How a Social Media Expert Can Help Your Business Build its Presence

Social networking is not just for college kids sharing drunken photos of their weekend shenanigans anymore. It is a powerful marketing tool that businesses have learned to leverage to create brand awareness, connect with new customers and increase sales. Finding success with social networks takes more than just creating a profile and posting a few status updates. Hiring a social media expert can ensure that businesses create a successful networking campaign that will help build their presence. Here's how a social media expert can help:

Efficiency

There are hundreds of social networking sites actively in use. Of course, only a few dozen have a strong presence with a general audience. Different social networks cater to different audiences and businesses should choose the sites that match their interests most closely. A social media expert can make recommendations about the best sites to join in order to see the most results. The expert can also create profiles that will have the most impact and manage those on behalf of the business, freeing up the owner to manage the overall success of the business.

Increased Traffic

Social media experts can advise businesses on the best search-engine optimization strategies to drive more traffic to their Web sites and, therefore, more revenues to their company. These experts can offer guidance on keyword research for reaching the target audience and how to utilize those keywords in blog posts, compelling Web copy, meta tags, images, and more. Social media experts can also implement strategies to build quality backlinks to the site, including guest posting, participating in community forums, and building relationships with other bloggers. The more traffic a site gets, the higher it will appear in search-engine rankings and the more visible it will be to potential customers.

Brand Consistency

When businesses set up a Web site, and then a blog and a Facebook profile and a Twitter account and a half a dozen other social-networking profiles, it can become difficult to establish consistency. A social media expert can ensure that your marketing efforts are coordinated so that your brand message is the same no matter where your customers find you on the Web. From logo and design to the tone and content of your message, your brand will be consistently presented in a variety of formats to reach more customers.

Reputation Management

Customers no longer drop their comments in a suggestion box or write to the public relations department to lodge a complaint. Now they post their thoughts about your company on their blogs, on their Facebook pages, on public forums, and on other social-networking sites. Instead of telling a few of their friends or co-workers, they are telling hundreds or even thousands of other people. Social media experts can monitor what is being said about your company online to manage your reputation. They can respond to customer comments to mitigate complaints, and publicize company achievements, developments, and promotions. With a social media expert, you can ensure that you are shaping the conversation about your company and creating the reputation that you want.

Social media is a powerful networking tool that can help build your business' online presence by creating brand awareness and attracting new customers. A social media expert can help your business navigate the crowded social-networking landscape to maximize your efforts.

Byline:
This Guest Post courtesy of Bridget Sandorford from Culinary Schools.

Finding real food online

Restaurant reviews online etc are nothing new, but dishtIp takes this a lot further.

This is a semantic discovery platform that allows users to search by dish name, flavor, cuisine, ingredients, meal type and price yet offers users the experience of a hand-curated community based.

Want to see the 100 Top Dishes Across the USA? I knew one in the top ten and yes, I agree, it's up there.

Want to find a certain type of restaurant within one block from your phone? Dishtip will do it.

Now I've just started playing with dishtip, and have no connection to it, but it's pretty interesting and I may be giving it a good whirl on some upcoming trips. If nothing else, it's a fun tool for those of us who love food!

Promising Markets Of The Near Future

Predicting what is going to happen in the stock market is historically difficult. People have made fortunes overnight, other people have lost their retirement savings. No matter how easy it may seem to make a fortune overnight, investors should always remember that although Wall Street isn't exactly comparable to Vegas as far as the nature of the risk you're taking, it can be just as lethal.

A huge part of being successful on the stock market is being invested for the long run and being able to forecast the trajectory of future industries. We would all love to invest heavily in the Microsoft startup of the 2010s, but remember that hindsight is always 20/20. Picking a long term winner requires scrupulous research, patience, and some luck. Here are a few markets that could gain major traction this decade:

Additive manufacturing—This technology is just now hitting the market in experimental phases. Sometimes called '3D printing', it will allow companies to essentially own a factory inside their office, using mathematical blueprints to build objects layer by later. This new form of manufacturing will change the world once developers work out the kinks. Aggressive companies in this industry, such as Optomec, could make for excellent long-term investments.

Biosimilars—The bane of the biopharmaceutical industry's existence, these generic-like big molecule drug products are changing the landscape of Big Pharma and are estimated to earn over ten billion dollars annually by 2020. Investing now in a small biosimilar company with big connections could make for a windfall of cash later.

Stem cells—Many analysts though that a Democratic president in office would make stem cell treatments take off. The reality is, more time was needed to perfect the research. Amazing things are being done in this field, and the years ahead could see an incredible stem cell industry continue to flourish in hospitals and research labs across the world.

Solar energy—Renewable energy as a whole can be expected to exponentially increase in the decades ahead, and will soon power everything from vending machines to data centers worldwide. The question is how soon and in what capacity. Recent evidence suggests that Asian solar energy may be the right investment. Solar companies based in China and India especially are receiving massive infrastructure investments by their respective governments. One could even go so far as to pick a dozen or so penny stocks to invest in and see which ones take off.

Picking a stock investment that is going to pay off in major ways can be extremely difficult. In another sense, it simply involves predicting what company is going to be successful. If you've got a skill for forecasting broad trends in the world at large, you have a good opportunity to get your finger on the pulse of where Wall Street will be in the future. The industries listed above have excellent potential for meteoric future growth.

Guest post couresy of Amanda Green

Email's Inevitable Fall From Grace

As I sat down and mentally prepared to write this post, I performed an action that I've come to realize is necessary for me to fully focus when writing. I shut down my email program. After years of multitasking, I finally realized that when I see the little 'new message alert' in the bottom of my screen, I can't help but check. Since emails roll in about every three minutes during my average workday, that's literally a constant distraction.

In order to be productive in the roughly 75 percent of my job that does not consist of constructing and replying to email messages, I've got to shut out email entirely. That's a realization that's caught on around the business world. Information technology behemoth Atos even announced last year that they'd be banning internal emails among their nearly 80,000 employees, favoring chat and cloud technologies instead. CEO Thierry Breton referred to the current email culture as the "pollution of the working environment" in his comments to the press about the decision.

What would lead a major company, especially one in the computer technology business, to abandon the most common form of business communication? According to studies conducted at Atos and independently by the Radicati Group, the average corporate employee spends 2 hours and 45 minutes each day reading and writing emails. With spam comprising 81 percent of email traffic sent, and daily deals, non-work related newsletters, and Facebook updates making up a big chunk of the rest, there's a lot of sifting through junk to get to actual work related emails (even on job-specific accounts, oftentimes). Atos' Breton is likely the first of many executive directors to take a similar step toward streamlining employee productivity.

Already, we're seeing major changes in how email is used. A decade ago, we were more likely to send personal messages and letters via email, a practice that has virtually ended with the youngest computer users. In only a year, between Dec. 2009 and Dec. 2010, email use declined among teens age 12 – 17 by 59 percent!

That coincides directly with Facebook becoming available to the general public in Sep. 2009. The same demographic sends over 3,000 texts per month (over six per waking hour. While email use may still be increasing among the population aged 55 and older, that's not exactly the group that will be defining our business and technological future.

The bottom line is, even with instant email via mobile devices, the platform creates either a real or perceived break in the communication chain. With a phone call or SMS, we feel obligated to reply. In the event that we don't, it's almost required to acknowledge that by making an excuse when we next have contact with the caller, whereas in the case of email, we all have carte blanche to ignore messages. While some workers strive to clear out their inbox by Friday afternoon, others simply allow them to pile up, working from the top of a pile of tens of thousands of messages.

Neither approach is the most efficient. Email in 2012 is but one wrench in the toolbox. In plenty of circumstances, a text message, online chat, or even Facebook or Twitter post prove far quicker and more effective in garnering a reply and progress on a task.

Likewise, instead of prompting a discussion with a work group that will ultimately lead to an inbox-clogging series of 'reply to all' comments, companies will increasingly use cloud technology. When a proposal or draft is prepared, it's posted to a company cloud or service like Google Docs, where all the pertinent parties have access and can update and provide feedback in real time. There is no longer a need for multiple employees to sort through multiple email replies to compile a complete picture of a work in progress.

Email was first developed in 1971. By the mid '90s, it had grown into the primary means of communication for business. At that point, it also crossed the threshold where teenagers began to utilize the platform to communicate amongst themselves.

It's been almost another 20 years since email caught on, and the teens have abandoned it. Forward-thinking businesses are already following the lead of their future work force. Whether they look to Facebook, to Google, or simply to 'the cloud,' email's seniority will continue to be a growing casualty of the constant quest for a streamlined work flow.

Christopher Wallace, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Amsterdam Printing, has more than 20 years experience in sales and marketing. At Amsterdam, a leading provider of personalized pens, promotional pens, and other personalized items such as imprinted apparel and customized calendars, Christopher is focused on providing quality marketing materials to small, mid-size and large businesses.

Balancing Informality in Your Business Blog

Businesses that carry a running blog on their website typically do it for one key reason: a blog, simply put, is a great way to interact with customers and amass further degrees of exposure. Many of these businesses, however, don’t stop to consider the type of interaction a blog can foster.

While the relationship between business and consumer in most settings is a highly formal one, the blog atmosphere allows for the presentation of an otherwise unsuitable level of informality. The blog writer can use the words “I” and “we” to describe the company. He can refer to trivial office happenings, local stories or weather events, and upcoming product launches in a highly conversational manner. His posts – whether long or short, relevant or rambling – can allow the business to connect with the consumer in a new and novel manner.

But, as always, there are limits to the appropriateness of this type of informality. The key piece of advice I usually give clients is to be “conversational” rather than too personal (at one end of the spectrum) or too professional (at the other). While it’s ok to write about the great times had at the company holiday party, it’s probably less advisable to talk about anything more specific that may have occurred. It’s also inadvisable to provide insights into the company that are not purely product-related. Telling readers about your year-end bonuses or promotional ideas tucked away in your Chicago self storage unit is usually not the best of ideas.

Here are a few more Dos and Don’ts of business blogging:

Do:

-Be conversational and informal

-Talk in generalities

-Mention new products, seasonally-appropriate products, or recent promotions

-Relate news coverage of your company in the press

-Talk about charities or programs that your company supports

-Comment objectively on world or local events

-Write about company history

Don’t:

-Be too personal or too professional

-Explicitly push a company product or service

-Talk unnecessarily about older company products with which the reader is already familiar

-Give specifics about workplace stories or long-term plans

-Use shoddy language, grammar, or punctuation

-Be negative for any reason

Hopefully these tips can help you better navigate the business blogging landscape. If done correctly, a blog can help your business connect with consumers in a highly productive way. But make sure to preserve the appropriate level of tone and content. A blog is a great vehicle for informality, to be sure, but it can be all too easy to take that informality a step far.

Secure Web Hosting

When looking for a comprehensive solution for secure web hosting, there are a variety of factors that should be both understood and considered before any final decisions are made. Ensuring that one partners with a host that delivers superior server maintenance, efficient SSL and SFTP options, complete backup protocols, top level reliability and quality customer service can make the difference in the success of one's business. Each of these factors plays a critical role in ensuring that the strategic partner one selects will deliver the level of service that you need and expect.

Critical Factors

Secure Socket Layer (SSL) - This is the encryption used to legitimize the connection between your website and the computers of your customers. While this can create heavy bandwidth usage, it ensures the security of one's customers. Typically, this type of security is limited to parts of your site that involve sensitive or personal information, such as forms or purchase sections. Credit Card information is one example of info that is usually encrypted by SSL before it transverses the Internet

Secure FTP (SFTP) - This secure file transfer protocol, often confused with other type of transfer protocols, is used to allow customers to securely transfer and receive files. Normal FTP sends your username and password in cleartext and it can be easily intercepted.

Server Maintenance - Ensuring that the servers entrusted to host one's site, as well as the components that encompass all of the ancillary services, are regularly maintained is critical. In cases where one tries to host one's own site, this step is frequently ignored because it can be both time consuming and expensive. By contracting with a third party provider, one defers some of this cost because all of the host's clients aid in covering this cost.

Backups - While this factor seems like it ought to be a given, in many cases proper care is not taken in creating and maintaining a backup according to a strict and efficient protocol. By ensuring that this procedure is in place, a web host can provide yet another layer of protection against disaster.

Reliability and Customer Service

Clearly the hallmark on a successful secure web host is reliability. If one cannot count on the host to be sure that the contracted services will be performed without question, contracting out this service seems useless. As such, it is of exceeding importance that one select a secure web host that has a reputation for reliability.

Along the same lines of importance as reliability is customer service. The part of secure web hosting becomes most important when a problem arises. It is at this time that ones not only needs to be able to reach one's host, but that one needs to have assurance that the problems that arise will be dealt with quickly and efficiently. Particularly in an era when the technology involved in web hosting has become somewhat standardized, the level of service that one receives can be the differentiating factor. Overall, each of the factors discussed above plays a critical role in obtaining secure web hosting services that can make a difference in one's business. Considering each when selecting one's host is the prudent and thorough way to approach such an important decision. To save money, consider using a GoDaddy coupon code to help cut down the costs.

Top tips for decorating your buy-to-let property

Once you’ve finalised the purchase of your buy-to-let property and got the important paperwork out of the way – such as finding the right landlords insurance policy for your needs – it’s time to turn your attention to decorating your new purchase. If you’re lucky enough to have bought a property that doesn’t need any work doing on it then all the better, but the likelihood is that you’ll need to touch up at least one or two of the rooms.

The most important factor to remember when approaching this task is that your own taste in decoration isn’t necessarily the same as your ideal tenant’s – in fact, by finishing a house in the style that you would choose for your own home could well chase prospective customers away. Your best bet is to decide on the type of tenant you’re looking to attract and then tailor the way you decorate the house accordingly.

The general rule of thumb is that the more care and attention you put into decorating your rental property with style, the more you’re be able to charge for rent. If you’re lacking in inspiration, take a look around at the kind of newly built properties that tend to sell quickly and take your lead from them. Light colours are generally the order of the day as they help to make the rooms of your property appear larger and brighter.

Pay special attention to rooms that can make a real difference in winning round potential tenants who are on the fence. A clean, modern style to the fixtures and fittings in either the kitchen or bathroom can have a real ‘wow’ factor and seal the deal. Wooden floors also tick the right boxes for many people – and have the added bonus of being easy to clean.

Don’t rest on your laurels once the decoration has been completed; it’s just as important to ensure that the decor is well maintained going forward, so make regular checks to be sure that everything is up to scratch and act quickly on any problems pointed out by your tenants.

4 Writing Tips Taught by the Literary Authorities

One Google search for "writing tips or advice" will produce endless notions on clarity, inspiration, passion, diction, and so much more in writing. While much of this advice is no doubt worthwhile and apt, taking advice from the experts is always a great way to go. Writing is an extremely challenging endeavor (as we can all attest to). But, of course, successful writing is one of the most important skills any individual can possess, particularly in a professional atmosphere. The only real way to gain knowledge into the writing process is through experience. Successful writing is all about composition, practice, and passion. These four quotes directly from the pens of the world's greatest literary minds can help you improve the substance and craft of your writing.

Show Don't Tell
"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." —Anton Chekhov

As possibly one of the most essential rules to good writing, Chekhov voices the importance of vivid writing. Though it will always depend on the type of writing you are doing, in creative exposition you are most successful using imagery and metaphor to capture the essence of something. Work to create a picture of a scene for your reader, rather than merely telling them what is present. Of course, (as the most important things always are) this is one of the most difficult writing tactics to master. We have a natural tendency to just explain a scene what is there, who is present, and how the characters are feeling. No doubt this makes for easier writing. However, to elicit a real emotional response we much make our readers feel what the scene is feeling rather than just see what it is feeling.

Write Only What is Necessary
"I try to leave out the parts that people skip." —Elmore Leonard

Clear and Concise writing is held above all else. This tip in particular is something I struggle with. I have a tendency to write in longwinded and verbose sentences. It's easy to find numerous words to fill in a page; the difficult part is choosing exactly what you want to say and just saying it. Writing in any sort of professional way means writing for an audience. You must create prose that interests and inspires your readers. Cut out the things that are not necessary; if they are not necessary, they are not interesting.

Revise, Revise, Revise
"The first draft of anything is s**t." –Ernest Hemingway

Known for his brief, exact prose, Hemingway is no doubt the master of precision. In writing, there is nothing more important than revision. Every draft is an improvement upon the next. Though this point has been argued by some, most will agree that revision and editing are essential steps in the writing process. Speaking to more than merely revision, this quote touches on the importance of patience in your writing. Creating something that feels complete takes time and effort. As I know from personal experience, it is easy to feel beat down by your writing. Completely your first draft is exhausting and then re-reading it to find that it is not what you had hoped can be devastating. Keep faith in your work and give it more time and more effort.

Write with Passion
"When genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot." –D.H. Lawrence

If you are not excited by your work, then no one else will be either. It's a fairly simple equation. Write what you love and that passion will be apparent in your prose. Though there will always be days that challenge you, you have to truly love what you do in order to prosper at it.

Byline:
This is a guest post by Kimberly Wilson. Kimberly is from accredited online colleges, she writes on topics including career, education, student life, college life, home improvement, time management etc.

Considerations When Using Video On Your Blog

As a medium that began as a form of public diary and has continued to rely largely on written posts to this day, blogging remains a strongly text-focused business. Unlike on other websites, where videos and pictures are given central billing, blogs usually reflect standard newspaper conventions in their posts – they have headlines, bylines, body paragraphs, and the occasional informative illustration. When it comes to blogs, text still reigns supreme.

Recently, however, a growing number of business bloggers have experimented with video posts in addition to written ones. They do this because they have something to demonstrate, such as a product, that is easiest done through video. They do this for the convenience of talking rather than writing when they’re in a hurry. They do this for the advertisers; these days, embedded video ads are fast becoming a big business.

If, for any of these reasons, you decide to delve into the world of video blogging on your business’s site, make sure that you keep a few considerations in mind:

Be Professional
On some video blogs it may be acceptable to sit in your pajamas, mumble something into the camera, and consider it a video post. But such an approach is not professional, and it may be poorly received by your viewers. With this in mind, make sure to dress appropriately, speak clearly, and make sure that your background and lighting similarly look professional. Otherwise you may find yourself in need of companies that repair online reputations.

Use SEO Tools

With almost everything we do on a blog, of chief concern should be the amount of traffic the blog can bring in. Video blogging is no exception. To insure SEO benefits, your videos should have keywords and tags written out below them, since Google’s web-crawling bot will only be reading the text.

Furthermore, make a separate section of your site where all videos are stored. This is a convenience to the viewer, can further be arranged by tag, and insures that your blog gets more click-throughs. Finally, don’t forget to embed your video; hosting it on YouTube is only going to deflect traffic from your site.

Know Your Readership

Before you start video blogging and take any of the above considerations to heat, however, ask yourself one question: will my readership enjoy, appreciate, or at least neutrally react to the inclusion of video in my blog? As always, the customer comes first, and if your readership strongly favors written text – or if there’s nothing you would do in a video that you can’t put into writing – you may want to reconsider making the shift in the first place.

Hopefully these tips can help make your switch to video blogging a smooth one. Although the main components of SEO, quality content, traffic drivers, and advertiser appeal remain the same, video is still a unique medium with its unique considerations.

This Guest for coutesy of Amanda Green

The 20 Best TED Talks on Social Media

Here is a great list of 20 Best TED Talks for Students of Social Media by Best Colleges Online.

I've just watched Wael Ghonim: Inside the Egyptian revolution, fascinating because I was just in Egypt (and the beginning perhaps of the revolution, 2.1) a couple of days ago. Next up, I'm watching Set Godin and all the rest