As a business user, the iPhone Facebook application is a great tool for anyone who has a Facebook Page – but doesn’t have any other properties (i.e. Twitter). Once you add Twitter, Hootsuite becomes a great tool but if Facebook is all you work with, then Facebook for iPhone gets the job done quick and easy.

The key is adding your pages to your favourites screen within the application.

Add Your Pages to Favourites

1. Open the app
2. Click the grid icon in the upper left corner
   
3. Swipe to the left to get to your Favourites page
   
4. Click the “+” plus icon in the upper right corner
5. Click Pages in the bottom right
6. Select the page you would like to add from the list
7. Done!

Updating Your Facebook Page

1. Open the app
2. Click the grid icon in the upper left corner
3. Swipe to the left to get to your Favourites page
4. Click on the page you would like to update
5. For a status update, go ahead and enter into the What’s on your mind? box
6. For a photo upload, click the camera icon to the left of the What’s on your mind? box

Huge thanks to @jjloa for this great tip at #pseweb last May!

Both:

Notes on “both” – some of these are iPhone only but I run them on my iPad anyways.

1. AudioNote ($4.99): Records audio while you take notes.  Type or draw.
2. WordPress: Hook up to multiple hosted WP blogs. Create/Edit posts, pages. Manage comments. ESSENTIAL APP if you WP.
3. Google Analytics ($6.99, iPhone only): Annoying that there are different versions for ipad and iphone (aka two purchases), but who can live without analytics? I’m running the iphone version on my ipad, in protest.
4. Facebook: Beware, it’s not iPad-sized yet. #FAIL
5. Google: Didn’t come installed by default on iPad, but Google is life so I installed it on both.
6. Evernote: Essential. Especially with our photocopiers at work, I scan all notes and email them to evernote. Zero paper files = heaven.
7. Dropbox: Essential. Because you have files in more than one place.
8. Twitter (formerly Tweetie): I find it the most satisfying twitter client on either device so far.
9. IM+ Pro ($9.99): Hook into Twitter, Facebook, MSN Messenger, and Skype all in one place.  I run with 2 MSN accounts.  I’ve opted out of Twitter because it isn’t reverse chronological and there are better Twitter apps out there. I upgraded to Pro so that I could add my  Skype account.
10. Words with Friends Free (iPhone only): Social scrabble /w chat. Fun!
11. RDP Lite: Remote Desktop Client that has been a staple since week #1 with the iPhone. Free.
12. Personal Assistant: The only financial app that has been able to link to both my credit cards as well as my CDN bank account. Very very handy.  Alerts me to large transactions, payment due dates.  Can do much more, but that’s all I’ve set up.  Free.
13. YellowPages: A key resource.
14. Amazon Kindle: Picked it over Kobo, not for any particular reason.  Just seemed like it was the stronger player, would go further.
15. Note on iBooks: So far, it has not had any of the books that I have wanted to purchase. Kindle FTW!
16. DocsToGo ($9.99): Open and EDIT Microsoft Office files.
17. Kijiji: Can’t stop, won’t stop.  Love this app/website.
18. iWatchr ($0.99): Keeps track of my weight watchers points :)
19. Skype: Redundant thanks to IM+ – Zing!
20. Newsrack ($4.99): Testing as replacement to Google Reader – not sure yet.  It’s got the same #FAIL as Pulse, but doesn’t have an open in Safari option, so the Note in Reader work around doesn’t save it.
21. TweetDeck (iPhone version, iPad version): One of the strongest multi platform, multi account aggregators.  It’s my fall back twitter app … I tend to stick with Twitter/Tweetie or Hootsuite. Very pretty on iPad.
22. PayPal (iPhone version only): Essential for managing money in this account.  Also, can Bump to give money to another user.
23. Eventbrite: Awesome check in application – can have multiple gates each with an iphone or ipad all scanning in attendees and checking them into the database.
24. LinkedIn: Because sometimes I use it.  I wish it supported groups …
25. iTweetReply ($1.99): Twitter  push notifications, opens tweets in program of choice.  Tweetdeck and hootsuite aren’t choices, so I go with Twitter/Tweetie.
26. Bump: Novelty. Amazing.  Exchange contact details with a bonk, exchange twitter contacts, exchange money via PayPal!
27. Flixter: Reviews, trailers on every movie ever – in theatres and on dvd.
28. Zinio: Magazine app.  This one is gaining steam.  My pile of magazines is a) not on the floor anymore, b) with me everywhere I go, and c) favourite pages/recipes are now screenshots/pictures instead of piles of ripped out pages
29. Mapquest (iPhone version only): Spoken directions/navigation. Basically a GPS for free. (More so than Google Maps)
30. Hoosuite ($2.99 iPhone version, Free HTML5 website for iPad): Great multi-account/tracking/team twitter tool.

iPad Only:

1. iMockups ($9.99): kind of awkward, but i eventually got the ivey web template drawn in and duplicated for fancy ipad wireframing
2. Memeo Connect: Gorgeous interface for google docs.  they promise to make editing possible soon.
3. Quick Voice: Because the ipad doesn’t come with a voice recorder.
4. Pulse ($3.99): Sucks in  your Google Reader feeds and lays them out like a pretty digital magazine/dashboard.  Fail: no way to mark “shared” back to Google Reader, which is how I archive useful articles.  Fix: Added a Note to Reader bookmark to Safari.
5. Jumbo Calculator: Because the iPad doesn’t have a calculator
6. iBooks: Comes with the ipad.  Will be more useful when it handles PDFs as promised today by Steve Jobs.
7. Popplet Lite: Great mindmapping tool – very pretty.
8. Dictionary: Seems good to have.
9. Files HD ($2.99): Crazy fast file upload from dekstop/laptop browser to iPad app.  Redundant to GoodReader and Dropbox.  Not sure which one I will stick with.
10. textPlus+: Free text messaging via wifi – works fine.  Will have to wait for the bill to see if the reply number is international (costing people money to reply to me)
11. Noterize ($2.99): Another note taking app – haven’t put it through its paces yet, but very interested after seeing it on @pscheyen’s ipad

iPad Fails:

1. ClipTwin: Thought it would be a good way to ship pictures from iPhone to iPad.  It’s not.  Took 5 minutes to send a single photo.
2. Bluetooth Phone: hasn’t yet successfully found my iphone …

Here’s another one – nothing much to say, but I wanted to capture the treatment/push to Facebook in the bottom corner.  What do you think?

As usual, once you enter you are presented with the opportunity to fork over your friends’ and family’s contact information in exchange for additional ballots in the contest.  I don’t usually fill these out – sometimes because I don’t want to be a jerk, and other times because I just don’t have anyone’s email addresses memorized.

Rather than asking me to type in contact info, if the site had offered to send me an email that I can send to others – or if they had just followed up with a “thanks for entering, now forward this to others” email – it would only be a few clicks for me to shoot it out to as many friends as possible – I would already be in my email program with contact list in hand.

Anyways, I am hoping to visit family on both sides of the country in the next year – so cross your fingers for me that I win!

PS wouldn’t it be neat if I’d been able to publish a link to my twitter and facebook saying “I just entered!” – with the motivation that for each time my status was clicked I received extra ballots? If that had been offered to me just now, this contest would have just reached slightly under 1,000 additional people …

Why care? Conversion is going to be much higher because all the user has to do is click “like” and then fill in the form presented to them.  The alternative is saying “Please click the button to ‘Like’ us and then navigate to this link http://www.facebook.com/somerandomlink and fill out the form that you can now see because you are a fan.”

Also, previously you have been able to define different landing pages for fans vs non-fans (do we call these likers vs unlikers now?) but in the end both audiences could see all your content.  Now, we seem to be able to have content exclusively for each audience – great for targetting, hitting home.

What you see if you have not yet "liked" the brand

What is shown to those who "like" Bud Light

The way Elle Canada has been using new media catches my attention repeatedly.  Last year, I was blown away by their Blackberry application – with push notification of new articles (built by Polar Mobile – also behind the uWaterloo application).

This year, after several appeals via snail mail to take them up on their discount pricing, I’ve just received an email telling me that my digital subscription is available online. Good job – they didn’t let me fall out of the funnel. The email calls me to install an iphone application called Zinio – screenshots below.  It will be interesting to see how this works – if I end up finally reading the magazine now.  Either way, at least it’s not clogging up my real-world recycling bin. Have you noticed any publications getting mobile? So far the Zinio interface looks great and if everything else I want to read heads into Zinio, than I can see this being very useful.  What I wonder about is why introduce a new player (Zinio) when so many people already have the Kindle application installed? Is Kindle not able to do justice to the publication? Have you experienced any great print-gone-mobile magazines?

uStream is great, totally free, it’s easy as pie to create a pretty page on your site and embed the video window and the chat module and then you are off to the races.  And this is completely fine for those times when live broadcast is an added treat as opposed to a required element.  I don’t think I would ever promote a webcast using uStream from a live event other than my desk – there are just too many variables.  Quality of internet connection – is it dedicated or are you sharing with an entire campus or crowd of other people? Quality of equipment – are the lights required to be dim for the live audience, therefore putting your video audience in the dark?

I find myself watching what the big players are doing.  Obama united CNN and Facebook, Seesmic teamed up with Microsoft & Silverlight.  Today, Facebook is partnering with LiveStream -a service that is on my list to check out asap.

If you haven’t seen Facebook’s set up, it’s very cool:

Registration will be about $350, but there will be a $50 early bird discount, as well as a $50 speaker discount.

We’re planning one evening of planned events and another evening “on your own” to let attendees mingle.

There are fantastic, convenient and affordable accommodations available right on campus – as well as a walking distance hotel for those that prefer.

Registration should open tomorrow or Wednesday, as soon as I confirm the process with Brock conference services.

In the meantime, we need speakers! Please consider submitting a presentation topic – the goal of this conference is to share experiences between peers in college/university web and marketing – if you have a story or a topic to share, please submit it here and help us create the richest possible program: http://pseweb.ca/?page_id=14

Some other very exciting news for folks in our field coming soon!

Thanks to all the members of our planning group on LinkedIn!

I’ve never felt so alone! So helpless! The opening keynote by Mitch Joel was fantastic, bang-on and inspiring.  It home when he described his job as the type where his wife had to ask him every few months what he did again and how they paid for their house when he spent some much time on Facebook? I’m not sure anyone in my family or social networks knows quite what I do for a living, or how I keep dog food in the bowl. 

One or two times a year, I pop on a plane to somewhere random in the United States and within a few hours I’m sharing apps and drinks with a group of people who know what I do.  For a collective 6 to 8 days a year, I’m surrounded by the warm hug of people who know what Twitter is and are passionate about the size & content of the display picture used on a Facebook Page. 

These semi-annual occasions are conferences for web professionals and marketers in higher education.  Today, I attended a conference for professionals on the topic of e-Marketing in my hometown.  That warm sense of co-nerdiness was missing.  Although the keynote was fantastic, it was in a room without wifi or cell service – in fact, there was no wifi all day! When I was able to get reception, I tweeted to the world – hello, is anyone here? – and got no response.  This was a far cry from last October’s HighEdWeb conference, where the session rooms were bursting with silent online conversation. 

It was a very different experience.  I’m glad I went – it is important to support the web and social media community of business people here so that hopefully it will take off running.  I have no idea why the community of local social media professionals and gurus were not in attendance.  Last year at Podcamp London, we actually were able to trend the conference on Twitter! But today, in the same city, the feeds were quiet.