Why your company should switch to Facebook Timeline!

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Megan Refner | Leave a comment

Timeline for Business Pages will be switching over very soon! In fact, they will be switching on March 30th whether you like it or not.

Notoriously, when Facebook rolls out with something new and different, most people grumble and try to ignore rather than embrace the change. We’re here to tell you that it’s ok to embrace the change; in fact, we encourage you to do so!

Timeline for Facebook business pages is not only a good thing, it is a great thing! Now, businesses can truly outline their company history in such a way that is beneficial and fun. Before, business pages on Facebook were not given a lot of opportunity to completely highlight the business in such a way that puts everything great about your company in front of your customers. But now, with Timeline, you can do exactly that.

Greystone has officially adopted the change to our own Facebook page and we want to help you do the same with yours.

What’s so great about Timeline?

With the upgrade to Timeline, there several new things available to you and your business that has never been an option. Here are a few things:

Profile Image: This is really not anything new except now there are 2 different images that represent your company, rather than just one in the old version. Create a profile image that is just your logo – this will also be used to display as a thumbnail when appearing in your fans’ News Feed. This image is 180 x180 pixels and will resize to 32 x 32 pixels as a thumbnail image (See below).

Cover Photo: You get 851 x 315 pixels of image space to display your brand and what you do in an image. There are guidelines on what you can and cannot display, but this gives opportunity to businesses that Facebook has never previously given. Now you can really make a statement on your page! Change this up every once in a while to keep your Facebook page looking fresh (See below).

Larger Images: Images speak a 1,000 words – or somewhere around there. Now Facebook can speak thousands even millions of words now that pictures uploaded to your wall or albums have more room to display. Likewise, videos will also have more room for their display (See below).

Pinning Posts: This is not like pinning for Pinterest, but rather it’s a way to display and highlight a post to the top of your page for 7 days, highlighting particular posts so that your fans to notice what’s important to your business (See below).

Star/Highlight Stories and Posts: Want to highlight a particular post (past, present and future) on your timeline? Now you can, and best of all, these highlights will span 100% of the width of your page. When fans scroll through the timeline, these will instantly stand out, causing one to take notice of the story (See below).

Milestones: Set milestones to define your key moments over time. Examples of milestones include reaching a certain number of fans, opening a new store or location, winning an award, etc. The best part, you can go back in time and add these milestones to create the history of your company – highlighting the things that are important for your company (See below).

We highly recommend switching over as soon as possible so you have complete control of the conversion and you can show your fans that you are keeping up with all the latest trends in social media. Need help with your Facebook Timeline? Let us know…we’re here to help you!

Want to see our own Facebook Timeline page? Stop on by – www.facebook.com/GreystoneTech.

We want to hear from you – what do you like about Facebook Timeline for your business?

DailyMile.com

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Gary Aronhalt | Leave a comment

A couple of years ago, in the year that I turned 40, I wanted to have a significant, life-changing experience, so I decided to begin training for a marathon… which was funny, being as how I’d never been a regular runner.

Never, ever. Not. At. All.

But, something “clicked” for me as I began pursuing that goal, and I fell in love with it all: the training, the nutrition, the strategy, the planning, the experience of adding on miles, and ultimately working through a couple of injuries to finally complete my first marathon in 2010 in Kansas City.

Along the way, technology has played an important role in my training. There’s a shocking diversity of gizmos and gadgets available for the gear-nerds among us (who knew one needed so much gear to just go run?), and I’ve invested in a few things, myself. But recently, I’ve discovered a web site that I’m really excited about, www.dailymile.com, which can act as a “home base” for your exercise life, whether you’re a runner, walker, cyclist, or whatever.

Dailymile.com is essentially a specialized interest social networking site that also integrates well with existing, broader-interest social sites like Twitter and Facebook. You can create maps of your favorite “routes” and save them to your profile, share them with others. You can also search the community for new and interesting routes that maybe you’d never considered. From those routes, you can save your workouts, and have some hard data to measure your progress. And you find camaraderie and encouragement by sharing your exercising experiences with others who are going through the same experiences on the sites numerous forums. Dailymile also integrates with a couple of popular running/ exercise apps for iPhone and Android systems, making it possible to upload your routes directly from your smart phone.

There are other sites out there for running and exercise, but dailymile.com brings many features together in an intuitive, easy to navigate and aesthetically pleasing package. Check it out, add me as a friend (Gary Aronhalt, Englewood, CO) and maybe I’ll see you out on the trails!

So You Want a Verizon iPhone…

Posted on March 8, 2011 by gtg | Leave a comment

You may remember our announcement in January rejoicing with the rest of America that Verizon now carries the iPhone! Well it turns out that the nation’s largest carrier might have nailed their own foot to the floor. In 2008, Verizon accepted the contingencies that were attached to the wireless spectrum offered by the FCC in which they spent $4.7BIL. Their plan was to continue building out their 4G network, but here’s where the nail comes into play. This spectrum must be used with “open access.” This mean that the carrier is required to allow the use of any hardware or software on the mobile device. Our dear friends at Google requested that the 700Mhz spectrum remain open access as to not hamper business. Google was in the bidding war with Verizon. Their plan was to create an open network that would allow a consumer to buy any phone that met open standards with no interference by a carrier. Verizon fought this but did not win. While Verizon did win the bidding war, Google’s open access request was also honored. This decision eliminates the use of the iPhone which is clearly locked down by Apple’s design and which runs applications only approved by Apple.

In the meantime, Verizon continues to offer its LTE network (a form of 4G) that currently only supports Android phones. While AT&T had their exclusive contract with Apple, this network move allowed Verizon to buddy up with Google. So while the two giants have differing opinions on what “open access” means, Verizon users will have to get their iPhones without 4G for the foreseeable future. Apple is known for maintaining control over their products. So don’t expect them to change their hardware just for Verizon until they can figure out their 4G network issues.

[Photo source]

Greystone Expands Through Two Acquisitions

Posted on March 7, 2011 by gtg | Leave a comment

Clients, Associates, and Friends,

As the first part of this new year flies by, I want to update you on the recent happenings at Greystone. 2010 was a big year for us as we opened our Northern Colorado office and experienced unprecedented growth with our Denver Metro client base. With your help we continued our pursuit of the perfect client experience and learned a lot through our experiences – both successful and challenging.

2011 is starting with a bang. We are working to execute our new team-based service structure in both our Denver and Fort Collins offices and getting exciting feedback. We are also excited to announce that we have added to our service capabilities by acquiring two separate companies, SimplicITy Tech and Caddis Technologies. Each company brings a unique advantage to our service offerings.

SimplicITy Tech

We were introduced to SimplicITy Tech shortly after opening our Fort Collins office. SimplicITY offered basic IT services with a very similar focus on the customer service that seems to be lacking in our industry. The fundamental aspects of their business matched ours. We are excited to bring both their staff and clients on board. The addition has allowed us to increase our presence and focus in Northern Colorado while increasing the resources dedicated to our Northern Colorado clients.

Caddis Technologies

The acquisition of Caddis Technologies, a web services firm, is a move toward the future of small business technology management. Caddis provided web design, search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) management, and advanced, custom development. Our ties to Caddis go back almost 15 years and as web services have become and more and more integrated with small business IT we found a tremendous opportunity to offer comprehensive IT and web services under one roof. The transition is made easy by Caddis’ and Greystone’s shared focus on strategic services geared toward the small business as well as making customer experience the number one priority.

We have merged our existing web development focus with Caddis’ broad and excellent service offerings and created Greystone Web Services (link to www.greystonewebservices.com). Caddis’ President, Derrick Kuhn, is the managing partner of Greystone Web and their service team remains onboard as the drive behind the excellent reputation they bring to Greystone. Along with being able to offer web development, search marketing, and web site management services, the Caddis team will improve our ability to explore, implement, and develop cloud-based solutions for our Managed IT clients.

Visit us at www.greystonewebservices.com

Thank you for being part of the Greystone family. We are excited to see what the coming year will bring. If you have any questions please contact us. We love hearing from you.

Regards

Peter Melby

Greystone Expands Through Two Acquisitions

Posted on March 3, 2011 by gtg | Leave a comment

Clients, Associates, and Friends,

SimplicITy Tech

Caddis Technologies

We have merged our existing web development focus with Caddis’ broad and excellent service offerings and created Greystone Web Services. Caddis’ President, Derrick Kuhn, is the managing partner of Greystone Web and their service team remains onboard as the drive behind the excellent reputation they bring to Greystone. Along with being able to offer web development, search marketing, and web site management services, the Caddis team will improve our ability to explore, implement, and develop cloud-based solutions for our Managed IT clients.

Visit our Greystone Web Services site here.

Thank you for being part of the Greystone family. We are excited to see what the coming year will bring. If you have any questions please contact us. We love hearing from you.

Regards,

Peter Melby