Are you ready for it?

Here’s what you need to know, and what you need to do, to prepare your business, brand or fan page for the latest and greatest Facebook shakeup:

1. Click on Preview Mode: whether it’s good, bad or ugly, you need to know. Why?
2. Because like it or not, Timelines are coming on March 30th. Facebook is drawing a line in the sand and this is the published mandatory change-over date.
3. Default landing tabs are going away. Custom tabs and iframes will still be available, but they are moving and will not be as front and centre as they have been. In the past you have been able to send non-fans of your business page to a custom landing tab. Going forward with Timeline, all viewers will land on the wall tab every time they connect to your page.
4. You’re getting a great big billboard space at the top of your page. Use it creatively and wisely. If you haven’t seen the new Timeline format (which you were supposed to have done way back at bullet point #1 ;-), then here’s the scoop. Facebook has added a gigantic 851 x 399 pixel billboard at the top of your page. It’s in a letterbox format which offers a great deal of opportunity to use the space in interesting ways… such as not just stretching a regular sized picture grotesquely to fit. Have some fun with it in order to stand out!
5. Brand pages now have a message box much like regular profile pages which will allow viewers to send a message to you. This can be disabled by a page administrator if you feel you don’t want to let customers talk to you.
6. Offers is a new kind of post available that is much more powerful than a regular status update. It will allow you to highlight sales or specials on your page. Why is this cool? Because with one click, viewers can spread your offer to their network of friends, extending your page’s reach exponentially.

So like it or not, it’s coming. You’re best to be prepared and, if possible, be a first mover. Even with all the promotion Facebook has put out there, and all the hype in the news, magazines, blogs and social media, this change is going to catch a lot of businesses by surprise. Be prepared and you may seize some new opportunities while your competitors scramble to catch up.

Yep. There I said it. Your LinkedIn profile is not a resume.

Seriously, take a hard look at your profile. Are you really putting your best professional foot forward, or are you simply posting recruiter bait?

Think about it. This is the place where anyone you do business with, who you want to do business with, and who wants to do business with you, will go to find out who you really are. It’s your professional profile and calling card on the Internet. Should they really find a copy of your resume when they get there?

Here are four things to consider for freshening up, and professionalizing, your LinkedIn profile:

1. Your email address: If you want the business world to find and connect with you via your LinkedIn profile, don’t use your personal email address as your primary contact point. Sweatbottoms or Trollslayer1 at hotmail or yahoo doesn’t really set the right tone for opening a new business discussion, opportunity or relationship now does it? Well I guess it all depends on your line or work really…
2. Your profile picture: Does it suck? Probably. There are a number of styles of profile pictures out there; the mug shot, the cropped from a wedding pic one, the I took it in the mirror with my cell phone look, the wildly inappropriate company Christmas party group shot etc. If you’re using any of these… don’t. Go to a professional photographer and get a proper headshot taken. This is, after all, how you LOOK to the entire business world.
3. Your summary: It’s not about you, or at least it shouldn’t be. It’s about what you can do for them. If you are in sales and your customers are going to be interacting with you via your LinkedIn profile, do you really want your summary to read #1 salesman in both revenue and margin achievement? You’re basically telling them you’re over-selling and over-charging them. No, in fact, you’re bragging about it publicly. While that may be a remarkable achievement to share internally, boasting about your sales prowess is not something you would talk to your customers about in person. So don’t put it in your profile!
4. The impact of Google: Google is your new business card. Your LinkedIn profile is what it should find. Imagine if someone opened Google, typed in what they need, hit search and you came up at the top of the first page? What would that mean to you and your business? People are searching for you. Help them find you. Now I’m not advocating that you load your profile up with keywords strictly for Google to index. However, the more your profile details who you are, and what you can do for your customers, the more likely both they and Google are to find you.

LinkedIn is the social media platform of the business world. Treat it like that and new business, opportunities and job offers will find you on their own.

Got any other tips or thoughts? Please share them in the comments section below.

Web 1.0: People connecting to the Web (P2W?). i.e. “Wow, I’m on the Internet!”

Web 2.0: People connecting to other People (P2P?) i.e. Social networking, wikis, collaboration, sharing.

Web 3.0: Web apps connecting to web apps on behalf of People to enrich online experiences (W2W?) i.e. The Symantec Web, the Geospatial Web, application awareness of context, autonomy from the browser.

Web 4.0: The web becomes sentient, rises up, conquers the world and enslaves the human race? (W>P?)

I wrote this in 2007. Still stands up IMO.

Every person hopes to create that one tweet, funny video, picture, or blog post that takes the internet by storm and goes viral. They pump out every ounce of creativity they possess in the hopes of creating something viral to help vault their fortunes forward.

The problem is that most people don’t realize that their attempt to create viral is what’s stopping them from going viral.

You don’t create viral. You create awesome. Awesome creates viral.

Take the Australian smash hit Somebody That I Used to Know by singer-songwriter Gotye. Before the song came out in July of 2011, Gotye had only reached mild success both as an independent artist and as a member of Aussie band The Basics. The song received limited airplay in Australia when it first came out, debuting at #27 on the Australian Record Industry Association’s Top 50 Singles Chart.  The track was then boosted by endorsements from Ashton Kutcher and Lily Allen via Twitter, exposing Gotye’s music to their millions of followers.  Within months, the song has gone 8x platinum, topped the charts in 4 countries, helped Gotye win 6 ARIA awards, and has close to 56 million YouTube views. So how did Gotye find international success? Simple. He created awesome, and it went viral.

But the awesome created by Gotye has created even more awesome. Burlington, Ontario band Walk off the Earth saw the track and created their own video version of Somebody That I Used to Know .  And, as with the original version they had Russell Crowe and Alyssa Milano tweet about the song.  The result has been over 43 million YouTube views and an appearance on The Ellen Show in a matter of weeks. Walk off the Earth recognized awesome, created their own awesome, and went viral.

So what makes awesome? That’s a hard question to answer. But we know that it takes hard work, dedication, and a metric ton of effort (and a tweet or two from super connectors never hurts). And if you continue to strive to create awesome, you may be fortunate enough to have it go viral.

Twitter has announced a redesign to its micro-blogging service that will open up new opportunities for small businesses, major corporations and non-profits. In the company’s own words the new enhancements will make Twitter a more “compelling destination for brands.”

So wait a second, did Twitter just sell out to the suits? The answer is kinda.

Why did they do it?

Well for starters, Twitter depends on advertisers to pay its own bills and advertisers are generally businesses. Making the service more intuitive and business-friendly is, well, good for business in every sense of the word. Right now, Twitter relies on promoted tweets for the majority of its revenue. This revenue stream is somewhat limited, and a move into more lucrative services is essential if Twitter wants to keep up with both Facebook and LinkedIn.

Speaking of the social media competitive landscape, Twitter’s new brand pages will bring them in line with similar features offered by Facebook and Google. Several major brands have already partnered with Twitter for the launch, including Coca-Cola, Disney, Nike and McDonald’s.

So what new opportunities are available for businesses on Twitter?

- Customized Banners – The new brand pages will have a banner spot in between the profile information and the tweets. Having the look and feel of a traditional web banner ad, the Twitter version will allow you to update the graphic at any time, allowing you to change the look to promote new products and services, or any new promotions or sales you choose to have.

- Embeddable Tweets – Now you will have the ability to strengthen the calibre of your blog posts. This feature provides you with the opportunity to take a tweet from someone in the industry that supports the content of your post, and place that tweet directly in the body of your text. (more…)

The exponential growth of the social media marketplace has caused the birth of a new position of prominence in today’s workplace: the Online Community Manager. The trend of hiring a Manager that is specifically responsible for online content first erupted in some of North America’s largest corporations, but has trickled down into many medium-sized businesses.

If you are a small and medium sized business owner, deciding how best to manage their online community can be challenging. There are a handful of factors that have to be carefully analyzed before making the decision.

1. Hours – One of the biggest challenges for filling the role of Community Manager is having a full grasp of how many hours the position would demand in your corporate structure. That takes understanding how many hours your own staff is currently taking to perform a Community Manager’s roles. But it’s not just the number of hours currently being done either, plans for expansion and re-development must also be taken into account.
2. Internal vs. External – Regardless of how many hours need to be committed to the position, there are definite benefits to hiring someone yourself or hiring a firm to do the work. Having someone in-house allows a person stronger integration with your team. On the other side, hiring an external company provides additional resources for new and innovative ideas for managing your online community. (more…)

You’ve decided that it’s time to introduce a blog to your website. Before you will consider hiring an outside firm to write the blog for you, you want to try and do it yourself.

So where do you start?

How about starting with some fundamentals? Time to go back to your ABC’s! In the case of writing for your website, or any web content for that matter, I always start with the simple acronym of ABC.

A is for Always. There are a few things that you must always do when creating content for the web. Always be clear about what you are saying. Any point that doesn’t come out clearly can lose a customer because, like you, they hate being confused about something they don’t understand. I also try to add proper spelling and grammar to my always category. If you want people to believe that you are a professional, then every element of your business should be professional. That includes the way you present your web copy. (more…)

Social media not only connects consumers with each other, but also with just about every place they go and everything they watch and buy. Nielsen’s new Social Media Report looks at trends and consumption patterns across social media platforms in the U.S. and other major markets, exploring the rising influence of social media on consumer behavior.

Highlights of Nielsen’s “State of the Media: The Social Media Report”

• Social networks and blogs continue to dominate Americans’ time online, now accounting for nearly a quarter of total time spent on the Internet
• At over 53 billion total minutes during May 2011, Americans spend more time on Facebook than they do on any other website
• Tumblr is an emerging player in social media, nearly tripling its audience from a year ago (more…)

All too often when I talk to business people about using social media the conversation focuses on Facebook and Twitter. When I recommend that they begin their foray into social media with LinkedIn, I generally get the ‘dude, you’re brining me down’ look.

Facebook and Twitter may be where your friends are, but the people who can give you a job, or buy your stuff, are all on LinkedIn.

Whether or not it’s the place where you spend the majority of your social media time, if you’re in business, want to be in business, or just want to stay in business, then I recommend you head on over to LinkedIn and start networking.

Why? Well for starters there are more than 135 million people and 7 million companies on LinkedIn. And they’re not on there to talk about what they had for lunch or share a funny cat video with you, they’re looking to do business.

So what is the unique capability of LinkedIn? What makes it different from the contact management software you are already using like Outlook or Act? Or more importantly, from other social networking sites?

LinkedIn is to people what Google is to information

Search engines are great for searching for information, but people aren’t information. Google yourself. Are the results a full or even adequate representation of your professional life? Probably not. Compare those search results with the detail you can include in your LinkedIn profile and you’ll find there is no comparison. More importantly, you control the information that appears on LinkedIn so you can ensure that it is accurate, complete and that your privacy is respected. It doesn’t quite work that way with Google.

(more…)