Three things for you to know.

#1 - You can’t avoid it
Timeline is the new format for your profile on Facebook. You don’t get a choice on if you use it or not. You’ll receive an email telling you that it’s been activated on your profile, and you have seven days to spruce up or clean up any information that you don’t want spotlighted.

#2 - It’s about you
Timeline is about your life. You can add events to your timeline. There is a new category called “Life Event,” and it essentially allows you to add things that have happened in your life to the timeline on Facebook. They have pre-categorized menus, so I just added “Bought a house” to my timeline for January 2011. Facebook allowed me to pick a photo (or upload one) of the house and provide additional details if I wanted.

#3 - You’ve got your own billboard
With the new profile, you can add a cover image to the top of your profile. It’s a very dominant image, and feel free to upload almost anything you want. Here are some great examples of how others have used the space.

Timeline does create a very interesting way to review what you’ve posted to Facebook. For example, I joined Facebook while in college, so there are photos, comments and events that I haven’t thought about since then - but I can view them and travel back to 2005.

More importantly, it’s essentially creating a scrapbook of your life moment by moment that is added to Facebook. My suggestion is to embrace it. Add some of your life events, both from the past and as they happen. In few years, you’ll appreciate your Facebook memory.

Social Media Series: How To Win Friends and Influence Customers with LinkedIn
January 17, 11:30-1:30pm | Knoxville Chamber

I’ll share how to maximize the social media site LinkedIn to network and engage your contacts and grow your business. This is part of the Knoxville Chamber’s Bright Ideas series on social media #SMS12. If LinkedIn interests you and you want to learn more about it, I’d love to see you there.

Social Media: A Practical Getting Started Business Strategy
February 8, 9am-12pm | University of Tennessee, Professional and Personal Development (Non-credit)

In this class I’ll cover why social media matters to your business and how and what you should be doing to integrate social media into your marketing plan.

Facebook/Twitter: Getting Started
February 16, 9am-12pm | University of Tennessee, Professional and Personal Development (Non-credit)

This is a class for people who want to dive headfirst into using Facebook and Twitter for your business. In the class we cover how to get started as well as discuss case-studies of companies who have successfully navigated into social media.

Blogging
March 8 9am-12pm | University of Tennessee, Professional and Personal Development (Non-credit)

In this class you’ll learn why you should have a blog; how to create the best blogging strategy for your business; and tips to get you started within 48 hours of the class.

These classes cover social media broadly, but what specifically do you want to learn about? I’d love to hear your suggestions for workshop topics in the comments.

Curation
The explosion of users and traffic on sites like Pinterest and Instagram indicates that there is a strong desire to curate and discover.  Instagram makes each person a photojournalist, giving “Average Joes” the ability to create interesting photostreams. Pinterest lets users collect both photos and ideas on boards organized by their interest as well as subscribe to the boards of others.

Social Channel Surfing
Watching TV is turning into a social activity as we connect with those around the world who love to watch such shows as “Glee“, “Grey’s Anatomy” or “White Collar“.  In 2011, networks introduced hashtags and mobile apps for shows, and these opportunities will only grow as networks find innovative ways to connect with watchers.

MoSoCom
Mobile + Social + Commerce = MoSoCom.  We are connected consumers and regardless of where we shop or what we are shopping for, we rely on the recommendations of friends, reviews and ratings.  With smartphones in hand, consumers are not only researching products while still in store, they are finding deals and coupons that may not be in the store.  The convergence of mobile and social will bring about large change in retail as educated consumers have price transparency and availability at their fingertips.

Influence (Who Matters Metrics)
There has been a surge of influence measures and this will continue into 2012, not because Klout or Peer Index is right, but because in a world of 800 million Facebook users and 300 million Twitter users, marketers want to connect with those who have influence in their target audience.  Metrics will grow, but for a true index of influence, the services will need to spread past the practiced social media set and include everday users of social media services.

Simplicity
We’ll see the proliferation of sites and services that make it incredibly easy to do one thing really well.  Sites like Kickstarter, Gumroad, PicPlum and Postcard on the Run are at the forefront of using social media and technology to make real world tasks simple. Here’s what they do:

Kickstarter, fundraising for your project
Gumroad, making it easy to sell anything digital
PicPlum, a service that automatically prints and mails photos every month
Post Card on the Run, a mobile app (Android and iOS) that makes it easy to send real-life postcards.

These are just a sampling of services, and I’m sure 2012 will bring us a number of sites that will do other tasks really well.

Overall, the megatrend we’re seeing is convergence between online and offline activities.  New Year 2012 is going to be exciting!

Be sure to watch the video (below) of my discussion about social media trends 2012 with Hillary Lake on WBIR.

Shopycat is a Facebook application that launched earlier this month which analyzes the data from your friends profiles on Facebook and then makes gift recommendations based on the information it collects.  The app was created and built by Walmart, so gifts come from their inventory, but it will also give you gift ideas from other sites like RedEnvelope, which features unique gifts; ThinkGeek, a site featuring gifts for geeks, and Barnes & Noble.

For example, when I put Charley Sexton (our Creative Director) into Shopycat it returns gifts based on the fact that he has the following interests:

- Star Wars
- Angry Birds
- Poker
- The Beatles

So one of the gift ideas for him based on his love for Angry Birds, is the Angry Birds Santa hat.  If I don’t like the Santa Hat, but think that Angry Birds is the perfect idea, I can then explore other gift ideas for that interest.

How can you use Shopycat?

- Find gifts for friends and family

- Shop for gift items in curated lists by category

The real power of Shopycat isn’t in finding that perfect gift, but in providing a starting point for you to do your own brainstorming and gift discovery.  Ultimately, we all know our friends and family better than Facebook can, but sometimes we need help to get the ideas flowing.

Building applications like Shopycat allows for retail businesses to leverage the information already part of social networks to their customers advantage.  For many businesses, answering the question, “what is the ROI of social media?” is of crucial importance and being able to tie social media to commerce is a great step in that direction.  Where can you leverage social media in your business?

48Hour Launch is an event founded in 2008 by Sheldon Grizzle and Alex Lavidge in which individuals form teams around ideas and turn them into products in 48 hours,  as written in the Times Free Press, “Chattanooga’s 48-hour launch propelled moneymaking ideas from concept to creation over the weekend.” 48Hour Launch was hosted by The Company Lab’s (CO.LAB) and described in its blog post “What You Need to Know About 48Hour Launch.” The event itself is organized chaos - as each group is camped out at their table turning their vision to reality using whiteboards, computers and conversation to refine their product ideas.  

The energy of being in a room full of people who are solely focused on taking an idea to a product in such a short time is an inspiring place to be. These are not just people who “have an idea,” but who have created a team, cast vision for the product and developed a schedule to bring about the idea in an incredibly short period of time.

Of the teams I talked to, my favorites are below:

Job Ninja - a job site to create listings focused on the “part-time jobs for full-time students”
Chatype - creating a font for Chattanooga
Neighborhood Watcher - social networks for neighborhoods
UnFoundation - micro-grants for Chattanooga

Since I could only be there for Saturday, I found a team that needed marketing help, and The UnFoundation was my home for the day. The UnFoundation was created by Joda Thongnopnua and Bijan Dhanani to bypass the traditional philanthropic model and fund small projects to make Chattanooga a better city. Their model is a simple online form with a few questions and a board of 10 trustees (each donating $100/month) who grant $2,000 to a selected project each month. The intent of the microgrants to fund and fuel artistic, cultural, and innovative ideas in Chattanooga, and the door is wide open to power some exciting projects!

I primarily built the marketing strategy to attract grant ideas. I took a two-prong approach divided between brand awareness and project awareness. Fundamentally, I believe that the best way to help people understand the type of projects that can receive funding is so see examples of those in action. So while the plan was front loaded with UnFoundation brand building, the continuation of the plan keyed on creating awareness around each project and making sure it was clearly “Powered by the UnFoundation.”

Ultimately, the outcome for UnFoundation was great. They received confirmation of a matching gift donation that allows them to give away even more money to great projects.On top of that, they won the prize for social innovation at 48Hour Launch - $10,000!

If you have the opportunity to participate in an event like 48Hour Launch, I’d highly recommend it. Your skills can help a group turn their idea into a product and in exchange you will walk away inspired.

There were over 27,000 comments on the blog post Netflix CEO Reed Hastings wrote to explain the changes they made to fees for their core service. In the banking industry, SunTrust, Regions and Bank of America say the decision to reverse the debit-card fees came as a result of “customer feedback.”

So what “customer feedback” are they talking about? It’s not only calls and emails, but thousands of blog comments, tweets, and Facebook status updates of response about these changes. In today’s world, social media is the first place people go to share what they think about issues they are facing. This immediate sharing allows companies who are monitoring to see it, but it also allows the poster’s friends to see and talk about how they feel about the changes.

Carol Price, in a recent piece in Entrepreneur wrote,

“Maybe it’s a just a sign of our Internet times. It’s a lot easier for unhappy customers to find each other and present a unified front to a company, and to make a lot of noise on Twitter and embarrass a company, too. These days, the bigger squeaky wheel is getting a lot of grease.”

We see the power of social media as customers’ voices banded together, creating a chorus that is hard to ignore. This immediate feedback is a great opportunity for businesses and organizations that are monitoring social media channels.  Not only can you know what your customers are thinking on issues, you can engage and respond as soon as possible and receive additional feedback.

The bottom line is that the feedback loop has been shortened and amplified. Organizations can now respond and react to their customers faster than ever before. Get started today.

You may have even asked yourself, “how do these people post all the time?” Here’s the secret about how some of the most prolific bloggers and brands keep up that posting schedule. They pre-write and schedule their posts and updates. It’s actually quite simple to do and there are a number of tools out there that can help you schedule your Facebook updates or Tweets hours, days or even weeks in advance.

Scheduling will not only allow you to consistently update your Facebook page or Twitter account, it will also save you time throughout the days and weeks ahead. Now of course, scheduling will only save you time on the posting side, you do need to allocate time to respond in real-time as possible. With that caveat, here are a few tools that are simple to use and will do a great job at helping you update your social networks consistently.

PostCron.com - Hands down, this is one of the best tools I’ve found to schedule updates for Facebook pages and it has an interface inspired by Facebook’s own design. Additionally, it is the only tool I’ve found that will let you schedule the posting of a photo. Price: Free.

Hootsuite.com - This service offers easy updating and scheduling for Facebook and Twitter accounts from the web, Android and iOS devices (iPad, iPhone and iPod touch). Price: Free for up to three accounts. Pro version is $9.99 month.

LaterBro.com - The website makes it very easy to schedule updates for your Twitter accounts and personal Facebook profiles. A very simple design, LaterBro allows you to schedule your updates in seconds. Price: Free.

It’s not a secret anymore.

First, LinkedIn is incredibly important for job seekers. Your profile is your chance to tell your story about what you do, where you’ve been and who you know — all important factors to landing your next job or client. If you don’t have a profile yet, start with this post I’ve written about tips on creating a great LinkedIn profile. When your profile is ready, it’s time to look at how to get the most out of LinkedIn.

Over the last few years, I’ve developed a few methods that have enabled me to maximize my LinkedIn experience including:

1) Only accept connections from people I know
2) Keep my profile up to date (and my connections)
3) See if people have changed jobs or roles
4) Research companies
5) Join groups

1) Only accept connections from people I know

This is my cardinal rule of LinkedIn, I only accept connections from people I know. Some prefer to be more open with their connections, but I want to maintain the authenticity of my LinkedIn relationships. That way LinkedIn will be a true representation of people with whom I am professionally connected. Additionally, LinkedIn will correctly show me second and third-degree connections, which has been helpful when looking up research on individuals or companies.

2) Keep my profile up to date (and my connections)

If I change jobs or roles, I update my profile because I want anyone who views it to have the most up-to-date information about me. This doesn’t just go for jobs; this applies to all sections of the profile including memberships and organizations. I also send connection requests to those I meet and engage with (see #1.) I normally send the request after a second meeting, email or phone call. This allows me to professionally stay in touch with these connections.

3) See if people have changed jobs or roles

I check in to see how people have updated their profiles. I look and see if they have people changed roles or companies or received a graduate degree. In addition to staying up on industry news, it is a great time to drop that person a note and offer congratulations. In addition to browsing, I also use Job Change Notifer, a tool that will email me when connections I selected change jobs.

4) Research companies

I’ll look up companies that I might be interested in as a vendor or client and learn more about them via their employees’ profiles. I look for mutual interests in the groups we share, educational background or shared people connections on LinkedIn. Researching this information gives me a jumpstart towards connecting with the people and utilizing Rule #1.

5) Join groups

I’m involved in professional, community, and non-profit organizations, and so I join their groups on LinkedIn. I do this to more easily connect with other group members, engage on topics, and to let the groups serve as a badge of my interests.

If you’re just getting started on LinkedIn, give these five ideas a try! For those that are power LinkedIn users, please share any tips you have in the comments below. I am always interested in better ways to make use of a great tool!

With all this focus on the local level, sometimes it feels like I have my blinders on to the global connections with social media. But this week something interesting happened on the macro level with my Google+ profile. Several folks in the UK added me to circles. We’ve all seen enough friend and connection requests from foreign profiles that aren’t very legitimate. But something about the multiple UK requests made me take a closer look. Turns out these were real folks with real photo uploads having real conversations with other real people. And they were using British slang, so that was kind of fun to read, and it made me feel all worldly while I read it.

I reciprocated the circle-adds, and I started thinking. I wondered about the occurrence of multiple, legitimate connection requests from overseas. Why do these folks want to connect with me? We aren’t in the same city. We didn’t go to the same school. Heck, we aren’t even on the same continent. So what’s the draw?

I then started thinking about social media platform usage. Are the folks across the pond drawn to Google+ more than Facebook? What do they think of Twitter? So, a couple of quick Google searches later and I have a pretty succinct breakdown of which social media platforms are used worldwide.

Twitter is huge in Japan. 25% of all tweets come from the Land of the Rising Sun. 70% of Twitter’s traffic comes from outside the U.S.

More than 75% of all Facebook members are outside the U.S.

Indonesia has the second largest Facebook population with over 32 million. The U.S. has the largest with over 146 million.

Over 5 million Americans use Google+. India has 2.8 million and the U.K. has a little over 800,000.

This info is fairly interesting, but the take away from this is asking yourself the question: Are you where your customers are? Take a check of your social media activity. Are you going to where your audience is congregated? Make sure you are placing yourself in the right spot to be seen by those you have identified as the ones you want to do the looking. It’s a networking basic: showing up in the right spot is half the battle.

Side note: The bassist for Dave Matthews (@slessard) now follows me on Twitter. I think he may have me confused with a much more famous and musically talented Charlie Sexton, who is the touring guitarist for Bob Dylan. But, I appreciate the mix-up and the follow.

QR codes can be incredibly helpful to the person scanning.  One of my favorite examples is a print ad in a magazine where the QR code took you to a mobile friendly website that had an explanatory video and more details on the product.  Use of the code extended the reach of the ad by providing me additional targeted information about the product.

Additionally, much of the direct mail I’m getting right now is for roofers.  What if those direct mailers had a QR code linking to a mobile friendly landing page that would allow the person scanning to request an appointment?  Some of these mailers do have QR codes, but most just link to the company’s homepage.  This is a wasted opportunity.

We’ve incorporated QR codes in a couple client projects, and in both cases the QR code extended the experience of the piece it was printed on.  With Premier Surgical Associates, we used the QR code to bring readers from a printed brochure to a website that featured a selection of summary blog posts that were about the same topic as the brochure. Additionally, we worked with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra to design and develop a mobile friendly interactive program, and a QR code was used on the print program to take concert goers directly to the site.

As the use of QR codes increases, I predict we’ll begin to see even more creative and novel uses of them in marketing.