What is LinkedIn? If you are in business - listen up! LinkedIn is a professional networking site that allows, updates, resumes, portfolios, job postings and business pages.

It seems to be that Google+ pages are becoming more important to businesses. Since the creation of Google+, the number of business pages has grown and there seems to be more businesses gravitating towards the new social hub. Some social media experts made comments early on that Google was "trying too hard to be like Facebook" and wanting to trump the social media giant with a new wave of socializing. Today, Google+ is a great way for people to find your business via Google Places AND another SEO result! 

With all Facebook's changes to the timeline, people's profiles, cover photos, ads and pages - there is so much to learn once those changes take effect. Facebook pages have the ability to reach hundreds or thousands of people, depending on how well you promote the page and publish content that people will want to know. There are several ways to create a promoted post - either from the Facebook page itself or from the ads dashboard.  

When you are creating a page that will be shared on Facebook you need to use the Facebook Open Graph standards html meta tags and "hint" your page with images that Facebook will know to use on a wall post. Here is an example of a post without good html references to show the correct image when your new content get viral attention. 

While attempting to merge two Facebook pages for a client, we came across a major issue - the pages cannot be merged the way we wanted them to be. We created a page for their new location, wanted to maintain the same audience from the previous business since the two were coming together as one. After requesting the pages to be merged, we noticed that there are more rules for the merging of two like pages. Facebook provides a simple "merging pages" page, but there is no indication that further approval would need to be taken. 

When it comes to reviews, sometimes they can make or break your business. The best way to prevent reviews from "breaking" your business is by responding to them properly. It is never ever a good idea to delete a review, no matter how bad it is. Always take the higher road and apologize for any inconvenience, ask for contact information, offer them something that will bring them back into your business and then personally take care of the problem. All of these review sites give you the option to respond to reviews. I highly recommend that you take the opportunity to interact with your travelers and reviewers. It could be the difference between a one time customer and a lifetime customer. 

What is ySocial? Here at Thrive, we realized that YMCAs have a very unique position on Facebook and Twitter. Just like any organization, YMCAs want their members to know what is going on at each location, fundraisers and events, pool closings, fitness classes etc. Since the booming growth of social media, alerting members of this information has become much easier. 

Social media is a constantly growing platform. As soon as a new social app or site catches attention, it spreads like wildfire - the whole point of social media. The newest fad is Vine. What is Vine? Twitter launched the video-sharing app, Vine, designed to allow users to create a short film of 6 seconds. Each short video runs on a loop, functioning much like an Instagram feed, showing friends and their videos.

Since the creation of Google+ pages, companies are having to claim their location, company etc. These pages contain location information, phone numbers and emails for contact. Some companies are even finding that the information on the Google+ pages that they have not created themselves, have the wrong information on them. 

"Can I combine two Facebook pages?" We recently had a client ask this question. They had two different Facebook pages, one that had been started a few years ago that management no longer had access to and had not been posting information in almost a year. They had created a new page, but were not able to redirect all of their followers away from that page to view the new one with the correct information. The client had already searched online for the instructions but could not figure out how to combine the two. This is where we came in to help. We also figured that many clients we currently have might also be wondering the same thing.