the sephone blog

I remember that a friend was making fun of a mutual acquaintance a few months ago.  (Not uncommon in my world.)  “Can you believe ’so-and-so’ Google’s himself?”

Well normally I would chime right in and say something like, “Well you know him, he thinks he is ‘all that and a bag of chips!’ “  BUT I actually was on the other side this time.

Google-ing yourself, your name and your company is what people do all the time.  You need to know what Google thinks of you, how it ranks you, I Googled myself one day and to my surprise Google found a white paper I co-authored back in the early 90’s!  Hey that was even before Al Gore invented the internet, right?

If you are looking for a job or your business is looking for customers, you want to make sure that you know what Google finds.  Large portal sites like Facebook, Linked-In and even Twitter can possibly be higher on the list than your own business website.  Why?  Because they get LOTS and LOTS of traffic from LOTS and LOTS of people and Google LOVES to “hang-out” with the popular gang, just like we do.

If you have a Facebook page, you’ll want to make sure that your privacy settings are set the way you want them to be, so you aren’t sharing information to people that you don’t know or don’t know you.  If your business has a Facebook FAN page,  you will want to make sure there are new posts about your business and that it presents your business just like it would if you put a new coat of paint on the outside of your building.

If you have a Linked In Page, make sure that is accurate and up to date.  Personally I don’t really use all the features that Linked In has, but I do have a profile and I do keep it as up to date as I can.

So dont think that Google-ing yourself or your business is vain.  It is the way people find people and people find businesses.  Shouldn’t you want to know what they are looking at?

This year instead of driving or flying or cruising to a ‘far-away’ destination for the DiStefano family vacation, we invited my brother and his family from NJ to come up to Maine.  Now that isn’t any thing new, as they have come up before and we went to our camp on Cold Stream Pond- but that isn’t a vacation, that is a normal weekend in the Summer for us-

So this year we made reservations in Old Orchard Beach.  OOB for native Maine-ahs.

OOB is the quintessential New England beach community complete with a Pier, Amusement Park and all the rest that goes with what you have in your mind of a summer beach community.

We have been to OOB a few times over the last 3 years.  But never for more that a weekend or so.  But when we began our planning for the 2010 Family Vaca, we had just been there and had a great time.  The year before we were there around the same time when the biggest Storm of the season was coming-  waves were breaking so close to the shore that the water was almost up to the floorboards on the Pier.
For those that know, the Pier at OOB is about 20 feet above the water at high tide!

Anyway- OOB it was.

Searching for a place to stay wasn’t too difficult-  being in the web business we have several client sites, (did you think I’d write this without a shameless plug for our valuable clients?, really!) like the Maine Tourism Association (http://www.mainetourism.com) and our own Maine Events (http://www.maineevents.com).   After searching and viewing the lodging section and reading about the accommodations we selected the Waves Oceanfront right on the beach.  Adjoining rooms so the kiddies could visit non-stop and so that my bro and I could enjoy a brew and cigar on the patio at night.   It was a very pleasant week.  Oh, did I mention that the Waves were part of the Lafayette chain (another shameless plug!)  But I did not know that at the time and was pleasantly surprised upon check-in that this was a recent acquisition along with the SeaView just up the block.  Danny-  nice place, cant wait to see what you do with the new properties-  Next year we may take the ‘Governors’ “mansion” and have the entire DiStefano clan drive up!

Between all of the different places to eat, we really enjoyed Jimmy the Greeks on Route 5- Nice selection of beers from around the world, brick oven pizza and a fantastic spread of Greek food I haven’t been exposed to in a long time.  Uppa!  My 7 year old had her fill of spanakopita (SPINACH!) and I had a Gyro-  YUM.  But wait, there is more!

Breakfast at the Beach Street Cafe was interesting-  the owners(?), very attractive eastern European women, were very friendly  who know how to make breakfast AND by noon are closed and on the beach(we think)!  Tom’s breakfast shack was also an experience (BINGO!)-  we at there al fresco and enjoyed it as well as Joseph’s By the Sea!  Very nice.

Ok-  you think all I did was eat breakfast and drink beer and smoke cigars all week, right?  Nope-  we went to the beach of

course, Fun Town Splash Town USA, too (there were 3 kids 7,9,14); walked up and down Grand Avenue (a lot) and went for assorted drives to get ice cream, dinner and a trip to Portland for lunch at DiMillo’s.  And on Thursday night there were Fireworks on the beach with the amusement park all lit up -  very picturesque and fun.

There was more to do than we had time for, although my brother and I did steal away to Westbrook to visit the Victory dealer-  unfortunately- by the time we got there it was a little late for a test drive on a new 2011 Vegas.  A boy and his toys!

The weather was perfect, even though we got a bit of a scare from Todd, Jarrod and Co -  (WABI-TV) The rain we heard was coming our way only arrived for the drive down from Veazie, and disappeared in the afternoon on Monday-  Even WeatherBug had it wrong the whole way down.  Thank you Mother Nature for changing your mind!

Now with any family vacation, there were ‘those times’ too, where one kid was making too much noise for the other, or someone was being a nudge to a sibling, you know, that’s what being a family is all about.  But all in all we had a great time, and we were sad to see it go by way too fast.

Cant wait to plan for next summer-  Maybe the Seaview, maybe the Governors mansion.

But Maine for sure (pronounced “Shore”)!  And we are back just in time for the American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront! and some  Waterfront Concerts to see Tim McGraw and Jason Mraz.

What a summer!

disclaimer:

If any of my comments are incorrect, or mis-leading- I am sorry- All comments are mine (Joe DiStefano) and I thoroughly enjoyed our time in OOB.   All comments were meant in the most positive way and no disrespect was intended!

Facebook has just reached over 500 MILLION active users and people spend over 700 BILLION minutes on it in any given month. If you are interested in some more statistics you can go here and Facebook will tell you themselves.

I know you are tired about hearing about Facebook.  It is on national news, it is written about in publications, it is discussed at pubs all over the place and of course it is talked about at most of our kitchen tables.

One thing that cannot be overstated is to remember that you need to always be aware of your Privacy Settings.  AND be sure that your profile photo doesn’t show something less flattering about you. (Friends and non-friends can always see these.) Since we are in the “web business” and social media is all about web and marketing, we are always poking around making sure we know what is “coming down the Pike.”  Our last post discusses privacy and not really realizing who may or may not be aware of where you are and what you (or your kids) may be telling to whom.

There is a blog I read frequently by a man named Peter Shankman.  He recently posted this very cool screen shot step by step instructions  “How to Avoid Being Checked In by Your Friends on Facebook’s Places.”

Peter recounts amusing (because they didn’t happen to me) tales from Gawker.com and the trials of Facebook’s NEW location finder – Gawker always has great headlines, so here is one definitely worth a look.  It is about etiquette and Facebook – not enough posts about that either.

Facebook’s often makes changes and you really need to make sure you are up to date on your Privacy Settings.  This customized one just slipped in and if you check your account you may find you haven’t disabled it. Just like you may not want the world to see your photo with a beer bottle in your hand, or in a picture where something may be taken out of context, you probably don’t want someone of your 300+ friends tell the Facebook world of 500,000 that you were at the gym, when your office thinks you were at a meeting.   Here is another reminder.

You, your friends, your kids, pretty much everybody you know has a cell phone. There are 500 million users on FB and a bunch on Twitter and endless other social networks that can all post in multiple places at once.  So what you may be sharing to your FRIENDS on Facebook may cross over to other accounts that you may not realize, showing your personal business to the internet audience.  Or more importantly, your kids may be doing it.

We are big proponents of Social Media and cell phones and we have posted many things on this blog that encourages people to use these tools.  We tell people to “Try it, you’ll like it.” How you can build your business, reconnect with friends, stuff like that.  Maybe you haven’t started, maybe your kids have-so please listen to this.

Whether you know it or not, a cell phone can be a “spy” and can track your every move if you let it.  I am not going to repeat all the great posts I have read about this, but I will link a few here so you can read what they have said better than I can. From the Daily Beast,  I LOVED this post! It tells it all.

If you are telling people where you are and what you are doing using applications like foursquare or twitter others can know where you are or where you are NOT.  Like you aren’t at home and you are taking a family vacation — this is a great way to get your home broken into -did you know your phone may tag a location where you took the picture if you have the right (or wrong) setting?

I Can Stalk U really is a wake up call and it has very helpful tips with multiple cell phone interfaces so you can disable the most often default geotagging features.

We aren’t saying don’t use social media sites or your cell phone, we aren’t saying be AFRAID of social media sites.  Heck, we use them all the time, but just keep in mind what you provide and that you may be providing it to more people than you thought you were – and if you have kids at home, they maybe providing information to a predator.  Predators know how to use these tools better than you do and certainly bring a whole new level to “stranger danger.”

Today we continue our twice-yearly look at browser market shares on Sephone sites. Web developers use statistics about browser statistics to decide what features are safe to include on the sites they build; newer browsers (like IE8, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome) support many more features than older browsers (like IE7 and, infamously, IE6).

Here’s what our Google Analytics reports showed for six of our most-visited sites in real estate, tourism, news, education, and other markets:

It’s been another eventful period for browsers. The largest shift we saw in the first half of the year was a continued adoption of Internet Explorer 8, most likely due to upgrades from previous versions of IE (6 and 7). The market shares of those versions dropped across the board. IE 7’s share now ranges between 16.7 and 21.7%; IE 6 has dropped to between 4.7 and 8.6% (last December, it ranged from 7.0 – 10.3%; a year ago, 15.3 – 17.1%).

The percentage of users on Firefox either dropped or remained constant over the last six months on every site we surveyed. That’s likely due to gains by the WebKit family of browsers. There were modest Safari increases on most sites (Safari includes browsing on iPhones, iPods, and iPads), but the real story is Chrome. Google’s advertising campaign seems to have sparked some interest, and its browser share leapt around 50% over the last six months on some sites.

We posted these links back in December, but we think they’re important. We’ve previously introduced each of the major browsers and have explained our position on Internet Explorer 6 support. Please consider reading those posts for more information.

Read on to see the full report data with percentages and methods, or read our reports of traffic from December 2009 and June 2009.

(more…)

Somebody told you, “You need to make a Facebook Fan Page, for your business, they are really easy to make and they are FREE!”

That is true and if you have made your own facebook fan page, then you know just how easy it is. (We are making the assumption here that you have your own personal Facebook page, because you need one in order to make a Fan Page.)  Here is a direct link to Facebook’s explanation on how to do it.  It is listed under “Advertising” so many people get spooked and don’t bother to go there.  If you are more of a video watcher here is a good one (they are talking about restaurants, but it fits for anyone).  It is well worth the 10 minutes to see the step by step using screenshots – so you can see exactly what to do!

Why should my business have a Facebook Fan Page?

Marketers are talkers and of course they are all talking about why your business should have one, it is the RAGE!  Here is  a great post about it, there are tons of great posts about it, but I like this one because it is concise and doesn’t use a lot of $10 words. The meat and potatoes of this post is this and I quote: *

• Facebook has more than 350 million active users
• 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook

*numbers as of 2/10

Your business wants to have as much “eye” time and be “top of mind” to as many people/perspective or current clients as possible.

Why you don’t want a FACEBOOK Fan Page?

Just because it is free doesn’t mean it is right for you, right now.  When a “FAN” opens up their Facebook account in their “News Feed” section, there is the latest news from their friends, the causes they follow, and POOF! there you are with your latest special event or feature that you want to share with the world – unless of course you haven’t updated your page for 6 months and therefore it doesn’t post anywhere.

When people plan to come to visit your store, restaurant or whatever, if they look thru Facebook they can find you, but they also find that your last post was from December 2009.  They figure you don’t think it’s important, so neither do they and perhaps they don’t search for you at all, they choose to do business with the business that is in their “News Feed” once or twice a week.

Managing Facebook Fan Pages is bigger than just making one.  They don’t take long, but they do take doing. Make somebody accountable for doing it, just like you do when you have someone answer your business phone.  There are many companies out there (Sephone included), that can help you do this.  It doesn’t have to be expensive, once you see how it goes for a few months you can decide if you would like to take over the reigns!

We know, we hear it all the time, social media is making you feel like you are about to go “over the edge!”

Everyone you know is on Facebook, people on TV are asking you to follow them on Twitter, you email inbox is full, your kids text you when they need a ride home – yes, it is okay if you want to scream — we get it (covering our ears).

We can help.

Twitter

If you are a larger business, you need to know what your clients, customers or former customers are saying about you.  Because believe us they are saying it.  Just because you dont hear it, doesnt mean it isnt being blasted about the internet, perhaps a TV station or newspaper has a story about you or your company.  It is being tweeted all over and you have no control over it spreading.  You do have control over it, IF you know what is being said and how you can communicate to address it.

If you are a smaller business – even tho you know that Facebook is FREE, how do you fold that into your all ready full day of work?  You are out there trying to generate revenue or wait on customers – this is the last thing you want to mess with, right?

We are social media JUNKIES.  We know that every social media strategy isn’t the same, just like all businesses and situations aren’t the same.  What works for one, may not work for another.  One size NEVER fits all. And maybe it isn’t even Facebook that you need (gasp!)

Let us help.
Give us a call, we love to hear your dreams and your goals.
Then of course, help you on the road to get there!

For those of us that are “40 something,”  you remember what life was like before email.  I remember the first email I ever sent was to my boss (back in the 90’s).  Once I sent it, I got up from my desk, walked across the building to his office and we sat and waited for it to arrive.  Both of us looked at one another and said…”You have got to be kidding me, this is supposed to be faster than a phone call or a fax?”  Well unlike him, I knew in my heart of hearts this email thing wasn’t going to go away. He kept saying to me, “Cotiaux, this internet thing is another marketing fad.”  Now we still giggle about it when we catch up with each other a few times a year – the old fashioned way.  By PHONE, and now that has changed to, it is by CELL phone!

So email consumes us and with good connectivity it arrives instantly at its intended destination.  And then there is SPAM! SPAM you may not have known you asked for by subscribing to a newsletter and SPAM that you never asked for in the first place!

But where is this all going?  Do you want all your emails going to your blackberry (or other smart phone?)  Our clients send me large files that can be completely unusable to see on my blackberry so why do it?  AND sometimes I need thinking time for when people ask me questions and I need to talk to others in order to answer it.  These people (our team at Sephone),  don’t work 24/7 they actually have a life!

Is it really that important to be THAT available to EVERYONE you know in all facets of your life ALL the time (weekends, holidays, etc.) ? AND how do the people you are WITH physically all the time feel when you are constantly looking down, checking that flashing red light?  It is only going to get worse.

Then when you reply to those emails from your phone, are you really saying it how you really want it to be received? Or  you may not have your glasses on, you feel rushed to respond with an incomplete answer and have to go back and redo it and in the meantime you have an email out there that is misspelled and maybe not really what you meant it to say.  All in the name of our 24 hour “news” cycle! “We’ve come a long way baby,”right?

The solution is different for everybody.  But managing IT without IT managing YOU is the biggest challenge.  I struggle with it all the time.  In fact I find if I lose my blackberry or have a poor signal (we are in Maine after all),  I feel pretty stressed AND I don’t have all my email going to it!  I am really trying hard not to be run by technology.

What are your thoughts and ideas?

Would love to hear (and share) them!

If you are like most of us, you probably have one (or more) of the following:

• A monthly sizable cable bill or perhaps satellite
• A netflix account
• A bank of movies stashed someplace for a rainy weekend.

I know for me, there is nothing more frustrating in cruising through the channels and seeing nothing interesting or even worse those darned infomercials!

If you have a computer, smartphone*  and a connection to the internet, then I have a couple things to share with you.

Hulu.com describes itself as “Watch your favorites. Anytime. For Free.”  Alex Baldwin had done some commercials around superbowl time, so you may have heard of it.  There are a variety of channels, Home and Garden, Games, Sports and lots more.  There is even a tab where you can see the most popular ones.  You create a profile, (user name – which is your email address) and a password and it is free.  After you tell it your interests, (during the profile process), it will even suggest things for you to make your search easier and you may get a suggestion of something you never thought of!

Then there is another thing that I really enjoy and that is called USTREAM.tv.  These are LIVE feeds that you can watch on a variety of things one of those things is that awful oil leak that is spewing nearly 5,000 feet below the surface of the ocean.  But not all of it is bad, there are some great wildlife LIVE cams, one of my favorites are the Peregrine Falcons that are up here in Maine it is managed by the Biodiversity Research Institute. Now, keep in mind there is no editing, these are live cameras.  AND there is the opportunity to chat in a chat room next to what you are watching if you want.  But again, there is no censorship, so keep this in mind, if you are watching with kids. I can honestly say, there hasn’t been anything too bad, except this BP Oil gusher seems to have “unleashed the hounds”  in the chat rooms.

AND if you would like a LIVE Broadcast of your own, your son or daughter’s soccer game or recital, you can have your own shows.  For those of you with iPhones, you can film right from the event and tell your distant family members and friends and they can enjoy what is happening LIVE!  Once you stop filming it stops broadcasting.

So give it a try, there will be a lot of summer events worth sharing and rainy days may make for some down time to check out Hulu and USTREAM.tv

*check your plan for potential data charges.

The world of social media and the web is always changing, and sometimes it can be hard to keep up. All these new tools really can help your business, though, and we want to help you make the most of them.

Is there something you’ve heard about lately that’s piqued your interest? How about something you’ve always wondered about the web or social media but haven’t had the chance to ask? Here’s your chance. We’re going to start a series of posts with answers about using the web and social media in business, and we want your questions!

It’s simple. Just add a comment to this blog post or mention @Sephone on Twitter with a question about the web, social media, search, or anything else, really. We’ll do our best to answer right here on the blog. We’d love to hear all kinds of questions, from the very basic (”why is Twitter important for a business?”) to the more technical (”how can I add my Facebook page’s updates to my site?”).

Let the questions begin!