Facebook announced, last week, that starting March 30, they are forcing all Facebook Business Page owners to convert to the new timeline format, which will completely eliminate the custom landing page option. In fact, a call to action on a Facebook business page will now be against Facebook’s terms and conditions! (see more details below)  (Note: you can still use your custom tabs in your Facebook Page).

New Facebook Page Layout:

(click to enlarge)

Cover Image

The cover image is the new representation of your brand on the Facebook page. The image dimensions are 850px x 315px. Unlike in the previous versions of Facebook page designs, this time around, Facebook has very strict guidelines against adding any marketing tactics and language on the cover image. Facebook’s policies state that cover photos cannot include:

• Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website.”
• Contact information such as a website address, email, mailing address, or information that should go in your Page’s “About” section.
• References to Facebook features or actions, such as “Like” or “Share” or an arrow pointing from the cover photo to any of these features.
• Calls-to-action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends.”
• Covers must not be false, deceptive or misleading, and must not infringe on third parties’ intellectual property. 

Since this is the only visual representation of your brand on the business page, the design of this image is pretty important.  To get your creativity juices flowing, check out these Facebook Timeline designs examples from SocialFresh & InspirationFeed.  You can also check out the Webgrrls Facebook page
 

Profile Picture

This is the image that gets shown next to each of your updates. You can use a logo or any image that is representative of your brand.  We, at Webgrrls decided to highlight our business members in that area.

Choose an image that fits 180 x 180 pixels and also looks good when scaled down to a thumbnail size of 32 x 32 pixels. 

Larger Page Tab Icons

The Page Tabs are now located toward the top of the page instead of the sidebar.  This, along with the increase of the tab icon size (111px x 74 px), allows you to highlight & showcase your tabs where users can’t miss them. Use this space to showcase your calls to actions and create a clear graphic that shows what’s behind the tab. For the Webgrrls page, we have created 3 graphics with text describing the tabs and these tabs now serve as our ‘navigation’.

Follow these steps to assign an image icon to a tab,

You can also set the order of your tabs by dragging them into the location that you want. (Note: the Photos tab location can’t be changed).

Larger, wider page tabs.  

Previously, page tabs were 520px wide, but with the new layout you have 810px of content area to use.  You should now go back to all of the previously created page tabs and ensure that they work with the wider width.

Stories – Star, Hide, or Pin 

Stories also got revamped. By hovering over individual stories, you can make them wider, hide them from your timeline (pencil icon), highlight them as important (star icon), or delete them. A great new feature is the ability to pin/anchor a specific story to the top of your timeline for up to 7 days. This means you can highlight specific posts with remarkable content, calls-to-action for your marketing offers, or events you want to feature. Pinning it to the top of your page will prevent the content from getting buried by more recent updates.

Messages 

This is a brand new feature which allows you to send and receive private message to your page visitors allowing you to can handle your customer service issues directly on Facebook.  

By default, the messages will be turned on.  To turn off messaging capability, go to Admin Panel, and choose ’Manage’ -> ‘Edit Page’ -> ‘Manage Permissions’ and uncheck the ‘Messages’ box.

Milestones

This is another new feature that allows page owners to tell a story….your business’ biggest accomplishments, awards, product releases, etc.  You can create a milestone through your status update box.  In addition to title, location, date, and story, you can upload a 843 x 403 pixels image 

Admin Panel

This is a new interface that offers page admins an overview of what’s going on with a page. Charts, new notifications and “likes”, check-ins, and more. Everything involved with managing your page and creating ads can be done straight from the panel.

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Please take advantage of the 25 days that you have to carefully plan and design your new Facebook Page so that when March 30th comes around, you are all ready to go.

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I want to highlight my one, two punch mobile apps strategy that keeps me on my feet, keeps me connected, and allows me to keep pace with the industry bobbing and weaving (the conversation). Also, how the combination of the two helps me stay productive while traveling. Seesmic & Evernote – these are my jab and cross for Social Media effectiveness.  Both of these apps are amazing on their own, but when combined together, they are a knock out!

What is Evernote?

Evernote is a powerful note taking and saving application.  The notes can be text, video, audio, or images and the best thing is that they are available to you no matter where you are….your computer, web, or mobile device. 

I use it all the time to store and organize the information that I come across.  Lean more about Evernote’s powerful features.

What is Seesmic?

Seesmic is my favorite application for tweeting. One of my favorite features on the iPhone app is Spaces, which allow you to customize the application to your liking. Spaces on Seesmic for iPhone can support multiple accounts, searches, trending topics, lists and much more.

My other favorite feature is the ability to save Tweets by sending them to Evernote with a single click (see how I use this feature to save time below)

How I use Seesmic & Evernote to stay Productive on the road:

• Catch up on Tweets when there is no internet access
  I do a lot of tweeting on the train, or on the go, and can’t always get great Internet access.  What do I do?  Before I enter the subway, I pre-load my tweets into my Seesmic application on the phone. (Tip: Once you are on the subway, turn on “Airplane Mode” to save on battery life).

• Save Tweets for Later
  While on the go or when I don’t have access to the internet, I want to be able to save things for later where I can follow links in the tweets that catch my eye or reply to the tweet that I read.  Seesmic allows you to save your tweets in one click using the “Send to Evernote”!

• Save Tweet Replies as Drafts
  This Seesmic feature allows me to reply to the tweets and save them as drafts.  This is VERY useful when you are on the train without access to the web.  Once you are outside, you can post all of your Tweets from the draft file and you’re done!…knock out

   

Okay, full disclosure. I have been practicing martial arts recently and I think that influenced my metaphor.

How do you save time with mobile apps?

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Let’s take a look at a few:

Pose is a free iPhone app that urges users to strut their stuff by posting geo-tagged photos of their favorite fashion finds on Facebook, Twitter, and within Pose itself.  Users can then solicit style feedback from a panel of fashion-savvy experts, ranging from celebrated bloggers to other active members of the Pose community. Brands themselves can also leverage the app for promotions and in-store deals.  This is a great way for traditional brick-and-mortar retailers to reignite the thrill that was once associated with in-store shopping.

VIZL is a new real-time app that enables retailers, stylists and shoppers to save time and money: two of the most precious – and coveted – things in our lives! Not only do brands provide abundant catalogs of their newest items, but stylists can snag photos of the must-have goods and get quick e-approval from their clients. And shoppers can upload whole wardrobes to the app for later use, e.g., when searching for matching pieces in stores. Outfits can then be shared on Facebook – for even more approval.

Ever wonder where you can snag that must-have accessory or item? You search everywhere and come up empty-handed? Well, Where To Get It solves that problem for you.  The program employs crowd-sourcing to help site members determine the source of garments and accessories. Users take a picture of their object of desire—e.g., on the street, in a magazine, or in the closet of a stingy friend—then can post it to a community of knowledgeable shoppers who are able to identify both the brand and store.

WHAT WILL THIS MEAN?

• More companies will operate in two realms – the traditional brick-and-mortar and the virtual. Effectively marrying the two in increasingly innovative and expansive ways will be critical.
• The creation of a more holistic consumer retailing and brand experience  will prove revolutionary to existing and new businesses in the future.

• Not only are traditional marketing messages being moved to alternative media, but new technologies and sales channels are spurring wholly new businesses.

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If you want an account, you either need an invite or have to start paying for the service (see Account Options below to see what you get in each plan).

There is a lot of buzz about this service and if you are one of those people who has to try it now, you can get a free account right now with this pretty simple loophole.

Account Options:

• Free users can sign up to access Spotify’s library, but streaming will be time-limited and ad-supported.
• Unlimited Streaming ($4.99/month) – gives you unlimited listening with no time limits, ad-free streaming, and the ability to share songs and playlists with friends.
• Premium ($9.99/month) – adds to the unlimited streaming features with mobile apps and offline listening, and the best sound quality the service has to offer.

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We’re not really gadget heads in my house. Usually not worth the money to have the latest thing, we figure. Still, my husband recently acquired an iPad, and I was an early Kindle adopter back in 2008.

Admittedly, I bought my kindle out of wrath one day, when my 45-minute train commute was delayed by over two hours. I was grumpy, hungry, and so not in the mood for whatever tech-heavy computer science book I had brought with me. During the drawn-out conclusion of a long, cranky day, I wanted to read about shopaholics or vampires or something. So when I (eventually) got home that night, I ponied up the $400, figuring it was worth it in my—and, frankly, my husband’s—sanity.

Both the kindle and iPad in our house have found sneaky ways to get our money, though. They make it so easy! On the kindle, you search the bookstore just as you do on Amazon. Find a book you like? Click “purchase” and it appears. Oh, but there’s a bestseller you’ve been wanting to read. And one that’s relevant to you work, so, really, you need that one. Before you know it, that’s $30 down the drain.

Likewise, the iPad, even though it has many free apps, enables you to spend money without blinking an eye. My husband is addicted to a game called Duel: Blade & Magic, which was free. But he can upgrade his armor or buy a pet for a buck, and it’s all hooked up to his iTunes account. Easy.

In time, I’m quite sure, we will arrive at a day when you can simply think about a book or a game and, boom, its digital self is in your hot little hands. I might be doomed.

Are you a gadget head? Have you encountered these easy-spending conveniences? How have you handled them?

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But Silicon Valley had other ideas, and the bill was shelved last week after 96 Internet giants jumped in with a letter of protest. No matter how tough on crime the Senate wants to appear, when phrases like “fragmenting the Internet’s global domain name system” are being thrown around, they stop and pay attention.

The bill would create a whole new way to go after Internet pirates. The Justice Department would have the authority to designate some copyright-infringement sites (movie downloading sites, mostly) as “dedicated to infringing activities” and shut down their domain names.

They want to shut down domain names! Cracking down on illegal downloading is one thing, but shutting down domain names is pretty extreme. The Internet Engineers’ letter is all about censorship and destabilizing the global DNS, but it’s also worthy of note that the bill recommends punishments far out of proportion to the crime. In the physical world, after all, the FBI confiscates your bootleg DVD and leaves the rest of your stuff alone. Why the double standard?

I’m glad the letter from our 96 rock stars had such an impact. The bill isn’t dead, and will likely be taken up again when the Senate reconvenes in the new year, but the Senators are listening to both sides now.

What do you think of the anti-piracy bill?

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As someone who struggled to go to college as a working adult, I would have loved to have had an online option. Sometimes I worked nights and dragged myself, half-asleep and desperately clutching the biggest cup of coffee I could get my hands on, from the graveyard shift to the morning class. Sometimes I worked days and dashed from work to school to work to school to work. Once, I nearly failed an oral exam because the professor ran out of time to question everyone and I couldn’t stay after class or come early for the next one.

My college experience was not unique, of course. There are many more like me. And we’re the lucky ones—we may miss out on dorm life and study groups, but we still get to learn. Those in less-fortunate circumstances are precluded from attending college altogether. At least I was able to find a job with hours that allowed me to go to class. At least I had a loving and supportive husband who didn’t mind my absenteeism and frequent crankiness. At least I lived and worked in close proximity to my school. At least I had no children to support, aging parents to look after, or disabilities to overcome. Online degrees create opportunities for students who aren’t as lucky as I was. My own alma mater—small, urban, and under-resourced—probably won’t be able to offer an online degree. But a school like Berkeley, with its size and resources, can make a real difference in a lot of lives.

Some argue that the online version of an undergraduate degree is watered down; you miss out on the social experiences and lively after-class discussions that make college the horizon-broadening adventure it’s meant to be. In some cases that may be true, but some of us miss that stuff anyway and still get a great education. Not only that, but it’s hard to imagine that any degree offered by Berkeley could be subpar. I hope they follow through with this idea and open the doors of education to many more students.

What do you think of fully-online degree programs?

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My answer….you have to develop great time management skills and stay disciplined about them…and you have to manage technology instead of it managing you.

One of the biggest problems of the social web is the ease with which one can lose track of time.  We are having so much fun connecting with friends & colleagues on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks that we end up not getting any work done during the work hours and end up working ALL THE TIME.

Another problem is multi-tasking and interruptions.  Research shows that it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the task when interrupted on an unrelated topic.

Here are some tips on managing your time on the social web:

1. Schedule Everything and stick to the schedule
   I use the Entourage calendar to schedule EVERYTHING…meetings, responding to email, social network presence, day-to day tasks.  But it’s not enough to schedule things..you have to stick to the schedule!
   
2. Schedule your most important tasks when you feel like you are most productive
   The most productive time is different for each person…some people are sharpest in the morning, some are later in the day.  Figure out what your magic time slot is and schedule your most important task during that time.  Sprinkle your social interactions & email management throughout the day but make sure it’s not during your most productive time.
3. Use a timer
   Using a timer will allow you to set an alarm to notify you when your current scheduled task/activity is supposed to end.  Let’s say you are alotting 20 minutes for social media interaction at 1pm…before you begin the task at 1pm, set your alarm to let you know when the 20 minutes has passed. 

   The application that I use to achieve this is Apimac Timer (mac). You can also use Xnote StopWatch if you are on Windows (there are many more you can choose from).

4. Close down the applications that you are not using
   Human nature is to respond to stimuli…so if you hear a notice that you have a new email or a new response from a friend, you have to go see what it is.  That is why if it’s not time to check and respond to email, I close down the email application…if it’s not time to interact on Twitter, I close down the Twitter application…the point is…only have the application that you are currently working in open.
5. Set and manage expectations
   Managing everyone’s expectations is the key to time management.  I think a lot of the time, the immediacy to respond is in our own head.  Training your clients, colleagues, friends, and online connections that you are not available 24×7 will allow you to respond on your own time.  And because we are all going through this information and task overload…they will more than undertand!

Did I miss anything?  Share your time management tips in the comments!

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The infinite resources to be found on the Internet seem limitless, but I think I know which sites I can rely on for my language studies. In addition to a few online language lessons, I have found the complete French language series entitled French in Action, which came out in the late 1980s and was developed by a Yale University professor. As a child, I remember watching re-runs of the series, which was completely in French and was centered on a young French woman, her family, and friends in Paris on PBS. The language immersion technique is very effective, and I am very happy to have found it online so I can watch and absorb the lessons at my own pace. 

The best sites to help me with “on the spot” language learning are the online dictionaries. I usually alternate between WordReference.com and Yahoo! Babel Fish. Not sure what the future tense of the verb savoir (which in English means “to know”) is? I usually find myself on verbe2verbe.com or Conjugationfr.com to make sure I spelled my conjugated verbs properly.  I prefer the former site because it gives the most accurate definition of the verb in English. I have also found that if I spell the word wrong and there are no direct matches given, a list of other, similarly spelled verbs appears in the left-hand column. For someone who needs as much as I can get, I am very grateful for these useful additions.

If I can help it, I will not let the dust settle on my French language lessons again. With the help of my own personal resources, the library, conversations with French-speaking friends, and the World Wide Web, I may one day be able to call myself bilingual.

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Once you install Dropbox on a computer, all you have to do is drop the files you would like to sync & share  into the Dropbox folder and they are automatically updated and uploaded on all of your shared computers .

Here are some ways DropBox makes me more productive:

• Seamlessly synchronize my files – If I’m editing a file on one computer, as soon as I save it, Dropbox will sync this same file to all of the other computers instantly and automatically…this gives me the freedom to work on any computer and always have the files I need.
• Collaborate on group projects – Our virtual team can have access to key files regardless of which computer we are on.  We also no longer have to send documents via email attachments to each other and the built in version control will keep a history of all of the modifications to the file so we can see how thes document evolves and undo changes if we make a mistake.
  

  By default, we keep the last 30 days of undo history for all your files. We also have an unlimited undo option called “Pack-rat”.

• Instant Access to all the files from anywhere – Using the Dropbox website interface to get access to my files from any computer or mobile device.
• Automatically backup your files – Every time me or my team put a file in to the Dropbox folder it is automatically backed up to DropBox secure servers and we can be restore at any time.

Watch a demo of DropBox and I look forward to hearing your experiences with it!  Are you already using DropBox?  Let me know your thoughts in the comments section.

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