Timeline For Facebook Pages {Friday Five}

I had the pleasure of attending a workshop on Timeline for Pages at Cement Marketing this week. Alaina Shearer, owner of the social media marketing company, led the casual, informative session. Like it or not, all pages are being switched to timeline today. Change is not easy, for sure, but the new format does have some distinct advantages. It allows a brand to tell a complete story, gives fans a chance to send private messages, and fosters engagement among fans.

Tips for Timeline

1) Use Cover, Profile, and Pinned Posts Wisely - Combined, the cover, profile, and pinned areas (pins last for seven days) offer a huge pixel area for marketing your business. The cover may not contain a call to action or redirect away from Facebook, but the pinned post can. Use these three areas in conjuction with one another to create a multi-faceted brand message.

2) Share and Highlight Images - The new timeline format encourages the use of photo sharing by making beautiful galleries from your albums. Highlight a picture or album to expand that section across the whole timeline page.

3) Maximize the Milestones - Milestones are your chance to tell your brand's story from the beginning. Beyond the traditional 'opening date', 'first xyz' posts, consider adding milestones that speak in the voice of your brand. This might include joking, cutesy, or heart-string-tugging moments. (Hint: Check the 'hide from news feed' box when making multiple milestones so you don't overwhelm fans.)

4) Prioritize Your Views/Apps - Just below your new cover picture on the right side of the page are boxes that might include photos, notes, videos, events, and likes. Click the little blue downward triangle to switch the apps around. With the down arrow clicked, you can hover over each box to reveal settings and swap places. Only four are visible to fans so you must choose your most important applications and feature them here.

5) Revel In The Engagement - A quick study by Simply Measured reported on Mashable suggests that fans are 46% more engaged with the new timeline format than before. This engagement comes from people staying longer on the timeline pages. Give fans plenty of milestones and highlighted posts to keep their interest and share your story. The handy Insights tool in the admin bar can give you plenty of stats about how timeline works for you.

Facebook is automatically switching all pages to timeline format on March 30 at 11 AM PST so you have a few more hours to play with the settings in preview mode before timeline goes live.

I am slowing improving the Hounds in the Kitchen facebook timeline as well as updating the pages I manage for social media clients. I enjoy the format as a reader and storyteller.

What do you think of timeline format? Are you using it for a business page? Tell all in the comments.

What's Going On?

You may have noticed Hounds in the Kitchen has had some trouble recently. From images not loading to receiving errors when trying to look on the web to a whole day without service, our website was as googly as Devie's eye. Boo.

IX Hosting Fail

Most of these failures were coming from my host, Columbus-based IX Hosting. They warned me that data on my site was causing 'server overload' and suggested I upgrade to their next level of hosting, a costly VPS service. I did some research and didn't think that was necessary.

Then this week, they shut down HoundsInTheKitchen.com for failure to abide by their terms of service. Apparently unlimited hosting is actually quite limited.

I had no choice but to play nice and convince them to give me the site back. I wanted it for just enough time that I could switch to a new host. I did that and am with a no-contract host while I figure out what to do next.

I have to say I am terribly disappointed with IX Hosting. I initially chose them because I love supporting a local company. I worked with some great people, all of whom have now moved on to other businesses.

For the last month I have expressed my discontent with a slowly loading site to IX service reps directly and via social media. I have not once received a positive response. When I was in a panic this week while the site was down, I complained on twitter and no one from IX attempted to help. Maybe I did violate terms of service somewhere but a good host would help me understand why and respond to me, not leave a customer feeling bullied into a costly upgrade.

Another IX user reached out to me in the last few days saying the exact same thing happened to him. Not good. Shop around and don't choose IX if you are looking for a web host.

Current Site

My chief concern when IX allowed access to me was migrating data to a new host. I attempted to move over the custom designed theme but it was too much for the moment.

You can see that the easy install theme is very wonky right now. Pictures are oddly sized, some widgets aren't working yet, but all the content is here.

Migrating a site is tricky and has taken many hours and heartaches this week. I felt un-anchored with three years of life's work tied up out of my reach.

What's Next

I'm not sure what is the right move from here. I work terribly hard at creating content for Hounds in the Kitchen. My writing here is completely unpaid.

It feels ridiculous to pay a fair amount per month to host a site on which I don't make money. I could switch to a cheap host, but I might end up with the same problems I just went through.

My idea to ask for donations and promote ebook sales engaged very few readers. If I add advertisements to make up the difference, you would see at least two ad blocks, perhaps three.

While I do make residual income from teaching classes and social media clients, I truly believe I could advertise these services with a much simpler (and free) wordpress.com site. It would seem like a downstep to return to wordpress.com but server steadiness and cost savings might make up for lack of flexibility.

At any rate, I wanted to let you know what was up here. Thank you for reading. I appreciate everyone who has reached out to me to report outages and offer suggestions. Feel free to continue in the comments - what would you do?

Food Is Social (Media) 101

Yesterday I presented a workshop at the Ohio Ecological Food and Farming Association annual conference called 'Food Is Social: Using New Media to Market Your Food Business'. More people attended than I had handouts, so I promised to reprint my notes here.

Why Invest Time in Social Media?

“Four out of every five people who have access to the internet across the world use social networks in some form, many several times a day, some on multiple devices.” Linda Abraham, comScore Co-Founder and CMO & Michael Lazerow, Buddy Media CEO and Founder

“Consumers trust information they receive through blogs more than Facebook or Twitter.” Social Media Examiner, December 2011

“In the U.S., social networks and blogs reach nearly 80 percent of active U.S. Internet users and represent the majority of Americans' time online.” Technorati, October 2011.

Where and How To Start

Website (4-8 hours to set up) Represent yourself online with a website that contains, at a minimum:

• Information about you, the personality
• Products/Services you offer
• Contact Information
• Links to other pertinent online profiles/social media

If starting from scratch, choose Wordpress for a free, simple, but robust software. Upgrade to ‘YOURNAME.com’ for $12/year. Under Settings/Reading select ‘a static post’ to be your front page. Add other information as pages.

Blog (1 hour per article, ideally updated once per week at a minimum) Consumers trust and share blog articles. Use yours to promote:

• New products or services
• Timely information, such as farmer’s market locations
• Press/reviews received
• Information and articles that support the values of your business
• Recipes featuring your products

If using wordpress.com, this timely information will be entered as ‘posts’. For best Internet search-ability, categorize each post and add tags.

Good blog posts (both in terms of readability for users and search engines) have:

• Specific and catchy titles
• Naturally included keywords
• Length between 200-750 words
• At least one picture, with an alt tag that includes keywords
• A conversation starter if you are looking for blog comments

Google Places (30 minutes to set up, nearly no maintainance) Help customers find your location by claiming a Google Place. Simply click the 'Get Started' button and follow the simple directions to be included on their online and mobile map searches. Be ready to add a few pictures, your hours, payment information, and a short description of your business. You will need a google account to set up this profile.

Facebook Page (30 minutes to set up, 10 minutes maintenance daily) Navigate to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php to set up your page. Be ready to include a profile photo (and a few more if you have them) and share information about your location and products/services.

Once your Facebook page is set up, participate daily, if you can. Each time you check in, respond to any questions or messages. ‘Like’ comments that people give you. Share a status message, which could include:

• Short blurb about what you did that day
• Link to an article about your industry
• Announcement about a future event
• Quote from which you draw inspiration
• Photograph of something around your farm/kitchen/facility

Twitter (5 minutes to set up, 10 minutes maintenance daily) Twitter makes it easy to set up your account and then you can start sharing messages in 140 characters. Share tidbits about what you’re doing right now, links to blog posts/events/facebook, and retweet other’s info. Converse with twitter followers by starting a message with @user.

The real power of twitter, however, is in the search. Go to search.twitter.com and look up keywords related to your business. Answer questions if people are asking, follow competitors and friends, converse with partners like @OEFFA, @4H, seed companies, governmental officials, etc.

Keys for Social Sharing

Simple is better - flash graphics, music, and multi-paged sites can be fun when done well, but customers will understand you better when the message is simple and presented cleanly.

Keep mobile in mind - The use of smartphones is growing. Design your site and messages with mobile users in mind and make sure nothing on your site is too complicated for phones to view. Wordpress is easily viewed on most smartphone devises.

Converse and thank - Think of social networks as a way to have public conversations and share as you would at a dinner party. Thank those who follow you and those who share your information generously.

Promote genuinely - Too much self-promotion is inauthentic. Share a balance of information, news, links to other trusted sites, and fun.

Advanced Social Networking

QR Codes QR codes are scannable graphics that link a mobile device to a designated web URL. The destination can be an introduction page, introduction video, or more info about a specific product or service. Museums are using them to give more details about an artwork. Realtors publish QR codes on house signs to link to online picture galleries. Musicians link QR codes to current videos.

Create yours at http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ for your website or a welcome page for a specific event. If you are packaging goods for an event location where you will not be present, create one for each product variety that leads to more info for customers.

Analytics Once you have your website established, you will want to know who’s visiting.

Set up a free account at http://www.google.com/analytics/ to track data. Learn about your pageviews, location of users, keywords, etc. Use this data to provide information that people request, i.e. write more about popular keywords. You can also track how changes in your website organization or promotion are working and who is sending traffic to you.

Wordpress has their own set of data tools. These are less robust but still useful if you don’t want to bother with Google.

Other social networks Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Flickr, Google+ and hundreds of other social networks are out there. Explore them when you have time and use them if they will work for your business.

Remember that social networks are like all other tools - they only work for you when you enjoy working with them.

Also keep in mind that I offer writing and social media services at reasonable rates. If you want to have a social media presence but don't want to set up and maintain it yourself, contact me and let's find a way to work together.

Blog Changes - Your Help Needed

You may have noticed a few changes on the blog recently. Here's what's going on: Updates

I updated the category titles and am working behind the scenes to make sure posts are correctly categorized.

I took down the Foodbuzz ad block when my contract expired at the end of September. I want to earn something to pay for all the work I put into this blog but I'm not sure whether ads are the right way to go about it.

The About page was recently tweaked and I'm working on a new Media Kit.

Logo and Redesign

Allie Lehman and I are almost through revising the logo she designed and it's awesome. I can't wait to share!

I am looking at new themes to make Hounds in the Kitchen more professional and pretty. I'm a little scared of editing a new theme to suit my needs all by myself but I don't have a budget to pay. If anyone out there loves CSS or wordpress or themes and wants to offer a trade for cooking class instruction, basic writing and editing or something else I'm good at, let's talk.

Input Welcome

Can you help guide Hounds in the Kitchen? I designed a simple survey that will take about five minutes of your time. Questions range from your cooking habits to what you like about the blog to events you might attend. Fill out the survey at the bottom of this post or follow the survey link.

Thank you, as always, for reading and following my crazy life.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

On Blogging

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of recording an hour long radio episode about niche blogging with Erica Pryor of Digital 411 and Andrea Ratulowski of Food Embrace. We talked about blogging platforms, working with PR agents and advertisers, social networking, audience and more. I loved chatting about technology in the professional Talktainment studio. Listen here to the free full niche blogging episode as an mp3 or on iTunes.

It took me a few days to realize exactly what was the most fun about the experience and then it hit me - I had a full hour of uninterrupted conversation with adults. Between homeschooling, homesteading, and homemaking, rarely does an hour go by that I am singularly dedicated to anything.

Do you have blogging questions for me? Ask them in the comments and I promise to answer.

Mom Impact Type A Parent Giveaway

Kim Moldofsky of MomImpact is offering a Type A Parent conference pass to one random blogger who shares a six word story or haiku. Maybe one of these entries will be my ticket to meet Kim again!

Sessions, networking,

real food, brewery haven.

'Course I want to go!

Best friends are moving

to Asheville. Combo visit

and the conference?

Dart-throwing monkey, please pick my name!

November Reflections

I did it! I posed every day in November as part of NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month. It was a challenge indeed, especially through our bourbon country vacation and Thanksgivings when I otherwise would have skipped posting for a few days.

I had no writer's block and felt no lack of topics to prevent me from writing every day all year.

I posted 33% more often than normal, writing 30 days of posts versus 20 days as the average of last three months. Google analytics tells me that HoundsInTheKitchen.com enjoyed 20% more page views in November than the average of the last three months. This increase could be due to seasonality in addition to posting frequency, as food blog traffic often increases during the holidays.

Reading through the posts of the month, though, there were quite a few that lacked the quality I strive for. I simply ran out of time some days to include photographs or proper editing. With practice, I think I could build up these skills to write better, faster.

I am curious what regular readers thought of the more frequent posting. Did you like seeing something from me every day or did it clog up your rss reader or facebook?

Meeting Chef David Tanis

When I started this blog, other local food bloggers welcomed me into their fold like pioneers seeking friendly companions on the new frontier.  We read and comment on each others' work and pass around opportunities and news.  We give each other link love and retweets, assets barely defined a mere two years ago. So it was that when a publicist for David Tanis, co-chef of Chez Panisse, inquired whether some bloggers would like to meet him, a few of us passed the buck until Andy and Bethia of Columbus Food Adventures, Taco Trucks Columbus, Street Eats Columbus, and Alt Eats Columbus organized a lunch date.  Thanks guys!

We met at Knead where the conversation immediately turned to the foodie secret: Ohio is a rather grand place to eat.  Tanis seemed to agree, having supped at DeepWood and Jeni's the night before.

Talk wound its way through many food topics while the brave Knead chef Rick Lopez created our meals.  Wendy of Midlife Celiac shared her expertise with gluten-free dining.  Tanis did his best to convince Lisa the Waitress that artichokes could be a delicious meal.  I talked about backyard chickens; Tanis suggested goats might be a good next step.  Ha!

I was delighted to be presented with a gratis copy of Tanis new cookbook (catch that, FCC, I received a cookbook for free) Heart of the Artichoke and Other Kitchen Journeys, and more so when Debra of Persephone's Kitchen broke the ice to ask for an inscription.  Once home, Alex, who reads very little printed on paper these days, paged through the whole thing.  The photos and layout are simple, beautiful and inspiring.  I especially loved the 14 rituals Tanis detailed before serving up a single recipe.  Knowing a person's particular rituals is an insight into his cooking and eating style.

There are precious few perks to my part-time un-paid job writing this blog.  But the ones that do come along, like last week's visit with a treasure of an American chef surrounded by colleagues, are often rather spectacular.