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By Neptune Moon, August 19, 2010 5:15 pm

Facebook unveiled its new Places feature today. What does this feature do? Why should you care? How can you adjust your account settings?

What does this feature do?

Facebook Places is a geolocation or location-based functionality where you can “check in” via Facebook and let your friends (or the world) know where you are at any given moment. The functionality currently works with iPhones and can also be accessed with other smartphones via the web. Android and BlackBerry support is said to be coming soon.

Why should you care?

Not everyone wants others to literally know where they are – with GPS precision. There are the obvious safety issues to consider and it is probably not a great idea to tell the world you’re on vacation and exactly where – nothing like pointing a neon sign to your empty house! The feature is automatically enabled in your account, but if you don’t actively check in, your location probably won’t appear on your profile or in anyone else’s feed.

If you don’t want your location shared, ever, you should update your account’s privacy settings so that others cannot check you in.

How can you adjust your account settings to completely opt out?

Go to Accounts and choose Privacy Settings. In the list of settings you control, you’ll see a new one called Places I Check In. Click on the Customize Setting option. When you get to the next screen, in the Things I Share area you will see a choice for Places I Check In – choose the level of privacy you want. If you don’t want your location to ever be shown, choose Only Me from the options.

To make sure no one else can check you in either, you’ll need to change another setting. In the Things Others Share section, scroll down to the Friends Can Check Me In to Places option and disable it.

How much information you want to share about your real time, actual location is an individual choice. Just make sure you know how your settings are configured so that information you do not want to be shared remains private.

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By Neptune Moon, July 28, 2010 4:19 pm

Google Maps are great right? Just type “tapas restaurant, philadelphia” into Google and in a split second you’ve got results before you, along with a handy map! Click on the links and you can visit the restaurant web sites or click on the More Info link and you can see the Google Places Page summary for the business.

Google Maps and the Places Pages they link to are great for consumers. They are not so great for businesses. Why not? If you claim your listing, you’ll show up in the Maps list for your target area and people can find you – what’s not to like?

Well, in addition to the information your provide them directly, Google pulls information from a variety of outside sources and aggregates it into your business’ Places Page. This can be problematic on multiple fronts:

1. It is often hard to tell exactly where a particular piece of information on the Google Places Page is actually coming from, making it hard to correct errors
2. Review and comments are prominently displayed within the Google Places Pages, but there is no mechanism for you, the business owner, to respond to a review within the Google system
3. It has been widely reported that Google’s Places Pages are often quite slow in having reviews fall off their pages that have been removed from the source web site
4. ANYONE can post a review about your business, including competitors, former employees or people who just don’t like you – there is no verification process that the reviewer was an actual customer of the business being reviewed

The effects of having a very negative review so prominently placed within a Google branded result can be devastating.

So what can you do? Start by claiming your listings. You’d be amazed at just how many places there are on the web where your business is probably listed. You can’t monitor something you’re not aware of…

Don’t have the time to claim and/or manage online listings? Consider hiring a professional to manage it for you – you’ll be glad you did! We’ve been doing a lot of work in this type of reputation management lately and would love to help you too!

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By Neptune Moon, July 9, 2010 5:18 pm

Google Social Media + Lead Generation and you’ll find a wide variety of opinions on this topic. I’d like to suggest that can social media generate leads, is not even the best question to ask. A better question is how can we use social media to best support our business/organization and our customers?

There is an interesting article on just this topic over at the American Express OPEN Technology Forum “Is Social Media Failing to Produce Business Leads?” – read it here. In it, the author suggests that perhaps social media’s “job” isn’t so much to produce leads, but to allow companies to better or more strongly engage with their customers.

I tend to agree with this premise. I think there is an almost involuntary urge to try to make every technology fit in to an old school box about how to use it and what it does. That kind of thinking is a mistake. While those of you who have read posts here before know that I do believe selling is still about putting the right offer in front of the right person at the right time - with social media, we have a whole host of new tools to help accomplish this task.

Social media can do a lot of things, but expecting to setup a Twitter account, a Facebook business page and/or even a LinkedIn profile and then just have the leads flowing in, is a completely unrealistic view of how these tools work. In order to get benefit from them, you have to actively use them. And not just to post your sales information or press releases, but to actually talk to your customers and potential customers.

Social media has opened up brand new ways for people and businesses to communicate and engage with each other, it’s true. But it is important to understand what these tools can and cannot do and how to make them work for you.

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By Neptune Moon, June 24, 2010 9:15 am

There was a ruling in a major lawsuit between Google (owner of YouTube) and Viacom this week over copyright infringement. But the case is about more than simple copyright infringement in the video and online world – it brings up a much larger question. In today’s world where social media is bleeding into nearly all web entities, just who is ultimately responsible for what users post?

You can read more about the case itself here, but I think this is a really interesting question to consider. Google’s stance is basically that as long as they have a policy in place that specifically states that users may not post anything they don’t have the rights to post and if they take stuff down when notified by the copyright holder of an infringement, that is enough. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act states as much and was cited in the ruling.

But what about materials that are not copyright protected? What about user opinions or reviews that may cause damage to you or a third party? Where does the responsibility lie to monitor this type of posted material? As social media outlets continue to increase in usage and popularity, and as more and more sites add some type of commenting or user-based interactive elements to their web entities, this question will become increasingly important.

Having a clear Acceptable Use & Terms of Service policy is critical. Just as having a Privacy Policy is critical in protecting yourself if you collect any data from users, having a well thought out Acceptable Use & Terms of Service policy is a step you should not skip if you’re inviting users to comment and/or generate and post content. By having a clearly stated policy about what is permissible and what is not, you strengthen your ability to not only monitor, but also remove offensive, defamatory or otherwise problematic materials from your site(s).

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By Neptune Moon, June 21, 2010 10:51 am

It used to be that you only had to worry about your own web site(s) when it came to your online reputation… not so any more! Try doing a search for your business specifically or search for your type of business in your geographic area. You’ll likely be surprised by the results.

These days, search results returned include not only your web site and blog, but will often include a link to entities such as: Google Maps, Yelp.com, SuperPages.com, as well as many other locally or industry focused sites. Did you even know such things existed? Do you know if your business is listed?

These sites take it one step further too. They let people post reviews about your business, often with no verification that they are or were an actual customer of yours. To make matters even more complicated, people often wait weeks or months before posting a nasty review about your business. Good luck finding them to even try to rectify the issue!

So what is a business owner to do? Don’t we all have a million other things we’re already managing on a daily, weekly and monthly basis? How can you possibly get a grip on this brave new world? You can start by claiming your business on some of the major local web sites. If you have not claimed your business on Google, do it now! If you advertise in any of the yellow pages, make sure your online information is correct. If you serve the public, I’d recommend checking out Yelp and InsiderPages and see what, if anything people are saying.

Managing your online reputation is incredibly important. Especially today when more and more people are sharing their views and reviews via local web sites and social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter. Getting control starts with knowledge – find out where you’re already listed and claim your listings.

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By Neptune Moon, June 1, 2010 6:45 pm

So unless you’ve been living under a rock or in outer Mongolia for the past couple of years, you’ve probably found yourself wondering what the heck you should be doing to take part in this brave new world of social media to advance your career or business…

The prospect can really be quite overwhelming – which media to choose? How to choose? What to post? How often to post? How to interact with others? When not to engage with others? The questions can seem endless!

The good news is, that social media, like anything else is something you can figure out one step at a time. When you break it down into reasonable steps, it suddenly seems like an achievable goal. And don’t we all want to set achievable goals?!?

A few questions to get you started:

1. Who is my target audience?
2. Where do they spend the most time – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yelp, YouTube, etc.?
3. How much time do you have to commit to social media on a weekly basis?
4. Who in your organization will be responsible for keeping your presence up?
5. Who will develop your social media policies?

Developing and implementing a social media strategy takes time and effort, but beginning to think about these questions is a great place to start!

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By Neptune Moon, May 24, 2010 5:29 pm

Just a quick update on the Facebook privacy post from last week… Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote an Op-Ed for The Washington Post, directly addressing users’ legitimate privacy concerns.

According to Zuckerberg: new, simpler privacy controls are in the works, along with ways to easily turn off of any third party services.

Read it at the Washington Post now.

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By Neptune Moon, May 12, 2010 3:36 pm

Facebook added a new feature recently that continues their push to make your profile information publicly available. Most people have their basic privacy settings under control – only friends whom you have accepted can view your profile. Or so you think, right?

Working in technology, I am very careful about the information I post anywhere. Yes, I get the eye rolls when I tell people that the should never post their birthday, especially with the year, on their profiles and that’s ok. But Facebook’s new features, called Social Plugins and Instant Personalization move beyond what is housed on the actual Facebook web site.

As with most of their new “improvements” this feature is Opt Out – which means, unless you turn it off, you are sharing this information now.

So, what is this new feature? According to Facebook:

How does instant personalization work on websites participating in the pilot program?

“We have established a small pilot program with an exclusive set of partners—currently yelp.com, Microsoft Docs.com, and pandora.com—to offer a personalized experience as soon as you visit. These partners have been given access to public information on Facebook (e.g., names, friend lists and interests and likes) to personalize your experience.”

What data is shared with instant personalization pilot program websites?
“When you and your friends visit an instantly personalized partner site – currently including yelp.com, Microsoft Docs.com, and pandora.com the partner can use your public Facebook information, which includes your name, profile picture, gender, and connections. To access any non-public information, the website is required to ask for you or your friend’s explicit permission.”

See the full FAQ on these new features on Facebook’s site here.

So why should you care?

If you do not want your profile information to be available to anyone but the friends you have chosen, log in now and opt out of this new feature.

According to Facebook, here is a summary of what information is being shared and displayed on their partner sites if you don’t opt out:

Will people beyond my friends see what I like or recommend?

“Yes. Likes and recommendations you make are public information, similar to when you comment or write a review on any website today or connect with a public Facebook Page. The “Like” button, Activity Feed and Recommendations only display your friends’ names and profile pictures and to show the likes and recommendations from people who aren’t your friends in an aggregated format (”15 people like this”).

When a like makes a connection in your profile, you can control who can see that in your Facebook profile by editing your “Friends, Tags and Connections” settings on your Privacy Settings page. Remember that even if you limit the visibility of a connection, it remains as public information and may appear in other places on Facebook.com or be accessed by applications and websites. [emphasis mine].

Depending on the connection you made, you can remove a connection completely either by going to the “Info” tab of your profile and editing your “Likes and Interests,” or by returning to the web page where you liked something and unliking it.”

Reactions to these new features

Facebook has received a lot of backlash for these latest “improvements” as well as news of several, now resolved, security issues with partner sites – See this article on TechCrunch for more about an issue with Yelp. See this article on CNN.com for more about the backlash.

Bottom line, you give up a certain amount of privacy by publishing anything on Facebook at all, but you need to be vigilant to make sure they are not sharing more than you think with the world.

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By Neptune Moon, April 16, 2010 3:00 pm

Spring always seems to inspire the urge to purge – at least it does at my house! Why not use the spring as a time to take a critical look at your web presence and strategy? This notion makes sense this year, even more so than in the past, as many of our target markets have undergone significant changes.

It is time to ask yourself:

1. What parts of our web strategy are working well? What parts are not working so well?
2. Who is our target market today? Are they the same demographic that they were 2 years ago?
3. How can we adjust our web strategy to gain traction in the new economy?
4. What can we learn from our competitors?

It is an important practice to critically review your web strategy annually – why not do it now and put your business in the position to have a strong 2010? There is a lot of opportunity out there – smart organizations realize it and know they can no longer sit on the sidelines and expect to be around in 2011.

Not sure how to get started or how to analyze your web strategy? Don’t really have a web strategy? Spend some time and money with a professional web consultant and get on your way to a stronger business and better bottom line!

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By Neptune Moon, April 2, 2010 3:43 pm

Working on the web is an interesting journey. You never have the same day twice. It’s part of what I like most! There are as many ideas about SEO and Web Design as there are humans on the planet. So how do you make sure you’re in sync with your provider?

The first and most obvious step is to review a potential consultant’s work and/or portfolio. I know, this sound ridiculously obvious, but you’d be amazed at how many people just don’t bother to do this. If you’re not drawn to and/or impressed by the consultant’s work, why bother even starting a conversation with them?

Next, see who recommends them. A referral from a trusted source should go a long way in jump starting a relationship with a new provider. Positive comments and an offer to let you call their references is also a good sign.

Spend time getting clear about what you need and why you are bringing in an outside consultant to reach that goal.

Once you’ve done your homework and feel comfortable with the consultant’s skills and customer service, it’s time to have a meeting. Not just a phone call either, if at all possible. In this time of instantaneous communication, there is still often no substitute for a face to face meeting. See what your gut is telling you after you meet with the provider. It is critically important that you are able to connect with a consultant – you’ll be partners in this project and will need to be able to communicate effectively and work together smoothly.

Finding a great consultant takes some effort, but the payoff when you find the right fit is definitely worth the work!