Current Events – Tell me what’s going on and why it’s important. I think it’s great when my wife comes home with news from work, the Audubon Zoo, and I already know because it was posted on their Facebook page. Facebook is a great to get the word out and fill last minute openings/promotions.

Have a Personality - One of my favorite Fan pages is the Demo Diva (a local woman-owned demolition company). Saying the Demo Diva brand has a personality is an understatement. The company is built on the diva attitude with pink dumpsters and a pink excavator all around New Orleans. When you read the Demo Diva’s posts, you feel like you’re talking to the owner Simone. They brand and Simone are one in the same and this stays consistent throughout each post from pictures of current projects, tips about demolition, and company news including naming kittens founds on a jobsite.

Stay Consistent on the Personality – If you’re brand is a company and you always talk in the third-person, you can’t jump to a first person viewpoint. On a recent post, a local non-profit went from talking about different services and events to saying she thought something was too cute not to post. At first glance, I thought I was reading someone else’s post. This confusion breaks the brand consistency and makes me want to skip the next posting.

Rewards - It is great when companies/brands have Facebook only promotions as a reward for following the brand and reading their posts. Something simple like 10% off or a Fanpage member only event goes a long way to building brand loyalty and word-of-mouth-marketing.

Too Many Posts - Most of the time, I think 2 posts a day is the limit unless you have a very active Fan page with lots of events, promotions, and new items. Also, space the posts out. When a Fan page posts 3 items in a row, usually they all get skipped. I wish you could automatically space them out like Twitter, but I’m not aware of tools like that for Facebook.

Spell Check – Kind of obvious, but spell things correctly, especially if you’re marketing your brand as the expert in the industry. If you’re a rap label or a brand that appeals to <16, you may be able to get away with intentional typos if they continue your brand.

Well in summary, have a personality, reward your fans and don’t annoy your fans with too many posts. Stay try true to your brand and post as if you had to read it. Check out our Facebook Fan page at http://www.facebook.com/designtheplanet.

Wow! The United States only has a touch over 300 million citizens according to Google Public Data. In a recent article on US Today, the author states that just 2 years ago, Facebook had 200 million members. So in less than 2 years, the website community has increased their population 2.5 times. The website has grown out of the universities and now 70% of Facebook’s users live outside of the United States.

In May of last year, I wrote a blog that if Facebook were a country it would be the fifth most populous country in the world. Well, Facebook has obviously passed the United States and now sits in the third position behind only China & India. I guess it’s only a matter of time before Facebook has more users than China has citizens. To supersede India, Facebook needs to double itself. Hard to believe, but totally possible since the website recently doubled itself in less than two years.

I hope you enjoy Facebook and other possibly other social media avenues to reach out to old friends, disconnected family members and even your spouse, but if you’re a business owner, hopefully your connecting with your company’s brand community through it’s tools.

Developing a simple fan page on Facebook and providing news about your products and/or services is an easy way to keep your best customers & clients informed and help them spread your message to their friends and family. The main reason why people don’t talk about your company is because they have nothing pertinent to say or it’s hard. Give them something to talk about it and Facebook allows them to share it with their friends.

For many New Orleans brand names, there are already Facebook fan pages set up by your fans. I love talking to business owners that don’t even know they have a fan page for their business. That shows real fan devotion and imagine how your business will grow if you add fuel to their fire.

If you’re a numbers person, here are the stats on Facebook:

• Facebook has over 400 Million Global Users
• Facebook has 100 Million U.S. Users
• The average Facebook User Spends 55 Minutes Per Day
• Real-time Search Is Important: Facebook is searchable by Google (without privacy controls)

This is unfortunate, because that 17% is missing out on a whole new world of interactivity, design aesthetics, functionality, speed, security, and quite frankly, I can’t understand why.

Internet Explorer 6 has been criticized by web standards experts, internet security firms, and designers since it’s launch in 2001.

In June 2004, the U.S. Government’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) urged readers to use ANY browser other than IE6, because of security flaws. Read the article here.

As of 2009, the security firm, Secunia, counted 142 vulnerabilities, of which 22 remained unfixed.  Some of these 22 are classified as moderately critical in security. Read the article here.

In 2005, PC World magazine rated IE6 as one of the 25 worst tech products OF ALL TIME.  This list is going back 30 years.  The list included some older products, but also included AOL and Windows Me, which turned out to be a complete dud.

On top of all the security flaws prevalent in IE6, there is much criticism from web designers and web standards experts regarding the functionality of IE6.

The problem is that IE6 does not support CSS2, unlike most browsers.  This means that developers must write hacks and other coding workarounds to ensure proper display.  This means a longer turnaround time and extra costs that are then passed on to the client.

Jeff Zeldman, author and leading web standards guru says

“IE6 is the new Netscape 4. The hacks needed to support IE6 are increasingly viewed as excess freight. Like Netscape 4 in 2000, IE6 is perceived to be holding back the web.”

IE6 does not support transparent PNG files, which are smooth transparent images, that allow for shading and depth on a web page.  Designers must include hacks that display less attractive transparent GIF files that leave a choppy, hard edged outline.  This option certainly lends itself to a less  fulfilling web experience.

Even social networking leader, Facebook, has decided their users using IE6 will receive an inferior user experience, by not allowing many features when using IE6.  They bluntly explain why, and encourage the user to upgrade their browser.

The thing that escapes me the most is the reasons for not upgrading your browser.  Aside from some large institutions and government bureaucracies, that require certain software that will only run on IE6, there isn’t much reason for a normal user to stay with such an antiquated piece of software.

Imagine you got a car in 2001 (internet explorer 6).  This car was comparable to other cars at the time.  It wasn’t the fanciest, it wasn’t the most secure, but there weren’t many other options, and it got the job done.

Now, imagine five years later, you were offered a brand new car. This car was fancier, quicker, safer, and it was FREE (internet explorer 7). You decided to turn it down.

After nearly ten years, you were offered a newer, faster, even more secure car, with side impact air bags and anti-lock brakes, all wheel drive, and stability control (Mozilla Firefox 3)… Completely free. But still, you turned this car down for your ten year old jalopy that was falling apart, had proven safety issues, and frankly was ugly as sin.

The logic escapes me.

As an IE6 user, you may not even know what you’re missing out on.  But, do yourself a favor, download a newer browser.  One of my personal favorites is Mozilla Firefox, an open source browser with lots of add-ons and extras. Google Chrome is a new kid on the block.  If neither of those entice you, you may want to try Microsoft’s replacement for IE6, IE7 here.  However, you shouldn’t get attached to IE7 too long, because version 8 was just released.

Trust us folks, you’ll be happy you did.

Side note: With 53 million visits in January 2009, Twitter is now the third most visited social network a huge jump from 22nd place last year.