25 May
Here is a simple cheat sheet to help you make your Facebook Page rock!
For more awesome infographics and tips on social media, view my virtual assistant board at Pinterest.
Simple Checklist To Improve Your Facebook Fan Page #Infographic Make Your Fan Page Better With This Simple Cheat-Sheet!
Source: sociallystacked.com via Cosmic on Pinterest
18 Apr
How to Use IFTTT
If you are the type of person who likes to learn things to make your virtual life easy, then you are in for a treat.
Let me introduce to you IFTTT (sounds like “gift” without the “g”). It is a web tool that allows you to create connections between two different websites and services. IFTTT is shortcut for “If This Then That”. It uses that formula to create an automatic action for a specific trigger. When the trigger is set, IFTTT relays that action to create the outcome that you want. For example, you can use IFTTT to automatically post your new blog post to your Facebook, Twitter or your other social media accounts. You can also use IFTTT to back up your post to your favorite file storage site.
You can build these types of automation by setting up the recipe in IFTTT. A recipe looks like this:
IFTTT Recipe
You can create your own IFTTT recipe or use shared templates created by other users and change them to suit your needs. You just need to connect your social medial channels, add the trigger that sets your recipe to action and set the action that you want for your final outcome.
Setting up a recipe is a breeze. Here is a tutorial to show how you can create your own account and create your first IFTTT recipe. By the way, did I tell you that IFTTT is free to use? Well, YES it is!
So start getting creative and share your great recipes at IFTTT. Have fun!
28 Feb
Prezi: How to use Prezi, Presentation
Prezi is an awesome tool to learn. It is a new presentation platform that combines presenting ideas in a whiteboard and slide presentation as what we normally do in Powerpoint.
What I like about it is it is interactive. Prezi lets you place your ideas into a canvas. You can put all your thoughts into this one vast page. Then here is where you let loose your creativity by illustrating the relationships among your thoughts using scales and placements. You can zoom in to see the tiniest bit of information. And you can zoom out to see the big picture. This is far different from the multiple slides we see in Powerpoint presentation.
Another thing I like about Prezi is that it is free to use. You can sign up using your Email or Facebook account and you are ready to go.
So use Prezi and bring your presentations to life!
Here is a step by step tutorial on how to use Prezi using Powerpoint.
I also made another version of my tutorial. This time I used Prezi.
So, which presentation is better?
Either way, I hope this find you inspired.
If my Prezi embed did not load properly, you can visit the prezi tutorial in this link:
http://prezi.com/pod9ulcuahto/how-to-use-prezi/?kw=view-pod9ulcuahto&rc=ref-31012579
15 Jan
This infographic is very informative. It holds every size of images on your favorite social media platform. Now you don’t have to remember or Google search for it. Just remember that it changes a lot. That is how social media is. So it won’t hurt to be always on your toes.
For more awesome infographics and tips on social media, view my virtual assistant board at Pinterest.
Enjoy sharing!
Source: lunametrics.com via Cosmic on Pinterest
31 Dec
Have a blessed and fruitful New Year to All! http://ow.ly/i/1jsmD
31 Dec
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 5,400 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 9 years to get that many views.
19 Dec
Photo by For Inspiration Only (on flickrCC)
Do you have an idea but you have too much free thinking around it?
Do you need to organize your thoughts on a project in a focused and structured manner?
Do you need to clearly and easily communicate your vision to others?
Then you need to mind map it.
What is a mind map?
A mind map is a diagram used to visually outline information (Wikipedia). It is a great way of unraveling your thoughts and visualizing your ideas. A mind map is built from a single topic. This topic is located at the center, thus it is called the central idea. Usually, an image is used to represent the central idea. Then other ideas branch out from the central idea. We create branches and sub branches to represent these ideas related to our main topic. Here, we can use specific colours per branch to make each idea distinct and appealing. Place one keyword per branch. At first, this is hard to do since a single word is sometimes not enough to describe or express an idea. Keep practicing and eventually you get the hang of it. You can also put an image to a branch to visually describe your ideas.
Mind mapping with Mind42
Mind42 (pronounce as mind for two) is a free collaborative mind mapping tool. It is browser-based so there is no need to install. You just need to open your favorite web browser and go to mind42.com to launch the application.
Mind42 is easy to use for editing and sharing mind maps online. Mind42 can be shared with others via email, URL link, or be embedded into your blog or website. An even cooler feature of Mind42 is it let other users to collaborate on your mind map.
There are a lot of other mind mapping tools out there that you can use for free or for a fee. Lucidchart, Bubble.us, Wisemapping, Mindmeister and IMindMap are some of the mapping tools I tried. I think Mind42 has the most features there is for a collaborative mind mapping tool. And you can use it for free.
Here is a step by step tutorial on how you get started mind mapping using Mind42.
I also like using IMindMap because of the use of organic branches and have a cartoon-like visual perspective.
You can also do a mind map by hand. You just need a paper and some colored pens. Well, that how mind maps were originally made until mapping tools came to be. You can choose either way in creating mind maps for your topic of interest.
Mind Map Guidelines
Tony Buzan, a known expect on mind maps, gave us a few guidelines to help us create visually stimulating mind maps:
Using Mind42, here is my version of a mind map based on Buzan’s guide on creating mind maps.
How to Mind Map using Mind42
Here is another mind map I made using IMindMap.
How to Mind Map using IMindMap
As always, I wish I helped you gain more learning from this tutorial. Let me know how your mind mapping experience went.
19 Oct
Photo by CarbonNYC
In this tutorial, I am going to show how to use Wolfram Alpha to generate useful statistics based on your Facebook data. Wolfram Alpha is a computational knowledge engine that you can use to generate reports or calculations on any scientific or mathematical inquiries.
Recently, Wolfram Alpha launched its personal analytic for Facebook. Now you can use this powerful search engine to draw insights on your social media activities and interactions. The only thing you need to do is get a basic free account and type in “Facebook Report” on the search bar and hit enter.
Take a look at my step by step tutorial to guide you on how this is done.
As you can see, creating the report is quick and straightforward. You would also notice that the report is quite interactive and can provide you with the most detailed information you require.
What’s inside the report?
The first major part of the report shows statistics on Facebook activity. Here is a sample report which is based on my Facebook data.
Number of posts per month
My Facebook profile is quite new. I post a lot of links mostly social media stuff I read from blogs and websites. I do need to post more of my own content.
Weekly Post Distribution
I work between 9 AM to 6 PM. I am most active on weekdays and my most active day is Monday.
number of likes, comments and post lengths
Yes. I do share a lot of post from YouTube, Twitter, Google+ and blogs mostly about social media stuff. Here is a word could of my posts:
Word Cloud
As you can see, I do a lot of sharing from my other social networks. I connected my other social media account to my Facebook. Some of my connections are automated. For instance, my Twitter feed automatically post recent tweets to my Facebook wall. My recent blogs from WordPress are also automatically promoted on my wall. I also share my pins from my Pinterest boards.
Weekly App Activity
Another major section of the report tackles statistics on your friends. As seen from the results below, most of my friends are male.
Facebook Friend’s Gender Distribution
Majority my friends are married. You can also see that most of my friends between 20-30 years old are single, engaged or on a relationship. Beyond that range, my friends tend to be married.
Facebook Friend’s Relationship Statuses Distribution
Here is the age distribution of my friends. It is also fun to know who is the oldest and youngest among them.
Distribution of Reported Ages
It is noteworthy to know where your friends are. Do you have a friend in each country?
Facebook Friends Location
As of the moment, Wolfram Alpha can only generate this report for your personal Facebook account. I would be great though to have the same information for Facebook pages. Would you agree?
11 Sep
Photo by Sarah M Stewart
Today I have discovered an online education and training website called Grovo. It boast of more than a thousands of tutorials of various Internet products like Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and so on. The lessons are presented by a series of simple to understand video tutorials. Each lesson is between 1-2 minutes long. The courses are straight-forward. Once you have completed the basic lessons, you can proceed to a more advance lessons. You can test what you have learned by taking the quizzes after each lesson. Once you have finish a course, you can also get a certification of your favorite Internet application. If you want to know more, click on Grovo. Sign up is free and easy using your Facebook account.
Living a Virtual Assistant Life 