a place where I can dump all of my professional thoughts and writings without having to worry about friends and family.  Anyone who wants to keep up with my blogs, lectures, etc can "like" my new page.

Nothing is going to change as far as what I'm posting on my facebook wall. So I wouldn't necessarily recommend any current Facebook friends to head over there or else you'll see duplicate posts from. It's simply being offered as a way for people to follow me on Facebook without actually friending me.

I'm not sure how this experiment is going to go. Time to wait and see.  If anyone has any better suggestions let me know.

Would You Still Love the Cloud if It Shut You Out?

I received an email from Susan Clark today, the author of the Nolichucky Roots blog.  I've read Susan's genealogy blog for a long while and I'm also her Facebook friend.  She's hardly the sort of person that I would predict would run afoul of Big Brother but that is what has happened.

For reason unknown to her, Google has shut her down.  They have removed her blog, disabled her Google+ account and taken away access to her email account on gmail.

Does the cloud seem like such a safe place now?

This is not the first time Google has disabled an account.  You can read of another instance that was written about on Reuters.

Susan has tried to contact Google to no avail.  She has not been privy to what she did wrong. Nor can she defend herself.

What would you do if you used gmail as your main account and it suddenly got shut down?  How would you feel if your blog were removed and you had never backed it up? (Here are some instructions for backing up your Blogger blog)

The lessons learned from Susan's experience are ones that we should wisely heeded.  How dependent are you on Google and what would happen in they pulled the plug on your accounts?


Photo Credit: Photo by AMagill and used under the creative commons license.

How Do I Send a Private Message in Google+?

There was a lot of excitement and chatter on Google+ on Wednesday after Dan Lynch's Google+ webinar. Dan lifted the veil of mystery about Google+ for family historians and got everyone energized to get more actively involved.

After the webinar, one of my Google+ friends wondered how to contact me privately on Google+.  I'm sure there are a lot of people wondering how to do this.  Google+ is different in this regard from Facebook.  On Facebook there is an internal email system where you can send someone a message.  There's no email on Google+. The Google+ method is simply to send a status update to just one person. [Technically speaking you can do this on Facebook too.]

Sending a Private Message in Google+

In the status box type a + sign and then continue with the name of the person you want to send a private message to.  When you do this you'll notice that Google+ automatically adds that person's name in a blue box in the "Send To" field.

Notice that Public is also listed there. That's  a mistake.  In order to make the message private click the X on Public and get rid of it.

[Click on the photos to enlarge]

Your message should just have one individual's name in the blue box below and in the status box up above.  It's not actually necessary to add the +Name in the text box.  However, if the person has notifications set then they will see the message quicker via email or some other method.

When you receive a private message you can confirm this by clicking on the word 'Limited' to the right of the name of the sender and the time.  Unfortunately, there are no other bells and whistles to indicate you have a received a private message between two people. When you click on this word you can see exactly who can read the message.  In this particular case only Geoff and I can see the message.

The conversation can continue but it's private.  Only the people who are included in the conversation can view the conversation.  It takes some getting used to and it's a big shift from using email.  I suppose the trick is to be diligent about who is included in a 'Limited' conversation and to be sure to limit a message or conversation when you are sending.

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions.

My Google+ / Android Smart Phone Nightmare

Do you have an Android Smart Phone and are actively engaged in social media using Google+?  Then you could have a recipe for disaster.  Allow me to share my own story.

Let's keep in mind that I am not a programmer or otherwise savvy technogeek.  I'm not in dark ages either.  I know how to use most of the tools I need and where to go for help when I need it.  This time around I am at a total loss.

I admit I am a very active person on Google+. I have circled over 2,500 people, mostly genealogists, historians, writers and photographers.  I like to be in the thick of the conversation.

One of the features of the Android Smart Phone is that it syncs automatically with Google.  That means any contacts I put in my Google contacts will sync automatically to my phone. And likewise any contacts I add manually to my phone get synced to my Google contacts in gmail.  I maintain about 200 contacts which consists of family, friends and colleagues that I might need to call. Normally this is a great feature.

Enter Google+ into the picture.  With its promotion of total integration, Google is interconnecting all of its functionality/apps.  That means they are trying to be helpful by syncing all Google+ contacts to my regular Google contacts account.  And in turn that means 2,500+ contacts are being synced to my Android Smart Phone.

Before you start worrying about privacy and your contact info, for some weird reason I can't see the individual Google+ contacts  either in my Google contacts or on my phone.  But they are there taking up my storage space. (Though I have heard of other people who could see their contacts and deleted them.  This caused them to lose all of their contacts from their Google+ circles. So I heard.)

In fact the situation got so crazy on my phone that it actually shut down total functionality on my phone.  I wasn't able to run anything.  So I took the extreme measure of resetting my phone to the factory default settings.  As soon as that was done and my phone reprogrammed I immediately turned off the sync contacts feature.

I have contacted Google+ to see if they can help me resolve this problem.  I have searched the web looking for answers.  I have asked my Google+ contacts for help to see if they had any tips.  In the meantime, I won't be syncing my contacts anymore until I get an answer to resolve the problem.

If you start getting space storage problems on your Android phone and you're a Google+ user then this could be the problem.  As far as I can see, Google doesn't provide options in either Google+ or in Google contacts to shut off the automatic syncing of the Google+ contacts.

If anyone knows how to resolve my problem please let me know!! I would really like to get back to normal operation with my technology.   Thanks for listening to my rant and triple thanks if you can help solve my problem.

ps. My particular brand of phone is the Android Ally.

My Morning Tech Routine

Jill Ball over at Geniaus asked "What's Your Morning Tech Routine?"  I've had such a fun time reading the responses from Randy Seaver, Caroline Pointer, Joan Miller and many others. I even learned a few things too.  While I don't think I have the "techiest" routine I thought I would go ahead and share mine.

I typically get up early, before the sun is up.  I like the chance to get the day started before the rest of my boisterous house wakes up.  I am not one to check social media while still in bed.  I head downstairs and fire up the laptop. With one fell swoop I start Outlook, Facebook (on Chrome), Google+ (on Firefox) and Twitter (on TweetDeck).  My browsers default to Facebook and Google+ as their start page.

While my computer is loading everything I shuffle off to the kitchen to prepare a cup of hot tea.  Before I have my tea in hand and before my computer is ready I sometimes take a peek at the alerts on my Android smart phone.  I feel that this is somewhat cheating because I am going to see everything soon on my laptop anyway. However, this does tend to impact what I look at first on the laptop.

Typically I check my email first.  You never know when a request might come through for a talk or someone has a too-good-to-resist proposal or suggestion.  Then I head over to social media.  I like to see if there have been any responses to my posts and to see what is flying across the genealogical community.

On Facebook I have several lists setup - one for local colleagues and one for family.  I try to be sure to check those so I don't miss the posts of people who are less active on Facebook.  My connections on Google+ are more eclectic and I enjoy switching over there to see the latest from the photographers and hear the suggestions and thoughts of writers and genealogists.

And then there's Twitter.  I am addicted to Twitter so I actually try to steer clear of it as much as possible.  The rapid fire conversations and sharing of information is just my pace.  It's so diverse over there too.  You can connect with many different types of people on many different topics. I try to only get sucked in about one morning a week.  When I am disciplined I review the latest articles being shared in genealogy and preservation and then move on.  My favorite person to follow is Deb Ruth because she tweets some of the best genealogy news stories.  Others I like to catch include Caroline Pointer who is a powerhouse of activity on twitter and Lynn Palermo who always has great original content. Of course, there are loads of great people on twitter and I follow many more than just these folks. Sometimes I also spend the time to check out the latest Boston news.

By this time I am well into enjoying my hot cup of tea.  I might even be moving on to my second cuppa.  After reviewing social media I turn to my blogs.  I check out my blog stats from the previous day paying close attention to the search keywords and phrases that people use to get to my blog.  Sometimes I will see a trend in the phrases and will then write on the topic that is being requested.  In my head I am outlining my next blog posts.  If I am on the ball I start a quick post, jotting down the title and main idea so I don't forget the idea later.  That has been known to happen and it always frustrates me when I forget a good idea.

After that I try, though don't always succeed, at prioritizing my to-do list for the day. Because the activities I do are so varied, such as preparing lectures, doing research, updating my website, networking on social media, publicity for conferences, writing, blogging, etc it really helps to write it down and focus on what I really need to get done.  I am deadline driven and anything with a deadline gets done first.

My morning routine is now complete and I brace myself for the running, yelling, dancing, singing, last-minute-homework scramble and general choas that will take over the next two hours of my day.

What's your morning tech routine like? Does it look anything like mine?  Probably not!

What Am I Doing with Social Media?

This is going to be one of those honest posts.  Don't worry it's not going to be as shockingly honest as that last honest post.

I have a lot of friends on Facebook, followers on Twitter and now Google Plusers (still not sure if I like that term).  Sometimes people will be friended or circled by someone like me with a lot of connections and want to steer clear because they think I am up to some nefarious endeavor. Hence this post.

So what am I really doing with social media? What is my goal?  You'll be surprised and you might not believe me.  Some of you won't trust me and still think I'm up to something mischievous.  The rest of you will know it's just my honest, goofy self.

At heart I am a teacher.  For years now I have been a genealogical instructor and speaker.  I like to help people expand their knowledge so that they can better track down their family history.  Years ago before I was into genealogy, I was a volunteer as an English as a Second Language instructor for adults.  The idea of learning and education has been in my core right from the start.

I am also a connector.  I like to meet people.  I also like to connect people who don't know each other.  When two people who have common interests and would benefit from making a connection, I like to help make that happen. 

I like to grow things and have fun.  When I was in high school I belonged to a club called AFS (American Field Service) which sponsored exchanges with foreign students.  When I joined the club as a freshman it was small and dwindling.  By the time I graduated it was a large thriving club.  What did the club do? We had fun! And we got to know students from other countries which is another thing I really loved.  There was no purpose to it except to build a fun club with people of like interests who we wanted to spend time with.

So back to social media.  Wrap all that stuff up together and add a little internet and social media and there you have me now.  My sinister goal is to find people on the fringe/working solo who are interested in genealogy and bring them into a greater community so that they can learn more, become better genealogists and find companionship with people who have similar interests. 

Am I selling something? No, not yet. Though some day I would like to write some books and hopefully someone will buy those. But don't hold your breath because I've been saying that for a long time.  No wait, I am selling something! You can buy my last webinar on CD from Legacy Family Tree! I forgot about that.  Feel free to buy lots of copies and give them to all your family members! :)

Am I being secretly sponsored or paid to promote content? Yeah, I wish!  Thank you for thinking that I am a big fish in a small pond but corporate sponsors don't agree that I am.  Besides, I've determined that nothing is going to alter my voice or opinion.  I want to write or say whatever comes into my head and having total autonomy over that works best for me.

So there you have it. That's what I'm all about with social media.  So let's connect, learn, have great discussions, have fun and get on with it!

Photo Credit: Photo by isforinsects and used under the creative commons license.

The Complexities of Google+ Circles

I was reading a post on Google+ by Kerry Scott of Clue Wagon fame where she was asking about the pet peeves people have about using Google+.

One person responded by saying that it's challenging when a person adds you to a circle because of a shared common interest and then you get bombarded with other topics that don't interest you.  This complexity in Google+ is one of the things I am still figuring out.

Twitter simplifies this whole issue by having no circles or nuances.  You either follow someone or don't. Either way you get to see everything the person puts out.  The most common way around this in Twitter is to use a program like Tweetdeck where you can view streams based on hash tags.  That way instead of focusing on individual people you can simply read tweets tagged with, for example, #genealogy.

I have seen some people address the issue on Google+ by posting their preferences on their profile page.  Some people might mention what circles/topics of interest they would like to be put in.  Maybe they will also mention what they predominantly post about.

I have seen at least one person ask the Google+ audience what circles would they like to be in and provided them with the choices.

I have copied the same method that I use on Twitter by listing keywords of things I'm interested in. This appears right under my name.

It looks like this - house historian, old houses, genealogy, gravestones, African American history, travel, wine, locally grown.

I wish it could be longer. Maybe I'll expand upon that in my profile. So if someone comes to my Google+ profile they will have a pretty good idea about what I like to post about.

The tricky thing about Google+ is that when you follow someone you are not subscribing to everything that they post in the way you would on Twitter. In fact all you can see of their posts are the public ones unless they circle you back and allow you to see something more than just public posts.

So you are saying "Hey, I'm here, I'm interested in following you.  I've put you in a circle, and you have no clue what that circle is unless I tell you.  But I'm hoping you will look at my page and figure it out or ask me and then circle me back."  

For example, I have a genealogy circle.  That's my primary circle because that's what I primarily post about.  Most people that I have circled are in my genealogy circle. I also have a photography circle and a writer circle.  I don't necessarily expect these folks to follow me back but I want to see what they have to say or display.  People in my photography and writer circles don't get bombarded with all my genealogy posts.

I do however, post as "public" my blog posts and some more general topic history, genealogy, archaeology and social media stuff.   I wonder if I am bothering some of my non-genealogy friends by doing that?

So the question is how do we best put people into circles, and more importantly, have them put us into the right circles so we don't get bombarded with stuff we're not interested in? 

Is Google+ forcing us to over-think things?!!

Facebook is Deciding What We Should See

Genealogists actively use social media to communicate and share information.  It seems that Facebook is now making it harder for us to do that. In the last week or so they have started making major changes.  The problem is these changes are causing me to miss posts by people I want to hear from.

I discovered recently that we need to click the upper right hand corner of status updates to control our News Feeds.  This is what you'll see:

Notice all the new settings, particularly - All updates, Most Updates and Only Important?  Facebook is deciding for us what we shall see. I have been going in and changing the setting to All Updates for people I don't want to miss.

I did an experiment where I went to the wall of one of my Facebook friends.  I noticed that she posted a link 30 minutes earlier.  When I went to my News Feed her post was no where to be found.  The problem is the option box that you see above is not available when viewing a post on someone's personal wall.  It's only available from the News Feed. If I can't find her in the News Feeds then I can't change the setting to subscribe to All Updates.

I'm getting a bit frustrated with Facebook. I'm finding that I need to actively visit certain people's walls so that I don't miss their posts.

If anyone knows the way to fix this please let me know.  I'd like to get my friends back!

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Update:

I've just discovered that you can get to the same options by clicking the subscribed button in the upper right hand corner of your screen (see below).  This is visible from your friends' walls.  I'm still not convinced this is going improve what I can see.

How Do You Feel About Followers on Facebook?

Recently Facebook has made a lot of changes.  First, they made it easier to display posts to certain groups. They threw in a new option called "public" (foreshadowing things to come). In all honestly, with the exception of the public button, Facebook has had this functionality all along.  And they didn't really do anything to make it any easier to use.  It's now just displayed more prominently under the status updates box.  It's still not as easy to use as the drag and drop circle concept in Google+.

Yesterday I learned about another feature that Facebook is introducing.  It's called subscribing.  It's just like "following" on Twitter or Facebook.  By using the new subscribing feature you can follow the public posts of people on Facebook without actually "friending" them.

It was inevitable that this would arrive.  First, they added the public feature which is useless unless the public can see the posts. Second, they need to keep up with all the cool features over at Google+.  Google+ allows its users to follow people like Twitter and segment people better than Facebook which makes it the coolest social media outlet (though the most complex) right now.

How are Facebook fans going to react?

I am most curious to see how people are going to react to the new changes.  Facebook has been a closed society and many people like it that way.  Are people going to embrace subscribing or are they going to reject it outright and continue to post strictly among their own friends?

I can see bloggers using the public and subscribe feature for posting their blogs.  If your blog is posted publicly on the internet why not post it publicly on Facebook too, right?

The only flaw in this is the reaction of friends in closed communities.  There might be a backlash from them if they feel encroached upon by seeing public posts in their mix.  People will certainly need to be more careful about leaving comments if they are commenting on a public post.

The Shake Down

Anyone on Facebook who is also on Twitter or Google+ is not going to have any adjustment issues.  They are already used to a public environment or the subtle nuance of total control.  The big shake down is going to occur with people who have remained insulated on Facebook.  The new options are going to be a shock.  Some will embrace them and others will reject them.

Perhaps Facebook is getting it wrong.  Perhaps their strength lies in the fact that they are now the only large, closed  social media outlet.  Maybe they are missing the boat trying to be like everyone else.  At least they were smart enough to make the subscribe feature optional.  It does not go into effect unless you turn it on.

What are you going to  do?  Do you think the public feature and subscribing is a good thing for Facebook or not.

Oh, the Nuances of Social Media!

The other morning I popped onto Google+ to discover that a quasi famous person was following me.  I checked out this person and while I'm sure that's she's great at what she does I wasn't particularly interested in following her back (or putting her in one of my circles as the Google+ lingo goes).

The problem was that she was following a number of genealogists, people in my community.  She doesn't appear to have anything to do with genealogy. Personally I think she was just looking for more fans to follow her. That in itself is not a problem.  The problem arises as she follows more genealogists in that they appear in her side bar as "people in common."  These are people that she and I are both following.  If someone else where to look at her profile and try to decide whether to follow the person or not, they might receive tacit approval just by seeing my face in common with this person.

I know we are all grownups and can decide who to follow or not but honestly many people just check who is following who and make quick decisions that way.  I mean I feel like I'm endorsing an advertisement or "liking" a page on Facebook.  Yet in this case I'm not really giving my approval.

So what's a girl to do?  I don't really mind this person following me even though I think she is just fishing for fans.  But what options do I have so that I don't appear on her wall?  The only option I have is to block her and then I won't appear in her "people in her circles" sidebar. This is the only way I can think of to remove the tacit approval that will lead to more followers for her.

In all honesty, blocking, just like on Twitter,  is fairly harmless.  It's not like I "reported" anyone which is more serious. And on Google+ you can even unblock someone later.  I just wish I didn't have to take that measure for this particular reason.

This got me thinking about how I can stop this kind of thing in the future.  It is possible to hide your connections on Google+.  In fact, I hide all my connections except genealogists.  This makes it easier for genealogists to connect and spares my non-genealogy family and friends from being followed by genealogists.

But what about these people looking for fans who raid our public circles?  I was thinking about hiding the "Have Marian in circles" display so that genealogists won't find these random people and think they are genealogists.  Or I could hide both that circle and my "In Marian's circles" display.  But I would really hate to do that. I would like to keep the openness in social media.

For the time being I am leaving them both public.  But I reserve the right to change my mind later.

How are you folks handling these nuances?  Or don't you really care?

The genealogy WORLD is on Twitter

I previously wrote a post called "Where do genealogists meet on the internet?" which questioned where genealogists go to discuss ideas and network.  There were many possibilities and a nice discussion ensued.

Since then I have been spending more time on Twitter.  I didn't go willingly onto Twitter (just as I didn't go willingly onto Facebook).  A friend of mine (that would be you, Rob!) declared he was abandoning Facebook for Twitter.  Not wanting to lose his witty company, I followed.

It took me awhile to get the hang of Twitter and to understand what this mysterious form of communication was all about.  Do you know what I discovered?  The WORLD of genealogy is on Twitter, not Facebook.

What do I mean by that exactly? Well, while I was on the APG list and Facebook I had a very American centric view of genealogy.  It seemed to me that it was mostly American genealogists who were utilizing the web.  When you have limited streams of information it is easy to fall into that kind of assumption.

On Twitter I discovered Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and the British of course as well as genealogists from other countries. It took a little getting used to the realization that these other groups had thriving genealogical communities of their own. How could I have been so wrong?

Part of the answer is that Twitter is a public forum while Facebook is private.  When you post on Twitter everyone on the internet can see what you have "tweeted".  When you use the tag #genealogy, everyone who follows that tag can immediately see the tweet.

Facebook on the otherhand, is based on "friending" people.  If you are not friends with a particular person you will not see their posts.  Some people on Facebook limit their friends to people they know in person.  Others, like me, will friend most anyone who is a genealogist.  What you see is based on how big your circle is.  As a result your circle becomes more national-centric than worldly.

Twitter is not, however, a larger audience than Facebook numbers-wise.  Twitter has far fewer members than Facebook.  I don't have any statistical evidence for this but I would say that Facebook has many more genealogists than Twitter.  Yet at the same time I would say that Twitter has greater impact with fewer people because those people potentially reach a far greater audience.  Unfortunately, there is no way to calculate just how many people view an individual tweet.

So the next time you want to know what genealogists are doing in the rest of the world - get on Twitter!

Where do genealogists meet on the internet?

A few years ago to find me on the internet you needn't look further than the Rootsweb TGF or old APG lists.  After some continued bickering on those lists I stopped following them, only to check in periodically.  Lately I've been spending more time on Facebook.  I find that the interactions on Facebook suite my personality and I like the way multiple people can join a conversation.  Seeing photos of people's faces is an advantage too.  Somehow it's just more personal.

Recently, I decided to give the TGF list a try again. I would pop in over there to see what was going on.  Do you know what I discovered?  Some of my Facebook friends who don't say much on Facebook have a whole lot to say on the TGF list.

That got me thinking.  Where are genealogists "meeting up" these days on the web? And what is their preferred place to discuss what's on their mind?  In the "old days" it was all about the APG list.  Then the TGF list came along and a lot of folks migrated over there.  But now there are lots of options - Facebook, Twitter, GenealogyWise, Second Life, LinkedIn and old fashioned regular email.

Not only that but blogs and bloggers have really come to the forefront of the genealogical community.  Much
discussion and ideas are shared there as well.

So where do genealogists meet now?  Is there one place?  Is the community segmented so that only the most devoted follow all the possible outlets?

One of my Facebook friends announced today that she is going to have two Facebook accounts - one for family and friends and another one for genealogists.  I tried the two Facebook account scenario once and it didn't work well for me (learning how to use groups in Facebook properly did, but that's a topic for another blog post).  Is what she is doing further segmenting genealogy and genealogists?

Where is our community today and what is the glue that sticks it together?  I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on this.

The Holy Grail: New Genealogists

The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) has started surveying its eNews readers with single-question queries. Recently they asked their members how long they have been researching their family history. The largest group, 17%, reported that they have been researching for 30 to 40 years. All together 81% of the respondents have been researching for 10 years or more.

Interestingly enough only 7% reported researching less than five years and 1% less than one year. What this tells me is that NEHGS has done a great job branding to and retaining experienced genealogists but they are having more trouble reaching newer genealogists.

There has been a great deal of talk in the genealogical community about the impact of nationally-viewed programs such as Who Do You Think You Are?, Faces of America and African American Lives. It seems fair to say that these shows are having an impact on the interest of Americans in learning about their family history.

New genealogists are the Holy Grail for the genealogical community and, dare I say, the genealogical industry. They bring the opportunity to replenish our genealogical society memberships, fill our conference halls and bring their buying power to industry vendors large and small. The question is how to engage these new family historians.

Ancestry.com has done a full frontal assault to attract the attention of new family historians. They advertised heavily during the television programs and they have a broad advertising presence online. They have been very successful, from what I can see, in positioning themselves.

But not every organization or professional genealogist has the financial or PR power to attract the attention of new genealogists in the national media. What options are available for everyone else?

I don’t have all the answers but here are a few suggestions.

Bloggers

Bloggers have leveled the playing field by producing top-notch content that receives high placement in the search engines. In order to attract new genealogists, some focus will need to turn to creating entry-level content that guides new family historians on their journey. Blogs specifically for beginners should be placing special emphasis on their keywords and tags so that beginners can find them.

Societies

Genealogical societies should have at least two events per year targeted toward beginners. These could be open houses where the general public is invited in. NEHGS, in conjunction with Ancestry.com, recently did this in Boston with a Family History Day and was rewarded with record attendance. Not every organization is going to have to mailing lists like NEHGS or Ancestry.com, but if you advertise heavily locally and post flyers you should be able to draw a good crowd for your events.

Conferences

Genealogical conferences need to focus on new areas to keep the buzz going – such as free classes on basic genealogy in the vendor hall (or a widely publicized track in the main program) and a blogger lounge. Bloggers are the face of the future. If you want to get the buzz out about your conference, embrace bloggers. I can’t emphasize this enough. We need to do little more than look at the recent Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree to see proof of this.

Vendors and Publishers

Times have been tough for genealogical vendors and publishers. This group needs to focus on partnering with organizations/conferences that are thinking out of the box and successfully trying to attract new family historians. They should be carefully watching who can draw a large crowd, who provides offerings for beginners and who is reaching out to bloggers.

All of the above

All of the groups above should be embracing social media in their attempts to engage new genealogists and family historians. It has been said many times that the internet has leveled the playing field for large and small organizations. This is still true. A consistent Facebook presence is key for organizations to reach out to their existing and potential members as well as attracting the elusive Holy Grail of new genealogists. Both large and small organizations have succeeded in this. Take a look at NEHGS and Ancestry.com for examples of larger organizations. But also take a look at the smaller Cambridge, MA Historical Society and the Little Compton, RI Historical Society – both of whom do a terrific job of engaging stakeholders.

Not interested in Facebook? Then try Twitter. You can have a strong presence there as well. The Nova Scotia Archives and the Connecticut State Library both have strong visibility on Twitter. If you do choose to engage your target audience on social media, make sure that you have a plan to succeed. Too often social media is embraced with gusto only to be abandoned later after running out of steam.