Last March (2012) I posted about the Timeline changes and listed all of the guidelines that Facebook had set for cover photos. Here is what those looked like at that point:

You may NOT include any of the following in your cover photo:

• Price or purchase information, such as “40 percent 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.”

Facebook has very recently quietly changed those guidelines. Here is what they look like now (March 2013):

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 images with more than 20% text.

That’s a pretty big change! It will be interesting to see if it increases spammy/advertising-centered cover images or if it is just Facebook’s reaction to the fact that no one was following their guidelines anyway and things will just stay the same. If you want to read through all of their guidelines you can do that here.

Late in 2012 I took a great workshop offered by Synchronicity Coaching to plan out where I wanted my business headed in 2013. It may sound odd or silly to some of you but one of the key goals that I came up with is getting more people/businesses in Livingston to be active on Twitter. For those of you in larger cities you are probably scratching your heads right now wondering why I would need to convince people to get on Twitter. And for some of you who live around here you are probably scratching your heads right now wondering why on earth you would ever want to be on Twitter!

In my social media trainings I talk a lot about why Twitter can be a good tool for your business. I also sometimes tell local businesses not to bother because, unfortunately, much of their target audience isn’t on Twitter. But today I want to talk about personal use of Twitter and how you can benefit from it. So for those of you who aren’t yet converts, here are a few of the reasons that I love Twitter and you should too:

Information – Who doesn’t love having easy access to tons of information? I know that it can get overwhelming at times and there is the potential for info overload but I find that the positives here outweigh the negatives. Every time I scroll through my Twitter feed I find something interesting and new that I would never have found before because I didn’t even know to look for it! For example, just recently found this cool little gem.

Events – Shorter, faster updates with the ability to search content using keywords and hashtags makes Twitter so much more fun than oh say Facebook when following, attending, watching an event. It’s like having a room full of your wittiest friends all analyzing and commenting on what you are watching. Only you can turn them off whenever you want and you don’t have to kick them out when you want to go to bed!

Sports – I am a bit of a fanatic, though a mostly friendly one, when it comes it to football and basketball. Mixed in with the Design Sponges and Modcloths in my Twitter feed are the sports related tweets of Nicolas Batum, Mike Rice, the Trail Blazers and more. I like getting some behind the scenes on these players who I cheer for regularly (and occasionally yell at). I like being able to hear what other fans are saying about the game I just watched. Kind of like watching a game at a sports bar with the players sitting across the room from you while you wear your pajamas and drink tea if you feel like it.

Customer Service – Let’s jump on the other side of customer service for a minute (the side of being the customer). Want a great place to blow off steam about a terrible experience you just had with a business? Get on Twitter! Okay, maybe that’s not the best way to handle an issue you’re having with a business. But some businesses are actually easier to reach through Twitter than other avenues and it’s always worth giving it a try (politely) and giving them the chance to solve the problem. It’s also a great place to give a warm, fuzzy shout-out to businesses that you love!

Search and Content – Like I said before, keyword searching, hashtag searching, constant updates…that all leads to so much great content for you to find, wade through and use in your own business. You can find news articles, blog posts, infographics or even just see what topics are trending to give you some ideas for original content of your own to create. Ok, maybe I’m blurring the lines here between personal and business use but I can’t help it sometimes!

News – I don’t watch the news on TV and I don’t get the newspaper. I pretty much get all of my news online and Twitter is usually the fastest way to stay up to date. I typically use it as my jumping off point where I find out what’s going on and then dive in deeper by googling or going to a news based website/online newspaper if I want to know more.

If all of these reasons haven’t convinced you to head over to Twitter.com and sign up immediately, then why not just do it for me. Help me reach my goal and give it a try. Who knows, you might even end up liking it. And if I wind up convincing enough people in Livingston to get on board, maybe we’ll even have a party – I’ll tweet you the invite.

You can find me on Twitter at: @handhweb, @snapfotogirl, and @livingstonlocal

And if at the very mention of Twitter I start sounding to you like those two little birds at the top of the post – stop by Social Media Socializing some Friday morning and we’ll go over everything you need to know!

Livingston, Montana has recently received a lot of press online, at least in the world of social media news. And all thanks to what I consider to be a big customer service fail on the part of Wilcoxson’s Ice Cream (a company based here in Livingston). Last week this was posted on Wilcoxson’s Facebook page:

A fan of Wilcoxson’s was asking a simple question about the ingredients in the ice cream and the response given by  Matt Schaeffer, president of Wilcoxson’s, had nothing to do with the question and instead made the assumption that the person was from Pakistan. This led to a huge uproar in the online community calling the comment racist.  You can read the full story at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, or Huffington Post if you want all of the details. Wilcoxson’s has since turned off their Facebook page but that hasn’t stopped people from using other platforms to complain.

The big debate seems to be over whether or not what Matt Schaeffer posted was racist and people have every right to be concerned about that. But to me there is another issue that needs to be discussed and that is basic customer service. A customer, who is obviously a big fan of the ice cream, asked a very simple question. All Wilcoxson’s needed to do on their end was answer the simple question with a simple response. The president of the company says that he is the one who responded and that he did it when he was tired. I think that this highlights the problem perfectly. When adding social media into your marketing plan it is important to realize that your Facebook page will at some point probably be used for customer service. Taking that into consideration you need to really think about who the best person in your company is to be addressing customer service issues. In addition to that you need to assign the job to someone who also has a good grasp of social media etiquette. These are basic concepts that companies big and small are missing regularly as they try to jump into something that they haven’t fully thought out. Addressing these points in the beginning would help prevent mistakes like this one from happening.

The next issue is how you handle a situation like this one once it has already happened. I don’t know what Matt Schaeffer’s response was on Facebook because he shut the page down. Maybe he had no choice because the backlash was so out of control but it is hard to say when we don’t have access to his comments. By shutting his page down, he essentially took his voice out of the conversation. The absolute best thing that someone could do in a situation like this is apologize as quickly as possible once it becomes apparent that a mistake has been made. Apologize to the original customer and then apologize to the general public. Unfortunately, in his interview with the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, it feels more like he is making excuses then just flat out apologizing.

So what can we all learn from Wilcoxson’s mistakes?

1. Really think about who you put in charge of your social media. They need to understand social media etiquette, be professional and courteous, and have good customer service skills. It never hurts to bring in professional help to train your staff.

2. When you make a mistake it can often be fixed with a timely, sincere apology. Customer complaints or comments on Facebook are a chance for you to showcase your company’s amazing customer service skills. Use these opportunities to benefit your business!

How would you handle a customer service nightmare like this one? Have you thought about it and prepared for it? I will be interested to see what happens if and when Wilcoxson’s turns their Facebook page back on and will keep you posted.

Facebook announced last week that they are switching business pages over to the new Timeline feature by the end of March. If you are not sure what Timeline is, go take a look at your personal Facebook profile as those have all already been switched to Timeline. The photo above is an example of how Timeline will look for a business page.

What does this mean for your business page?

• You will need a cover photo
• Your profile picture will now show up square even on your page
• The basic structure and layout of your page will be different
• You can now create a timeline going back as far as you want and highlight specific events
• Your wall will now be your default landing tab

Cover Photo:

The ability to put a large cover photo across the top of your business page allows for more customization of your page but there are some pretty strict guidelines that you need to be aware of.

The new size of the cover photo is: 851×315 pixels

You may NOT include any of the following in your cover photo (The info below has changed – see my UPDATE TO COVER PHOTO GUIDELINES 03/13):

• Price or purchase information, such as “40 percent 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.”

Profile Picture:

Your profile picture will now be square everywhere. The actual size of the photo is 180×180 pixels. This means that those large wonderful profile pics that we always encouraged are gone! The good news is that all of your vital contact info is right underneath your new profile pic so you don’t really need to use your pic to get that information out to fans.

Basic Structure:

Basic structure of your page will now be a timeline.

This is what people will see when they go to your page and scroll down below your profile photo.
To access your admin section you will now click the “Admin Panel” button on the top right hand side.

Your basic admin info will now pop up right above your cover photo when you click that button.

As you can see from this photo, if you click on “Manage” you can then edit your page, use your new activity log, see users you have banned from your page and use Facebook as your page.

Everything that you post will now be posted in two columns on your page with normal photos that you post being sized to 404 x 404 pixels and images that are in highlighted posts sized to 843 x 403 pixels.

Creating a Timeline:

The fun part of these new pages comes in the ability to get creative with your timeline. You can now add events to your page that go back to when your business first began. And you can highlight past posts that you want to stand out or pin posts that you want to go back up to the top of your timeline.

To highlight one of your posts, just click on the star in the upper right hand corner of the post. To pin it to the top of your timeline, click on the “edit” pencil right next to that and select “pin to top”.

No More Default Landing Tab:

While you can still have custom tabs on your Facebook page (and they are easier to see now due to their location right below your cover photo), you can no longer set a default landing tab. This means that everyone who goes to your page, whether they are a fan or not, will automatically be taken to your wall. Before we were able to use landing tabs to remind people to like our pages or to direct them to important information but that is not the case anymore. You will now have to find new ways to remind people to like your page and repeatedly tell them to go to your custom tabs to see the info you want them to see.

This is all very new for everyone and there are sure to be small tweaks, changes and announcements. I will keep you posted as I learn more. If you would like to see a business already taking advantage of the new features, go check out the  Tiffany & Co. page. And if you need help switching your page over be sure to give me a call.

We all knew it was coming. The giant that is Google wasn’t going to stand by and watch Facebook explode forever. As we tip-toe around yet another social network, something’s telling us that this one isn’t going away anytime soon. Are you on Google+ yet? Have you started posting updates or photos? So far we have been watching and listening, but something tells us it’s time to dive in.

Below is a short compilation of the social media conversation surrounding Google+, put together using the platform Storify. If you haven’t been following the Google+ buzz, you can get a quick update here.

We’ve finally stopped taking screenshots and maneuvering them into pretty InDesign how-to templates, opting instead to create a YouTube channel full of video tutorials. From our experience, if someone has a question about how to do something on Facebook, Twitter, Hootsuite, etc., it’s likely that others have that same question. We’ve started answering these common questions via video tutorial.

Check in with our YouTube channel frequently to stay updated on the latest tutorials. So far, we have tutorials covering how to use Facebook as a page and how to change the default landing tab. What video tutorials would you like to see? Leave it in the comments!

If you’ve followed our Facebook page or Twitter feed, you’ve probably noticed that many of our links come from the same few resources. That’s because these people know their stuff, and we want you to read what they have to say. Here’s a breakdown of the list we always hand out to our clients and distribute at training sessions.

• Mashable – Social media news and web tips
• Seth Godin – Author blogging about ideas and marketing
• Chris Brogan – Consultant in business communications
• Hubspot – Internet marketing products and resources
• H&H Web – Tips and articles about social media trends (liking our Facebook page and following us on Twitter is the best way to stay abreast on social media without having to do all the legwork yourself!)

Do you have some other resources to which you like to turn for tips on social media, Facebook, Twitter, marketing, etc?

Unfortunately, the “bug” that wasn’t allowing you to suggest to your friends that they become a fan of a business page is not a bug at all. Facebook removed the feature when it was having problems loading correctly, and confirmed on their help page that they won’t be returning it to users. Administrators will still have this option, but other users will instead have to use the Share option (found at the very bottom of the far left sidebar), which will post the page and a message to their wall and show up in friends’ news feeds. For businesses looking for a quick and direct way to build their page likes, this is going to cause a little bump in the road, as they can no longer ask their employees and friends to send out a personal message to their entire friend list (unless, of course, they are a page admin).

The "Suggest to Friends" option no longer shows up for users who are not admins of the page.

This just means we have to get a little more creative about spreading the word that your business is on Facebook. There are so many simple ways to advertise your Facebook page, which you really should be doing anyway, and if you combine these methods with some good old fashioned talking to your customers and clients, you probably won’t even notice this change.

Some ideas to get you started (which can be applied to any social network, not just Facebook):

• Add your username (facebook.com/username, i.e. facebook.com/handhweb) to the signature of your emails
• Provide direct links from your website to your Facebook page
• Add your username to your business cards
• Put your Facebook page on EVERY single piece of marketing material, period. This includes newspaper ads, magazine ads, flyers, direct mailers, postcards, brochures, notepads, etc.
• If you do any email campaigns, put a link to your Facebook page
• Put some signs up in your store: on the checkout counter, on the front door, in the dressing room, in the bathroom.
• Staple a piece of paper with your usernames onto customer receipts
• When you’re chatting with a customer or client, tell them about your Facebook page and ask them to follow you

We really cannot stress enough how important it is to fully integrate your efforts when it comes to social media. If people do not know that you are on Facebook, Twitter, or Flickr, they’ll never know to search for your business and follow you. The more you talk to your clients and customers about your presence there, and WHY they should be following or liking you, the better results you will see.

We stopped for lunch at Weebee’s Cafe in Bozeman today, and as I was tweeting photos of our food, I realized I was mentioning the wrong username when we saw this on the bottom of their beverage menu:

We’re now following them on Twitter and liking them on Facebook.

We’ll continue to share examples of creative ways businesses are advertising their presence on social media on our own Facebook page, so stay tuned. Have any other ideas we didn’t mention? Leave it in the comments!

I just got back from a week-long vacation in New York City. The trip provided me with the opportunity to indulge in two activities that typically get pushed to the wayside when I’m at home in Livingston: eating ethnic food, and reading. I won’t divulge the details of just how much hummus I actually ate within a 7-day period, but I will give you some links to great articles about social media to cozy up to when you have a chance.

Facebook Sells Your Friends, in Bloomberg Businessweek. Selling your friends sounds scary, but it also opens the doors for a much more intimate experience with products, advertising and branding.

The Face of Facebook, in The New Yorker. A chance to listen to co-founder Mark Zuckerberg in the wake of the new movie exposé, “The Social Network.”

Small Change, in The New Yorker. Malcolm Gladwell’s take on the use of Twitter and Facebook for social activism.