Facebook differs from many types of online communities in that it focuses on the individual rather than on the community as a whole. One can locate forums on just about any topic in the world, but their focus is on the community that shares interest in the topic covered. Individuals may post comments on posts made by other authors that will be seen by all users. Facebook allows one to select whether comments will be open to the general public or just to a small group of friends. This is a more individual centered approach than that taken by community forums.

Users may create their own unique networks of friends and/or relatives that may view their profiles and share links or personal data with them. In addition, users may communicate directly through email and/or online chat sessions via the site. The true definition of social networking on Facebook is interacting with this group or groups of friends online through the services offered by the site.

Many businesses have created their own profiles on this site that allow them to reach a larger audience than they might otherwise. The reason for this is that they attract individuals whose stated interests coincide with their content. These individuals have the ability to “Like” such pages, meaning that they place social bookmarks to the pages that are then shared with members of their own personal networks, making the sites more visible than they might be if relying solely on search engine results to get them into the public eye.

A wide range of personal blogs that might not ever achieve widespread readership are brought to the front in the same manner. Individuals find these blogs and become interested in their content.

These people bookmark the blogs and share the links with friends they think might share their interest. This has several benefits for the bloggers, including creating a potential way to make money from writing their own blogs.

Social networking on Facebook takes many different forms. The primary form lies in the creation of individual networks of friends with which one can communicate. Each individual in the network has his/her own network, meaning that information can be shared and expanded exponentially. Friends may communicate with one another easily as well as posting content they wish to share with other members of their network such as social bookmarks and messages about what is currently happening in their lives. Their friends have the ability to comment on their postings publicly or privately.

Being a member of a social network helps individuals gather more news on topics they find relevant than they might be able to do using search engines alone. This means that members of such sites are often more well informed about topics of interest than those who do not participate in such groups.

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Facebook has over 500 million active users and if you have a local business, the majority of people within your local area will have a Facebook account.  Having a fanpage is free advertising for you and it’s a great way to keep in touch with your customers, using the platform that they are using regularly.  If you are looking to expand your business into new markets and areas then having a fanpage can help you do this too.  Facebook by it’s nature encourages viral marketing, which means your information is easily shared with others which is even more appealing.

You can easily link your Facebook fanpage to your website, as well as your website to your fanpage and cross promote each other.  Facebook makes it very easy to connect the two, allowing your website visitors to join your fanpage from your website as well as fans from your fanpage to click through to your website.

In order to become a fan of your fanpage they need to “like” your page.  This is a little button on the top of your fanpage with the word like on it.  That triggers Facebook to start showing the content that you create on your wall to show up on your new fans newsfeed.  Facebook gives this information the opportunity to go viral very easily.  What this means is that when it appears on your fans newsfeed they can “like” the information you have just shared, which then lets all their friends see that they’ve liked your status.  Even better is when a fan shares your status.  Sharing your status puts your information on their wall so that their friends can see it in it’s entirety. 

Like many other business owners you may just be using Facebook for personal use and don’t want to mix your business life with your personal one.  That’s great because this is the whole point of Facebook fanpages.  Having a fanpage allows you to post comments and network as your business rather than with your personal account.

With a Facebook fanpage you can install different applications to help you interact with your fans.  You can encourage your fans to leave comments or testimonials for others to see, create events, competitions, give updated information, start discussions, share photos and videos, import your blog posts, the list is endless.  Also for the more technical amongst you, you can create a “reveal tab” which is a hidden tab within your fanpage.  The reveal tab is only visible to people who have liked your page.  It’s a great way to incentivize people to like your page because behind your reveal tab you can have links to free reports or videos, discount codes, fan only competitions etc.

Facebook fanpages are the online version of word of mouth advertising.  Hopefully you don’t need anymore reasons why you need a Facebook fanpage and get started with yours today.

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Social media sites are places on the internet where users create the content and it changes all the time. YouTube is one example. On this site, users are able to upload videos of activities they participate in, news stories they witness, and more. As soon as the videos are uploaded, they are available for viewing by other users.

FaceBook is another such site. Here, users can create online profiles, upload photos, and share information with friends all around the world. Users can even make friends with people located all the way around the world and share information with them through their friend pages.

Twitter is also considered a social media site. On this site, users are asked the question, “What are you doing right now?” They may answer in any fashion they wish, though responses are limited to only 140 characters, including spaces. Other individuals may choose follow a person on Twitter and be able to view any of that person’s posts, called “Tweets.”

Flickr is a social site that allows individuals to upload photos and share them with other users.

In addition to the examples mentioned, the internet contains thousands of forums where people with similar hobbies, jobs, tastes, and other traits can visit and post discussions of these interests. Other users have the option of making a direct reply or posting a comment on the post and sharing this other readers as well.

Users also have the option of creating Blogs, user generated sites where an individual can compose and write his/her own content about any subject. The content of these entries immediately becomes searchable on the internet and can be viewed by anyone with access and an interest in the topic of the content.

Social media sites were created for the use of individual users who wished to share information. More and more businesses are finding that these sites are useful tools for them to use in raising product awareness. They can use these sites to generate trust in their opinions and expertise. However, directly trying to push a person to buy a particular item does not work on these sites and could get a business banned from access. Consumers are usually repelled by such overt advertising techniques.

The most important thing you need to know about social media sites is that 100 percent of the content is generated by users of the site. This content is fluid in that it can be edited or changed at any time by anyone. These sites allow individuals to reach a worldwide audience and to interact with others located anywhere in the world, often in real time conversations.

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Social Bookmarking can help you with that. As part of our network of sites and social bookmarking accounts, we can help you gain more traffic.

To get you started, we are offering FREE Social Bookmarking until end of November 2011. Some of the sites we will bookmark you with are…

Social Bookmarking is exactly that… social. It gets people talking about you / your brand / your company, plus, the search engines absolutely love social bookmarking sites.

Please support my Movember charity challenge

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Movember – The month formerly known as November

The men in moustaches are taking over!

All around you, men are growing moustaches for charity. Ok, it’s not exactly a difficult challenge, but the reason behind is very serious.

During November each year, Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches on thousands of men’s faces in the UK and around the world. The aim of which is to raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men.

Some statistics for you…

• The rate of cancer diagnoses in men is considerably higher than the rate in women.
• In every 100,000 men there will be 417 cases diagnosed, compared to 366 cases per 100,000 females.
• Evidence suggests that about a third (39%) of 12 common cancers in the UK could be prevented through diet, physical activity and body weight.
• 1 in 9 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime.
• In 2008 37,051 new cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed and 10,168 men died.
• Testicular cancer in the UK affects younger men between the ages of 20 and 50. 1,990 men were diagnosed with the disease in 2007.

I will be joining the army of men across the country in an effort to raise these much needed funds and am campaigning to raise as much money as possible. Even though you may not know me, you may wish to still donate to this very worthy cause. Please visit my Movember page at http://www.mobro.co/rogermayne in order to leave your donation, and I will respond to each and every contributor.

Whilst campaigning for sponsorship, I was sent the following letter. The author would like to remain anonymous, but it highlights the effects of prostate cancer.

Written by “The Idiot”

Hi Guys,

Over the past 15 months I have made a point of talking about Prostate Cancer with as many blokes as possible. Although most will say they are aware of the potential problem, some even have known of friends who have suffered and died, very few (none) have actually done anything to ensure they are not/will not be victims’

I sincerely hope the following real life experience will make every one of you get down the doctors for a PSA blood test. Yes that is all it takes a simple blood test not even the greased finger up the jacksy. The average PSA is 4 when I finally stopped being a bloody idiot and got tested mine was an alarm bell ringing 26.

Prostate Cancer is one of the easiest to diagnose and treat yet it (2008 figures) kills 10,168 men it that year, that’s 12% of all male cancers deaths and is only 2nd to lung cancer. Do the sums and that is one bloke dying every hour.

The main reason for the high mortality rate being that so many blokes are complete idiots (like myself) and don’t take note/do something at the first warning signs.

What is the Prostate –?
It is a walnut sized thing that the pee tube from the bladder passes through to exit at the willy. The two sperm tubes from the balls also join the pee tube in the prostate (sorry about the technical jargon). You could call it the Clapham Junction for all routes to the willy.

What are the warning signs-?
Loss of pressure when having a pee
Frequent need to have a pee
Only being able to manage a dribble each time – I became over a period of 12 months a dab hand at jumping into the back of the cab and having to have a dribble into a bottle between jobs, sometime twice an hour.
Reduced ability to ejaculate or not being able to ejaculate. I blamed the wife for this one and how wrong was I.

Well after some 18 months of ignoring all the warning signs – doing that blokish thing and just finding ways round the problem to compensate for the bloody obvious. It all came to a climax when walking back to the cab after having a coffee with my accountant (we all have to see them once a year) the front of my jeans suddenly became quite warm and a darker shade than normal. On arriving home my wife (a quiet person by nature) went bloody ballistic and in no uncertain terms told me to “get down the doctors and get myself sorted out.

Next day she went of to work I now had two choices, make that appointment or spend the whole day (in-between umpteen visits to the toilet) removing every ornament (potential missile) to the garden shed.

Off to the docs I went and suddenly found myself caught up in the fantastic machine that is our National Health Service. Had an urgent blood test, appointment with a consultant at East Surrey Hospital within days and the operation called a TURP a few days later.

It turned out it was not a case of not being able to hold me water but that I could hold it better than most. My prostate had squeezed my pee tube to a virtual closure so my bladder had to be full to bursting (which it came very close to doing) before a dribble could get passed.

The TURP in short is drilling a bigger hole through the prostate so I can now pee like a horse and go several hours without needing the loo. However it did bugger up the plumbing from the testicles a bit. After a week or so I just had to try the ejaculation stuff out. Well it responded all the sensations were there and so was that final relief satisfaction. But no ejaculation as it all back flushed up into the bladder, hey ho sex without the mess could save a fortune on boxes of tissues.

How much of an idiot was I?

Due to my own stupidity the cancer had burst out of the prostate and into the lymph nodes below so now I have been on female hormone implants for 14 months. That’s chemical castration (so no tissues required) menopausal hot flushes (still waiting for that female ability to multitask – think it is a myth). Due to start radio therapy on the 18th that’s then every day Mon-Fri for two months.

I can only blame myself for being so stupid WHO are you going to blame as some 50% of blokes will experience some form of prostate problem.

I do not want to receive any sympathy replies; I am quite capable of crying in my own beer. What I would really like is to hear that every male member has booked that blood test. Don’t be a bloody idiot.

BTW at no time did I experience (after the trip to the docs) any pain so relax it may be a tender and much loved part of you so take care of it.

The aim of Movember is to raise awareness, and I sincerely hope that this letter above does exactly that. I’m sure that you will encounter a “MoBro” or “MoSista” this month, which is great, but if you’d like to donate, please visit my Movember page and support everyone involved.

Thank you.

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The first step lies in building an online profile that is interesting. One’s goal should be to establish himself/herself as an expert in his/her chosen field. This can be done through a series of steps such as posting comments on blogs that relate to that field. Making connections with movers and shakers in the field of interest can lead to invitations to guest post on their blogs or websites. Extending the same invitations to them to post one your blog or website can lend their credibility to your brand.

If one does not already have one, creating a blog is one excellent method of establishing a brand. Social media sites can be used to direct traffic to the blog if one takes the proper approach. It is important to remember that social networking sites are created for the purpose of creating friendships and groups that share common interests. Any messages that promote one’s particular brand should not take on a self aggrandizing tone.

Following the posts of other experts in your field can create opportunities for educated discourse. If you disagree with something said in one of these blog posts, state your disagreement in a comment on the blog. Do so with a respectful tone that shows that you recognize that person’s expertise by outlining the reasons for your disagreement without stating that the person is wrong. After all, there are many times when people disagree without either one being completely wrong or right.

Engage in conversations with these experts that are open to public viewing. This is especially important if they are already well known and you are just beginning to create a personal brand.

Make posts on social media sites that tell people about you and your brand in an informative and interesting way. It is important to avoid making these posts sound like advertisements. People become resistant when they feel as if they are being pushed into something.

One thing that many business people fail to do that can prove invaluable when trying to establish a network of connections is searching the internet for content that will be interesting to those whose attention one is trying to attract. Pass this information along, even if it means driving traffic to someone else’s website. If you are seen as a source of valuable information, the information you provide about your personal brand will take on its own value.

Using social media to establish your brand can lead to success at a much faster pace than any other method of getting the message out. It also creates a self perpetuating stream of targeted leads of a quality that one would be hard pressed to find using any other media.

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The reason why being relaxed and calm is taught in Aikido practice is because at the heart of its principles of spirituality and philosophy, Aikido masters and instructors believe that the ki or ch’i or energy can only truly flow in its complete potential energy when one is relaxed. It is in this relaxed state that ki flows freely and smoothly. This philosophy that ki is a force that is very strong and fundamental.

It is believed to be superior to muscle and physical strength, which sometimes hinders the ki. In fact, in Aikido, instead of muscle and strength building, flexibility and endurance is part of the Aikido martial art training. Now, it said that to be able to truly harness the power of the ki, it must be allowed to flow. It can only flow properly within us when we are in a relaxed state. The relaxed state cannot be built like muscles through exercise. A spiritual journey must be taken upon by an Aikido student to be able to achieve the state of calm and peace that is vital in combat.

In constant defense and fear, we tend to be too busy to concentrate and are easily distracted. Aikido stresses this fact and so it teaches its students to remain calm in the face of an assault. Remaining calm puts an advantage over the assailant because you will not be caught of guard and unaware and therefore will not be toppled over or thrown. More advanced techniques teach students not only to fall properly, but also to be able to rebound and plant a counter attack as one rises from a fall.

Beyond combat and the dojo however, Aikido masters and instructors cultivate the development of spirituality and character within Aikido students so that they can apply Aikido principles everyday in life. True understanding of Aikido simultaneously promotes better performance in practice combats as well as in performance in everyday life.

Aikido everyday in life is akin to having an unshakable peace and calm that enables you to have the strength needed to withstand even the toughest of life’s challenges. Remember that Aikido teaches students about flexibility, adaptability, calm and clarity. All these are useful tools in dealing with life, so say Aikido practitioners.

Some Aikido martial artists tend to relate Aikido combat principles to everyday life like work, play and personal relationships. This results in a true oneness in the practice of Aikido everyday in life. In Aikido training, there is such a thing as uke and nage. One cannot exist without the other. Uke makes an assault on nage and consequently is the receiver of the Aikido technique which nage uses to neutralize uke’s attack energy with. In training using uke and nage, one will be able to get better in Aikido techniques by learning from each other and gaining each others strengths and battling each others weaknesses together.

If this is something that you want to cultivate in your life then Aikido everyday in life is something that you might want to take up and learn.

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This is great news. The restaurant burnt down some time ago, but the food there was fantastic. Looking forward to the grand relaunch!

The Ceylon Tavern offers delicious Sri Lankan cuisine, and makes for a change from Indan or Chinese restaurants.

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When beginning an abdominal workout routine, for most people the goal is simple: a flatter stomach. While a smooth, flat stomach looks good, it is less of an accomplishment if the stomach muscles have not gained any strength. In addition to slimming down around the outer abdominals, it is also important to build strength in the core abdominals. Below are some stomach exercises that work out the core to build strong muscles throughout the abdomen. As with any workout routine, be sure to consult a professional before beginning and always warm up properly to avoid injury.
     
Tone Your Torso
Begin this stomach exercise on all fours, knees and hands on the floor. Keep your stomach pulled in and extend your left arm out in front of you. Keep this arm outstretched as you extend your right leg out behind you. Switch arms and legs, and repeat for an entire set. Take particular care not to let your pelvis sway out of position.
     
Butt Burner
You will need to lie on your back for this exercise. Use a mat or towel to cushion your spine. Bend your knees so your feet are flat on the floor, and position your arms at your sides. Squeeze your buttocks as you lift your pelvis off the floor. Keep the rest of your body in line. Raise your pelvis to about forty-five degrees, so your upper body from your head to your knees makes a straight, flat ramp. Hold this for three to five seconds before slowly lowering your pelvis back to the floor. Repeat for an entire set.
     
Crunchless Crunch
This stomach exercise is fairly simple in theory but can be fairly difficult to perform. Essentially, it involves trying to pull the belly button in towards the spine. This can be tricky, as it involves using muscles which you may not be used to activating. To start, either lie or on your stomach or kneel. You might want to try both ways and see which helps you feel the exercise better. Relax your body as much as possible, then try to use only the lower abdominals to move your belly button toward your spine. Hold for ten seconds. If this feels easy, hold for a longer period. The goal is to hold the contraction until you either cannot feel it, or you feel other muscles working harder than the transverse abdominus. When you feel this, let the contraction out.
     
Scissor Kicks
This stomach exercise also requires lying on the floor. Position your hands under your butt, keeping your back pressed against the floor. Slowly raise one leg to a height of about ten inches, then slowly lower it back to the floor. As your lower one leg, raise the other. Repeat this motion for an entire set. Maintaining control throughout is important, not allowing momentum to get the better of you. Your upper body should remain on the floor through the entire move.
     
These are just a few of all the strength building stomach exercises out there. If you are looking to build strength in your midsection, look for any exercise that works your core, especially the transverse abdominal muscles. Many components of Pilates are good for this also.

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It seems that everywhere we turn these days, we hear about social media. It seems to be a buzz word all across the internet. Many people are confused about just what the term means. Therefore, we are going to attempt to answer the question, “What is social media?”

The easiest method of getting a grasp on the question is to contrast it with what has come to be known as industrial media. Understanding the differences will help to make the answer more clear.

Industrial media consists of elements such as television, magazines and newspapers, books, and internet websites that have fixed content that does not change. These forms of media are considered to be permanent because once they are produced, it becomes impossible to change them. Here is one of the main things that set social media apart. Social media can be edited and changed by the very people who use it.

Industrial media are generally produced from a single centralized location and disseminated in an ever expanding circle. Social media is produced in many different locations and collected into centralized points where it can be accessed by anyone with access to the internet.

It usually requires some specialized skills and training to be able to produce industrial media. This typically requires the combined efforts of several individuals, each with their own unique skill set that contributes to the whole.
Social media, on the other hand, is created by virtually anyone and does not require any particularly specialized skills. Anyone who wishes to create content may do so with the skills and tools at their disposal with only minor, if any, modifications.

Perhaps the largest, and most important, difference between the two types of media is the immediacy of social media. Industrial media is produced and disseminated with a lag of hours, weeks, months, or even years between the beginning of production and it reaching the public. Social media, on the other hand, is produced and disseminated into the reach of the public immediately. As soon as the content is generated, it is available to anyone interested in receiving it.

Through the creation of several different social media sites on the internet, it has become possible for users to create their own social networks that can be separated by thousands of miles while being able to converse in real time. Individuals can publish information for those in their network to see or hear and receive feedback immediately through comments and other communication.

Many businesses try to use social media to attract new customers. One problem they face is that people in social networks are usually repulsed by overt advertising. It, therefore, becomes the job of these businesses to establish themselves as experts in their field by producing content that is useful and interesting to users. They must raise awareness of themselves and their products without using any sort of sales pitch to get their message across.

Social media has introduced a whole new way for people to interact over great distances. It has become the preferred source for information and entertainment in many different ways.

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