I moved my private mastermind off of Facebook groups. It had nothing to do with the Cambridge Analytica scandal or the fact that Facebook has been mining and storing our data for years. 

Let me back up … for a long while, I’ve been contemplating how to streamline my offers in such a way that I could serve more authors and online business owners while also creating more room for me to take off on an adventure when time and space permitted.

I was mulling this over when I was introduced to Tara Gentile by way of an article she published on Medium. Impressed with her writing and ideas, I continued following and reading her work. I noticed in Tara’s bio that she was the Founder of CoCommercial, “the fluff-free social network for small business owners on a mission.” That was intriguing.

One day I clicked over to CoCommercial and decided to join so I could see what it was all about. I instinctively knew that this community was a model for what I was trying to articulate in my mullings about the change I wanted to make.

Not long after I joined, Tara announced she was doing a two-day workshop at Creative Live in San Francisco. It was about building community and integrating it into your business growth strategy. I booked my hotel and ticket immediately. 

Fast forward… four weeks after attending Tara Gentile’s community building workshop, I launched my own community… Marketing Trailblazers.

Why the change?

To be honest, I’d wanted to get the Visibility Mastery Lab off of Facebook for a while, but wasn’t sure where to put it – what platform to use. 

Facebook groups are terrible for archiving and searching for information.You may have used the “search” function, but you may have also noticed that it doesn’t actually work very well!

I want members to get answers to questions you can’t Google, not frustration that you can’t find what you’re looking for! 

There are minimal if any privacy and control issues for members of a Facebook group. Facebook can do whatever Facebook wants with the images and text that members upload. Not to mention that you don’t have much control over what it shows in your stream and who will or won’t get notifications about the posts.

We needed a space of our own where we could actually maintain the privacy and confidentiality we value. 

In general, Facebook promotes shallow, often meaningless exchanges over deep, meaningful discussions. This isn’t the kind of culture I want to promote.

I want our Visibility Mastery Lab to be a space for meaningful conversations, and sharing of our vulnerable selves and the challenges we face to get our messages out to the world. 

Facebook is peppered with ads, which are all over Facebook groups. Even in secret groups, members are bombarded by ads. Click to Tweet

You deserve to have your conversations in a noise-free, ad-free zone, that is not owned by a big corporation that sees us data points in their algorithm! 

 

In short, I’m tired of Facebook and it doesn’t serve my purposes. I want a space that our community can call our own, so we moved.

 

And, the platform I chose, Mighty Networks, makes it possible for me to create private groups within the larger community so the private Visibility Mastery Lab group not only can participate in the community but also has their private space where only mastermind members can see and participate in their own conversations.

 

By creating my own community space, I can now open it up to the friends, followers, and connections I have on various social networks. 

 

So, what are the objections to moving off of Facebook?

But I like Facebook! And I’m already ON Facebook!

Change is challenging. And, as we all know, it’s inevitable.

 

In addition to everything listed above, here are some of the fabulous things about the new space:

• Events are shown in YOUR time zone! No more having to scramble your brain to figure out what time the event is! And, if you have a global community, this is important.
• You can find other members based on their “specialty” (i.e., their primary business niche)
• You can find people based on their physical proximity to you, wherever you happen to be in the world (so if you’re traveling, and another member is nearby, the mobile app will tell you! As we grow, this will be super-cool!)
• You can write “Articles” with as many embedded images and videos as you want! (“Posts” are shorter messages; “Articles” are longer ones)
• You can include images and/or videos in your comments on other people’s (or your own) Posts and Articles, too!
• You can send private messages to other members, just like on Facebook
• There’s a fabulous mobile app, that makes it really easy to use on-the-go!
• The content is easy to organize and find via the search function with various filters. You can hone in on exactly what you’re looking for
• It’s a distraction-free zone, solely focused on supporting the members on their marketing journey

What is Marketing Trailblazers all about?

Marketing Trailblazers is a support and social community for adventurous business owners seeking to master online marketing.

Marketing Trailblazers is a community of marketers, coaches, consultants, authors, artists and other creative business owners on the journey to grow our businesses with smart marketing.

The community is designed as a safe and supportive space to ask questions, get real-world, real experience answers, meet your peers, share stories and most importantly grow your business.

My vision is to build a global community of independent online business owners coming together to help one another succeed, grow, and make an impact in the world with their important work.

 

There you have it. That’s why I moved my private mastermind group off of Facebook and on to our own platform. The experiment is young. I launched on March 22 to a small segment of my email list and several people jumped into the community right away. I’m rolling out the invitations to my email list and on social media slowly to ensure I have the time and energy to greet each new member and get them comfortable with a different model for getting the knowledge, support and encouragement they want in order to build and grow their business.

 

Ready to jump into the community? Click here to check it out. I’d love to welcome you to our community!

RECOMMENDED READING

The post Why I Moved My Private Mastermind Off of Facebook Groups appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

It’s a well known fact that organic reach on Facebook has declined significantly. It’s frustrating and annoying. But there are some actions you can take to boost your visibility and therefore increase your Facebook  engagement. To get the lowdown on how to navigate on Facebook, Amy Porterfield joined me on Adventures in Visibility to share tips that work and won’t cost you a dime. 

Amy and I discussed:

• How to increase your visibility and Facebook engagement (without investing in ads)
• What works NOW to encourage engagement on your content
• The features of an action-worthy post
• Recent news about the demise of like-gating
• Click-bait and why you don’t want to do it
• Using Graph Search to find your niche audience

Check out the event page for comments, questions and photos.
(the video on YouTube also includes timestamps; scroll down the page if you prefer audio or reading a transcript)

Key concepts you’ll want to listen to are located at the following times in the video:

4:06 6% of content you post on Facebook page gets seen in the newsfeed

5:47 Is there a hierarchy in engagement actions

6:53 How do we get people to comment?

9:15 What’s an “action worthy” post

14:13 Profile vs. Page engagement

15:51 Denise shares experience of getting engagement to Page via email

18:33 What is like-gating and why is it no longer available?

22:34 What is click bait?

25:28 Amy recommends Graph Search

30:01 One more way to get comments and likes…

31:07 What’s best content to advertise?

32:49 Amy’s most memorable Adventure

Amy Porterfield is the co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies and the creator and host of the popular podcast, Online Marketing Made Easy. Amy has worked with mega brands such as Harley-Davidson Motorcycles and Peak Performance Coach, Tony Robbins, where for 6 years she oversaw his content development team and collaborated on multiple online marketing campaigns. She currently creates online programs to teach entrepreneurs and small businesses across industries how to leverage social media to gain greater exposure, attract quality leads and turn their fans and followers into loyal customers.

Connect with Amy:
Blogsite: http://www.AmyPorterfield.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmyPorterfield
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmyPorterfield
Facebook Profit Lab

For your convenience, the mp3 and transcript are posted below, from the live Hangout with Amy.

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•  Watch previous Adventures
• Subscribe on YouTube 
• Subscribe on iTunes (podcast)

Be sure to visit Amy Porterfield for more information, and Circle her on Google+!

Do you have a question about how to create a more visible presence on the Web? Click here to record your question for me and I may include it along with my answer in an upcoming show!

To get reminders about when Adventures are scheduled and when replays are posted, you can get on the list and follow me on Google+. Be sure to let me know you want to be added to my Adventures in Visibility Notification Circle so you get the invitation directly through Google+.

The post Navigating Facebook to get Better Engagement Without Buying an Ad | Adventures in Visibility with Amy Porterfield appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

In this episode of Adventures In Visibility I welcome the dynamic and 

• The notion that blogging is dead or dying 
• Business models and how Google and Facebook have failed us
• The future of digital marketing 

Check out the Event page for comments, questions and photos. 

Connect with Dino:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dinodogan
Website: http://dinodogan.com
Triberr: http://triberr.com

For your convenience, the mp3 and transcript are posted below, from the live Hangout with Dino. 

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• Watch past Adventures
• Subscribe on YouTube 

Be sure to visit Dino Dogan for more information, and Circle him on Google+!

Do you know someone who has an outstanding online presence? Someone who has created massive visibility? Let me know in the comments and I’ll reach out and invite them to be a guest on Adventures in Visibility!

To get reminders about when Adventures are scheduled and when replays are posted, you can get on the list and follow me on Google+. Be sure to let me know you want to be added to my Adventures in Visibility Notification Circle so you get the invitation directly through Google+.

The post Have Google and Facebook Failed Us? Adventures in Visibility with Dino Dogan appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

It’s estimated that only about 10% of the people who follow your Facebook page, actually see your content. So you’re left to spend an unreal amount of time posting pictures, videos, polls and links in the hope that your followers will see and engage with your content. Or, you can spend money and advertise your content with promoted posts and offers in an attempt to get attention in the newsfeed.

That’s my strategy. I spend $10-20 per month advertising key posts to my fans. Generally I promote a post with a free offer and use them as lead generation and for list building.

If you’re committed to marketing your business on Facebook (and with over 1 billion users, who isn’t?), the infographic below may help you choose how to engage for the best return on your investment of time.  No surprise here that images get the best engagement. Some of the statistics are astounding.

Source

A couple of questions for you… do you use images on Facebook and what are your thoughts about the challenges of using Facebook for your business?

The post The Challenge of Getting Visibility on Facebook [infographic] appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

But what if you’re not particularly techie or you’re graphically challenged (like me)?

I’ve found and use four online apps that make creating quote graphics as easy as “copy, paste and click.”

Pinwords

Upload your own image or use one of the backgrounds provided by Pinwords. Choose your text style, type your text and click the Pin It button. If you want to save the image and use upload it to Facebook or use it on your blog, right click on the image and save it to your computer.

Pinstamatic

I use this site a lot. You can create images from websites, create quotes, sticky note reminders, a Twitter profile image, a date on a calendar, or upload your own image. I use it to create all these types of images. For quotes, you have six styles and fonts from which to choose. Again, to use it on your blog or Facebook, don’t forget to save it to your computer.

 Quozio

I recently discovered this quote graphic site. Again, it can’t get easier than this: type or paste your quote text, add the name of who said it and then choose the image or background you want for the quote. Pin and save to your computer. Quozio has a bit better selection of images than some of the other freebie sites.

Picmark

This site is great for branding, watermarking or adding a caption to your own images. Upload your image, choose the frame style you like (color and font), add your text, pin it, and save.

All of these quote graphic sites can be used to boost your visibility on Facebook and Pinterest. Not only can you create interesting quotes, you can use the sites to create images that promote your webinars, programs, books, and events. You’re only limited by your imagination. [I’ve linked to some of the ways I’ve used quote graphics throughout the post.]

UPDATE: I’ve created a list of sites on List.ly. Feel free to add your own favorites as well.

If there are other easy quote graphic sites you use, please post the URLs in the comments. And, share your ideas about how you use quotes on social networking sites and your blog.

The post Four Super Easy Ways to Create Quote Graphics for Facebook, Pinterest and Your Blog appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.