Protecting your website – those of use with a website (or two) would do well to read a blog post by Jessica Mathews in which she strongly advises having a Terms of Use Policy and a Privacy Policy posted on your website.  Once you’ve read the post don’t just think “yeah I must do that” – go and do it – write that Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and post them on your website. Here’s the link to her post Is your website puttng you at risk?

Hubspot are offering a free report on Social Media, Blog and Search Engine activity by industry. It’s great on advice about which social media platforms to be focusing and the strategies to adopt. You can download the report here.

For those of you with a Wordpress website or blog head over to the Social Media Examinerand read the guest post by Denise Wakeman on 24 impressive blog plug-ins. Denise is a well-respected blogging expert so this post is worth checking out.

How often do you blog ? How often do you think you should blog ? Grant Grifffiths addresses this much debated question in his blog post rather unoriginally entitled:  How often should I post to my blog ? nonetheless it is a post worth reading.

Following on from this I found Chris Brogan’s post on Numbers that matter very apt. Chris wrote the post following someone expressing concern about their numbers on Facebook and indeed everywhere you turn you find someone stressing about how many friends they have on Facebook, how many followers on Twitter and so on and so on. Some of the numbers that Chris thinks are worth worrying about include:

Worth thinking about eh ?

Well of course you need a plumber to install a new bathroom, fix a dripping tap or to switch off water gushing from a burst pipe but I was thinking more of money leaks from your business – when YOU need to be your own plumber stopping those money leaks – and trust me – when you’ve done reading this blog post you’ll all be agreeing that you have leaks – probably so many it’s a big flood.

I certainly hope you’ll leave a comment telling us all about the leaks that you’ve identified that aren’t covered in this post. I’ll bet there’s a ton of things I haven’t thought of.

So here are some potential sources of leaks for you to think about:

• Do you read all those books you buy? do you need to buy them or could you borrow them from your university library or even local library?
• How many VIP and membership programmes are you signed up for and never read the stuff that you receive?
• Do you pay to go on workshops and put the learnings into practice or do they remain notes in a binder?
• Do you use those home study courses you buy or do they take up valuable shelf space?
• How many networking events have you been to, collected business cards and then done no follow up?
• How many domain names do you have? do you really need so many?
• How many hosting services are you signed up for?
• How many premium Wordpress themes do you have and make no use of?
• Do you buy ink for your printer, almost never print or photocopy anything and then when you do you find the ink has dried out and you need to replace them? (this is my favourite trick)
• Could you use a Skype calling plan instead of a landline?
• Do you really get benefits from premium membership on Linked In?
• How many business organisations do you belong to and are you reaping the benefits? Do you go to the networking events? do you have an enjoyable time? do you make useful contacts? if you’re answering no then maybe you should question whether you should be spending money on these. Of course some you need to belong like the Chamber of Commerce simply because it adds some credibility and prestige but …
• Annual travel insurance is cheaper than buying travel insurance per trip
• Do you really need that extra suitcase you now have to pay for on transatlantic flights (another favourite of mine although I would claim that going for one to two months makes it justifiable!)
• Do you need to fly on a weekend? maybe if you fly during the week the cost of the additional hotel nights would be less than the extra cost in the airfare and you get some quiet time to focus on your business or hey, even some YOU time which is very important too.

Now write your own list and be prepared for a BIG shock .. my list showed that I could easily save $3000 a year – at least. That’s money you could invest in your business; money that would pay for the services of a virtual assistant (VA) to free up some of your time to work on your business or spend time with family; you even be radical and give yourself a very nice – and probably well deserved – holiday !! or just simply save on all that credit card interest.

Why not share with us some of the things that appeared on your list.

John Williams, author of  Screw Work, Let’s Play: How to do what you love and get paid for it sent me an email the other day (I guess I signed up for something at some point). He’d been inspired to write it following a holiday at a wondeful boutique hotel in Sicily.

I’ve extracted the following inspiring words that will, I hope, help some of my readers  find THEIR brilliance and make a business out of it (and I hope John won’t mind that I’ve done this !)

1. Find your brilliance
Find that thing you have a natural ability and enduring passion for (clue: you’ve been doing it in some form your whole life)

2. Accept your brilliance
Even if you don’t shout about it to the world, you must stop pretending you’re nothing special (Brits in particular take note here). Downplaying your strengths short-changes both you and the world and it guarantees you will never rise above the level of ‘good’ to reach brilliant.

3. Develop your brilliance
Take what you’re already good at and enjoy doing and focus all your energy on that. Become superb at it. It’s going to take a while but if you’re “in flow” you’ll have a blast along the way.

4. Create something truly brilliant
Use your talents with the skills and knowledge you’ve developed to create something really special. Focus on something very specific you can excel at. Collaborate with others who are brilliant at the parts you’re weaker at. Producing something is the most important step of all. It doesn’t matter how brilliant you believe you are if you have nothing to show for it.

5. Show the evidence of your brilliance
Occasionally I meet people who tell me how brilliant they are. I’m really not very interested. Tell me what you’ve created or contributed to and what other people have said. Better still don’t tell me, show me by helping me with this skill and knowledge of yours. Or just let me find you by others’ recommendations.

Blogging Tips carried a guest post by Charnita France who seems to always come up with great suggestions on internet tools. This time she talked about the benefits of using Spyvo to manage reminders and keywords: Quickly Manage your Reminders and Alerts with Spyvo.

As many of you probably know, Google announced last week that it was ending development of Google Wave – not a complete surprise – in fact in truth I, like many others, had forgotten all about it. It sounded so promising when it first appeared but never really gained traction. It was supposed to replace email and IM but it didn’t interact with any of those platforms, even Google’s own Gmail and I don’t think anyone was really clear what it was supposed to do. Jonathan Bailey posted the 5 lessons from Google Wave for the rest of us over at Blogging Tips which are worth bearing in mind. You can read some extracts below:

1. No Man is an Island

No one is an island unto themselves, especially on the Web. Network with blogs in your field, link and quote them and leave comments on them. “Interfacing” with other sites encourages people to read yours as they read others.

2. Let the People In

Wave was unveiled in small “waves” of invites which hurt its ability to find a niche. By the time it went public, the enthusiasm had died down. Lesson: Don’t turn people away, open the door to conversation and participation. This is especially true in comments. The fewer barriers you place to a particular action, the more people who will take it. Open your doors wide and welcome all of those who want to visit.

3. State Your Purpose

Few understood what Google Wave was supposed to do or what it was useful for. This made Wave a really cool piece of technology without a real problem to solve and that meant users were impressed by it but really didn’t have a place for it. Lesson: Explain what your site is about and do so very clearly. Put it in the domain if you can or, at the very least, make it the first thing your readers see. Tell them what need you will fill and then fill it very well.

4. Speed Matters

One of the more common complaints about Google Wave was that it moved slow, especially in certain browsers. Lesson: Focus on speed. Do a good speed test on your site, put it on a diet and make it as fast as possible. A fast site gives people a good impression and that is an impression that lasts a long time.

5. Marketing, Marketing, Marketing

After its initial launch and feeding frenzy, not a lot was done to really promote or push the service. Most barely even noticed when Wave was opened up to the public in May. Lesson: Never stop promoting or marketing, you have to do it even if it is just to maintain momentum, let alone increase it. Always stay on top of your marketing game and be trying new things, never rest on your laurels.

I first read The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Hyder Kabani in bits and pieces during the early Summer but then this week sat down in the sun on my balcony and read it again – cover to cover.

With a Foreword by Chris Brogan, the book contains chapters on:

• Online marketing basics
• Websites, Blogs and SEO
• Social media marketing : what you need to know before you start
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Video: the Next Frontier
• Creating a social media policy for your organisation
• Tools for attracting even more business (this includes social bookmarking and how to measure the results of your efforts)

These are followed by:

• A section on some of the questions asked by the readers of Shama’s blog
• A section with case studies from companies in a variety of sectors.

The Zen of Social Media Marketing is somewhat unusual in that Shama has posted all of it on her website so that readers can access updated chapters.

I’ve been tracking Shama for a couple of years now but any social media newbie buying this book will probably have no idea who she is. However she rapidly demonstrates her impressive knowledge and expertise and reinforces her credibility by having Steve West write the section on SEO and handing over the chapter on Video: The Next Frontier to Dave Kaminski who she acknowledges as her number one source for online video information.

Quotes from social media practitioners are sprinkled throughout the book. Exceptionally I found them all to be highly valuable. I read many books on a variety of topics and typically the quotes just reinforce what the author is saying whereas Shama used quotes that really added value.

It’s a very easy, relaxing book to read – it’s just as if Shama is sitting there with you telling you all about social media. The pages just turn themselves. But make no mistake – this book contains no fluff and is absolutely crammed full of useful information. I would definitely recommend having a pen to hand to mark the things to action. Whilst I’m by no means a newbie to using social media for business – I teach it as part of a course on Strategic Communications at Webster University in Leiden and give talks on it back home in Montreal – I still found lots of things to put on my To do list. So whilst The Zen of Social Media Marketing paints a broad canvas and in a very accessible style making it a must read for the social media newbie, it’s still worth a read for the more seasoned social media folk.

The Zen of Social Media Marketing is available from Amazon (my affiliate link) and no doubt a good bookstore not far from where you live.

Having written this review I then read some of the reviews on Shama’s website and at Amazon – interestingly everyone has commented on how easy and gripping a read it is packed full of useful information and no fluff, just like Shama sitting there talking to you. Think Shama has clearly demonstrated that not only is she extremely knowledgeable about social media but she is able to write about it and share that knowledge in an accessible way.

For the record, Shama is the president of The Marketing Zen Group (previously known as Click To Client), a full-service web marketing agency serving clients around the world. She was tagged by Business Week as one of North America’s Top 25 Under 25 entrepreneurs. She holds a master’s degree in organizational communication from the University of Texas at Austin.

With so many smaller businesses and solopreneurs creating a Facebook Page I thought it was timely to provide some information about Facebook pages and serve up some of the great posts about Facebook Pages out there in the blogosphere. 

But first of all – what’s the big deal about Facebook Pages ?

Well -  the Page option allows you to create a presence for your business, web site, product, whatever and promote it.  With a Page you have “fans” rather than “friends” and no restrictions on how many. You can send them updates, engage with them in discussions.

You can feed your Blog Posts onto your  Page  (use the Facebook Notes application) and you can import your YouTube videos using the YouTube Video Box application.

If you have more than 25 fans you can have a vanity URL.

Pages are indexed by Google.

You can gather user analytics and data.

 The coolest thing of all is that you can enhance your Facebook Page with the use of HTML – a rare thing on social media sites. You can rearrange and rename the tabs. You can upload an image (your photo or logo or a poster about your organisation) measuring 200 x 600 pixels (now that makes an impression). You can create a custom landing page using the Static FBML (Facebook Mark up Language – a sub-set of HTML) application.

But first of all you need to create a Page so …..

Setting up your Page

Go to your Home page, in the left hand column click on Adverts and Pages, then click on Create Page (see the screen shot below as this is a tad obscure).

Then you need to decide how you want to classify yourself. If you’re a bricks and mortar business look through the drop down options to find the one that fits best. If you’re a business, organisation or web site with a national or international presence, look through the “Brand, Product or Organization” options. Of course if you’re famous then it’s a no-brainer.

So having settled all that let’s go take a look at the posts I checked out on setting up and enhancing your Facebook page.

Enhancing your Page

As I said, the Static FBML application that allows Facebook page administrators to create custom boxes and tabs on their pages. For me the best post on this is from my big favourite the Social Media Examiner.  In How to Customize Your Facebook Page Using Static FBML, Nick Shim provides a how-to guide on adding the application to your Facebook page and making effective use of it.

Meanwhile Darren Rowse over at Problogger adds some further details that are worth reading : How to Create a FaceBook Landing Page for Your Blog

Ching Ya again at the Social Media Examiner looks at  9 Ways to Enhance Your Facebook Fan Page including “testimonial page” to “ newsletter opt-in” – great stuff !

In How to create a bootylicious Facebook Page  John Haydon (who focuses on social media for not for profits) provides some great tips for creating a Facebook fan page to stand out from the crowd.

There’s a load of stuff out there – if you want even more check out the amazing list from the Interactive Insights Group – Ultimate Guide to Facebook Pages.

Sometimes… when I’m waiting for a bus or train or hanging round in an airport observing people I get to thinking.

Yesterday I went for a run here in Montreal which took me round the lake in Parc Lafontaine. I decided to sit in the sun for a while and listen to my MP3.

I noticed what looked like raindrops on the lake – except it wasn’t raining. Each time some birds flew over there were even more ripples. I realised these were tiny insects moving on the water but making big ripples.

I started wondering what the marketing or business lesson might be from this.

Here they are…

… even if you are little and playing in a big pond (thinking of social media here) you can still make ripples that have an impact on other people and their businesses and their lives. Even if people make no comment it doesn’t mean they’re not observing or listening to you or taking action on what you say or the information you share.

Then I noticed that some of the ripples were really big – this was where two tiny insects were together so of course I thought about joint ventures and how two people are always stronger than just one. I’ve discovered this recently by partnering with Lelia Raynal for my upcoming social media talks in Montreal. (If you want to know more about them contact me.)

What observations do you make when you’re out and about that have a business or marketing lesson ?

Do you use images in the your blog ? then you should read this blog post over at Hubspot on How to Use Creative Commons to Add Images to Your Blog

At risk of you thinking that I spend all my time on Hubspot (I don’t but they do appear in my inbox more than once day) - this post presented some really useful and worth thinking about statistics on the use of mobile devices to access and participate in social media sites – 11 mind blowing mobile marketing infographics.

And now for something completely different – Chris Brogan wrote a post today about the painter who made a window so that he could chat to his fans while he worked, he ended up chatting more than working…  Something to think about as we all chitchat, tweet and comment across the blogosphere; as we talk about what we are going to do rather than getting on with it. Here’s the link: The Painter and his Window. Woah… don’t run off yet – when you get to Chris’ post read the COMMENTS too – everyones take on this parable was different and there are some really interesting intrepretations.  Feel free to not only leave a comment over there but to come back here and tell me what you thought about it.

If you want to know about the latest and coolest tools then Charnita France over at Social Web Tools is the go-to gal. This week she posted on Blogging Tips about Swipely (which is very similar to Blippy).  Swipely (which is still in beta) and Blippy allow you to register and then you can see what people are buying, what your Facebook friends are buyingm comment and discuss these. Not only is it a great wat for consumers for get information about a product but companies can see what people are buying and what they think about them. Or course companies can also use the search facility on Twitter to do this. 

I decided that from now on I’m going to share just a handful of the many blog posts that pass across my line of vision in the average week. (Of course it’s also a cunning ploy to write a post without having to spend hours thinking about it and crafting something erudite, meaningful or even just plain helpful !!)

Milana Leshinsky has compiled a list of the women she considers to be the top 100 women who turned their passion into highly successful multiple income streams businesses online.  To see the critieria she used to identify them and see who’s on her list follow this link.

I love Springwise – full of great new business ideas – brought to your inbox each week. For this weeks offerings…

I’m a big fan of the Social Media Examiner. The other day he posted on the topic of location-based social networks : Foursquare vs. Gowalla vs. MyTown: Which Is Better for Business?

Webdesiger Depot is great if you’re a webdesigner and also if you enjoy cartoons. They have a cartoons of the week series. Here’s the link to this weeks offerings.  They also do collections such as Coming soon website designs.  Check out their different and highly interesting categories.

This may or may not appeal to your sense of humour -  Elaine and Gary and their home decor – check it out to see what I’m on about and let me know if you found it amusing. Catalog Living.