YouTube Is Looking For The Next Vlogging Star

YouTube is announcing a new program to nurture the next generation of video bloggers.

The Next Vlogger initiative is part of YouTube Next Creator — where, as the name implies, the site tries to find and mentor future YouTube stars. It already held similar programs for cooking and fitness, as well as nonprofits.

Creative program manager Austin Lau says he’s looking for vloggers who have already “put in some time trying to make YouTube work” and built a following, but who aren’t quite top-tier stars. The winners will receive $5,000 worth of video equipment and $10,000 worth of promotion on YouTube and elsewhere. They’ll participate in educational workshops with Google+, and they’ll receive mentorship from “top vloggers” like Justine Ezarik, a.k.a. iJustine.

Ezarik tells me that she sees this as an extension of the mentorship that she’s already doing through her show Vlog University. She’s hoping to offer a range of advice, technical and non-, she’s even open to working on collaborative videos.Ezarik has parlayed her YouTube stardom into assorted TV appearances, so she says she’s often asked whether YouTube leads to bigger things. Clearly it can, but she adds, “I think YouTube itself is actually a pretty big thing.”

Once the Next Vlogger program is complete, Lau says he’s hoping the participants, in addition to becoming super-famous, will serve as “ambassadors to the greater YouTube community,” who share what they’ve learned. Lau also says the vloggers could be well-placed to participate in “opportunities not necessarily available to greater public,” like YouTube’s Partner program.

You can apply for the Next Vlogger program here.

Bookmark It: Bliss Control, A One-Stop Shop For Updating Your Social Network Profile Settings

I’m interrupting your tech news flow to tell you about a nifty little tool you’ll probably want to bookmark for later. It’s called Bliss Control, and it comes from the same folks that brought you the email notifications management utility called Notification Control (and seriously – check that one out, too, if you get too many social media updates in via email. Inbox savior!). 

Expanding on the simple use case of its predecessor, Bliss Control also provides a one-stop-shop for managing various aspects of your online accounts. Except this time, instead of providing a link list that connects you with the right page on websites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, YouTube, Foursquare and more where you can disable email notifications, this new service provides a single directory of links to manage all your other social media settings.The utility has an interface that seems very much inspired by IFTTT, with a straightforward layout, big buttons and black-and-white text.With just a couple of  clicks, you can choose one of many settings from across the social web, including things like “change profile picture,” “change password,” “change email,” “change 3rd party permissions,” and more. You then click on the icon to pick the service where you want to make the change.

At launch, Bliss Control supports: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, Path, Flickr, Meetup, StumbleUpon, Foursquare, Google+ and Instagram.To be clear, the service doesn’t require your login information to work, it only points you to the right settings page on the appropriate website.Like Notification Control, Bliss Control isn’t providing anything you couldn’t do from any of these web services themselves. The beauty here is that it organizes all the links on one page, allowing you to quickly perform the updates without having to search around for the right settings area from site to site. That’s especially useful because when you go to make a change – like a new profile photo or email address – you often want to make that change everywhere across the web. This speeds up the process by providing a centralized place for your efforts. Nothing to it.

A centralized settings resource may seem like a meh utility to some of you, but it’s one that generated a lot of interest when it originally launched. I mean people were shouting, thank god for this thing! But maybe some of us just have too many web accounts, huh? I guess I’m also a sucker for a handy little, bookmarkable utility like this, I have to admit. (And so’s your mom, so please let her know.) The service was created by Ben Lang, who just left San Francisco to serve in the Israeli army in two weeks, and Alex Wolkov. Ben, who previously teamed up with Tim Kendall on the earlier email service, also gives a special thanks shoutout to Tim on the new website, too.

DIY SEO Startup BrandYourself Has Nearly 6,000 Sign-Ups

BrandYourself made the famous startup pivot earlier this month, and now it’s sharing some data about the initial results.The company started out as a way for people to control the impression they made online, both through search results and on social networks. It even recommended articles that you could read and share in your chosen subject area. Co-founder and CEO Patrick Ambron says his team eventually realized that the approach was “too much,” and that “the one BIG thing people loved about us was helping them improve their search results.”

So the new version of BrandYourself pares away all the other features, focusing exclusively on your personal search results. In both cases, BrandYourself pitches itself as a more affordable, DIY alternative to a service like Reputation.com. Instead of hiring someone to improve your results and paying them thousands of dollars, you can just log in to the BrandYourself dashboard, submit the links that you want to show up more prominently in your results, and get recommendations on how to improve their placement (for example, it recommended that I connect my personal website to a BrandYourself profile page, and also include my name in the text of the website). BrandYourself also tracks whenever the rankings change. You can get free recommendations on three links — after that you have to pay for premium membership, with pricing that starts at $9.99 per month.
Ambron says the new version of BrandYourself launched on March 8, and that 5,870 people have signed up since then. And of those sign-ups, 154 of them became paying members. In comparison, the old product saw about 15,000 sign-ups in the course of a year.
Oh, and this isn’t a business win, but it’s nice recognition: BrandYourself won the Best Bootstrapped Startup award at the South by Southwest Startup Accelerator earlier this week.

Why Google’s Plan To Make Maps Pay For Itself Could Backfire

Google was once satisfied to have its satellite products, like Maps, drive goodwill among startups and create new exposure to their users. But now we’ve heard Google’s new plan is to make these products self-sufficient. It’s begun charging high-volume users of its Maps APIs. Companies like Foursquare and Apple are balking at the price hike and looking to strategically reduce reliance on Google, so they’re switching to OpenStreetMap.

This short-term revenue play could turn into a long-term disaster because OpenStreetMap users have to contribute the improvements they make to its data, so one day it could become better than Google Maps. And who’ll be next to bail on Google’s API? Yelp comes to mind.
The Google Maps API used to be free, as it was trying to gain popularity and displace MapQuest and Yahoo. At the beginning of March it began charging anyone pulling over 25,000 page loads a day $4, $8, or $10 per additional 1,000 loads, and also now offers Premier Tier. Foursquare and Apple jumped ship, plenty of other big companies might do the same. With it now publicly traded, investors could push Yelp to switch to a free alternative.

Digtal Trends published some great background and analysis on the maps industry this morning. It explains how Foursquare is using a company called MapBox to improve data it pulls from OpenStreetMap, while Apple might use acquired companies including C3 Technologies to add 3D graphics.
This is where Google’s long-term problem emerges. OpenStreetMap, or OSM, is totally free at any volume, but if users improve its data on their own, they have to contribute those improvements back to OSM. If someone augments OSM with satellite, street view, reviews, or other mashups, everyone’s maps benefit. As more big maps users switch to it, it will get better and better, creating a snowball effect where it gets more attractive with time.
While Google has the best maps right now, these contributions mean it might not stay that way. Like crowdsourced Wikipedia usurped traditional encyclopedias, the same could happen with maps. One day even low-volume free clients might switch to OpenStreetMap and end users might prefer it. This could hurt Android, which is Google’s future. The search and ads giant has plenty of ways to make money. Charging for the Google Maps API seems like a wrong turn.

50 Ways to Get More People to Like your Facebook Page

I hope you enjoy this post about 50 Ways to Get More People to “Like” your Facebook Page, and if you do I would really appreciate it if you share these tips with your friends, and join the FanpageFlow Facebook page.


Here are 50 more tips:

1. Post a Status Update

Post a status update mentioning your facebook page.

Don’t be afraid to outright ask people to join your facebook page.  Ask and you shall receive.

Give them a great reason why they should join, tell them news, or find a creative way to mention and link to your page:


2. Get fans to upload and tag photos

If you host (or attend) an event with several of your fans take a bunch of pictures, post them to your page, and then ask your friends to tag themselves in the pictures.

If you can get your fans to upload pictures to your page, or tag themselves in pictures you uploaded, this will post to their walls as well and will lead to additional traffic for you.

3. Offer an incentive for people to sign up

Using custom iframes you can create a dynamic facebook landing page with a “reveal tab” that contains content that is visible only to fans of your page.

The more valuable your incentive is, the more people will be compelled to click the “Like” button to access it.

Examples of exclusive content could be: An exclusive Video, an exclusive whitepaper/.pdf, exclusive pictures.

The image below shows different levels of increasing effectiveness for acquiring new fans.

Involver offers apps (and several of them are totally free) that make it easy to create a “Fan Gate” containing incentives, like a file or coupon, that will cause more people to “Like” your page.

4. Contact admins of groups related to your page

Groups are more powerful than pages in terms of their messaging ability. Pages send updates, but groups send messages directly to a users facebook inbox, triggering an email alert.

If you contact the admin of a facebook group with some valuable content that adds value to their readers then this can help them nurture their community and help you build yours.

5. Get people to join your page via SMS

Send a text message to 32665 (FBOOK) with the words “fan yourusername” OR “like yourusername” (without the quotes).

This feature is ideal when you’re in front of a live audience.

6. Install a page Badge


Facebook Badges are a simple, yet effective way to link to your facebook profile.

Unlike widgets, badges are simply images, and will load much faster.

7. Install a facebook “Like Box” into your site

Installing a “Like Box” is an excellent way to allow visitors to your site become fans without even leaving your page.

The like box builder tool makes it easy to customize the size of your like box, the number of connections to display, and even the color scheme.

Shown in the image below is the rarely used “dark” color scheme.


8. Use status tagging

Status tagging is a cool and fairly new feature of facebook.

This feature allows you to tag any page or person by entering the @ sign and then typing the name of the page or person you want to tag.


9. Suggest your page to friends

Use the “suggest to friends” feature of your page. Use this feature sparingly. Personally, I try to only invite people go my page once because I know it annoys me when multiple people invite me.



If you have many friends you might want to consider using the “invite all” Google chrome extension, rather than clicking hundreds or thousands of times.

10. Install a Like Button into your site

Installing a like button allows visitors to like your page, and when they do this posts the their activity stream.

This can send more traffic to your site and if you have a facebook “Like Box” and other content promotion your fan page, since this will help you convert your visitors into fans.

11. Connect your page to Twitter

Connecting your page to Twitter is an excellent way to convert your twitter followers into facebook fans.

Using this strategy will cause all of your posts to be sent to twitter, with a link back to the facebook version of the post.

www.facebook.com/twitter

12. Link to Your Page as  a Place of Employment

The info box uner profile pictures is being phased out, so now if you want an omnipotent link on your profile to your page you will need to list your Page under employment.  Once you do this your Facebook Page will appear under your name on your Profile.

13. Install commenting on your landing page

This will allow people to comment on your page, even if they are not a fan.

Any comments made can broadcast to news feeds and lead to more traffic to your page.

Setting up facebook commenting requires registering a facebook application, so act on this tip with caution unless you are comfortable with code.

14. Leverage Traditional Media

Since facebook is so widespread you can use any forms of traditional media and achieve results.

Newspapers, Media Buys, Radio, and TV all work, but are often very costly.

To maximize your promotion offer a free gift to those who join you page.

15. Newsletter Promotion

If you do email marketing send a message to your subscribers letting them know about your fan page and consider including a link to your fan page in every email.

16. Email Signature

Every email you send is an opportunity to link to your facebook page.

Check out the email signature tool wisestamp for a creative way to link to your social profiles.

17. Get business cards promoting your Facebook page

Business cards are cheap.

You can get 500 business cards from Vista Print for $1.99.

For this minimal investment you can get up to 500 new fans for your page!

Throw a link on your card and people will almost certainly check it out.

If you’re pressed for space in your design all page urls can be shortened from facebook.com to fb.me, or fb.com.

For example, www.facebook.com/fbflow, www.fb.me/fbflow, and www.fb.com/fbflow all point to the same page.

18. Fiverr


Fiverr is an online marketplace where services are sold for five bucks.

Check out their “Social Marketing” and “Advertising” section and here you will find some people who are willing to suggest your page to 5,000 of their friends for just $5.

You will need to make the person who will suggest your page to their friends an admin in order for them to do this for you, but if you are willing to place your trust in someone to do this and they come through for you this will allow you to pick up dozens if not hundreds of new fans.

19. Create a Landing Page with Static FBML


By creating a custom landing tab for your facebook page you can increase the conversion of visitors to fans.

Check out my post on customizing your page with static fbml for a tutorial explaining exactly how to set a custom welcome tab up.

20. Run a “fans only” contest

An excellent way to run a fans only contest is using wildfireapp.

There are rules and regulations around running a contest on facebook so be sure to check out the facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (“Statement”) before you run one.

21. Link to your page from your profile

Edit your Facebook profile information to include promotion for your Fan Page.

At the bottom of the info section of your profile you can include links to any websites you are affiliated with.

The more links you can build to your Page, the more traffic you will be able to send to your Facebook Fan Page. I am constantly seeking new opportunities to build links that will send traffic to my Fan Page.

22. Blog Commenting

Comment on blogs and in the website section use a link to your fan page.

23. Link to your facebook page from your linkedin profile

Linkedin gives every user three slots for links to whatever you’d like right on your profile.

You can make the anchor text of these links whatever you like, so I recommend using a call to action such as: Join my facebook page.

24. Upload video to facebook

Facebook video is very underrated, and exceptionally powerful.

When you embed a facebook video on another website this video includes a watermark link in the top left corner to the fan page it came from.

25. Watermark your videos with a link to your website

Using a video editing program include a link to your website.

I use camtasia to add my watermarks, and to record any screencast I create, and this program comes with a free 30 day trial.

26. Create a memorable URL

If you go to facebook.com/username you will be able to create a custom URL for your page.

Remember that this cannot be changed once it is set, so choose wisely.

27. Deliver an exceptional experience

Although facebook pages are no longer officially considered “fan pages” if you work to create fans of your brand many of them will certainly seek out and join your facebook page.

Strive to deliver an awesome experience for those who interact with your brand. Go above and beyond when engaging with your community and they will spread the word.

A famous article called 1,000 true fans maintains that they are all you need to create a thriving business. Don’t try just to get people to click “like” but instead seek to create raving true fan who will spread your word far and wide.

28. Link it up

This tip comes from @garyvee and it’s a good one: link it up!

Hyperlinks are what weave the web together so use them often and every time you do you are opening up another gateway into your fan page.


29. Flip the funnel

Drive your fans back to your website for new blog posts.

Make sure that your blog has social sharing and many of your fans will “like” your blog posts and tweet it out to their followers on twitter as well.

30. Track your growth with Facebook insights

Facebook insights shows you how many fans you have over time, and some fairly detailed demographic information as well.

Using this knowledge you can analyze what activities drive the most growth, and then duplicate your success.

31. Analyze your demographics with insights

Facebook demographics are a powerful feature of insights that allows you to determine the gender and age of the people in your page.  Once you know this information you can focus your content to appeal to the age group and gender of your fans.

Here is the demographic information of the FacebookFlow fan page:


32. Talk and Blog about your page

Word of mouth does not start itself. Get the conversation going by mentioning your facebook page in blog posts and in every day conversation.

33. Learn more about Facebook

The more you know about facebook the more you can use this knowledge to drive the gowth your community.

To learn more about facebook enroll in our FREE facebook ecourse.

34. Drive more traffic to your website

Use these tips to get more free traffic to your website. Make sure that your “Like Box” is featured prominently, and plenty of this traffic will “Like” your page.

35. Produce Epic Content

If your blog content is epic this will drive the growth of your page in a serious way.

Epic content has the best chance of going viral and if a blog post goes viral this also causes it to move up in the rankings in Google, leading to even more traffic, a percentage of which will convert to fans.

36. Install a like button into your posts

Installing a like button into your posts will help drive extra traffic to your posts and it will also show that facebook is an integral part of your brand.

If you have a self hosted wordpress blog I recommend installing the WP FB Like plugin.

The more you can integrate facebook with your site the more likely people will be to join your facebook page.
37. Make a Facebook like sign

Blue Sky Factory created a  Facebook “Like” sign tool that you can use to create a cool image that will help promote your facebook page.


38. Buy Them

Although I do not recommend this option, there are several services out there that sell facebook likes.

The first 1,000 fans are usually the hardest to get so a service like this might help you get the critical mass needed to get more genuine organic fans.
39. Run a targeted ad campaign

Facebook advertising is exceptionally powerful due to the ability it offers to hyper target your market.

Facebook ads can be targeted based on age, location, and interests.
40. Turn your customers into fans

If someone likes you enough to buy your product then there is a good chance that they will like you on facebook as well.

Rig up your “thank you” page with a facebook “Like Box” and you’ll be good to go!

41. Advertise your page

The more you advertise your page the more fans you will be able to achieve.

Facebook advertising s a smart way to promote since you can target specific demographic and interest groups.

You will need a sales funnel in place in order to justify an advertising budget and I recommend setting this up prior to advertising on Facebook.

When I signed up for my Hosting account with GoDaddy I was able to get a free Facebook advertising coupon for $50 and I believe they are still offering this promotion.

42. Use Hootsuite to manage your page


By using Hootsuite to manage your facebook pages you can maximize engagement by scheduling your posts ahead of time to go out when they will get the most attention.

Facebook posts get the most engagement early in the morning and a few hours before bed.

43. Get an attractive profile picture

A picture says a thousand words, so to really optimize your business page you should use the largest profile picture possible.

Currently the maximum profile picture size is 200 x 600 pixels.

44. Do a “fan of the month” promotion

By highlighting one of your best fans every month you indirectly encourage fans to engage more, so that they can win the coveted fan of the month title the next month.

Offer a monthly prize, such as a cool free product or service related to your brand, and the competition for this title will only increase.

45. Message your friends and ask them to join

This tried and tested method takes more ground work, but this method will allow you to build relationships and target the friends that you think are the most relevant to your page.

46. Include a link to your fan page in your forum signature

If you are active in any forums you will have the option to attach a “signature” to every post that you write.

Throw a link in your signature to your facebook page, and it will be clicked.

Do your best to add value and answer questions with your posts, and people will be more inclined to click your link and join your page.

A link with a call to action is more likely to get clicked than a link alone, so go with “Join my Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/fbflow” instead of simply: “www.facebook.com/fbflow”

47. Create a redirect URL

Creating a redirect to your facebook fan page is one way to “presell” the people who click it on joining your page.

For example, if your link is: www.yourdomain.com/joinmyfacebookpage anyone who clicks it will probably join your page.

Here is an article on how to redirect a webpage.

https://www.facebook.com/BrainstormTechnologies

48. Give away fan page swag

Websites like Zazzle make it easy for people to customize swag, such as the nifty “you like this” t-shirt below.

If you gave away shirts (or mugs, or stickers) like this with your facebook url included you could easily amass an army of walking billboards for your facebook page.

49. Find more facebook friends

The more friends you have, the better your chances will be that some of these friends will join your fan page.

Facebook has a “Find Your Friends Tool” that allows you to import your contact list from a variety of email clients, or an email list.

This tool also displays “People you may know” which I have found is very good at suggesting people that have many mutual friends as me.

50. Share this article with your facebook friends

If you share this post with your facebook friends and it will become obvious to them that getting more fans important to you, and if you have included a link to your facebook page in your info box or the “Website” section of your website there is a good chance that they will click it.
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