Facebook's Latest Design Update Helps Businesses

Facebook continues to evolve as it strives to master its own business model. With the latest evolution, Facebook makes its service more valuable to businesses. With the updated Fan Page, businesses now have the ability to send updates straight to the news feed of any person who has chosen to be a fan of that business.This will help companies make their online marketing strategies more viral.

Additionally, Facebook is adding an analytics tool called Insight so you can better understand the demographic of your fans. If your business currently does not have a Facebook fan page, now is the time to jump on the opportunity for maximum early exposure.

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Two LinkedIn Secrets You Never Knew: Picking Up the Phone and Joining Groups

LinkedIn is one of the most popular networks used by professionals to network with each other. Although Twitter and Facebook are awesome tools for keeping in getting information on things important to you and keeping in touch with friends, family and peers, LinkedIn reigns as the tool of choice for professionals looking for employment or connections. Tools such as JigSaw are also great for finding contact information for professionals.

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Are you LinkedIn? How to make LinkedIn work for your business.

LinkedIn is equivalent to the Facebook of professionals. It is a business oriented social network that was launched in May 2003. As of this month there is more then 35 million registered users across 170 industries. The site allows you to maintain a list of contact details that you know and trust in business. Creating a connection is similar to friending someone on Facebook.

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Can Facebook Replace A Traditional Web Site?

He argues that you don't need a web site because With Facebook Fan pages you can build your own website on the Facebook "Platform". A website that is totally FREE of hosting and server costs, public and indexable on all search engines, with unique URL's for individual landing pages that you can tune based on if they are Fans or Non Fans, where you can host all your video (so long as it is under 10mb) and upload your product catalog with detailed descriptions (and get feedback from Fans), where you can throw an event or show presentations on a Slideshare ap, run a contest or a survey, host your blog or retweet your status updates (or better yet - just use Facebook instead of Twitter). Oh don't forget send emails to your Fans for FREE and if you want to buy targeted ads you can do that too.

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Should your business be on Facebook?

Ask FSB's experts help small business owners cut through the social-networking thicket.

By Kathleen Ryan O'Connor

(FORTUNE Small Business) -- Dear FSB: Is it wise for a small business to have a corporate homepage on Facebook? One of our employees mentioned it. Some say it's good marketing; others say it's not. What are the pros and cons of doing it?

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10 Reasons To Use Facebook for Business

Social networking sites, especially Facebook, have significant implications for business owners, marketers, and entrepreneurs around the world. To keep your business current, you should at least be familiar with the latest social media marketing techniques and viral technologies, including Facebook and its array of powerful features.

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Marketing by Example, Part 3

Last week, Pete Wiltjer had just begun to test the crowdsourcing waters in the search for his company's new logo. By the next day, he was surfing a tidal wave of more than 250 submissions.

The high response rate was no accident--Wiltjer even got a pat on the back from the guys at CrowdSPRING for his performance. "One of the things I did right was filling out a very detailed project plan at the beginning and making sure to engage the designers and ask a lot of questions," he says.

The winning logo (pictured) came from one of the 87 creatives who submitted their designs through the crowdsourcing magnate. For Wiltjer, one of the major deciding factors was the designer's incorporation of a creative spin on his old logo. The winning entry was also a product of a healthy back-and-forth between Wiltjer and the designer, something he also used to separate the experienced artists from the amateurs.

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How Does Our Mission and Social Media Fit?

Over the last few months we have been learning and counseling people on using new technologies for their businesses. The reason we are expending a lot of resources on "social media" are quite obvious, they work and are a very affordable alternative to traditional marketing practices.

What I am talking about are new tools like Google Apps for businesses, LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter, and Blogs. We had a nice discussion the other day on how all these tools tie into what we do in the SBDC world. Drilling deeper how can we use different social media tools and applications together to really make an impact on our organizational mission?

After some discussion internally we developed a model for what we have observed and practiced, and hope to follow in the future. I also am now a believer in collaborative efforts and would appreciate any comments on the following flow chart:

(SBDC) Center Social Media Strategy