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

Offline Actions Can Cause Online Disasters: Papa John’s

If you haven’t heard, Papa John’s social media team had a busy weekend. A Twitter user tweeted a photo of her receipt, and on the receipt, a Papa John’s employee had referred to her with a derogatory name.

The picture spread quickly. In fact, there were 4,542 mentions of the Papa John’s Twitter handle (@PapaJohns) online on Saturday, the day the picture was tweeted. Compare that with around 50-80 mentions on an ordinary day. The Twitpic of the receipt has been viewed over 222,000 times and counting.

Mentions of @PapaJohns

Before the rise of social media, the customer probably would have called management and told a few friends. Obviously, Papa John’s reputation would have been tarnished to far fewer people. Social media, however, gave the customer the power to share what happened to her with people all over the country (and world!). I’m sure the customer had no idea how fast it would spread, but Twitter users were outraged by the discrimination that occurred at the Papa John’s store.

Papa John’s issued an apology, reached out to the customer and assured everyone that the employee had been terminated. Perhaps a good next step would be a video on the culture at Papa John’s and how racism and discrimination are not tolerated.

With 3,500 stores, I know how hard it is for them to make sure all employees follow policies and have just plain good sense, but unfortunately, this is reflecting on the Papa John’s brand as a whole, even though it was just one employee. Brands need to make sure all employees know the online consequences for their offline actions.

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

The Power of Social Media for Social Good

I am an Online Community Specialist here at Webbed Marketing and am an advocate for pancreatic cancer awareness and spend a lot of my free time volunteering for the cause. Anyone who knows me, knows I insert pancreatic cancer into conversations way more than I should. I saw that Carson Kressley had tweeted a picture of a purple Empire State Building. I responded and let him know that the building was purple to raise awareness for pancreatic cancer. Later that night, Carson retweeted my tweet.

Now, I am not one to get overly excited about celebs, but if anyone saw Carson Kressley on Dancing with the Stars, you couldn’t help but love him and be inspired by his positivity and individuality. I love Carson Kressley, and I love that he raised awareness for a cause so important to me. But, this also serves as a testament to the power of social media.

My tweet to Carson Kressley resulted in him retweeting to over 48,000 followers. This led to 24 more retweets from his followers and conversation about the disease.

Social media not only gives you access to your favorite celebrities, but it also gives you the opportunity to spread your message. This particular example shows that relevant conversation is key. Because I responded to a picture Carson had posted in a relevant way, he was much more likely to retweet my tweet. Paying attention to what others are saying and engaging in the conversation can really pay off!

Tags: Carson Kressley, pancreatic cancer, power of social media, social good, social media, twitter

How Will a Google+ Page Affect Your Business?

Since the initial release of Google+ back in the summer, people have been waiting for the moment when it would finally be opened up to businesses.

That time has finally come, as Google made pages available to businesses last week.

Now that you are able to give your company or organization a presence on Google+, it’s imperative that you set up a page. You might be asking yourself, “With so many other social networks to worry about, why should we now get involved in Google+?”

It’s a valid question, but think of it in this way: Google+ is obviously a Google product, and they will do anything to compete with the social networking giants (i.e. Facebook and Twitter).

While Google+ figures out the best way to do that, there is one monumental factor for creating a Google+ page for your business. That is, of course, the SEO benefits of it.

There is no doubt that Google will begin to find ways to put Google+ pages at the top of search results, making it imperative that your company develop a presence on the platform.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: business, google, google plus, social media

Happy Birthday, Vonnie!

Yvonne celebrates her <insert politically correct guess at how old she is> today, we wanted to say Happy Birthday! To celebrate with our old pal, we dug through the WM archives to share this oldie by goodie (the song, not the gal).  Help us spread the word of this soon-to-be National Holiday.

Yvonne Rayburn is the Director of Online Communications at Columbus Internet Marketing Agency, Webbed Marketing (a Division of Fathom).  She manages all things social media, online PR, and promotion for WM. In her free time she is a wine enthusiast, personal training coach and enjoys the wildlife of Delaware, Ohio.

Tags: social media, social networking, social networks

Get LinkedIn Recommendations Without Being Annoying

We know LinkedIn recommendations beef up our LinkedIn profile (help get that bar to 100% complete), are great for job opportunities, and help with general networking.  So, with everyone’s busy schedules and hefty work loads, how do you manage to get people to write those glowing recommendations?  Here are some tips to help you ask for (and get!) the recommendations you deserve, without annoying everyone you know.

1. Ask the right people. Don’t just go through your LinkedIn contacts, asking everyone to write you a recommendation. Be selective with who you ask to do this for you; would you do it for them?

2. Send them a personal email/LinkedIn message. Recognize that they are busy, and you would greatly appreciate the time this will take them to help you professionally.

3. Always offer to give a recommendation back to them. If they know you will return the favor, they will be much more likely to spend 15 minutes writing your recommendation.

4. Give them an example. You can either reference a situation when you two worked together, or a project that yielded excellent results.  Or, you can even draft a brief paragraph for them.  Be sure to let them know they can modify or adjust your draft.

5. Don’t bug them every day about it. If you don’t get the recommendation as quickly as you had hoped, be patient. Don’t send them a million “reminder” emails to write it.  In fact, don’t send them any reminder emails.  If you think they are busy and it slipped their mind (and not that they just don’t want to recommend you), go ahead and write your LinkedIn recommendation for them.  This will remind them to return the favor, and you won’t look obnoxious.

6. Be appreciative. Thank them for writing a sincere recommendation for you, and boosting your professional presence online. And if you haven’t already, return the favor by writing a recommendation for them (or for their business!).

Tags: linkedin, LinkedIn recommendations

The 80/20 Rule

Have you heard of the 80/20 rule for social media? The common rule is that 80 percent of your updates should provide value for your followers and 20 percent can be self-promotional.

It is so important to not just self-promote or sell on Facebook and Twitter all of the time. You want followers to engage with your business, and if you’re constantly promoting your business or selling, followers are not going to want to engage. People need a reason to follow you, and unless you’re a mega-brand, they aren’t going to want to just hear about your business all of the time. 

Offline, if you just constantly talk about yourself, you’re not going to have many people standing in line to talk to you. The same applies online! So, what can you post about when you’re not promoting your organization?

• Post tips or information about your industry. Ask thought leaders in your organization to provide tips for followers. Also, post Facebook notes with more in-depth information or advice.
• Make sure to stay up-to-date on the news in your industry, and post relevant articles. Adding your own commentary when posting the articles is ideal.
• Ask your followers what they think. Getting their opinions on industry topics can not only provide you insight, it can also make them feel engaged.
• Post about events in your community that you think your followers may be interested in attending, especially free events open to the public!
• Do you have partners or clients you work with regularly? Post news about their companies, and they will probably return the favor.

Finding ways to balance your updates can add value for your followers and make them interested in your organization. You’ll find that engagement will increase and your followers will, too!

Tags: 80/20 Rule, facebook, social media strategy, twitter