“In a way, the Web is like your Hollywood agent: It speaks for you whenever you’re not around to comment.”

This morning I was listening to the radio on my way to drop my daughter off to daycare and I heard the radio announcers on one of my favorite music stations joking around about Kim Kardashin. Apparently she discovered pictures that someone had taken of her while she was getting her hair done. She had no idea she was being photographed at the time, so how did she find out? She found out by setting up Google Alerts for her name and personally monitoring her name and her brand’s name. It amazed me that the people on the radio thought it was absolutely hysterical that she had Google Alerts set up for herself and thought that it was extremely over the top. It made me wonder, do these people have any idea what’s being said about them on the Internet? Here we have two very popular radio personalities and they probably have no idea about half of what is said about them on the Web.

Even though I’m sure Kim Kardashin has a PR rep that is monitoring what is being said about her, apparently she missed this! One of the basic services that I provide for my clients is Reputation Management and setting up Google Alerts is a piece of that. Just as the quote above states, the Internet goes on even when you are not around or sleeping.

The Internet is a huge space with many, many different areas to explore! Between online articles, websites, blogs, social media sites, forums (just to name a few) you would never be able to rest if you took the time to search what people were saying about you every day by Googling your name and your business name. The good news is that there are a few things that you can do to cut down on the time that it takes to find out what people are saying about you and your business; good or bad.

• Google Alerts: Kim Kardashin had the right idea. Google Alerts are a great way to monitor what is being said about you on various parts of the Internet. You can set them up to be delivered as it happens or one time a day.
• Social Mention: Social Mention search more of the ‘social side’ of the Internet, such as comments, events and images. It also measures sentiment about a particular search term which helps raise a red flag if there is a lot of negative publicity about something at the moment. You can also have your Social Mentions emailed to you also.
• Me on the Web: Google has another tool that helps you manage search results for your name that many are not aware of. The tool, “Me on the Web,” is now included on the Google dashboard in between account information and analytics.
• Tweetbeep: You can set up Tweetbeep to send you alerts on things that happen on Twitter. Tweetbeep helps you keep track of conversations that mention you, your products, your company, anything, with hourly updates. There is a free and a paid version for this service.
• BoardTracker: Curious about what’s being said about you on forums or within groups? Then BoardTracker is for you!
• WhoLinksToMe: Sometimes people will link to your website for their own benefit and without your permission. WhoLinksToMe shows you who is linking to your website and if you are uncomfortable with any of these links you can begin the process of unlinking yourself.

I hope this list helps you start to get a handle of what is being said about you and your business. Don’t forget when setting up alerts that you are including your name, your business name, any other names you or your business may go by and any employees or past employees. Make sure that names are included in “” quotation marks which helps the search sites understand that you are searching for a whole term, not two separate ones.

What other tools do you use to monitor what’s being said about you?

Despite some public resistance, Facebook is slowly converting everyone over to the Timeline. Because this has been causing some panic among my Facebook friends, I wanted to take the time and give you a quick rundown on how to navigate and customize your new Timeline!

To start, head over to www.facebook.com/about/timeline to convert your profile over to Timeline and click the button at the bottom if you haven’t already done so. Currently, if you do the conversion on your own, you have seven days to view and edit your content from the when you start the conversion. When you are happy with your Timeline, click the ‘publish’ button at the top.

Cover Image: The cover image is essentially a large banner that stretches across your entire profile. Some may use this space to market their business, show case products or simply for personal use. Here are two examples below:

To begin to customize your Cover image, you can either upload a current photo or create something fancy within Photoshop, Pixlr or Gimp. To create something unique, make sure your new image is 851 x 315 pixels. You will notice that you still have a profile picture at the lower left hand corner of the cover. This is separate from your Cover photo and can be changed too.

The Timeline: Timeline is essentially a digital scrapbook of your life that begins when you were born and then organizes all of the additional information you have been feeding Facebook over the years such as when you got married, graduated from college, got a new job, etc and creates milestones. It will also pick highlights from when you joined Facebook and insert photos, wall posts and events. It’s easy to edit these milestones and highlights by hovering over each in the upper-right hand corner of the box. You can also choose to highlight stories by clicking on the star in the same corner.

Your Info: People can now access your information from directly underneath your profile picture. By clicking ‘about’ visitors will come to a separate page that organizes your life into smaller, concise chunks, such as About You, Living, Family, Education. You can also add memories to each of these boxes if you want to share more then what Facebook already has provided.

Apps: You will now find that there is even further integration with companies that you may be familiar with such as Iheartradio, Netflix, Spotify and Nike with the new Timeline. Once (and if) you grant permission to these companies, you will see that they will be posting to your Timeline  on your behalf. For instance, do you use Spotify to stream music on the Internet? You will see Spotify posting what you are listening to. People can click on this information and listen to your music along with you.

Privacy: This seems to be one of the biggest pieces that people want information on when it comes to Facebook. Due to all of the recent changes, you may want to go back and make sure that your privacy settings have remained the same. To do this click on the white triangle in the right-upper hand corner of the blue menu bar and click on ‘Privacy Settings’. Permissions for apps has also changed, so you will only need to grant permission once for them to post on your account. Once the permission is granted, they will continue to have access to posting to your profile until you unauthorize the apps permissions. So take a look from to time to time at your account and privacy settings to make sure they are set the way you want to them to.

How can you take advantage of these changes: Timeline offers some interesting marketing opportunities for you as a small business and professional. Here is a short list of some of the things you can do to show off a little more of who you are from the professional standpoint using Timeline’s features:

• Create a cover image that displays your specialties, awards, achievements and accomplishments. Were you  spotlighted in a magazine? Use photo editing software and create a cover image using the article.
• Do you have business milestones? Make sure you include those in your Timeline. When did you graduate from college? When did you open the doors of your business? When did you expand into a new city?
• Are you a speaker? Make sure you add your locations to the map at the top of your profile. Include where you were at, what you spoke on and photos if you have some.

Eventually, there will be a major facelift to your Facebook Business Page as well. Experts predict within spring of 2012. Will the Timeline feature be the facelift? No one can say for sure, but I can almost guarantee you that some of these features that you see will be a piece of the upcoming changes to Facebook Business Pages.

Have a question on a Facebook Time line feature? Post it here in the comments or on my Facebook page.

Holy Cow! This blog post got over 43 comments when it originally posted on The Mogul Mom site exactly a month ago. I wrote this from my heart and a month later, still feel the same way. For all the moms out there that own their own businesses and are now thrown into having school in the mix also, this blog post is written for you )

This post originally posted by Rebecca Buscemi on The Mogul Mom.

I‘ve been dreading my son starting Kindergarten. My first born, my baby boy…a Kindergartener. I hated the thought.

Hated it so much that I celebrated when we missed Kindergarten registration day because he got a stomach virus and thought it was a sign from above when school was delayed by three days because of no electricity.

But alas, the night before the first day of school came, and after rah-rahing to him, cheerleader style, for thirty minutes about how great kindergarten is, I sat in my bedroom and cried and cried and cried.

So now here we are, three weeks later and I can’t tell you the last time I felt so good about the routine I finally have in my life and my business and it’s all because of Kindergarten.

Let me explain why:

Click here to read the rest of the post.

This post originally posted by Rebecca Buscemi on CreateHYPE

‘That wasn’t my intention!’ Have you ever said that? I know that I have. Knowing your intention before speaking doesn’t necessarily mean that your point gets across the way that it was intended, but it still helps to know your intention beforehand.

The same theory applies to social media marketing. Knowing what your intentions are before jumping in is a great way to make a first and lasting good impression! There is a very simple formula to get you started in realizing what your Social Media Intentions are and it’s something that you probably are already familiar with.

Who, What, Where, When, How and Why

Do these look familiar? They should. These six words are the basics to building and organizing any type of written or spoken content. These words can also help you to develop a clear intention on how you want to use social media to market yourself, your business and/or your products. So let’s get started!

Click here to read the rest of the post ;o)

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Growing pains. Did you get them when you were a child?

I did. I remember laying in bed at night feeling my limbs ache. I would wander into my parents bedroom and tell them how I felt. My mom would tell me it was ‘growing pains’ and that I’d feel better in the morning. When I got older, my grandmother told me it was actually restless leg syndrome; maybe she was right.

Over the past few months, I’ve felt a similar discomfort throughout my body and in my heart too. But this time, it’s not a physical discomfort, it’s an unsettling feeling surrounding my business.

Could it be Restless Business Syndrome? Here are some of the classic ‘symptoms’:

• Procrastinating
• Avoiding correspondence that may bring new business
• Pushing deadlines back
• Not finding time to complete work that you always had time to do before
• Not feeling the same passion for your work that you used to

What was going on? I love my work at home business and love being a mom entrepreneur. Why was I feeling this way?

Then it dawned on me. I was evolving. And so was my business.

Click here for the rest of the post

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Originally posted on The Mogul Mom on June 22, 2011.

Are you a product-based women in business? Then this is the guest blog post for you! I was really excited when Andreea Ayers contacted me about sharing with my Savvy Women’s Biz family about how to get Holiday Press for your products. It’s that time of year ladies when the holiday gift guides are shopping around for your awesome stuff! Make sure you listen to what Andreea shares with you so you aren’t killing yourself to get the publicity you need.

Guest blog by Andreea Ayers

While it may seem a little early to start thinking about your product as a holiday gift, June, July and August are when magazine editors start assembling their holiday gift guides. Most magazines have 3 to 6 month lead times, so if you want your product to be on readers’ wish lists, now is the time to get started.

First, make a list of magazines you think would be a good fit for your product. Think about their readers and your customers and find a common ground. Libraries often have large magazine sections that can help you research many publications quickly without buying out your local news store.  Or you can spend an afternoon or two at your local bookstore looking through their magazine section.

With your stack of magazines in front of you, find the contact information for the magazine’s editors on the masthead, often listed in a sidebar near the front of the magazine. Some will list email addresses and other will only offer a general phone line. You may have to work the phones to find the right person, but having a contact name will help get your call or email noticed. When in doubt, ask for the editorial assistant assigned to the holiday gift guide.

Before you call, know what you want to say. Prepare an elevator pitch or quick description of your product and have your price list, color selections, size choices and notes on brick & mortar availability in the coverage area on hand. Know who your customer is – moms, teenagers, eco-conscious shoppers – and be able to articulate it clearly.

Most magazines will request high resolution photos, meaning at least 300 dpi, and won’t accept non-professionally shot photos. Some only accept photos shot on a white background, so know what you have to offer before you call and don’t promise something you can’t deliver.

Some magazines will request a sample product before promising to feature your product, so have extra stock and mailing supplies ready.

The early bird gets the worm, so get to work while your competitors are still thinking about the beach.
Andreea Ayers works with creative entrepreneurs to help them get media attention for their products and to increase sales by getting their products in stores. For advice, insight and lots of free resources, check out www.AndreeaAyers.com.

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