So far the new Facebook Fan Page has received some mixed reviews.

New features I really like:

• Use Facebook as your Page – Log in as “ProWorks” and post comments as your fan page and and even post on other people’s posts as your fan page.  Basically, you can switch between your personal profile and a fan page view.  Try it now! (Need Help? Try this how-to: New Facebook Fan Page Feature: How To Post As Both Your Page and Yourself)

• Email notifications – You can now get an email every time someone comments or posts to your wall.  Finally!

Things I don’t like so much:

• New “most interesting” sorting of the wall posts – Each person who visits your page and views the wall with the “Everyone” sort will see a different post order.  The order is based on some sort of “most interesting” score that they receive.  Note the date order below.

When logged in as me (Jason):

When logged in as ProWorks (the Fan Page):

When Loyan views the page:

So that’s pretty crazy.

The good news is that you can preview the changes before making the switch to make sure your tabs and everything looks good.  If it doesn’t look good you have until March 11th to fix it because that’s the date everyone will be switched over no matter what.

Other Resources:

Take a look at these links for more information about the new Facebook Fan Page and how it may affect you.

• Facebook’s New Fan Page Design – The Good, the Bad & the Ugly!
• Facebook Fan Page: New Layout and Features
• Pages Guide Doc

What do you think of the new fan page?

ProWorks First Tuesdays: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals

A review of what website owners and managers should be aware of about maximizing their web search potential and avoiding mishaps. You can expect to leave with an understanding of how you can improve your own SEO status. This information will be relevant to most any type of website including a business blog.

Local business owners and website managers Larkin Holavarri of Soft Star Shoes and Eric Sundstrom of Smile Photo Booth will share from their own SEO experiences.

SCHEDULE:

12:00 – 1:00 PM: Focused topic work session and education
1:00 – 1:30 PM: Open Q&A and discussion (any web related topic)

LOCATION:

Corvallis Sports Park
175 SW Twin Oaks Circle
Corvallis, or 97330
(map)

NOTES:
* Feel free to bring your own lunch with you.
* No registration is required. No cost. You do not need to be a ProWorks client to attend.
* If you give us a heads up regarding what you would like help with we may be able to prepare something special for you beforehand.
* Please bring your own notebook if you can. If you don’t have one we will help you on one of ours.

The panelists will be asked to share their thoughts on objectives, strategies, different tools, ROI and advice for getting started. The panel is intended to be very interactive with attendees. Questions and discussion will be encouraged. Topics should include Twitter, Facebook, blogging and measuring results.

Complete list of panelists:
Nicole Weathers(Synergea Chiropractic), Molly Marcum (Samaritan Health), Chris Nordyke (State Farm), Tabitha Compton (Spindrift Cellars), Denise McCoy (The Little Gym), Sheri Dover (Intersector Workspace), Jessica Stanley (Rocket Queen Cupcake), Jeremiah Osborne-Goway (Conservation Biology Institute), Scottie Jones

Event information:
When: Tuesday, September 7, 12:00pm – 1:30pm
Where: Upper Deck Sports Pub, 175 Southwest Twin Oaks Circle, Corvallis
Who: This event is open to the public
Cost: Free
Register: Not required. Drop ins welcome. (Facebook event link)
Lunch: Lunch service will be available (view the menu)

What questions or topics would you like this panel to address? Leave your question or topic here as a comment and we will make sure to cover it during the session.

Oh yeah baby!

It was quite a trip to Seattle the last couple days, with Gary and Rob, to get our level one Umbraco certification and become one of the few Umbraco solution providers in North America. I’ve gone through the crash-course with Jason already, and created about seven websites with it, and gathered a working knowledge of Umbraco that’s quite enough to get any Designer in trouble. But now, after having gone through the course headed by Paul Sterling, an Umbraco Evangelist for North America, I know how to do things right and without having to ask for (as much) help.

We started off getting familiar with Document Types, which are the building blocks of an Umbraco site. Then we moved into Templates, which organize the presentation of data and content. We followed the booklet that took us through CSS, XSLT, Macros, Packages, and other Umbraco functions that went beyond the basics.

Yeah, I knew most of it at the beginning and was enjoying the review on how to create Document Types and make Master / Sub-Master Templates and hook up the CSS. But then we got into stuff I’d never done before like create a multilingual site, use Dictionary Items to translate bits of text, create a FAQ with a Contour form for submitting questions, and add a Search Engine to name a few.

I think that installing and working with Packages such as Contour Forms and Runway Search was the most valuable part of the course for me. Those were tasks that I’d known about but never really done before, so I’m glad to have a better handle on those now. Umbraco makes it really easy to manage some of these third-party applications.

This course has been really valuable for me and ProWorks, as my understanding of Umbraco now allows me a greater range in putting websites together. As a team we can do just about any web project imaginable I’m sure!

Has anyone made level two certification? Should I go for that? Should any designer be allowed to go that far??

The da Vinci Days Web Design Process

Let’s pry open the creative brain of ProWorks for just a minute and see what really went into the new da Vinci Days site. The pages you’ll see there certainly weren’t imagined exactly like that from the start; they went through a creative process that covered a few stages of design. Generally the design process we go through for most websites looks like this:

• Set requirements
• Create 2 or more wireframe designs
  • Review
  • Create final wireframe
  • Review
• Create 2 or more complete designs
  • Review
  • Create final design
  • Review
• Build final design into HTML/CSS format
• Integrate design HTML into a content management system (Umbraco, Sitefinity, Wordpress, etc.)

The challenge in designing the da Vinci Days site was to create a framework that looks great year after year, and allows for changing poster artwork in the background.

Wireframe designs are just rough layouts of the elements on a page. We are playing with the puzzle pieces until we get the perfect fit, without even looking at colors or design yet. Here are a few of the wireframes that we started with for the home page:

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We went with this last one. It handled all the priorities in the best way. Then I made wireframes for the rest of the pages. Here’s one for an event page:

The next step is to breathe life into the chosen wireframe and explore a few full-color design directions. Usually I’ll design a few for the the home page first, and then design the rest of the pages after the direction is chosen. This first direction never really got that far. I totally missed the mark at the beginning

I quickly changed gears and designed something with the da Vinci Days comminity in mind. I went with a natural hand-crafted look that better reflects the feel of this event and Santiago’s wonderful poster art.

We felt that design hit the mark right on the nose. There were only a few changes to get the final result from there.

The next challenge for me as a designer is building the framework of the actual website so that it looks exactly like my design. The design also needs to hold up to real data getting plugged into it, so I make sure everything’s flexible. In the end we come up with an entire visual system for da Vinci Days that encompasses any type of page Brenda wants to make!

Back to the top

The turn out was fantastic. I didn’t do a head count but we did have people standing and sitting on the floor, which I love for all the best reasons.

There is definitely something to be said for giving your peers the stage.

Highlight notes from the session:

• On subject matter: “What would you talk about if you took your customers out for lunch?” ~ JG
• “Turn a bad experience into a positive expereince with transparency.” ~ MR
• On why people follow your business: “We want a backstage pass.” ~ JG
• Google blog search and real-time results are good for finding people related to your market to engage with.
• Jen Grant loves location based social media and FourSquare.com.

I also promised to share a link to the section on Yelp.com on the topic of responding to reviews (good and bad): Yelp on responding to reviews

Did you attend? What were some of your favorite points and takeaways?

NOTES FROM SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS TODAY:

“Merit credibility” and “Invite feedback” where the two most selected reasons for a business to blog.

“Make someone say ‘Wow’” and “Grow online presence” where the next most selected reasons.

There was some discussion on tribes, communities and audiences. I personally dislike the concept of an audience for blogs. As an audience member, I have fallen asleep too many times. I think a tribe or community infers more investment and interaction from members.

Addressing questions asked by customers came up a few times as a good source for blog post topics.

Here is the handout from todays Social Media for Business session.

Wondering what to write about in your blog? Here are 13 Blog Post Topic Ideas.

1. Explain how a recent news event will affect your industry.
2. List essential resources related to your industry and summarize why.
3. List and debunk the most common myths in your industry.
4. Promptly deliver a report from an industry related event.
5. Compare something complex or misunderstood to something simple or commonly understood.
6. Deliver timely advice or news relevant to an upcoming holiday or event.
7. Share a list of changes you are considering for your business.
8. Make a list of valuable products or services that are complimentary to your business/industry.
9. Share a list of your favorite replies on Blog, Twitter and/or Facebook.
10. Share a list of your favorite photos or videos related to your business/industry.
11. Answer a list of the most commonly asked questions you receive.
12. Create simple step-by-step directions how to do something.
13. Invite someone interesting to write a post.

What do you think of the list? Please share any additions your have with us here.

Umbraco is an open source Content Management System that has grown to be one of the most popular open source .NET applications. It is certainly one our favorites here at ProWorks.

We’ll have some snacks and drinks and may even announce something cool regarding Umbraco!

ProWorks Location: 1600 S.W. Western Blvd., Ste 230, Corvallis, Oregon 97333

RSVP on our Facebook event here: Umbraco 5th Birthday Meetup in Corvallis

Or, at the Umbraco event RSVP: Umbraco 5th Birthday Meetup in Corvallis

Who’s invited?

Anyone using, developing, or interested in the Umbraco Content Management System.  If you have questions for the devs, bring them!  Want a demo?  No problem!  Want to hang out and chat?  Perfect!

We made you a ProWorks Holiday Card