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In the podcast I discuss the Facebook IPO that has been all in the news this week. As well as the rumor that Timeline will be announced that it is coming to pages later this month.

And then I end the podcast with a bit of a rant directed at those of you who call themselves “Social Media Managers”. I’m gonna tick a few of you off, but I’m ok with that… What I say is true and advice you need to listen to.

Oh and during the recording this massive clap of thunder scared the crap out of me! You’ll have to listen to see when it happens!

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*Today’s Squadcast is brought to you by Mari Smith. Go check out her webinar called Facebook 2012.

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The FBI said that the information was illegally obtained and that “a criminal investigation is under way to identify and hold accountable those responsible.” Did this statement scare Anonymous? I don’t think so.

Anonymous announced via Twitter (@AnonymousIRC) that it would leak emails concerning Iraq war. According to its tweet, it got a hold of 2.6 gigabytes of email that belongs to the law firm Puckett & Faraj. This is the law firm that represented a US Marine who is accused of leading the Iraq attack in 2005 that led to the deaths of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians.

Anonymous also took down the Boston Police Department’s website and put up a rap video titled Sound of Da Police and this message:

“Is that it? Hell no, there is plenty more mayhem to deliver for this #F—FBIFriday. Do you remember a few months ago when #antisec attaked the Boston Police and released hundred of passwords in retaliation for the brutality against Occupy Boston? They clearly ignored our warnings, because not only did they raid the camp again and kicked protesters off of public parks, but they also sent undercover TSA agents to assualt and attempt to steal from some organizers. So you get your kicks beating protesters? That’s OK; we get kicks defacing and rm’n your websites – again. BDNNews.com, the “Boston Poice Department Virtual Community” also fell to the swift merciless veangeance of the hive. Do you really want to step to this??”

At the time of writing, Anonymous is taking down the websites of Brazilian financial firms.  Things are getting a bit crazy!

The group that started on 4chan is now the biggest “hactivist group” and is fighting against censorship and anti-piracy laws. What do you think about this group? Do you think they will be able to achieve what they want? Or will the attacks remind people why SOPA and PIPA are necessary?

Anonymous have been live-tweeting about their attacks, so follow them on Twitter if you’re interested.

However, what I do know is people will be doing 2 things during the game: 1)Watching the commercials and 2) Eating.. alot…

But, how much are we fat and lazy Americans going to shove down our mouths this year? Well the infographic below shows you just how much we will gorge ourselves during the SuperBowl.

The one surprising stat to me was the amount of Avocados. Guess we like us some Guacamole!! I’m not sure how much I’ll put down from this list. As I’m staying away from most carbs. But I’m sure I’ll contribute to the beer consumption!!! (Sam Adams Light or Dos Equis in case you ever want to buy me a beer!)

What do  you think of these numbers? And how will you boost the stats?

When a customer or potential customer takes the time to visit your Facebook Fan Page to leave a comment or ask a question, this is a perfect opportunity to give them a reason to become a brand ambassador for your business!

Answer questions promptly with helpful and useful information.  Be thorough in your response…chances are that many people will read your comments and use the information as well.

Reply to all comments made on your wall.  If a customer leaves a comment saying “I love your apple pie” you might respond with “What is your favorite ice cream to top it with?” Just taking the time to interact with this fan will show them and others reading the posts that your customers and their opinions matter to you.

The same rule is applied when a fan leaves negative feedback on your page.  It can be frustrating to see your product or business being bad mouthed, but this is one of the best opportunities you have to win a customer for life!  Taking care of an angry or irritated customer right away is VERY important.  You don’t want other visitors to your page to see posts with negative feedback that haven’t been addressed immediately.  Following up with the poster can garner excellent information that can help you improve your business model.  Sure, some people are just complainers by nature…give them less to complain about by responding to their concerns in a timely manner with concrete ways you will fix their problem!

Make sure your status updates mix information with interaction whenever you can.  You might post “Our newest shipment of handmade scarves just arrived – what is your favorite way to accessorize?” Hopefully your fans will respond which gives you another chance to interact with them in your reply.

Taking the extra time to interact with your fans shows them that they are important. And they ARE important…they are the reason your bills get paid.  Keep them happy and informed and they will do some of your marketing for you.  Ignore them and their needs and watch your business reflect your neglect.

You may have heard that timeline might also coming to Facebook pages.  These are rumors though, gleaned from comments from Facebook insiders.  But hey, we think that Timeline is going to be available for pages as well.  As this would entail a lot of changes for business pages, we set out some questions that we have been wondering about here: BREAKING NEWS: Timeline is Coming to Facebook Pages

But one thing is for sure.  You will need to focus on getting some fabulous images on your Facebook page.  The cover image alone should be optimized to bring in more likes to your page, while also giving people an idea of what you do.

Some tips for the cover image:

1. Tell them what your company is about.  A short witty tagline would do; just make your company sound more interesting on your cover image.
2. List down your products and services.  A great way to tell people what they could get from you.
3. Add human face.  It never hurts to make a business page more personal and human.
4. Remember your branding.  If you are a fun company, show it on your cover image.  If you want to communicate that your company is an establishment, then do so!
5. Tell your customers what to expect from your page.  If you plan to do contests, up to the minute updates, or give them deals, then highlight these on your cover images as well.
6. Clear call to action.  Always have an eye-catching arrow point to the like button.

Of course, you should take advantage of the Timeline’s emphasis on photos and videos.  These types of content are displayed 3 to 4 times bigger than a two-line status message! Plus it conveys more than any text could ever convey!

Facebook starts to go public in a $5-billion IPO.

After years of will it or won’t it, Facebook has finally filed the initial papers for their initial public offering, seeking to raise $5 billion.  More details here:  Breaking News: Facebook Files $5 Billion IPO

The consensus is that if you are not a current shareholder (employee or investor), the IPO wouldn’t matter much to you.  But is that really true?

Think about it.  For one, now that Facebook has gone public, its books will be open for everyone to see.  It will face constant pressure for shareholders to deliver profit.  That would probably mean more ads for the average user, or same number of ads being shown, only more intrusive.  What’s more, Facebook might come up with more ways to feature ads more prominently on your timeline or newsfeed.

For small businesses who have pages on the social networking site, this could mean that they would face more pressure from Facebook to promote their pages via Facebook ads.  In short, in order to get maximum visibility, small business owners would have to pay more.

On the other hand, the influx of new money would help Facebook in hiring better developers and talented programmers.  This could mean that Facebook would see a lot of changes, improvements and innovation along the way.  We are not really sure if this is a good thing or not, though.

However Twitter has shot-up out of the blue and beat Facebook to the punch with some ultra-mod brand pages to die for– seriously, you might die before you can pay for one of these.

But before we get into financials, let’s just take a look!

The new Twitter brand pages, which were officially launched in December of last year to an exclusive group of 21 brands, feature a custom header in with which you can advertise products, show-off your logo, or promote a hashtag or a call to action. Brand pages also come with the ability to “pin” a tweet to the top of a timeline. They also make it easier to interact with followers in terms of customer service, featuring separate sections for @replies and @mentions.

LOOK:

Twitter officially offered their new brand page experience on the 1st of February to brands of all shapes and sizes: The Huffington Post, KFC, Al Jazeera, NPR, American Express, Best Buy, Coca-Cola, Disney, Dell (does Gateway have a Twitter with a talking cow box?), Nike, Heineken, Paramount Pictures– to name a few.

The brand pages are “free”, however, according to AllTwitter, “Twitter has asked for a $25,000 commitment to ad purchases in 2012 for the privilege.”

WTF!

Comment and let us know if you like what you see, and if you want to see Twitter put this “free” brand page into circulation for all!

And I’m a sucker for a new toy to play with on my iPad!!

ShowYou is very similar to SocialCam and Klip. But unlike those you can search by hashtags, categories and more. Plus it pulls in a video feed from your Facebook friends and Twitter connections.

The sharing ability is nice to as it was super easy to share to Facebook and Twitter.

My only complaint was when I shared a video on my Facebook Timeline all it shared was a thumbnail and link. So if someone wanted to watch the video they clicked on it and were taken to a site off of Facebook. So that kinda stinks. I much more prefer video apps that let you watch the video right on Facebook.

Looks like you can also setup a profile on ShowYou and people can follow you as well.

Overall not a bad app that I’ll play around with. I still like Vodio better for videos and news.

You can thank the forefathers like Myspace and Email that brought a certain informality to communication (not toe mention mobile fever).

All languages change over time and having grown-up with the technology that made way for radiant little phrases like GTFO and LMAO, I can’t help but take an interest.

Everything is practically abbreviated, numbers are letters, and dollar signs are often purely decorative.

I am here to guide you through the storm!

Facebook Lingo

The Bad (abbreviations allow for frequent cursing and melodrama):

• STFU: “Shut The F–K Up“
• GTFO: “Get The F–K Out”
• FML: “F–K My Life”
• IHTFP: “I Hate This F–KING Place”
• IHML: “I Hate My Life”
• Idgaf: “I don’t give a f–k”
• 182: “I hate you”

The Nonsensical (keyboard creativity is a linguistic art):

• ::poof:: “i’m gone”
• ;alskdjf expresses a waste of time, or the act of wasting time
• @+ or CUL8R “see you later”
•  # used to mark topics on Twitter
• ^5 “HIGH FIVE”
• 10Q “thank you”
• 143 “I Love You” (“I” is one letter, “love” is 4 letters, and “you” is 3 letters)
• 2nite or 2moro “Tonight” or “Tomorrow”
• 303 “Mom”
• 420 denotes marijuana
• 511 “too much information”
• 53X “sex”
• *$ “Starbucks”
• ! “I have a comment” (but I’m not telling)

The list goes on, and continues to grow day by day as people decide to abbreviate their life little by little via keyboard or keypad.

Fluency in the language of SMS is key in understanding social signals. If you get a message that tells you to go to “1174 [insert phony address here]“– go there, it’s a nude club!

All jokes aside, for all those parents out there, there is an informative graphic that cracks the code on subversive messaging. You can check-it out here.

Comment and let us know what you think about the future of the English language, are you on board or what?

First, Mark Zuckerberg will become one of the most wealthiest individuals in the world. And probably the youngest to reach this level of income.

The announcement also crashed the SEC’s website! Average people like me with no concern of the SEC tried to go see the filing causing it to crash.. oops…

But perhaps bigger than Zuckerberg becoming a billionaire and the SEC site crashing this IPO filing by Facebook also makes around 1000 employees of Facebook instant millionaires! How crazy is that?!

It’s expected that about 1/3 of the employees will have enough stock options available that if they sold it would get a minimum of $4million each. Executives are set to get about $4million and Engineers around $13million.

Some of them likely came on board thinking it would be a summer job, or a quick stint with a startup. Now those that got on board early and hung in with Zuckerberg will be paid royally for it.

It’s kind of exciting when you think about it. Just goes to show you that there are still new thoughts and business ideas starting every day. And your crazy idea could turn you into a billionaire! Or if you got on staff early with a startup you could be the next employee cashing a check for a few million!!!

It will be interesting to see how fast many of them sell their stocks and cash out and go do something else. Or retire and do nothing!

Check out this video below by MBA Online.. Very well done.

Created By: MBA Online