In this classic Seinfeld episode detailing the women’s sponge being taken off the market, Elaine Benes is faced with a dilemma:

With a finite supply of her go-to contraceptive, Elaine must determine her potential suitors “sponge-worthyness” before letting them past the golden gates.

With the adoption of Timeline, administrators of Facebook Brand Pages have encountered a similar predicament. Prior to Timeline, Pages offered the ability to showcase a seemingly unlimited number of custom apps, widgets and tabs down the left-side navigation. However, with the update to Timeline, pages are now limited to 4 “above-the-fold” tabs, one of which has to be Photos. So where does that leave your “Like” number?

Is your “Like” number worth this prime real-estate on the top of your Page? If you do display your “Like” stat rather than an interactive tab, what are you hoping to get from it?

In some cases, I think the answer to this question reveals a deeper look into the brand’s or administrator’s motivations. Does their Page mainly exist as an ego stroke, where displaying that they have 100,000 fans makes them feel good? Or is it an important marketing vehicle where valuable page-space is better left to widgets that can actually drive business?

There’s probably a third answer as well, that I think applies mostly for mid-tier brands with fans in the 10’s of thousands. Does showcasing that your local company has 20,000 fans help fuel you Page visitor’s “group-think” psychology and get them to press that “Like” button? I can see a case being made for that line of thinking.

Currently it’s hard to determine a consensus among the bigger brands on Facebook. Target, Starbucks and Coca-Cola are keeping their “Likes” above the fold, while Victoria’s Secret, Walmart and Pepsi are not.  Some of the more forward-leaning companies like Zappo’s and Threadless seem to be going the non-“Like” displaying route as well.

So what should you do? Obviously each brand is unique and presents it’s own marketing challenges, users and goals. However, at Hunch Free, we’re usually of the belief that it’s the quality of your user-base, not the quantity. And with that in mind, we find that your visitors are more than likely better served by offering them an opportunity to interact or learn more about your brand, rather than telling them that they’re fan number 3,106.

What do you think? Is your Page “Like-Worthy”? 

1. Logic over Emotion

2. Mind Meld for Success and Progress

3. Live Long and Prosper

Logic over Emotion

Web developers are constantly amazed by all the emotional factors that come into play when developing a website for a client. The drive to get it perfect the very first day is staggering and often puts the client in the un-enviable position of trying to “get it all in” And if we are honest it goes both ways. Web Developers are often so psyched about a new piece of tech it gets easy to lose perspective on whether it fits the end user’s goals. So what do you do?

On one side you have a client that's passionate about their brand and knows their idea is going to be the next game changer, but it only works in 2% of browsers. You have a skilled web developer that's ready to launch a bevy of exotic code that will transform the world but possibly have no impact on the end user. . . Who wins? Logic, the answer to this riddle is simple to understand but requires patience and strategy to pull it off.

"I neither enjoy the idea . . . nor am I frightened of it.  It simply exists, and I will do whatever logically needs to be done."

                                    -- Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2812.7

Instead of letting emotion determine the right action, let the data guide you. We recommend extensive A/B testing. This is the process of serving up 2 different versions of your content for your visitors to consume and see which fares better in analytics. Keep in mind this is not a contest between you and your developer to see who’s right, it’s a partnership with a shared goal of serving your web visitors so well they can’t wait to purchase your services or products.

Mind Meld for success and progress

The Vulcan mind meld is the epitome of empathy. It boils down to this: Can you crawl into your customer's mind and see your website from their point of view? Do you see how they want to buy? Do you see the moment where they want to make progress but were stumped? Are you serving up the right content in the right format? Can you see the moment when you need to ask for the business vs. offer the opportunity to help?

Your success as a site owner hinges upon this simple set of criteria. All the features, benefits, bells and whistles in the world will never overcome not listening. (Ever notice how big Vulcan’s ears are?) The answer to this problem is 3 fold Search, Social, Survey

1. Show up in Search results.

2. Be seen in Social Media Platforms.

3. Survey your guests and asks the right questions and adapt your site accordingly.

Live Long and Prosper

Remember the average shelf life of a website is roughly 3-5 years before technology gets outdated, your competitive landscape changes or you simply get bored with the look. Remember that you are in it for the long haul and today's decisions can be changed and improved upon greatly over time. The most important thing is to get out there. Don't worry, the entire world won't be there the first day you launch your site. You'll have time to figure out the best way, if you stick to it.

And of course if all this isn't your idea of fun, find an agency likes ours that lives to do this stuff every day.

Social media is an ever-changing field, nothing stays the same and there is always “the hottest new thing” popping up all over the web. Besides making sure that your company and social media team is on top of all the hype, there is also another important aspect of all social channels that can go overlooked: consistency.

To extend the greatest impact of your brand through social channels you have to start from your website. Taking photos, colors and verbiage from your website and adhering it to your social channels keeps all the pages that represent your company or brand consistent. To stay consistent you need to make sure that when a user clicks through all your different channels, they can easily recognize that all of the pages belong to your brand and are sending the same vibe and message. Even a slight change in the avatar or color scheme can throw off the effectiveness of your pages and make your brand seem disorganized or “lost” in their personal branding. It is not hard to make all your outposts consistent, just follow these tips.

Tips for staying socially consistent:

• Using the same avatar on all social channels
• Typing up a short general description, usually around 140 characters (the usual character limit for Twitter) that can be placed on all channels
• Utilizing the same color scheme off of your website throughout all social pages
• Having links on social channels to other social channels and your website
• Having a folder of top pictures (some of which are off the website) that are to be used throughout all pages

As a user surfs from your Facebook page to your Twitter page and clicks through to your Pinterest page, you want them to feel as if they have never really left your website and can really understand your brand and the message that you brand is portraying. Having the same colors, photos and descriptions make it easier for the user to keep your brand top of mind and recognize your brand with just a simple description or color scheme.

So just like a company logo, staying consistent in the details of online pages is very important and beneficial to you and your future customers. You want your social channels to mirror your website and give everyone who views your site and social channels to absorb, understand and remember the message and style you are exposing them to.

Because any company called iSlayer has to be good, right?Sometimes, mac programs crawl like snails, internal fans sound like jets and the outside of your computer feels like it could cook breakfast. Istat Pro allows you to monitor exactly what’s going on.

Istat Pro is an OSX widget that displays a whole slew of usage statistics about your mac that the system hog Activity Monitor displays poorly. CPU, Memory usage, Disk usage and Wi-Fi activity are displayed in a single widget in real time. Fan Speeds and Temperature of just about everything in your computer let you keep tabs on erratic behavior.

(Psst. The reason your fan is going crazy is because you’re out of ram. Like Apple says, “Page outs occur when the Mac has to write information from RAM to the hard drive (because RAM is full).  Adding more RAM may reduce page outs.”)

2. Hazel ($21.95) 

Much better than witch's brew.Hazel is an automation program that can take a mac from messy to orderly in real time. OSX comes native with Automator, a program that can accomplish some of the same tasks, but the learning curve is steep and the interface confusing. Hazel is like a second skin for Automator that’s user-friendly and uses very little processing power to accomplish a number of tasks.

Hazel uses operators that can do things like empty your trash at a specific time, auto-sort files on your desktop to anywhere you choose, edit file names and more, all controllable by keyword, date, file type and a number of other parameters.

Personally, I use it to manage my client files; the second a file hits my desktop with a client’s name in it, Hazel whisks it directly to a folder specific to that client. The possibilities are endless, from the very simple to the extremely complex. The end result is always the same: order!

  3. TinkerTool (FREE) or TinkerTool System (€ 10.00)

There are a great number of “hidden” settings in OSX that the average user isn’t able to access in System Preferences. TinkerTool collects all these settings in a single, easily navigated window to allow us to really get the most out of our macs.

I originally installed TinkerTool to use “Developer Mode.” Remember that Istat Pro widget? I wanted to have it on my desktop all the time  instead of having to press F4 every time I wanted to check it. (Yes, I nicknamed my computer "Snow White.")

TinkerTool let’s you do this with a simple checkbox. But there’s so much more; you can control what programs automatically start when booting (much like msconfig in Windows); you can control what file format screenshots save to; you can even control settings in Safari, Quicktime and iTunes. The paid version gives even more control over maintenance, diagnostics, file control and more.

4. Perian (FREE)

Are Swiss-army knives actually Swiss?Perian, “the Swiss-army knife for Quicktime,” is the only codec plugin for Quicktime you’ll ever need. In an age where streaming video seems pervasive, it seems anachronistic to suggest a codec plugin. I’d make the argument that with mobile computing on the rise (and the rise of nifty little programs like Videora and the Koyote Suite), downloading converting and watching videos with weird extensions like FLV, MKV, GVI, VP6, and VFW are more common than ever.

Perian works within Quicktime so there’s nothing to run once it’s installed; just open Quicktime and Perian does its work!

More importantly, video codec plugins are one way that malware and viruses can infiltrate OSX. Perian is 100% free and 100% malware/virus free!

5. Wine (FREE)

Wine in a box that's actually drinkable. Figuratively. Linux users will be familiar with the program Wine (it’s a staple program on my Ubuntu laptop). Simply put, Wine is a program that lets you run any Windows program on a Unix-based OS like Linux and yes, OSX too.

Yes, there are other programs that do this – Boot Camp and Parallels, for example. Users of either of these will note that: A. you have to purchase a copy of Windows to run them and B. they are system HOGS because you’re running OSX and Windows at the same time!

Wine doesn’t need Windows to run a program; it tricks the program into using OSX resources to work.

*Now for the full disclosure: this Wine installation isn’t for the faint of heart. You’ll need to install two other programs to install Wine: XCode and Macports.

Beyond these programs, much of Wine’s functionality exists only in Terminal.

If sudo means anything to you, then you should be fine. However, you may have to brush up on your command line knowledge (or at least follow David’s tutorial closely).

Recently, I had the opportunity to relive my formative years for one night on the occasion of my 40^th birthday.

If there was ever any doubt about the popularity that still exists about this decade – I witnessed over 110 people in vintage 80’s Prom attire drinking Boones Farm and downing shots of Jägermeister – while dancing to the likes of Prince, Madonna, MJ, Run DMC, Men Without Hats, and New Order to name a few. 

True, there is a lot about the 1980’s one can make fun of today, however, in many ways, it truly was a decade that drew a map for the future. 

Besides being a time for change in music, the 80s served as the dawn of many notable marketing iconic campaigns:

• Pantene’s “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” ad
• 1984 Super Bowl Commercial for the first Mackintosh Computer
• The Cola Wars begin between Coca Cola and Pepsi. 

The 80’s also launched a generation of true Marketing icons. Steve Jobs had to fail in the 80’s to rebuild in 2000’s.  

Some were even born in the 80’s – Mark Zuckerberg, Aza Raskin, The guys behind Pinterest, David Karp… to name a few.

No matter what anyone says – the 80’s sparked some pretty major thought provoking things that, today, have become our new norm. 

Without the skateboard would we have snowboards?

Without arcade games would we have Xbox Kinnect?

Without Boom Boxes would we have Bose or Sonos?

Certainly debatable – but no one can argue the 80’s paved the way for many things if not pure nostalgia for those of us that lived them.

So this question we asked ourselves, "If you could only have one type of meal for the rest of your life — and HAD to pick RIGHT THIS SECOND — what would it be and why?"

Here's what a few members of our staff came up with:

Timeline’s visual layout and historical navigation open up a host of opportunities for brands to exploit; here are a few ideas to get you started.

1. Brand Coverage
At 850 x 350 pixels, cover photos offer oodles of screen real estate to make a branding statement. Have a beautiful product to show off? Drop a well-shot photo right at the top of your Page for the entire world to ogle. Or try merging some graphic design into the space to show off a killer service. Here’s my take on it:

2. Rich Culture
Use that cover photo to expose your clients and customers to the parts that really make your business run; your employees! A team photo would work great here, or perhaps you rotate a nice employee photo with a graphical bio periodically. You could even use it as an incentive for your staff – Employee of the Month gets the cover!

3. Get Wacky
If Brand Pages end up allowing for a cover photo and a profile pic, the way personal accounts now do, then you can get really clever. By strategically shooting and placing photographs in each bucket, you can develop fun, interactive profile/cover pic collages that radiate humor, smarts and personality. Here are some personal accounts that do this well.

4. Know Your History
Timeline’s namesake feature is a great way to tell the story of your brand. By adding in important dates and events throughout your Page’s Timeline, you can walk customers and prospects through the history and evolution of your business.

5. Get Visual
Timeline displays photos and videos in a much more visually appealing layout now. Take advantage of this by uploading plenty of rich media. Brand Pages that share more dynamic content will create a more compelling looking and interesting Timeline, and drive users deeper into their Page.

Once a month, we gather together for a Hunch Free Lunch and Learn. One staff member prepares a lesson from their area of expertise, and shares that knowledge with the rest of the crew. We get to learn a little bit more about all the digital marketing disciplines through these casual classes, plus we usually eat some good food and share some laughs. Do you have any type of continual learning programs where you work? How does your company go about it?

Here are 6 cool features that can help get attention (and repins!)

1. Pinterest Hashtags work. 

Hashtags work on Pinterest

They appear as clickable links to all pins with the same hashtag or word in them. It’s an easy-to-use tool to help other users find your pins!

2. Tweet Pins w/ Hashtags!

Tweet Pins with Hashtags

If you really want oomph from your pins, send hashtagged posts to Twitter too; they work just like regular hashtags there.

Pinterest Hashtags work just the same as Twitter Hashtags!

3. Add a Price!

 Include Price in a Pinterest Pin!

Lots of users make wishlists on Pinterest. If getting yours to as many people as possible is important, be sure to include the price in the description; this puts the price ribbon in the upper left corner and also includes it in the Pinterest Gifts section!

4. Use URLs in Descriptions!

URLs in Pinterest descriptions turn into links

Whatever the reason, some websites just don’t play well with Pinterest (like my Nintendo coffee table pin above. The picture loads fine, but only if you link directly to the picture). If you need to make a pin that points to somewhere else besides the picture, you can put a URL into the description and it will automatically turn into a link when you pin it!

 5. Mention / Tag anyone in comments and descriptions with the @ Symbol

You can Mention and Tag Friends with @ Symbols

Something users may have missed (because of the hard to read gray text that only appears once you start typing) is that the @ symbol works just like it does on Facebook and Twitter; start typing after an @ symbol and a list shows of all the friends you can tag!

Get your friend's attention in descriptions too!

This is great for getting their attention. Better yet, it also works in descriptions!

6. Pin Anything with the "Pin It" Bookmark

A simple link that works in any browser!

By visiting the Pinterest Goodies section, you can get a “Pin It” button of your own. It makes putting together a board quickly and quietly easy by living right in your browser! When you’re on a page you want to pin, click the “Pin it” button to immediately go to Pinterest’s pin page.

Stay Tuned for Part 2 of our Pinterest Series!

Check out our Hunch Free Boards on Pinterest. Not yet on Pinterest? Mention us on Twitter (@hunchfree) or post on our Facebook wall and we’ll do our best to hook you up!