Twitter on Thursday debuted a dramatically different new user interface for all versions of the micro-blogging service: The company will be rolling out totally new versions of the desktop website, mobile website, native mobile apps, and Tweetdeck to its more than 100 million users over the next few weeks.

The new design gives Twitter users the ability to navigate the service through four basic methods: “Home,” “connect,” “discover,” and “activities.”

Added features, simpler navigation

Though during the launch event at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, CEO Dick Costolo and founder Jack Dorsey repeatedly said that the redesign was aimed at making the Twitter experience “simpler,” the new version of the site is in many ways richer and more complex than ever.

That’s not meant to sound like a negative thing: The new UI (User Interface) makes it much easier to find and access context and content around each Tweet, as well as find new Twitter accounts to follow that are relevant to you. The search capabilities are now navigable even for people who don’t know what a “hashtag” is. In essence, the new version of Twitter is stickier than ever, and accessible to a wider group of people — both qualities that the company has long been looking to enhance.

The Discover tab on Twitter

Twitter as news source

The redesign also positions Twitter as an accessible source for news in a way that it hasn’t done before. The site’s new “discover” tab may be the most important element of the redesign as it presents the most relevant, newsy content on Twitter in a way that’s personalized to each user.

This could solve the problem that many people see with Twitter: They don’t use the site because they “don’t have anything to say.” Now, Twitter is positioning itself as a valuable service for everyone, whether they actively contribute content to the site or not.

“I think we’ll see a growing number of users who come to Twitter every day and don’t Tweet,” CEO Dick Costolo said to a group of reporters after the official launch event finished.

Brand Pages

Better for brands — and revenue

Brands can have a elevated place in the new Twitter design, which makes sense given the company’s necessary push for revenue: At six years old, Twitter now has 700 employees and has taken on more than $1 billion in venture capital. The redesign gives brands, celebrities and businesses “enhanced” profile pages. At launch, only a select group has access to these pages — American Express and The Red Cross are among them — but eventually they will be available to any business. Enhanced brand pages are free, but ostensibly they will make companies see how many of their customers are using Twitter and could entice them to buy ads on the site.

In all, it’s a very smart move for Twitter. For months, I’ve heard people grumble with frustration about Twitter’s user experience basically staying the same for so long. “They have scores of great engineers, heaps of money, millions of users. What in the world are they doing over there?” Now we have the answer, and in general it’s looking pretty good.

Here's what new Twitter looks like:

[Show as slideshow]

Small business social media starts with making the decision to be part of the conversation. Not as easy or cut and dried a decision as one may think. What are the factors involved in this process? The pros and cons?

Pros:

• Potential to raise website page rank
• Potential to find new customers or clients
• Potential to make new business connections
• Potential to reach current customer base with new products or services
• Potential to get customers talking about me or my company
• Potential to find out what you are not offering to your customers that they want
• Potential to have your own PR department consisting of your customers
• Potential to get great reviews from happy customers
• Potential to feel important because you have 15 followers! (Joking)

Cons:

• Time consuming
• Energy consuming
• Resource consuming
• Costly
• Don’t know what to say
• Don’t know where to start
• Don’t have any customers or clients to help you get started

The current trend in search engines is to use tweets and status updates, shares and reviews about you or your website as a piece of how they rank your site. So for no other reason, because of this you need to have at least a minimal social media presence. Facebook Business Page, Twitter account, Linked In, Yelp, Google Places and a YouTube channel. There are over 400 social media sites out there, but these are the 6 you should start with. Privacy is a concern, but you control what is seen and accessed, not visitors. Google and Bing utilize the share button as a strong indicator that people view you or your site as an authoritative site. Sharing is the highest form of social media flattery followed closely by reviews and links.

Don’t get lost in the hype over how well social media helps big business. Big business throws hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars into their PR campaigns of which social media is a part. You don’t have that kind of budget and therefore all the great white papers on and case studies of big business success in social media just doesn’t apply to you. Focus instead on what you can do locally to effect a positive return on investment (ROI).

Local Social Media is a task that can consume time and energy of small business owners and be a drain on their budgets if not managed well. Just like any other small business task, managing is the key to success. So manage it, don’t let it manage you.

Start with picking someone in your company who will handle the day-to-day social media activities, who will spend 15 minutes every day to either tweet something on Twitter, or retweet something, post a status update on Facebook or check the insights and activity. It doesn’t have to be you, the business owner. I recommend to my clients that they have someone else do the basics and leave the relationship building to themselves. Once you have established who, decide when. Facebook marketers are notorious for posting multiple times a day and losing their audience. Twitter feeds can and often are more than once a day without being annoying, while Linked In may be once a week or even every two weeks. Here is how we set up our clients:

LinkedIn - Professional network for professionals and business owners! Once a week unless involved in an ongoing discussion that has benefits for your company.

Facebook - Employee when posting general info, owner when discussing more detailed things. Remember if you aren’t the one posting let your followers and fans know that someone else is. Never let them think it is you if it isn’t. Once a week can be enough as long as your fans know what day and what time they can expect your update.

Twitter - General Tweets for the company can be done by an employee on the Business Page, but we suggest that the Twitter page name be the company name with the profile picture and bio being that of the owner. And the owner should use Twitter to build relationships with other business people not so much as a customer relations tool. Twitter is very personal and should be handled like you are just standing around the office water cooler shooting the breeze, not as a sell, sell, sell site.

YouTube - Videos about the product or service you offer. When appropriate the owner should at least narrate, but this can be delegated to an employee.

Yelp, Google and other “places” sites where people can review. Employee level work, mainly in setting up the site.

The next step once you have delegated who does what is to determine which accounts you need. We set up 6 main accounts for clients and let them choose which others might work for them with our thoughts on each.

Setting up each site can be a little cumbersome and time consuming but well worth it.

Set daily tasks for Twitter, Weekly for Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. Set 30 day, 90 day and 120 day goals for what you want accomplished in those time frames. Don’t worry about ROI like you do with conventional marketing and advertising. ROI in small business social media is rarely a dollar for dollar return but more likely the building of solid long term relationships that turn into referrals.

A daily task goal for Twitter may be just following others in your field. Listening to their conversations and where appropriate, join in.

Weekly for Twitter may be to have added 25 new followers per week.

Monthly might be getting an equal number of followers to follow you back.

Facebook should be a planned out weekly, monthly and quarterly marketing campaign that includes your fans and customers thoughts and ideas.

LinkedIn starts with building on current connections and strengthening them. Who do you know and who do you want to know?

Small business social media should be treated like any other aspect of your business. Manage it, review it but most of all be consistent. Don’t open an account and then forget about it. You didn’t open your store and then forget to reorder inventory. Stay on top of it and it will over time – 6 to 12 months – pay off.

Although there is a multitude of removal tools available to remove  malware, virus and spyware, one of the top scanners is MalwareBytes. The software comes in two versions - Free version and Paid version, and is available on their website - www.malwarebytes.org.

To download free version, visit www.malwarebytes.org and click Download Now button.

To watch an instructional video on how to remove malware, virus or spyware, please visit the link below:

http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free

If you are experiencing difficulty downloading and installing this software, please post a comment below.

The Real Vancouver is a project that came out of the "Post Riot Clean-up - Let's Help Vancouver" Social Marketing campaign Gillster Inc initiated to get volunteers to help clean up downtown streets on June 16th, 2011, day after the horrible riot that took place in Vancouver, BC. We were able to get over 19,000 fans, over 3.8 million page views, and over 58,000 user interactions. We were the driving force behind making #thisismyvancouver hastag popular.

The Real Vancouver website was setup to show the world what the Real Vancouverites are like, and to thank the Heroes who stood up against rioters, volunteers who helped clean, and the first responders (including Vancouver Police, RCMP, Fire department, BC Ambulance Service, Vancouver Engineering, E-Comm 911 operators, St. Paul's hospital, and VGH).

 Visit Website

Statistics and demographics from "Post Riot Clean-up - Let's Help Vancouver" Facebook page: