Humboldt County draws a lot of traffic, physically and digitally. We have a new crop of students moving in every year to attend HSU and CR, with a lot of them settling in locally after graduation. You better call ahead to get a table at Lost Coast Brewery during the touristy travel months of June through August, and in 2011 persons under the age of 18 represented over 20 percent of the Humboldt County population. And they are all sharing.

With some help of a good friend, we compiled a list of businesses in Humboldt County that are using Facebook. This list shows the current number of fans for each. For a numbers-in-marketing geek like me it was exciting to see where everyone ranks. But I was also a little disheartened. I believe technology and communications can be one of Humboldt County's biggest assets. But from what I can tell from the FB, we have some more work ahead of us.

The good news is the fix isn't a difficult one, and many of you have already found it.
Facebook is very specific in their terms of service that businesses sign up as "Pages" and not as "Profiles." They can nix your account for violating those terms at any time. The major differences between a Profile and a Page are people use Profiles, businesses use Pages. Businesses do not go to Humboldt State University, live in Eureka or have relationships that are "it's complicated." As it turns out, there are also a lot of Humboldt businesses in "open relationships," however I must assume those owners are just being funny. It was funny.

Profiles also top out at 5,000 friends while a Page supports unlimited fans. More than a few popular local businesses have exceeded 5,000 fans and dominate the top of the list, but we also have a number of local businesses stuck at 4,999 friends because of this error. They could be one of the top contenders but there is no way for their fans to support them. Facebook has set up a tool that will convert your Profile into a Page and you get to keep all of your friends! You may lose some posts and uploaded photos but you will be spared the daunting task of trying to individually convince each and every one of your current followers to "like" you a second time. Just do a quick Google search for "convert profile to page."

Now you have your business Page converted and ready to go, let's get to posting and let all of your fans know how great you are and what you have on sale! Please don't, for two reasons. As a fan I know you are great, that is why I am following you but please do not cover my Wall with your advertisements. I support local business and I "like" a lot of things, do not compete with my nieces for Wall space, you will lose. That means limiting the amount of posts you make as well as what you are saying and how you are saying it. A general rule of thumb is to not post more than a couple times a day, maybe less. More than three and that third one better be something your fans can't live without.

When you do post, be you. Do not talk like a salesman on Facebook, there is a place for that on the right hand side of the screen. On your Wall post things that your fans are interested in, Facebook is not for selling your product; it is for selling you, your brand and building a closer relationship with your fans. I was sharing a local beer with the owner of a popular local insurance company. She had good reason to think she didn't need a Facebook page because people do not want to hear about boring insurance stuff. She is right, they don't and I would "unlike" her business if that showed up on my Wall any time of day. But check this out, she represents a large number of Harley Davidson motorcycles in Humboldt County, think Harley riders don't FB? As of this writing they are playing host to 3.2 million fans on Facebook. So what should she be posting? Post about Sturgis, the Redwood Run and Sons of Anarchy. Post about the new bikes that come out every year and new technology. When they catch a glimpse from your post and check out that bike, they already have you in mind when they make the purchase; add another bike to the account. Facebook for business is not about what you are selling, it is about who you are and what you represent but most importantly it is about your fans.

That being said, this stuff is always evolving. A great place for information is mashable.com. They have a plethora of information to help businesses of all sizes succeed in social media. Below you will see the businesses that topped the list. If we missed you, get with the social.

Lost Coast Brewery: 29,003 fans; Humboldt State: 10,484 fans; Pacific Outfitters: 13,413; and Los Bagels: 7,893

T. Aaron Carter is the marketing director at Pacific Outfitters, founder of Spiderboldt New Media Advisors and board of director at North Coast SBDC. http://www.spiderboldt.com/

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A person who wants to become a professional in the business social media arena must focus on delivering results. This sounds obvious but it really is not obvious to most business owners. Most people who work in social media focus on metrics that mean nothing. Such as size of list and how many "re-tweets," they have achieved. The truth about this is that these metrics do not matter, what does matter is the propensity of the list to buy a product or service that is presented to the list.

A professional manager of social media needs to be focused on the bottom line. That bottom line is money and revenue. A skilled business social networker should be focused on delivering money into a business that they work for or are hired to help.

However, this not the case in most situations. There are a few reasons why this is not true. The first reason is that the social networker was not a business owner before they touted themselves as a business social networker. These people do not understand that every action in business should generate revenue. Therefore, these people are happy when they generate a bigger list (whether or not if the list is responsive to the offers). They are also happy when they can get a message to be spread virtually through the system regardless of the ability of that message to sell anything.

The other reason that many social media networkers are not effective is because the business owner is trained to use social media the wrong way themselves. This means that they are unable to discern a skilled social networker from a general user. At this point and time, a person can walk into the office of a business owner and tell them that they have 100,000 followers and get hired to run the social media campaign. However, these 100,000 followers are a mix of robots that are following people around a topic, people who are only online to make fun of other people for fun, and then those people who are really interested in the product or service. This list may only have 1 to 2 people who are actually buyers and they may have come from different topics. In short, this may not be the best list or the best methods to generate a list of buyers who are ready to work with a business.

A person who is a skilled social networker should be able to walk into the room and tell the business owner that they have a conversion rate of x amount from their list of x amount of people. This is the hallmark of a business social networker who understands the needs of a business owner. A good business owner is interested in making more money. Therefore, a skilled social networker for business should be interested in generating revenue too. This is how to find the right social networker for business purposes, because the normal user of a social networker will never be able to generate revenue. It takes a hardnosed conversion specialist to be able to use social networks for generating income.

Scott Buendia consults for Bizbuilt.com. All the views and tactics in this article are tactics and ideas of the author; they do not necessarily represent the ideals, beliefs, or trademarks of Bizbuilt.com. Visit his card on Bizbuilt here, https://www.bizbuilt.com/socialmediaprivacy.

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The best reason to learn social networking for business is that the skill is transferable to any job that a person may get in the future. Social networking is like concepts in martial arts. They are applicable everywhere, whereas techniques are only useful in certain situations. A person who takes the time to learn effective social media skills is more ready to face the world than a person who does not take the time to learn the skills.

1. Social networking teaches a person how to generate a list through providing what that market wants

The most important skill that networking for business through the social platforms is list building. List building is a massive asset that no business owner should ignore. The ability to generate a list is a skill that can be taken into any market. List building is the ability to generate warm leads who are interested in whatever the list owner has to sell them. This could products or services for who the social networker works for or they could even sell their own products and services if they had to do so.

2. Social media skills allow a person to sell anything they want as long as the list is generated and trained correctly

A social media list also allows a person to sell anything they want as evidence by the closing statement from the previous paragraph. What is important when the list is generated is training the list to do what the list owner wants them to do before they are asked to do it. Training the list means that a list owner sends them to urls to read things and click things. This trains them that this is normal action before they are asked to follow that action when it is time to buy something.

3. Networking online teaches someone how to network offline as well

These skills also apply to offline networking as well. A person can build a list through networking offline using almost the same techniques as they do online. However, they may use such modes of communication such as public speaking to make the networking as effective as it is online. The best way to reach a lot of people is to meet with as many people as possible. The best way to do this in person is to have all the people who you want to network within the same room. This maximizes the amount of work (in this case networking) that is accomplished in one sitting.

A skilled social networker has far less stress than those people who do not have the skill. The ability to generate traffic on demand to an offer is a skill that allows a person to write his or her own ticket in life. A person with a social networking as a skill can generate more sales and revenue that a person who does not have the skill. All it takes is sending traffic from the social networking platform to the offer. There are always a certain percentage of people who will buy the offer even though they know very little about the product or service. Social networking as a traffic generation strategy is a new concept that most people have not fully grasped yet. It is very smart to learn this skill and apply it into their daily lives.

Scott Buendia consults for Bizbuilt.com. All the views and tactics in this article are tactics and ideas of the author; they do not necessarily represent the ideals, beliefs, or trademarks of Bizbuilt.com. Visit his card on Bizbuilt here, https://www.bizbuilt.com/socialmediaprivacy.

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The first way to make a business social media campaign easier to use is to have daily goals. Daily goals keep a business owner or a social media manager focused on what they need to do to build the business and the network of the business. Daily goals are the secret to not feeling overwhelmed by some massive amount of information and possible actions that a business can take while on the social systems. Therefore, these daily goals are almost everything inside a social campaign. These goals help save a business owner or social manager's sanity during the day.

Another thing that the business social networks can do, especially when they are combined with a collaborative tool is delegate tasks that must be done effectively. A business owner is a person who has a very limited amount of time. Therefore, they cannot be bogged down with minuscule tasks that do not bring money into a business. A business owner is the driving force behind a business and therefore their time must be used for activities that generate a lot of revenue. This is because they are the only person in the business who could do this. Therefore, the smaller tasks that can be delegated should be delegated. This allows the business owner to focus on building the business and not doing minuscule things that do not help the business grow.

This is why a collaborative tool combined with a social business-networking platform is very important. These tools allow a business owner to effectively delegate the work to someone who is less important in the business. Therefore, the business owner can spend all their time building the business instead of worrying about if there floor is mopped or if they sent a bill out. A business owner needs to worry about growing the business and nothing else.

The last and most important thing that a business owner can do to make their social networking campaign as effective as possible is to find someone to help them. Obviously, this takes an expert in using the social media system. There many people who purport that they are social media experts but they are not. A real social media expert is someone who can build a list, and use that list to sell products and services. Most social media experts rely on their friend and follower list to prove how good they are at the social media systems. However, a large list is not a buying list. Sometimes that list is just a list of people who like to hear from that particular list owner. The truth about social media and its experts is that those who are skilled at using social media systems are able to sell products and services with their list. If a social expert cannot do this then they are not an expert they are merely an amateur who is good at building a list of people who like to hear them talk.

In conclusion, there are many things that a business owner can do to make their business social networking experience more effective than it presently is. Looking at this article in paying attention to all the details will help a business grow their social media campaign larger. This is a massive plus as a larger network is always helpful to grow the business. Therefore, any business that is hesitating to get into social media should not hesitate anymore and find the right help to get them the results that they want.

Scott Buendia consults for Bizbuilt.com. All the views and tactics in this article are tactics and ideas of the author; they do not necessarily represent the ideals, beliefs, or trademarks of Bizbuilt.com. Visit his card on Bizbuilt here, https://www.bizbuilt.com/socialmediaprivacy.

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LinkedIn has some useful tools to help you build your network, enabling you to find people and connect with them. LinkedIn informs you of mutual connections you have and categorises them as first, second or third degree contacts.

There is incredible value in not only mutual connections but also in second and third degree networks and where we may have problems keeping abreast with our first degree network, LinkedIn tracks all of these for us. This information is accessible and very powerful.

Your first degree connections are gathered by uploading your contacts from your various mail accounts and any other address books you have using the 'add connections' tab. Contacts in your address book that are LinkedIn users have a small blue icon with 'in' next to their name. Select these names and write a semi-personal message to them by adding a personal note to your invitation and replace the standard note with one that relates to how you know them. It is best not to be too personal if the note is going to several selected names.

While waiting for these people to accept your invitation you can add to your network by using the LinkedIn tool for retrieving colleagues and classmates. Select the people who are already members as they will be the most responsive to your invitation.

Since LinkedIn uses the information in your profile it is important that you have completed fully the section about companies you have worked for and schools, colleges and universities you have attended.

LinkedIn is a powerful tool that helps you add value to your network by finding new customers, partners, experts and suppliers. To find these various types of people LinkedIn offer several different ways but it is important that you have defined clearly your target groups. Once your target groups are defined then you can use the tools to help find them.

Your immediate network can be determined by browsing and visiting profiles. The connections on the right-hand side of the page, are names that LinkedIn suggest you may know. If you notice someone of interest invite them to connect.

Use LinkedIn's advanced search to find people you would like to connect with. As you do not know them you now need to check whether you have any mutual connections and if so, ask them for an introduction. People in your immediate network that you consider interesting and valuable to your network can be invited to connect directly.

Joining LinkedIn groups that your target market are in gives you opportunities to interact with others in the group. Joining in the conversation will increase your visibility and people will begin to contact you. Your searches for people can be saved within LinkedIn and alerts sent out. Email will be sent to you via LinkedIn with new prospects weekly or monthly.

By ensuring you receive updates and interactions you can see if there are any opportunities for you to build valuable relationships and when someone mentions an interesting person you can be quick to ask for an introduction.

My name is Tamara Baranova. I run TJConsulting and I help small business owners grow their business by delivering effective online marketing mentoring, support and training.

Want to know more? Go to my website http://www.tjconsulting.co.uk/ to grab my free eCourse 7 Steps to Online Marketing Mastery and learn how to plan your unique social media strategy. Use our step-by-step jargon-free guides to master all popular online marketing tools: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email, blogging, and more! Sign up today to get immediate access!

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We all love Facebook, and more of us are starting to enjoy Google+ too. Social networking is now part of most people's daily life, and it is rare to go a day without checking your notifications or seeing how many crops have withered on Farmville whilst you were at work.

The largest right now, as we all know is Facebook. Almost a billion users, and Google+ stands at just under 200 million according to recent statistics released by the company.

So, what's the big deal? Well, Google+ is a decent social networking platform. Of course, people keep complaining about the huge amount of white space that exists on each of the pages, but the majority of people are enjoying the simplistic design and the fact there is a lack of advertisements, considering Google can make its money elsewhere, such as with it's AdWords platform.

It would seem Google is going strong, but competing against 1 billion people is no easy task. The majority still, and most probably always will see Google as a search engine. We all Google stuff that we need or want to know, and when we want to socialise what know with our friends, we don't go onto Google+, we log straight back onto Facebook and put it as a status update.

Google+ has some great features too, but in terms of games for users to play on the Social Network, there is a lack. As most of you know, games like Farmville and other Zynga top titles are extremely popular. In fact, just yesterday Farmville 2 was actually announced at an Unleashed event at the end of a press conference, so we can see that towards the end of the year, millions will be logging into Facebook not only to socialise, but to play a great social game that they can play with their friends, whether they know them in real life or not. Google+ seems to be going more for the Flash games approach, with titles that are popular as quick fixes for users to stay happy, including Bejeweled, Plants Vs Zombies and other popular Flash based titles. But, at the end of the day we know that the social gaming isn't everything, and as long as Facebook can continue to stay social in every way, Google+ may not stand a chance.

Of course, like MySpace, Bebo and countless other Social Networks, they all die eventually, but will Facebook hold out long enough for Google+ to die with it?

This article was written by Ashley Pearson, Editor in Chief at Suck My Trend. http://suckmytrend.com/ - Are you following us on twitter yet? @suckmytrend

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New social networks are surrounding you on a very regular basis. Sometimes it is difficult to know which ones are worthwhile for your business and which ones are not. Don't compare them to a large network, such as Facebook.

Just because a social network is new and relatively small doesn't mean that it isn't valuable and that it won't be advantageous for you to be a part of it. Many times, companies are connecting with niche social channels, depending on the types (and quality) of interactions that are taking place. If the results are good, you should seriously consider being a part of some of them.

Some of the new ones that are worth considering are Pinterest, Houzz, Tumblr, IntoNow, and PlayUp. Each one focuses on something different and as a business owner, you need to decide which one (or ones) are right for you. It is definitely advisable to do your research before you sign up for any of them. Before you move ahead in full force, you may want to start small by posting something as a guest so that you can see what kind or reaction from the readers you receive. If you find that certain small social networks are working well for your business, you should then create more of a presence there so that you can start to interact with other people.

There are some fundamental questions that you should ask yourself before you sign up for any of the social networks.

Are the members of the social network that you are considering also members of your target audience?

If you do some research, you will be able to establish whether your target audience is involved with that particular network. If your goal is to engage with specific people (who are either prospective or current clients), it is important to understand how important the focus and quality of the network is to you and your business.

How much time and effort are you planning to devote to that particular channel?

As you are aware, in order to make social media work effectively, you need to put time and effort into it. Before you start interacting, you need to figure out (and commit to) how much time and effort you plan on investing. It is important to remember that you will need to put more effort into it in the beginning. Once you have laid the groundwork, you may not to devote as much time and you can enjoy the fruits of your labor. It may take you between 10 and 12 hours to create a new profile, write and post content on the new social network, and start to really make your presence known. If you see that particular network is good for your business, you may want to devote more time to it than you would otherwise. In many cases, you will get out what you put in.

How will you be using this particular social network?

Before you get started, you should figure out exactly why you want to be involved with that particular social network. Once you have established that, you will have a clear understanding of exactly how you will need to approach it so that you get the most out of it for your business. It is very important to bear in mind that if you are working with a small social network, your results may take longer to show up than if you were working through a large social network (such as Facebook). Of course, that doesn't mean that you won't realize positive results. It just means that you need to have a little more patience.

Will the chosen social network exist in a few years?

There are many that people have started and have not been able to succeed at. A great deal of factors go into whether a social network will have longevity. It is important that the network constantly makes efforts to improve and offer new and exciting innovations along the way. It is a good idea to have a wish list before you get involved with any social network. This will help you to determine right away if that particular network that you are considering is right for you and your business.

Conclusion

New social networks can be deceptive at times. They look very appealing when they are new and you may think that you should get involved; however, make sure to do the research so that you don't waste time later. In addition to connecting with new (smaller) social networks, you should always keep abreast of new offerings within the social networks that you already have profiles for. Social networks are here to stay and it is up to you to figure out the right ones for you and your business. If you ask the questions that were presented here, you will be able to make informed decisions that will help you in the beginning as well as along the way.

We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. For a free assessment of your online presence, let's have coffee.

Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications. He has over 25 years of experience in IT and web technologies. Mr. Cohn spent a significant amount of time at a major telecommunications company, where his main focus was on initiating and leading synergy efforts across all business units by dramatically improving efficiency, online collaboration, and the company's Intranet capabilities, which accelerated gains in business productivity. He also reduced company travel and travel costs by introducing and implementing various collaboration technologies.

His expertise includes business analysis; project management; management of global cross-matrix teams; systems engineering and analysis, architecture, prototyping and integration; technology evaluation and assessment; systems development; performance evaluation; and management of off-shore development.

Mr. Cohn earned a Master's degree in project management from George Washington University in Washington, DC; and a Master's degree in computer science and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, NJ.

Mr. Cohn is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

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