Brick and Click

Facebook 'Questions' available for personal and Page use

 

I just added the new 'Questions' feature on my personal and business Page Facebook accounts.  It can be a nice option to ask an open question of your friends or fans, or conduct a quick poll with specific answer options (yes, no, maybe, you're nuts, etc).  Facebook is rolling Questions out over the next few weeks, but you can be proactive and add it now by doing the following:

1. via your personal account, go to facebook.com/questions
2. choose to add it, and it will appear immediately along with other message options, like Status, Photo, Link, Video
3. Now go to any Page you admin, and switch to 'Use Facebook as (Page)'
4. go back to same /questions URL and add it again, this time to the Page you're logged in as

 

I'm just now experimenting with it (you can see a polling question I asked on my Page), and it's interesting to see the difference when you toggle back and forth as person and Page.  You have the option to 'Ask Friends' the question you just posted on your Page, if you choose to be yourself on the Page.  It brings up a box listing all of your friends (not Fans), and you can check off ones you want to receive a notification inviting him or her to answer the question. So this begs the question: do you like this new feature?  You might want to give it a whirl before deciding pro or con. If you don't want to pose your own question, please interact with the one I posted, and get a feel for how it works.

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UPDATE (7:15pm ET): after testing and poking around Questions all afternoon, one thing I noticed that you'll want to check into:  There's a new section under 'Notifications' (your personal Account Settings) for Questions.  It defaults so you receive emails when someone invites you to answer a question, and several other actions.  You might want to tweak the settings to keep a flood of emails from coming when Questions take off, from personal profiles and Pages.

Another thing I noticed ... and maybe it's because this feature is new ... but I haven't spent as much time interacting with people in quite a while as I did today with Questions - specifically one I posted on my Page, and one I interacted with on Shonali Burke's Page.  Questions can trigger a lot of interactivity ... which is great (I really enjoyed the engagement today:-).  But for some, this feature will have the potential to annoy and/or overwhelm, so use it wisely.

Another reason to dislike birthdays

I received this note and 'digital cake' upon logging into my Freshbooks account today.  It caught me as especially odd and kind of funny, if by funny you mean kind of annoying and pretentious.  Freshbooks is a decent and affordable invoicing and bookkeeping service that I've used since launching Brick and Click in 2008.  But I'm thinking they could've come up with a slightly more impactful way to 'wow' me on my toddler anniversary.  Instead of a message that shouts "Aren't we wonderful?  And won't you please celebrate by telling your friends how wonderful we are?" ... perhaps they could've given me an actual gift, like a month of free service, or better yet, a cupcake in the mail.  The latter would've prompted me to take a picture of said cupcake and post it happily on Facebook and Twitter.  Makes me rethink how I treat customers, and has my mind churning with ideas on how to exceed their expectations in creative and memorable ways.

Tools You Can Use: Two Recent Mobile App Discoveries

I'm not one to download every mobile application under the sun.  I don't want my iPhone or iPad cluttered with endless screens of rarely used apps, so I frequently find myself pruning my modest app collection.  The bottom line:  I'm always on the hunt for useful applications and technology in general, for personal and professional use. And sure, I'm human, so I gravitate to the ocassional game or 'candy' app that exists for pure entertainment or time passing purposes (great when you're growing moss in a doctor's waiting room). 

On that note, I want to spotlight a couple of apps that I've recently discovered or began to use.  If you're a regular Starbucks customer like I am, I strongly suggest using the Starbucks Card Mobile App.  I've had it for a number of months, finding it useful to see how much money was available on the card account, and how many purchases I needed to make before a free drink coupon would come my way (every 15 purchases).  But today, I used the app itself for the first time to pay for my triple espresso.  It was a seamless experience, and had me wondering why I waited, since I knew the technology existed since first reading about it in January, and since reloading the card at the cashier - then making a purchase - had become something of a thorn in my side the past few months.  Now, I'm going to set up auto-reload online, so every time my account hits zero, a certain amount is moved from my debit card to my Starbucks account.  I no longer need to carry that extra physical card in my wallet.  I can just pull out my iPhone, tap the app, choose 'Touch to Pay", and the barista/cashier will simply scan my onscreen barcode, and bingo, the transaction is complete. Clicking "Touch When Done" immediately shows you how much money remains in your account.  The app keeps tally of how many transactions you've done, so you don't miss that freebie after each 15 (you also get a free drink coupon around your birthday).  The only thing Starbucks needs to do now is take out the snail mail coupon process and make it all a seamless mobile experience.  So when you hit that 15th transaction, or it's your birthday, the app should reflect that when scanned.

Another mobile app I wanted to bring to your attention is the Google Translate app for the iPhone.  I stumbled on it recently, having found the Translate option at Google.com something of a wonder.  Google released the Translate iPhone app on Feb. 8th.  You can type some text in one language, English for instance, and have it quickly translated into another language, say Spanish.  But the real mindblower is the audio capability.  It recognizes voice input from 15 different languages when you click on the little microphone and speak into your phone. You can see a text tranlsation of up to 50 languages, or listen to one of your translations spoken out loud by the app in one of 23 languages.   I tried it a few times, and depending on how clearly you speak, background noise, etc ... accuracy can be a little erratic.  Might have also been my not-so-terrific Spanish speaking ability.  But the potential here is vast.  What if you come across someone in distress who speaks another language, and can't speak a lick of English.  Just pull up the app and have the person talk into your phone.  It's the kind of app that you may not use very often, but when needed, could literally save a life one day.  Or at minimum help you figure out what the person at the drive thru is saying ....

Have you discovered any impactful or interesting mobile apps lately?  For personal or business use?  Please share!