The rise of social networks, smartphones, and consumer reviews means a lot more of data about “you” is now online. Maybe you created a Myspace account before Facebook came around. Maybe you want your blog to be the first thing that comes up when your name is typed.

Whatever scenario you find yourself in, Account Killer gives step by step instructions on how to clean up old accounts and data. The website also grades how hard it is to remove your data. Give it a try.

This cover photo example has more than 20% text, which is now against the rules on Facebook for Pages.

If you’re using a Timeline Cover photo, ads or sponsored stories on Facebook, you’ll want to take note of these new Facebook rules (^{Rule 1 III. B. and Rule 2 III. D.).}

Rule 1: Covers may not include: i. images with more than 20% text;

Rule 2: Ads and sponsored stories for News Feed that originate from Pages may not include images with more than 20% text (effective January 15th, 2013)

Rule 1 only applies to those who have Facebook Pages, not Facebook Profiles. Don’t know the difference? Read this. Since Pages and Profiles can now both run ads, Rule 2 applies to both.

While most Subscribers are not using Facebook Ads, many have created Timeline Cover photos that resemble their business cards. Text may not cover more than 20% of the image, measured programmatically by Facebook on a grid system. Facebook uses an algorithm that lays a grid of 25 blocks over an image, if the image has text in 6 or more blocks, it fails and Facebook rejects the image. Poor Jessica has 15 blocks or 60% of her image is considered text.

You could say – “I’m not a graphic designer and/or I don’t have time to count blocks”
You’d be right and Facebook is in the process of releasing a tool to help businesses measure the text percentage of Cover photos and ads. Until then, here’s a great resource on how to measure the text in your Timeline Covers and Ads.

Okay, so you’re on social media. But how are you doing? If you are not generating leads through social media, you might want to look at your social influence.

Social influence is the potential you have to affect one’s emotions, opinions, or behaviors – this can be measured online. Services such as Klout or PeerIndex track your mentions, re-tweets and several other metrics and then spit out a score. Jay Thompson (@PhxREguy) has a Klout score of 76 out of 100, while someone new to social media starts at 1. Jay’s tweets are much more likely to be re-tweeted or responded to than someone with a score of 1. The higher the score, the better.

Klout | Klout.com
The most popular Influence tracker to date is Klout. Klout connects to most social networks, pulls in your data and gives you a Klout score. The most powerful benefit of Klout is the Influence Matrix, which shows your influencer type. It is easy to get wrapped up in the score, but making sure you are influencing in a way that will generate leads is more important.

Click image to read smaller print

Once you are set up up on Klout, you will see yourself on this chart. The Dabbler, Observer and Explorer are less desirable places to be if you goal is lead generation.

PeerIndex | www.PeerIndex.com
PeerIndex doesn’t have an influence matrix as they are more concerned with the influence score.The Influence score is helpful for two reasons:

1. When comparing how you are doing to your competition or other real estate agents.

2. When measuring the progress of your efforts. Are you getting more or less influential?

One of the reasons we like PeerIndex is because of something fundamental we don’t like about Klout. Klout scores can be raised by non-influence actions, this makes Klout scores unnaturally high. Klout can be given away to a friend, instead of on an earned basis. Connecting a new network on Klout gains a higher score regardless of how active someone is on that new network.

PeerIndex scores are still based on influence only. We recommend PeerIndex for influence scoring but Klout for their Influence matrix.

Pinterest is a new social media website and you might be wondering if you should use it. We’ll give you one quick reason, because it is in the Wild West stage of acceptance. There are already established Facebook pages and communities gobbling up customers, but Pinterest is a new open playing field. Below you’ll find a recorded webinar about Pinterest as well as a newly recorded Twitter webinar.

Each week we hold live webinars, which later become recorded training videos. To find all of our other training videos visit our webinar page.

A little more about Pinterest
Pinterest is a social network where users share things they like on interest categorized boards. The site is visually driven, meaning content must have images to be successful. The video above is a practical introduction.

Did you know Facebook has more than one smartphone app? We’ve broken down the lesser known Facebook smartphones apps. Don’t forget to download the ARMLS APP while you’re in the app downloading mood.

The “Facebook Pages Manager” app is designed for Facebook users who have Facebook Business Pages. A Facebook Page is different than a Facebook Profile, you can learn the difference here. Many Subscribers are using Pages rather than Profiles to market their real estate services.

This app makes it easy to see what’s happening on your Page, as it separates out your personal Profile from your Pages. This app is only available to iPhone/iPad users at this moment and can be downloaded via the App Store for free.

“Facebook Messenger” is an iPhone/Android app that allows you to send Instant messages and standard messages to your Facebook friends. While the standard Facebook app has messaging capabilities, Facebook Messenger is for serious message senders. This app also has some nice location features and the ability to send photos to other users. This app is also free.

“Facebook Camera” is a photo sharing app that was released in late May. It is designed to provide a better photo sharing and viewing experience. Unlike the standard Facebook app, you can share multiple photos at once.

While it is unconfirmed, you can expect Instagram integration in the future. In fact, it is fair to say that Facebook Camera is a lesser executed copy of Instagram as it does have filters you can apply to photos. This app works on iPhone/iPad only, it’s also free.