Ellison Bloomfield 9/4/12 Ellison Bloomfield 9/4/12

What's new in social media: Facebook timeline for brands

By Ellison Bloomfield Facebook timeline is now mandatory for business pages and while many have fought to avoid the timeline this is no longer an option. Which means that businesses and page administrators now need to update their pages and ensure that they have an understanding of the new layout and the changes now in effect.

The basics

Cover Photo

Firstly, you need a cover photo, this is an opportunity to clearly highlight to your fans and followers what your page is about and what you do.

The harry&henry shoes cover photo and profile picture clearly demonstrate what the brand is and is consistent with the look and feel of the label.

Tabs, milestones and landing pages

The timeline reduces the ability of brands to have specific tabs such as a welcome landing page and so it is important to use the new features to highlight important information for your fans. By using 'milestones' brands can ensure that achievements or important information is recorded. Milestones record the evolution of the brand over time, from launch to the current day.

Brands can 'pin' content or posts to the top of the timeline, although only one item can be pinned at a time so choose carefully. You can use this feature to make sure fans are aware of a sale or for relevant news. The pinned item will also be featured in your timeline in chronological order.

Private Messages

Brands and fans will now be able to post private messages allowing for greater interaction with fans. This ensures that if fans have a problem or a question it can be dealt with privately and doesn't have to be public on timelines. When it comes to customer service with social media though remember, if someone has a complaint or problem, take the conversation offline as soon as possible to get to a speedy resolution.

Settings

As always with Facebook it's important to understand the settings and what the defaults are. For example, the default setting for mentions or check ins by others is that they will show up on your page, which is great if the content is positive but not so great if it's negative.

If you want to remove a post simply go to the top right hand corner of the post and you will have options to edit or remove it.

On the flip side of this if there is a particular post you like by clicking on the 'star' image you can highlight it and it will stretch across the whole page.

Analytics

Facebook now allows brands to see analytics around their page which can be useful for planning content and knowing what is popular with your followers. These analytics include a myriad of information including where your fans are, what they like and even down to their age and gender. This information can assist you with targeting your messaging.

It's not all bad

While there has been a lot of opposition to the timeline for brands there are many positives. For creative brands and those with products they want to promote the visual style of the timeline allows brands to highlight products. There is more opportunity to get creative with the images used and to engage with your fans on the site.

As with all social media the important thing is to do your research, see what others are doing and understand the settings and by doing these things you can use the timeline to your advantage.

Ellison Bloomfield is a Senior Analyst in Social Media at Deloitte. Her blog – Humane Resource has received world-wide attention and Ellison is frequently quoted as a thought leader on HR issues both within Australian and international publications. She can be found on twitter and pinterest @EllisonAmy

TES 12/3/12 TES 12/3/12

Social media: In the cloud

By Ellison Bloomfield Last week, Andy wrote about the importance of regularly backing up computer data, and mentioned 'cloud storage' as one newer option. Today, I'm going to look at one popular cloud storage option, Dropbox.

I must have purchased at least a dozen USB flash drives but every time I need to save something to transfer to another computer I can’t find them. So I started to look into what other file storage options there were so I could save my work and projects in a safe place, but still access them from other locations. Saving files online, or 'in the cloud' as online storage is colloquially known, seemed like the best solution.

A free Dropbox account gives you 2 gigabytes worth of online storage space, and you can earn additional data by referring friends (I received a referral for my account which gave me a bonus 250mb of data and the same amount for my referrer). There are also paid options starting at $9.99 per month for up to 50gb and beyond. But if you’re just looking to save and share smaller amounts of data the free option will more than suffice. If you’re referring friends you can get up to 8gb of space which should tide over even the most prolific of users.

Save

The files you save in your Dropbox will be accessible across all of your electronic devices - there are apps for your computer, Android, iPhone, iPad and Blackberry as well as the option to log into the Dropbox.com website to access your files.

This means that not only will you be able to access your files when and where you want, but you can be protected against data loss with all the files safely 'in the cloud’.

Share

Probably one of the most useful features of Dropbox is the ability to share your folders or specific files with people. They will be able to access the same files from their Dropbox account simply and easily. This is particularly useful if you’re co-located or working from different locations and can make it easier to coordinate work on projects (professional or personal).

Safe

If you’re like me you’ve probably accidentally deleted something and then feverishly tried to undo the damage! With Dropbox you can undelete files and ‘go back in time’ to save yourself from these little mistakes.

Dropbox is a simple to use and navigate tool that will help you to be more organised and save time when it comes to saving your data. There may be some people that are hesitant to use these types of tools, due to the fact that your files and data are being saved online instead of a personal device. But while this term may be new the concept isn’t. We’ve been using cloud storage for years through accounts such as Hotmail, Gmail, Facebook and probably countless others, and the ease of use has definitely been proven.

If you’d like to start using Dropbox today you can use this link (and get yourself some bonus data!).

TES 13/2/12 TES 13/2/12

What's new in social media: Piquing your interest

By Ellison Bloomfield

Pinterest has been around for about two years now and has slowly been gaining more popularity and interest. It is a social bookmarking site which allows you to create boards which you ‘pin’ pictures, links and items you like generally based on a category.

Once you have your own account and boards you can then repin links shared by others and add to your boards. By following people you’re interested in and inspired by you can find out about products and topics that you wouldn’t normally see.

58% of the users on Pinterest are women and it is popular for planning special events like weddings or sourcing ideas for redecorating.

Even though Pinterest now has over 4 million users it is still an invite only service so you will need to find people in your network who are using it already in order to gain access.

Share

You can create your own boards, like the pins of other users and comment on pins so there are multiple ways you can connect with others in the pinning community.

For creative people Pinterest can have dual benefits, creating boards and following others can lead to inspiration and open you up to new ideas and concepts and by sharing the work that you’re doing you can build your profile.

Your fans can share and pin your work or products to their boards and share this with their network and like twitter by using the @ symbol specific people can be mentioned or associated with your pins. Designers and artists can use this to acknowledge people who are sharing your work and to mention who is behind a specific piece.

Collaborate

You can choose to have more than one contributor for a board which allows you to collaborate with others. If you have a group or event that you’re involved in this can allow you to contribute and keep everyone involved. You can also use it to work with other designers, if you make clothes and another artist makes jewellery you can collaborate to create outfits or looks which showcase the work of multiple artists.

Gift It

If you add a $ to the pin description the pin will add a price banner to the photo and appear in the gifts category. Just make sure you include a link so that people know where they can purchase the item. If you have an Etsy store you can pin directly from the store to ensure that pinners can find your products.

Find

You can find out who has been pinning from your site by going to http://pinterest.com/source/ and adding your website address at the end. E.g. http://pinterest.com/source/creativewomenscircle.com.au/. This way you can find out what is popular on your site and gauge the interest in specifics items or products you have.

Like all social networks Pinterest is about connecting by sharing, chances are that someone has already pinned the things you like so by simply searching and browsing other boards you can add to your own. Or if you want to start completely fresh by adding the ‘Pin it’ button to your bookmarks bar you can pin to your heart’s content from any website you’re browsing.

TES 6/2/12 TES 6/2/12

Organise me: Start with a list...

By Andrea McArthur

Considering that it is the start of a fresh year I thought it appropriate for my first blog post to be on planning for the New Year ahead. If we take it back to basics looking at what you want to achieve by setting yourself some simple tasks. Starting with creating and using a functional To Do List.

Task management

Set yourself a goal to streamline your To Do List (or start a To Do List if you don't use them). Create one go-to place for all of your new tasks, that way you can track your tasks and not leave anything out. Some suggestions that I would recommend trying are:

The traditional hard copy To Do List (I love paper and swear by lists) but this method can become cumbersome.
A simple low-fi method frequently used is a raw text edit file. This way you can cut and paste, make edits and save out To Do Lists for future ongoing use. Just make sure you are using headings for ease of reading.
Email method, you can utilize this by using your inbox to show all of your current tasks. Email yourself whenever you get a new project and organize your emails with labels and folders. A very straight forward method.
Utilizing software, I have recently been looking into tech-ing up my To Do List. There are many great paid and free programs that I have found. When looking at these programs, look for one which has an easy to use interface and one which can sync between your devices.

Whichever method you utilize the most important part is use your To Do List regularly and then prioritize your tasks.

Prioritising

One gem which has always stayed with me comes from a Marketing Manager who was very efficient and managed a large work load with apparent ease. Her method was very simple - complete all simple or quick tasks immediately. If something is only going to take a few minutes to complete just get it done then and there.

Prioritise longer tasks with an actionable label. Use a subject description and also a clear task that is to be completed. For instance 'New Identity Design / Meet with client to discuss concepts'.

Don't be afraid to separate tasks into groups, you could start with some basic ones such as Work, Personal, Backburner (commonly called the Get to Someday pile).

From here, much like the organized Account Managers at Design Studios you should also create a daily Work In Progress - To Do List to keep you on track for the day. Keep this short and succinct in order not to overwhelm yourself. You could utilize your Calendar to set reminders in order to help create your daily WIP as well.

Best of luck starting your own To Do List! I've started mine...

Andrea McArthur has a passion for all things visual. Type is her true love and goes weak over great design. After being a graphic designer for many years she has switched hats to become an educator of graphic design and enjoys watching others fall in love with design too. From January this year Andrea has switched hats again starting her solo freelance design business in Brisbane.