1. You’ll need a Facebook account to set up a business Page.

It sounds like a no-brainer, of course you have to have an account! But this is the single biggest drawback to the entire system, because Facebook business Pages are not transferable to other people. So if you are the media guru assigned to the task and you set up your company’s Page using your personal account and then you leave the company, the Page goes with you. Also, if your personal account gets banned by Facebook or deleted by you, guess what? The business Page goes with it.

2. So I’ll just open a second account.

Nope. While there are both personal and business accounts available, Facebook only allows users to have a single account, and they are quite clear that “Maintaining multiple accounts, regardless of the purpose, is a violation of Facebook’s Terms of Use.” So you can’t set up a separate business or individual account if you already have either one. I’m guessing there are some who have opened a “dummy” email address and created a fictional user through which the business account and Page could be set up, but again, this is in clear violation of Facebook’s policy.

The only way I know of around this problem is to find someone within your company who has no interest in ever having a personal Facebook account to set up the business account.

All of this is a ridiculous oversight on Facebook’s part, and there are plenty of people saying so on the discussion boards. But so far, no one is answering the cries for change.

3. Ok, give me the business account…

So let’s say you determine that rather than permanently welding your company’s business Page to a personal account, a business account is the way to go. Guess what? According to Facebook policy, “An individual with a business account…will not be able to view the profiles of users on the site or other content on the site that does not live on the Pages they administer. In addition, business accounts cannot be found in search and cannot send or receive friend requests.” Those are pretty amazing restrictions, be sure you’re ready for that.

4. Wait, maybe I want a “Group” instead?

As with Pages, you must be a member of Facebook to create a Facebook Group, which is typically built around a group of people rather than a company or brand. When you send a message to a Facebook Group the message arrives via the Facebook inbox (seen only by the recipient), rather than being posted as a status update (seen by the recipient and everyone connected to the recipient). Finally, the two most obvious benefits to Facebook Pages are that you can create targeted advertising for your business and the Page may be seen by unregistered users, while a Group is only visible to registered Facebook users. In general, it seems that Pages are the way for a business to achieve higher outward-facing visibility.

5. Are there other options?

In the world of online media, there are plenty of options, and after you do your research you might consider achieving your business goals via a different medium. Many businesses are finding LinkedIn and even Twitter to be comparable and more flexible solutions than a Facebook Page.

Is your business running a Facebook Page? How have you found it to be most effective? Leave us a comment and share what you think.

1. Clarify Your Goals
Everything begins here. Get your goals and services in order, rank them in order of priority, and make sure your website page titles, content, imagery, and navigation reflect your goals.

2. Keyword and Page Title Match
It’s important if you are selling purple widgets to mention purple widgets in at least one of your page titles and your page content. Take the time to go through your site and match your page titles with good keyword-targeted content.

3. Reduce Clicks Between Visitors and The Content They Want
You want to help your potential clients find the content they are looking for as quickly and easily as possible. This means no gateway pages (the “click here to enter” or introduction pages), and clean, obvious navigation. This same rule goes for scrolling, too. Most people won’t scroll through endless content to get to the bottom of the page, so try to place your most important content toward the top of your site.

4. Utilize Deep Links
You don’t always want to send your web traffic to the home page of your site. If you have an adword campaign targeted toward picking up people looking for women’s shoes, link it to the women’s shoe section of your site. This is called deep linking, and it goes with rule number three above, reducing the number of clicks between your potential clients and the item or service they are looking for. If they want to see more content on your site, they can always use the “Home” navigation button, or click on other items that interest them.

5. Reduce Image File Sizes
Ever been to a website only to have to wait while the images loaded? Often this is because the file size was set up for print usage (where you want a big file with lots of data), then moved onto the website without being reduced for web. Visitors will simply go on to another site if they can’t get a quick load on web pages.

There are free image filesize reduction tools out there you can use if you don’t have Photoshop or another pro tool. Try Shrink Pic, Dropic (Mac), or GIFbot for starters. When your site loads quickly and visitors stay and find what they’re looking for, search engines add validity to your site.

6. Name Image Files with Keywords
If you’re selling phones, you probably have a picture or graphic of a phone on your site. This is a great opportunity to name those files with some of your targeted keywords. Instead of “Image2395″ use a keyword matched to your image and your content for the SEO win. You can also do this with PDF downloads and other items on your site as well.

7. Use Keyword-Rich Headlines
Keyword-rich headlines within your content are useful not only so that visitors can scan quickly and get a sense of the content, but also because they help search engines to understand what your content is about.

But are you also following web stats on partner and competitor sites?

You can get several pieces of key information about any website with the use of a couple of free browser tools that you can download and begin using today.

I use the Quirk Search Status and Compete profile and browser extensions for Firefox (http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/ and http://tools.compete.com — this is three separate downloads from two locations). These give me access to a wide range of data, including Alexa rank (I’ve heard that this number is inaccurate if a site uses more than one server), Compete rank, mozRank, people count, growth over time, and so on. These will all give you a basic sense of how a site is faring, and you can read up on what things these particular statistics include on their related websites.

Keep in mind as you begin that every tool will give you a slightly different number depending on the formula that tool uses to calculate data. I’ve found that Google Analytics gives the most conservative count, so I tend to work with that number the most when monitoring my own site numbers, and I keep the difference between GA’s analysis and the way the other tools report my site data in mind as I look at competitor sites.

This past January in the Liverpool train station in London, what appeared at first to be a spontaneous dance broke out. A day later, the event, which had been captured by hidden cameras, aired one time only as a television commercial for T-Mobile wireless, with the slogan “Life’s for Sharing.”

The ad was so compelling that people passed the word and shared the video, racking up more than 15 million views on YouTube, and spawning a bevy of imitations and events.
There are least three great lessons to walk dance away with here.

1. Content is still king
And people love a sense of fun. Commercials used to be so deadly dull that someone invented TiVo so we could skip them. Now they can be so good that people hunt them down and pass them on. But only if they’re really good. And these days, that means creative, fun, and often a little crazy.

2. Make it available
There are still businesses trying desperately to copyright and control every self-serving, promotional word that comes out of their mouths. A complete turnaround can save advertising money and win the hearts of consumers. Why not think of a way to promote yourself and then make your promotions something other people can download, upload, remix, share, imitate or even spoof?

3. Video is the future
And it doesn’t stop with YouTube. It migrates to FaceBook, smartphones, email, blogs, and so on. Make it visual, make it brief, but more than anything, make it portable.

No way, baby. Texting has been around for ages, and this photo, which appeared in the August 1935 issue of Modern Mechanix proves it. For a small fee Londoners could write a brief message (I don’t know if they had Twitter’s 140 character limit) that would be saved for viewing by others for two hours. So when you showed up at the barber shop at 5:30 pm and your buddy wasn’t there as expected, you’d look around for a nearby Notificator (what a great name!) and see if there was a reason why he was delayed. That’s my guess, anyway. Wouldn’t you love to see what some of those messages really were? Me too.

Thanks to CharlieGower on Flickr for posting the photo, which he learned of from Adam Crowe, who apparently discovered it on Info Marketing Blog. Whew!

1. Give them something free (that they normally have to pay for).

This can be information, links, gift baskets, tee-shirts, prizes, discounts, you name it. Everyone loves to get something of value for free.

2. Put a sincere, glowing review on someone’s LinkedIn account, blog or other online property.

Not only can this really make someone’s day/week/month, positive recommendations can also translate to more contracts, job offers, and other gigs for the people you recommend.

3. Leave a useful, incisive comment on someone’s blog.

It only takes a minute to comment, but it takes a bit longer to make a comment that really adds value. But taking the time to do this can serve both parties, especially if the comment includes a link back to your site.

4. Connect them with others that would add value to their community.

When you are considering ways to thank a particular group or individual, think of other people in your network they should know and pass on an introduction.

5. Make an otherwise boring thing fun.

Use humor, be engaging, don’t take yourself too seriously. (Woot and BlendTech both do an awesome job of this!)

6. Show clients and customers that you really do care.

Maintain a good set of online alerts and respond immediately to customer concerns.

You’re gonna love cloud computing.

Cloud computing is a phrase used to define online workspace that exists independently of your personal computer. There are applications (like WordPress, Flickr, and Gmail), platforms (where developers write and collaborate on code), and even infrastructure (storage and other resources) in the cloud.

Get a free Google Account

Most businesses can benefit tremendously from using the cloud in the application space. If you don’t already have a Google account, open one today. Then look around: you’ll see dozens of ways to use this free account for your business. You can measure all the statistics on your website with Google Analytics. You can manage all your subscriptions and feeds from other websites. You can set up Google Alerts on your name, competition, or keywords in your industry, and you can create, share, and collaborate with Google Documents.

Far more than word processing

Google Documents offers a basic word processing application you can use, but you can also create and share presentations, spreadsheets, forms, and take advantage of far more templates than you’ll ever need. The basic word processing docs have plenty of editing and formatting functions without being as bloated as Microsoft Word. You can also upload already-created documents onto Google Docs (just click the “upload” button on the GDocs homepage) to store or share. These docs can also be emailed from the cloud (if you have Gmail) or your own desktop email client.

Share and collaborate

To share your document, simply add the email address of the person you want to share the documents with. They must have a Google account for this to work, and you must add the email address they use for that account. When they log into their own Google Docs account, they will see the document you shared with them on their homepage.

The shared docs are only available to the people you share them with, and you get to specify whether the other persons you invite can only view, or can also modify the document. You also get to say whether those other people can share the document with others.

The ability to collaborate on and share documents via the cloud eliminates the need to copy to a storage device or travel to deliver your information. You can keep up with multiple revisions (and remember where you left the final copy), and you don’t have to worry about virus transmission, loosing the storage device, or finding your data has been corrupted because of a scratched disk, etc.

And it’s free.

Did I mention the “free” part? Some companies have quit paying for office software entirely, and are humming right along with free cloud-based applications. You could be next.

Leave a comment and tell what your favorite cloud application is. How is it changing the way you do business?

1. Clarify your career goals
Before doing anything, decide what your career goals are. Do you want to work in the field in which you were trained? Are you are trying to break into a new area? Maybe you want to work in a field in which you already have considerable experience. Whatever you decide, focus all your efforts (and your resume) toward that specific goal.

2. Create an outstanding LinkedIn.com profile.
It’s the standard business professional beginning. Join related LinkedIn groups in your field. Be active, asking and answering questions in those groups. Attend local group events and expand your LinkedIn connections.

3. Get networked online.
Choose the right networks and build your following accordingly. This takes time and effort, but isn’t difficult to do. For example, if you join Twitter you can do network searches on keywords and use third-party services such as TwitterLocal and Twellow to find others in the area, including potential colleagues and bosses, as well as service partners (like staffing agencies) who might be able to help you in your search.

4. Join local business groups and attend their meetings.
Start with your local Chamber of Commerce and work outward from there. Exchange business cards, meet people. Check MeetUp.com and Craigslist in your area.

5. Subscribe to feeds related to your area.
If you don’t already know about and love RSS feeds, now is the time to learn. You’ll come off well in front of the people you are talking with if you are current on happenings within your industry or field. This is easier these days than ever before. Put all of your feeds on an iGoogle homepage or reader. Check it regularly.

6. Consider a staffing agency.
You can Google agencies in your area, or ask about them in the online networks that you are using.

7. Clean up your Facebook.
Make sure it looks professional, not college-party.

8. Google your name.
Claim online profiles. There are dozens of data-scrapers like JigSaw who will capture your name, potentially out-of-date information. clean up the flotsam you may have left laying around on the internet. This means dead blogs, old profiles, snarky comments on other high-traffic sites; anything connected with your name that could distract your future employer from your best qualities. Your future employers assuredly Google you; make sure they will like what they see.

9. Dot-com yourself.
Consider purchasing your name URL and set up a website all about you. Make yourself incredibly easy to find online, even if you need to purchase pay-per-click ads on your name or industry in order to get page rank.

10. Upgrade your email address.
Dump your yahoo or aol or mindspring etc. email address, or else don’t use it for your job search. Get an email addy that goes with your site or get a gmail account with your professional name.

11. Simplify your professional name use.
Make sure you use the same professional name EVERYWHERE. If it’s Susan G. Miller, be sure to use that exact version everywhere so that the search engines start to separate you from the plain Susan [no middle initial] Millers. If your name is Susan but you go by Sue, stop. Or else make all your online stuff and business cards say Sue. Pick something, and stick with it.

12. Say cheese.
Make sure your resume has a good photo of you on it (get a professional to do it or ask a clever friend, it’s worth the effort) and is also available in PDF format, so that you can easily send it to people online and have it on your site as a download, as well as having it available in a paper version (use good paper, print in full color).

And of course, there are lots of online job listing sites. Google it, and you’ll find sites from “A” (AllJobSearch.com) to “W” (WorkTree.com). I tried for “Z,” I really did.

You don’t have to do all of the above, but any of them will certainly help! And as always, we’d love to hear your suggestions. Leave a comment and offer your ideas for getting back in the game.

A long and grueling presidential campaign came to an end a week ago, with Barack Obama emerging as the victor, the first African American to do so. Obama’s “Historic Road to the White House” has been mapped out forwards and backwards, with every media outlet and blogger out there covering everything from Obama’s message of hope to his love of basketball, and everything in between.

And almost every marketing blog you can find has extensively covered the Obama campaign’s successful use of online and mobile communication.

Most of the blogs I’ve read that talk about Obama’s use of the web go a little something like this (and I’ll paraphrase slightly): “Obama stuck to a consistent message, displayed it through clear and elegant design, and delivered it to millions through internet technology. He engaged voters, and made it easy for everyone to be a part of the campaign. We call this Web 2.0.”

I’m not here to disagree, by any means. Obama’s embrace of good design and the web as a powerful marketing tool was an unbelievable sight. Who would have expected a presidential candidate to take up a Twitter account, text his supporters his VP choice, and display, for once, a beautifully designed website that was actually easy and enjoyable to navigate? Whether you voted for him or not, no one can deny the force in which Obama spread throughout the country, creating one of the biggest ground campaigns in the history of this country, garnering millions of supporters and over $200 million in campaign donations. Advertising Age, a leading online source of news and data for the marketing and media industries, recognized the impact of Obama’s campaign and just recently named him Marketer of the Year, beating out Apple and Nike.

But now the campaign is over. Barack Obama will be in the White House at the end of January. My question is this: Is this the end of Obama’s social networking and participation with voters? Will he now be tied to the status quo of government communication (ie. press conferences, annual State of the Union addresses, the occasional Late Night Show appearance)? Will he fade into the Oval Office, be blanketed with pages of legislation and meetings with foreign leaders, and be forced to let the media deliver news about his daily activity and policy choices?

My hope is no.

I have to admit, I got pretty excited when I saw Obama’s new site www.change.gov (launched within 24 hours after Obama’s victory). Wow, I thought, he is allowing the American public to participate in the transition from the Bush to the Obama administration! How cool is that? Then I starting wondering, will this continue while he is president? Will the American government begin adapting Web 2.0 values of viewer participation, allowing you to talk instead of just talking at you? Can the communication from the Oval Office be open and direct, and can American citizens, the people who voted for our country’s leaders, be involved more than just watching the Senate floor coverage on CSPAN?

Obama’s message for the past two years was about bringing change to America. My hope is that part of this change will be how our government communicates with its people, and that we as US citizens stay involved and care enough to remain engaged even after the balloons and banners from this historic election fade away.

1. Check print publications
Examine trade publications and industry-related magazines for online directories, blogs, sites, and forums. Many publications well-known for their print versions now have online versions with a whole host of ways to interact online. For example, if you are selling woodworking tools, you might look in print publications like Fine Woodworking, Woodworker’s Journal, or Popular Mechanics.

2. Ask the influencers
Send a polite email to the leaders and influencers in the market you’re trying to reach. Be sincere and complimentary about their work; let them know why you value them. Very often they will tell you where they blog or what social network is most useful for them.

3. Google it
Searching on the keywords in your field will often turn up places where your audience goes when they are looking for something in your industry.

4. Scour Wikipedia and other knowledge platforms
Some areas are very well documented on Wikipedia. For example, a search on “Organic Foods” turns up an article with 82 linked references to other sources, many of which are online. In addition, Wikipedia’s “External Links” are often good online sources as well. Other knowledge platforms, such as Squidoo or Knol might also reveal industry watering-holes where you want to be connected.

5. Search in social networks.
Start with a search of the Groups on LinkedIn and join the ones that fit your goals. If you use Twitter, resources like Twellow, which allows Twitter-users to have an online profile in multiple categories based on location, industry, etc., can help you build a following. If you use Flickr, try a tag search to find others in your target market. Networking platforms like Ning, Facebook and MySpace also have search functions to help you begin to build groups of the kind of contacts with whom you would like to be able to interact.

6. Use online news release target markets
Groups like PRNewswire will allow you to select the target markets you would like to reach online. Services like this generally come with a fee.

7. Create old-fashioned email lists
You can purchase email lists from a number of companies, but you can also create an email list from scratch. Sponsor a big event for all your existing and potential clients, and invite attendees to drop their business cards in a basket. But be sure to do the following as well:

• Offer an event or a free service that you know for certain will add value to their work and lives.
• Be clear that you are starting an email list, and allow them to opt-in as they desire.
• Set expectations, such as promising not to spam, sell/share their info, or send emails more than “x” number of times per month, then keep your promises.

8. Connect with Professional Associations and Directories
Start with the ones that are free to join. For example, if you are running a restaurant, you’ll want to register with all of the directories that offer listings of eateries in your area. These generally turn up in a quick Google search. Sometimes directories will allow you a free profile, and request a small payment in return for a link. In addition, local Chambers of Commerce have business directories that are great for connecting with your target markets. To get in front of professional associations, you might try offering to speak for a monthly association meeting, conference, or chamber event.

9. Utilize Amazon.com
Sites like Amazon are great for telling your target market about yourself and your products. Consider regularly reviewing products in your area and related areas, and be sure to showcase the differences in your products and the competition’s.