Web Design, SEO, CMS Development, Social Media Marketing
Posts tagged fanpage designers
Facebook Timeline for Brands kicks in today, 30 March 2012
Facebook Timeline for Brands comes into effect 30 March 2012!
Attention all Facebook Fan and Brand page owners and admins: the time has run out for the old Facebook layout that we’ve all come to know and love!
Ready or not, the new and improved timeline for brand pages comes into effect today, 30 March 2012.
This is great news for anyone with a Fan or Brand page actually, as the timeline (among other improvements) makes the interaction between fan and brand/company much more personal. Get ready to tell your brand or product’s story, and showcase your business.
Among the bundle of changes Facebook has made, the highlight for us is the ability to engage with fans through private messages directly from the new (and vastly improved!) admin panel on page.
The entire layout and design principle makes for a great user experience and ease of use from a page administrator’s perspective.
Good luck with the transition, and give us a shout if you’d like any help!
Latest Facebook Fan Page for International House Cape Town
Facebook Fan Page for International House Cape Town
IH Cape Town is an English language school located in vibrant Sea point, from where you can see the ocean,take a stroll down main road past restaurants, boutiques, cafes and shops.
IH Cape Town has a super promotion / competition running right now- check out https://www.facebook.com/IHCapeTown for more details and to enter. There’s an Apple iPad2 up for grabs.
View fan page on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/IHCapeTown
Portfolio | Facebook Fan Page for Meridian Realty
Facebook Fan Page for Meridian Realty
Meridian Realty is a real estate company with offices in Stellenbosch in the Boland and Betty’s Bay in the Overberg.
Their property portfolio includes houses, apartments, vacant land, farms & small holdings located in two truly unique regions of South Africa: The Cape Winelands and the Whale Coast.
View fan page on Facebook:
http://facebook.com/meridianrealty
Is Facebook getting too complicated?
Is Facebook getting too complicated?
This article below from mashable.com explains and echoes the sentiment of many users.
Ever noticed how the remote for each new TV you check out seems to have more and more buttons? Or how that online game you used to enjoy is feeling less like fun as the options pile on? It’s not your fault. It’s a well-documented phenomenon, found in hardware, in software and on the Web: feature creep.
Engineers, bless their hearts, want to give us access to all the exciting new functions they’ve come up with. But they’re not great at making them simple enough for the average user, or at removing the buttons we no longer need. When a company does have the courage and discipline to slash away at its engineers’ wish lists, and adhere to the KISS principle of design (Keep It Simple, Stupid), it can rise head and shoulders above its rivals and delight its users. Apple is a great example of that, as is Nintendo (the Wii being one of the most simple — and successful — game console designs of all time.)
Unfortunately for its 800 million users, Facebook does not appear to be that kind of company. It used to be, and its inherent simplicity was part of the reason it was so successful. But now it is falling victim to feature creep — and a roster of settings that are becoming increasingly complex. Take the Ticker, for example, that real-time stream of information which now crowds the right-side of your Facebook page with a lot of distracting noise. Or look at the Like button, which recently celebrated its first birthday. That was a very popular all-purpose tool that spread rapidly across the Web. Everyone knows what it means to Like something. But Facebook couldn’t leave well enough alone.
At this year’s f8 conference, Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook Gestures, which will allow you to [any verb] a [any noun]. As Zuckerberg pointed out, this will allow you to “read” a book or “hike” a trail rather than like it. That’s great if you like a lot of granularity in your News Feed, but I fear that for the vast majority of us it means more confusion, more noise, and the decline of the social network’s single most iconic feature.
What We Think
We agree with the idea of simplicity.
Even Albert Einstein said “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
The “not simpler” is the interesting part here. As far as the Ticker and Gestures go, we think both are genius.
The ticker brings every Facebook profile to life- and with a little simple tweaking, allows each user to create an up-to-the-minute live feed of happenings in their friends’ lives. It is well executed, and we agree, it takes some getting used to, the movement at top right feels unnatural in the Facebook environment, but we like it.
Gestures are also a vital component to the flexibility that we’ve come to expect from the social network’s engineers.
At the end of the day, all arguments for or against all these new changes will boil down to subjective opinions, and no amount of analysis is going to reveal a ‘better’ way of doing things. As has so often happened in the past, the world rejects changes to their familiar social network at first, adopts them a short while later, then eventually utilizes them eagerly and comes to love them. It’s natural.
What do you think?
Join us on Facebook here and post your comments and questions or let us know what you think.
Small Business Owners are Realizing the Importance of Social Media
Realizing the Importance of Social Media
According to the 2011 Small Business Social Media Survey, business owners are taking social media more seriously than in year past. In a survey conducted from May 1, 2011 – July 1, 2011 we asked243 small business owners ( companies with less than 50 employees) who was creating content for their social media accounts.
Owners are taking charge
From their responses, it was obvious owners are taking social media seriously as more than 65% indicated they are actively involved in creating content. This percentage was fairly constant among different groups of small business owners, until we look at companies with more than then 25 employees.
Even though their participation starts to fall off, 50% of the owners of these larger companies are still involved. It is obvious, however, these executives are delegating more of the responsibility for social media content creation to others.
Who owns social media content creation?
While many companies are diving into social media, their programs fall short because they don’t clearly define roles. They fail to decide who will create content, how often and about what.
I was disappointed to see more than ½ the companies in the study are not leveraging the customers and prospects as content generators.
From testimonials and check-ins, to FAQs and discussions, companies are missing a tremendous opportunity by not actively engaging these constituencies.
Not the Intern
While it varies by company there are strong indications social media is being taken more seriously in 2011. For example: Consider the role of interns. In our 2010 Facebook study, more than 80% of businesses which had interns on staff indicated the intern was involved in social media content creation.
To us, this pointed to the fact companies were not really taking the tools seriously. If they had, they would not rely on the least experienced member of their team to lead the content development. In this year’s study, only 30% of companies with interns indicated they were involved in content creation.
Looking for Help
While many business owners believe social media is a do it yourself type of activity, there is a growing interest in hiring marketing and social media firms to support their efforts. Overall, about 10% of the companies in the study indicated an outside firm was actively engaged in the company’s social media program. While I expected large firms to look outside for help, a significant number of companies in the 6-10 person range were also looking to external resources.
Surprising, companies with 11 – 24 employees were less likely to use an outside firm. Why? We assume at this size, companies have someone on staff with time to dedicate to social media activities. As expected, the largest the companies are more likely to also have a dedicated social media employee. The comments also show the conflict between the do-it-yourself and hire-a-pro camps.
What do business owners say about getting help with social media?
- Hire someone to set up the accounts and teach you how to manage them effectively. It is difficult to keep up with them all in a timely fashion.
- Have a professorial do your Social Media. You hire a CPA because you can’t do accounting, hire a social media professional.
- These days everyone is a” social media expert” you know as much as they do.
- Hire someone who can educate you, get social media tools up and running that align with your brand.
- Embrace social media but be leery of social media “experts” and consultants.
Facebook Fangate | Fan Gate Process
Facebook Bug Affecting Fangates and Fanpages.
We wanted to keep you in the loop on a new Facebook bug that could be affecting your custom fan page and how your users and fans interact with it.
There is a new Facebook bug that has changed the behavior of Fan Gates for the default landing tab. If you use the Default Landing Tab setting on your Facebook page and show non-fans different content on your tab this bug is affecting you, and it’s affecting anybody else who has a Fan Gate.
The Issue:
Normally, when non-fans visit your Facebook page, they will be sent to the page tab you have set as your Default Landing Tab on your standard page settings. When visitors press your Like button, Facebook would refresh the page and send the user back to the same default landing tab, showing them the fan-only content- ie. the value item, download, link, offer, discount or other promotional content or simply a welcome message or acknowledgement that they’re now in the ‘fan zone’.
The Bug:
The new Facebook bug #19778 breaks this process. Instead of taking the new fan back to your default landing tab, the user is now sent to your page Wall!
The good news is that Facebook has responded to the bug saying they are investigating. If you want to track the bug, you can check this link: http://bugs.developers.facebook.net/show_bug.cgi?id=19778
We’ll keep an eye on this situation, but for now, we have created various solutions that deliver a great user experience despite buggy behavior from the code!!
