Yesterday at Facebook’s f8 Conference [link to keynote video], there was a major change announced to how your Timeline will look as the release rolls out over the next few weeks.

This morning I set up the developer app in order to start using it before the official September 30 date when everyone will have access to it.

Some of the features you will see with your personal profile are:

• Your Cover – Fill this wide, open space with a unique image that represents you best. It’s the first thing people see when they visit your timeline.
• Your Stories – Share and highlight your most memorable posts, photos and life events on your timeline. This is where you can tell your story from beginning, to middle, to now.
• Your Apps – The movies you quote. The songs you have on repeat. The activities you love.

I’m off to do mine now. Will you embrace it or are you over all the recent changes Facebook have made recently?

Leave me your thoughts in the comments below.

Connect with me on Facebook @ http://www.facebook.com/HamptonInternetConsulting

UPDATE: A screenshot of my profile after enabling the new timeline. I like it!

Firefox On Flames

Fun Fact:

Four out of five Firefox users say they’d recommend it to a friend.

Why Use Firefox

Many of you have asked, “Why should I use the Mozilla Firefox web browser?” While I know many of you are very used to Internet Explorer as your default browser (simply out of habit, by personal preference, or maybe you didn’t know you had a choice), I would strongly suggest that you start using Mozilla’s Firefox browser as your default web browser for any content on the web. Here’s just a sample of the reasons why:

Speed:

Switching from IE to Firefox is like trading in your minivan for a sportscar.

Safety:

Firefox’s open-source security process means they address threats faster to keep you safe online.

Easy to Use:

Firefox’s cutting-edge features are so intuitive you won’t know how you lived without them.

Customization:

Mozilla Firefox offer literally thousands of ways for you to adapt Firefox to meet your unique browsing needs.

Free:

They say the best things in life are free, and Firefox is totally, 100% free of charge.

Advanced Features of Firefox Browser:

• Pop-Up Blocking: Tired of pop-ups ruling your desktop? Wish your favorite site didn’t always pop up annoying ads offering you some free trinket? You answer is here. Firefox offers advanced pop-up blocking so you won’t have to see another pop-up again! It offers a customizable interface that allows pop-ups to launch just in case some sites require their usage, or on the odd chance you enjoy the pop-up windows from certain sites.

• Tabbed Browsing: Browsing multiple websites is part of using the Internet. But why use a new window for each site you visit? Every new window opened clutters your taskbar, and drains your computer of the resources it needs to function at optimum speed. The solution to this problem is simple: Tabbed Browsing!
  Tabbed browsing not only uses a fraction of the resources a new window uses, but it also organizes all of your websites in easy to use “file folder” styled tabs. Switching back and forth between your sites is as simple as clicking on the Tab you want view. Best of all, you can open as many Tabs as you like in a single window!

• Increased Security: Ever noticed weird programs or advertisements that pop-up on your computer? Chances are, you were infested by a type of program commonly known as SpyWare. SpyWare uses security flaws in web browsers such as Internet Explorer to easily invade your computer, track your data, and deliver annoying advertisements.
  With Firefox, you don’t have to put up with that kind of intrusion! Its advanced security features help prevent Spyware from waltzing in and taking over your computer. Firefox also provides full control over cookies, password storage, browser cache, and other safety features. This means that your data and web browsing experience is the safest it can be, so you can enjoy the Internet even more!

• Automatic Updates: Too busy to look for software updates? No problem! From the very beginning with version 1.5 (the latest is Version 4), Firefox checks for the latest security and feature updates quickly and quietly, every time you use the browser! If any updates are found, it prompts you when they are ready for installation.

• Customizable: Want to change the layout of your browser? Go Ahead! Want to add an extra feature to your browser, like checking your local weather? You can! New Features and customized looks are available thanks to the use of extensions and themes.

Switching in 3 Simple Steps:

1. Click the Firefox download button.
2. Follow the steps to install Firefox and import your bookmarks, passwords and other settings from IE.
3. Launch Firefox from the Start menu, launch bar or by clicking on the desktop icon.

Other Features Include:

• FREE DOWNLOAD
• Compact Download size (5.0MB)
• Usable on most operating systems:
• Windows: XP, 2000, ME, 98, 95
• Apple/MAC: OS X
• OS 10.2x. or higher
• Linux: Most i686 Distribution
• Easily Imports your Favorites and Bookmarks from other Web Browsers
• Find what you need quickly with Google Search right on your Toolbar
• Compatible with the latest Plug-ins such as Macromedia Flash and Shockwave, Java, Real Player, and QuickTime.

So what are you waiting for? Download your Firefox Broswer now.

Ange Recchia
Hampton Internet Consulting 

Whether you have a Business Brand or you want to Develop your Personal Brand, either way, you will need to start somewhere with your online presence to stand out in the crowd.

You can make this as easy or as complicated as you like. I prefer the easy way so let me explain first of all why this is important and how it ties in with your online marketing.

Why Your Personal Brand is Important

If you think about the popular brands online, or even offline, what is it that makes them stand out above their competitors? They are easily recognisable.

As far as a personal brand goes, take Kylie Minogue for example. Kylie has been around since the 80s when Neighbours took off as a prime time TV series here in Australia. Since then, she has established herself in the UK with her singing career. Kylie Minogue is now recognised around the world and her success began from a humble role in Neighbours.

Kylie Minogue has beaten sports stars, media moguls and even the prime minister in a survey of Australia’s most powerful personal brands. (source: News.com.au)

7 Steps to Developing Your Personal Brand

Developing your Personal Brand is considered to be essential rather than a luxury. Every item you post anywhere online is there forever and for anyone to access.

You must consider what you would like to be known for and how you are perceived by others online is whether your brand will be noticed and warrant a following.

Note that Google keeps a record of every little tidbit in the search engines so if you were to apply for work and a potential employer were to do a search on your name, would you be happy with every single post and comment you ever made online?

Consider these steps when developing your own unique brand:

1. What are you passionate about? Choose a niche you can write and talk about easily where you can share your expertise online and when speaking to groups.
2. Write articles on your chosen niche. Become known as an authority in that niche by writing articles and submitting them to article directories.
3. Set up a personal or business website. This is where you can add more value for your potential clients and provide additional details of your services.
4. Set up a blog. Writing a blog and producing fresh content will keep your clients coming back to you as well as adding value to your website by linking to your services. This also enables you to begin building links and strengthen your websites authority in the search engines.
5. Social Media Profiling. With the rise of Social Media, you cannot escape the fact that you will in fact have to set up profiles with at least Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Google.
6. Design a unique business card. Carry your business cards wherever you go as you never know who you may meet and network with.
7. Testimonials. Gather endorsements and quotes from notable people, admirers, fans or ideally happy clients.

Following these steps will start you on your way to developing your personal brand. I welcome all comments and your ideas on how you are progressing with these steps and in my next post, will elaborate on some strategies you can use to make this process work.

Ange Recchia
Hampton Internet Consulting 

Related articles by Zemanta

• 6 Tips for Customizing Your Small Business Blog (mashable.com)

 

 

Social Media is a tool for building strategies. With the popularity of Social Networking sites growing day by day, it is no wonder that businesses want to get onto the scene and increase their visibility. Dealing with potential consumers online is still a daunting task and fear still lurks.

How often do you hear your clients say they want to communicate with the public but don’t want to make the time to be involved on a day to day basis? They want to increase traffic and sales using the Social Media platform but no idea what it takes to do so.

Social Bookmarking

One of the first strategies to suggest is to use Social Bookmarking sites. Social Bookmarking is a way to get your sites in front of actual prospects for your product without depending on the search engines for traffic. Now without debating the subject, there are thousands of people using sites like Delicious, Google, Yahoo, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Propeller, Blinklist, Diigo and the list goes on and on.

Direct referrals coming from various Social Bookmarking services, and in particular, services which focus around your niche, would increase the opportunity of making a sale. This is only one aspect to consider when devising a promotional strategy.

As good as it is to be found in the SERPs of Google, Yahoo and MSN, businesses also need to be included in other properties. Focusing on the more popular Social Bookmarking sites to begin with and then adding more niche social sites as you progress will get you noticed.

Micro-Blogging

Some of you will argue that Micro-Blogging is a waste of time. Making small talk does nothing for productivity. I beg to differ. Having spent the last couple of years using Twitter, for example, has enabled me personally to make connections I would not have otherwise been able to.

There are many high profile users and brands all using this network and in so doing, have extended their reach to the general public. Some, like @Zappos have even been featured in the suggested users list which has increased their followers list by 200,000!

Note: @Zappos contact information in the left sidebar of their Twitter background. They make it easy for their customers to find and contact them which is one of the most important aspects for business today.

When using such a popular network to improve brand awareness and sales, this goes without saying. It is a clever strategy to be accessible in as many places as possible.

Social Networks

The Social Networking scene is ever evolving too. Once upon a time, MySpace was the biggest and the best. Now Facebook has taken over MySpace and leads the race.

Create a presence that looks and behaves like user profiles to connect and engage with your customers and amplify your voice to their friends.

The benefits of Facebook are not only the fact that you can keep your personal profile free from business connections, thus allowing you to keep up with your family and friends privately, the new business pages are a must for anyone with a need to keep up with their customers. The other benefits of creating a business page is so the content from your blog and or twitter stream can be automatically added to fill the content so your fans can easily keep up with your efforts and campaigns.

Keeping up-to-date with this information on how to use and streamline your Social Media profiles is imperative for knowing what to do next in your online strategies. How do you manage to keep up with changes and managing your profiles and business? All comments are welcome.

Ange Recchia
Hampton Internet Consulting 

Related articles by Zemanta

• Yahoo’s Delicious adds a little Twitter (news.cnet.com)
• Yahoo Gives Its Delicious Bookmarking Site A “Social-Freshness Lift” (paidcontent.org)
• Social Media Book Teaser (slideshare.net)

Hampton Internet Consulting was created out of confusion, frustration and many queries I receive from people everyday who are starting a new Internet Business.

Being involved in forums and even day to day Social Networking in general, I often see many people struggling with where to begin!

The main concerns I hear are things such as setting up Social Media profiles, which blogging platform to use and registering a domain in order to upload a WordPress blog.

Other queries involve how to handle their email subscriptions or creating email accounts in Outlook. Which browser is best and what about anti-virus software?

All these questions will be answered and I will even provide services both online and offline to help you outsource all those little (or big) things which you do not want to deal with at the beginning of your new venture.

There’s so much to do and research let alone learning to write your own quality content to fill your site with information which will attract visitors searching for what you have to offer.

The Amazing Internet

In the beginning, the Internet was typically a message board. As more and more users went online and technology advanced, it became possible to chat with other users.

Shortly after, people became even savvier with this global medium wanting to do more online like building websites purely for information and then for business.

Once websites began to appear online, the next question was how do we get traffic?

How to Build Traffic to Your Site

One of the issues which most new webmasters are always concerned with is how to build traffic and have regular visitors to my site.

Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising was one of the first forms of attracting visitors in order to make sales from your site. While PPC is still popular, there is an even more popular player in the game today which brings us to Social Media Marketing.

Social Media Marketing

You may have heard of Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and the like but did you know that there are over 2000 Social Media sites!

Social Media Marketing has become one of the most popular, frustrating and enjoyable (all at the same time) ways, for building traffic. Best of all, it’s free traffic. The popularity of Social Networking has lead to more and more information being shared online which raises more questions of security than ever.

In the following posts I will elaborate on all these questions in regards to having a presence online and Internet Marketing so I look forward to your company and contributions via comments to develop the conversation even further.

Ange Recchia
Hampton Internet Consulting 