Earlier this week Kitchen Aid fielded a social media disaster very well. Not so for The Daily Show and the O’Reilly Factor. Neither of their Twitter accounts @TheDailyShow nor @OReillyFactor monitored the event nor responded to customer complaints.

The worst display on record in responding to a public tech crisis goes to Nox Solutions. Apparently, Bill O’Reilly set up the debate and used his tech company to manage the live streaming. Their capability to handle this was not adequately vetted by either of the participants. $4.95 would be collected to watch a live stream of the debate, and to have access to three downloads. Half of the net profits would go to charity. Obviously, the expenses that were paid before net profit included Nox Solutions.

What happened is that people who attempted to register close to the event could not get access to the site which was already buckling under customers coming in early to set up to watch. On Twitter and on Google Plus there were hundreds of complaints. The Twitter hash tag for the debate was #Rumble2012. A new hash tag sprung up called #RumbleFail. Nox Solutions does not have company accounts on Twitter nor Google Plus.

Fifty minutes into the debate there was finally an acknowledgement on the Twitter stream set up for the debate @theRumble2012 that there was an issue. They apologized and told followers that a download would be available later after the debate. I don’t know who owns that Twitter account.

Due 2 overwhelming demand, our servers have been overloaded.We apologize for any inconvenience and we’re working to resolve the issue.

— The Rumble 2012 (@therumble2012) October 7, 2012

Nox Solutions an hour into the debate posted an apology on their Facebook saying don’t worry, the download would be available later. People immediately began commenting on the thread asking when the download would be available. Apparently frightened, Nox Solutions shut down their Facebook wall completely!

What is the damage so far to Nox Solutions? Early indications can be found with some disgruntled customers who found their Yelp account and began pounding it with negative reviews.

Ironically Nox Solutions claims on their website that they deliver solutions for “online reputation management”!

Next steps:
There should be apologies and explanations on all of the major social media channels.
The debate parties should ensure that the archive is provided free to the public. They might wait a day or two to provide the value of seeing it first to those who paid for the video.
There are those demanding refunds. That is a bigger issue that I am not going to attempt to address here.

Lessons to be learned:

1. Select your service providers carefully. Just because a company you already work with claims they can provide other services, you should still do your due diligence to make sure they have that capability. Especially if it is a big important project
2. Never leave your social media accounts unmonitored. It doesn’t matter if it is Saturday. Especially during a big event.

I would love to know more about what went wrong with the Nox Solutions servers. I would assume that the type of solution a company like RackSpace would provide where cloud bandwidth is increased when necessary, or Amazon backup is what they needed in this circumstance.

Alex Kantrowitz from Forbes on the incident.

I got busy on a client call and didn’t get to registering for #Rumble2012 until 15 minutes before the event. The tech platform was already failing then. I decided to just follow the tweets since I couldn’t get on. I tweeted a bit then chronicled the debate and the tech failure on my Google Plus – where there were complaints but no live posts about what was happening in the debate.

I had been looking forward to Rumble 2012 since seeing it introduced on the Daily Show with a charming visit from Bill O’Reilly. I put the link for registration up on Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter.

New Yorker article on Stewart vs O’Reilly #Rumble2012 ow.ly/eh2rZ by @erinoverbey the men and their relationship

— Linda Sherman Gordon (@LindaSherman) October 6, 2012

Kathy Gill did a very nice Storify for the Moderate Voice using tweets from the debate. Several of the tweets she selected were people exclaiming that they were very happy to spend $4.95 to watch this intellectually pleasing, substantive yet entertaining debate.

Tech issues aside, #rumble2012 was great. Substantive conversation, respectful disagreement and the best debate we’ll see in this campaign.

— Scott Smith (@ourmaninchicago) October 7, 2012

Learned at #rumble2012: O’Reilly/Stewart proved that we can have a stimulating debate that makes us think. Was a refreshing No Hate Zone.

— Jim Gilchriest (@JimWAVY) October 7, 2012

Well that’s about the best political debate anyone is going to see this year. #Rumble2012

— Erik Childress (@EriktheMovieman) October 7, 2012

The debate is worth watching. However you finally watch it, I’m sure you will enjoy it. There should be something for everyone.

Updates:
We all looked for a Twitter account for Nox Solutions during the event, couldn’t find one and gave up. One popped up around 9PM est on the night of the incident with apologies and some responses to tweets. At first I thought that it was real and they were trying to be funny but Kathy Gill pointed out that it is much more likely this is a spoof account and I have to agree.

So, like, would you guys be cool if we sent you some Kit Kats? Call this whole thing an “unfortunate incident”? @therumble2012#Rumble2012

— Nox Solutions (@NoxSolutionsLLC) October 7, 2012

@alsgaardgeorge whoa, whoa, whoa … we were just MOSTLY in charge of the sound. OKAY!? … ugh, we’re so bankrupt #smh #rumble2012

— Nox Solutions (@NoxSolutionsLLC) October 7, 2012

@faithantion but we specialize in Online Reputation Management! Our thought: “If the angry mobs at your door … fuck it, let’em burn ya!”

— Nox Solutions (@NoxSolutionsLLC) October 7, 2012

@rokuplayer @ebertchicago WHOOOOOPS!

— Nox Solutions (@NoxSolutionsLLC) October 7, 2012

I promote Stewart vs. O’Reilly on ROKU on FB and Twitter and can’t log in myself. Bad image for ROKU. #therumble2012

— Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago) October 7, 2012

As of 10:00pm EST Tuesday Oct 9 – still no tweets from @TheDailyShow nor @OReillyFactor regarding the tech failure.
After watching these two Twitter accounts for the past few days, I have come to the conclusion that the tweets are proposed, approved and pre-scheduled well in advance of posting and there is no monitoring of or response to social mentions.

I JUST found the Facebook Page for the event. This page did provide a place for customers to vent. Unfortunately, there is no link to this on the Runble2012 event website although they did provide a link to the event Twitter stream.

The Wall Street Journal pre-announced they would live blog the event. They had trouble getting on but finally did blog some of the action. There were 1,346 comments as of Oct 8 1:30pm est and the I would say over 90% of them were about the technical failure. One comment at Oct 7, 2:27am est, said that Nox Solutions “have gotten caught in the past with a security breach of their systems, which allowed thousands of customer’s private information to be compromised because they store everything in ‘plain text’” but I could not find anything about that online.

I caught a comment from Benjamin Hubbard on the event Facebook Page saying, “Bill is using his website to give the streaming away for free if you buy his 1 month membership at the same price meaning less money would go to the charities…please share.” I have not verified this myself by going to Bill O’Reilly’s website.

Actually I was on the Facebook event page looking for a comment I had seen the day before (which I should have copied off then) from someone without a Facebook avatar, with the name Micky(?), saying something to the effect that they would come back to the Facebook fans next week regarding the refund issue. But they did communicate the same thing by adding a post directing us to their website for “More info about on-demand access and all of the charities benefiting from The Rumble” and the therumble2012.com website said the following as of 7:30pm on October 8. But they later deleted the apology and mention of a refund in the first three sentences.

We understand many viewers had difficulty streaming the debate when it began. These issues have been resolved and the show is now available both on-demand and via download. For anyone who was unable to view The Rumble live and no longer wishes to do so, refund information will be available early next week. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused. One-half of the net profits from “The Rumble 2012″ will be donated by Jon and Bill to benefit charitable causes such as: New York Collaborates for Autism, Wounded Warrior Project, Fisher House Foundation, Alzheimer’s Association, Boomer Esiason Foundation, Doctors Without Borders, Tuesday’s Children, Portrait Project, NYC Coalition for the Homeless, Project A.L.S., Bob Woodruff Foundation, Haitian Health Foundation, The USO, Responsibility, Childcare, Best Friends Foundation and FealGood Foundation.

O’Reilly said that a refund will be provided for those who request it. His statement is at the beginning of a 4 minute video on the Huffington Post of O’Reilly speaking to George Stephanopoulos on “ABC This Week” on Sunday. He said that servers crashed and people can still buy the video for $4.95. NO apology. There is no indication that it will made generally available.

Someone mentioned that there were apologies at the news conference following the debate. I searched for something about that and found this article from the George Washington University (the venue) student newspaper but it doesn’t mention apologies. If anyone has found apologies from O’Reilly or Stewart, please let me know.

Monday night, October 8th on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart immediately addressed the tech issue with a sincere apology. I was very pleased. Here is the full episode video archive from The Daily Show site.

October 9th, Kathy Gill provided a useful update of the tech and social media snafus to PBS Digital Shift that includes her tweet Storify that I mentioned earlier.

All candidates go on to the general election Nov 6

Kauai County Council – seven seats available

NAKAMURA, Nadine K. 9,044 13.37%
FURFARO, Jay 8,073 11.94%
YUKIMURA, JoAnn A. 8,065 11.93%
RAPOZO, Mel 7,948 11.75%
KAGAWA, Ross K. 7,532 11.14%
KUALI’I, KipuKai L.P. 6,917 10.23%
HOOSER, Gary L. 6,847 10.13%
BYNUM, Tim 6,800 10.06%
CHANG, Dickie (Walaau) 6,394 9.46%

Prosecuting Attorney, County of Kauai

KOLLAR, Justin F. 6,883 50.71%
ISERI-CARVALHO, Shaylene 6,691 49.29%

Are you in communication with your local representatives on social media such as Facebook and Twitter?

Social media, including an updated website, is a tool that can help politicians communicate with their supporters and constituents. On Kauai, our political participants vary in their command of this tool. Kauai has not traditionally been a place where online communicaton matters. But gradually it will matter more and more.

The Facebook profiles and Pages of these candidates pop up easily when you search their name on Facebook. For Twitter, type in their name at this Twitter name search link.

Last night I checked in on all the candidates to see what they were doing on Facebook and Twitter. You might find this interesting as well. Facebook is much more popular and for Kauai internal communication, certainly more important for local politicians. Twitter is a good tool for communicating with the world outside of Kauai. But if you get onto Twitter, don’t forget that part of the game is to monitor mentions and respond.

To learn more about how to use these tools and more well for politics, non-profits and business, take advantage of the inexpensive social media classes that KCC-OCET has made available to Kauai through September.

Does social media matter for politics on Kauai? What do you think?

Here is your advance road map.

To set up a new Facebook Fan Page, you must have a Facebook profile.

Note that Facebook Pages are alternatively called Fan Pages and Brand Pages. These names refer to the same thing. A Facebook Page gets “likes”. A Facebook profile has “friends”.

You will manage your Facebook Page with your Facebook profile. Make sure that the Facebook profile you use belongs to your business. You should not be concerned about using a personal Facebook profile for your small business. If you add another administrator to help you with the Page, they cannot access your personal Facebook profile. If you loath the idea of having a personal profile on Facebook, adjust the settings so that your personal profile is not open to search and just keep your presence limited. You can still use it to friend your family so you can finally see those photos they’ve been begging you to come see.

To begin, let’s start by going to the start page. You will find “Create A Page” in several places on Facebook, including at the top right of any Facebook Page you visit but for your convenience here is the link:

Start screen for creating a Facebook Page link on Facebook where you will create your Page.

Select your Facebook Page category.
When you click on any of these category boxes, it will open to an entry form for you. You can click on each one to see how the ingredients differ.

Click on one of the Page categories and a sign up form appears

Facebook will let you know if the Page name you enter is already taken. Note that I had only entered the word “Chickens.” Facebook converted this to “Fans of Chickens.”

Chicken is already taken as a Page

Facebook will help you to create a title that fits a proper title format

Facebook adjusts my selected title ‘service dog training Kauai’ to ‘Service dog training Kauai’

Add profile photo screen

Set up your about box

It would be a good idea to already know what you want your vanity URL to be. However, if for some reason you have not yet been able to decide or get company agreement on this, you can always come back and get your vanity URL by going to the Facebook User Name link.

Choose your vanity URL here. To come back later use Facebook.com/Username

Now Facebook will highlight one section of your admin dashboard at a time to allow you to fill in information. Note that the advantage of having used your one real Facebook profile is that it is now much easier to invite Your Friends. For your address book, you will probably want to skip this step and come back after your Page is a bit more ready. Even then, do consider what a blast to all your contacts entails. We are talking ALL.

Think carefully about whether you want to blast email your new Page to all your address book contacts or not

An invitation to share something during your Facebook Page setup

Take advantage of adding a photo representing the founding of your organization 843 X 403 pixels

Manage your permissions

Ready for more? My introduction to Facebook Timeline for Brand Pages goes into some more advanced areas including how to set up custom covers for apps.

If you are on Kauai, you can learn this and much more at my Social Media for Business and Non-Profits class at KCC-OCET.

What:
We will have two main speakers:
Ben Sullivan, Energy Coordinator, County of Kauai
Michael Dexter Smith, creator of Twisted Plastics
Glenn Sato, Sustainability Manager, County of Kauai, will be available to make a few comments and answer questions

Sustainability Forums Kauai always enjoys a spirited discussion. The people who attend are genuinely concerned about sustainability on Kauai, including independence from imports for food, alternative energy and other related issues.

When:
Monday July 30
9am – 11am

Where:
Sweet Marie’s Hawaii
3-3204 Kuhio Highway
Lihue

Cost:
$10 includes brunch

RSVP:
Please RSVP here in comments and on our Facebook event.
Our Facebook event for the July 30 Sustainability Forum

Sustainability Forums Kauai Social Media
We publicize our events and generate discussion using social media tools.
To talk about this event on Twitter and Facebook, please use this event URL: http://bit.ly/SFKJuly30
On Twitter our # is #SFKauai
If you have not done so yet, please join Sustainability Forums Kauai Facebook Page
Sweet Marie’s Twitter is: @SweetMariesHI
Sweet Marie’s Facebook Page
And please share this event from our Facebook Page or post on your own.

Sustainability Forums Kauai Speakers for July 30

Ben Sullivan is the Energy Coordinator for the County of Kauai. Previously, he served for three years as one of nine elected Directors to the KIUC Board, the last two years as Chair of KIUC’s Strategic Planning Committee. Ben got involved in Kauai’s renewable energy efforts in 2005 when he co-founded Apollo Kauai, a community group advocating an aggressive transition to clean energy for our island.

Ben has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado’s College of Architecture and Planning and has worked for almost two decades in the field of architecture. He has also worked part time for the local non-profit Malama Kauai and is involved in numerous community projects around the Island. Ben is a husband and father of three and lives in Lawai. 

Michael Dexter-Smith is General Partner of Pine Brook Ventures (dba Xtremesoft Inc.) which funds Innovative Software, medical and computer appliance ideas, helps deploy new products and materials, devises and deploys new economic models, and finds and exploits innovative solutions and logistical concepts to removing or repurposing waste and pollution in our world.
 
As part of Pine Brook Ventures, Michael has established an entity called Twisted Plastics which has three projects underway – the reuse of plastic bags in the third world, the use of plastic bottles to clean streams and rivers of pollutants and the reuse of plastics from the sea, using an accelerant which allows bacteria to more easily breakdown the long strand plastics.
 
Michael Dexter-Smith is hoping that by devising economically sound, logistical methods and processes to recycling or repurposing that waste can be seen as an asset to exploit, rather than a problem to be buried.

Additional Bios
Glenn Sato
Glenn Sato, former Energy Coordinator for the County of Kaua’i, started his new job as the County’s new Sustainability Manager in September 2011. Glenn has a biology degree from the University of Hawai’i and has worn a variety of hats during his career, including chief biologist; aqua-farm manager; papaya farmer; environmental consultant; purchasing specialist; economic development specialist; economic development director and energy coordinator.

His diverse background included preparing biological surveys, environmental assessments and environmental impact statements, running an aquaculture operation with an off-grid hydroelectric system and being appointed Director of Economic Development from 1991-1994. In the aftermath of Hurricane Iniki in 1992, he secured over $15 million in Economic Development Administration Federal Disaster Aid grants for economic recovery efforts. Funds were used for construction of the Fruitfly Disinfestation Facility, Kaua’i Resource Center, Waimea Theatre restoration, Waimea Technology Center, Kekaha Agriculture Park and the production of an Overall Economic Development Plan for Kauai.

As Energy Coordinator, he initiated the County’s first public bus system, a used oil collection program, and implemented the first government Energy Savings Performance Contract in the state in 1995. Glenn describes his past position as multi-faceted, covering areas such as Public Utilities Commission dockets and investigations; energy efficiency; renewable energy; recycling and re-use; energy emergency preparedness and grant writing. His most rewarding and challenging project to date was the installation of a 10.4 kW photovoltaic power system for Ni’ihau School in 2007. This particular project used federal funds to provide solar power for a state school located on a private island, which was coordinated by the county because the state was ineligible to apply for or receive this particular U.S Dept. of Agriculture grant. Glenn also closed out his role as Energy Coordinator with the installation an 84 kW PV system at the L?hu‘e Civic Center, a 26 kW PV system at the Kai?kea Fire Station in Kapa‘a and the purchase of 5 electric cars and the installation of 10 charging stations at county facilities.

Glenn is currently developing Kaua‘i’s sustainability program with the creation of a Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory. This will be followed by a Kauai Government Operations Action Plan to improve energy and resource use. Improvements and successes for the government program over time will use verifiable metrics as key indicators. A longer-term goal is to develop a sustainability plan for the island of Kaua‘i. Glenn has been with the County for 24 years and looks forward to new challenges as its first Sustainability Manager.

Sustainability Forums Co-Founders Jai Roberts and Linda Sherman

Jai Roberts
Jai Roberts owns Honua Lani Gardens and has been growing – and bringing to market – beautiful tropical flowers for many years without using any chemical pesticides or chemical fertilizers. She has always believed in creating living soil, composting, and teaching young people eco-friendly living techniques. Her Honua Lani Gardens hosts participants in the Willing Workers on Organic Farms worldwide program. One of her newest passions is her Garden Cart, where she shares the bounty of her gardens with her friends and neighbors.Jai is Club Service Director of the Kapaa Rotary Club and initiated the the chapter’s Green Giants awards program to find and honor the greenest person on Kauai. Find Jai on Twitter @Gardens4Life, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+,Facebook Profile and HonuaLani Facebook Page

Linda Sherman
A resident of Kauai since 2004 and passionate about sustainability, Linda Sherman is known as a multicultural marketing pro, bringing a distinguished background of international subsidiary CEO/CMO to her Social Marketing expertise. The Garden Island has published Linda’s Social Marketing column and she teaches at KCC-OCET. Linda built, search engine optimized and writes for this WordPress site as well as Our Best of Kauai, Boomer Tech Talk and It’s Different For Girls. Linda’s company, Courage Group specializes in providing digital film and innovative marketing programs including website development for companies on Kauai like Papalani Gelato and Turtle Cove Suites. Find Linda on Twitter @LindaSherman @KauaiTalk @BoomerTechTalk, and on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook Profile Google+

As many of you know, bringing the voice of Kauai to the internet is a passion of mine. Many business owners on Kauai are now realizing that they need to understand the tools of social media to reach new customers.

We got a very nice turn-out for the social media marketing seminar that the Chamber of Commerce of Kauai hosted on June 29th at the OCET facility.

The June 29th social media marketing seminar provided an overview of social media and an introduction to some important new platforms including Pinterest and Instagram. Though the seminar was well received, it became obvious that many of the participants wanted a deep dive by topic. We could also see that some participants needed a beginning class and some were ready for intermediate level discussion. Peggy Lake, the fabulous training coordinator for OCET recognized these factors and initiated this series to address the social media marketing learning requirements of Kauai.

All of the course details can be found on the OCET site in the Business and Professional Development section.

I can tell you with confidence that my classes in August, September and December got very positive reviews and the students got value from the classes. Some of those reviews are below:

What:
Social Marketing for Business Series
Instructor Linda Sherman
Each class in the series is unique so you can sign up for one or all of them

When:
Next series begins January 22 with classes scheduled through mid-April.
Tuesdays: 1pm – 4pm
Thursdays: 10am – 1pm
Classes include:
Beginning Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus and YouTube
Intermediate Facebook, Twitter and GooglePlus
Pinterest
How to Watermark Your Photos Using PhotoShop Elements
Getting Started with Social Media Marketing, an Overview for Business Owners and Managers
Each session stands on it’s own

Cost:
Extremely affordable at $39 or $19.50 with ETF support. Your business or non-profit should qualify to receive 50% assistance through the ETF (Employment and Training Fund). You can contact David Longmore at Workwise 274-3056 for information about this great tuition break.

At this price, your business or non-profit cannot afford not to invest in know-how that will more than pay back in the viability of your enterprise.

How to Register:
Call KCC-OCET at 808-245-8318.
Registering at least 5 days before the class ensures that the class will run.

Tuition Refund Policy:
100% tuition refund will be provided to withdrawal requests received at least 3 working days prior to the class meeting day. Refund requests can be made by phone, fax, email, or postal mail (postmarked date will be used).

Where:
Kauai Community College, KCC-OCET, Lihue
3-1901 Kaumualii Hwy, Lihue 96766 Cross street: Puhi Road
KCC OCET is the Office of Continuing Education and Training of the University of Hawaii for Kauai
We meet in Classrooms 103 and 105 and Computer Labs
You should be notified which room we are in when you register. The room number should be on the online schedule in the Business and Professional Development section
There is usually a sign that says what room we are in when you enter the building. Note the front door of the KCC-OCET building has the bookstore on one side and the KCC-OCET office on the other side.
There is a blue circle on the map here showing you where the building is. When you enter from Kaumualii Highway, it is the low-rise second building that you see.

Why:
A shift has occurred in what it takes to market to new customers and communicate with existing ones. Whether your customers are visitors or residents of Kauai, more and more of them are turning to the internet to find your small business or non-profit. You will learn how social media marketing fits into your overall marketing plan. Even if you plan to have someone else run your social media programs for you, you show learn how to set up and manage that support and know enough to delegate with authority.

Pick and choose which classes you want or take all of them. You wil get a deep dive of the important social media tools including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus, YouTube, Instagram and FourSquare. Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are split into courses for beginners and intermediate users

The classes have been set at three hours each because Linda Sherman has found in working one-on-one training clients in social media marketing that three hours is the optimal block of time for a student to effectively learn these new skills. Note that we have also set up the classes so that you can take the beginning session of a topic on Tuesday of one week, and the advanced session for the same topic in the following week. This allows ambitious students to work on what they learned for eight days in between sessions.

Reviews from Students:
“Very useful”
“Lots of good information and very thorough”
“Fun”
“Like the hand’s on”
“Love that you offer these classes”

KCC-OCET Intermediate Facebook Class September 13, 2012

Sharing
We would be grateful if you share the information about this class with your friends and colleagues. If you are sharing on Twitter, here is the shortened link for you http://bit.ly/KCCLS. The KCC-OCET twitter address is: @KauaiCCOCET. There is a FourSquare check-in for your FourSquare and Instagram check-ins before, during or after class. For Facebook Check-ins and links, the KCC-OCET Facebook Page. My Twitter addresses are @LindaSherman and @KauaiTalk.

Hope to see you at one of the classes!

Here is the 2013 Calendar through Mid-April

Thank you for joining us in prior classes:
We just completed:
December 4, 6, 11, 13
1pm – 4pm
December 4: Intermediate Facebook
December 6: Intermediate Twitter
December 11: Introduction to Google Plus and YouTube
December 13: Intermediate Google Plus

Flyer from August – September 2012 Classes:

If you have a business on Kauai, you should take advantage of this opportunity to learn how to use the internet to promote your business.

When:
Friday, June 29
8:00 am Registration and Continental Breakfast
8:30 am – 10:30 am Panel Discussion

Cost:
Free to Kauai Chamber members
$10 to non-members

Where:
Kauai Community College
Office of Continuing Education and Training
Room 104

Registration Deadline
June 28 – but walk-ins are welcome and your cash payment will be accepted at the door

Register by the end of day June 28th directly to the Kauai Chamber of Commerce. You can do so by phone at 808-245-7363 or fill out the Registration form and fax to the chamber.

I am excited that the Kauai Chamber of Commerce chose three women entrepreneurs on Kauai to help you learn about social marketing. I call this the Power Women Marketing Panel.

I have prepared slides for the presentation and will begin with an overview. My co-panelists, Tanya Temme owner of Kauai.com, Michelle Harrington owner of Emagine Web Marketing will be there with me to help answer your questions and talk about how social media marketing is used in their businesses. Lori Cardenas owner of Aunty Lilikoi will share her wisdom with us as well.

This Kauai Chamber of Commerce event serves as our one day early International Social Media Day celebration for Kauai. Last year we had a great Social Media Day Kauai discussion.

- Extend your brand personality and story with images
- Draw people to particular articles, pages or products on your website
- Publicize your participation in a trade show
- Engage with your brand advocates
- Get feedback on which of your product images are appealing from customers and prospects
- Protect your brand name by securing your Pinterest user name before someone else does
- Promote travel destinations by offering images to be shared across Pinterest for bucket lists
- Provide a link to a specific e-commerce product page for a sale
- Find out how customers are using your product
- Get ideas from what your competitors are doing
- Live pin a fashion show
- Reach new visitors who might not find you through other means

Trade Shows
High Point Market uses Style Spotters for their trade shows
Kauai Visitors Bureau promoted Kauai businesses exhibiting at the International Flower Show by creating a board

How Customers Use Product
Chobani gets ideas for new products from customers’ pins illustrating what they mix in their yogurt

Competitors
Use the Curalate dashboard to track four competitors

Fashion Show
Live pinning a fashion show allows you to show your new collection, while engaging customers and creating content for blogs and trade publications to use to publicize your brand. Oscar de la Renta and others have done this.

New Visitors
Daily Grommet reported in March that “83% of Pinterest visits are from new visitors”.

The following infographic comparing buying behavior related to Facebook and Pinterest is based on the social shopping market research survey published by SteelHouse on May 29.

A market survey with Pinterest users is certainly welcome. Having worked for six years as a director in a large market research company (then called Japan Market Research Bureau – part of J Walter Thompson), I am itching for survey data.

I wrote about why you should be on Pinterest for The Garden Island Newspaper.

You will find valuable tips on my How To Use Pinterest Board on Pinterest.

I am proud to be hosting a panel on How Big Brands Are Using Pinterest to Drive Business at BlogWorld Expo Social Media Business Summit NYC June 7 at 2:30. If you can’t make it in person to this great conference, I highly recommend buying a virtual ticket. This gives you archives of all of the sessions as well as daily bonuses during the conference. Use my speaker discount code BLindaS10 for a 10% discount when you purchase your BlogWorld ticket or virtual ticket

Even if you are not a Big Brand there are things you can learn about what to do on Pinterest from select Big Brands on Pinterest since early this year. I purposely focused on brands that have relevant similarities to a broad range of businesses in this article.

I address some basic Facebook points and offer a few precautions at the end of this article for those of you who are still a bit fuzzy on Page versus Profile.

Facebook Brand Page Timeline Design Considerations

Because one of The Courage Group services is design, we quickly made note of the design specifications that Facebook gave for Timeline.

Cover Photo
851 X 315 pixels (851 pixels wide by 315 pixels high)
Facebook instructs that this photo cannot be less than 399 pixels wide.

Profile Photo
This sits in the little insert in the bottom left of your cover photo and is also used wherever you comment around Facebook as your Page as well as appearing in news feed stories, ads, and featured stories.
180 X 180 pixels. This will need to scale to a 32 X 32 pixels thumbnail image.

Views and Apps
These are the row of four boxes under your cover photo.
111 X 72 pixels (111 pixels wide by 72 high). 280 X 180 pixels is working well for us.

Milestone Photo
You can add milestones, such as the year your shop opened to your Timeline.
843 X 403 pixels (843 pixels wide by 403 pixels high)

Click on the word “Opened” for a milestone example at this small business Page for Jive Time Records. Though they have added the milestone correctly, the photo they chose isn’t wide enough so it shows gray space to right and left of it.

Landing Page for Apps
Page app width can now be adjusted to be Narrow (520 pixels) or Wide (810 pixels) in the Developer App under “Edit App”.

Take Advantage of the New Customizable Covers on Views and Apps

Before Timeline, links to your apps were small, now they are very visible on your Page. Create attractive images for these. For instance if you have a newsletter, you could use one of these covers to call out the benefits of your newsletter. The Turtle Cove Suites brand emphasizes the beauty of their experience in Poipu Kauai, so we went with images, rather than words.

You can have a total of 12 apps and views boxes. Photos will always be the first “views and apps” shown but you can control the order of the other boxes. Only the first 4 apps and views will be immediately visible on your Timeline. To see the remaining 8 apps and views, the visitor will need to click the number appearing to the right of the fourth box, which represents the number of additional apps/views. To change the order of the apps click on the pencil in the upper right of the box and choose one of the “switch position with” options.

You can no longer set a default tab for the landing page of your Brand Page but most of your apps should still work under Timeline. Please note that some apps may currently be displaying messages that they are ‘currently making adjustments and are not filling new orders at this time.’ Being able to provide a direct address to a specific app page within your Facebook Page still works, so you can still send people to your welcome page or a particular default that you want them to see when linking from an external site or email.

How To Customize Your App Images
Click on “Manage” at the top of your Admin page –> “Edit Page” –>Apps –> Edit Settings. Or you can hover over a current app. There will be a pencil in the upper right corner.

It appears that native Facebook apps and views are not customizable. These include: Photos, number of Likes, Notes, Videos, Events and Map. You can tell that an app image is customizable by what you see when you attempt to edit the settings. This is what an app or view that is not customizable will look like.

When you click on an app that is customizable, the first screen you see will look like this, except the name of the app will be yours.

After you adjust the name, if you wish, click on “change” for custom tab image and you will get this screen – of course, with the name of your Facebook Page and the default image for your app.

Now click “change” to be sent to your hard drive to choose a custom image to load. (That image should be 111 X 72 pixels or 280 X 180 pixels).

Direct Messages From “Fans” Are a New, Good Thing

A key component of social media marketing is customer service. You want people to be able to get messages to you. Better that they put a complaint in a private message than on your wall. You cannot direct message someone that has liked your Page unless they message you first. Be alert to responding to these messages and respond in a timely manner.

You can find messages from fans in the top right of your admin page.

Set Your Profile To Be Able To Post As Page and Yourself

Whether you are the creator of the Page or an additional admin, it is useful to be able to comment and “like” as yourself, as well as the Page. You should do updates mostly as the Page rather than as yourself because only Page updates show up in the Facebook Newsfeed of your fans.

In order to be able to choose to post as the Page or as yourself on the Page, you need to make sure that the setting to post only as Page is unchecked. To find this setting and ensure that it is unchecked, click on “Manage” at the top of your Admin page –> “Edit Page” –> “Your Settings”.

Note that as a Page, you can comment on the walls of other Pages that you “Like”. You cannot comment on the walls of personal profiles.

Facebook Cover Photo Guidelines

Facebook wants the cover photo to be an attractive image. Facebook requires that the image not include your website address, phone number or other contact information, nor a call to action such as a promotion or an arrow pointing to the Like button.

Take Advantage of Adding Links In Your About Box

You have a small About Box on the front of your Timeline below your profile photo to display your About summary. You can fit around 230 characters with spaces here. A link beginning with “www.” here will become a clickable link. You can use as many links here as you like, though more than two might limit your ability to write an attractive About message. If you have a physical address for your Page, by default your address, phone number and website will be shown here. But do take the time to fill out your About page completely. To make changes to this section, click on “Manage” at the top of your Admin page –> “Edit Page” –> “Basic Information” –> “About”.

Post Regularly

Ideally you should post daily. If you are posting less often than four times a week, that is really too infrequent. On the other hand, if you are posting more than two – at most three times – a day, that is too frequent.

Now You Can Pin One Message for Seven Days

You can now “pin” one important message to the top of your Timeline, which Facebook will retain in that position for a maximum of seven days. On each status update, you can utilize options that include “star” to expand your update across the page and “pin” to put your message at the top of the page.

The Like Button Now Shows as “Liked” and Drops Down to Interest List

The Like Button now shows as “Liked” and drops down to access Interest List choices.
You can seek to take advantage of interest lists with this new feature.

Posts from Fans Go to a Box on the Top Right

This is one of the less attractive new features if you enjoy having fan updates mixed with your own on your Page. Updates initiated by fans are now in a summary list and less noticeable to visitors. Of course fans can still comment on your updates. You will find incoming post notifications on the top left of your admin page. Be sure to monitor those incoming posts and like and respond to them appropriately.

Facebook Offers Now in Beta

Facebook Offers are currently only available to Facebook managed advertising accounts but this is potentially an appealing service for many companies on Facebook. Facebook Offers is a free service, though businesses will be encouraged to pay to broaden the audience for their coupon beyond their current fans. Einsteins Bros Bagels was pleased with the results of their first campaign – 10% of the 32,000 Facebook users who claimed a coupon for a buy one sandwich, get one free offer, redeemed it at a store. Facebook is able to provide data to the company on who claimed and who redeemed the coupons.

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Some Facebook Basics

Facebook Profiles Versus Facebook Pages

Can You Tell the Difference Between a Facebook Page and Facebook Profile?

You can easily identify the difference in this way: Facebook Pages get likes and Facebook profiles have friends. Some businesses and organizations are using Facebook profiles as brand pages, which is actually in violation of Facebook’s terms of service. The first name and last name of a profile should be a real person’s first and last name. Some have even set up personal profiles for a geographical location – claiming you are a geographical location is not only a violation of Facebook terms of service, it would appear to be unethical as well.

Especially with the new Facebook subscribe feature, it is perfectly acceptable to use a Facebook profile for business if the profile is your personal name not the name of your business. This may be appropriate for many professionals such as realtors.

Never Give Someone Control Over Your Facebook Page

If someone offers to set up a Facebook Page for you, make sure that it is set up with your Facebook profile. You should take the first step to create the Page yourself, and then make them an admin if need be. Or let them sit with you while they help you set up your own Page. You do not need to give anyone your Facebook password for this. It will be much easier to reclaim your Page if something goes awry in the relationship with the admin person you assigned. An admin on your Brand Page cannot access your personal Facebook profile information. You can keep your personal profile as private as you wish.

I am aware of one disturbing story on Kauai where a company set up a Facebook Page for a small business using his company logo. They told him that as a favor to him they would post on that business page. Instead, they did one post benefitting their own company and never posted again. The owner of the business that had this done to him requested access which was not given to him. He finally requested that the Page be taken down, a request which was ignored. This happened in May 2011 and as of March 29, 2012, he was still waiting for the Page to be taken down. If someone ever tells you they have done you this kind of “favor”, demand that they remove the Page immediately. Update: Finally in May it was taken down.

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Please feel free to share any notable Facebook Brand Pages you’ve found. We would especially be interested to see those with nice cover images on their apps.

At the same time, the word reunion comes up a great deal, accompanied with much hugging and smiles. Even for those attending for the first time, many of the names are familiar from interactions on-line and it is exciting to meet people. Aside from the many great sessions, the keynotes were outstanding, and as always the parties were excellent.

November 3rd to 5th in Los Angeles was my fifth BlogWorld and I enjoyed it immensely. I have seven blog posts in the making thanks to the wonderful people who granted me video interviews during the conference. In the interim, I wanted to share videos with you from these four social media and blogging rock stars.

Mari Smith Facebook Guru

Facebook For Business Tips

Michael Stelzner Founder Social Media Examiner

Why Google Plus

Facebook For Business

Darren Rowse ProBlogger

Smart Blogging From the Heart and How to Grow Your Community

Mack Collier Host BlogChat

Business Blogging

My photo album from BlogWorld

These photos include:
Chris Brogan and Guy Kawasaki before their excellent keynote on Google Plus.
Aisha Tyler, very smart and very funny in a closing keynote that was great overall. That panel was very well chosen and a warm up from stand up comedian Jordan Cooper was well prepared.
C.C. Chapman, Marsha Collier, Steve Garfield, Calvin Lee, Chris Camillo, John Andrews, Becky McCray, Sheila Scarborough, Rieva, Lynette Young, Delores Williams, Jim Farley and Dave Cynkin. You can also find these photos on my BWELA Flickr album. My iPhone photos from Peter Shankman’s outstanding keynote are in the Flickr set.

[Show as slideshow]

Special thanks to Jason Falls for yet another wonderful BWE party. Ray Gordon and I enjoyed some nice, relaxed one-on-one time with Dennis Yu and others there. BlogWorld never seems long enough to me. It is such a great place to catch up with and hug so many people that I know like Dave Taylor, Ric Dragon, Heather Meeker, Aliza Sherman, Scott Monty, Michele Price, Patti Serrano, Jessica Gottlieb, Michael Terpin, Liz Strauss, Jill Foster, Josepf Haslam, ShashiB and far too many to mention here.

There are always special surprises at BlogWorld. This time, one of them was a luncheon with Cloris Leachman sponsored by Network Solutions. Cloris was very funny during her appearance but kindly got serious with me for her tips to women.

Some useful BlogWorld LA 2011 Summaries:

Amber Avines Words Done Write Gold Star Awards BWELA
Deg Ng Kommein An Insiders View
Allison Boyd BlogWorld Links to 70 Plus BWELA Recaps and Takeaways

If you wished you had attended this conference, you can still get access to a “virtual ticket“, archives of the sessions with slides and audio as well as some videos, including Peter Shankman’s extremely entertaining keynote.

Going off island to attend conferences is something I do to keep my skills and knowledge base fresh. It is an added value I can provide back to my clients.

Please feel free to share your thoughts, or your own BlogWorld recap/photos with a link in comments.

What is a Twitter Chat?
Twitter Chats are subject specific gatherings on Twitter usually held weekly at the same time.
I find these alternatively referred to as tweet chats.

Twitter Chats are hosted by the founder or a couple of people who share the hosting. Sometimes a special guest co-host is brought in.

Why are Twitter Chats a Good Thing
On a chat you will meet people interested in a particular topic.

If you are just getting started on Twitter, at first it seems like no one hears you. On a Twitter chat, you are much more likely to be heard and enjoy interaction.

Twitter chats give you the opportunity to meet other people that you will want to follow and have a relationship with on Twitter. It is a good idea to engage them in some conversation because just following alone may not get a follow back if they don’t recognize you.

My client Jai Roberts started participating on the twitter chat called #GardenChat soon after she got on Twitter and it was a perfect fit for her. It’s always great to find a Twitter chat where not only can you learn, you can add value.

How To Participate
It is good to show up a little bit early. The first tweets will tell you what the twitter chat is about that time and allow participants to introduce themselves.

To find the chat, you will “search” for the #name of the chat. Let’s use #BlogChat as an example. All twitter chats have a name with no space that starts with #.

All of the tweets related to the Twitter chat will show up in that search stream.

Useful to Have Columns to Follow Twitter Chat
Personally, I like to do Twitter chats using a Twitter platform called Hootsuite. There are other platforms that allow you to make columns based on lists and search. This is one of them.

I set up one column to “search” the word #BlogChat

The column next to it, I set up to search my twitter name without the @. There I will be able to see both mentions of me and my sent tweets.

I need to remember to add #blogchat to every tweet.

It is easy to “retweet” on Hootsuite, adding a comment which is useful in a Twitter Chat. The #blogchat “hash tag” is already there in the tweet that I am retweeting.

Aside from tracking the chat with the two columns on Hootsuite, I have my iPhone nearby buzzing mentions through an app I use called Boxcar.

Many people like to use TweetChat or TweetGrid apps which add in the #name for you.

Don’t Worry if You Can’t Follow Everything
BlogChat is one of the first Twitter Chats and very active. If you are interested in blogging and would like to meet other bloggers and learn more about having a successful blog, this is a good chat for you.

Don’t worry if you can’t follow everything. The chat stream will go by very quickly. Just jump in where you can. If is Open Mic night you can ask any question you like relevant to blogging. You can answer someone who has commented or asked a question.

The more you come back to the same Twitter chats, the easier it will be as people will recognize you. But don’t be afraid to contribute. Just jump in!

Twitter Chat Schedule
This is the link to the google excel sheet that lists most of the Twitter chats on a large variety of topics. The originator of the concept of listing Twitter chats was Meryl Evans.

The Twitter chat known as #custserv is useful for both corporate and small business issues related to customer service. This is a well developed chat hosted by my friend Marsha Collier on Tuesdays at 9PM ET.

Please Don’t Spam
Don’t use Twitter Chat hash tags to just drop in a link to your website if you are not actually participating at the time. People will notice and you will do yourself more harm than good.

Come Join Us Tonight
The creator and host of BlogChat, Mack Collier is traveling home from BlogWorld tonight and I am guest hosting in his place.

We start at 9PM ET, 8PM Central, 6PM PST, 4PM Hawaii Time each Sunday and officially go for an hour but there is a warm up that is already going on and a cool down after the chat is over.

Tonight is Open Mic which means that you can ask any question you like and the chat will be quite free-wheeling.

Hope to see you there!