Is Your FB Business Page ‘Timeline’ Ready?

March 30 is Facebook’s biggest and BEST change for business yet!

Why?

For the first time on Facebook you will have features that a normal website should have. This is BIG!

Facebook is about to make TIMELINE compulsory on Pages (not just profiles). This means far more opportunity for you to create a powerful strategy for your business online.

Here’s the summary of the changes:

• Cover Image – You get to have a full size header panel just like on your website BUT you need to comply with FB policy
• Profile Picture – Your opportunity to increase your branding and connection with the world
• Page Tabs – Just like on your website these have a high profile position (Page tabs are under the cover page to the right) You can edit with graphics, offers and calls to action (do make sure you comply with FB policy)
• Use the ‘Pin to Top’ feature – This will keep any post ‘pinned’ to the top for up to 7 days
• An opportunity with the ‘Milestone’ feature you can showcase your history as a company and improve your credibility and authority
• Use the ‘Highlight’ feature to showcase specific posts on your timeline

NEW BONUS APPS:

New ‘Reviews  App‘ – Facebook in their infinite wisdom (sarcasm intended) removed the built in FB reviews App.

And given that “What others say about you is infinitely more powerful than what you say about yourself’ you can use this New ‘Reviews  App‘  so you can showcase your clients raves and reviews of your outstanding service on your new FB Timeline Business Page.

‘Contact App’ – Make it EASY for people to get hold of you so give them multiple ways to contact you. Pre-set up to email you through a built in contact form, be professional.

‘Suggest to Friends’ – Help build your audience. Facebook took this feature away last year, it was being probably being abused. But we can set this up so you can politely ask your friends to ‘like’ your page.

Gone is the ‘Welcome or Like’ Page – well, it’s still there but the ability to direct people there BEFORE they like your page is no longer available. So you will need to refine your offer and how you use that page to help your business.

2 ways to upgrade for the FB Timeline Business Page:

• The ‘Done for You’ all set up and good to go package – (You can see the packages here)
• If you’re in Perth attend a ‘Smarter Social Media – Hands On’ Workshop (See the package here)

Remember, March 30^th is the switch date! Don’t wait or your page graphics and branding will be jilted so it’s first in best dressed.

See the FB Timeline Business Page Packages

Dear Peter,

I’ve written this recommendation of your work to share with other LinkedIn users.

Details of the Recommendation: “Peter and his team were able to redesign our website to suit our growing needs as a company. He also provided excellent one on one training on how to operate the new website and phone support when needed. I highly recommend his services.”

Top Qualities: Expert, High Integrity, Creative

Thank you & Kind Regards,

Linda Brewer
Marketing

EDWARD BREWER HOMES PTY LTD
BUILDERS LIC. 12079
PO BOX 6145 WAIKIKI WA 6169
T: (08) 6364 0248
F: (08) 9592 6937
www.ebh.net.au

Dear Peter,

I’ve written this recommendation of your work to share with other LinkedIn users.

Details of the Recommendation: “I attended one of Peter’s courses on Friday and it was upfront and personal. It is worth the dollars. He is very hands on, approachable and knows this social media environment. Two courses, Facebook and Linked In. Both are worthwhile attending. Congratulations Peter, I was unsure at first but I am not now! Kind regards, Meryl Carter”

Being on Page 1 in Google for one or even more keywords is where the real money is!

There’s lots of ‘smoke and mirrors’ with SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) BUT it doesn’t need to be complicated, or expensive. Check out this great way for business owners to take advantage of this technology to bump their business website traffic and search engine ranking.

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“Start from the beginning, not the end!” says Evan Kolbe of Kolbe Systems.

“For most of us when where trying to systemise our business we either put it into the too hard basket or flick it off to the Admin staff to document everything.”

“Occasionally we might even have been inspired by Michael Gerber’s E-Myth Revisited TM  or Cash Flow the Game(TM) by Bradley J. Sugars both preaching the benefits of systemising your business. Either way it generally deteriorates into an expensive dust collector!” says Evan.

So how is it done properly? Surely it’s not only the burgers and chips conglomerates that can do this sort of stuff and reap the rewards?

So can this “stuff” be done simply, quickly and most importantly effectively?

This week we interviewed arguably the best Business Systems person in the country, Evan Kolbe of Kolbe Systems. Based in Perth Western Australia the boutique company has quietly and successfully systemised over 120 businesses throughout Australia.

Not only is the number impressive. Many of their clients have successfully removed themselves from their business. The holy grail of business success! Many of their clients achieving record growth at the same time!

Peter: So Evan, what are the most common mistakes business owners make when embarking on systemising their business?

Evan Kolbe: Put simply, they don’t do their research. It’s too easy for them to hand it over to the IT/ Admin manager instead. They fail to see what Best Practice is in the market place.

Peter: From a technical point, where do you start?

EK: Sadly most people start at the end first. They start documenting every process in the business. Generally following staff around and asking them what do they do? Then type like crazy all the procedures. This never works because you end up crossing over and confusion sets in.

The first thing you need to do is develop a concise Functions chart that outlines your fundamental flow within all areas of your business. Once you’ve done that it becomes substantially quicker to systemise off positions rather than individual people.

Peter: You say all areas, how many areas?

EK: Every business is uniquely different but you should have at least 21. If you don’t then you’re missing some thing.

Peter: So how do you define these 21 areas of functions?

EK: There are 7 fundamental areas in all organisations;

• Management
• Administration
• Marketing & Sales
• Finance
• Operations/ Service
• Public Relations
• Quality Assurance

Each of these areas you need to break into a 3 stage process, this will give you the 21 areas of your Functions chart.

Peter: So how do you identify this 3 stage process and ‘drill down’ into these 21 areas of functions?

EK: Every area has 3 distinct process steps;

• Start
• Do
• Stop

Identify all steps and you get complete clarity so team members really understand their responsibilities. That’s the benefit of going through our program. Clients get to see what best practice is. We have over 100 Function charts you can benchmark off other companies so you can create your very own unique process. It’s R&D on steroids!

Peter: So once you’ve done the 21 area Functions chart is it okay to start writing things up?

EK: Be careful with writing every thing up. It’s not always writing. In some businesses you can have good staff leave if they have to read a lot. Consider audio or video recording some areas.

To be honest writing all the processes up in business is always the last thing we get our clients to look at. Other things you can do to get a better result would be to now match off your Functions chart your Document Control, your Company Policy, Business Statistics and Induction process. Then look at your Job Manuals.

Peter: Once these functions are defined what is the feedback from people within the businesses you work with?

EK: The owner loves it, they see it as a means to an end. They often semi retire or start up another business. The productive staff usually pat us on the back and say “It’s about time we got organised” The reverse is true for the non productive staff, they won’t like the clarity and responsibility.

Peter: You’ve already said that most business owners normally start with the Policies and Procedures. What other thoughts do you have on that?

EK: Treat Policies and Procedures (Job Manuals) as tools. Just like all good tradesman do with their tools. You need to know when to use them, how to use them and how to look after them. Put in untrained hands it can be dangerous.

Peter: What’s your number one tip for business owners wanting to ‘remove’ the dependency of them being ‘in’ their business?

EK: It can be done, just to it properly. There is no one secret to doing this, you need to systemise your entire business so all your T’s are crossed and I’s are dotted. Business systemising is all about defining common sense.

Peter: Evan, really appreciate your time and insight here. I know this will be a great benefit to many of my clients and readers.

So you have an info pack that people can get. Is that right?

EK: Yes, it’s a Free Business Organising Checklist – just visit www.kolbesystems.com.au

If you’d rather talk to Evan one on one he’d be more than happy to do that, you can reach Evan on (08) 9227 8022 – just let him know you read his interview here.

Know we need it, ‘supposed’ to make our business more efficient but there always seems to be a cost, mainly the learning curve.

Once we have a handle on it and we often look back “What was the problem or why did that seem so hard?”

There were 5 stand out software applications that helped us grow our business in 2011. They might make the world of difference for you so thought I’d share them.

Evernote:

We all come across great useful information while ‘surfing’.

We might bookmark a webpage, want to save a link, an image, maybe save a document, make a note, see it on our iPhone, Android or Ipad.

How do we keep it all in one place?

Use Evernote. This video summarises it best

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w2Q2s7F6F4

We’re doing a million dollar website makeover of our 4 core ‘business front websites’ to get better leverage and uniformity from our marketing, lead generation and branding.

Individually my team see ideas and models we can work from so how do we capture that easily and quickly and so we can ALL see it?

Evernote and ‘share’ a folder.

Whether it’s a webpage, complete with links intact or maybe it’s just a part of a webpage, or an image of a button we like the style of.

And if you capture it on your iPhone or mobile device, it’s there on your PC when you get home, it’s all online so it doesn’t matter what device you use. Check it out, it’s free – http://www.evernote.com/

See the full list of features and functionality for yourself.

• I can send Evernote an email with content and files attachments.
• I can upload text, voice messages and images.
• I can drag files from my computer to Evernote on my desktop.
• I can save a file to Evernote from the print dialog command.
• I can clip any full web page or just an excerpt of web content directly to Evernote while I surf.
• I can write text notes directly to Evernote.
• I can add photos directly from a camera.
• I can add scans with ability to search them.
• I create separate folders (for blog post ideas, social media, search engine optimising, etc.)

RoboForm:

Need to manage your passwords more effectively, and securely (emphasis security)?

Most people try to have a default password so it’s easy to remember, trouble is some are 4 character passwords, some are between 6 to 12 and others complicate it with forcing you to have some uppercase, some alpha and some numeric characters and it just goes on. Most people then try and use 2 or perhaps 3 versions. Good luck with that.

We manage over 1100 passwords so we run the Password Manager RoboForm and specifically the ‘RoboForm Everywhere’.

Here’s their video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n9Dr8dL0Oc

It used to be a freebie, and you can still get a 30 day trial. It’s only $29.95 but I’d recommend the RoboForm Everywhere.

RoboForm Everywhere is only $9.95 per year and we run it on all our computers so each team member can access, add, update and sync the passwords at any time. I also run their app on my iPone and Ipad.

It also acts as a web form filler which is a big time saver too (but equally as annoying if you’re on the net as much as we are so we use the manual on/off switch on that).

It also has a very cool random password generator and of course RoboForm is password protected in itself. Security is the key obviously. Here’s a cool trick for those wanting to manage all their financial and banking passwords but keep it separate from the team, run 2 ‘profiles’ so it is totally independent from your client data.

Snag It and Camtasia:

Need to take a screen shot? Want to then make some notes on that? What about video tutorials?

Both Snag It and Camtasia are made by TechSmith and can be purchased separately or as stand alone applications.

Turn a simple snapshot of your computer screen into a detailed graphic or illustration. Whether you need to create interesting training documents, collaborative design work, or IT bug reports, Snagit allows you to communicate efficiently.

Here’s a link to Snag It:

http://www.techsmith.com/snagit.html

Create, edit and produce stunning videos at any screen size. Use Camtasia to make tutorials, as well as a variety of training and marketing videos. Camtasia lets you edit and polish video of your computer screen and instantly share it to YouTube, portable devices and more.

Here’s a link to Camtasia:

http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html

or the free version form Techsmith with not as many feaqtures but pretty cool cause it’s free is Jing.

The fun and the simple way to start sharing images and short videos of your computer screen. Whether for work, home or play, Jing can add basic visual elements to all of your online conversations. And best of all, it’s FREE.

http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html

Imgur:

This is not actually software but a really handy tool. It’s simply an easy online way to share images.

Have you ever needed remote help with an issue on your PC?

You want to show them the issue you’re having using a screen shot (like you might create using SnagIt). Easier than explaining right? But how do you do that?

Have your image, upload it to http://imgur.com/ and grab the URL address and send them the link via the chat line and it’s instant, click the link and they can see the image.

Wonder or have to explain no more!

WorkflowMax:

Ever wonder where the day goes? Need to track and measure tasks, projects or how long jobs take? Need to know more about your bottom line profit?

We did.

We trialled several software applications before settling on WorkflowMax.

This is not a full review but here’s the short story version.

http://www.getklok.com/ was a great little application. I personally loved the user interface, and the way it listed the project a sub parts of the project. It runs ‘local’ on your PC which means the software is on your computer.

That’s great but we needed to be able to ‘connect’ each team member’s results and data. Get Klok have a plugin called ‘team connector’ which by all accounts ran well. Only trouble was we had to ‘click some buttons’ for that to collate and ‘connect’, which means it is dependent on us to remember to do that, and in essence is fraught with danger.

For a one man or two band team it’s great starting software and not big dollars at US$15.99. If you want to synchronise the data you’d need to look at the ‘team connector’ and ‘team console’ add ons.

We went to http://www.workflowmax.com/ and are rapt with our decision.

It’s a monthly subscription model being an online application and the time tracking and reporting is brilliant.

Right now I’m tracking how long it takes me to do this post. It’s recorded under the job ‘Marketing and Sales’ as the ‘Job’ – Blog Posts.

As a result of the reporting so far we’re able to streamline and improve our process and systems because we have real time accurate data to work from. No theoretical or emotional decisions here.

The team are on board because they’re able to show where their day goes, what they need to have to be more efficient and we’re looking at implementing outcomes based bonuses because we have the data to accurately track it.

We recently identified we went way overtime on one job which showed for that particular style of project we needed to have a different cost structure applied.

The outcome? Better bottom line.

Is it a learning curve? Yes, but pretty simpe really.

Is it worth it? Yes, absolutely!

WorkflowMax also has lead management aspect of which I’ve only just started using which is already showing me some of the ‘cracks’ in our follow up systems.

Another part we’re not using is invoicing, we use other software for our bookkeeping and invoicing but that’s another day and another post.

I hope you’re able to glean from our experience of using these software applications. Hope it helps.

Hope you had a great Xmas and New Year’s break. Can’t believe its February already!

Quick Smarter Websites Members Update:

WordPress is now up to version 3.3.1 and the Genesis Framework is up to version 1.8

If you’re a Smarter Websites 110 Member DO NOTHING. Kick back, relax, life is good.

Not only have we updated your WP site Version we’ve also updated all your plugins. Enjoy the benefit and merit of being at your membership level. (We did have an issue with a couple of plugin conflicts but we’ve resolved that and all is well in internet land)

If you’re a Smarter Websites 55 Member you DO NEED to upgrade your WP Version sooner than later for security reasons. Don’t forget to update your plugins too.

This is a common way hackers can get access to your site and totally trash and destroy all your hard work, and investment.

We recommend you do this next Tuesday or Wednesday as we will be readily available if you have issues.

Do read the member plan conditions.

As business owners we need to be free to focus on the activities that MAKE us money, not on the tools in the toolbox like your website so if you want us to handle all your updates and upgrades either give us a call or contact us here – http://www.smarterwebsites.com.au/contact-peter-butler/

PS: We will be releasing our special ‘Managed Services’ very soon where we’ll even handle your blog posts, social media activity and email marketing campaigns so it will like engaging your own marketing division. Stay tuned!

Dear Peter,

I’ve written this recommendation of your work to share with other LinkedIn users.

Details of the Recommendation: “We called Peter and said we wanted site fast. The only thing that held it up was us. Peter was professional, patient, extremelly good natured and willing to push back where necessary. Delighted with the results that Peter and his team provided.”

Top Qualities: Personable, Expert, High Integrity