Thongs/Flip Flops

Flip Flops / Thongs Social Media Icons – Fellow Aussies and beach-goers will love these social media icons :) Download for free – designed by EffBomb.

Download Here | More Info

Price Tag Social Media Icons

18 social media icons in a “price tag” style including twitter, facebook, linkedin, orkut, myspace etc… and it comes in two sizes in both transparent PNG & Photoshop PSD. Designed by bDeepu.

Download & More Info

Bold and Artistic Social Media Icons

I love how bold and colourful and really “artistic” these icons look. Can’t figure out where I’m going to use them yet but I really want to use them somewhere cos they are outstanding. Comes with all the popular social networks like Blogger, Delicious, Facebook, Flickr, Linked-in, Reddit, RSS feed, Stumble Upon, Technorati and Twitter. Download for free below.

Download & More Info

Modern, Clean and Customizable

These modern, clean and brightly coloured social media icons are sure to catch the eyes of your blog readers, and are completely customizable via photoshop. Although they aren’t free, they are only $6 from GraphicRiver and contain 35 different networks. Very nice.

Purchase ($6) & More Info

Drinks / Poison / Medicine Bottles

A bit different, This beautiful social media icon set from apricum.net includes icons for: vimeo, youtube, digg, deviantart, facebook, flickr, yahoo, reddit, wordpress, picasa, stumbleupon, rss, delicious, twitter, technorati, skype, lastfm, linkedin, myspace, designbump, blogger, msn, xing, designfloat, addthis, google+, sharethis, tumblr, bkontakte, orkut, meneame, blinklist, paypal, diigo and viadeo. And they are free. Totally awesome.

Download & More Info

As you know from previous posts, I manage my friends with friends-lists which helps me “cull” more efficiently when my friends list fills up.

I finally found out where facebook hid my precious old friend lists, here:

http://www.facebook.com/bookmarks/lists

Once I’m in the old friends list, I can click any of my lists to go into it, and I’ve found out the easiest way for removing multiple friends at once.

Firstly, I use Firefox.. and I use an addon called “Multi Links” on one of my computers and “Snap Links” on another of my computers… and this task would drive me nuts if I didn’t have them so I suggest you get one of them too if you have multiple friends to remove :)

You can download Multi Link s from: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-links/

You can download Snap Links Plus from:  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/SnapLinksPlus/

They both do the same thing, it just depends on which version of Firefox you have as to which one to use (don’t worry, if you try and install an incompatible one, they will tell you).

Then, using this plugin, I “highlight” the list, and it opens them all up in new tabs.

Then I can do Facebook’s new slow and unproductive way of “unfriending” people that are inactive, etc.

Using this addon, I can do up to 14 people at a time..

You’d “Think” that you could do a lot more by clicking on “See All” or by choosing “”Manage List > Edit List” but unfortunately it doesn’t work when you are in either of those screens.

So 14 at a time seems to be the limit (that I can find) so far.

Know of a better way to delete multiple friends on facebook? Please share with us in the comments below :)

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The URL I was using was exactly from my previous post: Facebook New (Dec 9) Change to Facebook Welcome Pages  which was the api id with the base url.

But I found a workaround that worked fine and that was just replacing the baseurl with facebook.com – for some reason, that worked without issue (leaving it out completely didn’t work, which was another thing I tried hehe). Anyway, I thought it might be worth posting here in case others are coming across the same error message.

This is the new URL that I used which worked:

https://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=342688505766701&next=http%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.com

(copy/paste that url, but change the “App_ID” # to YOUR “App_ID” for it to work (just make sure you leave the facebook.com url address at the end, exactly as it’s written above)

Before:

After:

And good news for those who have created a separate App Page for their Facebook Page (via the Advanced Settings in your App).. if you have done that, Facebook has announced a few days ago, that it now has an “Add App to Page” option which might make things a little easier (I’d rather use the URL and not create a separate page for each of my apps because I make so many of them, but people who are just using these for just their own fan page will probably love this new feature!) You can read about it on the Facebook Developer blog here.

Resources from this post:

• Facebook New (Dec 9) Change to Facebook Welcome Pages
• How to make your Facebook Fan Page SSL Secure – For Free (Hostgator)
• Facebook Developer blog – Add App to Page option

The new Facebook pages have not gone live yet (but will on the 31st of March – or optionally earlier if you are ready for it) and will look like the new Timeline profiles you may of already seen on Facebook over the past few months.

Every fan page will be upgraded to the “new look” and will not have an option to go back to the “old look”.

(click for full image)

There is a fantastic tutorial here that walks you through all the new changes, and how you can manage your fan page from 31st of March onwards:
http://www.learnfacebookpages.com/ui.html

The “Landing Page” (Welcome Tab) and your current sidebar photo, will now be replaced with just a big ‘Cover image’.

The dimensions of the cover image at this time is said to be 850px by 315px and may NOT contain the following:

• Price or purchase information, such as “only $97!! or “50% off”
• Download your ebook or anything else at our website
• Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section.
• References to user interface elements, including Like, Share OR any other Facebook site features.
• No Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”.

(Source: https://www.facebook.com/help?faq=%20276329115767498)

Go through the 21-minute interactive training at the above (http://www.learnfacebookpages.com/ui.html) link to get a good idea of what the new pages will “allow” you to do and what it won’t allow you to do.

As far as landing tabs/apps, you can still have them, but noone will ever “land” on them by default, as in, you can’t set it to show the page first like before.

You can however, find the “url” of the landing page, and direct people to the landing page that way (for email or twitter campaigns, etc.), or, you can “pin” the landing page to a section of your wall and “hope” that people are enticed enough to click on it. (Source)

This is a very big change for Facebook and affects us all. I only just recently setup 70 new fan pages, and invested a lot of money into a customized fan-gate system not realizing that Facebook had this change in the works.  Just the way it is :/

See Also:

• https://www.facebook.com/about/pages/
• The Complete Guide to Setting up the New Facebook Page Design – by Hubspot

What are your thoughts on the new Facebook Page changes? How does it affect you, do you like it better or rather the older version?

It stays dormant for months and then all of a sudden pops up, does a fake scan and then prompts you to ‘pay’ to remove a bunch of virus. Two of my friends have already been infected. This is the video that I found that shows you step-by-step how to remove it safely from your computer.

1.) Head to the About Timeline page here:
http://www.facebook.com/about/timeline

2.) Click on the “Get Timeline” button

3.) Click “Publish Now”

I’ve been playing with my new cover today – and I’m not really sure on the “rules”. Whether you are allowed to promote your business or not, etc. So I’m a bit nervous that I’ve decided to go that way on my own profile, so I’ll have to keep an eye-out for that to see if I’m not breaking any terms by doing so – and if so, you’ll see a different timeline cover when you visit that link :)

If you don’t want to create your own cover, a WSO was released today that has heaps of Facebook Timeline skins, which is going to be really useful for those of us that create Facebook pages/profiles for our business clients. Check it out.

Have you setup your Facebook Timeline yet? Care to share with the rest of us? Post your Facebook Timeline link in the comments box below :)

• Auto Dealers in Sydney
• Plumbers in New Jersey
• Chiropractors in England
• Dentists in Paris
• Accountants in New York

I’m talking dozens, hundreds, thousands! of laser targeted leads complete with:

Business Name
Business Contact Name
Business Email Address
Business Address
Business Phone Number
Estimated Employees
Estimated Years in Business
Website URL

The most valuable part is that it also includes complete data containing:
Where are they ‘Positioned’ in Google? Organic? 7Box?
Is their Google Places Page Owner Verified?
Whether their Google Places has Photos, Videos, and Reviews (and how many)
Does the Business have a Facebook Fan Page? and the URL if they do
Is the Facebook Fan Page Owner Verified?
Does their business have “Checkins”?
The # of comments that has been shared on facebook with their business url
Website PageRank
 Backlinks
Page Authority
Whether they have a Mobile Page setup

AND Complete Social Media Metrics:
Facebook Likes
Fan Page Likes
URL Likes
URL Shares
Tweet Count
Google +1 Count
Google Buzz
Digg Count
LinkedIn Shares
StumbleUpon Views
Reddit Score
Delicious Bookmarks

AND.. Keyword Information, such as whether their “target keywords” are in their:

1. Content
2. Website Title
3. Domain Name
4. Description
5. Header Tags

If you are an offline marketer or do any kind of SEO, Social Media, Local Marketing, or Reputation Management work for your clients or yourself, you are going to be doing the *happy dance* along with me when you check out this software. Places Scout has just been released and it’s TOTALLY awesome.. it’s now my new *must use daily* software (it’s even made it to my permanent “task bar” – it’s “That” good): For internet marketers, it’s an absolute must-have tool.

1. For keyword research (specific to Google Places)
2. For finding out exactly what you and your competitors are ranking for in Google Places
3. For monitoring the ups and downs of the rankings
4. For clearly seeing what the competition is doing (do they have facebook, google plus, how many citations, 3rd party reviews, photos, videos, their business name and address, how they are optimizing their H1 tags, fan page likes, tweets, google buzz, digg, stumbleupon, reddit, delicious)..

Compared to MapPI ($297), Consulting Leads Pro ($997), Power Leads Pro ($997), Power GMaps Pro ($147), GPscraper ($347), etc. it just..towers ahead of them in terms of features, flexibility (drag n drop everything, sort everything, client reports, etc.) and price, and ease of use. I’m really happy that I got onto it straight away, and they are talking about adding so much more to it in the coming months. And the support is fast and friendly. It also works in all of these countries:

• Australia (YAY!)
• United States
• United Kingdom
• Canada
• Bahamas
• Belize
• Ireland
• Jamaica
• Malaysia
• New Zealand
• Singapore
• South Africa
• and the Virgin Islands

Check it out.. the price is going up every day on the Warrior Forum.. it’s currently sitting at just over $100/year and it’s going up to $197/year – grab it while it’s still a bargain!

Places Scout

To make your Professional “Headline” stand-out even further, you can use some ascii art to draw the viewers eye to your profile.

This is a quick post showing you some examples of some LinkedIn Profile Optimization using Ascii Art in your Professional Headline and how you can also use Ascii Art to ★ Makeover ★ your LinkedIn profile sections too.

LinkedIn Professional “Headline” Tips to Stand Out

Stand-out more in LinkedIn search results by using a call-to-action benefit-driven Professional Headline (Rather than just your job title). Use Capitals to Draw ATTENTION to certain buzz words.

Recommended ASCII Characters to make your headline stand-out amongst the competition are as follows:

► Arrow Pointing Right
◄ Arrow Pointing Left
→ Right arrow
← Left arrow
♫ ♪Music Symbols (if relevant)
★Star
❤ Heart
♦ Diamond
♣ Clove
♠ Spade
• Dot
■ Square
▲ Up Arrow
▼ Down Arrow
▓ Dark Shaded Block
▒  Medium Shaded Block
█ Dark Large Block
▄ Dark Small Block

It’s difficult not to go over-board with the ascii text symbols when doing this so try and keep it to a minimum. Since most people do not optimize their profile this way, just using a couple of characters will be very effective without the overkill. I think the “heart” ❤ that I added today on mine might be a bit overkill but I’m going to test it for a week and see if it increases views/connections.

LinkedIn Summary Optimization with Ascii Text

When people are searching LinkedIn for connections, the next stop they make is clicking on your profile and the first thing they see below the overview is your Summary.

This section can also be optimized for better performance using ascii text by first separating each section with a line.

This is the exact line I’m using on my profile:

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Then, I’m capitalizing each section and using the right-arrow bullet to make the sections stand out:
►  SPECIALIST IN
Then, I’m optimizing the description of each section using the following ascii text codes:

Hearts to draw attention to how easy it is to add me on LinkedIn:
❤ INVITES WELCOME ❤
(you need an email address to add people you don’t know on LinkedIn – so I want this section to stand out more than the rest – think of it like a lead-capture form, it’s pointless if they are interested in working with me but they have to play guessing games on how to add me. I don’t want to miss out on a potential client by making it hard – I’ve made it as easy as possible for people to add me by providing my email address.

I use a small arrow to draw their attention to the address:
→  Send your invites to happychesbiz at gmail.com – always willing to connect and help new contacts – please introduce yourself :)

I use a Star and an Arrow to draw attention to the free 20 min consultation:

★ Book a Free Strategic Planning Session:

Visit →  http://webwooky.com/schedule
I use checkmarks to draw attention to what I specialize in:

✔ Real-time marketing

I use checkboxes to draw attention to my point of difference:

❑ no minimum contracts
 

LinkedIn Specialities Section Optimization using ★’s

Instead of writing a sentence here, I think it’s best to bullet-point your specialities with either ★ stars, ► right-arrows, * asterisk or ✔checkmarks:

★ SEO Marketing
► SEO Marketing
→ SEO Marketing
* SEO Marketing
✔ SEO Marketing

I also use these same ascii characters all throughout my profile from the Employment/Experience sections to the Education sections and in the “Contact me for.. ” section.

Ascii Characters you can use in your LinkedIn Profile

I hope this has helped give you some ideas on how to stand-out amongst your competitors on LinkedIn, here is a collection of Ascii characters you can use – feel free to add more in the comments below!

► SYMBOLS FOR LINKEDIN PROFILE MAKEOVER
 
█
❖
★
◄
►
٩(͡๏̯͡๏)۶

ܜܔܓ
 
→

←
♫
♪

❤
♦
♣
♠
•
■

▲
▼
▓
▒
█
▄
¿
♀

♂
○★·.·´¯`·.·★

 
¸.·’★
 
•.(♥)•
 
●☆●
☆●
☆●
☆●
 
◥♀◤
 
◢♂◣
 
.•°¤*
 
ஐ..•.¸¸•´¯`•.¸¸.
 
-(★
 
★)-

Today I’m going to share with you my 2 fave WordPress Themes for Small Businesses. When looking for a WordPress theme for Small Business owners, I’m particularly seeking call-to-action type themes – something that can enable the visitor to immediately take action (either be compelled to call, fill out a form, create a booking, opt-in to a newsletter, get directions, place an order, etc.).

You don’t want too many “distractions” on a small business website, particularly a “local business” website where the majority of visitors are already looking for your service when they find you and you need a way to make them take action quickly as they are less likely to browse around looking for what you are writing about and more likely to want to find out your location, operating hours, services, and contact details. The same is true for really any service or consulting business.

I’m a wordpress-junkie.. I can’t help it – not a week goes by when I haven’t purchased at least a couple of wordpress themes – I’m hopelessly addicted to premium themes and I don’t even look at free ones anymore – once you have feel the difference in working with a theme that has been well-coded, you can’t go back to the inflexible freebie themes.

Here’s my first ever video I did to explain the theme’s features to small business owners on the demo site:

 

Here are my fave WordPress Premium Themes for Small and Local Businesses and why they made it to my top 2 “faves”:

Templatic Appointment Theme

Why I love it:
1.) Straight-up 2 x call-to-actions from the get-go on the homepage that enables someone to “download” something or Book an Appointment.
2.) The “Book an Appointment” system works out-of-the-box so no fiddling around with extra plugins or third-party websites.
3.) The “Book an Appointment” can easily be removed and replaced with a Contact Form.. or any other call-to-action type action like “Call Us”, etc.
4.) The “Book an Appointment” section is a widget – and it’s prominent on every single page – it’s so rare to find a widget like this.. I mean, it’s not like a typical sidebar and when you see the demo, you’ll see what I mean, the widget stands out on every page, separate to a normal sidebar because it is designed to stand-out on the theme – hard to explain from a screenshot – you’ll have have a play around to see what I am talking about :)
5.) It has everything that a small business or consultant needs.. the homepage has the above, plus a bullet point list of whatever you like (services for example), a mini-portfolio of work (or whatever you like), Latest News, Contact Info, Social Media buttons (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin – built-into the theme’s design), a call-to-action phone number area, a built-in Google map.
6.) Special Offers Widget that you can place on every page under the appointments form.
7.) Built-in Testimonials
8.) Easy to modify homepage slider (as you can see from my demo, you can either do the call-to-action with photo thing or even place a welcome video) – I wouldn’t normally do “both”, but for the demo I did.

In a nutshell, I love this theme because it’s really designed to get the visitor to take action, and when thinking about any kind of website, you don’t just want a pretty website that people browse around and then close – you need a website that converts visitors into targeted leads and no theme that I’ve ever seen does better than this one.

More Details/Download | View My Demo

BlogOhBlog Company Theme

Why I love it:
1.) Simple, clean, stylish design. Love the rounded corners on all the design areas.
2.) Call to Action phone number (or text) – top-right of theme.
3.) Like the theme above, the call-to-action sidebar area on every page (this is a must-have and I’m always on the look-out for themes that have this)
4.) Homepage has obvious “benefits of using us” static area, as well as an every-changing area for your most recent blog posts, which will turn any static site into a site that Google loves.
5.) Designed for most information to be “above the fold” – another rarity that most website designers don’t take into account.
6.) Latest Tweets built-in
7.) Built-in Image Gallery
8.) Blog archive page is really nicely designed which makes people want to read and check out the article.
9.) Automatic Slideshow built-in

More Details/Download | View Demo

Do you know of any wordpress themes like these? Call-to-action wordpress themes that would be perfect for local business owners? If so, please feel free to share.. I love themes like these!