What are Cookies

Cookies are small text files which websites place on visitors’ computers.  Websites use cookies to learn more about the visitor.  Some websites may use cookies to remember what you last looked at and make recommendations for you.  As a small business owner, you will more than likely use cookies to check how visitors use your site using tools like Google Analytics.

What is the EU Cookie Law?

The EU Cookie law came in last year, but the Information Commissioner’s Office gave websites a year to implement it.  The law requires websites to get permission from visitors before placing cookies on their computer. You should ask visitors outright if you can put cookies on their computer and explain clearly what the cookies are used for.  You can’t bury the information in your website’s terms and conditions.

Implementing the Law

This law is not going away and it will be necessary to make changes to your website to work towards implementing the law.  You should work towards having a opt-in box for people to tick to allow you to put cookies on their computer.

What Should You Do Now?

The Information Commissioner’s Office has suggested that the most important thing is to take steps to moving towards full compliance.  You should understand what cookies your website uses and create a plan to implement an opt-in.

In the Guidance on the New Cookies Regulations document available on the Information Commissioners website, it is stated

“In practice we would expect you to provide clear information to users about analytical cookies and take what steps you can to seek their agreement. This is likely to involve making the argument to show users why these cookies are useful. Although the Information Commissioner cannot completely exclude the possibility of formal action in any area, it is highly unlikely that priority for any formal action would be given to focusing on uses of cookies where there is a low level of intrusiveness and risk of harm to individuals. Provided clear information is given about their activities we are highly unlikely to prioritise first party cookies used only for analytical purposes in any consideration of regulatory action.”

Use Attacat Cooke Audit Tool to find out what cookies your site is using.  You will then need to work out how to make sure cookies are only set once people have given their permission.  At the very least make sure you know which cookies your site is using and be open and honest about it.  Make sure you clearly tell your visitors what cookies are on your site and what you are using them for.  Create a clear cookie policy (separate from your privacy or terms and conditions policies).

I would suggest you contact your website designer to see what they suggest you do about this new law.  I would love to know your thoughts.

Find out more information at http://www.itdonut.co.uk/sites/default/files/ITD_Cookies_4D_0.pdf

It is worth spending some time reviewing your page to make sure that it looks good before the change.

Access your page in the normal way and then select the Preview option to look at the Timeline.  From now on, the only way to access the Timeline version (until you publish it) is to use your Personal Facebook profile and search for the page.  If you use the ‘Use As’ option, it will display the old version.

The areas you want to look at are:

1. Cover Page – load a picture that represents your business.  Facebook states that you are not allowed to include calls to action, contact details, discounts ‘like us’, etc.  You could include a QR code of your contact information perhaps?

2. Make sure the profile picture looks OK.  It needs to be square and 180 pixels wide.

3. The About Me section can include your website, contact info and a brief description of what you do.  It is a small amount of text though, depending what business you are.

4. You can display up to 12 apps on the right.  This are equivalent to the old tabs.  Make sure you display the most important ones first.  The only one that can’t be changed is Photos at the beginning – another indication of the importance of photos on the Facebook business pages.

5. Important status updates can be pinned to the top or starred to go across the whole page to indicate importance.

6. You can add old photos of your business (if applicable!)

Have a look at my business page https://www.facebook.com/ConciseTraining  I would love to know what you think!

The main change, which I know will please my clients, is that you no longer need 3 recommendations to obtain a 100% profile.  Instead you need to have 50 connections and 5 or more skills.  I’m not personally sure how much having skills adds to a profile.  You can add any skill you like (there is a list or you can add your own) and there is no evidence of you actually having the skill!  You do still need to include your school and you need to add your postcode.  Be aware of the postcode – LinkedIn doesn’t always recognise valid postcodes – you may need to adjust it slightly!

It might be worth checking that you are still 100% complete.  What do you think of the changes?   Do let me know.

It is interesting seeing how the general opinion of people towards Social Media have changed over the three years that I have been ‘going on’ about this fantastic way of marketing your business.

Three years ago, there was much resistance to this new medium – in fact, I think people thought I was on a different planet as I tried to get them to embrace this new method of marketing!  Now, there seem to be three schools of thought:

1. Dancing In the Rain

A significant number of businesses are now using Social Media marketing as a key method of establishing their brand, receiving recommendations and yes, generating hits to their website and ultimately increasing their income.  In general, these are the businesses who are engaging with their audience using Social Media – having conversations and finding out more about their customers and influencers

2.  Under the Umbrella

There are a number of businesses who have profiles and are broadcasting on Social Media.  These businesses may not have wonderful profiles, but realise that Social Media Marketing isn’t going away and they need to get involved. I suggest, these businesses now need to take the next steps to improve their profiles, ensure they are using the correct Social Media tools and change from ‘broadcast mode’ to engagement.

3. Staying Dry

I still talk to people who don’t want to get involved.  It is a ‘waste of time’ or ‘not for us’ I often get told.  I agree that it is not for every business – and certainly every business should take the time to understand which tool is right for their situation.

This is a new way of marketing though, I wonder how many managers or CEOs realise that they can’t or don’t want to use Social Media themselves, but don’t want to let somebody else do it for them as they will have to let go of  the marketing message?

I definitely encounter a ‘fear’ of losing control.  What is the solution?  I would suggest the need for education and training for both the CEO/ manager and the person who will be pushing the content out.

Remember if your employees are engaging around the policies and guidelines you have created, you will have better control of the message than if you put your ‘head in the sand’ as others will still be talking about you.

Where are You?

I encourage you to join us ‘dancing in the rain’ and would love to help you get wet.  Where are you at the moment?  Do let me know.

Twitter

1. Twitter Follow Button

Create this button to promote your business Twitter account.  Visitors can follow with just one click.

Get the Twitter Follow button.

2. Tweet Button

This button is used to allow your visitors to share a link to your content on their Twitter stream.  You can modify the button to add a @mention if you wish.

Get the Tweet button.

3. Twitter Website Widget

This option allows you to create a dynamic widget to showcase your Twitter activity on your website.

There are 4 types of widgets you can create:
Profile Widget – shows your most recent updates,
Search Widget – shows search results in real time (use for a hashtag you are promoting)
Faves Widget – highlight tweets you’ve marked as favourites
List Widget – Showcase tweets from users on a particular Twitter list

Get the Twitter website widget

Facebook

1. Facebook Like Box

 You can create a smaller version of this box if you prefer.  However, if Facebook is a appropriate place for your audience, it may be appropriate to display who likes your Facebook page.

This widget allows visitors to become a fan or ‘like’ your Facebook Business page without leaving your website.

Get the Facebook Like button

2. Facebook Share Button

This buttton allows visitors to give a virtual ‘thumbs up’ to your content.  By clicking the Like Button, a story also appears on the visitor’s Facebook profile and in their friend’s news feeds with a link back to your content.

Get the Facebook Share button

LinkedIn

1. Follow LinkedIn Company Profile

Allows visitors to follow your company profile which means they will see your company updates in their stream.

There are two alternatives to this button as you can see.

Get the Follow Us button on the left

Get the button on the right – you will need to use the Follow Us image from LinkedIn and add html code to link to your website.

2. LinkedIn Share Button

Allows visitors to easily share your content with their LinkedIn connections.

Get the LinkedIn Share button.

3. LinkedIn Product / Service Recommend Button

Allows your website visitors to recommend your products and services if you’ve added the product /service to your LinkedIn Company Pages’s Products tabs.

Get the LinkedIn Recommend button

Google +

1. Google+ Page / Profile Button

Allows visitors to follow your Google+ Page.  Visitors will need to click the button and add your page to one of their circles to follow you.

Get the Google+ button.

2. Google +1 Button

Allows visitors to recommend your content (to others and to search engines)

Get the Google+1  Button

What do you think?  What buttons do you use? Please let me know below.

What does your picture say about you?  I was teaching on a Face to Face LinkedIn workshop recently.  We were discussing how keywords worked and I arbitrarily did a keyword search for Business Development Manager – or something similar.  LinkedIn returned a list of people – one of whom was a senior manager in a large corporate company.  The reaction in the room was amazing – “I wouldn’t do business with him” was the over-riding feeling.  This was based solely on the picture of the person.

There was nothing essentially wrong with the profile picture – it wasn’t a picture of his dog, which I have seen.  It wasn’t a picture of him half-dressed, which I’ve also seen.  It was however, clearly a holiday snap – it looked like a zoomed in picture of the person in front of some buildings .  He was informally dressed and the picture did not shout ‘professional person’.

This really brought it home to me how important it is to have a professional profile picture.  In my opinion, the picture should

• Be clear and easy to recognise the individual.  Don’t hide behind a desk.
• Be professionally taken – not a zoomed in holiday snap.
• Your appearance in the photo should reflect who you are.  If you ‘suit and boot’ at client meetings, then ‘suit and boot’ in your picture.
• Larger brands may want to brand the picture by including the logo
• Make you look approachable and friendly (assuming you are!).  A passport style photo probably does not give the right impression.
• Be consistent – use the same photo everywhere so it becomes part of your brand.

No – don’t bother with Google+

1. Google+ is yet another tool that you have to update and engage with.  We already struggle to find time to update and engage with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  Facebook and LinkedIn both have individual profiles and company profiles all ready.  Do we have time to use yet another tool?

2. Where is your audience?  How many of your audience are actively using Google+?  Yes, they have 40 million people registered but this is nothing compared to the 500 million on Facebook or even 150 million on LinkedIn.  I have noticed that I have talking to a different group of people on Google+ though which is interesting.

3. Google+ Pages are not that easy to interact with – at the moment.  To follow a Page to need to add the page to your circles – clicking the +1 just indicates you think the page is good – it doesn’t mean that you are following updates.  People need to really understand how circles work and deliberately add your Page to a Circle – they really want to follow your page.

Yes – Get a Google + Page now

1. It is really quite easy to set up a Google+ page – the interface is friendly and easy to use.  You can rethink your digital marketing and think of some fresh things to put up.

2. I like the idea of ‘hangouts’, you can set up a webinar conversation right within Google + with some of your customers or followers.

3. Great links to video – I uploaded 10 videos very quickly to Google +

4. This is Google – more functionality is inevitable – get in at the beginning and grow with the tool.

5. This is Google.  How long will it be before Google + pages are included in search results?  Can you afford not to be in the mix?

Overall, I’m quite excited about Google+ Pages.  I have a Google+ workshop on January 20th if anybody is in the Faringdon, Oxfordshire area – or I can travel to you.

Take a look at the Concise Training page and let me know what you think – don’t forget to add the Concise Training Page to your circles!

What are your thoughts?

In my mind,  there are several things you need to consider:

1. Link to your company

If you are using Twitter for brand building, I think it makes it easier if your Twitter name is linked to your company name.  People may well have heard of ConciseTraining because of seeing me on Social Media.

This doesn’t always work.  At the moment, Concise Training is just me – how will this work if and when I expand?  If it is appropriate for more than one account to be linked with the business, I think I would create linked names so MaryAtConcise for example – but still keep ConciseTraining as the main account to keep the brand link.  If you use a name that is completely different from your company, then people may find what you say really interesting but will not associate it with what you do for a living.

2. Use Your Personal Name

There is  a school of thought that says Twitter should be person to person so the Twitter name should be a personal name.  I agree with this to an extent – My ConciseTraining account currently has a link to my name with a photo of me which is how I make it personal.  You do need to make sure though that your Twitter name is clearly linked to your real name.  If you are known as MaryThomas then use that (in the unlikely chance it is available), don’t use mdthomas – I might not know your middle name so how would I find you / or remember you if I wanted to mention you?

3 Uniqueness

Twitter names need to be unique.  This is causing a problem for a few businesses as the relevant Twitter name might have already gone.  You will need to identify a suitable alternative.  When I was talking about Social Media a couple of years ago, I urged businesses to ‘grab’ their Twitter name.  In some cases, it is too late, but I still think it is important if you can.
As a new business, you need to create an identity with a unique Twitter / Facebook name as well as a unique domain name.  Try to make it easy to remember though – if I have to use marythomas for anything, I tend to always use 66 at the end which I think makes it slightly more memorable than 1 or 2

4. Length

You are restricted to 15 characters when creating your Twitter name – with no spaces.  This is causing problems for businesses with great long names.  You need to identify an appropriate shortened version.

5. Easy to Remember

One of the things we want to happen on Twitter is that people talk about you.  Make it easy for people to talk about you on Twitter by using a name that is easy to write and easy to remember.  People won’t search for you all the time if they can’t remember who you are – they just won’t mention you.  Use a version of your business name or personal name or nickname that is easy to associate with you as a person and easy to remember.  See comments under uniqueness above.

There is no easy answer to a Twitter name and everybody has a different case – do put some thought into it however, and think about how it reflects your brand and values.

I would love to know if you have you got any tips to share regarding Twitter usernames.

1. Content is King

The jury is still out and not all changes have been fully implemented but it is immediately clear that brands are going to have to put much more work into the content of their updates.  Before the updates, if you got people to ‘like’ your page then you were able to get your updates in front of your ‘fans’ because the fan’s newsfeeds was ordered by most recent.

Now the individual’s newsfeed is ordered by Top Stories.  Facebook will automatically order the feeds based on the connection between the individual and the author, and individuals can indicate which posts they consider are their top stories.   Brands who have boring or irrelevant updates will have lower visibility.

The emphasis now will be on brands with interesting content who get clicks and comments from a varying group of people.

2. Friend Activity Tab

Pages now have a friend activity tab so when a user goes on to your page they can see which of your friends commented and what was said.  This gives weight to the viral nature of pages – but is dependent on getting somebody to your page to start with.

3. Anyone can Post

Users can now post on your page without first ‘liking’ it.  This could give rise to more negative comments or spammers – you may have to spend more time monitoring this.

4. Larger Photos

There appears to be more emphasis on photos.  Photos posted appear as a larger thumbnail in the newsfeed.  Businesses posting relevant, amusing photos are more likely to be noticed.

5. Length of Updates

The length of posts has been increased from 500 characters to 5,000 characters.  On the one hand, this enable more detailed thoughts – but longer posts makes it harder to scan read.  Facebook seems to work best when status updates are easy to read and comment on.

6. Tabs Must Now be SSL compliant

From 1st October 2011, all user tabs on Facebook Pages (e.g. welcome tabs) must have an SSL certificate (work with https) to confirm that they are ‘safe’.  You may find that your user tabs no longer work.  It seems to be taking a time to roll this out – but it is worth checking that your tabs will work in the future.  To do this

1. Login to Facebook with your personal account
2. Click down arrow on the top right and Account Settings
3. Click Security Setttings
4. Enable Secure Browsing

Check your user tabs are still displayed on your Facebook Page.  If an error message is displayed, you need to look at how the welcome page was created.  I used the wildfire app to create mine and it is still working – at the moment!  I believe that I will eventually have to change it to include an image from a secure website – watch the blog for information if and when I have to do it.

Apparently more changes are promised, particularly introducing the new Timeline to pages.  How do you think these changes will affect you and your business?

This can be useful, but runs the danger of you missing updates from people that you are really interested in, but perhaps don’t qualify (in Facebook’s eyes) as a top story.

The best thing to do, is to use Facebook Lists.  Facebook lists are a very similar idea to Twitter Lists or Google + Circles as a way of grouping people that you want to ‘follow’ more actively.  Facebook has provided 3 ‘smart lists’.

One of which could be particularly useful – a list of people who are geographically located near you.  To use this list, you need to make sure that your profile is complete with home town and then it will identify everybody else with the same home town (or within a 10 mile radius).  You can add people to the list manually or enlarge the radius.

If you click on the City List, all updates from people in that list will then be displayed.

You can then create lists or groups of people for your other friends.  Clicking on the list will see updates from those friends.

I don’t spend loads of time each day on Facebook, so for me, it will be a good way of organising how I see updates from more of my contacts.  I’m not sure how this will work for a business though – for a business update to be seen, there will be a greater need for engagement.  Although Business Pages can be added to a list manually your updates are going to need more engagement to be seen as a Top Story.

What do you think of Lists?  Are you going to spend the time grouping your contacts?