10 Facebook Tips for Business Professionals

Facebook is “a social utility that connects you with the people around you.” What does that mean? It’s a place for friends to hang out online.

Are you a business professional looking to capitalize on friends hanging out online?

Sounds dirty doesn’t it.

As businesses we have to keep in mind the nature of the communities we are joining. Facebook is about personal networks. Facebook became a phenomenon because it’s simple, it’s fun, it has photos, it has spam-free email, and because there’s very little advertising. If you want to be active in Facebook, go beyond advertising. Create value-add applications, like the TripAdvisor map. Create fun games or quizzes or tools that help users socialize.

And by all means follow the 10 Facebook Tips for Professionals posted by Bill Sweetman on OneDegree.ca.

1. Use your real and full name in your profile
2. Make sure your profile includes a photo of you
3. Include detailed business information in your profile
4. Do not invite strangers to be your Facebook friends
5. Do not send messages to strangers

Visit OneDegree.ca for the next 5 tips and full details on why the first 5 are so important.

Del.icio.us Becomes Delicious.com

The social bookmarking site Del.icio.us has refreshed it’s look and domain name.

Check out http://delicious.com/

Or watch this short Flickr Video on Delicious 2.0:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deliciousblog/2718285703/

Delicious, if you’re listening. I like it. Nice look.

Tips on Beating Writer’s Block

or What to Write When You Are Wiped

I must say that July has been a hectic month. I have been in 4 different cities. A new place each week.

My favourite was Portus 2008 in Dallas where I spoke about the phenomenon of podcasting and participatory culture within the Harry Potter fandom.

(Do you know about Wizard Rock? Rock music based on books ... that is another post. But if you want to divert your attention, you can see my guest post on TechVibes where I give a quick summary of my presentation.)

After a month of travel, with all the best intentions of posting a great Underwire Newsletter ... I am stumped. So here are 3 things that I do when I need to pull a blog post out
of a hat or generate a press release out of thin air.

1. I scan the daily news headlines
Is there anything going on in the world that is vaguely related to my clients’ products or services? If yes, I can usually get enough inspiration to write a blog post or press release.

2. I go through my clippings folder
Ok, I do not have a physical folder, it is an electronic folder. But throughout the day, as I find interesting newsletters or blog posts, I make a note of them for writer’s block moments.

3. I look at my site traffic and the most popular sections
This can provide interesting points for casual conversation (like the fact that our post on graphical user interface prototyping tools continues to draw strong traffic). And it means that I can recycle some content. Check out our nerdy list of Graphical User Interface prototyping tools. See how fun that was.

Bonus Tip. I research silly quotes.
As Terry Pratchett says: Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself.

Writing Online Press Releases

Online press releases can be an effective way of reaching journalists, bloggers and industry-related media sites. With online distribution your press release
may also end up on popular news aggregator sites like Google News and Yahoo News.

Still unclear about why you want to write an online press release?

1. To Drive Traffic to Your Site
A well-optimized press release can show up in organic search results as well as news results. And some services also distribute press releases as RSS feeds, which can get pulled as headlines into other subject-related websites. This means that someone searching for your type of products or services might discover you through organic listings, news listings or by RSS.

2. To Write the Stories You Want Told
As traditional print media struggles with cutbacks to funding, which means the loss of reporters and original, local news coverage, companies writing good press releases, with interesting and compelling stories, have an opportunity to attract online coverage as well as interest from journalists using online resources for story ideas and research.

Here are a couple of Online Distribution Services

PR Newswire: Big name, good reputation. Costs is $500+.

Business Wire: 8-10 percent less than PR Newswire. Also a big name with a good rep.

PRWeb.com: My favourite so far. This is an email-based service. Journalists and bloggers get a daily email with industry-specific or interest-specific headlines. Approx. $100+ depending on what type of features you want.

OpenPR.com: A free service. Ads are displayed beside your press release, which is okay unless your competitors advertise online.

Have a press release service to recommend? Post it here.

Wordle: Boxcar Marketing

This is a wordle of the Boxcar Markting blog. The words that describe the content here.

Pull a Face for PutPlace: Photo Contest

My bookkeeper pointed out the other day that the backup on her computer hasn’t been working for the past couple of months. Eek gads! What that means is that all the information she is entering for my bookkeeping purposes could disappear. By “her” computer, she means my computer, which I’ve set up for her to use.

Documents, photos, music, videos ... there’s all sort of valuable stuff on that computer because it used to be my home computer.

So here is my data loss disaster story in a series of photos.

It starts like this:

Oh, that was weird!

Oh, that was really bad.

Oh, I don’t know how to fix this.

Oh, I really don’t know how to fix this.

====

Oh, James?

Oh, geez.

Oh. Ooooooooh.

Oh. No.

Have your own story? A single photo will do.

One of my clients is PutPlace. And they are all about preventing data loss disasters like this one.

* PutPlace offers real-time backup.
* PutPlace protects and organizes your photos, documents, emails, music and home movies.
* PutPlace enables you to publish a file on multiple sites and find it later.

PutPlace is more than file backup. It’s a lifesaver and they are running a photo contest.

All you have to do is submit a photo of your shock or horror with a caption about your data loss fears. The prize is an annual subscription to PutPlace for 100 GB of data + $200 USD Amazon gift certificate.

As Darren says, “Go forth and panic for the camera.”

Submit your photo: Putplace.com/pullaface

5 Online Tools for Business

Are you using these 5 online tools to expand your sales and marketing opportunities?

1. Email newsletters

Like direct mail, this is one way of delivering a marketing message to a prospective customer. The greater your ability to tailor and personalize these messages, in combination with gaining permission (rather than spamming), the greater your positive response rate will be.

2. Webinars

Online demos or training sessions can be an effective way to explain an offering, present a topic or generate interest.

3. Video

Increase awareness of your product or service offering by creating short videos that fans, media and other interested parties can feature on their websites and blogs. Create your own video channel and feature clips on your website and popular video sharing sites such as YouTube.

4. Blogs

As communication vehicles, blogs allow you to have a public conversation with prospective customers, current customers and fans.
A blog allows visitors to comment and provide insight on your products and services instantly, and it provides an opportunity to create buzz about your stuff or company.

5. Expertise materials

White papers and case studies are popular marketing tools and serve as ways to present materials as educational rather than as blatant sales or marketing messages.
They can be used to establish your company’s credibility among media and customers.

Have another online tool that’s good for business? Share your thoughts in the comments.