Facebook Messenger is now Available as a Desktop App

Facebook Messenger is now Available as a Desktop App

I was going through some emails and came across a press release from F8 where they demo Messenger as a desktop app and that made me smile. So before I get into my view on this, you can go ahead and download it free on the Mac App Store as well as the Microsoft App Store. Both are free!


(Image and article source)

Now for me I use Facebook a little different. While Facebook has a BUNCH of different apps, I preferred it when they had all of the functions under one app. I imagine it was easier to maintain them as separate installs, but for me I hate having to switch apps to perform a function that I used to do while inside of one experience already. Additionally I don’t like having Messenger on my iPhone and resorted to using it on my iPad and through my browser as my main interaction point. Having it as a stand alone app on my laptop though saves me from using the additional device, but also keeps the Messenger experience to my main device; being my laptop. I use Messenger almost exclusively for business interactions so I like to keep my time of use of it to normal working hours, then close it and not get notifications or distractions from it until I’m ready to. Similar to how I treat emails during the day too by only opening my email app a few times a day and not having it open all day to distract me of every email of the many inboxes I manage. But I digress.

So check out the desktop offering and let me know what you think! Will you use it more or less than the mobile apps or through your browser?

 

How to Keep Your Business Relevant During COVID-19

How to Keep Your Business Relevant During COVID-19

With everything that’s happening these days of quarantining and social distantancing, conducting normal business can be challenging. Whether you have a brick and mortar establishment, home based, or virtual business, keeping your products and services available in the marketplace during these times are different. This presentation is designed to help show you how you can keep your business relevant during these times with the use of use cases, strategy, resources, and tools. You’d be surprised what your capable of doing once you have the knowledge of what’s out there to help keep your brand awareness going despite traditional forms of business outreach.

The main thing I want to highlight is that during this time, it’s important to keep a consistent and relevant voice to your current and potential clients. There are a lot of bigger companies scaling back their marketing efforts and social media outreach and this creates a void where you as a small business can step in and dominate with your offerings. Also consider what your customers mindset will be once this is all over and how they will have been used to how your business pivoted or supplemented their needs, and once things clear up they’ll still be there with you because of how you helped them through a tough time.

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Leveraging Linked In [PRESENTATION SLIDES]

Leveraging Linked In [PRESENTATION SLIDES]

I’m a fan of linked in. I first created my account in 2008, and remembering what it was when I first signed on being an online resume type of platform to the content platform it is now is a nice progression. While Linked In has made some good partnerships with other large companies and acquisitions, this platform is still very much relevant for B2B and B2C if you’re aware of how to engage with the audience and users.

This presentation is a highlight of the ways to optimize your profile, tips with using the options for external promotion of other online repositories of your work or websites, along with best practices with creating posts. I’ll be posting the video to this soon for a full replay but in the meantime take advantage of the slides. If you have any questions feel free to contact me with ways you can create a unique offering on Linked In.

Google analytics | What to Know as a Beginner [Full Presentation Slides]

Google analytics | What to Know as a Beginner [Full Presentation Slides]

This weekend I had the pleasure of being one of the speakers at the biggest blogging conference in Florida, FL Blog Con. My presentation was on Google Analytics, to help people who may be familiar using GA and those who have heard about it but haven’t really used it yet.

Now if you’ve ever taken a look at Google Analytics you know it can be a bit daunting at first. There’s a bunch of panels, different sections, numbers and graphs everywhere. To even understand where you should go and what means what can be a complete turn-off for a website owner just looking for simple information on a count of visitors to their website during a certain time and where they came from.

This presentation I highlight some key areas that house some good information for most beginner users to see what’s working or what’s not working with the content and traffic on their website. Thank you to all those that attended. There wasn’t an open seat in the whole room and the questions you asked were great!

Thanks for the photo @jodymask
Mental Health Awareness in High Functioning People [Featuring Ask Schellie]

Mental Health Awareness in High Functioning People [Featuring Ask Schellie]

I recently sat down with a long time friend of mine, Schellie Fanfan, LMHC, MS, EdS, CRE, and spoke about the challenges, emotions, and ebbs and flows of running a business. Let me tell you that she brought to light so many things that I’ve thought about or experienced but never really put into perspective with regards to mental health.

As a creative, there’s so many feelings and thoughts that circle our minds on a regular basis. Some things pertaining to business, some to personal, but still there and not always having time to fully process. The realization was that all of these things and more were affecting my mental health. Coincidentally I thought back to green room conversations at past conferences I attended with other creatives having similar conversations and sharing how we each individually “deal” with day to day happenings and what not. What I didn’t fully realize until I talked with Schellie was how being a highly functioning person, the effects to my mental health that would ensue.

Now this wasn’t a formal session, we were actually on set recording some promotional videos for her new website and platform. I saw an opportunity to ask her about what she notices when counseling business owners and entrepreneurs. This short snippet isn’t enough at all, but does give insight on the different ways that our mental health can be affected in our day to day without much notice from us at all.

I would highly recommend that after watching this if you have any questions to reach out to Schellie directly. She has years of service and even more in studies, degrees, and has more acronyms that I’ve ever seen.