From Amodiovalerio Verde’s presentation, you can learn a lot about who’s using LinkedIn worldwide.

What struck me was the image from his presentation – in the Middle East, we’re rather blue. And it got me to thinking, I wonder if Israel, as a separate segment, is the same way?

As a result, we went through and compiled the statistics for Israel alone. There are more than twice as many men as women on LinkedIn that have designated Israel as their location. That said, it would appear that many people do not disclose their gender or age.

The statistics are far from flawless, but at least they give us a peek within the system to see who’s using it.

I hope you enjoy our short demographic look at LinkedIn’s Israeli users. We’d love to hear your feedback.

The numbers are generated using LinkedIn’s advertising platform.

We also hope to do the same statistical reporting for Facebook soon. Enjoy the presentation and feel free to share!

I hope I hear from many of the participants again – there’s only so much one can cover in a short presentation, but I know this group has some fabulous opportunities when it comes to marketing themselves online.

If you’re interested in learning a little more about using social media as a tool for recruiting and retaining students, you can view my presentation below.

My presentation covered optimizing your Facebook page and website for Facebook search.

Enjoy!

Strangely, we’re seeing an increasing number of clients wanting only a customized Facebook page. Having mulled over the pros and cons several times in the past few weeks, I thought it was time to cover those issues here.

Facebook page options:

Facebook pages allow for a great deal of customization using any number of tools, whether it’s a purchased solution like those at HyperArts or Involver or a Static FBML custom tab. Facebook allows page owners to direct visitors to a different tab depending on whether or not they are a fan of the page. Page owners can also “reveal” new tabs and information when users become a fan of the page – another little technique to encourage visitors to convert.

One thing is for certain: Custom Facebook page landing tabs have a huge impact on encouraging users to convert into followers.

How it might work:

Vitaminwater's logo from their Facebook Fan Page

First off, how would you replace your website with a Facebook page? Vitaminwater is one example – Vitaminwater.com now redirects to the company’s Facebook fan page. The page is set to a “home” tab for new visitors that have not previously become a fan of the page. The page has upwards of 2 million fans.

We would also recommend connecting to rich media – using a YouTube tab from Involver.com, which we prefer over direct uploads to Facebook – and ensuring that you delete any empty tabs (Discussion and Reviews if you aren’t using them).

Pros of the Facebook Page-only approach:

In a word, simplicity. As detailed by Guy Kawasaki’s post on how he chose a Facebook page for the promotion of his upcoming release, Enchantment, it’s generally easier to create a robust Facebook page than to design and develop an entire site – even if you’re only spearheading the effort, and not doing the grunt work yourself.

In this case, less is more. Less to build and customize means less cost than the average website. Less time and fewer revisions are likely. Less effort will go into maintenance – perhaps.

By virtue of existing within Facebook’s monster of a network, your page is more likely to find some traffic – and that traffic is more likely to build virally as people click the “like” button.

In addition, a Facebook page is a great starting point if you need to get up and running while a site is being developed. Due to Facebook’s partnership with Microsoft Bing, simply having a Facebook page can help with your SEO. As confirmed last week, social mentions are also a factor in your site’s SEO, so a Facebook page/site might be a good precursor to your eventual home on the web.

By confining your content to Facebook’s sphere, you also save yourself a bit of work maintenance-wise. There’s no site to maintain – though you should keep and eye on comments – no content management system to upgrade, no plugins or themes to worry about. Hacking is less of a concern, assuming you have a solid password.

In addition, you don’t have to worry about search engine optimization and getting your website found by ranking for keywords among relevant target market traffic.

Cons of the Facebook Page as a Website approach:

With a few exceptions, here’s why we still wouldn’t recommend it. Several issues can vie for top honors, so these are in no certain order. This list could go on a lot longer -we’re just picking the low-hanging fruit.

You’re not building up any search engine ranking: The “ignorance is bliss” approach to SEO means that your work and content aren’t helping you accumulate any increased search engine results rankings for your content. By not allowing you to influence so many of the factors that go into ranking, Facebook is taking you out of a potentially large market of prospective clients. If search is a major source (or prospective source) of potential new clients, you’re going to need your own site with control of your SEO. Content is a huge and resource-heavy aspect of web-based marketing. When you take the time to create good content, make sure you showcase it on your own site so you get the absolute most benefit from it.

You’re at Facebook’s mercy: While I think Guy makes a good point that Facebook isn’t likely to disappear any time soon, that doesn’t mean that the Fickle Facebook Finger of Fate won’t put the kibosh on your well-laid plans. As the well-known proverb goes, “Man plans, Mark Zuckerberg laughs.” For example, you might remember that several months ago Facebook planned changes to pages that would prevent smaller pages (less than 10,000 fans) from directing new visitors to a specific tab (which, as seen above, is crucial to conversion rates). It was a huge slap in the face to smaller business and non-profit pages, as well as anyone who was starting from scratch. Although they reversed the decision, there are no guarantees. As with all efforts within social networks where you haven’t paid a fee to play, remember: You’re playing in someone else’s sandbox, and you can be told to go home at any time. They don’t owe you anything and their interests almost certainly aren’t the same as yours.

Oh look – there’s a competitor’s ad! Facebook places advertising in the right sidebar on pages. If your competition is advertising, it’s entirely possible, if not likely, that their ads will appear directly opposite your own content. You need one place on the web that is all your own – a website is an excellent and cost-effective way of achieving that.

Ch-ch-ch-changes: While there’s no CMS, that doesn’t mean there aren’t changes. Earlier this year, Facebook trimmed with width of page tabs to 520 pixels, which meant anything from minor tweaks to a major overhaul for all page tabs and applications. They also killed page boxes. Next up, we’re expecting the switch from Static FBML to iFrames as the leading way to develop pages – although FBML isn’t going anywhere, new pages won’t be able to use the application. Meanwhile, iFrames aren’t available, meaning developers are somewhat stuck between a frame and a hard place.

Analyze This: While Facebook Insights have generally improved and certain applications add additional functionality to track page traffic, the options aren’t as strong as what’s available for tracking site traffic and conversion rates on your own website.

We’re just hitting the tip of the iceberg here, but hopefully it offers some food for thought.

So, when would we recommend using a Facebook page in lieu of an entire website? Here are some possibilities.

A one-off event: If your goal is to promote a one-time event, a Facebook page might be just what you need. You’ll have the calendar functions to encourage RSVPs and the viral properties of the share button. And for follow up, photo galleries and video apps help take things full circle. Guy’s book release is a perfect example.

A targeted subsection of another site: If you need to brand and market a subset of your organization and the gap between the markets or messages is too diverse, a Facebook page might offer you a home on the web without the need to develop another site. That said, WordPress can be an easy way to get a strong site up and running – we’d recommend giving it a good look before ruling out another site.

When you want the site to die out: If your goal is to make a splash and dash, without the goal of building ongoing community or search engine ranking, a Facebook page is a less messy way of creating a web-based home to direct traffic to for a finite period. If ongoing maintenance is a concern, a page might be your best tool for the job.

What have we missed? Are we crazy for admitting there might be a few times to go all Facebook? Or are we ridiculously old fashioned for pushing for a good old website? We can’t wait to hear what you have to think.

Registration is first come, first served – course sizes are limited to ensure enough attention to student questions. All courses are taught in English. For more information or to register, please visit our website or contact us at kelli@pixelpointpress.com.

If you would prefer to host a course for your company or organization onsite or prefer private tutorials, please contact us at kelli@pixelpointpress.com to make arrangements.

Pixel/Point Press is offering six courses this fall:

Multi-session courses:

- Social Media Marketing

- Search Engine Optimization

- Hands-On WordPress 3.0

Single-session quick courses:

- Google Analytics

- Email Newsletter Marketing

- LinkedIn and Blogging for B2B Marketing

Social Media Marketing

Jerusalem: 9 a.m. to noon, Oct. 10, 17, 24

Herzliya: 9 a.m. to noon, Oct. 11, 18, 25

Cost: NIS 550 +VAT, early bird price NIS 475 +VAT (registration must be received and paid by Sept. 29)

Want to make the most of your web presence? Are you a new oleh looking for a job? Have a small business but need help finding clients? Join us to learn more about using the social media tools available today to market yourself or your business. Visit our site (http://bit.ly/p3smm) for a complete course outline.

Search Engine Optimization

Jerusalem: 9 a.m. to noon, Oct. 19, 26, and Nov. 2

Herzliya: 9 a.m. to noon, Oct. 13, 20, 27

Cost: NIS 750 +VAT, early bird price NIS 675 +VAT (registration must be received and paid by Sept. 29)

In today’s business market, having a well-designed engaging website is only part of the challenge. Learn how to improve the ranking of your site in Google and elicit more traffic from your targeted market of potential clients and influencers. Our search engine optimization (SEO) course will teach you the simple technical changes that provide the most improvement and help you tailor your marketing message to convert clients coming to your site through search.

Unlike other courses, this course caters to marketing executives, small business owners and consultants – all technical jargon will be explained thoroughly so that participants will be able to implement the suggestions given on their own. No prior web development or design knowledge is required. Visit our site (http://bit.ly/p3seo101) for a complete course outline.

Hands-On WordPress 3.0

Jerusalem: 9 a.m. to noon, Oct. 14, 21, 28, and Nov. 4

Cost: NIS 1100 +VAT, early bird price NIS 975 +VAT (registration must be received and paid by Sept. 29)

Herzliya: 9 a.m. to noon, Nov. 7-10 (one week in-depth course)

Cost: NIS 1100 +VAT, early bird price NIS 975 +VAT (registration must be received and paid by Oct. 7)

Learn how to build and manage a website using the robust tools and options provided by the WordPress content management system. All participants will leave the course with a fully-functional website and the skills to maintain and expand it.

This four-session course is a hands-on approach to learning the content management system. Each three-hour session will balance time for presentation and explanation of the tools while allowing students time to experiment and ask questions as they arise. This course is geared toward:

- Small business owners needing to develop and maintain their own site

- Marketing managers needing to contribute to and maintain a company blog site in WordPress

- Individuals looking to expand their knowledge and skill set with a content management system

Visit our site (http://bit.ly/p3how30) for a complete course outline.

Google Analytics

Jerusalem: 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., Oct. 12

Cost: NIS 250 +VAT, early bird price NIS 200 +VAT (registration must be received and paid by Sept. 29)

Learn how to interpret and customize reports from Google Analytics to understand what your web and search traffic mean to your business.

Email Newsletter Marketing

Jerusalem: 9 a.m. to noon, Oct. 31

Herzliya: 9 a.m. to noon, Nov. 1

Cost: NIS 250 +VAT, early bird price NIS 200 +VAT (registration must be received and paid by Oct. 7)

From templates to reports, learn how to build and manage email newsletter marketing campaigns. This course covers the pros and cons of several of today’s most popular tools and introduces best practices for email newsletters.

LinkedIn and Blogging – Strategy for B2B Marketing

Jerusalem: 9 a.m. to noon, Aug. 26

Cost: NIS 250 +VAT, early bird price NIS 200 +VAT (registration must be received and paid by Aug. 12)

Learn how to build a successful blog and social media strategy that caters to the needs of business to business marketing.

Classes are taught by Kelli Brown, a web developer and graphic designer with 10 years of experience in web design, search engine optimization and web marketing. She has taught hundreds of social media students across Israel. Her successes in social media over the last five years began with blogging and continue with the latest tools – including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

HootSuite also launched an enterprise version of the software priced at $1500 a month. Branded URLs using the ow.ly service will now cost users between $49 and $499 a month depending on the service plan chosen.

New users will be directed to one of the five plans. The migration for existing users begins next week. More details from HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes here.

Bye Bye Boxes

As part of the developer roadmap announced in Oct. 2009, Facebook is removing “the ‘Boxes’ tab, boxes on profiles and Pages, and application info sections” from Facebook pages. The change will become effective on Aug. 23. Boxes were an easy way to add a “catchall” tab to your Facebook page – whatever didn’t merit one of the other six spots (or, really, four spots when you consider that the wall and info tabs are permanent) could be added as a box to your boxes tab. It also improved the likelihood that a user would see the content buried under your tabs.

Some common uses:

• Event listings for pages with less frequent events
• RSS feed listings – all your feeds in one area
• Popouts on the page sidebar – another easy way to jam in more information

As of Aug. 23, the only way to integrate applications into Facebook pages will be through the tabs at the top of the page. But don’t waste your time shedding too many tears. It’s likely that the vast majority of visitors to your page weren’t using your boxes. And they certainly weren’t clicking on that Boxes tab.

Most Facebook page visitors see one of two tabs – the targeted landing tab for non-fans, which is hopefully a custom tab giving them a quick synopsis and encouraging them to click the “Like” button, or the Wall that is the default page for all fans. Make sure any content hidden on tabs is also posted as part of your feed – it’s the best way to ensure your visitors are likely to see it.

The Skinny on Tab Width

Custom tabs on Facebook – most commonly created with Static FBML – are currently limited to 760 pixels in width. That’s known as the canvas size.

From Facebook:

“Application tabs (including static FBML tabs) will be the only way to integrate applications into profiles and Pages. Application tabs will shrink from 760 pixels wide (today) to 520* pixels wide to accommodate a slightly revised design. Boxes, info sections, and the Boxes tab will be removed in the near future.

In the longer term we are evaluating a number of new and interesting ways for you to help users express connections to your applications as a part of their identity. You can expect to see some of this thought emerge in future iterations of the profile.

*Note: We previously stated that profile tabs would be shrinking to 510 pixels. Our latest designs indicate they will instead be 520 pixels. We’ll keep this page updated with the latest information.”

Starting now, page admins can preview how losing 1/3 of the page will effect the look and feel of the page. In short, custom tabs are getting the same navigation sidebar on the left as the wall and info tabs. Properly formatted tabs now fit snugly inside the center column.

Our "Classes" tab formatted with Static FBML for the new 520 pixel tab size

Page admins should begin making changes to make their tabs compliant ahead of the change. No doubt major application providers such as Involver will be tweaking their applications to fit the new size. Currently, things aren’t pretty.

Involver's current YouTube tab viewed with the new tab width

Have you redesigned your tabs to fit the new width? Did you make any other big changes during the process? We’d love to see your tabs – share your link in the comments.

As always, Involver allows page owners to pick two applications to use on their Facebook fan page at no cost. Special pricing is also available for owners of multiple pages and non-profits.

Those are some of the most common questions I’m asked when I begin working with clients small and large. Let’s start by defining them:

• SEO means Search Engine Optimization In short, this is getting a site to rank better in search engines using techniques that are both technical and marketing oriented. Some SEO is performed onsite, other aspects are performed offsite.
• SMM means Social Media Marketing Though this is a broad category including everything from blogging to YouTube to Foursquare and all of the social networks, we can understand it as using social tools on the web to foster interest, engage our target market and ultimately achieve goals – whether those goals are brand awareness, fundraising, sales, thought leadership, etc.
• PPC means Pay Per Click Advertising! The most common PPC campaigns are through Google AdWords, and this group is also commonly known as SEM or Search Engine Marketing, as many of the ads appear among search engine results.

Did that solve all your problems and answer all of your questions? All ready to go and handle your web marketing? No?

Let’s work with an analogy to understand how these various marketing tools can fit your needs.

Imagine you’ve just moved into a new home, built from the ground up just for you. Now, it’s time to plan your garden. Your budget is tight, what with the new mortgage and all, but you know what you can afford and what results you’d like to see. You want to invest in things that will grow over several years, but you’d also like things to be pretty this summer. And you want to bring a bit of the garden back inside with you, so some herbs are in order. Grab your trowel and gloves and let’s get working.

SEO & Apple Trees

Your first purchase is an apple tree. This tree might cost more than all of the other plants and flowers in your garden, but it’s worth it to you because you’re in this for the long haul. The small sapling doesn’t look like much now, but you understand it’s an investment. That said, it’s not as simple as dropping this glorified twig into the ground and letting it fend for itself. You have to maintain it and meet its basic needs, with water and a bit of fertilizer if you want to go the extra mile, but you know it will in time bear fruit. It takes a few years to mature. Unless it contracts a disease, your fruit tree will continue to provide you with tasty treats. If you really want fruit now, you’re going to have to buy a mature tree.

Search Engine Optimization is like an apple tree. The time and money invested in optimizing your website will continue to bring you results for as long as you have the site. Barring major changes in the way that search engines rank sites (and these changes do occur), SEO doesn’t expire and often costs less to maintain – as long as it gets a healthy start. Unfortunately, like our apple tree sapling, SEO doesn’t bring results overnight. Although technical and marketing changes can make vast improvements in site ranking relatively quickly, SEO is a cumulative – it may take months to see clickthroughs from targeted traffic while the site’s rank continues to rise for relevant search terms. If you want the ranking associated with a powerful domain name, your best bet might be to buy that domain name – but it can get costly quickly.

Social Media & Basil

While you love your garden, you really enjoy bringing a bit of the outdoors back inside with you. You want a close relationship with Mother Nature – and for you, that means fresh herbs for the dinner table. To that end, you’re growing basil.

Though you’ve started from seeds, cultivating each plant, it doesn’t take too long before you’ve got some leaves to harvest. But, if you really like basil and want to enjoy it more often, you’re going to need quite a few basil plants. If you took all of the leaves off of one plant as soon as they were large enough, you’d kill the plant. But if you have five plants and harvest them in rotation, you’re going to have vibrant plants and a steady supply of basil. That means having to buy more seeds and growing more plants at the start, even though by the end of the season you might have more basil that you bargained for.

To further complicate matters, there are several types of basil available and you’ll need to know which plants will give you what you’re looking for – depending on if your goal is pesto or spicy Thai food.

Social media tools are like basil plants. Each network has a niche that it’s best suited for and some media types work better than others for different markets. To get the most out of it, you need to know which tools will help you achieve your goals.

While social networks don’t take as long to develop as search engine optimization ranking, they do take time and commitment – if you pester the first people to join your Twitter feed or Facebook page by constantly begging them to invite their friends or retweet your posts, you’re going to kill your following. Grow your network slowly – and, dare I say it, organically – instead of paying for leads or spamming your potential clients.

If you want to cast a wide net and see results more quickly, you will have to invest more resources initially. This might mean employing a wider array of social networks and media sites to create more entry points for potential followers. The downside here is that you might eventually have more interaction than you could anticipate – which means more to manage.

PPC & Snapdragons

The basil and the fruit trees are all lovely, but your basil doesn’t have any flowers and your sapling is healthy but doesn’t have the immediate eye candy you were looking forward to this summer. In short, you need cheap flowers and you need them now.

You might want snapdragons. Very colorful, with a relatively low cost and short life span. They’re annuals, meaning that they won’t be around to flower next year, but that’s okay by you. You just need something nice to show your mother-in-law this weekend.

While you’re going to put some money into pretty snapdragons, you’re not going to blanket every speck of open soil with them. Their value and beauty are fleeting, so covering the backyard with them would be a huge waste of your budget.

Keyword-based advertising (pay-per-click campaigns) are like the annual flowers in your garden. They provide results right now and have a relatively low investment cost as compared to maintaining social media projects or site-wide search engine optimization. Unfortunately, advertising only works while the ads are in place – once an AdWords campaign ends, your premium slot on content networks or search results pages evaporates.

Finally, to dispel a myth, purchasing advertising through Google does not increase your ranking in search engine results. Those results are organic and cannot be bought.

What do you need in your web marketing garden? It depends on what results you need and when you need them.

I’m told that translators have some interesting challenges when it comes to marketing. Although companies regularly employ in-house translators to deal with localization, a big chunk of the market is handled by freelancers who own their own business. In many cases, the client doing the hiring cannot independently evaluate whether or not the work done is of a high quality, so it isn’t as easy as providing a portfolio of previous work. Often, clients don’t understand that translators have specific areas of expertise – much like marketing and technical writers – and that hiring someone isn’t as simple as finding someone who can read and write the languages in question.

So what works well? Having excellent references. Demonstrating your understanding of a particular market segment (think med tech, or legal, or software). Exhibiting superior communication skills – after all, a translator is hired to communicate on behalf of a client or company.

I hope my presentation can shed a little light on using today’s web tools. While this presentation has been tailored to the needs of freelance translators, I think many of the strategies and action items are relevant to professional service providers.