The only thing certain in our world is that change will happen.  Once again, Facebook is changing the business pages to include the timeline similar to the current personal profiles.  These changes were announced yesterday, are available now and will become the default page view on March 30th.  If you manage a business page, don’t delay, March 30th will be here before you know it.

 

Changes to Facebook Business Pages

Default Landing Tab — There is no longer a default landing tab.  Every visitor (fan or not) lands on your timeline.  Some are questioning whether this will make “fan gating” (hiding certain information from non-fans) irrelevant.  Facebook insists that hiding coupon codes will still be useful strategy with fan-gating as a way to increase “likes”.

Timeline Cover Photo — The most obvious aesthetic change is the timeline cover photo.  Facebook has made it clear that there are certain restrictions regarding the content on this cover.  The cover is not allowed to show any specials or call’s to action.  The text on the cover photo should be minimal.  They even state that you cannot have your website address, email address and no arrows pointing to like buttons.  They want the cover photo to be visual and clean (without spammy content).  For those who need to know, the image size is 851 X 315.

Where did the tabs go? — The tabs are now called “apps” and are found under the timeline cover photo.  The facebook photo app defaults as the first app.  The remaining 3 apps can be custom apps (formerly tabs)

 

Feature Apps — Since the “tabs” have moved under the cover photo, there is limited real estate for the tabs.  If you click the down arrow to the right of the apps, you will see all of the apps installed on the page.  But many users will not know to do this, nor will they take the time.  It is therefore important to showcase the top 3 apps immediately under the cover photo.  (Note, the image size for the “app photos” is 111 X 74.)

More Real Estate

The new timeline and the “apps” (formerly called tabs) give more real estate for your information.  The new format at 810 provides more room to design custom apps (tabs)  that truly resemble a mini website.  The old style tab at 520 still displays, but it is not centered.  Old tabs should be resized to fit the new 810 format. (click the images below to enlarge)

 

  

Reveal/Hide (Fangating) — Reveal/hide is still possible with the custom apps, but may take a back seat given that there is no longer a default landing tab for each page.  A useful strategy would be to create a custom app and if it is not featured in the top three, you can post it on your time line and pin it to the top of the timeline.  That custom app could have a fan reveal section that only fans can see after they like your page.

In summary, it is early and these changes have only been out for 2 days.  Information will continue to trickle out regarding these important new changes to Facebook Business Pages.   There are reports that the Facebook engineers are working on a bug with the like button on the new timeline.  For those wanting to make the switch, but nervous about the bugs, I would advise waiting a week or two to implement these new changes.  Remember to act pro-actively.  These changes will be automatically made on March 30th so don’t delay.  Make sure your business has their best face forward on their business timeline.

What do you do when you get stressed out? Everyone operates just a bit differently and it is so important to know what makes us tick and what keeps the clock from exploding. I’ve been quite busy lately with some pretty big projects and my stress is definitely up a notch.

Meet Romeo. Romeo is our 11 month old miniature poodle who came to us through a local rescue. I am very fortunate to be able to work at home and have access to my “furry stress management device” all day long. There are times when I pick him up and hold him in my lap as I work. At other times, I open the office door (which opens to my backyard) and I throw the tennis ball out into the yard and we have a great game of fetch.

We all need to find ways to regulate our state of mind. Whether it be a picture of family, a squeeze ball, a Starbucks, or a pet, we all need to know what can calm us.

And for all of you business owners and managers out there… consider having a “bring your pet to work day”. It might be interesting to see what it does for staff morale.

How many times have you written something or read something that was intended one way, but interpreted another way.  Don’t get me wrong… email is awesome.  It has become my own personal “to do list”.  I even send myself email reminders scheduled for future dates and times telling me not to forget something (more on that in a future post).

Email can be an amazing organization tool and can increase efficiency.  But in the midst of it all, I can’t help but wonder if we have lost the person behind the message.  This thought process led me to a little known service called eyejot that allows me to send video email messages to friends, clients, and colleagues.

 

Here is how it works: 

I log into my account at eyejot and record a video with my webcam.

 

After clicking “compose message”, I get the following screen allowing me to record my message straight from eyejot.

 

After pressing send, the recipient receives the following email that I have branded specifically for me.

 

When they click the play button, it opens the following webpage.  This webpage is also customized and branded to meet my needs.

Videos can also be embedded into web pages.  Below is the video as recorded for this demonstration.

One last thing you can do with eyejot is to record a welcome message and embed it into your contact page so that people can send you video messages as well.  Below is a screenshot of my video contact page on my website.

In closing:

There are a couple of things to consider when selecting a video email messaging system for you.  There are several products out there that come in at all levels of pricing.  Eyejot has a free version, but that does not allow for the customized branding.  The version of eyejot that I use is a paid version and was at the right price point to meet my needs. It is one of the more modestly priced services and because of that, it is co-branded with no ability to remove the eyejot logo.  There are other services that allow exclusive branding, but you will pay more for those services.

It takes a little bit of time to customize the email and the website landing page to include your logos and your branding.  However, once you have it done… it’s done.  Another thing I have found is that using eyejot seems more stable in firefox than chrome.  I am a chrome girl (for the time being), but when I try and use eyejot in chrome, I have problems with the flash.  Firefox is steady so I simply compose all video messages in firefox.

Happy video messaging everyone!!!!

 

 

There are a bazillion different project management tools on the market these days.  You can spend a bundle of time and money getting up to speed on many of the most complex tools.   What I love about Manymoon is that it is affordable, simple and easy to get started.  I had the opportunity to help train an association who is new to Manymoon last week.  I created some tutorial videos specific for their needs and got into the video spirit.  So here is a very quick video blog about why I love Manymoon and cannot imagine working without it.  One additional thing worth mentioning is that in addition to the affordability, the support is amazing.  Great job to all those over at Manymoon!  (Ahhhhh, now I can check off that overdue task that says, “Blog about Manymoon”)

Until next time,

Carol

It is no accident that I started Tech Tools.  I jokingly refer to myself as “The Accidental Geek”, but it really isn’t an accident.  You see, I LOVE techno toys.  And it’s not just techno toys like “Best Buy” tech toys.  I love tech solutions.  Therefore, it is most natural that I landed right here where I am supposed to be.  So for the person who loves her technology way too much, I cannot remember going without my cell phone for more than one night for the past 5 or 6  years… until this past weekend.

One of the things that we love to do as a family is to escape the heat and craziness of Phoenix and head up to the beautiful mountains of AZ.  It is always nice to get away from the “brown cloud” and enjoy the immense beauty of the stars lined with pine trees.  We’ve been doing this for a couple of years, and it is very rare that we don’t have some semblance of cell phone service allowing me to check in periodically.  This weekend, I forgot my power cord.  So I turned off the phone, put it in the glove box and left it there for 2 full days.  HORRORS of all horrors, I know.  Guess what, I survived.  And you know what else, everyone else who might have tried to get a hold of me over the weekend also survived.  And surprisingly, I didn’t even miss it.  Perhaps this is an experiment worth repeating.  So, if you try and email or “facebook” me one weekend and I don’t reply, take heart.  I just decided to unplug for the weekend.  I’ll plug back in first thing Monday morning.  What started as an accident turned into a blessing.  I encourage each one of you to try it sometime.

Plugged back in and having a blast,
Carol

PS.  Photo courtesy of Chris Frailey Photography.  This photo was taken during my “unplugged” weekend.  This is near Woods Canyon Lake, elevation 7,500 foot located on top of the Mogollon Rim in eastern AZ.