You know you're in a #hipster-friendly office when you see this in the breakroom.

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We're officially a family of potential baristas.

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Over Half of Internet Users Over 65 Use Facebook

The trends have been pointing to older generations jumping on Facebook for a while. Now, the latest numbers from Pew show that over half of internet users over 65 use Facebook.

Overall, Facebook’s growth slowed but engagement levels increased. On other networks such as Twitter and Pinterest, the number of users rose more dramatically but engagement decreased. While some say this is due to fatigue and accounts going dormant, we speculate that the users are getting more efficient at using the networks. The can be seen in the dramatic rise of adults using multiple networks – 52% in 2014 versus 42% the year before.

The most important finding of the study surrounds the rise in Facebook engagement. 70% of users access the site daily. That’s huge. That means that once Facebook gets its hooks into users, they tend to crave it in much the same way that people watch television daily. This is a sharp contrast to recent speculation that Facebook is suffering from being antiquated and too “uncool” for younger users.

That may be the case, but as they get older and are forced to expand their social circles through work and adult groups, it’s likely that they will be forced to come back to the “old person’s social network” if they want to engage with their adult peers.

There are definitely some gems in the exhaustive study, but overall it’s not really anything new. Facebook is huge. We knew that already.

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Is there a Prophecy of Yeshua in the Generations of Adam from Genesis Chapter 5?

We often explore clear prophecies from both the Old and New Testament. Most come from the Prophets themselves, as well as from Moses, Daniel, and later from Jesus Christ Himself.

There are those who look deeper into the structure and form of the text to look for hidden prophecies and messages from our Father. One such instance is in the Book of Genesis in chapter 5 when the generations of Adam are discussed. Here’s how it breaks down:

1. Adam


2. Seth


3. Enosh


4. Keinan


5. Mahalalel


6. Yared


7. Enoch


8. M’thushelach


9. Lamech


10. No’ah

When translated into English using the roots of the names, here is how the message would play out:

“Man appointed mortal sorrow. The Blessed God shall come down teaching His death shall bring the despairing comfort.”

Here is an excerpt from a great video from Jewish Eyes.

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An Interesting Commentary on Daniel’s 70 Weeks

We try to keep a very closed mind when it comes to scripture. It makes it challenging but it’s necessary because there are so many bad commentaries out there that twist and manipulate the Word of God in ways that simply shouldn’t be done. In this case, we’re open to the ideas found in the video below.

It shows a slightly alternative view to what many commentators use as their understanding of Daniel’s prophecy of the 70 weeks.

This cannot be stressed enough: do your research in prayer and by following the Holy Spirit. Take nothing as gospel except for the Gospel. There are many bad teachings out there. Hopefully, this short one falls under the category of being a good one. We have not vetted the person who made the video nor checked the dates and facts referenced. It’s just a quick urging in this direction. From there, you must make your own choices about its validity.

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‘While You Were Away’ Will Make Twitter More Important for Business

Twitter was tiny. Then it was huge. Then it was irrelevant. Now, it’s on the verge of landing somewhere in between “huge” and “irrelevant” with the rollout of their “While you were away” feature.

Businesses have had a love/hate relationship with Twitter since its birth. It can be a tremendous communication tool, of course. That hasn’t changed. However, it seemed to only be of true benefit for big companies. Local businesses outside of real-time floaters like food trucks or music bands had a hard time generating a true return on investment.

The problem has been that for a local business to have any chance of getting noticed on Twitter and generating proactive benefit, a lot of time was necessary. Unfortunately, the return did not always justify the time spent. What’s worse is that it became painful for some who were finding that the positive things they tried to do went nowhere while anything negative about them that went out on Twitter seemed to go viral.

Bad news flourished. Good news got buried.

That’s in the process of changing. “While you were away” will bring real ROI for local businesses.

Start Paying Attention to Twitter Now

One of the most appealing aspects of Facebook is its extremely intuitive algorithm. Most people take for granted the amazing complexity and uncanny accuracy of the algorithm that powers the news feed.

On the other hand, Twitter has always maintained strength in real-time exploits. See what’s happening now… and now… and now again. This meant that local businesses would have to Tweet several times a day in order to get any traction, plus engage in conversations, plus monitor for mentions, plus several other little annoying activities that made it more cost- and ROI-effective to simply maintain a basic presence and monitor briefly every day.

The new feature means that quality could trump quantity, or rather add to it. On Facebook, it’s better to post less and make it meaningful. Posting too much can hurt. With the new Twitter, it will likely make sense to focus on quality first but with the understanding that quantity will still help. In essence, “While you were away” means that you want to do whatever you can to generate some sort of interactions on some of your Tweets. If you do, your Tweets from minutes, hours, or even days ago have an opportunity to be seen by your audience in ways that were impossible in the chronological-only world of old Twitter.

Quality is new Twitter’s best friend.

Here are a few anticipatory best practices. We can’t be definitive at this point because the feature is still limited, but we can anticipate some things that you’ll want to do to bump up your Twitter quality.

• Include images whenever appropriate. By keeping them the proper size (2-to-1 ratio) and compelling, you’ll get more attention while it’s live, giving it more potential engagement and increasing its chances of being seen by people when they log into Twitter next time.


• Post often but spread it out so as to not get unfollowed. Every guru has an opinion about frequency. I like to keep at least an hour between standard Tweets (not including @replies).


• Do not ask for retweets. Here’s the thing. It works. Unfortunately. Then again, panhandling at the subway station can work as well, but it’s not something that you want to do for a living. Rely on your content. They’ll retweet it if they love it.


• Retweet and favorite others’ posts aggressively. I’m a little worried about using the word “aggressively” in this best practice because it can definitely be taken too far, but helping others will encourage them to help you. Don’t do it randomly, though. Whatever you retweet will appear on your Twitter profile. Be selective and only retweet the best content from good sources. That doesn’t necessarily mean big sources. A Ford dealer will probably notice if you retweet them. Ford corporate most likely will not.


• Use hashtags, but don’t overdo it. Reading these, one would think that it’s written by Goldilocks. Not too hot. Not too cold. Just right. That’s really what you want to do with Twitter – find the sweet spot for all activities.

I hate to admit it, but I lost love for Twitter over the last couple of years. The love is getting renewed. Twitter is going to be effective for small businesses once again if they do it right.

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Getting More People to Like Your Facebook Page is 99% Worthless

Someday, I will have the opportunity to prove to a client or prospect beyond any reasonable doubt that this is true. In the meantime, I will continue to write about it in hopes that the facts will win out.

To prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, I would have to take a page that has zero fans and send massive engagement and traffic with a small budget. Then, we’d need to look at the statistics to show that a page that starts off with zero likes can have more than just paid reach. It can have more organic reach than pages that have tons of likes.

We do have examples, not to the extreme of having zero fans, but by demonstrating that through strong content and proper use of advertising we can get strong organic reach. Here’s a quick one that’s pretty clear:

As you can see, this page has 2,458 people liking it. However, you’ll see that the small budget, in this case around $15, was able to get it good paid exposure. More importantly, it generated more organic reach than the number of people who like the page.

Now, let’s look at a different page. It has nearly 8 times as many likes, but the reach is minimal.

The gap is crystal clear. Facebook has been pulling back on organic reach for some time. While many will say that it’s all about greed and the bottom line to force pages to use money to get exposure, it’s more likely about what the users want. When they see page posts on their news feeds, they are much less likely to engage with those posts than the posts of their friends and family. Still, they’re a business, so the reduction of organic reach and the rise of sponsoring posts is the end result.

You’ll notice that I said that page likes are 99% worthless. There’s one minor benefit. Some would call it credibility. Others would call it ego. Either way, having a page that people are liking gives a psychological boost to the page to let people demonstrate how popular their page really is. While likes are infinitesimal in importance compared to reach, it’s still a benefit.

Focus on content. Put a budget behind it. Give your page real reach rather than the artificial benefits associated with page popularity.

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The Challenge of Running a Secular Business Guided by Faith

Before I began my current path in business, I worked for a company that maintained faith within the workplace. We would start our monthly meetings with the local pastor saying a prayer over the team and asking for guidance to fall upon the business and the staff. It’s not a common scene today as fear has filled business owners across America that they could find themselves in court over such activities.

This wasn’t the 60s. It wasn’t the 80s. It wasn’t even the 90s. This was 2007. I wasn’t working at a Christian bookstore, a faith-based charity, or an activist agency. I was working at a car dealership. Today, we see secularism dominating business to the point that discussion of religion is often against company policy and the thought of openly discussing faith is taboo, but it wasn’t so long ago that these types of practices were much less risky and much more accepted.

Now, I own my own business. We are a secular business and we follow the law of the land that says we cannot make hiring decisions based upon faith. We don’t ask. We’re not allowed. Thankfully, we’ve been blessed with great people, some of whom outwardly confess their belief in Yeshua as Lord and Savior.

Maintaining a separation of faith and business is a very thin line. We do not instigate religious principles into our business at a company level, though some of us have prayed together. Still, it’s challenging to tiptoe through, feeling pulled from one direction to let the Holy Spirit guide our decisions for the business while trying to avoid any practices that can get us in trouble with the law. Here are some things that I’ve learned in the first year as a business owner that may help others facing similar challenges.

Seek by Demonstration

While the law may prevent me from overtly “intimidating” anyone on my team who is not a follower of Christ, it does not prevent me from expressing my faith publicly as an individual. Even before I started my business, I was open and proud of my faith and published as much on this blog, other blogs, and through my social media profiles.

By demonstrating my faith outwardly, which we should be willing to do regardless of whether we own a business or not, it allows others to gain an understanding of me and to feel comfortable with approaching me about my faith. For some, this has translated into partners, team members, and even clients acknowledging that they know of my faith and willing to discuss it with me. For others, particular a couple of competitors and others in my industry, it has turned into debates and condemnation.

You have to be willing to accept both. The good will come with bad. The positives will have negatives attached to them. A bold willingness to take criticism is necessary if you want to know where others stand. It can be risky. It can cost you some business. It also opens the doors to find other brothers and sisters in Christ while enabling opportunities to have discussions with those who have not found Him yet.

Pray Privately

We are commanded to pray, to give blessing and to worship our Father. We are also told that our Father knows our needs before we ever need to utter them. Still, it’s important to gain guidance through prayer in our private as well as our business lives.

Pray for your company. Pray for your team. Pray for your competition. Most importantly, pray in gratitude and humility to the Lord who has made all things possible for you. Through the good times, we can see the glory of God. Through the rough times, we are challenged with tribulations to remain faithful and stay the course.

Pray Together

Whether you read the Bible or listen to scientific studies, both have shown the tremendous power of prayer, particularly when done as a group. When you’ve identified those within your company who share your faith, be willing to pray with them, to pray about them, and to ask them for their prayers on behalf of those things important to you and of mutual importance as well.

On one hand, we promote the idea of being careful in a secular world, but this is only a mild warning. Boldly professing your faith with your team and having a willingness to pray with them can be dangerous, but if you’re going to face troubles, I’d rather face the troubles of men wanting to take down my business because of my faith rather than the consequences of hiding from it behind the facade of political correctness.

Obey the 4th Commandment

This is arguably the most important yet most underutilized aspect of applying faith to business. In America, so many businesses operate on the Sabbath. This is clearly against the Commandments of our Lord.

Now is not the time to discuss whether Sabbath is on Saturday or Sunday, though we’ve gone pretty in-depth about that in the past. It’s also a debate that is challenging to have with your team even if you do know the truth, so we’ve instituted a weekends-off mentality. I still remember the time when we had an employee break this Commandment and do work for a client on the Sabbath. It was a terrible mistake and it will haunt me for as long as I own this business.

Your business should never force others or you to choose between honoring the day of rest or doing work. If it does, you are in the wrong business. It has become too acceptable in America and around the world to disobey this Commandment. The only way to keep a clear conscience and truly operate your business with faith is to hold strictly to this Commandment. Your team will appreciate it, even if they are not yet believers.

Not All is Fair in Business

It is in our hearts to know right from wrong. This is one of the greatest gifts that the Lord gave to us. We no longer have to be told the Torah in order to understand the basic laws of life (though it’s still a very idea to read it as well).

Some businesses keep such a separation of business and faith that they’re willing to do wrong for the sake of competitive advantage. These unscrupulous activities that we know in our hearts to be wrong must be avoided. It’s easy to do things for the sake of success that go against operating a business guided by our faith, but if success comes at a price that goes against the teachings of the Bible, it’s a price that is too high to pay.

Detach from the World

Someday, I hope to be able to dedicate my life to ministry. I know that all will be provided for me if I let true faith guide all that I do, but it’s so hard to let go of this world and pursue a righteous path when family needs, bills, and temptation keep us so entrenched in it all.

Remember that a business, no matter how beneficial it might be for you or others, is still a business of this world. Never let that get in the way of your salvation and never let it hinder others from finding theirs.

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We Don’t Know Who to Support Yet, but it’s Definitely Not Jeb Bush

The media is already putting Jeb Bush as the most likely GOP presidential candidate for 2016. They’re comparing him to his brother and father, but that’s not really the case. The best two people to compare to Jeb Bush are Mitt Romney and Bob Dole. If Bush is the candidate, he will meet the same results as these two fellow moderates.

The GOP does not need to cater to the middle. They do not need to ride on the coattails of a known entity. If recent history has taught us anything, it’s that the polarizing candidates perform better. It also shows us that a relatively unknown entity like Barack Obama in 2007 can galvanize his party better than someone who is familiar, even if only by name.

We’re not too worried, yet. It’s still very early and we’re hoping that someone will step up and represent the conservative side of the Republican party. That’s the only way to achieve victory. Obama was vulnerable and we put up a weak, moderate candidate. Bill Clinton was vulnerable when he was trying to get re-elected and we did the same thing. On the other side of the fence, George W. Bush was vulnerable and the Democrats put up a career, known entity who was moderate.

If we look at the winners of every presidential election since Carter, we’ll see that the winner from either party was the one who fought on the fringe rather than migrated towards the middle with the only exceptions being the ones who were going up against weaker moderates.

• Carter: Newcomer. Very liberal. Campaigned door-to-door.


• Reagan 1: Bold. Aggressive. Very conservative.


• Reagan 2: Still bold. More aggressive. Conservative but with an uncanny ability to reach across the aisle.


• GHW Bush: Rode on Reagan’s coattails.


• Clinton 1: New. Fresh. Perceived to be very liberal.


• Clinton 2: Not so new. Not very fresh. Less liberal than his base expected. Dole, unfortunately, was completely uninspiring.


• GW Bush 1: Youthful conservative. Perceived to be very conservative.


• GW Bush 2: Not so youthful. Not nearly as conservative as promised. Fortunately, Kerry was weak and the war on terror had people concerned.


• Obama 1: Very new. Very fresh. Very liberal.


• Obama 2: The newness and the freshness didn’t accomplish anything. More liberal than expected. Unfortunately, Romney was not up to the task.

Jeb Bush is not a conservative. He’s not fresh. He’s not riding on popular coattails and the issue of war is something that will not help him. He possesses none of the traits of a presidential winner. Jeb Bush would lose to any Democrat. If he were to somehow win, he would not be a very good president.

It’s hard to be so critical of the early frontrunner before he’s even officially declared, but everyone knows it’s coming. We have to put up a much stronger candidate or we could see the end of the party by 2018.

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Building Up a Blog with Social Promotion

There are two major components to a good blog. Sure, there are plenty of other components such as design, site speed, consistency, purpose, niche relations… actually, there are so many that I could write a full-length article just listing the different components, let alone going into detail about them. Still, there are two primary components that can overcome poor performance on all of the other areas.

Great content. Great promotion. That’s it. If your content is strong and you’re able to promote your site properly and gain credibility on social media and search, you’re blog will grow and be successful.

The content part is actually easier. If you’re a good writer, strong at making videos, a great photographer, or a combination of all three, you can put together great content. You’ll need passion to do it, perseverance to stick with it, and time to stay consistent, but strong content can keep people coming back to your site.

Early promotion is what gets them there in the first place. Just like a tree falling in an empty forest, a blog with great content that nobody is seeing will not be able to grow simply on the merits of your Pulitzer-quality works. You have to have promotions to make it work.

By “promotions”, I’m not necessarily talking about paid promotions. Those help, particularly on Facebook and other social media sites, but you have to be able to get the right people seeing your content so that it has the opportunity to get noticed, shared, and eventually trusted. There are other ways to promote other than social media, but I’m writing this assuming you have little or no budget, in which case good ol’ free social media is the way to go.

First and foremost, many who read this will say that they are already promoting their blog. They’re sharing it on Facebook, Twitter, and every other social media site and that should be enough, right? If you’re very popular on social media, it might be, but it will probably take more than that. If you’re doing it in an automated way such as having it share directly through a WordPress plugin or RSS service, you’re completely doing it wrong.

Let’s look at how to do it right.

Post By Hand

Stop feeding an automated posting solution. It saves you minutes (maybe even seconds) versus hand-crafting your posts on social media. If you don’t have time to write up an appropriate title and description as well as sharing the right image, you don’t have time for promotion and you probably don’t have time to blog in the first place.

Us the Right Tools

Take advantage of every possible advantage that you can. If you’re going to be posting it to your personal social media profiles, use the right tools. For Facebook, the right tool is Facebook. Don’t post through Hootsuite or any of the common posting tools. Using the Facebook interface is better because it gives you an algorithmic advantage over the API posting services. The same thing holds true for LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Tumblr.

For Twitter and Google+, using a tool like Buffer is fine.

Take Advantage of Platform Strengths

Do each individually and make sure to take advantage of the platform’s individual strengths:

• Facebook: Post the link directly on Facebook.com. Pick out the right thumbnail and make sure it renders properly as a full image rather than a partial image. You may even want to upload a fresh image, particularly if there’s text involved. For maximum quality and space management, use images that are 1200×628 in aspect ratio and at least 600 pixels wide. Fix the title and link description if necessary. Keep the post text short but important. Some say to leave the link itself in the post text but I disagree. It makes it look sloppy.


• Twitter: Whenever possible (which is just about every time) be sure to include an image in your Tweet. The exception is if you have an extremely long title or a ton of hashtags that take up a lot of the necessary character room. Images should be 2×1 ratio and over 500 pixels wide. Use hashtags when appropriate but don’t overdo it. Mention people of note if you believe they will be truly interested, particularly if they’re the subject.


• Google+ and LinkedIn: Pretty much just like Facebook, but craft the text portion to match the network.


• Pinterest: Make sure the image selected is large enough to fill an entire Pin properly. Make the description a full paragraph when necessary and include the right hashtags.


• Tumblr: If you have an interesting image, that is much easier to promote on Tumblr than a link. If you use the Tumblr browser addon, you’ll be able to share as an image from the page directly, select the right one, and hand-craft the description. Doing it this way will make the image clickable to your website. Tags are extremely important on Tumblr. Make sure they’re relevant but don’t be shy with them, either.

Build Branded Pages and Profiles

It can become a chore to build up additional profiles beyond your personal ones, but it’s worth it long-term if you’re committed. Be warned – if you can’t manage them and keep them robust, they’ll become more of a detriment than benefit.

Don’t duplicate your efforts from your personal account. Say things in different ways. Post at different times. Divide and conquer using your two sets.

Share Other Works

The biggest mistake I see people make with their branded accounts is that they’re all about the blog itself. You’ll build an audience for them much faster if you diversify with content from places other than your own blog.

This is hard for some to grasp. Most major blog pages and profiles do not do this. They can afford to not do it. Until you build something as big as Mashable, there’s no reason to mimic them. Build an audience with tons of relevant content even if not all of it is helping to promote your own site.

Final Note

All of this is much easier with money behind it. Facebook and Twitter have great and inexpensive advertising models. You don’t have to spend a ton. A few bucks consistently utilized for promotions can help take your blog higher much more quickly than trying to build it through strictly organic promotions.

If you care about your blog and the content you post, you’ll put in the effort to get people to see it and love it.

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