Phone Support Web Design

Popular children's entertainer/educator Slim Goodbody is one busy guy: most weekdays of the school year find him spreading the message of good health in his trademark body suit ("When a Body needs somebody there's nobody like Goodbody!").

He's been doing this work for decades now and has a vast storehouse of videos, products and fans. Slim came to me to build a branded Facebook presence.

A typical workload for a Facebook branding project is:

• Set up the Page;
• Coordinate with the client for a good profile graphic;
• Adding a number of photos and videos;
• Help set up a posting strategy;
• Provide phone support to answer questions on best practices;
• Give feedback on campaign (like Facebook's "Insights" stats)

For Slim, we decided to rely on Facebook's native apps as much as possible. This became especially important when Facebook shifted it's feed layout (yet again) to focus less on user streams and more on an algorithmically-determined best posts. The more integrated your site is with Facebook, the better chance your pieces will have of showing up on Fan's user streams.

We used Facebook Markup Language (FBML) to create custom Page tabs for integration with his existing online store and listing of tour dates. We would have liked to use FB's Events application but it doesn't allow for the volume of tour dates necessary to cover a busy entertainer like Slim Goodbody!

See it live: www.facebook.com/slimgoodbody

The NYTimes has a piece by an IBM employee who has largely freed himself from email by consciously using whatever social networking tool would be better at moving the conversation forward, whether it's IM, wikis, or even (gasp!) the telephone. This line stood out for me:

I have had continuing support from my management in this effort, because I've been able to prove how much more I can accomplish by answering a question, and posting it on a blog, for example, than I can by answering the same question over and over. I still help people, but in a more open and collaborative fashion. Other people can join in the discussions -- maybe they will have a better idea than mine.

This is exactly how I try to describe the blogging philosophy in the business world. Don't think of the blog as another chore that needs to be added to your already overwhelmed to-do list. Instead, think about it as another communication tool so it becomes a seamless part of your ongoing work. This will no only help work flow, but help give your blog an honesty and approachability it wouldn't have if you thought of it as simply another marketing piece.