Adding fan photos is quick and easy to do, but isn’t explained very well. So, here’s a tutorial to get you started!

1. Log into Facebook, and go to the fan page you want to post photos on.

2. At the top of the wall is the box where you can post a message. At the bottom it says “Attach:” and has icons to click on for links and photos.

3. Click the photo link, and select “Upload a Photo”.

4. Select the image(s) you want from your computer.

5. Add in any message you want to put with it.

6. Click “Share” and the photo is posted to the pages Wall, and will also go to the Fan Photos section. It may take it a minute to appear in the Fan Photos, but it will.

One important reminder to fan page admins – you have to give permission for fans to be able to post their photos. To do this, go to wall page, and click “Edit Page” link under the logo in the upper left corner. Under “Wall Settings” go to “Fan Permissions” and check “Fans can write or post content to the wall”, then check the boxes underneath for photos, videos, and links. I have heard that ALL boxes have to be checked for any one of the to work, but I cannot confirm this. You can try checking just the ones you want and see if it works.

Does this work for everyone? If not, let me know and I’ll try to find a solution.

Now, go post some photos!!

So here’s a list of what I’ve done to prepare. Anything I have missed? I’ll do a follow-up post when I’m back, but I’d love to have other suggestions before I go.

• I’ve taken care of things around my home – put a hold on my mail, found someone to feed my cat, eating out of my refrigerator and pantry to use up what I have. While this doesn’t specifically apply to preparing my business, it is good to know that these things are taken care of.

• I’ve also made sure all bills due, both personal and business, are paid before I leave. All client invoices will be sent out. Money received will either be in my Paypal account or held with my mail. Fortunately, my business bank account is in good shape, so I’m not desperate to get the money before I return.

• I notified my clients a couple of weeks ago of when I would be unavailable, and suggested they get any work to me before I left, or have it ready for me when I get back. Even though I work virtually, and have previously worked when I was out of town, this is meant to be a real break from my business. By letting them know ahead of time, they can plan their needs, and not wonder why I’m not returning calls and emails.
  

• Additionally, I’ve reminded clients I maintain social media accounts for that they will need to check in every day or so to make sure there aren’t comments they need to reply to. As my business grows and clients accounts require more maintenance, I will likely hire someone to take care of this when I am away, but for now I believe this will work.

• I’m setting up an autoresponder for my email and changing the message on my phone voice mail. This will let people know I’m not ignoring their messages, and when to expect to hear back from me.

• I always set up my tweets ahead of time, and I’m doing the same for my vacation time. I am wondering though, if anyone retweets me I won’t know it for several days, and would hate for them to think I’ve ignored them. I’m going to try it this time and see what happens… (and if anyone has had a similar experience, please share what worked for you.)

Each business is different and will have unique issues to consider when taking off on vacation. Anything you think I’ve missed doing business-wise? Anyone taken a vacation from their business? Please share your experiences both good and bad.

And I’ll see you when I get back!

What should you search for? For starters, you name and any variations you use, and your business name. Got an industry, or niche area you are in – or wanting to be in? Set up an Alert for that as well. I suggest starting small – with what you have to keep up with – and add more once you see how many you are getting everyday.

Setting up Google Alerts is easy. When you are logged in to Google, along the top left of the page are your various options – Gmail, Calendar, etc. Click on More, then at the bottom, click on Even More.

This pulls up a new page, and at the top on the left is Alerts. Click on that.

Up comes the page where you can create your Google Alerts. Put your search terms within quotation marks to help limit the number of results you get. Options for Type include News, Blogs, Web, Comprehensive, Video and Groups. How often options are as-it-happens (which I would recommend for your name and business name, to keep up with any mentions about them as quickly as possible), once a day, and once a week. The length of the email can be up to 20 results, or up to 50 results. Remember you can go in and change or delete the alerts anytime, so if you don’t like the frequency or are getting to many, you can change it. When finished, click Create Alert.

You are set! Check you inbox for the alerts and keep an eye on what is being said about you, your business, or any other topic of interest to you.

Anyone got other ideas on what to set alerts for?

If you have your own business, you really should have an accountant. I met with mine when I first starting thinking about my business. He gave me a couple of tips to get started the right way, and told me when he needed to see me again. It was a good feeling to know that I had things in order to start with.

If you don’t have an accountant, how do you go about finding a good one? Well, I asked a friend and client who has a small business, and her referral was a great one. So I would suggest talking to other business owners, especially if their business is similar to yours, to get their feedback.

Need more helpful suggestions? Take a look at this blog post on the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. Mike Michalowicz collected tips from 62 business owners to help you in your search, and he included my tip at #23.

Have any other ideas on finding a good accountant? Leave a reply here or over at the TPE.  And good luck getting all the paperwork together!

I’ve used Google as my search engine of choice for years now, but I am still learning to make the results better. Here are some great tips to use when searching Google from the Work At Home Life blog.

Are you using Google Analytics? If not, this video is a great place to start to get the basics. If you are, watch anyway and see if you can learn some helpful hints.

I’ve heard it from several clients – “I know I should be using Twitter, but I don’t want to talk about what I had for lunch and I don’t have the time for it”. While Twitter is not right for every small business, this article from Small Business Trends of 80 ways for small businesses to use Twitter should provide at least a handful of ways you can use (or improve your use of)  Twitter. If nothing else, you should be tracking what others are saying about you, your business and your industry.

Google Wave – have you tried it yet? I’m on there, but haven’t really been able to find much to do on it, but this article gives a great list of 20 ways to use the Wave. How many of these would be helpful in your business…or personal life.

If you found any interesting/useful articles this past week, please share in the comments. And go make it a great day!

So, as I continue to learn, why not share that information. Hopefully it will help someone out there, and encourage others to share what tips and tricks they have learned.

To begin, I want to discuss how to get started in Gmail. First, you need to sign in to Gmail. This can be done from either the  Google homepage (click on the Sign in link at the upper right of the page; this takes you to the sign in page), or go to http://mail.google.com. Enter your email and password in the sign in box on the right side of the page. If you don’t have a Google Account, click on the link under the sign in box that says Create an account. Follow the instructions on the next page.

Please note: your username will be the first part of your email address, followed by @gmail.com. Think carefully about what you want it to be. How long do you want it? Do you want letter and numbers? If you are going to give this email address to other people, will it be easy for them to remember and type in? Is is an appropriate name for your and your business (if you use it for business).

Once your sign up and log in, click on the Gmail link along the top of the page (to the left, near the center). This takes you to your Inbox.

Now, try it out. Send an email by clicking on Compose Mail on the upper left side, just under the Gmail logo.

Type a message, choose someone to send it to (you can send it to yourself on your Gmail account, or send it to me at (gladys@gsbusinessresources.com), then click the Send button.

Congratulations, you are now up and running with Gmail.

A quick note – I have found the Spam filter on Gmail to be VERY good. I can’t remember the last time spam got through to my Inbox; it is more likely for mail I want to get labeled as Spam. The link to the Spam folder is on the menu on the left. (See its location in image above right) Click on it to get to the Spam folder. Take a look at what is there, and if you find mail that is not spam, click the Not Spam button at the top; the email goes to your Inbox, and you can also add the sender to your contact list so future email from them comes through.pan>

So far, so good? Any questions that have come up? Or, if you have been using Gmail, what questions do you have? leave a comment with questions, or tips and tricks you have discovered.

When I completed the post, I scheduled it to publish on Monday. I love this feature in WordPress – I can type my posts when I have time, then schedule it to publish whenever I want it to, even if I am involved in something else, or away from the internet.

Monday evening, I checked and found the post had not published. When I looked at the lists of posts, I saw that it was listed as scheduled, and below, in red letters, it said “Missed Schedule”.

What??? I thought I had missed a step in setting up the schedule, so I set it up to publish on Tuesday and double-checked to make sure everything was set as it should be.

Tuesday evening I checked, and saw the same message again. Now I’m really confused. I know I set everything up correctly, so I don’t understand what the problem is.

So, I googled it. And one of the results I got was this WordPress forum post. Turns out I’m not the only one having the problem, but there doesn’t seem to be a definitive answer as to what caused the problem or how to solve it. My plan is to first download the 2.9.1 version of WordPress; if that doesn’t fix the problem, I’m installing the plug-in mentioned in the forum post.

If you’ve had the same problem, you may find something in the forum post to help you. If you’ve found a way to solve this problem, please post a reply and share the information. I would really appreciate it.

STACK the Deck in Your Favor™ Strategic Marketing Plan by Cathy Larkin (@cathywebsavvypr) looks awesome. By using the acronym STACK for the steps needed to create a strategic marketing plan, you have no excuse for not working on this now.

I’ve spent time this past week finding images and words to put on my vision board for 2010. This is my third year to do one, and I am exciting to see what develops.  Jonathan Fields (@jonathanfields) has an excellent article about how to do visualization with a different intent that is giving me a lot to think about as I set my intents for 2010.  Anyone else is making a vision board for the new year?

List of the Words of the Year 2009, many of them from social media and technology. How many do you know? How many do you use on a regular basis??

And for some fun stuff:

Here are some of the worst analogies written in high school essays. Funny, and somewhat painful, to read.

If Shakespeare just wasn’t your thing (or even if he was), you’ll enjoy Romeo and Juliet: Just as You Misremembered It. I heard this story on NPR, and the excerpts they played were hysterical. I hope they take this show on the road, or someone in Memphis performs it.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121975740

When you go to enter or edit a post, you are given a small box to work in. It’s great for doing very short posts, but for longer ones, I prefer to have a larger view of what I’m working on.

So, here’s how to go to full screen mode while entering posts. When you are in the writing screen, across the top are a couple of rows of icons. Find the one that looks like a televisions screen. ( See image to left) If you hover your mouse over it, it will say “Toggle fullscreen mode”. Click it, and a lovely full screen comes up, making writing and editing so much easier.

In fullscreen mode, you have access to the editing buttons at the top and the rest of the screen is to write in. If you need to preview your post, add tags and categories, and publish, you’ll need to toggle back to the other screen by clicking the same button.

As I said, I wish I had known this earlier. For all you who did know about it and can’t believe I didn’t, well at least I found it!  Hopefully, this will help someone else in their WordPress adventures.

Linked In is a social networking site, focused on making professional contacts instead of personal ones. While it is a great resource for anyone job hunting, small business owners can use it to show expertise and experience to potential clients.

Do you have a profile on Linked In? If you do, are you taking full advantage of it?

Linked In is a way to put your work experience online. The rule for keeping paper resumes short still holds, but with Linked In you have all the room you need to list a detailed work history, and include special assignments, side projects, and volunteer work that might not make it onto the paper resume. Summarize your experience and list your specialties in those sections to let viewers get a quick overview of your background and knowledge.

Don’t think anyone reads it? Think again. I recently did work for a client where I researched people with a certain job skill. How can I determine if you have and use this skill if you don’t list what your job actually entails? Job titles are helpful, but can vary between businesses, so a list of your job duties, qualifications earned, and areas you’ve gained expertise in are very important.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity. Someone searching for certain words or phrases won’t find you if you don’t have them listed in your profile.

As 2009 draws to a close, end the year by looking at all your social media profiles and updating those that need it. Complete your Linked In profile; update your Twitter bio; make sure you’re not tagged on unwanted photos on Facebook. You only get one chance to make a first impression – make sure it is a good one.

And while you are working on your Linked In profile, why not connect with me there? My profile is http://www.linkedin.com/in/gladysbstrickland, and yes, it is being updated over the next week!