Here’s how you can keep using those apps, but take a few steps to send all those Facebook notices to The Void.

You need to take the first five steps in Section 1 only once. Then you’ll need to perform the steps in the second section for each problem app.

Section 1: Create The Void list.

1) On the left side hover over Lists to make the More option appear. You’ll get a list of your Lists.

2) Choose Create a List (top of the center column)

3) Name the list anything. I choose “The Void”

4) Click “Create List”

5) Simply add no friends to the list. That way none of your friends see the annoying messages.

Section 2: Here’s how to send troublesome app notices to The Void

1) Upper right of your Facebook bar (next to Home) use the pull-down triange and choose “Account Settings”

2) On the Upper left menu (under “Facebook”) choose Apps

3) Edit the offending app

4) Edit “app activity privacy:” For “Who can see posts and activity from this app? choose Custom

4b) In the Custom Privacy box choose Specific People or Lists and then type The Void (or whatever you named your empty list.)

5) Save settings, Close and you’re ready to run through the list again to send any other troublesome app notices to the void.

However, Facebook needs your information to lure advertisers. The more you share – 35, Single, Impulsive Buyer — the better they can direct ads you may fall for, er, enjoy. Now, Facebook will tell you they don’t give that information to advertisers. That doesn’t mean they don’t aggregate it to better deliver you those ads for dating services.

In response to this dilemma, Facebook recently made a mess of the privacy settings. Excuse me, they “improved user control.”

In this short article, I’ll point you to two easily set fixes to improve your privacy. After, you’ll want to spend some time reading the official Facebook explanation of privacy settings.

The Gist:

Most Facebook privacy options are now split to three setting Friends, Friends of Friends, Everyone. Each is less private that the one previous.

However, that’s just the basic options. In many cases you’ll find “Custom” is available. Always take a look at that option. “Custom” often allows a much finer control over what you allow to be visible. You can block specific friends or Lists from accessing or sharing parts of your profile.

Why bother making your settings more secure? Read an important pop-up from Facebook you might have missed:

# Information you choose to share with Everyone is available to everyone on the internet.
# When you visit a Facebook-enhanced application, it will be able to access your publicly available information, which includes Name, Profile Photo, Gender, Current City, Networks, Friend List, and Pages. This information is considered visible to Everyone.

Let’s fix those two privacy settings….

1) Log into Facebook. In the top bar, next to your name, is the Settings link. Hover over it, then choose Privacy Settings from the drop-down menu.

In the resulting screen choose Applications and Websites. Then look at the second option, What your friends can share about you.

Click “Edit Settings”. Facebook helpfully explains the reason for these options:

When your friend visits a Facebook-enhanced application or website, they may want to share certain information to make the experience more social. For example, a greeting card application may use your birthday information to prompt your friend to send a card. If your friend uses an application that you do not use, you can control what types of information the application can access. Please note that applications will always be able to access your publicly available information (Name, Profile Picture, Gender, Current City, Networks, Friend List, and Pages) and information that is visible to Everyone.

Uncheck what you don’t want shared. Note that any applications you use will ignore these settings for your friends. Even if you disallow Friends from letting applications see your birthday, if you let Birthday Card Sender know your birthday, it can access the information when your friend uses it to send you a card.

2) Again, hover over the top bar Settings link, then choose Privacy Settings from the drop-down menu. This time chose the Search option

This time Facebook pops up some damage control:

Worried about privacy? Your information is safe. There have been misleading rumors recently about Facebook indexing all your information on Google. This is not true. Facebook created public search listings in 2007 to enable people to search for your name and see a link to your Facebook profile.

Remember the other Facebook pop-up? “Information you choose to share with Everyone is available to everyone on the internet.” Sounds like more than a name and a link to me.

There are two Search settings. Internally on the Facebook network, or externally through Bing and Google.

Under Facebook Search Results, your only options are: Friends, Friends of Friends, Everyone. If you want to make yourself easily found by other Facebook users, set to Everyone. If you’re satisfied with your current 1,154 friends, then set it to Friends.

The more important settings is the one below. Public Search Results (Allow search engines to access your publicly available info and any information visible to Everyone)

You’re either in or out with this setting. It defaults to Enabled, but if you want Facebook to be a private repository of your your love of LOL CATZ pics and Dick Chaney, then you might want to disable Search Engine Indexing.

If you don’t care who sees knows you collect Hello Kitty figures and AK-47s, then keep Search Engine Indexing enabled.

photo credit: Spencer E Holtaway

1) Close Tweetdeck, Seesmic, Hootsuite or any cell apps that check your Twitter account.

2) Log into Twitter directly on the Web at http://twitter.com

3) Open “Settings” (It is on the top menu.) (Update: It’s now selected by clicking the menu pull down next to your Twitter user name.)

4) See if you have a tab labeled “Connections.” (Update: the tab is now called “Applications.”) If so, click it and deauthorize everything you find there. If you want, note and reauthorize later.

5) Go to the “Password” tab and change your password. Make it longer and stronger.

6) Clear your Browser cache and exit.

7) Restart the browser and log back into Twitter. Make sure you no longer have a “Connections” tab under settings. Update: Make sure you no longer have any Applications enabled. If you do, go back to step 3 and repeat.

8] If you use Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Seesmic or other such third-party apps, you will need to give them the new password. I recommend you not do so for 24 hours. The fewer sites that have your password during this problem the better.

If someone you know is sending out Twitter spam, send them to this article.

PS: You can follow me at @chuckwelch for hyperlocal journalism information and get social media tips aimed at not-for-profits and small businesses at @sitesmith

Exactly the point I make when I speak to Central Florida businesses and not-for-profit helping organizations. Not only geographical boundaries, but those artificially created boundaries we erect around race, class, and culture.

Israel also makes a great point about our communication turning from the one-to-many broadcast environment to a many-to-many conversational environment.

We’re going [away] from the broadcast era — that’s when content is sandwiched by messages to pay for the experience, and those messages are in the form of advertising or PR or other marketing tactics. And most people don’t like them anymore, and we use our Tivo and our spam filters to avoid as many of these messages as possible.

Israel also speaks to those organizations rushing to ban employees from using social media:

Whenever something new comes into the marketplace, there are companies that are really in love with the way it’s always been done. When you start banning things, you’re showing a natural distrust of your employees, which is, even in tough times, not an intelligent way to treat your employees. And the second thing is they’re banishing the state-of-the-art communications tool.

If you’d like to stay on the cutting edge of social media, one of those you should follow on Twitter is Shel Israel at http://twitter.com/shelIsrael.

The topic was Social Media as it relates to not-for-profits. I won’t detail the presentation here, but I promised to list some of the links I mentioned:

Information site:

FrogLoop.com – “A nonprofit online marketing blog”

Make sure you catch the posts: 10 Things Every Nonprofit Should Know About Social Media and Online Communications

and How Sticky is Facebook?

Also my own 20 Thoughts on Using Twitter and Other Social Media

Tools:

Twitter.com
Hootsuite.com – Twitter management tool for multiple users and multiple accounts
Bit.ly – URL shortener that tracks clicks, traffic sources, and other data
TweetDeck – A Twitter management tool that greatly improves your ability to track your organizations tweets and Twitter friends

If your not-for-profit has any questions about on Twitter and Facebook or needs help getting started, please write me at : nfp (at) chuckwelch.com

* – I had two flat tires within an hour after the presentation.

1. You are your brand and you can (and should) control your image on the Web.
2. Keep your website current, the more often you update your site, the better your Google rank.
3. Blogs are currently good ways to get higher up in Google searches- Use www.wordpress.com- you can “play” with a dummy site.
4. However, blogs, comments and forums are old skool- Social Media is new skool – FOR NOW.
5. “Social media is about starting conversations.”
6. Use Social Media (Internet-based tech based on user participation and user-generated content) to see WHAT and WHO people are talking about.
7. Sites like twitter.com and yelp.com are “searchable” for information about people, businesses and topics of interest.
8. As a Social Media user, know your audience- write to your audience. Talk about things you want them to know.
9. Twitter is broadcasting AND narrow-casting. Anyone can see your tweets (public timeline) a select group can see what you tweet immediately (followers).
10. AS A RESULT, keep your business tweets and your personal tweets separate – don’t tweet about things that you wouldn’t pay for in an ad.**
11. Find the hashtag # (keywords) for your industry or location (hashtags.org) and use it in your tweets in order to make sure you can be found in searches.
12. Example: #lkld is used for Lakeland and #corn is used for, well, corn.
13. Use Twitter-management systems like www.Hootsuite.com or www.tweetdeck.com to make this less complicated.
14. Hootsuite saves keyword searches and allows for “timed” tweets (load ‘em all up on the first of the month and then let ‘er rip).
15. Tweetdeck allows followers to be separated by groups, clusters real-time searches and shows direct messages- all on the same screen.
16. Facebook pages and groups are great for sharing information- not for local marketing.
17. Use FB for communicating with friends; FB pages for your business should be for fun.
18. Don’t be afraid to show your personality in your tweets.
19. When you start: follow the people you trust and follow who they follow.
20. Try to use your real name: http://ow.ly/4wCX

** — Unless you are your business, but I still prefer separate accounts for personal and business use.

PS: If you like any of these, note that Tamara improved what I said. If you disagree with any, she quoted those accurately.

Photo by Tom Hagerty

The Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists is pleased to announce its third annual seminar on blogs and multimedia journalism.

This year’s event is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday March 7 at the Tampa Tribune, 200 S. Parker St. Tampa. Head to the south building and tell the security guard in the lobby what event you’re attending. We’ll be around the corner in a small conference room.

The 2009 seminar features:

* Nathalie Voirin, managing producer for the Tampa Bay version of Gannett’s Metromix Web site and a managing producer for CBS affiliate WTSP-Ch. 10. Nathalie works on Metromix from the center of WTSP’s newsroom, navigating the mix of traditional TV journalism, online reporting and new school entertainment coverage.

* Ken Irby, visual journalism group leader and diversity director at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. As photojournalists increasingly shoulder the load of implementing multimedia work at newspapers, Ken is on the front lines, helping organizations across the world handle the transition.

* Boyzell Hosey, director of photography for the St. Petersburg Times. Boyzell has guided the Times through making its photojournalists the focal point of multimedia efforts, from shooting and editing video for online reports to training print reporters on capturing images for their own blogs and newspaper stories.

* Ken Knight, multimedia reporter/Web producer for the Tampa Tribune/TBO.com/WFLA-Ch. 8. Ken assembles daily reports from Tampa neighborhoods for all of Media General’s platforms in the Tampa Bay area.

* Eric Deggans, TV/Media Critic, St. Petersburg Times. Eric’s blog, The Feed, has become a bit of laboratory for his many efforts at multimedia work, from showcasing video of a TV anchor’s arrest to using Twitter, Facebook and MySpace to leverage audiences to his blog at the Times Web site.

* Demorris Lee, reporter, St. Petersburg Times. Demorris has completed a number of multimedia projects after completing a fellowship at the Knight Digital Media Center.

During the discussions, we will talk about ways to think about expanding traditional journalism work to multimedia platforms, the advantages and challenges of blogging for journalists, the resources available for those who hope to learn more about this kind of work and examples of quality work done on different platforms.

Though this is a professional development seminar organized by the TBABJ, this seminar is free and open to anyone who wishes to attend. In particular, journalists of all ethnicities and experience levels are most welcome.

Do I have your song?