As a Social Media Specialist, people have been asking me lately about Pinterest – what it is and whether it is worth investing in from a business perspective so I thought I would weigh in with a blog post on this topic.

When Pinterest first came to my attention, I took a cursory look at it and dismissed it as a time suck. But I then took a closer look, began playing with it and even started my own vision board. I began to pin items and pretty soon, I started to realize what a wonderful social media tool this is and the opportunity it gives business owners in many industries.

Pinterest, for those of you who have not heard about it, is a virtual pinboard with about 12 million active users every month. You can create a profile on there and begin to create these pinboards or bulletin boards for yourself and pin items (images) of interest that you find online. You can create multiple boards on multiple topics. 3 things to know:

1. You must request to join. You cannot automatically set up a profile. However, when you get the invite, the actual profile is not too difficult to set up. You will need a Facebook or Twitter account to complete the process.
2. You may not snag images that are copyrighted or otherwise restricted and pin them or syndicate them.
3. While you can ‘Facebook Like’ an item, you may only share it on your personal page not your Facebook business page – something I hope they will change.

So what, you may ask can you do with this from a business perspective?

The first thing to know is that Pinterest is mostly popular with women between the ages of 25-40 so if this is your target market, take a closer look at this site. The categories that are of the most interest on Pinterest?

• Arts and Crafts / DIY
• Home Decor
• Style and Fashion
• Food

which, might explain why women are drawn to it with food being the fastest growing category on Pinterest. So I did an experiment with one of my clients who is in the food business. I created a profile for them, started a food board and began pinning images that linked to their blog posts – the ones that contained recipes. Within minutes many of those images generated about 20 repins meaning people saw the images and repinned them to their own board. In each of these cases, those images linked them back to the client’s website.  Pinterest was the referring agent in close to 100 hits on their website last month alone.

The beauty of Pinterest is that you can snag some code from their site and place it on your own website next to images that you might be e-tailing. When people visit your site, they can pin these images on their own boards, increase awareness of your products and help drive traffic back to your e-commerce pages. Even better, is the fact that these become like little testimonials of your products.  It’s a little like window shopping but it’s a way to get great exposure – and people love pictures.  Images and video trump text every time.

So if you are in any of these industries I mentioned above, it might be time to take a closer look at Pinterest and see how you might be able to leverage it for your own business.  Of course, if you need help or more information, you only need to ask!

I’d love your feedback! Are you using Pinterest? How are you using it? What have been your experiences? Don’t forget to leave a link back to your own blog using the commentluv feature here on my site.

If you live in York Region, watch Rogers Daytime this Thursday, May 10th 10:00 a.m., when I will be discussing social media with Jeff and Elaine.  I will be joined by one of my clients, Robin Smith who will talk about her social media successes.  Also, if you are in the Toronto area, I will be live on the air with Gail Vaz-Oxlade – the late shift – June 25th on In-Depth Radio, News Talk 1010. Many of you will know her from Slice TV shows ‘Till Debt Do Us Part‘ and ‘Princess‘. Karen Armstrong, another of my clients will have the first segment where she too, will discuss her success with SM. Let me know what you think!

Until next time,

Joanne

Have you wondered just how widespread Social Media is here in Canada? As a business owner, it’s critical that you keep your finger on the pulse and understand the reach that social media has and how best to build relationships with your target markets moving forward. So how does Canada stack up with respect to Social Media usage?

This chart taken from Comscore’s December 2011 report, shows Canada is alive and well in its usage of social media. The U.S. for example shows 98% of their total population using social media sites compared to Canada at 94.4% which is still as staggering statistic.

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Of note is the reach across all age groups. While the 55+ age group globally is the fastest growing population on sites like Facebook, here in Canada, we are slightly below the worldwide stat. However as the population ages, this category will continue to grow.

Of no surprise to me is Facebook‘s continued dominance of the top 5 social networks as expressed in the last diagram.  For those of you who aren’t aware, Facebook will be filing for an IPO this year. They are planning to raise $10 billion dollars which would give Facebook a total valuation of $100 billion making it the biggest technology IPO on record (Washington Post).  This push to go public is also responsible for some of the significant recent changes we have witnessed to Facebook’s Timeline for business pages.

LinkedIn, which overtook Myspace in 2011 to become the fourth largest global network, is an example of a top U.S.-based social network attracting legions of users outside of its local base. Similar to Facebook and Twitter, the majority of LinkedIn’s audience now resides outside the U.S. While LinkedIn continues to generate the most traffic from the U.S., it is showing high market penetration in these other countries including Canada.

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As a Social Media Specialist, clients often ask me about the effectiveness of  email blasts as part of their overall social marketing strategy . The answer is …it depends on who your target market is and what their habits are. In moving forward however, I want to draw your attention to this observation taken from the Comcast report.  Today’s generation of teenagers and young adults age 15-24 represent a new breed of Internet users, often called “digital natives”* for growing up alongside computers, the Internet and digital media. Looking at the future through the lens of a digital native, social networking is the norm.  Analysis of the communication habits of these users offers a clue as to what the future might look like in terms of how we communicate. From July 2010 to October 2011, 15-24 year olds saw the largest decline in their use of Instant Messengers and Email, outpacing overall declines in average time spent on these categories across other age groups.

Simultaneously, 15-24 year olds also saw the biggest increase in average time spent on Social Networking. To date, this demographic shows the highest average engagement with Social Networking worldwide. These data collectively suggest that much of the communication going on between 15-24 year olds happens via social networks. As this generation matures, carrying these highly social behaviors into the future, it is possible that social networking, or its natural successor, could become the most important communication travel across all age groups.

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As a business owner, one must understand this shift and respond accordingly and while this observation is a global one, as a Canadian, one should assume this will be true for our younger generations as well.

I’d love your feedback! Don’t forget to leave a link back to your own blog via the commentluv feature.

Until next time,

Joanne

While Joanne Burgess lives in Newmarket, Ontario with her family, she is Virtually Yours, anywhere.

The only thing that seems to be certain these days is change.  For many of my clients, they have just been rolled over from the old format on their Facebook personal pages to the new Timeline.  It has taken Facebook some time to convert 800+ million users to the new layout.  I was holding my breath regarding impending changes to the Facebook Business Pages hoping for more time.  But, Facebook made the announcement yesterday.  The good news is we have until March 30th before our pages get rolled over. The bad news is that Facebook is imposing several restrictions. So we essentially have a month to roll up our sleeves and make some necessary adjustments. Here are the top 5 things you need to know about the changes coming to Facebook pages.

1.  Cover (banner image)

The side graphic on your old Facebook Business Page will disappear after March 30th. This means if you had someone create a custom image for you, it will be gone after that date. Instead, Facebook is allowing you a new space to define your brand. The good news is that you have 851 x 315 pixels to work with now instead of the old 200 x 600. However, here are the limitations Facebook is putting on your new banner image. Here is information taken from Facebook.

All covers are public. This means that anyone who visits your Page will be able to see your cover. Covers can’t be deceptive, misleading, or infringe on anyone else’s copyright. You may not encourage people to upload your cover to their personal timelines.

Covers may not include:

i. price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it on socialmusic.com”;

ii. contact information such as a website address, email, mailing address, or information that should go in your Page’s “About” section;

iii. references to Facebook features or actions, such as “Like” or “Share” or an arrow pointing from the cover photo to any of these features; or

iv. calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends.”

So basically, Facebook wants you to choose something that is visually engaging and speaks to prospects and clients about your business without ‘advertising’ it. They do not want a text based banner. So choose a picture of your product/s or showcase people using your services.

In addition to the cover, you also get a profile picture space. One should consider using your logo in this space as this is the image that will follow you around Facebook from a business point of view. You can upload  images that are 180 x 180 pixels that will get reduced to 32 x 32 for the thumbnail, so be sure you pick something that is legible. If you are branding yourself, using your own image could work here as well.

2. Custom Landing Pages/Tabs

If you have a custom landing page like a Welcome Page for example that was used to direct first time visitors to information about you or your business, this will also disappear.  Everyone will now always land on Timeline (the new name for your wall).  The tabs and pages haven’t disappeared however. They will still be available on your page but only as a tab. You may display up to 4 tabs on your page. One of them is photos which cannot be displaced. There are room for 3 more. And you can reposition those 3 tabs. You can have up to 12 tabs but the rest will be available only as a drop down.  The position has also changed on the page. They will now be visible towards the right side of the page rather than under the image for your page.  You can direct traffic to these pages via a Facebook ad, your website or your email signature block. You just won’t be able to set this as a landing page for your visitors.

It is clear that Facebook wants you to buy ads. This is how they make money and with an IPO around the corner, you can be sure they need to show that they can continue to be profitable. There are many organizations out there who have been making money at Facebook’s expense and they want to cash in on the action.

3. Pinning

Here is a new feature I like…it’s called pinning. It’s great if you want to bring peoples’ attention to a particular post for a length of time – one week to be exact. and then it will be automatically unpinned.  You will need to click on the pencil icon at the top right of the post and select the ‘pin to top’ option. You can ‘unpin’ an item and it will return to its proper place in the timeline. Consider pinning something new each week but don’t forget to continue posting to your timeline to keep things fresh!

4. Milestones

Milestones is another feature that was announced and are just that – important dates you want to highlight – in this case, about your business.  These will be expanded to display at 843 x 403 pixels. You must have a photo to accompany it or the feature won’t work.  To add a milestone:

• Click Milestone in the sharing tool on your page
• Fill in the information on the screen,
• Add your photo
• Click save.

You can go back in time and add things to your timeline and they will appear chronologically. Get creative and add some great things like your ribbon cutting ceremony, or a picture of your first client, an award you won etc.

5. Messaging

Facebook removed the feature some time ago whereby you could message fans of your page.  They are returning the feature but not as I would like.  The owner of the page cannot initiate the message.  This would be for potential spamming reasons. The message feature can be turned off or on by the page owner. So, if you are a big brand and don’t want constant messages, you would likely turn this off. If however, you are a small business owner like myself, consider enabling this feature and allow people to message you.

There will be much more to come I am sure, but this will give you a head start as to the changes that are fast approaching. If you don’t want to wait until March 30th and want to preview and activate the new Timeline for your page before March 30th, visit the preview button at the top of your business page. I did! You can vist my page here! Just be sure you have a cover installed and a profile picture at the very least.  Yes, I know, it will be yet another learning curve, but together we’ll get through it.

Let me know what you think and don’t forget to leave a link back to your own blog via the commentluv feature here on my site.

Until next time,

Joanne

While Joanne lives in Newmarket, Ontario with her family, she is virtually yours anywhere.

I watched the Whitney Houston funeral service on CNN Saturday. The room was filled with accomplished artists and celebrities but I was most touched by Kevin Costner‘s eulogy. He spoke eloquently about his relationship with Whitney on the set of The Bodyguard.  How could it be that someone who dominated the music industry in the 80s and 90s, still be so insecure about their talents? That, even as a revered celebrity often being refered to as ‘The Voice’,  she would still be worried that people would like her and wonder am I good enough? Even she was so fragile. I loved her music and her spirit.

Watch Kevin Costner’s eulogy here:

It reminded me of all the wonderful people I meet and how the thread of ‘am I good enough’ keeps surfacing in our discussions; sometimes creeping into my own self talk. So many of my clients fret when they write a blog post, asking me ‘is it good enough’?  I am reminded of the article that one of my clients, Karen Armstrong of Inside Out wrote just a couple of weeks ago called Managing Your Energy or Personal Power - I encourage you to read it.  In it, she asks if our ‘happiness is dependent on the external circumstances in our lives’ and how we need to get in touch with our own self-talk. It was a reality check for me.

I believe that each person brings their own unique blend of life experiences to the table. That each of us has an opinion that is worth hearing and that you never know how your special way of expressing yourself will resonate with others in a way that no one else can.  It is one of the reasons I believe that Social Media has become a mainstay in our world.  It’s supports community building and allows us to be part of the conversation – to be heard and feel validated. But it’s important to remember that we need to validate ourselves first; to embrace and feel confident in the messages we bring to the world…and know that yes, we are all more than good enough.

What do you think? I love getting feedback. Here on this blog, you’ll get commentluv. This is an opportunity for you to leave a link back to your own blog when you leave a comment.

Until next time,

Joanne

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Are you a business owner who struggles with what to do or say on sites like Facebook?  You might like to start with understanding what others are using it for. This will undoubtedly give you some ideas as to how you can engage your target audience in this space particularly if you are a business owner. Here is a great infographic (compliments of JESS3) that will help you understand Facebook usage for an average user on an average day. Click on the image to enlarge it.  Even if these stats refer to peoples’ personal Facebook profiles, one can assume that the activity will be somewhat similar on a Facebook business page.

Did you know that Facebook now has 800 million users and targeting to be at 1 billion users by August  2012. They are touted as being the site that reduced us from 6 to 4 degrees of separation. How cool is that? You should also know that of these 800 million users, approximately half of them log onto their Facebook profile on any given day and spend considerable time there. This is a very loyal audience.

It is quite likely that most of your prospective clients have a Facebook profile and possibly a Facebook page. Once you set up your own Facebook business page and begin engaging your audience, you should start to pay attention to what others are posting. Look for opportunities to start a conversation, comment on a photo they have added or ‘Like’ their business page. Don’t be myopic and focus strictly on your own pages!

Also don’t discount your past schoolmates or even some family members as potential clients. Build your network to embrace people from all sources and encourage them to share your content. You never know where your next client will come from as a result of this. Your friends will be your biggest allies and your best referrers.

Play close attention to the stats that Facebook provides – called Insights. It will give you some valuable data to analyze with respect to who is looking at your page, and what they find interesting. One of the things you might find helpful is to look at what days your target audience is most active on FB. Take a look too at what posts you have done that have had the most traction.  This will give you some ideas of what kinds of things to post in future that your friends and fans will find interesting. Note the ‘virality’ of the items you post. You want people to click that ‘share’ button!

I will be speaking about Facebook at the BWNA King Chapter luncheon on February 14th and running a breakfast for the Company of Women York Region chapter on February 22nd.  If you are in the area, and would like to attend, please let me know and I’ll put you in touch with the organizers of these networking groups.  Bring your questions!

I’d love your feedback! Tell me how you are using Facebook for your business. And don’t forget to leave a link back to your own blog using the commentluv feature here on my blog.

Until next time,

Joanne

While Joanne resides in Newmarket Ontario with her family, she is virtually yours, anywhere.

Blogging is a key component in a social media strategy. You are not bound by 140 characters or limited by your Facebook Business Page fan base.  It is an ideal platform for you to disseminate great content around the world to your readership and start to become known as an authority in your field. The goal should be to become the person people think of when they think of your product or service and it’s important to use ‘big picture’ thinking.  It’s also important that your blog site contain the right elements to maximize your success in this environment.  Here are my top 10 blog must haves for 2012:

1. Self-hosted

Having a blog on WordPress.com or Blogspot.com is not ideal. They are fine if you are publishing a personal blog but if your blog is business related, then you should be self-hosted. This means that you manage your blog on your own domain name rather than something like yourname.wordpress.com.  The implications of self-hosting are that you own your own content and have accessbility to the myriad of templates and plug-ins out there to really make your site sing. The analogy here would be renting vs owning your own site/content. My personal preference is WordPress.  For more information or to start a new blog, click here for more information.

2. Content

Content is King on the web. The more valuable information you provide, the more attractive your site becomes. What goes around, comes around in the social media space. By sharing great content, you share your expertise and become known as the go-to person in your industry. You may even become known as a thought leader!  I usually advise your post contain between 500-1000 words and a weekly blog would be ideal for most small business owners.  The reality is, people will only spend a few minutes on your site, so it’s important that your content be engaging and provide great value. Here’s a tip for those of you who like to include outbound links to video in your posts. Use the embed feature on YouTube instead of just providing the link and embed the video right into your post. In this way, you keep people on your site. If you give someone a link to YouTube, there is a good chance they will become distracted and never come back to your post.  Additionally, any other links you provide on your post, should open in a new tab so that readers can easily navigate their way back to your post.

3. Branding

You will want to make sure that your blog site is properly branded. By this I mean, if you also have a ‘static’ website, the logo, colours and general feel should be repeated on the blog site (and everywhere else on the web including your Facebook, Twitter and YouTube Channel). What is a ‘static’ site?  If your website does not provide a vehicle for people to engage you on the site, has no blog and you don’t refresh your content on a regular basis, your site would be considered ‘static’.  The reality is people are gravitating in droves to user-generate content sites where they can start to build rapport with you and add their own input hence the popularity of Social Media and sites like WordPress.

There is good news if you are already using WordPress as your vehicle to blog because you can also use this site as your main website. Your content can be easily moved from a static site to your WP site.  One site means easier maintenance for you, less confusion/navigating for your prospects and clients and no doubt less expensive. If you are determined to retain your static site, your hosting company does not support WordPress and you wish to start blogging, you have a couple of choices:

1. Move your domain and site to a Host provider who does support WP and set up a blog that runs in a subfolder.

2. Get a secondary domain name and hosting on a host provider who supports WordPress and just run your blog there. You will want to ensure that your static site can connect to your blog and vice-versa.  A domain name and hosting fees can generally be setup for less than $100/yr depending on your requirements.

4. Reliable Host

It is important that you choose a reliable host for WordPress. You’ll want a hosting company that has a good understanding of this platform, keeps its server capabilities in line with the ever changing upgrades on WordPress and has a great up-time record. There is nothing more frustrating than slow load times for sites and errors in the back end of WordPress when you are an administrator. My personal preference is Hostgator for a number of reasons – not the least of which, is that they are a ‘Green Hosting’ Company. You can check out a recent post for more information by clicking here.

5. Plug-ins

There is a list of must-have plug-ins that I install for my clients. Among them are:

• A firewall
• Spam protector
• Login protection against hackers
• Comment vehicle to aid with backlinking (great for Google). Also, remember to respond to valid comments in a timely way. Treat this like customer service.
• Email subscription capability – most readers still prefer to subscribe to content via email rather than RSS
• Syndication buttons – very important to be able to push your content out over the web rather than hoping people will find your post
• SEO (search engine optimization) capability
• Analytics

6.  Render to Mobile

With the rapid growth of smart phone sales, it is important to consider the fact that people might be accessing your site on their mobile device.  If your blog site or static site relies heavily on Flash players for images for example, it might be time to revisit this and find an alternative method. You don’t want people getting to your site to find large blank spaces where the images or video should be, particularly if you rely heavily on these to promote your product or services.

8. Analytics

It is very important that you track your results using some form of Analytics.  In this way, you can review how people are finding your content (what vehicle, what referral sites etc.), what the most successful content is and what is and what is not working well.  It can also reveal some great key word strategies.

9. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

It doesn’t matter how great your content is if you don’t have a tool to get yourself found on the net. Enlist the help of someone who understands what people are searching for and how to incorporate those metatags and descriptions on your site – not only as header tags but also in your blog posts. I use Market Samurai for site setup. It’s a great tool.

10. Structure for Google

Last but not least, it’s important to understand how Google crawls your site.  There are strategies one can use in your blog posts to help you get your content indexed higher in the search engines.

If you don’t already have a blog for your business, now might be a great time to start!  If you are unsure as to how to properly set up your site or need help with publishing and syndicating your posts, make sure you enlist the help of someone who understands this space to maximize your success.

Happy New Year everyone and Happy Blogging!

Until next time,

Joanne

While Joanne resides in Newmarket Ontario with her family, she is virtually yours, anywhere.

I meet with prospects and clients almost every day. Most people now agree that Social Media is not going away. They also recognize that it’s time to get serious about implementing and maintaining a social media strategy that will work for their business. Some are doing amazingly well. Others struggle.  So, as a Certified Social Media Specialist, what are the top 3 excuses I hear for slacking on setting up or not staying consistent with a social media strategy?

3. I Don’t Know What to Say

It’s rare that when properly coached, a client doesn’t have ongoing valuable information to share with their audience. Some are afraid to give away too much intellectual property, which is understandable, but you can give away just enough to entice your reader to want to know more.  At the opposite end of the spectrum, others feel that their content wouldn’t be of interest to readers. The fact is, you may end up sharing that one piece of information that is just the trigger needed to get that prospect to pick up the phone, email you or respond to your blog post or Facebook page entry.  Perhaps you have just answered a nagging question for them or you shared some personal information about a hobby that resonated with someone and they feel more connected to you.  Open up a little and share about who you are as a person as well as a business entity.  Success is in the sum of the parts….

2. I’m Worried About Who Will See What

So, the result is you do nothing! I find that people are mostly nervous about Facebook, and honestly, rightly so. Facebook is making a lot of changes and some of them are a blatant way to get more information from you so that they can feed their advertisers.  But, there are ways to stay safe on Facebook. Things like;

• Ensuring your privacy settings reflect who you want to see what content
• Instructing family members / unruly relatives to send you ‘emails’ on Facebook rather than write on your wall
• Monitoring the wall and removing inappropriate content if it does show up
• Setting up Facebook lists and then publishing information to the appropriate lists
• Enable the secure browsing feature

If someone wants to get information in this day and age, they will find a way to do so. Being conscious about what you put out there will help you.  If you can answer these three questions (thanks to Mari Smith for these), with a YES, then you are probably safe.

1. Would I be comfortable if my boss were to see this content?
2. Would I be comfortable if my mother/father/children were to see this content?
3. Would I feel comfortable if this content showed up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal?

And the number 1 reason?

1.  Not Enough Time!  …and by the way, I can be just as guilty of this as anyone else.

I recently read an interesting quote. It said: We all have the same amount of time in a day: 24 hours or 1,440 minutes. In fact, we have exactly the same amount of time that was given to Helen Keller, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein.

Sobering thought. As entrepreneurs, we all wear many hats. But the one hat that can’t fall to the floor is being consistent in how we market our businesses. And, in order to successfully move people through the sales funnel, we need to build strong relationships. This makes it easier for people to want to do business with us.

It’s really a question of discipline and having a good strategy in place.  Know what you want to accomplish each week. Write a list of information that you want to disseminate and then use the appropriate tool to get the message out. Remember, it’s not about selling product/services, it’s about building those relationships and providing value.

Start your morning each day working on your business rather than in it.  It doesn’t take that much time to check your social media profiles, respond to people who are trying to connect with you and give them the information they need to say YES to you and your business. Ultimately, people buy from people they know, like and trust.

If you need help, then consult with a Social Media Specialist to get a strategy in place both in terms of where you should be spending your time online and what kind of content you need to be putting out there.

The key to success here is consistency. Stay focused, be diligent and keep your eye on the prize. It will pay off in the end.

What do you think? Share your tips with me. I love getting feedback. Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv. What a great way to leave a link back to your own blog!

Until next time,

Joanne

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There are mixed feelings out there about the new Facebook Timeline that is about to be rolled out.  I installed the BETA version a few weeks ago and have been getting comfortable with it. As a Certified Social Media Specialist,  I need to be able to advise my clients on how to handle it when it is rolled out to the masses.  This release is one of the most significant changes Facebook has made to the personal profile in a long time.  And while Facebook wants to be at the centre of your online identity, many people find this new release to be intrusive and over the top. I found some great features in this and for the first time in a long time, I had to revisit my security settings on Facebook and make some adjustments to feel comfortable with the way information will be shared.  Here are 5 important points about Facebook’s new Timeline.  Please note that the new changes coming to Facebook affect only your personal profile. Facebook has not made any announcements or commitments regarding Facebook Business Pages.

1. Ticker

The ticker has already been rolled out and you will see this along the right side of your screen when logged into Facebook. It is essentially activity stories that get posted to the ticker.  By placing your curser over a specific item in the ticker area, you will get what they call a ‘hover card’ with more information regarding that particular activity. What I like about it, is that not only personal page but fan page activity shows up here. By paying attention to the ticker, I have been able to connect with some people and pages I might have otherwise missed.  You can also now streamline the activity you want to see from the people you are connected with and shut out some of the noise.  What I don’t like about it, is that you have to pay particular attention to each activity update you post to ensure the right people see it. You will also want to revisit your application settings and perhaps change the update status to be ‘only you’ that sees it or your app activity will also be shared in the ticker.

2. Lists

If you haven’t already put your friends in lists, now would be a good time to revisit this. You can create different lists and place your friends in one or more appropriate list; family, friends, business, etc.  (you can have the same person in more than one list).  On your home page, you will then be able to view the news feed from a particular list.  As before, you will also be able to send out Facebook status updates to a specific group of people (ie friends) or to a targeted list.  Facebook has also introduced smart lists.  You’ll see smart lists that create themselves and stay up-to-date based on profile info your friends have in common with you–like your work, school, family and city.  You will also be able to merge your existing list to an appropriate smart list.

3. Subscribe Button

This is relatively new on Facebook and in my opinion more designed for public figures. If you set this feature up on your Facebook profile, you can allow others to subscribe to your public updates.  This information will show up in peoples’ ticker and news feed.  There is a little overlap between having your personal profile with subscribe enabled and a fan page. If you are a business owner however, I still recommend having a Facebook business page over using the subscribe option. Your business page allows you access to custom tabs and applications, Facebook stats, you can have more than 1 page admin and you can promote the page with ads  etc. whereas the subscribe button does not allow any of these features.

4. Timeline (the Wall)

Timeline is the new term for your wall.  When you think about your current Facebook wall, you know that as you add new items, the old items ‘fall’ off the page. Many of the important moments of your life disappear into the archive. Facebook’s answer to this is the new timeline which is really scrapbooking on steroids.  You will be able to enter important moments in your life and feature them on a timeline that is easily accessible. It appears to have been designed for the younger demographic however. Many young people today will share just about anything.  When the new timeline is rolled out, you will see some of the events that Facebook encourages you to add. Some make sense, like the year you started work or opened your business, moved to a new city etc.,  but some of the other categories like ‘changed eating habits’, ‘got glasses or contacts’ or ‘broke a bone’ leave me scratching my head!   Facebook would like you to give them much more information than ever before.  Why? To be able to feed the advertisers of course!

I personally will not be filling out the majority of the information. There is a security issue here I would like to bring to your attention and it pertains to filling out exact dates.   If you plan on entering a timeline for the birth of one of your children for example, you will have to give them the entire date for it to appear on the timeline.  This is a security risk for identity theft.  So please be careful.

5. Your Cover

There will be a big blank space at the top of your new profile that you will be able to fill. It is a placeholder for an image and it’s called the cover. You’ll see it in the image above for Mark Zuckerberg’s profile. He chose to showcase his dog ‘Beast’.  There is a specific dimension for this image – 850×312.  Look to this as a great opportunity to brand yourself! Get creative! I have seen some fabulous ones and I had fun creating mine.  You won’t see mine though unless you have the beta version of Timeline until it has been rolled out to the masses.

There are other significant changes; things like the application directory and how Facebook will be working with developers to allow seamless integration. Unfortunately many of these applications are not available here in Canada yet, so I haven’t been able to test them. Stay tuned for more as they become available.

The bottom line here is not to be too excited when this new Facebook version arrives on your screen. Take time to check your security settings, be mindful of how much personal information you share and explore the new features to see how you can streamline it to make it work for you.  Don’t get me wrong. There is still a lot of merit to using Facebook, particularly if you are a business owner whose target market is on Facebook.  Feel free to ask questions or get help if needed.

I have adopted Mari Smith’s approach to putting information out there.  Ask yourself these three questions:

1.  Would I be comfortable if this information were to show up on the front page of the New York Times?

2. Would I be comfortable if this information came up in a Google search?

3. Would my mom be proud of this if she saw it online?

If you can answer yes to these three questions, then you are probably OK sharing the information.

What do you think? I love getting feedback. Here on this blog, you’ll get commentluv. This is a great opportunity to leave a link back to you own blog when you leave a comment.

Until next time, Joanne

While physically located in Newmarket, Ontario, where Joanne resides with her family, she is virtually yours, anywhere.

If you are a business owner who is using third party applications like Hootsuite, Ping.fm etc., to engage in social media to grow your business, then this blog post is for you.  As a Certified Social Media Specialist, I work with small business owners everyday and counsel them on how to use Social Media tools for their business.

You will find that in general, I am not an advocate of using these third party applications to engage your audience.  I personally find it stilted and cardboard like.  To me, pre-scheduled posts lack a human touch. I guess I am a purist. If you are an educated social media user, you too can likely smell these from a mile away.  Furthermore, these posts/updates show the source of the post; another dead giveaway that they are pre-fabricated.  I tend to un-follow people if their content is strictly pre-scheduled.

I was beginning to think I was in the minority in my way of thinking but I came across this very recent post that tells me I may not be far off the mark.  EdgeRank checker is a free tool that measures your effectiveness on Facebook. And with one out of every 8 minutes being spent online being on Facebook, this is an important measurement to take into account.  This post implies that using third party tools like Hootsuite can kill your Facebook EdgeRanking.  Please click here to read the article.

So why are people using them? The biggest complaint I hear from business owners is that you ‘lack time’.  You likely started out your business because you had a great product or service to market. What you didn’t bank on was that you were going to have to be the Chief Cook and Bottle Washer. You probably didn’t appreciate just how much of your day this takes up!  You’re stuck because your business isn’t generating enough revenue yet for you to hire on help but you are so busy wearing all these hats, you don’t have enough time to get out there and market your product or service to generate revenue. Sound familiar?  I can relate because I am a small business owner and I’ve been there too.

But what I have come to realize and put into practice, is that if you are truly looking to engage your audience, particularly on Facebook, you need to be real and authentic and most of the time, in real time in this social media space. You need to schedule this activity into your day and be prepared to take responsibility for the kind of content you generate. This is called working on your business instead of in it.  It is not an easy thing to outsource either.  Unless that person/s knows you and your business like the back of their hand, it will be difficult to represent you.  No one knows you and your business better than you do. This is like handing over the reins to someone else.  The fact is, people want to get to know you both as a business entity and as a person and they want to engage with you knowing that you are being genuine and available.

I am not saying that you shouldn’t ever use these third party apps, however you need to be careful how and where you use them.   Finding someone who you can consult with to find out where your target market hangs out and when is your best strategy. Then be as authentic and real as possible.  It may take a little time, but it will pay off in the end.

Remember, people buy from people they like and trust. Part of trusting someone is knowing that they are there when you need them.

What do you think?  I love getting feedback.  Here on this blog, you’ll get commentluv. This is a great opportunity to leave a link back to your own blog.

Until next time,

Joanne

While physically living in Newmarket Ontario with her family, Joanne is virtually yours, anywhere.

3 Key Items to Staying in Charge

Having your own website and ranking well in the search engines is one of the most important pieces of real estate that a business owner today can own.  The reality is, people and businesses are gravitating to the internet in droves and technology is changing very quickly. Are you poised to be able to take advantage of these changes when they happen?  Are you ruler of your own domain?

Here are 3 tips to staying in charge of your own future.

1. Make sure you have registered your business name

Protecting your intellectual property and your brand is so very important. Imagine investing the time to become known in the industry as the ‘go to’ person in your field.  All the time you have spent getting ranked well in the search engines and then one day, you receive an email or a telephone call to say you must cease and desist using your business name because someone has put a copywrite or trademark on it and now owns the right to use it.  What would you do?  Contact the business development centre closest to you and find out what you need to do to protect yourself.

2. Make sure you own your own domain name and access to it

I am always surprised at how many people come to me and want to make a change over to WordPress but they don’t have access to their own domain name. They don’t know what the login information is or they have given the responsibility over to someone else, who paid for the domain name and invoiced them.  What this means, is that you run the risk of having to change your domain name if the person you gave that responsibility to won’t turn it over.  How costly would that be especially if your domain name matches your business name, marketing materials, your business cards, etc?  If you own the domain name and you cannot put your hands on the login information, expect the domain registrar to put you through a rigorous procedure to confirm that you are the legal owner.  It won’t be pretty.  I have seen both of these instances happen.

When I take on a new client wishing to engage in social media, I insist they own their own domain name. We use their credit card to purchase the domain and I ensure they have the access information. I also make sure the client is the person who is informed when the domain name and hosting needs to be renewed.  One word of caution. Don’t leave this info solely on your computer. What if your system crashed? Have your domain name registration and all other pertinent business related information printed off and stored in a safe place and keep it up to date.

3. Have access to your own website files

I know many business owners employ the services of a website development person or company. In many cases, the person or company will put your website files on their own server.  Most will not allow you access to those files in the form of ftp or a cpanel because of the security risk to their server.   What if something were to happen to that person? How would you get access? Now, your regular files can be copied without access but it can be tedious.  Personally, I register all my social media clients on a well established web host like Hostgator that supports WordPress.  Please click here to find out why I chose them. I give my clients access to their cpanel and ftp access if they request it.  It is your business and your files. If you paid for them, you should have access to them.   Don’t be afraid to ask your supplier where your files reside and how you can access them. Be wary about dealing with anyone who tries to hide this information.

Share your experiences with me. I love getting feedback.  Here on this blog, you’ll get commentluv. This is an opportunity to leave a link back to your own site when you leave a comment.

Until next time,

Joanne

While physically located in Newmarket, Ontario where Joanne lives with her family, she is virtually yours anywhere.