See http://viafb.com/smmfreewebinar

Michael will show you what smart small businesses are doing right with social media and what you need to know.

By attending this free online event you’ll discover innovative ways your peers are using social media (and leave with ton’s of ideas).

The free seats are limited to the first 1000 people (and the event takes place in just a few days). Be sure to go here and secure your seat now before they’re gone.

Here are the details:

WHO SHOULD ATTEND: Ideal for any business owner or marketer seeking to improve their social media marketing.

WHAT: FREE online webinar: “9 Small Businesses Doing Social Media Right and What You Need to Know” with Michael Stelzner.

WHERE: Online, so you can attend from anywhere. Just complete the sign-up form below.

WHEN: Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 at 11am Pacific / 1 pm Central / 2 pm Eastern. Click here for international time conversion. (Can’t make the date? Sign up anyway and we’ll send you the recording.)

On Monday, PayPal froze her account because she had used a “Donate” button that she learned is only for nonprofit groups. In her blog post, “Cats 1, Kids 0” she discusses about her “very long and jaw-dropping conversation” with a customer service rep. She writes:

“PAYPAL: Only a nonprofit can use the Donate button.
ME: That’s false. It says right in the PDF of instructions for the Donate button that it can be used for “worthy causes.”
PAYPAL: I haven’t seen that PDF. And what you’re doing is not a worthy cause, it’s charity.
ME: What’s the difference?
PAYPAL: You can use the donate button to raise money for a sick cat, but not poor people.”

After this post was up, people immediately started to take to Twitter and Facebook to complain to PayPal.

Soon PayPal wrote a blog about the Regretsy Issue. They stated:

“Last night we became aware of an issue with one of our account holders, Regretsy.com. Though we can’t comment specifically on the account due to our privacy policy, we can confirm that the funds have been released and we are working directly with the account holder on this matter. Just like anyone else, we believe strongly in helping those in need, especially around the holiday season. We are working with Regretsy to make a donation to help their cause, and we’re truly sorry this occurred.”

Yesterday, April aka Helen Killer, wrote about her “interesting conversation” with PayPal. Turns out, the issue had nothing to do with the donation button as anyone can use it. The executive who called April said, “The information you were given about using the donation button was definitely incorrect, and at the end of the day, it was an error in judgment on the agent’s part.” The issue was really how fast the money was coming in.

Long story short, the big online service company apologized and is even making a charitable donation. Here’s the latest PayPal Update:

“We are happy to offer you $100 donations to each of the 200 families you were planning to support this holiday season. I hope this helps to ease the stress and inconvenience our error has caused. I want you to know that we’re all sincerely sorry for this mistake.” – Paypal

Glad everything worked out well for all parties. But I learned a few things from watching this unfold online.

1. Be honest. April was really angry to learn that her successful fundraiser was going to be ruined. So she wrote about it on her blog unapologetically. She was truthful, honest and was just being herself.
2. Humans, not a brand, run customer service. Unfortunately, we all wii come across a customer service representative who honestly doesn’t care what he/she says. They don’t care about the job or about the brand. It’s simply a paycheck to them. It seems that April got this bad seed.
3. The voices of a thousand could be heard. April would have probably spent countless hours trying to resolve this on her own. If it weren’t for the public who rapidly came to her aid, those kids would not have gotten any presents at all.
4. Executives really do care what people say about the brand. PayPal is a huge company and they don’t know what agents say to customers on a daily basis unless we tell them. At the end of the day, complaining on social media to get the attention of the decision makers worked. By doing so, you are cutting out the middleman (customer service rep).
5. I have a favorite new website. I honestly didn’t know about Regretsy existed until a few days ago. It’s funny and sarcastic. So if I ever need a laugh, I can go to the Regretsy gallery.

What did you learn about this situation? How can a company offer better customer service?

Google + – For post that you really don’t want people to see
Foursquare – For telling people where you are
LinkedIn – For boring business stuff
Facebook – For personal statuses that is ok to share with even your parents
Twitter – For those not addicted to “likes”
Don’t post it – For anything that would be awkward to explain to your boss or parents

Click the image below for larger version

Do you agree with this chart? What do you think is missing?

The Polling Company, Inc. on behalf of Jobvite conducted a nationwide online omnibus survey of 1,205 adults (age 18+) and was fielded on October 24-27, 2011; it included questions on current employment status and the use of social networks to find job opportunities. Respondents for this survey were selected from an opt-in panel and had expressed prior consent to participate in online surveys such as this.

Here are some results:

Job Seeking on Facebook:

• 48% of all job seekers (63% of those with a profile) have done at least one social job hunting activity on Facebook in the last year.
• One in five job seekers added professional information to their Facebook profile in the past year.
• 16% received a job referral from a Facebook friend.
• 18.4 Million Americans credit Facebook as a source that led to their current job.
• 56% of Facebook-using job seekers are male, 64% are under the age of 40, 36% earn more than $75,000 and 42% are college graduates.

Job Seeking on LinkedIn:

• 26% of all job seekers (88% of those with a profile) have used LinkedIn to hunt for work in the past year.
• 15% have updated LinkedIn with professional information.
• 9% received a job referral from a LinkedIn contact.
• 10.2 Million Americans credit LinkedIn as a source that led to their current job.
• 69% of LinkedIn-using job seekers are male, 53% are under the age of 40, 54% earn more than $75,000 and 58% are college graduates.

Job Seeking on Twitter:

• 23% of all job seekers (71% of those with a profile) have leveraged Twitter in their job hunt.
• 8% have updated Twitter with professional information.
• 6% received a job referral through Twitter.
• 8 Million Americans credit Twitter as a source that led to their current job
• 65% of Twitter-using job seekers are male, 69% are under the age of 40, 48% earn more than $75,000 and 49% are college graduates.

For more results, please visit Jobvite Social Job Seeker Survey 2011.

Did you get a new job because of a particular social network? If so, which one and how were you able to leverage it?

Many fan pages use this feature to conduct customer service or engage with their fans so it would be a great loss to have these discussions go away. Today I will show you how you can preserve your discussions.

A company by the name of Pixode, an Irish start-up company that has been building games for the Facebook platform since the early days, developed a free alternative: Forums for Pages. It is a discussion board app that can be installed as a page tab. The best part about this app is that it allows page owners to import and save all their existing discussions.

Manon Gaucher from Pixode said, “When we found out that Facebook was going to remove the Discussions tab from Facebook pages, we looked for a solution to keep the discussions of the players on our Facebook games’ pages. That’s how we ended up developing the Forum for Pages application. We noticed that many page admins were also facing the same issue, so we decided to open the application to all the Facebook page owners.”

Some of the features that is supported by the first version of Forum for Pages are:

• Threaded discussions
• Save and import all your existing discussions from the Facebook discussions tab
• Users never leave the page where the Forum tab is installed (in Facebook’s current discussions tab, the user is taken off the page)
• Moderators can delete a post or the entire topic, lock a topic or make a topic sticky

The installation is very simple. First you need to find and install the Forum for Pages app. Secondly, you need to save and import the discussions from the Facebook discussions tab. Then go to your Facebook page, click the ‘Forum’ tab on the left hand panel. Click the “Import existing discussions” button. That’s it! Now you can continue and start discussions without losing anything. However, make sure you do this ASAP because Facebook can disable the discussions tab at any given time without warning.

If you have any questions about installations or features, you can find more information on Forum for Pages’s FAQ. See below for some helpful screenshots.

Do you use the discussions tab? Would you use this forum?