Facebook is facing competition from Google’s newest social
networking program, Google+.. How eager are users to build another social
network? Time will tell, but it’s worth looking into this newest Google
innovation.

How does it work? Users organize themselves into circles of
friends so they have a choice as to what they will share with each group. A
person is added to the circle by dragging his or her photo on to a labeled
circle. Removing someone is easy. Drag their photo out. There are also
multi-person video chats, a feature called Sparks that allows users to plug
into news of interest to them, and the program also integrates Google’s photo
site, Picasa.

At the moment this program is being called a field trial
which means it will be tweaked as it grows in number of users. But keep an eye
on it. It’s worth watching.

Here’s a new twist, or should we say tweet, on business and
social media. Food trucks have discovered ways to notify their customers of
their current location by using Facebook and Twitter. They also use social
media to tell customers about daily market specials, promotions and hours of
operation. They get feedback on food and suggestions for changes in the menu.
Whether it’s ice cream, hot dogs or barbeque, these mobile businesses are
digitally savvy. Whether your business is mobile or static, social media can be
a powerful engine. Call us to help you take advantage of its power.

Once upon a time people created websites and thought
everyone would start on the home page. Not anymore. People want to visit lots
of sites and read bits of text and then comment on them. A business needs to
give out these text bits and have them circulate freely on the social web. On
many sites social media referrals are among the top 3 or 4 referring sources,
so you need your business to be on the social media services most people use on
a daily basis to receive referrals and feedback. You need a social media
strategy.

You only need two or three tools to create your core
social media strategy. Facebook now has more than 500 million users so it
should be one of the building blocks of this strategy. Set up a Fan page to
connect with your customers. This page offers a great range of tools such as
polls, event postings and a discussion topics board. And once you reach 100
fans you have an even greater range of tools.

Want to know how you’re doing? Facebook Insights is
a useful tool for judging the effectiveness of posts made to your company
Facebook page. Like Google Analytics it gives you a chance to look at
statistics, data on age, gender and geographic location of your followers.
Note: pages need at least 30 active followers to be included in Insights.

Don’t forget: Facebook needs to be dynamic. Give
your fans a reason to come back. The more you post, the more attention you
generate. Give more, receive more.

Don’t have time? Our social media experts and blog
writers can help. Give us the information you need your customers to know and
we’ll get those tweets and blogs posted as often as you please.

There are dozens of tools used by business to share,
manage and evaluate social media. Listed below are eleven:

Facebook, a social networking site

Twitter, a communication form based on 140 character
messages

Flickr, a photo-sharing site

YouTube, a video-hosting site

Vimeo, a video-hosting site

Scribd, a document-sharing site

Slideshare, a Powerpoint-sharing site

Tumbr, a micro-blogging site

Posterous, a micro-blogging site

Hootsuite, a dashboard to use multiple social media
accounts

Tweetdeck, a dashboard to use multiple social media
sites

Travel and Facebook are natural partners, according to
Facebook spokeswoman, Jillian Carroll. “Travel is inherently social,” she said.
Travelers ask their friends for hotel and restaurant recommendations and then
share their impressions afterwards. Hotels have begun offering direct bookings
through Facebook, luring travelers from on-line travel agencies. “We want to be
there when someone transforms the recommendations of their friends into booking
a reservation,” said David Godsman, vice president for global web services for
Starwood Hotels. “If they press the “like” button, we want to start a
conversation.”  Hotels want their booking
engines to be found where the customer is, and not ask the customer to search
them out. And using social media to communicate can take the relationship
beyond the booking transaction to such niceties as preferred pillow type,
preferred drinks in the minibar or preferred type of room. Travelers are now
expecting trip-related services to be available on the new platforms, and
hotels make more money from rooms booked directly than from rooms booked
through on-line travel agencies.

Remember small towns and little neighborhoods in big cities
where the local vendors knew your name, knew what you liked, where they ‘cared’
about you? A business lived and died by word of mouth. Life changed. Small town
centers failed and moved to strip shopping malls. City dwellers moved to the
suburbs. Businesses stopped caring. But according to social media guru, Gary
Vaynerchuk in his latest book, The Thank You Economy, along came social
media and turned the clock back. The author views the world now as a giant
small town where businesses have to create that ‘caring’ attitude towards their
customers. Anyone on Facebook or Twitter can type in their buying experience,
local or not, with the possibility of starting a movement that could make or
break a business. Greed isn’t good anymore. In the 24-hours-a-day
Internet-connected world, you’ve got to ‘care’ more about your customers than
your competition does. Vaynerchuk promotes qualities like good manners,
patience, integrity, authenticity and above all, transparency, the art of being
totally open and honest with the buying public. Vaynerchuk’s model is
pro-consumer and he’s the first to say that not all businesses are on board
yet. But he bets that they soon will be. Do you know what your customers are saying about you on Facebook?

Fan Pages Are Getting An Upgrade

The official upgrade day is tomorrow, March 10th. But, if you received a notification then you are able to upgrade earlier. Here are the changes:

Now you will be notified when fans interact with your page or posts.

You are also given a place to showcase your photos along the top of the page. This area will not include pictures posted by your fans. If you want to remove a picture, all you have to do is roll over it and click the “X”.

Navigation links are now going to be on the left hand side of the screen. This is like the profiles of people. It will be consistent with what users are looking for.

Now we are able to determine which posts will show at the top. Viewers will be able to choose in chronological order or by those that have recieved the most response. This would list the more interesting posts first.

And we are also given some options on which pages appear in the left column. To make these changes go to Edit Page, then Your Settings or Featured.

Facebook continues to improve! What other changes would you like to see?

The Big Number

The big number that was played up this year was the number of users of Facebook surpassing 500 million users. That surpasses the population of the United States.

Keeping The Other Numbers Understandable

Some of the other numbers on Facebook were so mind boggling in 2010 that Facebook decided to put them in a context that displayed numbers we can understand. To do this they reported the activity as it took place every 20 minutes.

Every 20 Minutes on Facebook:

2.7 million photographs were uploaded
1 million links were shared
7.6 million pages were “liked”
1.3 million photos were tagged
1.4 million invites were sent out
1.5 million wall posts were made
1.9 million friend requests were accepted
10.2 million comments were made
4.6 million messages were sent

Facebook continues to explode. And more businesses are using it to communicate with their employees, their customers and their prospects. What are your business’s plans for using Facebook in 2011?