I have a bit of news you or your clients/brands may be interested in:

New ”.me” domains are available today. For example, you could register yourbrand.me just like yourbrand.com. The fee is about $20/yr.

You may never use it, but it will prevent others from doing so.

I use GoDaddy to register my domains. GoDaddy is one of the few “.me” official registrars. If you decide to use them, please use this link since they pay a referral fee and I would appreciate it – the $0.50 goes into a pot for pizza parties!

And there are some good domains available for all you speculators out there.

If you have any other questions about protecting your brand online, social media marketing, search engines, etc, let me know. My team of consultants rocks!

You can subscribe to my site via e-mail for more news like this: http://billdotson.com/subscribe/

Today happens to be my birthday. As soon as I woke up this morning, I had a few e-mails and SMS (text) messages. People used my Facebook profile to learn about my birthday and reach out.

There are a number of reasons to use Facebook for business.

Birthdays — people must list their birthdays in Facebook. A birthday is a great time to reach out to someone and say “Hi”

Status updates — want to know what people are doing at the moment? Lots of Facebook users fill in the “What are you doing now?” or “status” question. Sometimes these are funny — other times, they show a moment when someone may need your help. At minimum, you get a glimpse into their thinking and daily lives.

Photos — you can learn a lot about a person from his/her photos. A lot…maybe more than you want.

Groups — there are all kinds of groups on Facebook. I’m a member of the UK Basketball and Football groups. There are also business groups. You can network with others on Facebook (who’d have thunk it?!) and these groups are a great way to start.

Background checks — well, not the criminal kind. You can see someone’s history and who he/she knows by becoming a person’s “friend” on Facebook.

Integration with Outlook — There’s a neat software program called Fonebook. It compares your Outlook contacts with your Facebook friends. If it finds a match, the software copies each friend’s image and status (see above) into the appropriate Outlook contact record. I like this because my phone integrates with Outlook and grabs the picture. This prevents me from squinting at the caller ID when the phone rings.

Enjoy it. No one is too old for Facebook!

I’d like to thank everyone who contributed to the campaign. We raised $2750.00 out of the $3000.00 goal. This was my first experience of online fundraising. I consider it a success.

Here’s what worked:

1. Got permission from the Red Cross to use e-mail and this blog. I’m not sure if I needed it, but permission never hurts.
2. Wrote a blog post (web page) about the campaign. I made sure to choose an image since it really helps conversions (donations) when people see images of familiar icons. The copy included various ways to donate.
3. Changed my e-mail signature to read: "Help me help the Red Cross…" The signature was only two lines and explained I would match everything the person donated. There was a link to the blog page.
4. I e-mailed people in or from the Bluegrass. The campaign was for our chapter so it seemed like the natural group of people to contact. Approximately 200 people were e-mailed. Around 30 donated and I got two people who donated after the campaign was over. I’m not sure if this is a good ratio or not, but it served the purpose.

In addition to the funds raised, I learned who donated funds and who communicated they did not because of other charitable contributions. The last communication was very valuable to me since it acknowledged people do care.

I am a bit surprised about the total number of people who did not respond to my e-mail request. My request was personalized and its not as if I make these requests all the time (it was my first one). No matter…I will respond to them in the future because its only polite to do so.

Thanks again if you donated!

(written while on a train to the city housing the Red Cross international HQ: Geneva.)