Yesterday I became an “Unthinker”

Their anti-Facebook videos say  “It’s FU time” Check out the YouTube video  

The key difference is about data and security. You have full control over how much you show various groups of people. Unthink have made all the default options restricted, so you need to ‘enable’ your data to be shared.  Unthink has given your URL a “Deed” agreement stating that this is your property and they will not interfere, force changes to your setup, spy on you or collect data to sell to advertisers about you. You will be allowed to use a Pseudonym name on Unthink. There will be an identifier to let others know you are not using your real name but your confidentiality is protected.

You must create four separate profiles:

• Basic - The fields here remind me of those on a dating site. Very personal, but never shown.
• Social - For your family and friends
• Professional - To be sure to present yourself appropriately to your work connections
• Lifestyle - How you connect with brands

You can post status updates for each individual profile, and only followers of that specific profile ie-professional can see it in their stream. Very similar to creating friends lists on Facebook and targeting your updates to those lists - but more cumbersome.

Unthink  has a long way to go to become a Facebook killer. A friend called it a “grown up version of MySpace and equally as slow”.

Start-up pains are to be expected and Unthink had  database issues from the get-go: after I (finally) received my invitation with the activation code I got a password error message. I requested my password to be sent via email, it never arrived. Other friends had the same issue.

But the biggest problem - it is overly complicated without an intuitive interface. This is a very big deal and will deter most users. It is not user friendly, with many (too many) tabs and navigating. It took several minutes to find the invite tab. This is not a site for an inexperienced user. The help menu only reveals two promotional videos, no help at all. I like the idea of Unthink, but what I don’t like is how much I have to THINK about how to use their platform.

Top right hand corner (prime real estate) goes to the Brand that you choose to endorse you. Should you not choose to have a brand endorse you, users must pay $2 annually. #fail Social networkers will not pay for services they are already getting for free.

When I asked Carole Nickerson (a Facebook friend) what she thought of Unthink she said, “It’s not usable by today’s standards. They are trying to repackage the delivery of content and interaction with a structure that is now obsolete. We process data online much faster than we did 10 years ago. Heavy graphical design does not promote interaction. This looks like a generic cms script basically just tweaked a little.” And “I don’t even dare invite my Facebook friends. Way too much”.

The Lifestyle tree is an interesting idea. Designed to organize the brands you’re interested in. By adding a company’s leaf to your virtual tree, you choose the information that interest you, and the frequency per channel. It is completely anonymous. Some brands offer rewards for every message you read..

Unthink has two main types of pages, Suite and Stage. Suite is for Personal pages and Stage is for Businesses.

Although I’m not jumping up and down (like I was with Google+) at the user experience, I am looking forward to the business experience on Unthink.  Stage Pages seem well thought out.  Imagine a Business page that acts like a Fan page but where you can offer (all on one page) discounts, coupons, rewards, job listings, B2B communications events.

Expect mobile apps in a few months.

While there is definitely demand for more privacy and control within social networking sites, and the concept of owning your virtual space online instead of just building your presence to make someone else’s “digital property” more powerful, the start-up has a long road ahead.

Check out our Guide to Unthink on Slideshare.

There are few things I find more pathetic and distasteful than people who misuse Facebook by posting inappropriate status updates or using Facebook as a weapon to hurt people.

Status updates are great (they’re probably my favorite thing about the social networking site), but sometimes they offer serious TMI.

FACEBOOK is the 2nd most popular word that starts with an F and ends with a K.

You've all seen this type of update "i'm sorry our love/hate relationship has turned into a hate/please die motherf%^ *#r relationship"  Come on! It sucks you two broke up – but, keep it to yourself and get over it already. Do you really think the object of your aggression is going to read what you’ve written, sensibly digest and modify their behaviour accordingly? I think not. Hostility breeds hostility.

Facebook is a great way to communicate with friends, family, and co-workers. You can update everyone on your life and you can do it all at once in a status update. Status updates are normally a very positive feature on Facebook. However, they can get you in trouble.

I finally had to block all of a “friend’s” status updates because I realized, over the course of a couple of weeks, that she was one of the most consistently negative people. Her status updates were a litany of how difficult her life as a stay at home mom is, how unappreciative her husband and children are of her many sacrifices, and so on. No one’s life is a bed of roses, but when Facebook status updates are your outlet, and that’s how you’re choosing to express yourself to the immediate world, then something’s wrong.

Ultimately, it’s up for you to decide where social boundaries exist in the digital world.  I really like this article of the 5 Do's and Don'ts of Facebook etiquette. 

Access your Smart Lists via your home page under your profile photo, in the left column. Note the notification notices beside each list. These are your real time updates conveniently sorted and viewable by a simple click!

Facebook smart lists provide automated friend lists and populates some of the default fields for you (family, work, school, location) based on the information you and your friends have provided in your short bio.

Facebook's Smart Lists include work, school, family and city. Friends who attended the same college or work for the same company would instantly appear on a smart list, which will have its own News Feed of photos, status updates and other posts from the people on the list. Users may also manually add or subtract names from their smart lists.

Friends lists are completely optional, but why wouldn't you take advantage of the opportunity to target your status updates and sort your Newsfeed by the information most important to you?

Friends added to the following 3 categories will NOT be notified by Facebook.

For those of you who had already spent time organizing your friends in to lists - no worries! They are still there, and you can merge them with Facebook's new default lists.

Perhaps you'd like to share a personal story with your family—without also telling all your co-workers. Target your status updates to specific lists - post an update that only Close Friends can see.

Sort your Newsfeed and find out what's happening AS it's happening with your closest friends.

Facebook has also improved its friend suggestions feature, which would help users who may have left some friends off their lists. When a user adds someone as a friend or confirms a friendship request, the user will be able to add the friend to any of their existing lists.

Note: When you add someone to a smart list for a school, workplace or city, your friend will have the option to add that information to their profile, too. 

Sometimes users don't want to share information with others, even if they want to be friends with them, on Facebook. The social network is offering a Restricted list. Users on this list will only see another users' public posts.

Note: Smart lists respect your privacy settings, so if you only have your current city visible to a few friends, those are the only friends who can have you listed on their current city list. Use the audience selector to choose who you share your profile information with.

How to edit Smart Lists: You can add individual friends to lists by hovering over the Friends button at the top of their profile and selecting from the list names that appear.

Once organized by lists choose which information you see from your friends: all updates, most updates (what you normally see) or only important highlights

You can also edit your lists or create custom lists right from your home page:

• Click the Home link (along the top-right of every Facebook page)
• Find the list you want to edit in the left column, or click the More link next to Lists
• Select the list you want to edit or click Create a List
• Search for your friends in the search bar at the top of the page, or add people from the List Suggestions on the right

You’ll start to see List Suggestions on the sidebar in various areas.  If I pull up the “Most Recent” newsfeeds for one of my existing lists, Facebook now suggests people it thinks might be applicable additions to this list.  With a click of the + I can add them.

You might want to put people in lists so that you can

• HIDE certain content from them (posts and profile items)
• NOT allow them to Tag you or check you into places
• NOT allow them to see your Friends
• NOT allow your other friends to see their interaction with you

These may be the most useful lists you have but they have to be built manually.  Start building useful lists here. 

Facebook's been "hard at it" with their new Inline Profile Controls, improved Smart Friend Lists and most recently the Subscribe Button. We'll talk about other new features in upcoming blogs.

Facebook's new Subscribe Button - It's all Good!

• You can now use your personal profile to share public updates with a large audience.
• A profile with subscribers is ideal if you want to personally connect with people who are interested in you.
• You must opt-in (give permission to Facebook) in order to be subscribed to.

Once activated, Facebook asks whether to allow ANYONE to comment on your public status updates — if you turn this on, then people who aren’t on your friend list can comment, even if you don’t allow this on your wall.

Choose whether you want to receive notifications about new subscribers, and if so, whether to notify you about ANYONE or just friends of friends. Choose these settings carefully to avoid a cluttered inbox.

Once you have allowed subscribers, people can become subscribers by clicking the Subscribe button at the of your profile. Once someone subscribes to you, they will begin seeing your public updates in their News Feed.

People may also discover your profile through the People to Subscribe To unit on the right-hand side of their Home Page, or through their friends’ News Feed stories

When you post something on Facebook, you can control how broadly it is shared. You can decide to share publicly, with all of your friends, or with more limited lists of people.  

Public updates are posts that you share with the Public privacy setting. All of your public posts will be eligible to appear in your subscribers’ News Feeds. 

Use the Subscribe button to choose what you see from friends and others in News Feed. For each person, you could hide all game stories, see just photos, limit updates to life events and more. You've always been subscribed to your friends. With the Subscribe button, you can choose which of their updates you get.

Subscribers can see only the things you share publicly. They can also choose how many and what types of these public updates they get.

Here's a look at my public profile:

To manage your subscriptions, visit your personal profile and click on the “subscriptions” link below friends.

When Supernova Studios was launched 2 years ago Mark was one of my first virtual tour clients. Always ahead of the curve with his marketing, Mark knew that adding a virtual tour to his marketing package would win him more listings. Help sell those listings faster - with less showings to more pre-qualified buyers.

Candice was also one of the first to register and complete Supernova Studios social ignition course. Candice rocked this course learning about search engine optimization and social media and applied her new knowledge quickly to Mark's benefit. If you would like to take our social ignition course please, simply sign up to Supernova Studios eClub.

So, when Mark and Candice contacted Supernova Studios to discuss building their new website we were pretty excited. This would ensure a long and continued relationship together.

WordPress, the number one content management system in the world, was the obvious choice to power their new site. We chose Agent Press theme which we highly customized according to Mark's brand. Have a look at Mark's new site: 

We provided video and training tutorials to Candice who mastered this new technology like a champ. We were not surprised.

Mark (and Candice) launched the new site yesterday. We all think it looks pretty spiffy and think you'll love the simplicity and functionality.

Contact Mark Seamone today. Your Bridgewater NS Real Estate Professional.

Do you have a custom Facebook page for your business? How is it doing? Are you pleased with results? It's taken 2 years to build a successful, engaged audience at Supernova Studios

What do I mean by successful? 2011 was the first year we earned revenue as a result of this page. Now, if I were to divide that revenue by the number of hours I've invested in this page, well…. I'd have been paid in peanuts. But 2011 is just the beginning and each week we seem to be given a new opportunity. Opportunities from around the globe, ones we wouldn't have had if it weren't for Facebook.

Two years ago, when I first created the page, I utilized the "suggest to friends" feature to suggest to ALL my friends that they "like" my page.  I've got some good friends and more than half of them obliged and clicked like. Back in 2009 it was all about the numbers for me. I measured my success/reach by the number of my friends/fans.

A lot has changed since then. Most of the friends who clicked like on my page have since stopped following my page and the fans I have now, have come to me organically. These are the type of fans that make an engaged audience. These are the type of fans I crave. The ones that WANT to be there. The ones LOOKING for my services.

Our latest opportunity came from a Realtor in Central Florida. This client was referred to me by someone who follows me closely on my Facebook page. I was pumped for two reasons: the referral was from a reputable marketer, and; I was excited to service clients in another country again.

Here is the custom Facebook fan page we created for Exit 1st Class Realty. 

We:

1) created a custom avatar
2) created a custom thumbnail
3) designed the 5 ads in the photostrip at the top of the page
4) created a custom Facebook landing page for new clients which points to their website
5) Installed "My Listings" which showcases their listings
6) Installed an opt-in
7) Fully optimized their site for search
8) Provided a work summary
9) Provided "Facebook Best Practices" a tutorial we've written, to ensure success.

If you have questions about your Facebok page, feel free to post them to our wall.

Google Plus

I figured it could go either one of two ways for me. If the interface was difficult (or not engaging) I would lose interest quickly or; if the opposite were true, I could become addicted (yet again) to the "next best thing" (the latter has happened).

Luckily, I had already completed a Google Profile, so setup was a breeze and I spent the first day clicking, reading and watching. By the second day I realized (quite by surprise) how very tired of Facebook I'd become.

Now don't get me wrong, I've got mad love for Facebook, but things have changed and evolved for me over the years. Initially, I added everyone who sent a request, most people who were suggested, friends of friends, people I vaguely remembered, any and all family.

I spent considerable time organizing over 900 friends into lists, adjusting privacy settings and targeting my status updates. More time was spent optimizing my newsfeed to show specific friends lists, blocking game requests, desperately trying to have some control of the home page. There was so much "noise" my newsfeed became overwhelming and people got lost in the shuffle. And slowly, I began to tune-out.

There are few places I continue to spend time on Facebook. My Facebook page, a Tech Support Group I belong to and some favourite brand pages. I couldn't tell you the last time I creeped a profile or scrolled past the first screen in my newsfeed. (activities I initially spent a lot of time doing)

Google+ feels much less overwhelming. First, I do not have to target my updates. I have no family or close friends on Google+. Although I have created a few circles, the bulk of my contacts fit into one circle (networking). These are like minded individuals whom I can learn from. My stream (newsfeed equivalent) is "a beautiful thing" with thoughtful creative posts and I find myself logging in there first, daily.

I've created a Google Plus Tutorial for beginners to help newbies, those not yet invited and the curious. I'd be anxious to hear your thoughts, tips and experiences.
 

Two words that can make you cringe. If someone has to tell you or ask you to trust them then it’s a good bet you either don’t know them or don’t trust them. Knowing someone (having a relationship with them) is a big factor for trust.

I've been getting daily recommendation requests posted to my Facebook profile from various "friends" in my network. Many of the requests are from people I have never met and never done business with.

The web casts a spell on people where they may feel an intimacy and connection with others they have met online which really is not justified.

Trust is a funny thing. I trust my doctor because he’s got the credentials and the license, but, that trust only goes so far. I had to develop a relationship with him where that trust built up over a number of years of good advice and the kind of professional compassion and skill I look for in a health care professional.

I invest trust in people because over time, they have demonstrated to me that I can.

Online recommendations are powerful. Nielsen’s Global Online Consumer Survey reveals that 90% of consumers online trust recommendations from people that they know, with 70% trusting the opinions by people they don't know.

While I understand that building your online reputation via recommendations is a good idea, boosting your online reputation takes time and effort. Once you have established a consistent pattern of connecting with others online, you will see your reputation flourish and more and more people will want to be a part of your social media network for business. As always, it is all about building and maintaining relationships.

There are many ways in which you can successfully build your reputation online. The generation of large amounts of content, through blogs, videos, etc, are some of the most effective ways to accomplish that. It is important to remember, however, that your reputation will not be built up overnight. It takes time and the consistent involvement of other people.

Building a brand is just like building a reputation in that you need to prove yourself again and again in order for people to put their trust in you and become loyal to you. Follow the 80-20 rule of marketing and spend 80% or more of your time in social media activities that are not self-promotional and only 20% or less on activities that are self-promotional.

Supernova Studios fan page on Facebook is almost 2 years old. It has taken that long to build a strong and faithful following. We provide a service on this page, answer questions, offer tips and advice and rarely "sell" our services.

We are proud of the recommendations we have recieved from our faithful clients. You can check them out on LinkedIn, our Facebook page, Google Places and at our site.

To help "build" our online reputation we belong to the Chamber of Commerce and accredited with the Better Business Bureau

When the Real-TechGuy asked me "if I knew anything about SEO" the other day, I knew he must be throwing something together quickly that would (undoubtedly) end up becoming a success. Jonathan Rivera likes to fly by the seat of his pants. He says, (and I remind myself of this often) "If you're good at something, don't do it for free".

Tune in to Episode 6 Web Marketing Strategies Weekly where Jonthan, Scott Bradley - copywriter, Doug MacIsaac - SEO expert, and myself have a little fun:

I've been following Jonathan and The Official Real Estate Referral Group on Facebook for a couple of years now. You may remember just last year when his page (with over 47,000 followers) was taken down by Facebook. I joined the social media community who quickly rallied in his support, and his page was reinstated. Way to go Jonathan. You should really check out the Thank You video he created for the social media community. You can't help but like this guy.

So who is the Real-TechGuy? Don't get me wrong when I say he likes to fly by the seat of his pants. This is not someone who is unorganized and throws things together. (well maybe he does throw the odd thing together.. but he knows his stuff, so he can get away with it).

Jonathan Rivera created The Official Real Estate Referral Group on Facebook in 2008 to match his online leads with good agents. To date he has generated and placed over 2,849 referrals which have led to Millions of Dollars in closed sales for the members of his community. Kinda takes "providing a service" on social media to a whole new level, huh.... Millions of Dollars in sales.... No wonder his page now has over 54,000 followers.

Jonathan is the Conversion King. If you want more traffic, leads, and conversions he offers consulting on online lead generation to entrepreneurs and companies with a marketing budget.

If you haven't gone mobile and want a simple cost effective solution, check out Jonathan's Mobile Product X.  Which we have purchased. Trust me when I say this product was not thrown together. We've used MPX to build our demo mobile site  Here's what it includes:

• 10 video training modules
• Manual 1: Installing WordPress and Thesis
• Manual 2: Configuring Thesis for Mobile
• Manual 3: Building your Mobile site (that gets the phone ringing!)

Lately, Jonathan has been working on his latest product "The Influence Method". I think it's still in beta, but we had a sneak preview of it and are impressed.

So, do you like him yet?

Jonathan... this one's for you baby. All kinds-a back links like we talked about on the show. Drink up the Google Juice and enjoy. Cheers!

Recently, I was asked to give a presentation to a local real estate company on why they need social media. They gave me 20 minutes. I only needed five.

First I showed them a quick video I had prepared on Canadian social media statistics, and secondly (and my favorite) I opened a web browser, brought up Google and did a search on my keywords. "Nova Scotia social media consultant". Go ahead... do it. We DOMINATE page one. (insert enormously proud grin) I told them, "The last thing I do each night is visit Google Analytics to measure the traffic to my site, clear my cache (to get a true reading) and perform (yet another) search for my keywords." It's true. My routine. The LAST thing I do each night. One particularly outspoken (and fun) guy in the group said, "Get a life".

I bet I'm not alone. It's said that the driving force behind the success of Facebook is vanity. I completely relate. And there is something COMPLETELY satisfying about "the feeling" of being in "control" of your Google ranking.

So... What's my secret?

• First of all, admittedly (and luckily) there is not a lot of competition for my keywords. (Whew!)


• Second, you will notice a lot of links to my various social media profiles. Twitter, LinkedIn, Activerain, and my favorite, Facebook. Each of my social media accounts are optimized for my keywords. Yours should be too.


• And finally - I employ a little SEO.

What is SEO? Search engine optimization is the art making small modifications to parts of your website that could have a noticeable impact on your site's user experience and performance in organic search results. SEO is a quest for increased visibility in search engines via relevant copy, quality links, domain trust, social popularity and search engine connectivity.

Here are a couple of guides that helped me with SEO:

Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide   Download

SEOmoz The Beginners Guide to SEO Download

Join Supernova Studios e-Club to download our SEO Guide and recieve our monthly newsletter.

Getting (long term) traffic from Google is about KEYWORDS and LINKS. It’s about being relevant enough for a keyword search, and being trusted enough to rank for it.

To help improve your sites ranking:

• Use "Geo Keywords" in all your title tags and make sure each page has a unique title


• Make sure your meta-descriptions are unique and reference copy you have on your pages


• Link your pages to one another. Links are like lasers. When you link to a page, you heat the page you are linking to


• Make sure you use unique original copy. Google favors diversity


• Get quality inbound links. Google considers an inbound link from an authority site as a "vote" for your page


• Read Google Webmaster Guidelines and make sure you comply but do not use “Google Submit Your Site” to submit your site. Google prefers to find a link to your site on a site it already knows. 


• Setup your Google Places account immediately. Read our blog for instructions.


• If you are totally lost, contact us.

What is a keyword? And specifically "geo" keywords.

When you're looking for a great pizza in a town you'll be visiting next week, you do what millions of other people do. You go to Google and type in "Pizza, any town" You ALWAYS include the town/city/location. That's the "geo" in geo-keywords. Note my keywords "Nova Scotia social media consultant" Someone in Nova Scotia searching for my services would (hopefully) perform a search using my keywords. Or possibly "Nova Scotia social media trainer". My site is optimized using these keywords. Specific pages within my site are optimized for various synomyms of my keywords.

What is a "quality inbound link"?

Inbound links are links from pages on external sites linking back to your site. Inbound links can bring new users to your site, and when the links are an authority source, they're also a positive signals to Google about your site's importance.

How can I get "quality inbound links"

Create Good Content: Nothing will serve you better when it comes to inbound links, and many other areas of your site, than creating good content. Writing an insightful blog post or creating a useful template or presentation will not only lead people to link to your site, but also drive traffic and build equity in your site and brand.

Directories can be a great inbound link source. Focus on local/industry-specific options if available.

Vendors/Suppliers These people or groups have a vested interest in helping you succeed. Explain to them that you’re trying to increase your exposure on the web and that this will in turn help them as well.

Business Allies Business allies can include any type of business partner that you’ve worked or networked with that isn’t a direct competitor.

Sponsorships / Charities / Associations If you serve on a Board, have made a significant contribution to a charity or are a member of an association, these groups are looking for ways to thank you and provide value in return -- especially if it doesn’t cost them any money.

Sure hope this helps, I'd be interested to hear from you about your results. Changing your page titles to include your Geo-keywords will take 5 minutes. Do it! Measure your traffic today and compare in 2 weeks. You can thank me then.

Almost forgot - I use the following tools to analyze my domain and keywords.

Open Site Explorer is a great SEO tool provided by SEOmoz at no cost.  You can search up  to 5 domains a day and learn all about how to improve your search engine rankings, how many domains link to your site, and how you stand out to Google.

Enter in your domain and you will get a list of important website metrics including page authority, domain authority, the number of linking domains to your site and the number of total links. They do give your Page and Domain an authority score out of 100, the higher the number the better.

1. Linking Pages: A List of pages linking to your site, they order them by page authority.
2. Top Pages: They tell you which pages on your site have the highest page authority.
3. Linking Domains: Shows the domains linking to your site, by highest domain authority.
4. Anchor Text Distribution: Tells you the text most commonly used when linking to your site, ordered by popularity.
5. Full List of Link Metrics: Tells you how many people that you link to link to you, vice-versa.

With Google's Free Keyword Tool  Enter one keyword or phrase per line to see what related word searches your ad will show on. Here's a quick video on how to use this tool.

To your success! (unless of course we have the same keywords!) wink...

What would you do if you woke up one morning and your Facebook account had been deactivated?

Stranger things have happened.. and with a free service like Facebook, it could be weeks before you got in touch with someone there to have it "fixed".

I love Facebook for storing photos, using the like button as a means of bookmarking my favorite articles/sites, connecting with friends, and of course.. marketing.

We offer Nova Scotia social media consulting and training. Check out our services and training packages.

It's hard not to feel vulnerable when the information and connections (I've worked years to establish) and have on my profile and pages does not belong to me. I know this is a contentious issue, but I'd be happy to pay for my business page to have more control.

Last night while on Facebook I was logged out several times and asked to log back in. Each time I logged back in I got a message from Facebook indicating that there had been malicious activity on my account. This happened at least a dozen times. And the fear set in.....

What if my account became deactivated by Facebook? What if I lost my business page? All those connections. The hours of work. The information. It kept me awake and on the agenda this morning was to be proactive and do whatever I could to protect my accounts.

The first step was to download my Facebook information.

Go to Account, Account Settings, Download your profile information You will get a message like this: Click okay and you will be notified by email when your information is ready for download. Unfortunately, this is only your profile information and not your brand pages. (gulp...)

Second, I bookmarked the site for Facebook Help should the unthinkable ever happen.
 

I recommend you do the same.

This just in from Jimmy Mackin, and The MLS App:
 
Thanks so much to The MLS App for alerting us about Backupify a free application to back up your Facebook PAGES!  

They promise:
â–ª  Never lose your Facebook Fan Page data – even if your Page is hacked
â–ª Never lose a tagged Photo, Video or Note -even if the original poster removes it from Facebook.

Here's the question though. Backing something up only seems to be of value if there's also a way to restore the information and with Facebook there isn't. Sure, you'll have a record of all of your posts, your fans comments, photos you've uploaded, etc., but is any of that really useful to us if it's not on Facebook?

The best way to keep things secure for now would be to only use Facebook in secure (https) mode.

When you download your profile information from Facebook:  Remember that the file contains sensitive information. Because this download contains your profile information, you should keep it secure and take precautions when storing, sending or uploading it to any other services.

Also, do not click any links on Facebook unless you are 100% certain of the source. Also to help keep your account safe: Never paste suspicious-looking links or text into your internet address bar. They could be spam!

For answers to your social media questions or help with Facebook, drop by our page and drop us a line.

Nova Scotia Social Media Consulting

Check out Supernova Studios Google Places listing.

Google Places - Practical and easy to manage

Your Google listing is an easy way to maintain an online presence even if you don’t have a website. You can visit Google Places anytime to edit your information or see how many people have seen and clicked on your listing.

Premium options, all for free

Make your listing really shine with photos and videos; custom categories like your service area, brands you sell and how to find parking; and coupons to encourage customers to make a first-time or repeat purchase.

Go here to create your Google Places page:

It's a good idea to create an Google Places account using an email address that you don't mind sharing with others or passing along, in case you wish to transfer ownership of your listings.

When you enter basic information about your business, make sure you include the following:

* Company/Organization: This is the business name known in the offline world.
* Address: Enter your address the same way it would appear on a paper mail envelope.
* Phone number: Make sure to include the area code with your business phone number.
* Website: Make sure to list your authoritative business website as your homepage, since Google uses information from your homepage to help improve search results. The URL you provide can be a maximum of 255 characters.
* Description: Tell users what makes your business special.
* Email address: Let users know how to contact you.

Categories
Categories are ways to classify your business that help Google show your business for the right searches. The Google Places will suggest categories that match what you type, but feel free to create your own if you don't see a category that fits your business. Make sure that the categories you choose are accurate and describe your business well. It's ok if they're specific; Google's search algorithm makes sure that users looking for a general business type, like 'book stores,' will see businesses in more specific categories too.

Hours of operation
Let customers know when your business is open.

Payment options
Specify the payment types you accept.

Photos/Videos
Including photos and video adds visual appeal to your listing.

Reviews

Reviews come from three main sources: reviews written by Google Maps users, reviews sent to us by third party providers and reviews collected from the web. Google associates third-party reviews with your listing when the business information given on the third-party website (like Yahoo or Trip Advisor) matches the information for your listing.

Sound simple? It is! Now, here are more detailed step-by-step instructions for how to add your business information to Google Places:

Nova Scotia social media consulants Supernova Studios helping you to get found on Google.

Credit: http://www.google.com/places/

There are many online tools I use every single day to manage my social media marketing. Here is a list of a few of my favs with some input from friends.

The following list I created at List.ly 

Supernova Studios, Nova Scotia web media consultants - helping to keep you secure.

See this image of the information available when searching for my name by a non-friend. Note - below my profile picture "Info" (which I chose to make available) and "Questions" - which I have no control over.

So - Who can see the Questions section of my profile?

Facebook's answer: "In order to get answers from people that know the most about the topic, questions and answers can be viewed by everyone and may be surfaced to people who can best answer the question".

To delete a question you've asked:
Go to the question and click the "Delete" button — it’s located on the lower right of the box.

And how do you delete a post within Facebook Questions?
To delete a post you provided as an answer within Facebook Questions, go to the question box and find your post within the "Posts" section. Then, click the X to the upper right of your post to remove it. To remove your vote from a poll, simply uncheck the check box beside the option you voted for.

FYI - Facebook Questions can not be answered anonymously and they are not indexed by Google (at this time)

Good news for page owners though - you CAN remove Questions from your page.

Pages that have asked or answered a Facebook Question contain this section. If you’re a Page admin, you have the option to either remove this section from your Page, or hide it behind the "More" link.

Answers to Facebook Questions via Facebook Help Center:

• You need to ANSWER A QUESTION in order to activate "questions" on your profile
• If you are a page admin, you may have to log out and then back in to activate it
• You can share questions with specific friends
• You will get a notification if your are invited to participate in a question
• You can deselect the box that allows users to add more options (to your question)
• View results of your question on its own separate page by clicking the question
• You can see if your friends have responded to questions by the photos next to the answers
• there is now a TAB in your left hand navigation to show questions your friends are asking

For answers to your Facebook questions visit Supernova Studios page on Facebook.

Nova Scotia Social Media Training - Supernova Studios

FINALLY - Facebook has added a new feature that enables users to finally hide their recent Facebook activity from other users, a feature that many have wanted for years.


All you need to do is visit your profile and begin hiding the various story types that you don’t want others to see.

Say, for example, that you don’t want others to see the comments that you write your friends’ profiles on Facebook. Scroll down through your profile until you see one of your previous comments and click on the “X.”

Facebook will then prompt you with a confirmation box, to make sure that you really want to hide all comments (which you probably do). Just click “Hide All”, and now all your comments will be hidden.

Simply continue to hide all recent activities on events you’ve RSVPed to, or any other recent activity types that you want to hide.

NOTE - You can do the same thing with "Questions Activity" and "Likes Activity".

If you want to modify these settings at any time (and re-display content that was previously hidden), you can scroll down to the bottom of your profile feed and click on “Edit Options.” At that point the following dialog box will pop up:

You can then make any changes that you’d like!

If you have Facebook questions, pop on over to our Facebook page. We respond promptly to all questions!

Happy Facebooking!

Sitemaps are a way to tell Google about pages on your site they might not otherwise discover. In its simplest terms, a XML Sitemap—usually called Sitemap, with a capital S—is a list of the pages on your website. Creating and submitting a Sitemap helps make sure that Google knows about all the pages on your site, including URLs that may not be discoverable by Google's normal crawling process.
 

A sitemap tells Googles about about pages on your site they might not otherwise discover.

 
Sitemaps are particularly helpful if:
â–ª Your site has dynamic content.
â–ª Your site has pages that aren't easily discovered by Googlebot during the crawl process—for example, pages featuring rich AJAX or images.
â–ª Your site is new and has few links to it. (Googlebot crawls the web by following links from one page to another, so if your site isn't well linked, it may be hard for us to discover it.)
â–ª Your site has a large archive of content pages that are not well linked to each other, or are not linked at all.

"Google doesn't guarantee that we'll crawl or index all of your URLs. However, we use the data in your Sitemap to learn about your site's structure, which will allow us to improve our crawler schedule and do a better job crawling your site in the future. In most cases, webmasters will benefit from Sitemap submission, and in no case will you be penalized for it." 
 
SiteMap Generator - Simply enter your www url into this generator, select the frequency as 'monthly' (unless you positively update your ENTIRE website every week or every day) and generate your XML sitemap. The next time Google crawls your site it will index this sitemap and you have given Google precise instructions on how often to crawl your website. Once you have generated your sitemap, you can change the frequency of individual pages by changing 'monthly' to 'weekly' or 'daily'. Only change those pages that you know you update daily (RSS feeds) or weekly. If unsure, always opt for less crawls. When done, upload the xml file to the root of your site.
 
Once you've added the XML file to your site, you may want to consider having a clickable link on your home page to a sitemap you have created. (for easy navigation and  as a way to tell visitors about pages on your site they might not otherwise discover)

Check out our site map here for ideas:

For Nova Scotia social media training visit us.

 
1.7 million Canadians watched over 4 billion videos in 2010. As of February 2011, YouTube has 490 million unique users worldwide per month, who rack up an estimated 92 billion page views each month. On average there are more than 400 tweets per minute containing a YouTube link. On Facebook over 150 years worth of YouTube videos are watched every single day.
 
Check out our Youtube channel

 
Here are some tips for making your company’s videos rise to the top and leveraging them to help your business:

â–ª Participate in the YouTube community. People forget that YouTube has an active community, similar to eBay. Get your name around by commenting on other videos and joining existing topic-oriented groups or creating one if there isn’t one in your niche area.

â–ª Make sure your videos direct visitors to your site. Tens of thousands of viewers watching your videos sounds great, unless they have no direction to find your business afterwards. Make sure you include your Web address and other company contact information. Create a special “landing page” for viewers coming to your site from YouTube. It should have a similar look and feel to YouTube and intuitive navigation to close the deal on transactions or gathering client leads; whatever your marketing objective may be.

â–ª Using the right production values. Believe it or not, spending too much money producing the video is more of a problem than spending too little. If you look too slick, it may work against you. Most YouTube videos are shot with a $300 camera. YouTube videos are 320 x 400 pixels. Less important is the equipment, while more important is technique. Talking heads, stationary shots work best. That’s why spots like Blendtec work so well. It’s a guy standing at a little table with a blender. Audio, however, is something people don’t think enough about. If you’re using a camcorder with an external mic input, use it. Invest in a decent microphone.

â–ª Choose your keywords carefully. There’s only one way viewers find you on YouTube and that’s the site’s search engine. Using the right keywords is essential. Choose words that best fit your subject area and niche. Keywords should draw in a broad enough audience to get the exposure you seek, but not too much. 

Want to tap into this enormous market? Need help getting started? Check out our courses
Supernova Studios - your Nova Scotia Social Media Consultants
 

In today’s market, just about every company has a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube account, to represent their business on social media. It has become a necessity for companies who are building a brand with longevity, and establishing not just sales but, life long customers.

Real estate is an industry in which social media has really taken off as of late. Agents are using these platforms to not only promote their listings but to build relationships and connections to the neighborhoods in which they specialize.

As with the Tradewinds' other social media initiatives, Facebook will be used to share our weekly inewsletter, videos from the Broker, events of interest in Nova Scotia and to connect with You. We believe that culture is the most important factor around social participation and doing social media right.

Recognizing that Facebook has over 600 million users and is now used by 1 in every 11 people on earth, we feel that this is an exciting announcement and are encouraged by the interest already. We know that is certainly not a replacement of the one on one conversation of which we encourage first and foremost, however, we feel that this is one more opportunity for us to celebrate our unique offerings, as well as informing the community of any important information that has happened or is upcoming.

Along with LinkedIn, Twitter, and our Tradewinds Youtube account, our new Facebook page will provide us with one more venue to incorporate social media as a means to connect with the Nova Scotia community and speaks to our strong commitment to 21st century learning at Tradewinds.

To become a fan of the Tradewinds Facebook page, search for Tradewinds Realty Nova Scotia on Facebook.

For more information on Tradewinds Realty, please visit our website.

Tradewinds Realty represents a wide selection of waterfront, oceanfront and ocean-view real estate as well as residential, business and land real estate.

The mobile tour remains interactive which means users with touch screens can actually scroll through the 360 panoramas and still images while enjoying an elegant fade from image to image.  It has been enabled on both of our core products, the HD V-Slides and HD V-Tours, insuring that all Supernova Studios customers can enjoy these new developments.

What is your cost?
There is no additional cost to our customers. The new technology is ready for you to take advantage of on all previous and new virtual tours.

What do you need to do to start taking advantage of this?
Nothing. Simply let your customers know their virtual tours can now be viewed on all computers, Smart Phones and devices 24/7.

How can you see a sample mobile tour?
Simply point your phone browser to one of your virtual tours links and enjoy. It's really that simple!
This mobile exposure provides the perfect opportunity for you to start using the QR Codes that are now coming with your Supernova Studios Exposure Engine.  Simply print the QR Code that we give you on a sticker so it can be attached to your yard sign or have it included with any print advertising, or with listing flyers that you create. Users with Smart Phones will scan your QR Code and instantly view your online virtual tour. The total number of scans will appear on your weekly virtual tour hit reports! You're able to literally track the number of times your virtual tours are accessed by the scanning of a QR Code allowing you to measure your marketing efforts like never before.

Listen, if you aren't already using QR codes, now is the time to start. QR codes are the latest advertising. They're neat, they're new, they're cool looking, VERY tech savvy, and they allow you to measure your marketing efforts so you can see what works and what does not. This technology will wow prospective home sellers during listing presentations and win over anyone interested in cool technology. For more information on marketing with QR Codes and getting the most out of your Supernova Studios virtual tours and other digital marketing tools contact Nancy Bain today and setup an office presentation.

Thanks for your support!

Nancy Bain
Supernova Studios
Local - 902-766-TOUR

QR Codes Unless you've been living under a rock you've all seen these strange little codes popping up everywhere.

It’s no secret that social media is a hot topic. Every marketer wants to jump into what is — and has been for more than a year — the most dynamic and exciting two-way communications platform since email.
 

Today, most mobile phones are not limited to carry on just a conversation. Also, things like mp3 players, digital cameras , video cameras and even watches can have the ability to track your location.

There are several things you can do to optimize your Facebook fan page. Here are just 3 tips for you to consider.

Virtual Tours are currently being used by leading commercial and residential estate agents, attracting more visitors to their properties and showing them the sense of the space and true character of a property while providing an enjoyable and memorable experience from the comfort of home. Weed out the lookers and attract buyers.

Its interesting  that most people with Blogs think of the Blog as being  totally different to Social Media Networks such Twitter, Facebook or MySpace. Don’t be fooled, believe it or not blogs are Social Media vehicles and the most important Social Media tool you have.

The key to a successful real estate blog is generating and maintaining your blog's position as an authority on real estate in your area. A great way to do this is to connect with other real estate professionals and potential clients through various social networks on the web.