If you’re in California looking to buy a new purple unicorn and the national company that you like who sells purple unicorns posts a special Facebook offer at their stores in New York, what happens? You become an annoyed purple-unicorn-less Californian.
Geo-targeting is a helpful tool available on Facebook Pages. With a few simple clicks, you can customize posts based on country, state/province, city and language.
Just a few examples of how you can use geo-targeting:
Sharing information sensitive to time zones
Offering information in different languages
A/B testing by region or offer (compare conversion and engagement rates)
Localized stunts or events
And here’s how you do it:
When posting a status, link, photo or video on your Page, select the ‘Everyone’ drop down menu below the text box and click ‘Customize’.
Enter the country of choice (and optional filter by state/province and city).
Enter an optional language of choice. Press “Okay.”
Post your geo-targeted status to be seen only by those specified in preferences. After you finish posting, the custom preferences will clear and subsequent posts will display to all audiences unless otherwise specified.
Interested in learning more best practices on social media outlets? Learn more about our education division, Digital Royalty University, by emailing info@thedigitalroyalty.com.
This was one of the most impactful moments of my life. I realized social media can allow us to accelerate the act of kindness.
I was on the elliptical, perusing twitter on my iPad to pass the time, when the news broke about the earthquake in Japan. Twitter was instantly inundated with the breaking news. The live footage on CNN showing semi trucks getting washed away and people trying to outrun the waves in their vehicles will be something I never forget. It was an epic moment for the world for those who were awake. On 9/11, I was on vacation on a remote island in the South Pacific that had nearly zero connectivity. Due to the impact on flights and air safety, I was stuck there for an extra week due so I’ve always felt disconnected from what it was truly like to experience the tragedy first-hand.
After the earthquake hit, my heart pounded for four hours straight. The tragedy and aftermath in Japan was one thing but nobody knew what was about to happen as the tsunami hit other regions. Those next few hours represented a crucial period of time we’ll never be able to get back. We had one shot at taking measures to prevent more possible casualties.
I wasn’t sure what to do but I felt accountable and compelled to help in some way. With zero traditional journalism or “reporter” experience under my belt, I put on my research hat and sifted through relevant tweets and links. Conveniently, most valuable people, stories and media outlets found their way to the surface fairly easily. However, these valuable pieces of info didn’t always have the largest distribution. Not knowing what to do, I started retweeting, asking people to send me valuable content so I could share to a larger audience and connect the dots. There was nothing special about me wanting to help, everyone did and everyone was. The only difference was my reach and I couldn’t go to sleep without offering it up.
This wasn’t about promoting or marketing anything, this was about people coming together virtually to help each other. It was the business of humanity.
Social channels are communication tools. Just like the telephone. They weren’t invented for marketers or crisis communication situations. Humans decide what they want to communicate. Certain large news organizations with huge twitter followings went dark that night. I’m sure if they were sleeping, uneducated about how to help more using these tools or concerned about the way their brand would be perceived but for the sake of saving lives, I hope they get it figured out. They should be held accountable to inform. Sometimes you need to put Charlie Sheen in the backseat and focus on the right thing to do.
I had LASIK surgery on Friday and streamed live video of the procedure online for the world to watch via Ustream.TV (edited version of just the surgery here). Below, I’ve listed my results, key takeaways and answers to the FAQs from the LASIK procedure by Dr. Jay Schwartz. However, one of the reasons for doing this was to experiment with using live video in an alternative way. An audience followed the story from the first eligibility exam to the post-op appointment because they legitimately wanted to consider getting LASIK themselves. Examples: here and here.
Aside from sports, entertainment and marketing, what else can live video be used for? Will it be adopted as a new communication channel used for functional benefit throughout our day? If the number of views didn’t matter and you were able to make your live video private (which can be done), how would you use it?
For example, a sports executive that I work with has used it to watch his child play football games when he’s traveling for business. What about weddings, graduations, club meetings, religious ceremonies, birthdays, coaching, instructional content, cooking classes, births or even funerals?
About a year ago, I did a live stream of a friend’s wedding. The couple happened to get engaged via twitter so this was appropriate to begin with.
The opportunities are endless . . . if they’re embraced. If you can’t be somewhere in person would you rather watch on your computer or not attend at all?
As for the LASIK. Here are some photos and here’s the scoop:
Bottom line: I now have 20/15 vision. The day after my surgery I went to my post-op appointment and it’s official I have better than 20/20 vision. You don’t know how cool and amazing this is until you’ve experienced it firsthand.
Frequently asked questions:
Was I scared?
Not really. Dr. Jay has done nearly 34K procedures and some of the eyes he’s performed surgery on have million dollar contracts attached to them (pro athletes). Great odds were on my side and I was on a lucky streak the week prior with my skydiving results. Ha.
Did it hurt?
The procedure was painless. Watch the video and you’ll see what I mean. Do I appear to be in pain as I chat with Dr. Jay about Justin Bieber’s new movie and my Angry Birds stuffed animal DURING the procedure? Not at all.
For me, there was slight discomfort after the surgery. They tell you to go home and go sleep for four-six hours after the surgery. They’re not kidding. There’s a reason for this, they put “slits” in your eyes. Don’t try to sleep for only two hours.
How long did it take to recover?
Recovery time is very limited. I went out to dinner seven hours after my surgery and watched NBA games on TV. (I could see the score!) This week I’ll be in three different cities for work. There’s been virtually no down time.
What was the worst part about the process?
Can’t work out for a week. In the grand scheme of things this is not a big deal. If this is the worst part of correcting your vision for the rest of your life things are going to be okay.
Red eyes and no makeup. Again, temporary inconvenience. My point is that you don’t want to schedule a beauty contest right after getting LASIK. Go sightseeing instead.
To wrap this up, I hope being the live stream guinea pig has encouraged more people to consider LASIK. From the sound of it online, it has.
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