Here a SimpleViewer Flash gallery should be displayed. Click here to open the post in your browser to see the gallery.

Here a SimpleViewer Flash gallery should be displayed. Click here to open the post in your browser to see the gallery.

Here a SimpleViewer Flash gallery should be displayed. Click here to open the post in your browser to see the gallery.

Here a SimpleViewer Flash gallery should be displayed. Click here to open the post in your browser to see the gallery.

Here a SimpleViewer Flash gallery should be displayed. Click here to open the post in your browser to see the gallery.

The first and, in my opinion, most exciting feature is that you can browse Facebook as your business. This means that you will receive pop-up notifications as they occur, you can view a news feed for pages your business has liked, and you can interact with others as your business.

Select Facebook user for browsing

When browsing Facebook as your business, you’ll notice the following features:

• Insights have been moved to the news feed page
   
  
   
• The search box allows you to search for other fan pages to like on behalf of your business
   
  
   

• You can now link your business page to your business’ Twitter account
   
  
   

The final feature that Facebook added with this upgrade is that the look and feel of business pages are similar to personal pages.  Five recent wall pictures are now displayed across the top of the page.  Facebook finally made this consistent so users don’t have to hunt and click to try to figure out where things are.  To see an example fan page that has been upgraded, click here.

If all of this sounds exciting to you but you don’t know how to set this up for your business, feel free to contact me. I can set up a page for your business to get your started and am available for consultation on managing a Facebook community.

Why do I have this sense of embarrassment about wanting step outside of my comfort zone to learn new things? Because generalists are the black sheep of the job world, which is probably why everyone’s basically been telling me that it’s a bad career move to remain a generalist. I’m here to tell you that their advice is wrong…at least for professionals in the marketing field. Here’s six reasons why it’s okay for a marketer to be a generalist:

• Marketers are researchers
  Some folks specialize in market research, but most of us who have general marketing responsibilities also have to undertake this duty. Without knowledge of what is going on in the marketplace, how can you build a strategy?
• Marketers are data analysts
  Once data is collected, someone has to decipher it and determine what steps to take next. If you’re working on strategy or content development, this person is most likely you.
• Marketers are strategists
  Strategy is the at the heart of all marketing efforts. After all, without strategy, there is no justifiable reason to implement any of the tactics I mention in the following points.
• Marketers are publishers
  The shift to inbound marketing has brought content to the forefront. You not only need to be able to effectively communicate your message but you need to ensure that you are educating your audience. In addition to case studies, success stories, and direct/e-mail pieces, you may have to develop blog entries, white papers, e-books, webinars, podcasts, etc.
• Marketers are techies
  If you work for a company where you’re lucky enough to have technology resources at your beck and call, that’s great. Otherwise, you’re also responsible for either building e-mail templates and websites, or you have to know how to tweak them once it’s time to insert your content. Either way, you need to at least have basic HTML/CSS skills and be able to read and understand some sort of code. In addition, you will probably need to know the technological ins and outs of podcasts, webinars, and video.
• Marketers are creatives
  Even if you are not responsible for developing your branding, you are responsible for ensuring that any externally released materials maintain the integrity of your brand by formatting and editing content and documents that others have created. This also includes creating any templates or graphics and selecting stock photographs that will be used in communications.

Unless your employer is a huge company that has the financial resources to hire enough marketers to specialize in each of these areas or your company specializes in just one of them, you’ll most likely need to be able to wear some, if not all, of these hats.

Have I missed any? In your experience, how do you think generalists fit into the marketing puzzle?

Instead, I like to think of each year as a small chunk of a greater goal, where the beginning of each year is merely a reflection of what did or didn’t occur the year before and putting in place a plan of action to take everything we’ve learned and move forward (fig. 2).

With that said, it comes as no surprise that I have found inspiration from Chris Brogan’s blog post this morning about preparing for the new year. Instead of shooting in the dark at idealistic outcomes without a proper plan in place, he suggests that folks come up with three words to focus on in 2011 that will serve as a guide for your goals and actions for the entire year. It took a lot of introspection to narrow down my focus to three words, but here they are:

• Reinvent.
  I’ve spent too much time reminiscing about what I’ve achieved in a past life and how I’m not achieving the same types of things now. It’s time to start a new path, taking what I’ve learned thus far and using it to accomplish something new. I still need to figure out exactly what that is, but I have a whole year to do it.
• Act.
  It’s time for me to stop worrying about risks and what other people think. It’s time to start doing (and I don’t mean spending eight hours in a cubicle just to say I put in an entire workday). I’m either going to succeed big or fail big. Either way, I won’t be able to say I didn’t try.
• Create.
  How can I call myself creative when I waste so much time trying to complete mundane tasks instead of investing time in creating written content, design, music, photographs, etc.? I can’t remember the last time I picked up my camera and experimented. My website is a complete, outdated mess. This year, the television and other distractions will be turned off (or thrown out the window), and I’m going to be productive.

Of course, those three words don’t overwrite my underlying desire to be constantly learning and evolving. I think those are two things that can go without saying. With that in mind, and now that I have some direction for this coming year, perhaps I should get some work done on updating my website and finalizing plans for other projects I’d like to work on. What does your 2011 look like?