Tag: Technology

Better than TV

Gin with Muddled Summer Plums
Image by thebittenword.com via Flickr

Interesting perspective on the use of time and intelligence…

“I was recently reminded of some reading I did in college, way back in the last century, by a British historian arguing that the critical technology, for the early phase of the industrial revolution, was gin.

The transformation from rural to urban life was so sudden, and so wrenching, that the only thing society could do to manage was to drink itself into a stupor for a generation. The stories from that era are amazing– there were gin pushcarts working their way through the streets of London.

And it wasn’t until society woke up from that collective bender that we actually started to get the institutional structures that we associate with the industrial revolution today. Things like public libraries and museums, increasingly broad education for children, elected leaders–a lot of things we like–didn’t happen until having all of those people together stopped seeming like a crisis and started seeming like an asset.” Source: Gin, Television, and Social Surplus – Here Comes Everybody

Television is to us, however, what gin was to the British a few hundred years ago and smart people are beginning to take notice…

“Clay Shirky has noticed the trend of talented people putting five or six hours an evening to work instead of to waste. Add that up across a million or ten million people and the output is astonishing. He calls it cognitive surplus and it’s one of the underappreciated world-changing stories of our time.” Source: Seth’s Blog: But it’s better than TV

Think about it! How much time do YOU spend watching tv? How could you use that time to take over your world?

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Spring clean your PC; outside and in!

CCleaner
Image via Wikipedia

Here’s something constructive to do this weekend…

“Most of us clean our computers about as often as we spill something on the keyboard. But to keep your computer in good working order, you should scrub it down about twice a year–more often if you like to eat chips at your keyboard. Before you start, you’ll need some supplies: a large microfiber cloth, a can of compressed air, and a solution of 50 percent isopropyl rubbing alcohol and 50 percent mineral water, and a pair of tweezers. Once you have everything together, shut your computer down (if you’re cleaning a laptop, remove the battery as well). Now that you’re ready to go, review these five simple steps for getting your hardware shiny again…” Source: Spring Clean Your PC in 5 Easy Steps — Life Scoop

You’ll have to go to the source to get the list, but before you do, here are some thoughts for cleaning the INSIDE of your PC…

Click the ‘Tune Up Utilities’ button at the bottom of the right sidebar and download a free trial — Tune Up Utilities is the only utility that I pay for every year. Unlike most tools of this nature, it works quietly and unobtrusively in the background without sucking the life out of your computer. If you only have $50 to spend on improving your computer [subsequent years are $30] then this is where you should spend it! Now, if even that’s too much for you, I suggest you go to Ninite.com and download these 5 things:

  • Ccleaner [used to be called ‘Crap Cleaner’; for getting rid of computer detritus and fixing other issues]
  • Defraggler [for defragmenting your drive]
  • Revo Uninstaller [for performing CLEAN uninstalls]
  • Microsoft Security Essentials [this free Microsoft tool will fix all your antivirus and security needs — after all, Microsoft caused them! It’s about time they cleaned them up…]
  • Chrome browser [because it rocks with Google products and if you’ve been reading this blog, you’re using Google products!]

These tools will serve you well — almost as well as Tune Up Utilities — as long as you remember to use them at least every week…
;-)

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Creators and Curators

From my perspective, there are two main types of blog content; creation and curation…

“The idea behind curators and content curation is that there is such a flood of new content pouring through the Internet pipes these days that being aware of all of it and sorting it out in meaningful ways is simply not possible. Curators are people or organizations that do the hard work of sifting through the content within a particular topic area or “meme” and pulling out the things that seem to make most sense. This effort involves significantly more than finding and regurgitating links, though.” Source: Who are your curators? | Content curator | Digital Curator

You don’t have to ‘create’ original content in order have original blog content — you can curate content from other thought leaders for incorporation into your site. The content you aggregate from other sites [properly attributed, of course] along with your perspective is a public reflection of your brand as well! I rarely post anything without at least one quote from another thought leader — in fact, it’s usually those quotes [like the one in this post] that encourage me to weigh in on my blog in the first place. Where do you fall on this issue?

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Top 10 passwords you should never use

For most people who experience a password hacker in real life, they find out too late that using a strong password is important.  Like the kid who think he is invincible and jumps off the roof because he doesn’t believe in gravity, having your website, Facebook account, or your system’s server hacked into is a lot like the ground smacking you in the face.  Gravity does exist and so do bad people who would love to gain access to your life and wreck havoc.

According to a report, most users still haven’t answered the call by security experts to implement more robust passwords. In fact, in a list of the most easy to hack passwords, simply typing ‘123456’ took a truly forgettable top prize.

Security firm Imperva recently released its list of the passwords most likely to be hacked based on 32 million instances of successful hacking. Imperva named their report “Consumer Password Worst Practices,” and some of the entries near the top are truly simple and could lead to theft or identity fraud.

Top 10 Worst Passwords
The following is a list of the most predictable passwords, and should not be used under any circumstances (Source: pcworld.com):

123456
12345
123456789
Password
iloveyou
princess
rockyou
1234567
12345678
abc123

Hopefully you don’t see your current password on the list, but if you do or don’t, it doesn’t really matter.  Most people have a simple enough password that it could be hacked by someone who knows what they are doing.  Even if you have a better than average password, you may be like the millions who a. never use it or b. use it for every account they own.  After all, who wants to remember all those passwords!

We’ve all received those Phishing emails from people trying to gain access to your various accounts, right?  Facebook, MySpace, Banks, and Twitter.  Well, if you fall for one of those emails and they figure out one password, they then check to see if you’re using the same password on the other sites too.

If you are using social media, most of your other accounts are visible to everyone so they can connect with you and that makes you vulnerable to getting hacked.

How to Strengthen Your Passwords
Other key findings in the report: it seems that almost 1 in 3 users choose passwords comprised of six or fewer characters; more than half use passwords based on only alpha-numeric characters; and almost 50 per cent used variations on their name, popular slang terms, or simple strings of consecutive characters from the average QWERTY keyboard — such as ‘asdfg’.

Imperva has made several obvious recommendations, suggesting most users adopt passwords with at least eight characters and to mix those characters between upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. Passwords should be simple enough that they won’t be too easily forgotten, but the idea is to make cracking the code virtually impossible for either an unknown or known hacker.

About this article: Dennis Faas is the CEO and Chief editor of Infopackets.com: a daily, digital publication dedicated to MS Windows, computing, technology trends and solutions to real life computing issues: all written in simple English. Subscription to Infopackets Windows Newsletter is free. Visit us today! http://www.infopackets.com

So, how do you create a password that is easy to remember, unique for each account, and extremely difficult to hack?  I want to give you the answer! Leave a comment on this post and let me know what you think.  I’ll post the answer to the question soon.

Kirk Anderson
Guest Contributor

Kirk is owner of Interactive Business Solutions, a Business and Marketing Development Consulting company in Northwestern Wisconsin.  He works with small and medium size businesses to to implement technology solutions that help a business become more productive and profitable.  Interactive123.com

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Google opens its Apps Marketplace


Image via CrunchBase

Whoa! Google Apps just got even better…

“Every day, thousands of businesses choose the cloud. More than 2 million businesses have adopted Google Apps over the last three years, eliminating the hassles associated with purchasing, installing and maintaining hardware and software themselves.

We’ve found that when businesses begin to experience the benefits of cloud computing, they want more. We’re often asked when we’ll offer a wider variety of business applications — from accounting and project management to travel planning and human resources management. But we certainly can’t and won’t do it all, and there are hundreds of business applications for which we have no particular expertise.

In recent years, many talented software providers have embraced the cloud and delivered a diverse set of features capable of powering almost any business. But too often, customers who adopt applications from multiple vendors end up with a fractured experience, where each particular application exists in its own silo. Users are often forced to create and remember multiple passwords, cut and paste data between applications, and jump between multiple interfaces just to complete a simple task.” Source: Official Google Blog: Open for business: the Google Apps Marketplace

Go to the source for the rest of the article. You can find the Google Apps Marketplace here…

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This reminds me…

…of how I spent my Sunday! Observing humans at Wal-Mart…

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Why no one is reading your blog…

You want to throw a party and have lots of people show up.
You want to have a successful blog but you want people to read it.

It’s a trick
So here’s the trick (and it really is a mental trick).  You have to write a blog post like someone is reading it…even if no one is.  Anyone who knows how to use Google and can “cut and paste” can add analytics to their site to see exactly how many people are visiting.  Here’s my advice…add analytics and then ignore them.  They’re too discouraging and in the end it’s not the point.  CNN.com has a lot more visits than your web site and they always will.  So what?  If your goal is to spread your ideas then start spreading them one post at a time.  You’ll know when your ideas are spreading, trust me.

How do I get traffic?
Somebody cares about what you’re saying.  If no one seems to care then talk about something else or change how you’re delivering your message.  But, somebody cares.  Let’s go back to the party comparison.  If you don’t come to my party guess what…I’m not coming to yours.  So if you want me to come to your blog then come to mine and let me know how to get back to yours.  If you want readers then spread the love.  Spend time at other blogs and then go back to yours regularly and write like someone is reading it.

You better have a frosty beverage for me
The other reason you need to write like someone is reading is that one day, when you do start to get visitors you’ll need something for them to read.  Blogs archive your entries so they’ll have a treasure trove of info that you’ve written if you post before they show up. Not regularly posting to your blog or creating content of any kind (podcast, ebooks etc.) and inviting me to visit your site is like inviting me to a party without having any good beer to drink or any food to snack on.  When I get there…I expect something from you.  It’s bad news if you expect those people to come back if they didn’t find anything the first time they showed up…they’re not likely to return.


Action points:

  • Install analytics on your site
  • Ignore the analytics for a long time
  • Comment on other sites every day (you can start with this blog).  Commenting on the big blogs can get you traffic…not from the big names but from other people who leave comments (happened to me this week).
  • Write a post a week (minimum).  But please write something.
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Want to beta test my new course?

A couple of weeks ago, I announced that my “Social Media Academy” course would be available April 5. I’m looking for three to five beta testers to help me perfect the content. The course is very much still in it’s infancy stages, but I am looking for a few people who would like to participate in testing the course as I build it…

This course is mean to address what I feel is a huge gap in the social media space — there seems to be no shortage of strategists who are generating demand by describing the social media ‘promised land’ but they leave seminar attendees wondering how do they take the next step. My focus will be on the practical tactics and tools outlined in my series ‘Top 10 Tactics and Tools for Tightening your Tribe’. It is meant for solopreneurs, small business owners, organizational leaders or marketing professionals who want to add social media to their mix but still want to get home for supper. You know what I mean? No one has more time in their days — “how can I add social media and without adding hours”? is the thrust of the course.

In exchange for helping me beta test the course, the participants will of course get free access to the course materials as I create and publish them, as well as semi-private coaching and the opportunity to potentially earn some money by promoting the course as affiliates when I launch it. Questions? Feedback? Comment, call or contact me to get more details…

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Handling Email; 5+ emails you should filter

Image representing Google Apps as depicted in ...
Image via CrunchBase

Email is such a simple tool but it makes or breaks so many people’s productivity and it breaks my heart to see how many people struggle with handling it…

“How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? Are you an inbox zero freak like me? Or do you have emails piled up and unread that you’re hoping you’ll get time to get to?

I’m not judging – I used to have as messy an inbox as anyone. And even now, if I go on vacation or don’t check my email for too long, I can get in a heap of trouble: the email piles up, and it can be a real chore getting back to my empty inbox.

I’ve got a few tips up my sleeve though to make dealing with email a little less painful – and I’ve found the best defense is a strong offense. In this article, I’m going to give you some concrete tips and examples to reduce the number of emails in your inbox instantly – and help you keep it that way long term with the use of filters.” Source: 5 Types of Emails You Should be Automatically Filtering – Stepcase Lifehack

Here are the 5 types:

  • Newsletters
  • Forwarded articles
  • Comments and pings from my blog
  • Facebook/Twitter/Social Media Notifications
  • Store Promotions
  • cc:’s [This one is my own — and I’ll explain later]

You’ll have to go to the source if you’re interested in the full rationale behind these statements. #6 [the one I added] comes from seeing how email is used as a CYA tool in large corporations. I have a friend — let’s call her Sue — Sue is an important mucky-muck at a large manufacturing organization and she’s stuck in email hell. She’s a slave to Outlook and her BlackBerry. I would venture to say that 70% or more of the email she receives is CYA. How much easier Sue’s life would be if she’d only use Outlook to put all the emails where her name appears on the cc: line in a special folder to read later when she had more time. Or used the filter on her BlackBerry Enterprise Server to only send her the emails where her name appeared on the to: line. Sigh!

As the author says, these filters work particularly well with Gmail or Google Apps [both of which I use] to manage mail effectively.

“Once you’ve created some of these filters, GMail (what I use) has an option to immediately run them on whatever you’ve got in your inbox. Use this to instantly filter low priority items away so you can focus on what’s important.

Going forward, your filters will be applied to any new email that comes in. This will keep your inbox clean so you can read the relevant, important emails first, before you head to your folders to deal with these low priority emails that may still be important to you – but don’t require as quick a response.” Source: 5 Types of Emails You Should be Automatically Filtering – Stepcase Lifehack

One more thought for those of you unlucky enough to be on MY emailing target list. I send ‘just in case’ info from my personal gmail account and important ‘just in time’ email from my e1evation account. If you’re smart, you’ll filter emails from toddlohenry@gmail.com and make sure emails from todd@e1evation.com are granted the HIGHEST priority! Those of you who are prolific emailers may want to grant your frequent recipients a similar escape hatch…

As always, I invite readers to comment, call or contact me and let me know what YOU think [or ask for help if they’re caught in email hell!]…

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Thought leadership. It’s not just for geeks anymore!

Kevin Naze, one of my favorite outdoor writers, of the Green Bay Press Gazette writes…

Dave Nolan is a family man on a mission of faith.

While part of it includes finding a new career after an 18-year stint in the automotive industry ended when General Motors decided to stop making Saturns, another component to his master plan is getting more people to look beyond the world’s values.

“My dream job would be to have a career in sync with my passions — the outdoors partnered with the Christian ministry,” Nolan said. “My goal is to be the face of an organization and build relationships with an organization that shares the same passions.” Source: De Pere’s Nolan following a new path | greenbaypressgazette.com | Green Bay Press-Gazette

What thrills me most about this is knowing the backstory. You see, Dave is a client of e1evation, llc and a good friend to boot. I was with him when his job at Saturn was pulled out from under him and I’ve been there every step of the way as he has made his decision to follow his passion and follow God’s lead into a career in the ‘outdoors’…

Dave is using the good, fast and cheap tools I advocate to build his business. He’s still taking baby steps at Dave Nolan Outdoors, but he’s making all the right moves. Track his progress! This guy’s a thought leader who is going places and he’s partnering with e1evation, llc to make it happen…

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How often should I post?

The icon used by Apple to represent Podcasting.
Image via Wikipedia

Let’s start here…

“Without question, blogging provides an effective way to market your business, be a valuable resource and build your personal brand online. And most folks know that, generally, the more frequently you blog, the higher your traffic. But does that mean you should follow the advice of many to create a new post every single day?

Focusing only on traffic numbers, instead of the concentrating on sharing content and building relationships will send you down the path to burnout. Here at WebWorkerDaily, we have multiple writers contributing to help keep the content fresh. But for one-person blogs, blogging daily works for some and not for others.” Source: Just How Often Should You Blog? – WebWorkerDaily

Go to the source for some good thoughts on ‘how often’ — it’s really good stuff! In the meantime, I’m heading in another direction…

I just closed out my best blogging month ever traffic-wise. What was significant to me was that I did it in a ‘short’ month with no speaking engagements. Usually, when I have a chance to speak, my traffic spikes because all the seminar attendees check out my site — it’s usually good for a couple hundred pageviews. In February, however, I did it all on my own, post by post by post. I’ve already laid out all my tactics and tools in the series “Top 10 Tactics and Tools for Tightening your Tribe” and yes, I used them all this past month. I did make two significant changes, however. #1 I redesigned my site using the ‘Thesis’ theme which promises some kind of magic SEO foo and really seems to have delivered for me. #2 I experimented with spreading my posts out throughout the day. Instead of posting 3-5 posts at 6:00 AM, I spread them out every two hours or so throughout the day. Whether it was one, or the other, or both, my traffic’s going nuts!

HubSpot gives me a grade of 96 on my site, Google tells me I have 6,076 pageviews over the past 30 days and Alexa tells me my site is ranked 484,123 in the US. Not much left to prove from my perspective and the thing that excites me most is that my success is the result of a systematic process I can teach to anyone. I usually benchmark myself against local radio station WTAQ because I like to see how I fare against ‘old’ media in my market. They have an Alexa ranking of 116,615 which is really awesome. It thrills me that I’m actually ranked higher than local social media wunderkind Dana VanDen Heuvel [a good friend to e1evation], although I’m sure that won’t last long. He’s at 520,219…

I’m certain my traffic will drop some during the upcoming month as I’ll be directing a great deal of my creative energy toward three projects I announced in February. They are the Social Media Academy — an online training class on the top tactics and tools for effective social media, The Damn Good Social Media Guide — the accompanying ebook, and last? A weekly podcast. I’m currently looking for beta testers for the Social Media course. If you’d like to save yourself the $499 fee and get all the content in a rough format for free, comment, call or contact me and let me know. As always, thanks for reading…

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Taking your expertise for granted

Logo of Posterous
Image via Wikipedia

This post from Darren Rowse has me thinking about myself and the people in my trusted network…

“I recently was chatting with a new blogger and they made the comment that after 3 weeks of blogging that they’d run out of things to write about. They had written 10 posts so far but felt that they’d nothing else to share of value on the topic.

What surprised me about their comments was that the blogger was actually a seasoned pro in their niche. They were new to blogging about their topic but they’d been working in their industry for 25 years and were seen as an expert in their field…. yet they didn’t feel like they had anything to say about the topic!

I dug a little deeper and it turned out that the reason for their issue was not that they didn’t have much to write about – but that they were taking for granted the level of knowledge that they actually had. Much of what they’d learned over the years was now so basic to them that they didn’t realise how valuable it was for someone at a lower level of expertise.” Source: What Are You Taking For Granted That Might Be Useful to Others?

Are you one of those that doesn’t appreciate the fact that she’s an expert? Well — you’re wrong! You don’t get to this point in life without having gained expertise at something. Your expertise might only be interesting to 100 people on the planet, but by blogging, you’ll find them. Or more likely they’ll find you…

Having taught classes before on ‘finding your gift’, the one thing I’ve learned is that the more you exercise your ‘gift’, the more it feels like breathing. In other words, it becomes so natural that it’s just a part of you. And who would be interested in little old you?

Well? Your wrong. You’re an expert and your point of view is interesting to other people who aren’t as far along their path. Or who are. Or who are ahead of you. Here’s a dirty little secret; there are no experts. The body of knowledge is expanding so fast that no one can master it all. Your point of view is a valuable part of the puzzle but no one will ever know it unless you make your point of view public; searchable, findable and knowable!

How do you get started? I’ve researched all the tools and I haven’t found anything easier or more powerful than Posterous and the Posterous bookmarklet. Your expertise can turn you into a thought leader if you’ll only publish and promote your work! Comment, call or contact me to discuss how this applies to your business if I didn’t make myself clear…

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I love Google Voice!

Image representing Google Voice as depicted in...
Image via CrunchBase

I’ve been a user since the Grand Central days and I love it. Here’s another perspective…

“When I first heard about Google Voice, I immediately submitted my email for an invite, and within a few weeks I received one. April first provided a review of Google Voice and offered 100 invites right here at MUO. Since then, Google continued to progress with Google Voice and add more features.

My initial excitement about Voice quickly faded when I learned that Google Voice will not let you port over your home number yet – although you can use your mobile number, but you’ll be limited to primarily only using the voicemail feature. As I’ve been waiting patiently for Google to offer home number porting (which Google’s help page promises is a feature that’s “coming soon”), I’ve noticed that more cool features keep getting added on to the service, so I thought it’s about time for a list of 5 cool things that you can do with Google Voice.” Source: 5 Cool Things You Can Do With Google Voice

Go to the source for the ‘5 Cool Things’…

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Getting it together

Image representing retaggr as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase

Your online presence, that is…

“If you’re reading this post, there’s a good chance you have multiple online profiles scattered across various services, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, and Twitter. And one problem you may face is pulling all of this information together to build a single online identity — be it for personal use, or to create a professional online profile. Flavors.me is a new site launching today that looks to make this as simple as possible, and it does so with flying colors. After a three month long private beta, the site has just launched to the public.” Source: Flavors.me: A Dead Simple Way To Pull Your Online Presences Into One Place

I tried flavors.me. It’s cute. My take? It’s primarily geared toward casual online users that what a kind of internet ‘business card’ that puts all your online properties in one place…

If you’re really serious about getting it together on the internet, there are two tools that I recommend you use; Retaggr and Google profiles…

Retaggr has been around longer than Google profiles and I started using it over a year ago. Retaggr, which identifies itself as the ‘definitive online profile’ allows you to add your user name to any of the hundreds of social media tools they have inventoried. The result will be a nice profile like this that brings together all the stuff you’re doing online — they even give you a way to include the profile in your email signature!

More recently, Google has begun to offer a similar type of service. While it does not offer some of the bells and whistles that Retaggr [like widgets and gadgets, etc.] it does have the advantage of being smack on the Google backbone…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f2ywgldeiY&feature=player_embedded

Fortunately/unfortunately, we’ve read this book before and Google wins in the end — at least for the next 5 years or so. So, if you’re going to pick one or the other, check out Google profiles if you’re serious about putting together a social media dashboard for people you are hoping will find you…

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Citrix ‘jumps the shark’ with new pricing model

WebEx Communications
Image via Wikipedia

OK, I’m officially pissed. I’ve been a massive Citrix advocate influencing dozens, if not hundreds, for over 5 years since GoToMeeting first came on the scene and I discovered I could deliver high-quality online meetings for a year for the price of one month of WebEx…

Recently, I evaluated GoToTraining and was getting ready to utilize it for my new ‘Social Media Academy’ training program. I was stunned when I saw Citrix’s new pricing model…

GoToWebinar used to seat 1000 people for the flat rate of $99 per month. Now the price is $499. WTH? In a down economy, Citrix is sticking it to their customers with a 500% increase. If you want to train 200 people in GoToTraining it will set you back $349. Only GoToMeeting has held the line on pricing at $49 [although I know a secret that will get you a $39 monthly rate — you’ll have to get me offline for that one!]…

Citrix, it’s bad enough that your reseller program sucks, but this is an over the top stoopid move — you’re no longer on my recommended list of products [Wall Street take note!]…

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Driving traffic using Twitter?

The Twitter fail whale error message.
Image via Wikipedia

Start here…

“If you are a small business owner like me, then you are no stranger to the fact that learning how to master Twitter can seem a little bit like wrestling a hungry alligator. Meaning, there is a steep learning curve and if you mess up it can be deadly.

Figuratively speaking, of course!

After using Twitter for the past couple of years, and following a lot of trial and error, below are ten ways that I think you can begin to use Twitter to drive more traffic to your small business blog.” Source: Top Ten Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Small Business Blog Using Twitter

Go to the source to get the 10 ways!

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Some straightforward thoughts on social media…

…from Wisconsin social media guru [no, that’s not an oxymoron!] Dana VanDen Heuvel…

“Social media is an umbrella term for online technologies that connect people through networking, according to Dana VanDen Heuvel, founder and president of the Marketing Savant Group, Green Bay.” Source: Social media connects organizations, customers | greenbaypressgazette.com | Green Bay Press-Gazette

He goes on to say…

“”The value of social media is that it connects customers to us or to each other. It’s not just a list of Web sites or things to download,” VanDen Heuvel said. “It’s about meeting people in their medium. That is really what social media is designed to help you do.”

Businesses should care about social media, because it has changed people’s expectations of what organizations do online as compared with five years ago, he said. Also, three out of four Americans use some form of social technology: blogging, micro-blogging (Twitter), social networking (Facebook), sharing videos and others.” Source: Social media connects organizations, customers | greenbaypressgazette.com | Green Bay Press-Gazette

He goes on to talk about offering unique value through your social media outposts and such practical things as how often your should update Facebook pages, etc. Follow the link to read the rest of article — it’s really good stuff…

btw, Dana’s a great speaker and I owe a lot to him in terms of my growth and development in social media over the past year. Do take the opportunity to see him speak if you ever get the chance — you can see his schedule here. When you want to talk tactics and tools for IMPLEMENTING Dana’s strategies, however, comment, call or contact me! I’ll help you put Dana’s strategies into practice…

;-)

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TGIM!

Have a laugh at Apple’s expense…

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I’m playing around…

…with a new site template this morning. Please take a minute to offer your opinion on the new site design…

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Put your business on the map

The Australian Yellow Pages logo used by Telst...
Image via Wikipedia

Small business owners should pay heed to the opportunities presented by mobile social media as the number of smartphone users climbs…

“Small businesses stand to increase their local audience and further their market reach through geolocation platforms, which attach real-world locations to mobile phones. Here are a few ways companies can become part of the location tagging world of social media.” Source: HOW TO: Make Your Small Business Geolocation-Ready

The place to start, however, is with Google Maps which is fast becoming the ‘Yellow Pages’ of the internet. Watch this…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lviDz8fUMTE&feature=player_embedded

One thing to be aware of. Google has a STOOPID process for adding you to the map…

“First you’ll need your PIN, which should arrive in the mail within two weeks after you submit your business listing. If you have your PIN, enter it beside the appropriate listing below, then click ‘Go.'” Source: Google Local Business Center

You have to receive a pin via SNAIL MAIL. It’s the dumbest process in the entire Googlesphere but the benefits are worth the pain in the butt. imho, it’s one of the simplest and most effective ways a company can advertise their business. The information you enter about your business goes directly into the Google search engine and is immediately available to all those geeks who use Google Maps on their desktops or better yet, on their smartphones as they travel through your town…

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