Facebook Timeline for Business Pages

This morning Facebook launched timelines for business pages! Businesses have until March 30, 2012 to get their page in shape for the new design.

The new design looks like the Facebook profile’s timeline, launched in December, with a new look, the cover photo and easier historical navigation. An overview of new features is below.

Cover images may not contain:

• Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
• Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section
• References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
• Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”

Applications and tabs are now displayed below the cover photo, beside about info, with only four visible at once. A drop down menu must be clicked to view the rest of the tabs/apps. The good news is that you can change the order of these to display your most relevant tabs first.

The image displayed in your navigation for custom tabs and applications can now be updated. This allows for a much more appealing visual on your page. To change the image of those tab previews, click on the tab drop down, then click the edit icon in the top corner and edit settings. From there you can select a new tab image. Facebook supports JPG, GIF, or PNG files for the tab image with size limit of 5 MB. If the image is larger than 111×74 pixels, it will be resized and converted. If your upload does not work try a smaller picture.

Applications and tabs also now open in a wider page allowing for more design and content space. The new tab width is 810 pixels. Some tab application tools are already supporting the wider tab option. If you have created a custom tab yourself, check your application settings. There is now a page tab width option and you can choose between narrow (520 pixels) and wide (810 pixels). If you have not updated your page to the new timeline you will want to continue to use the narrow setting.

An admin panel is now easily available at the top of each page. Admins can quickly see new notifications, messages, new likes and insights without having to navigate to a new page.

Fans can now send private messages to pages. Messages are viewed and managed through the new admin panel. This allows businesses to take a conversation off the wall and respond to questions or comments privately. Businesses should still provide a public response to questions or concerns posted on their page wall/timeline. But if the comment requires additional feedback, encourage the fan to send a message so that you can continue the conversation privately.

Pages can choose to highlight certain posts and content. Boxes for recent posts by others and likes are shown at the top of the timeline. To highlight other content on the page, admins can select “pin to top” in the post settings. This will display the post at the top of the timeline so it is visible to page visitors.

Page permissions have a few changes, most notable is the option to monitor posts from fans and the removal of the ability to set a default landing tab. The removal of the default landing tab/page option will be a concern for businesses as they are unable to set the default view of their page for new fans. Many are already commenting about it here. The good news is that custom tabs can still be linked to directly and can still use a fan gate to encourage new visitors to like the page. Highlighting certain posts (pin to top) will be a great way to push a particular message or promotion.

More Facebook page insights are now available to all users. Old Facebook pages only showed total likes and people talking about to non-admin users. By clicking on the Like menu, any user can now see additional insight information. This will be helpful with researching competitors and prospects.

Curious to see the new design in action? Check out these pages that have made the jump:

• Webbed Marketing
• Mashable
• Barack Obama
• Livestrong
• Coca-Cola
• Coldplay
• Starbucks

Tell us, what do you think of the new design? Will you launch now or wait until the end of March?

Tags: facebook, pages, social media, timeline

What Ohioans Are Saying About SOPA and PIPA

This post is from John Roscoe, Senior Director at Strategic Public Partners Group.

What Ohioans Are Saying About SOPA and PIPA

On Wednesday, dozens of websites including Wikipedia, Mozilla and Reddit “blacked out” in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), which are both under consideration in Congress. The PROTECT IP Act is scheduled for a vote in the Senate on January 24.

Here’s what Ohioans are saying about SOPA and PIPA:

“While I support and respect Intellectual Property rights, SOPA and PIPA are fundamentally flawed bills which I do not support. Both of these bills would restrict Americans’ ability to access sites on the Internet, impose burdensome and costly new regulations on web companies and expand the powers of the federal government to police the Internet.”

–Congressman Mike Turner, (OH-3)

http://www.facebook.com/RepMikeTurner?sk=wall

“Please know I have concerns about the legislation and I do not support SOPA in its current form; it could infringe on first amendment rights.”

–Congressman Steve Stivers, (OH-15)

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rep-Steve-Stivers/116058275133542

“Therefore, I do not support SOPA in its current form and I am waiting to see what the final product will be when it comes before the full House for a vote. If I believe it infringes on the 1st Amendment I won’t support it.”

–Congressman Jim Renacci, (OH-16)

http://www.facebook.com/notes/congressman-jim-renacci/where-i-stand-on-online-piracy-updated/364778993536958

“While I agree that online piracy is a growing problem, like many of you, I have serious concerns that SOPA could have serious unintended consequences. Some provisions would allow companies to force internet providers to shut down site without any judicial approval as well as hold third party providers, like universities, responsible for what individuals upload onto sites.”

–Congressman Bob Gibbs, (OH-18)

http://www.facebook.com/RepBobGibbs

“SOPA and PIPA are well-intentioned proposals that attempt to address online piracy concerns; however, in their current form the legislation goes too far. The proposals can present damaging ramifications to free speech, global cybersecurity and Internet functionality. At this time, I do not support SOPA and Protect IP Act in their current form, and I hope further committee hearings will be held to resolve these concerns.”

–Congressman Bob Latta, (OH-5)

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bob-Latta/115988005143254?sk=wall

“Basically what this bill does is put too much of a burden on companies like Wikipedia to start really policing the vast majority of info that are on their sites.”

–Congressman Tim Ryan, (OH-17)

http://www.wytv.com/content/news/local/story/Anti-Piracy-Legislation-Could-Affect-Local-Firms/RLsHAaFn3E2-N3-kKcWTLw.cspx

“I am against SOPA and PIPA because it would censor the Internet. This legislation would affect innovation of online marketers and how we do business. Overall, I think it’s unlawful to allow an IP owner to shut down a website without even a legal hearing or trial with the alleged copyright infringer.”

– Jonathan Levey, co-chair of SEMPO Cleveland & Online Marketing Specialist with Fathom, Valley View

“These bills will absolutely cost jobs, and search engines, social media sites and bloggers will be greatly affected.  Plus, the people who want to pirate content online will still find ways to do so.  Piracy is a problem, yes. SOPA and PIPA are simply not the solution.”

–Bill Balderaz, President, Webbed Marketing, Columbus

http://www.webbedmarketing.com/blog

“This is a bill which will do almost nothing to actually stop piracy (which is, of course, already illegal), but will further rig the system in favor of those already entrenched at the top. It would give authority to copyright holders to sue internet start-ups and any site found to be hosting links (or links to links) featuring copyrighted material.”

–Eric Chase, Edgewood

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/letters/2012/01/18/voicing-opposition-to-sopa-bill/

“My opinion is that this bill is entirely the wrong approach to solving copyright issues. It makes community sites liable for content posted by users, and the risk runs as high as having their domain eliminated from the internet. In essence, it is remarkably similar to the Chinese approach to controlling internet content: if it is disagreeable to those in power, block it.”

– Brian Guilfoos, Editor, Plunderblund

http://www.plunderbund.com/2012/01/18/sopapipa-what-you-need-to-know/

“The problem with the legislation is that it is written too broadly.  For instance, the bill states that to prevent liability sites and their hosts must take “technically feasible and reasonable measures” to prevent unlawful content from appearing on their site.  Unfortunately, the broadly interpreted definition of “technically feasible and reasonable measures” means that a judge could determine just how stringent a university’s network security measures should be.”
– Rick Cartwright, New Media Dayton

http://www.rickcartwright.com/blog/
“We are threatening our abilities to learn, grow, entertain and conduct business. There has been roughly 43 years of invested knowledge from amazing thinkers, business people, programmers, who had the ingenuity to change the landscape of how we live our lives. In just one signing and passing of a bill, we erase years of dedication. Not to mention, jeopardizing the very ability to blog freely. Take a stand!”

– Travis Childs, Social Media Strategist, Cincinnati

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/queencitywelcome/2012/01/18/take-a-stand-against-internet-censorship/

“President Barack Obama, though stopping short of a veto promise, doused the bills with cold water over the weekend, too. The protesters will make their point in a different way today, and they’ll make it with the public rather than the politicians. It could prove a real attention-getter.”

– Cleveland Plain Dealer, Editorial

http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/01/in_protest_of_pipa_and_sopa_a.html

SOPA/PIPA will have “a chilling effect on web entrepreneurship in general.”

–David Howcroft, Ohio for Internet Freedom, Columbus

http://www.thelantern.com/campus/sites-black-out-in-protest-of-sopa-pipa-1.2744651#.Txhpv_kVf-I

“We would have to hire more people to monitor and police that, which would create a lot of overhead…their sole purpose would be to monitor.”

– Stephe Kamykowski, AST2, Youngstown

http://www.wytv.com/content/news/local/story/Anti-Piracy-Legislation-Could-Affect-Local-Firms/RLsHAaFn3E2-N3-kKcWTLw.cspx

Tags: internet, pipa, sopa

The Internet Blacks Out to Oppose SOPA and PIPA

Today many websites, including Wikipedia, Reddit and Google are going dark to raise public awareness for SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP).

These two bills before Congress (PIPA in the Senate and SOPA in the House) would censor the Internet and impose harmful regulations on American businesses. The Senate starts voting on Tuesday, January 24.

This is the Internet we are talking about!

SOPA and PIPA would give the government and major corporations the power to shut down entire websites just for one infringing link without a trial or even a traditional hearing. The legislation is aggressively backed by Hollywood movie studios, major record labels, trial lawyers, pharmaceutical giants and several major news providers, including Fox News and NBC-Universal.

SOPA and PIPA could greatly affect the way we use the Internet and social media today. Sites like Twitter, YouTube  and Facebook would have to censor their users and would be required to remove all links to “infringing” content or face DNS shutdown. Internet users, like you and me, could go to jail for up to five years for sharing copyrighted work.

Check out this video from Fight for the Future:

Michael MacLeod-Ball, First Amendment counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, says:

“Our primary concerns are with the fact that non-infringing content is going to be taken down in the process of taking down infringing content. The way the bill is set up, if a site has infringing content on it…their default reaction is going to be to take down the whole site.”

David Segal, Executive Director of Demand Progress, says:

“Congress is on the verge of wrecking the greatest engine of innovation and greatest platform for democracy ever known to human kind. And for what? For the sake of propping up an ossified industry that refuses to change with the times, but happens to make a lot of campaign contributions.”

Mark Zuckerberg, Founder of Facebook, says:

The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can’t let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet’s development. Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet.
The world today needs political leaders who are pro-internet. We have been working with many of these folks for months on better alternatives to these current proposals. I encourage you to learn more about these issues and tell your congressmen that you want them to be pro-internet.

How will this affect the millions of people who use social media sites to get their news and connect with friends and family? Social media is based on the idea that people are free to share content, news, ideas, photos and videos with the world!

As someone who uses the Internet and social media every day in a professional and personal capacity, this scares me! Make your voice heard now, or this bill passes:

1. Call your representatives - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CongressLookup
2. Sign the petition – http://www.fightforthefuture.org/pipa
3. Join the online Protest – http://americancensorship.org/
4. Get the word out on your social networks!
5. NYC Meetup - http://nytm.org/sos/

This was the scene around the Internet today:

Reddit

Wikipedia

Google

WordPress

Tumblr

Mozilla

ICHC

Twitpic (remember the Hudson River landing picture?)

Tags: congress, freedom, google, information, internet, legislation, pipa, reddit, search, sopa, web, wikipedia

Facebook Timelines: Prepare yourselves for the evolution of social networking

Facebook Timelines are officially rolling out to Facebook users. Users can now enable the timeline by visiting https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline, then customize the information and layout and finally publish the timeline to their friends. Users have until December 23 to edit their timeline and choose to publish. On December 23 all timelines will be made live and will replace the old Facebook profile layout.

How to set up the new Facebook Timeline

Getting the Facebook Timeline is easy. Go to https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline and click “Get Timeline.”

Facebook then provides a tour of the new timeline and offers a 7-day preview. If you have no edits and want to publish your timeline immediately you can click “Publish Now” and your timeline will be made public. This will replace your profile’s old layout.

To edit items in your timeline, simply scroll through the page and hover over items you wish to edit. You can choose to change the date, add a location, hide from timeline, feature or delete the post altogether.

Once you have made the desired edits to your timeline, you can click “Publish Now” at the top of your profile page to share your timeline with your friends. If you do nothing, your timeline will go live on December 23, 2011.

What is so great about the new Facebook timeline?

I (virtually) attended the F8 Facebook Developers Conference in September and set up my timeline shortly after. I was inspired by the description of and theory behind the new timeline. “Your Facebook profile tells the story of your life.” The new features and layout allow you to express who you are in a very personal (or professional) way.

One of the coolest parts of the new timeline is your cover photo. This is the image at the top of your profile that is similar to a banner on a blog. It can be changed as often as you like and adds color and personality to your profile.

It is also easy to scroll through all the years of your life (or at least those spent on Facebook) and rediscover events, quotes, pictures and special memories. The year navigation bar at the side of the page makes going through the years so easy. You no longer have to scroll and scroll and scroll to find old posts on your profile.

Here are a few of my favorite memories from my timeline:

I joined Facebook (probably one of the best decisions)!

I graduated from Kenyon College!

I visited my sister in Boston!

I got married!

Have you set up your Facebook timeline? What do you like about it?

Follow @dcrebekah

Google+ is now open for business(es)!

Since summer businesses have waited patiently for the opportunity to join in on Google+ and yesterday Google officially opened the doors to Google+ business pages. Previously Google+ was only open for personal profiles. Google discouraged businesses from using the profiles for businesses and even shut down a few businesses trying to use Google+ profiles as business pages.

So what now?

Businesses who want to join Google+ should head out to https://plus.google.com/pages/create to create a page. The process is simple:

1. First, it is important to decide what Google+ profile you want connected to this page. For now, Google+ business pages do not have admin rights like Facebook pages so the login used to create the page will be the only login with access to update the page. So make sure you are logged into a business Google account before creating your business page.
2. Choose a category that best describes your business (Local Business; Product or Brand, Company, Institution or Organization; Arts, Entertainment, Sports or Other).
3. Enter the basic information for your business and click Create.
4. Next Google+ will ask you to customize your page a bit with a tagline and profile picture.
5. Then you will be prompted to spread the word about your new page to your circles. Remember, this is all done through the Google+ profiles you used to create the page.
6. Click Finish and you are taken to your Google+ business page. The Get Started page provides some useful information about how to update and promote your biz page. You can then easily toggle between your personal profile and any pages you have created.
7. Once your page is complete you can add a Google+ badge to your website to connect your website to Google+.
8. Don’t forget to also add a +1 button to your website to allow users to share your content on Google+.

Now start updating your page! The process from here is similar to personal profiles. Pages can share posts and add photos and videos. A few Google+ pages that have already been created are:

Macy’s
Angry Birds
Anderson Cooper 360

Have you created a Google+ business page yet? How do you plan to use it for your business?

Tags: business pages, google, google plus

The New Google Reader Design

This week Google released a new look for Google Reader along with some unwelcome updates. The look is very similar to the new look of Google Calendar and Docs – lots of white space with some navigation options at the top. For the most part the setup and reading functionality is the same.

Here is the old Google Reader we all loved:

And the new Google Reader:

The major change that has people upset is that Google removed the old Share features within Google Reader. Readers used to be able to add selected posts to their shared items list for their Google friends to see and read. This has been replaced with the +1 button. Sharing is now only done through Google+. This has caused frustration among longtime Google Reader users, including a former Google Reader product manager and designer.

When Google announced the upcoming changes last week, Google Readers signed petitions, made t-shirts and started movements to save the old Google Reader. Google did acknowledge this outcry by offering this statement:

We hope you’ll like the new Reader (and Google+) as much as we do, but we understand that some of you may not. Retiring Reader’s sharing features wasn’t a decision that we made lightly, but in the end, it helps us focus on fewer areas, and build an even better experience across all of Google.

The thing I loved and will miss most about the old Share feature is the cool mini website you could create from your shared items. You can see mine here - http://www.google.com/reader/shared/rebecca.roebuck. Each time you shared a new post the stories would populate on your website. You also had the ability to embed the stories you were sharing on a website or blog. You can see I did that to my bio here. It was a great way to share news!

What do you think of these changes? Is this just Google’s attempt to fully promote Google+? Do you think they understand social sharing?

Follow @dcrebekah

Tags: google, google reader

Facebook Privacy Changes and Sharing Updates

You have surely heard about and experienced Facebook’s privacy and tagging changes over the past few weeks. These updates change privacy settings on user profiles as well as the ways users share content on Facebook.

Privacy Setting Changes

Facebook profile controls can now be edited directly from the user profile rather than navigating through the confusing Privacy Settings page. Each section of the profile has an option to select who can see this information. Users can also preview how their page looks to certain people using the “View Profile As” tool.

Users also now have the ability to review tags before they appear live in the newsfeed. This means if a friend tags you in a photo, check-in or post you will have the ability to approve or reject before the post is made visible to anyone else. To enable this setting visit How Tags Work under your privacy settings.

Options for removing content and tags from your profile are also more robust. When removing content that you have been tagged in you now have the option of removing the content from your profile, removing the tag itself, messaging the photo owner or tagger, and requesting the content get taken down.

Changes to Sharing on Facebook

The Facebook status update now includes options to share your location, who you are with and who you want to see the post. All directly from your status update! Your physical proximity to the location also no longer prevents you from tagging a place. After writing your status update you can:

1. Tag who you’re with
2. Share where you are
3. Choose who sees your post

RIP Facebook Deals

Facebook also announced, although a bit more quietly, that they are ending their Deals feature. Facebook Deals were separate from check-in deals and were more of a Groupon type service. Deals were only currently available near Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco. Everything indicates check-in deals are safe. A Facebook spokesperson told All Facebook, “We remain committed to building products to help local businesses connect with people, like ads, pages, sponsored stories, and check-in deals.”

Facebook will also remove the Places check-in feed from mobile devices. The location tagging mentioned above will replace this type of check-in. Although I still see the Places icon and activity feed on my iPhone app.

Want to know more? The September 21 Webbed Marketing Webinar will discuss these Facebook changes and more!

What do you think of these changes? Do you like the new privacy settings and tagging options? Do they remind you of another social network? Share your comments and experiences so far!

Tags: facebook, privacy, sharing, social media

Who Wants a Google+ Business Profile?!

Not so fast!

Like the Google+ personal profiles, Google planned to slowly roll out and test Google+ company profiles through a test program first. They asked interested businesses to apply to be considered for the test program at the beginning of July. The feedback they received was overwhelming. According to Googler Christian Oestlien, “Believe it or not we actually had tens of thousands of businesses, charities, and other organizations apply to take part from all over the world.”

Because of this interest Google+ has accelerated the business profiles program and they will hopefully launch for everyone in Q3 2011.

According to VentureBeat, Google+ business profiles will have analytics as well as more sophisticated sharing options. A Google spokesperson told VentureBeat,

“There will be a product very soon that has businesses’ interests in mind… We want to give them the features businesses expect and the features that can improve the sharing experience both for consumers and businesses… You can expect to see a level of analytics and measurement that you’d typically find in Google products as well as a nuanced approach to how things are shared. It encourages and enhances conversation, it doesn’t just put things in the stream.”

Google is asking businesses not to create Google+ profiles using the regular profiles. They will even be disabling business profiles that use regular profiles. They recommend using a real person to represent your business until business profiles are ready.

So as tempting as it may be to set up a personal Google+ profile for your business – don’t! The wait will be worth it!

For more updates from Google+ on business profiles follow Googler Christian Oestlien at https://plus.google.com/105923173045049725307/posts

What do you think of this Google+ business profile saga? Will you create a Google+ business profile when they are available?

Tags: google, google plus, social media

Deciphering Google+ Webinar

Over the past couple weeks, you have likely heard the hype surrounding Google+. If you were lucky enough to get an invite, you may have started exploring the new social network. Or you may have seen the “+1” appear next to your search results. Google+ has the potential to have a large impact on social and search as we know it. Join Webbed Marketing’s President Bill Balderaz, and Social Media Manager Rebecca Roebuck, to discuss the ins and outs of Google’s latest venture, and what it means for you and your company.

During this webinar we’ll discuss:

• What is Google+
• How it differs from other social networks
• How +1 impacts search and SEO
• What’s next

Register today, https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/387975723.

Tags: google

What You Need to Know About Facebook EdgeRank and Your News Feed

The Facebook News Feed was launched in September 2006. It appeared on every Facebook user’s homepage and highlighted profile updates and changes from your friends. Whether you loved or hated the Facebook News Feed initially, its importance and power are obvious now. Having your update appear in a friend or fan’s News Feed is crucial to engagement.

The News Feed is based on a two-tab system – Top News and Most Recent. Posts with a higher EdgeRank will appear higher in the Top News feed. Over 50% of users do click over to the Most Recent tab on a regular basis but Top News is Facebook’s default setting.

So how do you get your Facebook updates at the top of everyone’s News Feed?

First you must be aware of the algorithms that allow the News Feed to show you the top, relevant content. These algorithms are collectively called EdgeRank. EdgeRank looks something like this:

TechCrunch explains EdgeRank, “At a high level, the EdgeRank formula is fairly straightforward. But first, some definitions: every item that shows up in your News Feed is considered an Object. If you have an Object in the News Feed (say, a status update), whenever another user interacts with that Object they’re creating what Facebook calls an Edge, which includes actions like tags and comments.”

An object’s EdgeRank is based on three components:

1. Affinity – Based on the interactions between the viewing user and the object’s creator. Connections (friends or pages) that you regularly interact with (like, comment, view pictures) have a higher affinity score.
2. Level of Interaction – Different types of interactions are weighed differently, giving more importance to interactions that require more effort. A comment for example has more importance than a like. Objects with higher levels of interaction are more likely to appear in your News Feed.
3. Timeliness – The older an object is the less important it becomes so newer updates are more likely to appear in your News Feed.

An object’s EdgeRank is a combination of these three factors for each Edge. The higher the EdgeRank is, the more likely an Object is to appear in your News Feed. An object is more likely to appear in your Facebook News Feed if you and people you know have been interacting with it and the author recently.

Tips to get your content in friends and fans Top News Feed:

• Utilize your real estate – include pictures, video and link previews in your updates. These catch the eye and are more engaging to users.
• Ask questions – end your update with a question to your audience that encourages them to respond with a comment.
• Keep it fresh - make sure your content is new and newsworthy. The News Feed moves fast so keep your page updated regularly.
• Post directly – Objects that are posted directly from Facebook.com tend to rank better than those that are posted from a 3rd party application (CoTweet, Hootsuite, TweetDeck, etc).

Check out more tips to increase your EdgeRank at Social Media Examiner.

Have more tips to share about improving EdgeRank? Share them in the comments!

Tags: edgerank, facebook, news feed