As Ian Drury used to sing; “What a waste!”. Not so much an example of how not to use Twitter but Twitter not being used at all.

Virgin Active represented by @VirginActive have over 3,200 followers on the Twitter account and yet have never tweeted.

I’m not quite sure what’s happened here but this appears to be a master or group account as each country is also represented on Twitter eg@VirginActiveUK.

Perhaps, it was set up when Virgin Active initially joined Twitter without much thought about how it was to be used. So the lesson here is that if you’re setting up multiple accounts decide your objectives for each account.

Thanks for @markshaw for flagging this inactive account up on his Twitter feed.

You can tag in both photos and in posts/updates and it’s the latter I’ll focus on. Tagging has two main characteristics. Firstly, a tag is hyperlinked making it easy for readers to click and visit the entity eg page or person that you’ve tagged and secondly your post is displayed onto the Wall or Timeline of the Page or friend that you’ve tagged.

Example of tag added on Intranet Future Page displayed on Saskia Says Page

 
To make a tag, you can sometimes just start typing the name of the Page or friend and a selection of choices will appear in a dropdown list. Just select the Page or person you want to tag. To ‘force’ the tag you can type an @ symbol before the name although for reasons only known to Facebook, it doesn’t work at all!

Use to @ symbol to force tagging

The name will then appeared greyed out until you’re published the post. PRO-TIP: You can edit the name when its greyed out so for example you might want to just use a friend’s first name to make it more personal. Once you’ve shared your post the name of friend turns into a hyperlink and the friend is notified.

Here are three great ways you can using tagging in posts:

1. In conversation with your customers/clients – for example, if you would like to thank a client for their business then you could tag them on your Page. This has a number of advantages; your client will receive a notification that they’ve been tagged, visitors to your Page will see you engaging with your customers and your Page name will appear on your customers’ Timeline thereby raising the awareness of your Page.
2. Cross promotion – work with your suppliers, advisers and contacts on cross promotion if your product of service appeals to their customers and vice versa. So for example you could tag an advisers’ event on your Wall and a few week’s later they could do the same for you. On each occasion your Page and that of your advisers will be promoted on both Pages.
3. Facebook ‘retweeting’ - Tagging is a great way to acknowledge the author/originator of content that you’ve shared; just like retweeting. So if you find an interesting article that you share on your Wall/Timeline you can credit the originator alongside the link. You could use the Share button under the post but then the originator may not ever know that you’ve shared their content.

Used appropriately tagging in posts is a great way to thanks, promote and credit. Don’t overdo tagging or use it to spam Pages and Profiles. If you have any examples of how tagging being used effectively please let me know.

They’ll be more on tagging and how you can use other Facebook Page functions at my Facebook workshop on 29 February in Cheltenham.

Let’s take a look at each of the components:

Page name – Sticking with the film title, ‘The Muppets’ is used and the ‘tick’ to the right of the name illustrates that this is a verified name.

Headline – The Headline has been updated following the cinema release in the US with details of the forthcoming DVD and Blu-ray release on 20 March.

Scrapbook (the 5 photos at the top) – This area is used to display five Muppet characters and colourful eye catching photos have been used to set the tone of the page.

Profile picture – The film poster is a suitable ‘on brand’ picture.

Posts – Posts containing entertaining and engaging content are made every few days. For example, on Valen-swines (geddit?) Day a custom image of Kermit and Miss Piggy was uploaded. Each post results in plenty of comments, shares and +1s (Google+ equivalent of the Facebook Like button).

About – The Introduction section includes a call to action for users to ‘Circle us now for all of the latest updates from Kermit, Miss Piggy and the rest of The Muppets!’ with the remainder describing the plot of the film. The website points to the film website. More links could have been added under the Recommended Links section.

Photos – Several good quality photos relating to the film have been uploaded and photos from posts appear here too.

Videos – 2 clips from the film have been uploaded with the legendary Mahna Mahna song. The engaging nature of the video is illustrated by the many +1s and positive comments that the videos have received. One video has received 321 +1s and the other 275.

Overall a great page that has gone down well with its fans and probably attracted new ones.

It’s not surprising that compared to their web counterparts this feature on Twitter is not widely used but here are couple of ideas you might find useful:

1. Use the favouriting feature as a ‘read later’ function. Simply save your tweets that you want to read another time. Handy if you’re busy and don’t have the time to read a useful article that has been posted.
2. Use to record testimonial tweets. You can build up an authentic record of testimonials favourite tweets that recommend your goods or services by favouriting them. This might seem a bit egotistical particularly if you’re a freelancer. However, if your clients or customers are saying good things about you and your products/services, why not use them to help promote your business?

Here’s an example of how you can use the testimonial tweet approach from my @intranetfuture account. I couldn’t find anyone else using favourites in this way…honest.

If you have any other tips on using Twitter favourites please let me know.

For some time Facebook have been hinting that big changes are coming to Facebook Pages and Timeline is a huge change. The main features of Timeline are a large image at the top dubber a cover photo, the ability to highlight posts and the ability to tell your life story – think digital scrapbook.

For business the Timeline is an opportunity to show how the company has developed since incorporation. For those companies that have started from humble beginnings and are now global brands – think Starbucks – this could make for a compelling story.

The new feature will give well established businesses the opportunity to demonstrate that they’ve been ‘keeping customers happy for over 60 years’ and help create trust with new customers. However, it’s hard to see how new start-ups will benefit.

You can learn more about the new Timeline for business Pages at my Facebook Masterclass on Wednesday 29 March in Cheltenham.

So the Skills and Expertise section is now included but less weight is given to recommendations. The simple and straightforward advice is to complete your LinkedIn profile as this makes it far more more likely that people will find you. For example, according to LinkedIn a profile photo makes it 7 times more likely that you’ll show up in searches.

The Skills and Expertise section is a great way to showcase your talents and demonstrate that you’re an expert in your subject. Not only is it displayed on your profile but you and your skills can also be found when people search on the Skills and Expertise page. Here you can also find out more about particularly skills and whether they are ‘hot’. You can add your Skills and Expertise here or via your profile.

If you don’t have the Skills and Expertise section on your profile then go to ‘Add sections’ underneath the top block section and select from the list to add.

I’ll be talking more about this and other ways to make you more visible on LinkedIn at my next LinkedIn Masterclass on Thursday 29 March.

The new Groups have some great features and the emphasis is now very much on communication, sharing and collaboration amongst members. They are therefore ideal for Groups of people with a shared interest such as networking groups.

They could play a part within large companies as an internal communications tool which is an area I’ve been consulting on lately. Facebook Groups are a lightweight easy to use alternative to Socialcast and Yammer and the product shares similar objectives.

There are three types of Groups:

• Open - Anyone can see the group, who’s in it and what members post
• Closed - Anyone can see the group and who’s in it. Only members see posts
• Secret - Only members see the group, who’s in it and what members post

Facebook Groups are ideal for people that share similar goals and interests and need a central hub to share ideas, obtain feedback, ask questions to like minded people or perhaps just chat. Such groups of people could include:

• network members
• hobbyists
• fans of a sport or celebrity
• charities
• sports teams
• clubs
• classmates
• event organisers

For example, the organising team for Digitalks Cheltenham (Closed Group) use a Facebook Group to plan and manage this regular event. We have our own mini social network and a storage area for agendas, meeting notes and templates all in one place. The Glosbiz – Gloucestershire Business Network (over 300 members) and Local Business Network (approaching 300 members) are two examples of Open Groups where business people in Gloucestershire can meet new contacts and network with existing ones.

With Ning now charging for their product it’s hard to think of a free tool that provides the same features as Facebook Groups – please let me know if you are aware of any by commenting below.

Here are some of those great features:

• Easy wall updates – no need to select a Share button;  just tap the enter key
• Page rendering – the latest Wall Posts rise to the top of the Page
• Navigation/menu – easy access to all the main actions at top of page – Posts, Photos, Videos, Questions and Docs
• Docs – Create notes and short docs; ideal for agendas and minutes
• Group chat – ability to chat with ALL members of the Group at the same time
• Update via email – send and receive updates using the Group email address

Groups are quick and easy to set up so if you’re one of a group of people who want to communicate, share or collaborate go to http://facebook.com/groups where you can set one up and invite your Facebook friends to join.

However, we’re a long way off seeing the death of the website but we are seeing websites becoming more social in a number of ways:

• Linking to social networks through icons
• Like buttons on websites
• Commenting using Facebook login
• Social sharing buttons – ability to share out to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc
• Inclusion of content from social networks eg Twitter feed
• Registration using Facebook and Twitter login

Apart from Registration you can find examples of all these features on intranetfuture.com.

Taking the socialisation of websites are step further is dolcegabbana.com whose homepage is largely a pastiche of content from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

This is an approach we’re likely to see more of in future. If you come across any examples of ‘social website’s please let me know – you have plenty of options.

The results are then filmed and published on Facebook and YouTube resulting in lots of engagement. For example, the Can a car fulfil a dream? video has received 829 Facebook likes and 329 comments, all of which appear positive.

The campaign is re-inforced by TV commercials were viewers are encourage to visit the Ford UK Facebook Page.

Excited fans were told that the identity of their new star player would be unveiled at a press conference broadcast on the FC Bayern Munich Facebook Page at 1pm on 26 January. They were encouraged to like the page to gain access to the video.

Fans visited the page to see the press conference but when the time came announce the new striker, the Club’s Sporting Director displayed a piece of paper showing the profile picture of a Facebook user watching the video. There was no new ‘bomb’ striker and in a clumsy way the Club were announcing that the new 12th man was ‘the fans’.

Having been encouraged to like and visit the page through false pretences fans expressed their displeasure on Facebook and Twitter. So much so that FC Bayern trended on Twitter in the UK which is how I spotted the story.