One of the easiest ways to make your business look more professional is with your Facebook page.

The above screenshot is an example of what your Facebook page could look like. I created this page for Hopper Fishing and yes, it took some graphic design knowledge but you get the same wow factor by just making sure that all of the key elements on your page are sized correctly and at a high enough resolution.

If you haven’t read it yet, take a look back at a post I wrote prior to the switch to timeline that goes over the exact dimensions for your cover photo and some of the key features of timeline. However, Facebook has made yet another change and that is to the exact size of your profile picture. This will only effect people who are doing super creative cover photo/profile pic combos where part of the cover photo is the profile pic. If you are one of these people, you will want to know that the new profile pic size is 160×160 pixels (though you still need to upload an image that is 180×180) and the image will sit 23 pixels in from the left of the cover photo edge and 210 pixels from the top. I actually find that the easiest way to manipulate the two photos is to take a screen shot of your current cover photo and profile pic and then lay the new images on top to see exactly where they match up. This is also a good idea if you have any text in your cover photo because you don’t want that to be covered up by your profile pic.

Once you have a stunning photo as your cover photo and a square version of your logo as your profile pic, you will want to be aware of what size images you are posting to your wall. Any image that you post will by default show up as almost a square on the page. This can pretty much ruin a piece of promotional marketing material if it is wider and the edges get cut off. It means that unless people click on the image itself, they may not be able to read all of your text. The other option is to highlight your photo by clicking the star button at the top of the post. This will make your image be about the size of your cover photo or about 851 pixels wide and around 315 pixels long. So ultimately what does this mean for your page? To make it look its very best, try to resize images that you are posting to be either close to a square or close to the same size as your cover photo (and then highlight the post). You will be amazed at the difference that it makes on the overall look of your Facebook page.

Facebook is just one small part of the bigger picture of your brand image but it is an easy one to change! If you want more help with making your Facebook page look the best it possibly can, or you are interested in looking at the bigger picture and creating a complete plan for your marketing, give me a call or shoot me an email. I would love to get your business looking its best!

Well guess what? Even if you don’t use Google the way we do at our house, many of your customers or potential customers do. So have you ever taken the time to check what they see when they google you? I am not talking about your website’s SEO and whether or not your come up when people use certain keywords or search phrases. I am talking about when they specifically google your name (or your business name to be precise). If someone googles your business name, do your website and your Facebook page and your Twitter account and your YouTube videos come up at the top of the page? Or have you left it up to other people to talk about you? Chances are that if you do not have some sort of web presence of your own, what comes up when someone googles your business is either a review of your business on Yelp or another review site or maybe a Google place if you are lucky. Ideally you want your website or blog to come up first when people search for you, then your social media accounts. This way, you have complete control over the content that your potential customers first see. The last thing that you want to do is make it hard for customers to find you and find out information about your business! Unless of course, you don’t want their business.

Take a minute and google your business name right now so that you have a better sense of the picture that potential customers get when they are looking for you. Are you happy with what they will find?

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:

• 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.

1. Listening

One of the best uses for social media that many people overlook is listening. Three main things that you want to listen to are: your customers, your competitors, and other professionals in your field. You can do this by setting up Google Alerts and Twitter searches for any term that is relevant to your business including your business name. Social Mention is another great tool that lets you set up alerts similar to Google Alerts but from social media channels.

2. Customer Service

Now that you are listening to what you customers are already saying about you, you can use social media as a customer service tool. People use Facebook and Twitter regularly to share good and bad experiences with their friends and followers. Your business now has the opportunity to either thank them for positive recommendations or address any negative experiences people have had. Because of the immediate response capabilities of social media, it is also becoming a preferred method for many people to have their questions answered about businesses and products. You only have the chance to answer those questions if your business has a social media presence.

3. Networking

In addition to listening to what other important players in your field are saying you have the opportunity to interact with those people and build a strong network within your professional community. LinkedIn is one of the best places for this but Twitter and Facebook can be great too especially now that business pages can write on other business page walls on Facebook.

4. Showcasing Expertise

Social media is all about sharing. And one of the best things to share is how knowledgeable you are in your area of expertise. The best way to do this is to provide useful bits of information (from yourself and from other sources) that people might then pass on to their friends. At the very least it will make people think of you when they are in need of your services or know someone who is in need.

5. Telling Your Story

Social media allows the world to have the feel of a small community such as the one I live in. Word of mouth in any community is huge and people are more likely to trust and recommend someone they “know” than a stranger. So let people get to know you. Tell them your story, share your passion for what you do, give them a face to go along with a business name and logo. If you share a little of who you are (but not too much!) it will help your customers feel a personal connection to your business.

6. SEO

Blogging, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter are all great ways to help your Search Engine Optimization. If you have a website and add a blog to it that you update fairly regularly your search engine rankings can improve in ways that are not possible with a static website that never changes. Social media channels are already optimized for search and utilizing them in addition to a website will help your business name come up when people are searching for terms related to your business.

7. Focused Advertising

Facebook advertising is some of the most affordable targeted advertising you can find. When you run an ad on Facebook you can specify a geographical location, age, gender, specific or general interests for the audience you are trying to target. You can also decide whether you want to direct people to your Facebook page to get more people following what you are posting there or you can direct them straight to your website if you are trying to convert sales there.

8. New Product Announcements/Launches

Using social media can help create buzz when you are announcing a big change in your business or you have a new product launch. The more outlets you use to make an announcement, the more likely it is that people will hear about it. If you generate enough excitement about it with the customers who are already following you, they will spread the news within their networks. A cohesive approach that strategically utilizes email, website, Facebook, Twitter and more will allow for a much higher success rate.

9. Sharing a Variety of  Media (Videos, Photos, Podcasts)

This ties right in with many of the points I have already made. Photos and video with the right tags are great for search, they can be good ways to show off your knowledge with tutorials, they allow people to get to know you and your business better, and they can be shared across platforms allowing for greater exposure. Some platforms to consider: YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, Tumblr, Pinterest, iTunes

10. Market Research

This can be done directly and indirectly with social networks. It is very easy to specifically ask your customers what they are looking for, where they would like to see improvements, what products they want and more. Indirectly, if you are listening to your customers you can take note of trends in what they are talking about and use this information in your advertising.

11. Mobile Presence

One half of all local internet searches are done on mobile devices. If you do not have a website, or if your website is not mobile friendly, social media is one way to give your business a mobile presence. More and more people are using smartphones and they are using them to access social networking sites. If you want to reach your potential customers you need to be where they are.

12. Community Building

If you build a sense of community around your brand by connecting with customers, being generous toward other businesses, spotlighting non-profits and important causes, your customers feel more comfortable recommending you and other business owners will feel more comfortable recommending you.

The whole idea behind the blog is sharing what we do as parents anyway with the rest of the parent world. I wanted to create a fun, useful resource for other people and in order to do that I called upon some of my friends to share their expertise as well. I have really been enjoying combining my photography, graphic design, crafting, and day-to-day parenting stories in a creative way.

I mention this blog to you for two reasons. The first reason is that I feel we all need to find ways to further explore the things that make us happy in our personal lives. And if you can find a way to tie that into your professional life – go for it! The more passion you have for your job, the more people are going to be drawn to you and your work. Please, if you are a parent and/or would like to see what I am passionate about, go check out my blog.

The second reason that I mention the blog is that we are doing our first giveaway and I want to share it with as many people as possible! My good friend and talented artist, Jessica Buickerood is giving away one of her amazing Recipe Calendars for 2012. For the all of the details and info on how to enter to win, just go here.

I would love to hear from you. How do you feed your soul and stay inspired? Do you have side projects that you work on or is work your main passion in life?

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.

Being the social media geeks that we are we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to include Twitter – one of our favorite tools – in our plans!  Twitter is not something that has caught on completely in this area but we are trying little by little to get people on board.  One of the great things about Twitter is the use of hashtags.  For those of you who don’t know, hashtags are simply the “#” symbol followed by a single word or phrase and they are great for searching and organizing data.  They work really well for events such as the Livingston Roundup weekend.

We plan on tweeting using #LivingstonRoundup to keep people informed about everything that is going on here in town.  We will be tweeting live from the parade and the rodeo and are hoping that others will join in the fun!  We fully realize that not everyone has a Twitter account so we have set up multiple locations where people can view the feed of all tweets that include #LivingstonRoundup.  If you are a self proclaimed tweetard but still want to see what is being said on Twitter about the Roundup events you can check out the widget on the right hand side of our blog page, the widget on the left hand side of the home page of Livingston Buy Local, or the special tab we have set up on our Facebook page called “#LivingstonRoundup Events 2011″.  Be sure to keep an eye out for the Murray Hotel as well as the City of Livingston who will be using the hashtag too.  And if you are already a hashtag ninja please help us out and spread the word.  We think it’s time we all put Livingston on the Twitter map, don’t you?

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!

Naturally, with the recent news of Facebook allowing profile to page migrations, that was one of the first topics discussed.  There is a link to an article that details everything you need to know for migration on our Facebook page, but the most important thing to remember is to download all of the information from your personal profile before you make the switch.  We also talked about how great it is that you can now download your entire Facebook profile, including photos and wall posts just to have as a backup.  Many of us upload photos to Facebook that we might not keep copies of elsewhere and now we can archive all of that.

Hootsuite and Twitter were the next big topics of discussion with questions about how to keep track of posts that have already gone out.  One person was using a Word document of all scheduled posts in order to periodically cycle back through some of the really important information going out.  We then got into downloading Twitter updates.  This was important for two reasons: to keep track of what has already been tweeted, and in order to have a record of tweets.  The City of Livingston is getting ready to get on Twitter and one of their big concerns is that they must have a record of everything that they tweet.  We found several options for archiving Twitter info and there are probably many more out there.  This article outlines various options and talks about why archiving is important.  One that we tried out this morning was Tweetscan.

What we found was:
- html version is easier to read
- csv file could provide you with a lot of user data, i.e. when people are replying most often and therefore when you should send your tweets

For the City of Livingston we also discussed using hashtags to get people organized around important local events and really utilizing #LivingstonMT.  Be on the lookout for the City of Livingston on Twitter soon.

Jamie from Reclaim MT was at our meeting this morning and would love to get more followers on Twitter: @reclaimMT (recycling pickup in Livingston – Jamie posts great information regularly).

We also talked about changing Facebook settings so that you can see everyone in your news feed.  To do that scroll down to the bottom of your newsfeed and click “edit options” then choose “all of your friends and pages”.  Also, very important are Account Security Settings.  You can go into these and make it so that Facebook sends you an email anytime your Facebook account is logged into from a new computer.

Lastly, I shared the new custom iPhone cover that I designed using one of my photos and ordered from http://www.getuncommon.com/.  We discussed how this could be a great promotional tool and possible give away when bigger ticket items are purchased.  This company also has a large selection of pre-designed cases for those of you who want something different but are not artistically inclined.

If you have any questions about any of the topics discussed feel free to email us or post them in the comments.

Thanks to everyone who joined us!  Looking forward to more next week. Have a great weekend.