1. Earn TRUST – how important are relationships to your business?
2. Merit CREDIBILITY – how do you prove expertise?
3. Demonstrate you CARE – do you care enough to share?
4. Invite FEEDBACK – are phone & email enough for your customers?
5. Grow your online PRESENCE – how do your customers find you online?
6. Make someone say “WOW” – is it valuable to be remarkable?
7. Support your COMMUNITY – we all want a business fan club right?

Sources for Blog Post Topics

13 Blog Post Topic Ideas for Your Business

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.

A Few Good Examples

• Drawing from a personal experience: The Why by eROI
• Challenge an industry myth: Online Privacy is an Illusion by Fast Wonder Blog
• Report on (or from) an industry event: CES 2010: Surprised in Vegas by Johnflurry Blog
• Step-by-step and how-to: Design a Print Ready Label in Adobe Illustrator at Tuts Plus

Here is an example of a custom player that is set to play a specific playlist. As videos are added to this playlist they will automically be added to this custom player. Cool, huh?

Make Your Own YouTube Custom Player at http://www.youtube.com/custom_player

Tip: Login to your YouTube account and create a playlist. You can add videos, your and others, to your playlist. Custom players can be set to display from a set playlist. The nice thing is that as you add new videos to your playlist, the plugin will be automatically updated no matter where its published at.

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.

The idea is this. If someone was to ask a question or mention something relevant to your brand, market, product or service on Facebook would you like to know about it? Hint: So you can do something about it.

Note that at this time content on personal profiles is private and protected from even Google. Content from Facebook Pages and groups are accessible to Google search.

Step 1. Customize Your Google Search

Take advantage of Google to customize a search matching your business. Use the Advanced Search (link is right next to the Search button) and/or the Google search operators to refine your search. Here is a Google Cheat Sheet with a list of operators.

To get results only from Facebook include “site:www.facebook.com” to your search.

In the example below we are asking Google to return all results that include the term financial or its synonyms AND Corvallis, limited to results from Facebook. Also note we have selected the Latest results option on the left of the Google search page.

In the example below we asking for results including the term Umbraco on Facebook sorted by date.

Yet another option is to get results based on geography. In this case we are requesting results from Corvallis, Oregon (see the option in the left most column below).

Once you have a search you like save the URL address or just keep the browser open in the results page. We’ll need the URL in Step 2.

Tips and Advice:

• Don’t discount of your search doesn’t yield many or even any results (right now).
• More searches with fewer focused results is better than fewer searches with many results. In this way you will have more fine control over your searches.
• Consider filtering your results by multiple cities rather than a larger region.
• You can exclude results from your own Facebook page by adding “-site:www.facebook.com/YourPageNameHere” to the search.

Step 2. Use Open Dapper to Create a New “Dapp”

Go to http://www.dapper.net/open/. I like to use a second browser tab here. I recommend you create an account to use for this so you can save your “Dapp” and adjust it later. Select “create a new Dapp”. You can choose a format at this stage but its not needed.

Dapper will ask you a URL. Copy and paste the URL from your Google search here. You can also select the RSS feed option at this stage. Click the Next Step button to continue.

Dapper will process the URL and you will see the Google results page inside of Dapper. Find the Add to Basket button to add this page to your Dapp. Click Next Step to continue. Dapper will ask you if you want to use just one page here. The answer is yes, you can keep going.

Using your mouse select the content for your RSS feed, the 1)title 2)summary and 3)date if its available from the Google search results page inside of Dapper.

You will select these three items separately, save them using the Save Field button and name them appropriately. Once you have selected your content click Next Step to continue.

Preview your feed and make sure everything looks OK. You should see your title, summary and date if it was available. Click Next Step if it looks good. Go Back if you need to reselect your content.

Save your Dapp. Give it a good name. Describe what you are searching for and from where so you can easily identify it later. A description and tags aren’t needed. Click Next Step to continue.

Under Create RSS Feed make sure your Item Title, Item Text and Date Published are assigned to the appropriate content you selected earlier. The URL next to the RSS button is your new customized RSS feed.

Save the RSS Feed URL. We’ll use it in the next step.

Step 3. Use an RSS Reader to View Your RSS Feed(s)

Google Reader is just one of many free RSS readers available to you. iGoogle is also free. Its really a matter of preference.

In Google Reader below you can subscribe to your RSS feed by clicking the Add a subscription button. Below is what it looks like after the RSS has been subscribed to. You can see the Google search results inside Google Reader. The title is a link to the original source. Clicking it will take you there.

And there you have it. With many RSS feeds automatically updating your RSS reader you will be able to monitor Facebook and just about any other web page that is publicly accessible. Even if it doesn’t publish an RSS feed. Yes, there are some very cool business applications here.

Do you have any question about this? Suggestions? Please share them here with us as a comment.

The Goal:

• Build some HTML/CSS that works within the new 520px width requirements set by Facebook
• Add a YouTube video
• Not use iFrames

The Process:

1. Get to the admin section of your Facebook Fan Page.

Simply click the “Edit Page” link below your Fan Page photo on the Wall tab:

2. Install the Static FBML Application.

At the bottom of the admin area, there is a “More Applications” section.

If you’re lucky the Static FBML app will be listed like above in the apps you might find useful.  If that is the case, click the “Static FBML” link.

If it isn’t, then click “Browse More” and search for “Static FBML” or “FBML”.

Again, click “Static FBML”.

When you’re on the Static FBML app page, simply click the “Add to my Page” link below the icon in the top left.

There will be a popup to select the Page you want to add it to.  Find the correct page and click  the “Add to Page” button next to it.

Now go back to the admin area of your Fan Page and lets add the template.

3. Add content to your tab.

Click the Edit link on your new FBML application:

You now should see the edit screen.  Edit your box title text which will be the new tab title so keep it short.

Now comes the tricky part.  Getting HTML and styling into your new tab FBML content area.

Luckily, I have a starter template to get you going

Download the html code here: http://www.proworks.com/facebook/proworksStarterKit.zip and copy/paste the code into the FBML textbox.  You can also get it from here: http://pastie.org/940569

I’ll explain this code below.  For now, just paste it in and click the “Save Changes” button.

Lets go back to the admin area of your fan page and get this tab live.  The easiest way is to click the “edit” link at the top of the FBML edit page. Now click the “Application Settings” link in the FBML box under Applications.  Then click the “remove” link next to “Box:” and the “add” link next to “Tab:” in the resulting popup. It should look something like this when you’re done:

Now you should see your new tab on your Facebook Fan Page!  If you have a lot of tabs you may need to click the >> arrows on the right side of the tabs.  You can drag tabs around to reorder them. It should look something like this:

4. Customize with your own stuff

OK, so now you have a new tab.  First thing to note is that this will not accept all HTML and styling.  However, you can add new photos, links, text, or even flash fairly easily.

First thing you’ll want to to is add your own image/text to the box on the right.  The image needs to be hosted on your server somewhere. Simply edit the <a href=”http://www.proworks.com”> to your site URL and change the <img alt=”" /> src to an image location of your choice.  The ideal image width for the right side boxes in this layout is 168 pixels.

YouTube Video

Changing the YouTube video to your video is actually very easy as well.  Simply find the video you want to show and copy the weird text after the “v=” in the URL.

In this case its the “sIFYPQjYhv8″ part. Then replace all occurrences of “sIFYPQjYhv8″ in the code below (in your tab FBML content).

Save the changes and your have your content in the starter template and you’re on your way!

If you want to get adventurous and get other crazy things like Flickr slideshows or Vimeo videos or other cool things, check out the list of blogs by HyperArts on FBML and Static FBML.  Its a really good resource.

Thanks and let me know if you have questions or comments below!

Get it Into Your Template

I found a great tutorial from HyperArts Web Design that goes over the entire process of getting the Javascript FBML Like Button installed into your WordPress theme: “How to Add Facebook’s Like Button & Social Plugins to Your Web Pages & WordPress Posts“.

They go through the entire process of creating a Facebook Application, The extra Open Graph meta tags that you need in your template, and the html/script to add into your post and page templates.

This is an awesome tutorial, so no need for me to re-invent the wheel. Go check it out. Especially if you are using WordPress (although others can glean enough to use it on their own web sites/blogs). If you prefer to simply install a WordPress plug-in and you’re up to the latest version of WP, then check out this as well: WordPress Facebook Social Plugins List.

Added Features of the Advanced FBML/Javascript SDK Like Button

#1: The ability to add a comment to a “Like” or “Recommend” click on a post. This will post a new item to the wall of the person who liked it which is much more visible than the smaller “Like” text on their profile.

(Try this out on this post at the bottom of this post above the comments area…)

Here’s what it looks like on my profile:

And in the News Feed (note the regular “Likes” aren’t there):

#2: The ability to add targeted meta tags. The Open Graph meta tags include detailed location and contact information. I’m not sure exactly how that’s used at this point, but I’m guessing that it will allow Facebook and others to make more targeted recommendations to people in your social graph. Location is a big factor in that.

#3: Admin access to the “Liked” page and the fans. Not totally sure what I think of this yet, and its super confusing to see liked pages mixed in with your Fan Pages initially.  For better or worse you get a mini “like page” admin area to see who is liking your stuff.  It has a wall, so I’m guessing you can update fans of the page in their news stream.  Not sure as it didn’t seem to work for me.  However, I’m an admin so they may filter it out for me.

New pages in “Ads and Pages” area:

The new “Like” page:

#4: More control over styling. The iframe is, well, an iframe.  The FBML method gives you more control over the height of the widgit and the general styling of the text, etc.

That’s all I’ve found so far.  Was it worth it?  I think so if for nothing else the comment feature.  That increases visibility and is pretty nice.  And it didn’t take to long to implement so if you have an extra 30 minutes to an hour and want this, I’d say go for it.  Or get your web developer to do it.

The easiest thing to do right now is to add a Facebook Like button to your site:

You can see one on this blog over in the right sidebar (for the ProWorks Blog) at the bottom of each post or try it for this post below:

To get this now, go to the Like Button Builder on Facebook.  It’s super-easy for a single URL.

Once you get this going, you can add a news feed of all of the people liking stuff on your site.  That is done with the Activity Stream Builder.  Again, super easy.  Check it out:

For more information on the new Facebook features, take a look at the recorded stream from the f8 Conference Keynote.

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?