Mark Clement

Facebook Timeline: 9 Things You Need To Know

Facebook's long-delayed massive overhaul to user profiles, dubbed Timeline, is finally available for all of the social networks more than 800 million users worldwide.

Timeline, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg first showed off in September, is a complete rethinking off a user's profile page. It attempts to use the data already inside Facebook as a sort of digital scrapbook.

Facebook users can now easily scroll back to previous years and see what they were saying and what they were doing.

• MORE: Facebook Timeline rolls out worldwide

For some, this will be a nostalgic trip through a social network that has captured much of who we are. For others, it will be a bit terrifying to see posts from the early days of Facebook, when it was limited to college students who often shared way too much.

Here's a look at nine things to know about the new Facebook.

There's a seven-day review period. Once upgraded, Facebook users will be able to work through their Timeline and get things ready before it goes public. During the seven-day review period, the Facebook user will be able to publish it at any time. If he or she chooses to wait, it will automatically go live after the week is up.

Your cover photo is your chance to make a splash. The most striking feature at the top of the new Facebook profile is the cover photo, which stretches across the page's width. The Facebook user's profile photo, which is seen across the site, is now just a small square. Most are using this opportunity to make the profile photo a simple face shot and have used the cover photo to show something more personal, like a pet or favorite vacation spot.

No new information is being shared. Yes, Timeline is bringing back a bunch of old posts. But these posts have long been viewable on Facebook. Before, a friend would have had to go to a profile and click again and again for more posts, but would eventually travel back in time.

Your privacy settings on old posts will remain. A post shared four years ago that was set to be viewable to just friends will continue to be viewable to just friends. The only concern here lies in how a user's definition of friend has changed. A photo or status update that in college that was OK for friends might not be OK for friends now, which might include coworkers.

Posts can be expanded. Timeline already tries to guess which of your posts will be the most interesting and it makes those viewable. It can try and guess here by how many likes or comments a post has received. If there is a post that should be expanded and is not -- like a new job or college graduation -- you can expand it.

The Activity Log is the best place to edit a Timeline. Facebook has built a very helpful new page called the Activity Log, which can be accessed from a profile page, that shows every single piece of content Facebook has from a user. Each item can be deleted or tweaked from this page.

For your eyes only. If there is a post in your Timeline that you don't want to zap completely from Facebook, but don't want anyone to see, you can change the post's visibility to "Only Me."

Users can add other life events. Facebook is hoping that users flesh out their Timeline with information from B.F. (Before Facebook), too. Anything added to the Timeline can now be given a date. So, if a user uploads an old photo from summer camp, he or she can set the date to June 1995 so that it appears chronologically in the Timeline.

There's no sense in holding out. Facebook Timeline will eventually go live for everyone on Facebook, whether or not the user has taken the time to prune and optimize the Timeline view. It's best to be proactive and make sure what people will see is what should be seen.

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Originally posted on USAToday.com and written by Mark W. Smith of the Detroit Free Press. Contact Mark W. Smith at msmith@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @markdubya or subscribe to his posts on Facebook or on Google+.

The Twitter RT Boasting Has Got To Stop

Did you hear the one about the guy who was constantly calling all his friends and telling them about all the compliments he was getting from people about how great and cool and special and...wait for it...important he is? You didn't? Don't feel bad because nobody did. Why? Because no one in real life would actually do such an obnoxious thing. Or would they?

I guess that depends on whether or not you consider Twitter to be part of real life. Well whether you think it is or not doesn't change the fact that it is. Just like the 'face to face' you, the 'phone' you and the 'email' you, the 'Twitter' you is, well, YOU. And the same rules that apply to all of those other interactions apply here in the Twitterverse as well.

Now to be clear, I believe it's perfectly acceptable to promote your work, or share a blog post, or mention that you are speaking somewhere, or meeting with someone, or anything like that. It's also great to have @reply conversations via Twitter sometimes. That's who you are, it's your heartbeat, your passion. It is what you are doing and if I'm following you then I'm probably somewhat interested in that. It's good information. It leads to sharing, connecting, interacting, etc... That's the whole point of Twitter.

Where I think way too many of us are crossing the line is when someone tweets something really great about us, and then we take it upon ourselves to RT it to everyone we know, you know, just to make sure that everyone knows how great we in fact are. The worst offenders are those who do this under the guise of humility, adding a little '//oh I'm so flattered' or '//gee thanks!' at the end of their RT. Would these same people pick up the phone and call all their friends and say 'hey guess what, so and so said I'm the greatest thing ever' ? Of course not, because their friends would think they are a self absorbed jerk. Or even worse, a pathetic, insecure wannabe. But they'll RT it in a heartbeat. And let's face it, there is only one reason why someone would RT a compliment from someone else, and it's not good. 

To be fair, a lot of us have done this innocently, thinking it is an acceptable practice because we see so many others doing it. But of course that has never been a good reason to do anything.

Proverbs 27:2 tells us 'Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; someone else, and not your own lips'. Bottom line, the second we RT praise from others, it is our own lips, and trust me, no one wants to hear YOU talk about how great YOU are.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Do you agree or disagree? If you disagree or feel it's OK to retweet compliments from others, I'd love to know why.

2011 Social Media Info Video

Mind blowing as usual. Altough I must say I"m shocked this hasn't been making the rounds more. I would be the first to say it's about time they considered some new music, but still, amazing info:

The Power Of Words

As a writer, a speaker, a director...simply as a communicator, words are everything to me. I am constantly thinking about words, indivually, in groups and sentences. How they work, what they mean and how they make me feel. Words set the tone. They tell me everything I need to know about a person. They build up and tear down. They influence and define lives. They have incredible power. Simply put...words matter.

It matters what we say, when, where and how we say it. Our words have the power to make someone's day. They equally have the power to destroy and tear down, to discourage and derail. Think back over the last 24 hours or so. How did you use your words? What health or harm did you cause? Not saying anything that hasn't been said before, but I am simply reminding myself (and maybe you too) to think twice before I speak. To choose loving and encouraging words more than not. To think hard about what I can say to any given person to make them feel better, to encourage them, to love them. How can my words make the world a better place?

The video above is a message bumper we did for First Hattiesburg's current series entitled 'Words'. The following video demonstrates just how powerful and how important choosing the right words is.

The Power Of Twitter

Twitter may be a lot of things to a lot of people, but this video points out some of the most powerful and productive aspects of this amazing tool. I know it's changed my life for the better. How about you?

My Velocity 2011 Breakout Notes

Thanks so much to everyone who attended my breakout Monday afternoon: What People Wish Their Pastors Knew About Church. I was overwhelmed by the number of people and your participation and enthusiasm was awesome. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Whether you were there in person and want to review or maybe you just want to check out the topic for the first time, I'm going to link back to some posts that essentially walk you through the basic ideas I presented. This link will take you back to the introduction and at the end of each post there is a link to the next one in the series. Enjoy.

Amazon Wants To Make Movies

Throwing another kink into an ever changing paradigm, Amazon.com has launched Amazon Studios, an effort to help screenwriters and filmmakers get a shot at a real Hollywood deal.

From their website:

What is Amazon Studios?

Movies have been developed pretty much the same way since talkies were considered cutting-edge. But here at Amazon Studios, we believe 21st-century technology creates opportunities to make and share movies and scripts more easily than ever. We invite you to:

• Win money. Amazon Studios will award a combined $2.7 million in our first year's worth of monthly and annual contests for the best scripts and movies. There is no charge to participate. 
• Get noticed. Your work will be shared with a global community of filmmakers and fans, who can offer revisions and advice. Screenwriters can see their words come to life as full-length test movies made by directors vying for our $100,000 monthly awards.
• Get your movie made. The goal of Amazon Studios is to work with Hollywood to turn the best projects into major feature films.

For more info about the project, CLICK HERE.

 

Some Of Our Most Recent Work

With all this movie talk, you may be wondering if our focus has changed. I'm excited to say 'not at all!'  It's been a great fall working with clients all over the country. The list is too long to mention all of them here, but some of the highlights have been Kids Against Hunger out of Minneapolis, Veritas School and Potomac HIlls Presbyterian Church in VA, New Life Covenant Church in Chicago, Westtown Church in Tampa, The Change Group and Miles Advisory Group in ATL, College UMC in MO, The Worship Center Christian Church in Birmingham and Churchplanters.com 2011 in ATL. Check out some samples of our work with these clients below:

The Change Group and Casey Graham have been a client since their company started 2 years ago. Their focus on helping churches develop better giving and finances is amazing. Big Picture Media (BPM) has been involved every step of the way including branding, market strategy, and video, print and web design. We also customized their social media strategy and implementation. This is a screen shot of their newly updated web site home page:

 

Kids Against Hunger is an amazing organization out of Minneapolis, MN that provided over 40 million meals to starving children around the world this last year alone. Wanting to tell their story and cast vision for 2011 in a fresh and impactful way, they partnered with BPM to create a piece that would at once be infomative and inspiring. Check it out here:

Open publication - Free publishing - More kids

Churchplanters.com is an organization we've been working with since they started in 2005. Over the last few years CP has trained and influenced 1000's of church planters around the world. We are currently in pre-production for some incredibly powerful video vignettes that will be used throughout the event to help attendees see common issues in completely new and different ways. Check out the opening video we created for last year's event:

What can we do for you? You can reach us HERE.

Twitchange Making A Difference

Last week, from 9/15 - 9/22 @shaunking's TwitChange went live and raised $540,631.25 to help build a new orphanage for special needs kids in Haiti. With the help of Eva Longoria and hundreds of other celebrities they got the word out via Twitter and rocked the cause.

One of our clients, the LIVE Design Group graciously donated their services to help design the new campus and we at Big Picture Media were honored to create a short, simple video (shot and edited in about 3 hours) to help promote the cause and cast a little vision. In just a couple of days the video/post saw over 17,000 hits. We're super proud of all those who donated and want to thank Shaun, Eva and LIVE Design for leading the way. Incredible what the power of the web can produce. Check out the video here:

The Friday List

In an effort to create a space for all the random thoughts and interactions that don't really fit anywhere else, I'm going to start a weekly post appearing each Friday and just throw it all out there. In no particular order:

• Check out this amazing interactive infographic created by @stamen that chronicled in real time all the social media interaction surrounding the VMA's. Really cool idea and looks awesome as well.

• Twitter has created a new interface to compete with third party apps like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. It's very well done. Check it here.
• Today is my birthday. I'm 42 and dreaming bigger than ever.
• Next week is the Story conference in Chicago. It's sold out and looks to be amazing. I'm in town working with a client, but will be popping in and out as much as possible. Let's hook up! If you haven't already seen their website, do yourself a favor and be amazed.
• Saw 'Going The Distance' last week. Viewer warning, it's pretty rough in the language dept. But I have to say, 2 of the funniest scenes I've seen in a long time. Literally could not catch my breath for laughing. If you can get past the ridiculously coarse language, it's a pretty good story.
• If you missed it the last couple of weeks, our blog series 'What People Wish Their Pastors Knew About Church' has straight blown up. Check it out and let us know what you think.
• Check out Fast Companie's 2010 Masters of Design. Creatives knocking it out in the real world.
• Unless you're living under a rock you have had to of heard about @shaunking's latest venture TwitChange. Great use of social media to bring about change. Check out his CNN interview here.
• I'm sick and tired of hearing people say they got divorced because they married too young. As someone who got married at age 19, let me be the first to say that marriage is hard enough, and marrying that young did in fact make it exponentially harder. But so what. Married is married. Two wrongs don't make it right. They just make it more wrong. Suck it up, stick it out, and find the incredible satisfaction and reward that comes from honoring a commitment.
• If you're a Seth Godin fan, check out this talk called 'This Is Broken'. Classic Godin.
• If you are a church looking to build anytime soon, when you look for an architect do yourself a favor and check out LIVE Design Group. You will be blown away by how they can start designing your building on the screen right in front of you as you describe what you want. It is amazing. And Michael Trent (aka @churchbartender) works there now so you know they've got to be cool.
• Played around with Tumblr a little over the weekend. I so badly want to use that as my blog platform, but just can't quite get my hands around it as a practical daily tool. What am I missing?