The Tin Shingle Blog - #Facebook

Facebook...always keeping us on our toes! This week, Facebook changed one word on their user interface - the "fan" button, from "fan" to "like", as we'd blogged about earlier. We will have to wait and see what the audience reaction is like, but this affects both business owners and their audiences alike.

Just when business owners on Facebook were getting comfortable with the term "Fan my page!", placed it on their websites, and sent email to friends, that term is, for the moment, obsolete. The new term is, I suppose, "Like my page!" Here's what this change means for your business:

• The button on your business (former) fan page will now say "Like" with a thumbs up illustration. It used to say "Become a Fan".
• Ads you create on Facebook to promote your business fan page will now simply say "Like" at the bottom of them, and that is what your potential new fan will click on to connect with your page.
• The business page shows who of your "Friends Likes This," as well as all "People Like This" with numbers next to each. The measure of fans has been replaced by a measure of all people who Like the page.
  
• The behavior of the business fan page is not changing as of yet. Pictures, status updates, notes, videos, and anything that the administrator posts to the page will show up in the News Feed of the person who clicked "Like", and essentially connected with, or linked themselves, with your business page.
• Any social networking experts who are writing articles about this and other Facebook business fan pages will need to watch their Google Analytics website stats to see if searchers are searching for "fan page" or "business page" as they craft their SEO writing techniques for targeting these terms.

Some benefits of this change could be that you see a slight increase, or maybe a surge, in new fans (or whatever they will be called now).

Some repercussions of this change is that users might not know about it. They are used to clicking the "Like" link with the thumbs up next to it to show their support of a friend's comment or photo. This only connected them with the thread of that comment, photo, or anything else that was posted. At most, the only interaction that occurred after that click was that they would get notices in their "Notifications" tab that that Susie Q also commented on Bob's photo. Now, with this "Like" of an entire page, the user links in with a very interactive page. They connect with it, or in a sense, join it. Clicking "Like" for a business page, if the user can even tell that that is what they are doing, will mean this for their Facebook experience:

• User will see business page updates in their News Feed, including status updates, links, new photos, new videos, auto-blog updates, and more.
• User will receive "Updates" which may or may not go to their personal email inboxes, depending on how their Facebook settings are set up. Updates are available in the section where the Inbox lives, in a link under the Inbox. Updates are basically emails that a business page sends out to those formerly known as fans.

For the business owner, this is not a terrible change. It very likely means more people formerly known as fans are attached to the page. As a prospective fan, this could be annoying, and affect the Facebook experience. Facebook has revved its engines again to sell its highly active environment to businesses by connecting websites with people, and this is part of that effort. We'll wait it out to see if there are any amendments to this simple change, but in the meantime, you may want to change the lingo on your website and how you refer to your fan page. Because it's no longer a fan page. It's the Artist Formerly Known As A Fan Page, and fans are mere Likes Formerly Known As Fans.

I wanted to think of a sassy title for this blog but then I decided forget it, I want you to know exactly what you're getting - great advice from a fellow entrepreneur!  

Tin Shingle member Judy Goss, founder of the Over Forty Female Movement, has a special place in my heart as I not only count her as a friend and colleague, but I've watched her grow as an entrepreneur and leader since I met her a few years ago while she was working at More Magazine.  Since then a lot has changed, and one of her biggest projects (and I'd say fastest successes) was the launch of her website, Over40Females.com.

Why do I see her launch as a great success?  Well beyond the fact that I think any woman (or man) taking a risk, launching a good or service or website and striking out on their own is a success story in itself, Judy launched her website with NO press coverage and on it's second day she had already garnered over 2,000 hits a day (and it's still growing) for this online home to her Over 40 Females Movement.

After I congratulated Judy on the successful launch, I immediately wanted to know "how did you do it?" and my suspicions were fight - a lot of it had to do with her mastery of social media.  I asked Judy for her tips and she obliged.  You can find these tips below.....

How I Got 2,000 Hits on My Website's Second Day Live (without any press), by Judy Goss:

Begin building your fan base and buzz on Facebook & Twitter prior to your launch (for Judy this was months prior).

Always be consistent in your postings, always (try as best you can) answer people when they "@" you or "friend" you, and definitely when they message or direct message you.

Created a Fan Page only for the upcoming website - not a personal page.

While building my website (a good 2-3 wks before launch) I "ramped up" the interest...made a simple blog that I forwarded from my main domain "Over40Females.com".  In other words, when you typed in "www.over40females.com the site would forward to a free wordpress blog, until I got the official site launched.  This kept the buzz building.

While ramping up, I posted things on FB and Twitter that piqued interest like "Professional experts waiting for you on OFF.com" and had a countdown for the launch, etc.
(*note from Sabina: My interest was captured just by trying to figure out what Judy's OFF teasers meant - I wanted to know too!)

When people joined my FB fan page, I thanked as many as I could and mentioned the launch of OFF.com, AND friended all the people that weren't my friends on my personal page.

I made sure to update my Tin Shingle member profile and share the launch with other members and on the website.

At launching time, I emailed my friends who had a lot of members and asked them if they wouldn't mind posting my site on their FB page, Twitter, etc.

Most important thing for social media - be consistent, to the point, and humor & giveaways are the icing on the cake.

Good Karma:  Whoever r helps you out with a Twitter or FB or whatever, make sure you return the favor if you haven't already!! Or at least thank them.

One more thing - if you are a Tin Shingle member and would like to share your story with Judy (first check out the site to see if you're a good fit), send your information to prleads@tinshingle.com and we'll pass it along!  You can also send it along our PR Leads Submission form.

Fashion Week has descended upon New York City, and that means we've been following the Tweets, Facebook updates, and blogs of some of our favorite fashionistas and writers.

While reading the updates from Zandile Blay (fashion market editor of Paper Magazine, editor of the Blay Report, style editor for the Huffington Post, and one of Tin Shingle's fave fashion insiders) we caught an interesting update:

"Blaynistas [her blog followers] this is the year of the blogger! I swear! they are getting front row like mad!"

Come to think of it, we've been following Zandile, and her partner in crime Julee Wilson (fashion editor extraordinaire at Real Simple magazine and  Real Simple Twitter gal ) throughout Fashion Week, and there they are at the hottest shows in and out of the tents, meeting with some of the hottest designers!

So what does this mean for us? 

Firstly - Times truly are changing! The power of the blogger is getting stronger than ever, and thanks to the advent and exponential growth of Twitter & Facebook their messages and updates are transmitted instantly worldwide.  If you are a blogger, there is no limit to what you can do.

Second:  The fashion world, business world, and media in general are recognizing the power of these bloggers!  The designers inviting these bloggers to shows know that endorsements from people like Zandile & Julee can impact their brand.

Third:  YOU should be educating yourself as to who the most influential bloggers are in your industry.  Neglecting pitching the blogs is a big no-no for your pr campaign.  Sure magazines and television are important to focus on but you also have to be sure that you're sharing your expertise, products, and stories with bloggers who can instantly share it online in both their blogs and their social media links.  This can start a viral buzz that can spread like wildfire. 

** please note:  really do your research when checking out blogs.  Check their rankings, but also how long they've been around, other stories they cover, and verify their legitimacy before working with any blog.

It's also inspiring on another level, as it shows you that a strong message, a computer, and hard work can land you exactly where you need to be to make an impact - whether it's the front rows of Fashion Week or whatever is best for your brand!

I'm sure these bloggers never underestimated their power - learn a lesson from them!

Want to check out the very latest from Julee & Zandile ?

Follow Zandile's blog at www.theblayreport.com and check her out at Zandile on Twitter!

Follow all of Julee's tweets at Real_Simple on Twitter!

More on the Facebook land grab for URLs, where you can make your name part of your link to your Facebook profile page, like www.facebook.com/katiehellm.uth:

If you have a business page, aka a fan or supporter page, you may claim a URL now if your page had over 1,000 fans by May 31, 2009. If it did not, you will need to wait until June 28, which is when Facebook will allow pages with smaller amounts of fans to protect their names. This is most likely an effort to prevent squatters from squatting on just any name, but even with these restrictions, there will probably be several issues we haven't imagined yet. Our lawyer, Quinn Heraty of Heraty Law had this insight on the matter:

"I think this is a pro-active effort by Facebook to avoid the mess that Twitter found itself in: that of impostor Twitterers, trademark infringers, and your run-of-the-mill squatters. Twitter has been named as a party in several trademark infringement lawsuits, and I'm sure Facebook would like to avoid that."

On her Free Advice Friday's blog segments, Quinn posted a great article about trademarks. In addition to the reasons she mentions in her post about trademarks, she says: "Pro-active programs like this is another good reason to register your trademark."

Mashable.com did a great URL review and pressing of Facebook for more information on the under 1,000 restriction, and will continue to keep a good eye on it.

Facebook created some URL Page FAQs that may answer several of your questions, including: "Will generic names like "flowers" and "pizza" be available? (answer: no)" or "What should I do if someone's username infringes on my rights?"

If you have a trademark already, which would mean you have that satisfactory sealed registration certificate with a Registration # on it, you can apply to protect your brand by preventing the registration of a username. Click here to submit your trademark and registration number to Facebook. Here is what the form will look like - you would fill in the information for your trademark, as we did here:

Once you have submitted it, your request will go into a rotation and be looked into by teams at Facebook. If you think someone has infringed on your intelectual property on Facebook, you can submit a claim here. If you need a lawyer to register a trademark for you, which is a good move to prevent future Office Action letters challenging your application, we recommend Heraty Law.

We'll see what happens as June 28th gets closer, and if more restrictions will come into play based on how the personal URL grab goes, but stay tuned.