Just when you start feeling comfortable with the latest round of changes to Facebook, along comes another series of new features that can throw you into a tailspin. Like me.

For example, I voluntarily converted to the new format rather than waiting until later this month when everyone will be forced to convert. But that places an ugly photo ribbon right at the top of my fan page.

That’s prime real estate, darn it! Most of the photo ribbons I’ve seen on other people’s pages include a series of five unrelated photos that show fan page owners posing with people they’ve met at events. The photos are usually poorly cropped, too dark, or so small that people looking at the page can’t identify who’s in the photo.

Nor do they care.

But I’ve figured out a way to manipulate that photo ribbon so I use it to promote my business and bring visitors to my website, blog, Twitter profile and even product pages–without being obnoxious.

You can check it out by going to http://www.facebook.com/SerenityVAServices

While you’re there, click on the Like button at the top of the page. Then click on each of the five photos and see what happens.

Knowing how to use the photo ribbon to help your visitors and to promote–and understanding what you can do with all the other new Facebook features–will give you incredible power that you never knew you had.

Three years ago, when I was a guest on  the webinar “11 Ways to Avoid Missed Opportunities on Facebook,” with Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound and we  walked participants through Facebook and demonstrated how to use the site to attract friends and fans, join the conversation, find your target audience and make people love you.

But that was three years ago. So much has changed on Facebook that some of the strategies we recommended back then can actually waste hours of your precious time due to the numerous changes on Facebook.

I’ve fielded so many questions about Facebook’s new look and navigation that Joan and I are hosting a webinar at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, March 15. It’s called “12 More Ways to Avoid Missed Opportunities on the New & Improved Facebook.”

If you participated three years ago, or you’re confused by any aspect of Facebook, you owe it to yourself to take this crash course to learn about the new tools and how to use them to promote your expertise.

We’re even going to be sharing a cool new tool I discovered that will help you find other people’s fan pages where you can post helpful content to their walls, talk directly to their thousands of fans, and get a link back to your own fan page–without spamming.

Register here, even if the time is inconvenient for you because I’m recording it, and Joan will send you the replay link and all the handouts.

It’s Joan Stewart’s a.k.a The Publicity Hounds birthday and she is blowing out 59 candles on the cake.

There’s an old tradition that says the birthday person should get a birthday spanking–one light pat on the behind for every year. But at 59, she won’t let that happen.

So here’s another way to make her cry.

Clean out her inventory and slash 59 percent off the total price of your order. If you’ve been putting off buying CDs, transcripts, ebooks or special reports, now is the time to grab ‘em.

Go to her website at The Publicity Hound and look around.

Important: You must enter the numeral 59 into the promo code box at check-out and then click on “Apply.” And you must order by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow night, Feb. 4. This applies to products only, not the mentor program or other services.

P. S. She is cleaning out her inventory in the next few weeks and eliminating old titles. So if you see something you want, grab it now before it’s gone. Or kick yourself later.

Here’s some really bad advice that the so-called PR experts dispense: Your email pitches to journalists and bloggers should be as short as possible. No more than three or four words.

Why is it bad advice? Because it forces people to make their subject lines sound cute rather than informative.

Publicist Michelle Tennant, a master at booking her clients on top-tier TV and radio shows, often uses as many words as necessary in her subject lines so they scream, “Open me!”

And wow, do journalists ever open them!

During this webinar on “How to Tie Your Pitch to Breaking News and Make the Media Interview YOU,” Michelle dissected three email pitches that scored publicity in major media outlets. All three had the critical elements of an email pitch and made the journalist’s job incredibly easy. You can adopt them for your own use.

News is breaking all around you–and that’s the very best time to pitch. Joan recorded the webinar and you can watch it at your computer, or download it along with the MP3 file, the handouts and Michelle’s sample pitches. Read more about what she taught at http://budurl.com/pitchingthemedia

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Reprinted from “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week,” an ezine featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity. Subscribe at http://www.publicityhound.com/ and receive by email the handy cheat sheet “89 Reasons to Send a Press Release.”

News is breaking all around you.

When you’re the local angle to a national story, or you can comment on the hot topic of the day, TV producers, daily and weekly newspaper reporters, and bloggers will practically be begging to talk to you.

But too many people who want publicity don’t bother picking up the phone or emailing. They think the media are too busy. Or they don’t know what to say.

What a mistake! This is the very best time to pitch.

What if somebody gave you step-by-step directions on exactly how to piggyback your story idea onto breaking news? Publicist Michelle Tennant, who got one of her clients booked on “Dr. Phil” the very day the client signed the PR contract, will explain the exact details of what she does when she pitches a client during a breaking news event. She’ll even show you the word-for-word email pitches she sent to the media–pitches that resulted in major publicity for her clients.

Michelle will be the special guest during a webinar hosted by Joan Stewart, aka The Publicity Hound, at 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, July 21. Michelle will teach you how to use very simple email subject lines, include three important elements in every pitch, and the exact number of times to follow up.

She’ll also tell you about a free media resource website she uses, thus saving her thousands of dollars on media directories.

This is an ongoing conversation. How does one measure their ROI on Facebook?

Facebook has provided a tool in which we can measure our ROI on Facebook if you have a fan page.  I can go into my fan page and look at the “insights” section on the left hand side of your page.  This is where I can measure exactly what kind of traffic I have had. It measures everything from male/female, to where your fans are coming from.

Of late, I have had some success with clients and their fan pages. For instance, I have several clients that have a newsletter. We have now taken those newsletters and “sliced and diced” them. We have posted them as notes on their Facebook fan pages such as Joan Stewart’s, aka, The Publicity Hound. What this has shown is an increase in sales.

How do we know that? Well, when I post the note, there is always a call to action. Such as, “read more at ….” or “sign up for my newsletter at….”. We have also been “tagging” her friends in these notes. You have to be careful when “tagging’ as it can be overly promotional, but if you believe it is of value to them, by all means, do.

Every year, Joan Stewart, a.k.a., The Publicity Hound gives out a free ebook. It is from her newsletter “best of”.

This year, its ” The Best of The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week-2009“

What is so unique about this gift is that you can re-gift it as many times as you would like. Here are just a few of the ways in which you can either use the ebook

• The lazy way to create fun video–even if you don’t have a technical bone in your body
• How to create your own holiday, or your own day, week or month of the year
• 9 attention-grabbing phrases to use at your blog
• 5 great social media marketing ideas when the idea well is dry
• The Number 1 press release writing mistake that will doom you every time

This is the ebook the just keeps giving and giving.

If you write press releases and post them online,
are you making the #1 mistake that 9 out of 10 other
press release writers are making?

They aren’t using keywords within their releases. Keywords are the
same words people type into Google and the other search engines when
they’re searching for the answer to a problem, or they want to buy
something.

Not using the right keywords–or any keywords–means consumers
might never find your press release. If journalists are using the
search engines to look for sources on a particular topic, or news
about your industry, they won’t find your press release, either.

Publicity expert Joan Stewart, whose tips I love, is hosting a
teleseminar on Wednesay, Oct. 21, that will cut through the often
confusing issues related to press release keywords. One lucky
person who registers for the call will win a f+ree press release,
written by Janet.

For details, go to http://budurl.com/m7ua to read more about
what you’ll learn and to register.

This has become one of my favorite tools. You’ll love it too. I have several BudURLs set up for not only my links, but for my clients as well.

I heard the tool bantered about at the Stompernet Live 7 convention that I attended with Joan Stewart, a.k.a. The Publicity Hound this past March in Atlanta, GA and I had no idea what they were talking about.

Once I returned home and sifted through the reams of notes that I took, I checked this out. Again, as I said earlier, I love this tool.

Here’s why:

It turns long URLs into tiny URLS.
You can track how many people click on each link.
You can use this when posting a tweet to Twitter, or an update to Facebook, in your newsletter or on your blog.

This has proved to be useful for my clients and I have passed this along to them. They are now using BudURL as well.

You can  create BudURLs for every link that you have.

There are four levels you can use.

• Free
  This service allows you to create and track up to 250 BudURLs with premium click stats for the first 25 clicks per BudURL
• Solo at $4/month
  This level allows you to create and  track up to 500 BudURLs with premium click stats for the first 500 clicks per BudURL
• Power at $12/month
  At this level you are able to create and track up to 25,000 BudURLs with premium click stats for the first 2000 clicks per BudURL  This level also includes:
  Click Stream Enabled
  Weekly Stats Email
  Daily Stats Email
  Downloadable Stats
• Agency at $49/month
  At this top level you are able to create and track up to 50,000 BudURLs with premium click stats for the first 50,000 clicks per BudURL. This level also includes:
  Click Stream Enabled
  Weekly Stats Email
  Daily Stats Email
  Downloadable Stats

You can use the free service, but to get the most bang for your buck, try the Solo level. At only $4/month, it’s worth it.

Yes, we are.

Thanks to Joan Stewart (The Publicity Hound) and Paulette Ensign’s (Tips Products International) advice my website is getting a much needed face lift.

Jason Saeler of Saeler Enterprises will be building the new website. He has done the work on many websites and he has been extremely helpful to me with my business as well. In fact, he has made me part of his team!

We’re really excited about the new look and the professional feel it will project.

I also have a new business partner, my husband, Scott Buffaloe. His part of our business is in database maintenance, analytics and SEO.

Although Serenity Virtual Assistant Services has been around for roughly 5 years, we are broadening our list of services, to include:

• Social networking consulting
• Search engine optimization
• Database maintenance
• Video editing

Son onward and upwards we go. Thank you for all your support and your continued support.

Christine & Scott Buffaloe