Now that Facebook has crossed the 500,000,000 user mark (that just looks like too many zeroes, doesn’t it?) its even more important to get out there and brand your organization properly.  This means using the “Like” box on your blog, your website, or basically anywhere you publish content online.  Today, I’ll show you how to style the “Like” box using common CSS tags and the Facebook Like Box Form.

You’ll need:

CSS Edit
Facebook Like Box Form

and fill out the info you want.

Click Get Code:

Copy the URL that the iFrame option gives out and load it up in css edit

Select an element and open up it’s respective stylesheet.

Style the elements that you want and paste them into a new stylesheet.
Save this style sheet on a remote server.

In order to reference your new stylesheet you are going to have to use a little FBML. Go back to the “Get Code” dialog box and copy the XBML snippet.

Replace ‘like-box’ with ‘fan’

Add your css url to it and voila!

Example:

<fb:fan profile_id=”1855986685″ stream=”1″ connections=”3″ width=”190″ height=”480″ css=”http://www.yoursite.com/style.css?2“></fb:fan>

Be sure to add “?” and a number at the end of the URL. Facebook caches the stylesheet. Adding the ? and number allows to see your changes.

Finale.

Follow the directions on how to enable XFBML on your site and paste in your short-code for the like-box and you’re done!

Note: So far i haven’t figured out how to do this using the frame method.

Lets face it, starting your own company can be difficult. In the early stages of all businesses, owners need to learn how to squeeze maximum value out of every dollar they spend. Social media is the key to saving money while still having the ability to deliver value. With the right strategy, social media can be used for community building, customer service, or product marketing

Community Building

Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are great for rapidly building a community and company awareness. Providing support, invites, encouragement and general engagement will build a sense of community between the startup company and their client. The key here is to establish actively engage users and attempt to organically build relationships with the industry’s influences.

Building relationships via social media is commonly talked about, but a key aspect that is commonly overlooked is the relationship building that takes place outside of social media. It is important for startups to take their online encounters to the next level; startups should go out and talk to customers in person.

Customer Service

Every startup company needs to utilize social media for customer service. Real-time responses is what makes customer service top-notch.The instantaneous access to customers via Facebook and Twitter is invaluable to any startup.
Responses to an issue on Twitter within a few minutes is extremely beneficial for the customer and the startup alike. Customers receive real-time responses to their dilemmas and startup companies receive feedback on products or services. This social interaction improves life for the customer and overall customer experience.

Customer Support from TOMSshoepport

Marketing

Using social media platforms as a form of marketing should be a no brainer for any startup company. With the wide variety of social media platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Slideshare, marketing a service or product is extremely easy.

Social media use should be centered around company leadership within their field allowing potential customers and journalists to have quick and easy access to information about products, services and industry. Startups which plan on using social media for marketing need to be in it for the long haul. Think of it as commitment or a strategy but not a campaign. Its like having a conversation, once you start a conversation with someone, you cannot just turn around and walk away.

Remember to concentrate on value while providing for others through social media tools. The gimmick is not to just sell, sell, sell but rather attempt to establish wholesome relationships with your customers, become a leader in your field, and become an inspiration for others.

Social Media is full of myths and misconceptions, but one has become quite prevalent in recent months.  I interact on multiple social networks on behalf of dozens of clients, so I’m constantly researching content, reading posts, blogs, etc.  It’s unfortunate that so many people post to social networks under the assumption that online communications are informal.  It is as if the social media gods loosened the rules with regards to spelling, grammar and capitalization.  In my opinion, online communications personify you or the organization you represent.  Whether you realize it or not, viewers judge you or the organization by not only what you write, but how you write it.  Content is key, but if you post something of relevance with complete disregard for the English language, I’m far less likely to pay any attention to it.   Yes, it is often difficult to consolidate your thoughts to 140 characters for the purposes of posting on Twitter, but is it really that hard to spell check your tweet or capitalize a person’s name?

Why should you worry about case sensitivity or spelling on Facebook?  I can think of tons of reasons.  For example, there is a laundry list of regulations limiting how much information a potential employer can request from a candidate, therefore many recruiters are looking beyond employment history for a broader view.  Your interactions on social media provide a potential employer with a window into your world:  your communication skills, your personality, your attitude about previous employment, etc.

Social Media is a fabulous platform for communication.  Just remember to cross your “T’s” and dot your “I’s”.

Facebook has been working diligently, usually behind the scenes with quick glimpses of new features, to renovate and refine the experience of how you find information in the world’s largest social network at 400 MILLION users. The company celebrated its 6th birthday this week with a newly updated home page designed to give you quick access to the most important information across the top and in the left sidebar.  The bottom navigation is almost gone entirely, bringing all controls “above the fold,” and clearly visible regardless of your monitor size.

Let’s take a look at Facebook with five quick and easy tidbits of information that could make your transition to the new Facebook layout a little smoother.

1.  Stay UPDATED from the Top Menu

Quoting directly from Facebook’s blog: “In the top menu, you will find your newest Notifications, Requests and Messages. For example, when you receive a Facebook notification about someone writing on your Wall or tagging you in a photo, you’ll see a red bubble appear in the left-hand corner near the search bar. When you click on the icon, you’ll see a drop-down menu with your most recent notifications.”

Your Home and Profile links are always top-right and easy to bounce back to if you get sidetracked.  Privacy settings are easily accessed top-right in the Account tab, far right.  Now’s probably as good a time as ever to review your privacy settings and account settings (like updates via email, etc).

2.  EXPLORE in the Left-Hand Menu

Your friends’ content has become easier to explore using Facebook’s new left menu, furthering the “Peeping Tom” affection that rabid Facebook users have got going on anyway.  Facebook has been working tireless to make it easier for you to communicate with and discover content from your friends, including a new focus on Chat. You can now access your messages and other core features all in one place, to the left of your News Feed.

You can browse recent photos of your friends with the Photos dashboard. The Events dashboard lists all your friends’ upcoming events as well as your events in one convenient place. The Friends dashboard will help you see which of your friends have recently updated their profiles, find new friends, search the web using Bing’s built-in top-center search bar, and filter your News Feed by Friend Lists you’ve made to sort out the madness.

3.  Applications, Games, Ads and Pages….front and center!

Adding to the “easier to find” category, Facebook has granted prime time status to Applications, Games (new!), Ads and Pages, bringing them up from the bottom navigation to inhabit the side navigation just below Photos and Friends.  By bringing this navigation more front-and-center Facebook is consolidating even more of how we explore Facebook into the limelight and inviting each of us to use these features more.  While it was always frustrating to reach Pages you created (I keep about 40 Pages active at all times for clients and personal interests), I have to believe this is to engage more people to place and run Facebook advertising campaigns.

Discover friends activity, find new applications, see what your friends are using and how often, and let Facebook show you your most-used apps all in one place.  Click the More link to see your other important apps.  To quote the Facebook blog:

We think sharing information about the applications you use enriches the shared experience between you and your friends. At the same time, we feel strongly that control is an important element of any information sharing on Facebook. That’s why these features are launching with an entirely new privacy setting.

If you would rather not have your recent application activity visible in the dashboards to your friends, you can change this through your Privacy settings . We’re also working on a more granular set of controls for specific applications, so that you can turn off activity for certain applications while leaving it on for others. We’ll have more information to share on this soon.

All of these improvements will help users engage with their friends and follow their applications of choice in an easier-to-share location.

In an interesting move yesterday, Facebook granted developers the ability to dictate which applications and games the people in your friend list have been using.  Application developers can now choose whether their app or game will appear in a user’s friends dashboards or not.  This doesn’t give the USER the ability to decide what to share, but its a first step to giving more security options to Apps and Games.

4.  Wanna CHAT?  Now easier to reach, but the lone survivor in the footer.

Facebook has announced a new focus on Chat, moving your most frequent chatters and current online users in the left navigation, below News and Apps/Ads/Pages.

By keeping the important content together and to the left, this means less scrolling and quicker access to those you know.  The interaction online will keep users more engaged, almost guaranteeing that Facebook users remain on the site for longer periods of time (thus driving online ad sales because of the number of frequent AND captive users).  Facebook shows you people that you’ve chatted with the most, then those you interact with the most on the site, either through messages, writing on their wall, commenting, etc.

The Chat application is also notably the ONLY Facebook resource still grounded in the bottom of the browser window.  You can start chats from the left menu, but your active chats are still grounded at the bottom of the window.

In my opinion this is smart in terms of the user interface and keeping most of the content “above the fold.”  It was probably the only choice Facebook had to keep the rest of the window clean and accessible while participating in an active (or many active) chats.

5.  Open up that Most Recent News Feed!

The first thing I noticed in the new design was that my News Feed looked a little….weak.  In fact, my Most Recent News Feed was almost non-existent.  I have 800 friends or so, and I saw very little information initially.  So I thought I should investigate and found out that Facebook has initiated a new default number of people to include in the Most Recent News Feed.

What I found was that Facebook initiated a “ground floor” for Number of Friends to show in the News Feed, starting at 250 people.  I bumped this up to 600, but you could conceivably increase this to 5,000, the maximum number of Friends allowed.  Go to the bottom of your News Feed and look for “Edit Options” and bump up the total to 500 or 600 to see how much info that shows you.  You may also blacklist people, like those annoying relatives who just discovered social media and haven’t discovered the whole “add value to the conversation” principle.

Other Interesting Developments

Facebook also made it easier to manage ad campaigns, showing number of credits in the Accounts list, providing valuable feedback to those of us running Facebook ad campaigns – quick access to available credits and analytics.  In addition, the BIG rumor is something called “Project Titan,” which people have referred to as the GMAIL killer.  This functionality would most likely include support for standard POP/IMAP email accounts, allowing users to use other email clients like Outlook or Apple’s Mail to check their Facebook mail.  You might also see vanity emails like “scottdickens@facebook.com.”  Big things are afoot at Facebook, as they are at Google.  Strangely missing from the conversation is Microsoft, who seem content to reap the profits from their OS/Office business.  

In summary, I find the new layout refreshing and easy.  It was smart to consolidate the features the way people THINK of the site (profile/user info separate from the explore/community side).  While there’s always a furor over “new” interface designs at Facebook, along with the inevitable “1 Million People who HATE the New FB Layout” groups, I think the general public will embrace this update as a logical progression in the evolution of Facebook once they have a chance to digest the new layout.

Another puff of information exhaust from The Rocket Ride… Thanks again for reading!

- Scott

YouTube has become the “Zerox” of online video…nobody says “did you see that new movie about the dog skateboarding on that internet video streaming service” – they just say “check it out on YouTube!” That being said, not all video streaming sites are created equal. In addition to the ubiquitous YouTube.com, there’s Vimeo.com, SmugMug.com, blip.tv, ifilm.com, jumpcut, metacafe, isofa.tv, and countless others who offer video services. Which look best? Which should you use to host your video content? Here’s a quick overview:

Rocket Pop Media studio, with Canon XHA1

Which look the best? Well…with the onslaught of HD content uploading at any given moment it has become clear that video is the medium of choice for most people on the net, in varying degrees of sophistication. The number of cell phone videos posted from frat parties is almost the same as the number of movie trailers, corporate pieces, viral ad campaigns, and video business profiles, and it can be done with almost any type of camera in any location. The quality, however, is just as varying. YouTube and Facebook are the most common social sites to host video, while Facebook is the clear winner for incorporating all your other content seamlessly with your videos. YouTube remains the leader with search engines (maybe Google owning the company has something to do with that?) and for common, easy interface that most people have become familiar with.

In YouTube, to get the most out of your viewing experience, hop on a high-speed internet connection (which most everyone has these days) and make sure you select “HD” or at a minimum “HQ” at the bottom of the video window. This ensures that the video streams at the highest resolution possible. HQ and HD look similar in the small window, but you’ll notice a big difference when viewing HD full-screen. You should see nearly the same quality as Apple’s movie trailer page, one of the benchmarks to be measured against.

HINT: if you have a YouTube account, go to “Playback Setup” in your account settings and select the third choice “I Have a Fast Connection” which basically lets YouTube know to playback videos that you watch while logged in at the highest possible rate! No more hitting the “HQ” button if you’re signed in. You’ll still have to select full screen if you want to view that way, but hey…one less click is one less click.

If you’re using YouTube as your video host and you want to show HD video, then you need to know what kind of file to upload. YouTube says it can handle “tons” of video types, but these settings yield the best quality:

* Video Format: H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 preferred (H.264 yields consistently good quality for smallest size)
* Aspect Ratio: Native aspect ratio without letterboxing (examples: 4:3, 16:9) – all HD content should be 16×9
* Resolution: 1280×720 (16×9 HD), 640×360 (16:9) or 480×360 (4:3) – stick to 1280×720 if you’re shooting in HD!
* Audio Format: MP3 or AAC preferred – they would also prefer 44.1khz sound, not 48.
* Frames per second: 30
* Maximum length: 10 minutes (we recommend 2-3 minutes)
* Maximum file size: 1 GB

HINT: If you’re sending a link to a friend or posting it on a site, here’s a quick tip to make sure the video displays to your recipient in the highest quality possible. Take your link, something like “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjxzjGpOZ4Q” and add “&fmt=22″ to the end, yielding a link like this: “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjxzjGpOZ4Q&fmt=22″ – go ahead, click the different examples and you’ll see that the second one should load in a wide aspect ratio in true 720 HD. The first link shows as either standard or HQ. If you have something that needs to look critically AMAZING on the other end, make sure you add “&fmt=22″. If you use embed codes, note that they’re also using the new 16×9 dimensions.

If you’re uploading to Facebook, they’re a little more cagey about specific information, unless you know where to look on their developer blogs! If you use the exact same specification file as listed above in the YouTube comments, then you are GOLDEN. 1280×720 HD! They have similar limitations: ten minutes, 1 gig file. Once the video is up on Facebook, it becomes EXTREMELY easy to share, pass around, and chat about on Facebook…that’s 200,000,000 (MILLION) users who love to see interesting video.

Now go make a movie! Or I know this company….thanks for riding the rocket!

Cheers,

Scott and the gang at Rocket Pop Media