Facebook Newsfeed Changes

As with any new updates released by Facebook, controversy and complaints soon follow but are the recent changes to users' personal news feed updates for the better? I'll let you decide for yourself.

Top Stores

By highlighting stories which have been published since a user last logged in, Facebook users w
Unlike the old news feed, users will be shown stories which have been published since they last logged, know as "Top Stories" which will be a welcomed update for those who check their news feed several times a day. Top Stories are marked with a blue corner (as shown above).

Recent stories are still on the home page but appear below the Top Stories, in the order they were posted.

Live Friend Updates

 The second big change to Facebook's home page is the addition of a live friend updates panel to the right hand side of the page. Much like a Twitter widget, this box updates in real time with friends' current activites.

Profile Prieview

If you're hot on social network privacy you'll be glad for the addition of the "View As..." option added to your profile. Click to view your profile (there is now a small profile thumbnail and with profile name on the top right header bar) and you are now able to see your profile as it is seen by a specific friend or the public.

Facebook Fan Page Update: Friend Activity

Friend Activity is the latest addition to Facebook Fan Pages to be rolled out. You'll find it just underneath the "info" tab below the page's profile picture.

The new tab allows people to see how their friends interact with a page showing page updates, photos etc which their friends have liked likes.

I don't find this particularly useful, especially as it rare that a page fan has a look through the various tabs on a fan page however if they do happen to click on Friend Activity perhaps it will influence their decision to click the "like" button if they see evidence of other friends already in that particular brand's community.

Facebook Fan Page Ask Question Feature

Facebook has added Question to the wall post update tabs a user can select from when updating their fan page wall.

The simple yet sleek feature also allows you to quickly add a poll to the question by adding your answer options in the boxes provided (bear in mind only the first three options will be visible when you post the poll. Users will have to click to see any further options).

There is the option to choose whether or not to allow others to add options you may have missed off.

One posted to your page the question and poll will be visible as shown below. 

There is also the cleaver option to "Ask Friends" but surprisingly there isn't a like button. If you click on the ask friends link a pop up appears containing your friend list allowing you to select those you wish to share it with.

For me I wish they'd taken it a simple step further, adding the option to upload at least one thumbnail picture.

Food for thought facebook.

Key Words: SEO for Beginners

Understanding how search engines like Google "think" will help you to make your website, blog and social media channels such as facebook, twitter and myspace
more SEO friendly and in turn help them become more visible and accessible to potential customers and fans/followers. Here is a back to basics overview, SEO made easy.

Key words are individual words or phases users type into a search engines search bar.
For example ahead of a night out if I need a new outfit I might go to google and type in "dresses".
Google will come back with websites which have told it (by the content on it's pages) that they sell dresses.

Now, here's where you come in.
1) Think of each of your social media channels or pages as a website. Google can only read text, so all the
fancy pictures you include are great eye candy for your fans and blog followers but not so great when it comes to google's "eyes". That is unless you
have been SEO wise in renaming your image. Instead of a stunning picture google reads your image as the file name so always remember to rename images
to let google know what it's a picture of. Think of it as subtitles for a deaf google (if images were... sound?).

2) Put in it's most basic form google ranks websites on points system. The website with the most points for a key word search will be top of the list which
shown to the user.

3) How do you tot up those points? By featuring the key words the user is searching for! Easy right? Well, almost. The problems you face are that there are many
different ways people search for the same thing using many different keywords. Then there are many, many different people offering the same thing and in Google's eyes
they may be a lot more "popular" and important than you! So if you're a new small fashion boutique you'll find it hard to rank (appear high up on search results
page) for a generic term like "dresses". If however you sell something unique or hard to come by, lets say monkey fur dresses, anyone searching for that is likey to end
up on your site/brand providing you have included those specific key words in your blog post/facebook profile/twitter bio etc.
Another thing to bear in mind is that as well as actually including specfic key words where you use them is also important. If your site/page includes the words
"monkey fur dresses" in your blog post but another site which is similar to yours in terms of "popularity" features those same key words in the title" Google will
trump that site over yours because it sees that is has more importance in the other blog's site/article. Therefore it is important to include key words in your
titles and throughout the page.

4) Say the same thing in different ways to cover as many keywords as possible without spamming! Goolgle and the likes are not stupid, so putting dresses every other
line will not help you. In fact it will make you untrustworthy in Google's eyes and lower your ranking/score. 

Bearing the above four points won't garantee you'll rank top for all your relevant key words but it will give you a much better shot. Remember to apply SEO pointers to your social media channels as well as your blogs and web pages

How to Maximise Your Social Media Channels & Get More View, Fans & Followers

This post will show you how to make the most of your social media channels/websites to ensure your facebook page, twitter account and or blog is viewed by as many people as possible with very little effort from you. I'll go through each channel and give quick tips for each. This will serve as a good checklist for anyone starting out and also individuals and companies wanting to make sure they have all bases covered.
 
Complete Your Profile Information
Always complete your profile on each channel to let people know what you're about. Important! Remember to use key words  which are relevent to your company - tip: think about what people who would like your brand or content would most likely type into the search bar and include these (for a brief beginners guide to SEO & Key words click here).
Complete the "About" sectionon your facebookpage,

All Linked Up
Include links to your other social media channels and websites on each channel so people can always get back to or discover your website or other social site


Use Pictures Wherever Possible
A picture is worth a thousand words and lets face it, people are lazy and or short of time so being able to get the gist of something or decide if it's for you in a split second by looking at a picture will always work better than having to read lines of text.
When posting updates on facebook add a thumbnail. Remember to scroll through the available images to find the one most relevant to your message.
Use twitpics or equivalent to gain the interest of your followers. Not only will you be able to add a message but  you can also get basic stats on how many views it's had. Great for letting your follows experience an event with you, you can also us pictures to reinforce your branding. For example a retailer with bricks and mortar stores will display branded pos to shout about a sale. The same artwork should be used via twitpic to shout about this on twitter (and facebook)

Disqus vs standard blog comment

For those of you who are yet to discover it, Disqus is a great free social media sharing tool for blogs. Once installed it seamlessly takes the place of your standard comments box. What's so great about that I hear you cry! The beauty of Disqus is that it easily allows your readers to share their comments via facebook, twitter or other social media sites. 

While this is potentially a brilliant way of getting your blog content out their and (all being well) praise of your blog posts, there is a downside. Disqus isn't great for your blog's SEO. When you do publish a fantastic informative blog article that provokes brilliant comments and interactions with your readers, all those essential key words featured in your Disqus comments, which would usually help others interested in that very content, will not be picked up on your page. However as a result of using Disqus these comments may have been shared on many social media networks several times.

Jury's still out from my end, so over to you! Let me know your thoughts.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone

10 Social Media Rules to Maximise Your Social Media Channels

Here are 10 relatively quick and easy ways to make the most of your Facebook, Twitter, blog, YouTube (and any other social media channels you may be running).

1. Make sharing your blog content as easy as possible. Work on the premise that your audience is either lazy or very pressed for time. Install share, like and tweet buttons wherever possible

2. Cross promote your channels. If you have content on more than one social media site, give your users the option to interact with you in their preferred way. Adding a link to your Twitter page on Facebook or a link to your YouTube channel on your blog is a quick and easy way to let people know where else to find you or your brand

3. Monitor what is being said about your brand. The use of tools such as Google Alerts is essential to keep an eye on what is being said about your brand, positive or negative. Enter the name or phrases you'd like to track and how frequently you'd like to be notified

4. Be honest, transparent and human. Trying to cover things up or avoiding issues will only backfire. Address issues or negative comments head on and you're more likely to change a negative into a positive

5. Experiment, test, record and learn. Don't be afraid to try new things. Some will work others will fail but if you have done a stock check of your fans, followers, view etc before and after the trail, you'll be armed with the tools you need to learn and improve

6. Establish a strategy for each of your social media channels. Once you have goals, however small they may be, you have something to work towards and a benchmark to assess yourself by. How do you compare to your competitiors? And how would you like to compare to them?

7. Know your audiences. Approach each social platform separately. Just because those who like your Facebook page love regular offers and promotion updates doesn't mean your Twitter audience will feel the same way

8. Plan for the worst. Don't wait for something to go wrong before you figure out how to tackle it. Who should respond to that negative comment? How should you reply? A simple Social Media Triage/Flowchart can easily clear this up. Start simple and review and amend this over time.

9. Don't try to run before you can walk. It's tempting to rush in and create accounts for every social media community there is going, but if you're unable to manage them this can work against your favor. Work out where your target audience will be, who they'll engage with, where and how, then you'll know which social networks are for you and the type of content you need to provide them

10. Avoid brand hijacking and brand identity theft. Register any potential future usernames with as many social media channels as you can. They may never be used but should you decide to move into this area at a later date they'll be set up ready for you. More importantly this will prevent anyone presenting themselves as you. You can always change the settings on such pages to private to prevent people finding them by accident and set them up with a link to your active pages or main website.

Social Media SOS - The begining

As this is the first post on this new Social Media open blog I thought it best to start at the begining.

The aim or purpose of this blog is to offer solutions, guidence, share ideas and Social Media tips, advice & findings - from back to basics to new innovations.

Here to share, challenge, teach and be taught. I'd love to know what you think, so jump in and get involved!