http://www.ThisWeekinTechTools.blogspot.com

http://www.facebook.com

Facebook is a social networking website intended to connect friends, family, and business associates. It is the largest of the social networking sites, with over 300 million users worldwide. Facebook grew 276% in 2008!

It is also, no cost marketing for anyone!

Facebook is the 1,000 pound gorilla which is why I will be discussing it in detail; because even if you’re already a user, there are a lot of options that you may not be aware of.

Create a Profile – It is simple to use and can be used for a variety of reasons. Once you sign up, you will need to create a profile page that can only be viewed by your friends (and networks).

Join a Network – If you decide to join a network, then everyone in that network will be able to view your profile. A profile typically includes the following Information; status updates, your friend list, your photos, notes, groups, and your wall.

Search for Friends/Friend Requests – You can search for friends and collegues by e-mail address, school, university, or just by typing in a name or location search. Once you find the person you are searching for, you will need to send a request to be their friend. They can either accept or ignore your request. The same is true when someone requests to be your friend; you can either accept or ignore their request. Once a friend request is accepted, you will both be able to see the others’ profiles, which can include contact information (if you choose to list it).

Photos – You can upload and post an unlimited number of photos from your phone or computer and are given the option to share them with everyone (public) or only with your friends.

Groups and Pages – In addition to your regular profile, you can create Pages or Groups. Groups and Pages serve different purposes on Facebook.

Groups

-Groups are meant to foster group discussion around a particular topic area and are meant for more personal interaction

-Groups can be created by any user and about any topic, as a space for users to share opinions and interests in that subject, such as activities, a hobby, an alumni, etc.

-With Groups, you can join and create up to 200 groups

-In Groups, the group administrator name will appear on the group and will be attached to your personal profile; therefore, when you post on your group’s wall, it will appear to come from you personally

-Groups can be public and available to everyone or closed (private), meaning only those invited can join and view discussions

-Only groups with less than 5,000 members can send email blasts

-Groups are not indexed by external search engines such as Google

Pages

-A Page is a public profile that enables you to share your business and products with Facebook users

-Pages can only be created to represent a real organization, business, celebrity, or band, and may only be created by an official representative of that entity

-Pages are intended to help an entity communicate publicly

-Pages will never display the administrator’s name. When you post on a Page that you own, it will appear to come from the Page, not from you as an individual

-Pages are indexed by external search engines such as Google and indexed for optimal search engine positioning

Events – Facebook events are a great resource to let friends know about interesting things coming up in your community and to organize social or business gatherings, such as webinars, conferences or unconferences.

You can invite an unlimited number of people to events, but you can only invite 100 people at a time. Once you invite the first 100 people, you can then start inviting more. In addition, you can only have 300 pending invites at one time for an event. Some people will have to respond to your event invite before you will be able to add more.

When creating an event you can make it Open, Closed or Secret.

Open events are open to everyone – Any Facebook user can RSVP or invite others to the event

Closed events are visible to everyone, but the details can only be seen by those who have been invited

Secret events are only visible to those invited and they will not show up in any news feeds

Tip – You can sync your Facebook events with your Google Calendar!

Some Facebook Statistics:

ViTrue has released results of a study compiled from nearly 200 million fan impressions on Facebook pages over a 5 month period (March-August 2009).

Here’s what they found:

Tuesday and Wednesday represent the highest click-through rates (CTR) on wall posts (9.89 and 9.87 respectively).

The worst days are Thursday, Saturday and Friday (4.39, 2.7 and 2.67 percent respectively)

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t update your status on these days, as it may be better to send out your messages on slower days, so they don’t get lost in the crowd. It is best to test and track your results and see what works for you.

The click through rates on Facebook, far exceed the CTR of traditional online ads, but knowing that, it is important not to skew your own statistics by posting nothing but offers (ads) or posting too frequently, or you will lose your fan base faster than you can answer “What’s on your mind”

Want to keep of on Facebook statistics, check out http://www.CheckFacebook.com.

CheckFacebook.com is not affiliated with Facebook; however, the site tracks data reported via Facebook’s advertising tool to help marketers make wise decisions.

According to the site:

-Facebook has 316 million users

-57% of users are female

-50% are ages 18-34

-Behind the US, the largest amount of users are in the United Kingdom (22,261,080) and Turkey (14,215,880).

Facebook’s not just for keeping in touch with family and friends; it can also be used as a highly effective business tool

-Obtain a unique username (URL) so that people can easily remember it and/or find your profile (example: http://www.facebook.com/eoblanchard)

-Upload your contacts from each of your email and IM accounts, use the Find Friends application and/or search by name to quickly build your contacts.

-Be sure to complete your profile so that you earn peoples trust

-Keep it clean – There’s nothing wrong with posting personal pictures, but it’s best if you don’t post pictures that could give people the wrong impression. If you must, keep the stuff you don’t want to share private through Settings

-Utilize applications that integrate feeds from your blog and other social media sites (Twitter, FriendFeed, etc.) into your Facebook profile

-Utilize Facebook Connect to integrate Facebook with websites, blogs and software applications and easily send information both ways

Facebook connect is also very handy in helping you reduce the amount of logins and passwords you will have to remember. Websites with this button allow you to login into those sites using your Facebook username and password

-Post your website, blog or newsletter subscription information in your profile

-Establish credibility by consistently connecting and sharing with others. Recognize their birthdays, praise their accomplishments; share useful articles and links that may be of interest to your customers or prospects

-Suggest Friends and Pages to your contacts. If you help them, they will more than likely help you

-Join Groups or Become a fan of Pages that are relevant to your business or industry

-Utilize Facebook as a research tool and find out more about your clients and prospects before making contact with them

-Market your business or product by posting promotions or discounts

-Add your Facebok URL to your email signature, your website, blog, business cards, etc.

-When the time is right, buy Facebook advertising and place targeted ads

Advertise on Facebook

It is simple to place paid advertisements and your campaign can be tested at a relatively low cost.

-Reach over 300,000,000 active Facebook users

-Attach social actions to your ads to increase relevance

-Create demand for your product with relevant ads

-Quickly create image and text-based ads

-Advertise your own web page or something on Facebook like a Page or an Event

-Choose to pay per click (CPC) or impression (CPM)

-Track your progress with real-time reporting

-Gain insight about who’s clicking on your ad

-Make modifications to maximize your results

1. Design your ad using the really simple interface or by uploading an image

2. Set your daily budget – The minimum is $1.00 per day

3. Target your audience by Location, Age, Sex, Keywords, Education, Workplace, Relationship status, Relationship interests or Languages

4. Decide on a schedule (continuously or on specific dates)

5. Decide on whether you’d like to pay for impressions (CTM) or clicks (CPC)

Pricing:

Free (Paid advertising is an option)

Simply press the Sleep/Awake button on the top right of your iPhone and the Home button at the same time. The screen will flash white and POOF the picture will automatically be saved to your photos. Now you can either send them easily, via email or text message – or download them the next time you sync your phone to iTunes.

I was so excited to discover this – and think you will find a need for it as well. Big String is a revolutionary new email service that allows you to control your sent messages. You can easily send, recall, erase, self-destruct and modify an email after it has been sent. You can send emails through the BigString.com website or an email client such as Outlook.

It is free and comes with unlimited Storage! In a nutshell, it can be self destructing, recallable, erasable, non-forwardable, non-printable/saveable email with advanced email tracking! Forget the attachment?  No problem, recall and resend it or edit the already sent email!

Choose the hard to print option and your messages are protected from printing, copying, being saved or print screened.  No downloads, simple signup, simply amazing! BigString’s email tracker is available for the web based versions of AOL, Yahoo, Gmail, MSN and on any email system in which email is sent through Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007. You can send messages and have them appear as if they are being sent from your primary email (you do not have to use the bigstring email as the from email address).

Pricing: Free or Upgrade Upgrade is $29.95 per Year and includes: POP3 Access, 30 minute video email and unlimited Storage.

Very cool and FREE!

Ever needed to know what the exact color of something was? Here’s an awesome free tool that can tell you. It is a FREE, quick download, ad and spyware free and simple to use.

Here’s a screenshot of ColorPic in action. In this example, I selected (pointed) to my desktop (yes, I know boring, but I just bought this new notebook) and ColorPic shows you the color in RGB and Hexadecimal formats.

• Easily pick any color from the screen
• Colors shown in hex and decimal
• Adjust Hue, Saturation
• Value, Red, Green and Blue values
• Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black percentages shown
• Easy to use with any other program
• Resizable magnification area
• Overlay a grid for quick colorpicker alignment
• Use arrow keys to nudge mouse pointer
• Save multiple palettes of colors automatically
• WebSafe Colors and names displayed
• Snap to nearest WebSafe color
• Point sample, 3×3 or 5×5 pixel color sampling
• Adjust color with four advanced color mixers
• Edit colorpicker values after selection easily
• Easy to use collapsible sections
• Works with Firefox, Internet Explorer, Photoshop and any other application

Pricing:

FREE

A smarter way to keep up with what you’re into

A new way to collect content and connect with people who share your interests. Use Twine to track, find, and share what interests you. Twine ties it all together by topic, so you can have it in one place. To get started, find a twine of your interest through search or explore, then join!

The easy way to track your interests

Track and discover new content through the Twine interest feed. Get a snapshot of the newest content and conversations in your twines. You can also keep up to date with an email digest or through RSS feed.

Contribute – be a part of the Twine community

Every twine and piece of content was contributed by a member of the Twine community – so start contributing! Post comments or add images, videos and bookmarks to a twine. The Twine bookmarklet tool makes it easy to share a bookmark to any twine instantly.

Stay organized without even trying

Twine automatically organizes all of your items so you can easily find them when you need to. Import bookmarks from your browser or other services so you have everything you need in one place.

Connect with Like-Minded People

You’re not the only one with your quirky interests. Connect with people who share your interests. Or invite friends to Twine to share information and rant & rave about your favorite topics.

Pricing

Yet, another absolutely FREE tool

A Portal to YOU

card.ly is the simplest way to create a online mini business card. It lets you put all your data into one place, for easy digestion by others. You can list your contact details, social hub sites, email, picture and more.

Users can easily add their online profiles, pick a theme and create a good-looking online mini business card of their own in just a couple of minutes.

You can share on Twitter or Embed in your site.

A great way to cross promote your resources, businesses, or perhaps your different personalities…

The best part is, it’s FREE!

FunMail!

YouMail is a free online voicemail replacement with personal greetings which comes jam-packed with lots of tools for both business and personal use. The free version is great, but you can upgrade to pro which eliminates ads, has a bigger inbox (can hold 5,000 voicemails), can protect your privacy (require blocked or unknown callers to enter in phone number) and never cuts anyone off – Callers can leave 5 minute voicemails, and you can have up to 2 minute long greetings.

Visual Voicemail
• See visual voicemail – on your phone, browser or e-mail
• Completely visual – see who called, from where, and even their picture (when before all you had was their number!)
• Use your smart phone or your computer – or you can still dial in like before (if you feel the need!)
• Save time – Point, click and play or delete.

Voice-To-Text Transcriptions
• Near perfect voice-to-text transcriptions.
• Know if a message truly is urgent in situations when you can’t simply dial or answer your phone.
• Read and respond to voicemail messages while in a meeting, class, movie or other busy setting.

Personal Custom Greetings or Choose from a Community of Cool Greetings
• Impress your callers – greet them by name
• Easily have different greetings for your sweetie, your friends, your co-workers and your boss.
• Choose from a library of free greetings or upload any sound file as a greeting.
• Choose from over a thousand greetings that’ll make your callers laugh or smile.
• Or appear more professional by using our studio recorded greetings.
• Even choose greetings recorded in different languages for your foreign friends and colleagues

Why have different greetings for different callers? Because you can be professional to your co-workers, funny to your friends and romantic to your significant other.

Here’s some examples:

Greeting for your boss: Hello, you have reached Tony Roberts, Senior Sales Associate at XYZ company. “I’m sorry I missed your call. Please leave a detailed message and I will return your call promptly, as your business is important to us.”

Greeting for your significant other: “Hey babe, I’m sorry I missed your call. I love you, please leave a message so I can hear your voice!”

Ah, and then there’s Ditchmail. This is for the sales guy who’s been incessantly calling you trying to get your business (or a bill collector, perhaps..)

Ditchmail Greeting: “This user is currently not accepting new messages. Goodbye!”

For everyone else: You can select a basic greeting or record a generic greeting of your own.

Block or Eliminate Unwanted Callers
• Block unwanted voicemail – goodbye pesky callers!
• Automatically hang up on unwanted callers before they can leave voicemail.
• Simple to set up with just one click!
• Easily let a pesky ex or telemarketer think your number is no longer in service.

Easy Voicemail Sharing
• Forward, share or save messages forever.
• Save time by just forwarding voicemails – no need to take notes and then call or e-mail.
• It’s effortless to instant message a voicemail to your family or friends.
• You can even post someone’s call to your MySpace or Facebook page.

Voicemail Sent To Email
• Get all your e-mail and voicemail together in one place.
• Treat your voicemail just like email – easy to forward, easy to save.
• Get voicemails even when you don’t have reception on your phone

Pricing
YouMail Standard – Free
YouMail Pro – $1.99/month or $19.99 Annual Plan (Save: $3.89- 16% )
YouMail Read it – Voicemail Transcription $3.99/mo to $29.99/mo
Additional Greetings – from $1.99-$4.99 per greeting