Profiling

Your profile is your page's thumbprint, your theme's identification, the backstory to your branding. Here are a few suggestions in maintaining some control over how it's interpreted.

Open or Closed?
What disclosure type lends itself best to your plan and to compel visits to your site?
GCC Expeditions is more intimate in its sharing of personal information because their clientele will be interfacing on a personal level.  You'd probably want to get to know the people who will be taking you and your family on a kayaking expedition. I would.

Businesses coming to you for janitorial supplies probably care a bit less. Your business patina is more important than the personalities driving it. Chances are you and your page fall somewhere in between.

Garbage In, Garbage Out
It's an old IT adage, but it applies to your profile and page content as well. More human resource managers and personnel agencies are searching applicant Facebook pages than ever before, in fact it's quickly becoming the top clearinghouse for information on a personal level. Much can be learned about you from your network of friends and their posts to your wall.

This might be a good time to do a little editing, or in some of your cases, a lot. Remember, your personal page is just a click away from your business page. Do you care if your potential visits discover that what you did in Vegas ended up on your buddy's wall? Take a look at status updates and pictures with the eye of your personifications and see what may keep people from liking you.

Sex, Religion and Politics
Probably safe to say that we're living in the most polarizing contexts that this world has seen. If you were invited to your significant other's parent's home for dinner, what topics of conversation would you avoid? Your page should bear the same observation. For me, that's tough to do, so I've created a blog far away from my page, with no link (at least within seven degrees of separation) that might plop the wrong eyes onto my more outspoken, irreverent rants and insights.

Guilt by Association
Joining groups, are you? Been liking a lot lately?  Let's see; a cursory check on my page shows John Stewart and the Daily Show, People Should Have to Take a Test and Pass an Interview Before They're Allowed to Reproduce, NPR, my son's racing page, Karen Marguth, Top Gear, Kayaking, and We Can Find a Million People who Believe in Evolution... to name a few. What can be derived from these?

And links? Holy smokes. Fortunately, I can edit. 

Vigilance
Watch and read your page(s) on a regular basis. You never know what's going to be posted by your more colorful friends, or what's been hacked onto your likes and groups.

Can you trust a Facebook profile?

Best Practices

Must-reads to add to your blogroll:

Mashable
AllFacebook
Inside Facebook
Social Media Examiner
Enterprise 2.0

The Web is Dead

From Wired Magazine

Some definitions:

FTP - File Transfer Protocol - FTP is usually used to send files from computers to hosting webservers when creating a website. It can also be used as a means of "downloading" files from other servers. FTP is sometimes used to send files from one computer directly to another.

DNS - Domain Name Systems - The DNS is a record, located at the registry, that converts IP addresses from numbers into names, i.e. 123.456.789.0 to www.yourdomain.com. This record tells a browser where your web site is located and also tells mail servers where to route your mail to. If the DNS isn't set-up properly your domain name won't work.

Telnet - A network protocol that enables one computer to communicate with another via the Internet.

Newsgroups - Newsgroups are Internet discussion forums where groups of users with common interests gather to talk about everything from software to comic books to politics.

Peer-to-Peer - Peer-to-peer is a communications model in which each party has the same capabilities and either party can initiate a communication session.

How does this impact you? Leave your comments below.

Stakeholders and Customers

Stakeholder Needs
It's syntax, but it's meaning needs to be understood. If you're working for a large organization, corporation, non-profit organization small business, or a government entity, the stakeholders range from investors and board members, to management and administration, and to peers and colleagues. What you do in representing your organization on Facebook directly impacts its people.

If you're the sole proprietor, and many of you are, you are the stakeholder. It's a term derived from the days of the great Western land rush. Settlers moving west were organized in territories and were enabled to claim parcels of land by going out into the territory and literally staking a claim; driving a large wooden stake into the ground. These pioneer flippers were considered stakeholders. And here you are, virtual stake in hand, ready to stake your claim in the territory of Facebook.

What are your needs? What are the needs of your other stakeholders? Take a look at the questions below from Facebook Marketing:

• What does the stakeholder think of social media?
• Is the stakeholder using Facebook and/or Twitter?
• What are your organization's best campaigns for dealing directly with customers?
• How can your organization improve customer engagement?
• What does social media success mean?
• How does social media marketing increase workload?

Customer Needs
Shakespeare used the word customer to mean "prostitute." The late 14th century discovered the term to mean buyer, though it evolved over the next one hundred years to mean, "a person with whom one has dealings," and a bit later, "a person to deal with," as in tough customer.  

News flash: they're all tough customers these days. The text explains that despite Facebook's remarkable population, most of its inhabitants are reticent to click ads and visit pages, too darn busy playing Farmville. Hopefully you've created a dozen or so personas of your customers. The next step is to qualify their needs.  Facebook Marketing asks these questions:

• What do they do on social networks?
• How much time do they spend on Facebook?
• How often do they log in and how long do they stay once they get there?
• What annoys them about Facebook?
• Are they fans of other companies on Facebook or follow such on Twitter? Which ones?
• Have friends recommended pages on social media. Which ones and why?
• What are you willing to share with your friends?

What other questions do you have? Add three of four more that deal specifically with your theme or campaign.

Lay the Groundwork

Set Project Goals

• Increased Sales
• Campaign Content Updates
• Improved Customer Service