I’m loving playing around with the new Facebook Timeline,  I feel a bit like a kid with a new tool, there’s lots to learn and discover.  One thing is for sure.  Images are a huge part of the new design.  Your cover picture, your logo, your tabs, even featured of pinned stories look better with images.  Here’s all you need to know about those images, ideal sizes and a few tools that will help you create killer images to promote your page.

1. Cover Image

Dimensions 851 x 315 pixels

If you have a photo you can upload it full size and choose the section you would like to use as your cover photo.

This is a huge space for you to play with, it gives you the chance to really own your page.  The image you use should capture the essence of your brand.

Rules!

As with almost everything on Facebook there are rules around what you can and can’t do with your cover image, and as usual you can see them being broken all over the place.  However if you want to ensure you don’t loose your page you must abide by them.

Here’s what they say:

Facebook rules regarding cover images

Some Examples

Wiggle have a striking cover image with colours matching their branding

Greenside Up - Nature and the garden all in one image

Kerrigans Butchers - A friendly shop with friendly staff

2. Avatar / Logo

Dimensions 180 x 180 pixels minimum (displays as 125 x 125 pixels)

We may have gained space with the cover image but we’ve lost space with the avatar.  The old pages allowed us to create banners where we could feature not only our logo but some info about us and even a call to action.  The new avatar size allows just enough room for your logo.

3. Tabs

Dimensions 111 x 74 pixels

You can now display three apps underneath your header and you can customise the images that appear on them.  This gives you the opportunity to keep your branding consistent.  If you have a shop, a competition running or even a blog tab you can draw attention to them using customised images.

If you missed my video last week on how to feature tabs and how to add customise images to your tabs here it is again.

Examples

No Photoshop? Some Tools That Can Help

So Timeline gives us so many opportunities to show off beautiful images but if you don’t have photoshop how can you create them?  There are lots of free photo editing tools that you can play around with to create those images, here’s three of the best.

FotoFlexer

FotoFlexer is by far the most user friendly one I’ve used.  Simply upload photos, add filters, text, even re-size.  You can do all this online and save the completed image to your computer hard drive.

Aviary

Aviary is more complex and gives you far more tools and functionality.  Like FotoFlexer there’s no need for a download, you simply upload your images and edit them online.  The interface is more complicated, but you can do far more.  Aviary has a full suite of tools including screen grabbing outside it’s image editor app.

Gimp

Gimp is an open source image editing programme that unlike the other two needs to be downloaded to your computer.  This is the Rolls Royce of free image editing and it’s what I use.  It has massive capabilities for both editing and designing images.  The downside is that it can take a while to get your head around it, if you are used to Photoshop you will find the interface clunky in comparison.

Have you enabled Timeline yet?  Have you done something creative with your page?  Have you seen any creative cover images?  I’m always looking for examples so please do share your pages below.

I’ve found videocasting a really useful way to share information and tips with my social media community. It  is easy for me to direct a customer to a video on how to do something if I get stuck and it also draws people into my website and Facebook page.  It is my belief that there are lots of businesses out there that can benefit from videocasting, if you are brave enough to sit in front of a camera it’s worth giving it a shot.

If I’ve managed to convince you and are itching to get started here are some tools for shooting and editing your video and some quick tips on how to prepare yourself for the camera.

Hardware

You will need:

A webcam, camcorder, digital camera with video facility or a smart phone.

A microphone (for your computer).

Software

Screencasting - Record what’s going on on your computer screen

Jing Pro – I find this really easy to use, you can record mute or with a voiceover and save both to your computer and to the cloud.  The pro version is a must as it gives you file formats that are compatible with most editing.  For only $14.95 a year it’s a bargin.

Camtasia – From Techsmith, the same company as Jing this is a more complete solution and this is reflected in the price. As well as screencasting it offers editing, visual effects and more.  If your serious about videocasting this has to be the tool for you. Still well priced at $99 dollars (for mac) and $299 (for windows) with a free 30 day trial.

Editing

There are plenty of free tools out there for editing.

iMovie – If you have a mac, an iPhone or a iPad.  iMovie is a really easy to use editing application.  We’ve not tried the mobile version yet but the full version allows you to add attractive captions, images, as well as music and voice-over.  It’s simple and user friendly.

Movie Maker - Those running windows can use Movie Maker, again it’s simple to use if a bit clunky compared to iMovie.

YouTube - You can edit your videos on YouTube.  It’s not quite as straightforward as iMovie or  Movie Maker but it means you can edit from any computer and you don’t need to worry about file types (YouTube is more forgiving of different file formats) or downloads.  I found this excellent tutorial on editing on YouTube:

Broadcasting

YouTube – It’s essential you upload your videocasts to YouTube, it’s the king of online video sites and will almost guarantee a viewership.

TubeMogul – This application allows you to upload your video to one place and then syndicates it to a number of video sharing sites.  A massive time saver.

VideoJug – One of many sites that is full of online tutorials.  If your videocast is demonstrating how to do something it could be worth adding this to your places to broadcast.

Facebook – Don’t forget to add your videos to Facebook, uploading them directly to your business page makes them very easy to share within Facebook.  It’s harder to keep tabs on views but they are great for getting comments and interaction and carry more edgerank (as far as I can gather) than a link.

Prepare Yourself

1. Forget about the way you look.  This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t comb your hair but don’t focus too much on the way you look.  Most of us are self critical and staring at a walking talking image of ourselves can be quite disconcerting. I always tell myself that in 20 years time I’ll look back at my videos and think how young and healthy I looked.

2. Don’t read from a script. You must learn your script before talking to camera, reading it will mean looking away from the camera and distracting your audience, it can also make you sound quite wooden.

3. Treat the camera as a person. Look straight into the lens of the camera, this is like making eye contact with a person so it’s really important.  It also avoids you looking at yourself when you are recording so you don’t get distracted by the way you look.

4. Practice. I record all my rehersals in case I get it right the first time.  In reality this is less likely to happen, the first may take 20 – 30 takes but as you make more videos you will find yourself doing it in 3 or 4.

5. Be Yourself. Relax and be natural in front of the camera, this way your personality will shine through.  You are what makes your videocast different to the rest so don’t be afraid of being yourself.

Have you any tips to add?  Are you new to Videocasting and have a question?  I’d love to hear your comments and queries in the comments section below.

Do you remember what you used to do before you had a mobile phone? It’s a conversation that comes up in pubs, coffee shops and chats over and over again. I can remember what I did, I was a bit more organised, I was always standing around waiting for people indefinitely and I didn’t miss the web because it was still in it’s infancy. However I was without my smart phone for a few days last week and I soon became confused and lost.

There are other items I’ve got used to too, email for example and there are applications I use every day without fail that have embedded themselves in my life the same way the mobile phone has. Here are three that I don’t think I could live without.

1. Hootsuite

Hootsuite (affiliate link) is a social media management tool with so many essential features I often wonder how I got by without it. You can schedule, shorten and measure click throughs on links, easily see your Twitter @ replies and DM’s, search for specific terms, feed RSS feeds to your social media accounts.

It’s not just for Twitter either, you can add Facebook accounts (both profiles and pages), foursquare, Linkedin… and more. I have it open all day on a tab so I can monitor hashtags and search terms, if it disappeared I’d be utterly lost. There’s a free version and a feature heavy paid version, give it a go on the free version and you will never go back.

2. Dropbox

This runs on auto on all my computers and my phone.  It’s become so familiar I often forget that I use it but it’s brilliant in so many ways.

Dropbox (affiliate link)  allows you to share files with other computers. For someone like me who operates from several machines this is amazing. Install Dropbox on your computer and save the files you access the most to the folder on your desktop. When you update the files it automatically updates them to your Dropbox account. You can install Dropbox on multiple computers giving users access to specific folders or if like me you switch between laptop, netbook and phone you always have access to your files. I find this particularly handy when I’m working with clients on Facebook pages, we open a shared folder and can share images and large files through it.

You get generous space for free and if you invite others to Dropbox and they join you and they get extra space, hence the affiliate link above.

3. Google Reader

I’ve been talking about this a lot on my podcast recently. It really is a fantastic way of researching and keeping up with your favorite websites and blogs. I mine it for information, cool links and other stuff to share on my social media channels every day. It’s also a great way to monitor what people are saying about you, your company and your industry. If you want to learn more about it follow the series I’m broadcasting on my YouTube channel.

Recently TweetDeck added a new feature, Deck.ly allows users to post Tweets longer than 140 Characters. Although not the first product to offer this service, it’s connection to the popular TweetDeck means it’s been getting a lot of publicity.

Why 140 characters?

When Twitter was originally devised messages were sent via text. The standard length of a text message is 160 characters. At first there was no strict limit on the length of a Tweet but it would be split into parts if it went over 160. Eventually it was decided that a Tweet’s optimum length would be 140 characters. This allowed for the Tweet plus a user name and colon to fit into a single SMS.

Should we Tweet longer?

I like the discipline that comes with 140 characters, it makes it what it is. Because people are restrictive they get their point accross quickly, it eliminates the possibility of our streams getting swamped by chatterboxes – something I may well be guilty of -and is easily digestible. We all have time to scan a tweet, it’s the equivilant of watching a 30 second video when we may avoid watching something over a minute. The reaction to the question on Facebook was surprising. Although Krishna De agreed with me I was surprised by the many who thought a few extra characters would allow them to communicate better. If a message was limited to 160 characters would it make a big difference in the way we communicate? Die hard Tweeters were adamant that 140 was enough but should we be so rigid? Maybe it is time for a change but how could we determine the optimum length without the SMS restriction that defined it in the first place?

How to Tweet over 140 Characters

Love the idea or loath it the tools are available. If you’re a TweetDeck user upgrade to the newest version to take advantage Deck.ly that allows you to automatically post longer tweets. It simply adds a link to your Tweet that brings users to the full text. If you’re not a TweetDecker  Twitlonger does the same thing. All you need to do is log in with Twitter, type your oversized Tweet into the box and post. Just like Deck.ly it adds a link to your post pointing at the full text. The disadvantage of both of these is that they link off site. You would need to make your Tweet very compelling to encourage people to click the link to see the rest of your text. This makes your first 120 characters even more important, make sure you really sell your Tweet so that people will want to see what happens in the end. Is it time for Twitter to rethink the length of a Tweet? What is the optimum Tweet length? Let me know what you think, post your comments below.

It’s hard to believe that KLCK is four months old now, back in Kildare for the first time since our initial gathering it was great to see how this ‘thing’ that we created  had grown.  Lots of new faces this month with some great blogs and info to share.

The first section of the meeting was presented by John O’Connor from Red Oak Tax Refunds who talked about how to measure the success of a blog, not just how much traffic you are getting but, for those of us in Business, are these site visitors translating to sales or hard leads?  One of the strongest messages to come out of John’s presentation was to set objectives for your blog and measure their success.  Initially this could be traffic or bounce rate but as your blog progresses you may want to see blog readers using your contact form, subscribing to your newsletter or Liking your Facebook page.  We discussed the use of forms on blogs or websites.  Two of our members have experience of long forms not getting the expected results.  John had one amazing stat; since changing his standard contact form to an ‘apply now’ form and has found it 80% more effective.

We then opened the floor up for a round table discussion.  The amount of knowledge in the room was phenomenal, some brave volunteers showed us their blogs and asked for and gained  some great feedback.  We talked about finding inspiration for blogging and discussed some useful tools to help with the process.

There was no live feed this month due to technical issues but I did try and keep up with it all via Twitter.  You can click here to view the archive.

A big thank you to Johnstown Business Centre for hosting the meeting and filling us up with coffee, tea, biscuits and mini muffins

The next meeting will be in Carlow on the 8th of December, we will post details on our Facebook page and Linkedin group when we have them.  You can also join the KLCK mailing list and we will send you out details of all further meetings.

We also have a discussion group on Facebook if you want to get involved between meetups.

Have you ever logged into your Facebook page and found a post from one of your ‘Likers’ selling something?  Last week Facebook unveiled it’s new spam filter for pages, you may have missed it’s arrival so this week we show you how to use it and also show you another application that can help you combat spam on your Facebook page.

1. The Facebook spam filter

- Go to your Facebook page

- Click ‘options’ underneath the status update box

- This will open up your page filters, click ‘spam’

- It can take a little while to load this page.

- The filter will reveal any suspicious posts.  You can choose how to manage these by hovering your mouse over the post.  An x will appear to the top right hand side of the post.

- Click on this x and a drop down menu will appear giving you the option to ‘remove post’ ‘unmark as spam’ or ‘report as abuse’

2. Page Notifier

A few weeks ago on our Facebook page we highlighted Page Notifier as our Monday Morning Cool tool.  This is more than a spam filter. Page notifier scans your page and emails you when someone has posted or commented.  The free service scans once a day but there are a range of verry affordable premium options available increasing scanning up to every 15minutes every day.

The advantage of Page notifier is not only will you be aware of any spam the Facebook filter doesn’t pick up but you will also know when someone has left a comment on something on your page.

- To add the application to your page go to Page Notifier on Facebook.

- Click ‘Add to my page’ underneath the logo.

- Go back to your Page, click ‘edit page underneath your logo

- Choose ‘Applications’ from the side bar menu

- Scroll down until you find ‘Page notifier’

- Click ‘Go to application’

- You will be asked to complete your page details here.  If you have customised your URL and are unsure where to find your Page ID number go back to your page and click ‘edit page’ your ID is the numbers that appear in the url in the address bar in your browser here.

Combine the Facebook spam filter and Page Notifier and you should be able to kill spam for good.

Don’t forget to ‘Like’ our Facebook page for info on more cool social media tools.

Have you ever been to an event and eyed with envy the twitterfeed projected onto a screen displaying tweets using the event’s hashtag?

TwitterFall is a simple web based app which allows you to quickly set up a twitterfeed for your event.  Twitterfeeds are great ways to encourage user interaction at any event both for those attending and those watching on from home or work.

Follow us on Twitter for daily tips and cool links: @spiderworking

This is the last of our series of blog posts answering your social media questions from the recent contest.

Our first question comes from @marketingelves their website is here.

@marketingelves @Spiderworking are there any tools that would allow you to track what’s been said on twitter on a local (Ireland) basis #smq

Twitter have recently introduced geotweeting although not everyone is using it and it’s not 100% accurate.  It does mean that you can use Twitter’s in house ‘advanced search‘ to find local users. You can search by town or country.

Not as accurate but still useful is Tweepsearch, enter: location:”your town” into the search box and it will throw up results based on the information users have added to their profile.

Our last question is from @360Dvirtualtour their website is here.

@360Dvirtualtour @spiderworking can fb adverts target specific locations in ireland or must it be ‘ireland’?

Although Facebook does allow you to target by town in other parts of the world it has yet to introduce this for Ireland.  The official reason from the Facebook site is:

Unfortunately, our targeting capability internationally is still somewhat limited. Cities may not be available in certain countries due to the small number of users in these locations. Cities will be made available as Facebook traffic in the area increases.

If you have a social media question you would like us to answer leave a comment below or tweet it at us (@spiderworking) including ‘#smq’ in the post.

UPDATE 13th May 2010

Facebook now allows you to target individual towns and cities within Ireland with your ads.

These two excellent free web applications allow you to monitor your brand, competitors, industry or any topic online. Simple to use, they search the social web for mentions of any keywords you choose to search for.

Social Meniton: The most comprehensive social media search tool we’ve found that not only throws up results but measures sentiment and other data relating to your key words. It also allows you to download a csv (excel) file so that you can track progress over time.

Who’s Talkin: Not as detailed information but it’s faster to throw up results and allows you to switch quickly between one network to another.

For more video tutorials and social media videos subscribe to our YouTube channel.

This week we show you two applications that allow you to post short video’s to twitter.

Bubbletweet which posts popping bubble shaped video.

and

YFrog which posts regular video.