4 Unique Ways To Use Twitter Lists

Many people feel that Twitter is only a sales broadcasting platform, but I’m sure that you’ve heard of the positive causes that have been spread via Twitter as well.

The best way to keep Twitter a valuable, viable channel is to emphasize the social aspect, and one important way to do this is to show appreciation for your Twitter friends using lists. I’ll discuss 4 easy methods below.

#1: Follow @ListWatcher.

@ListWatcher is a great resource that sends you a direct message (DM) when anyone adds, removes or changes you on any of their lists. This is such a simple reason to send a thank-you tweet for adding you to their list. It adds a special touch that you have taken time out of your busy schedule to thank someone for thinking of you. People love to feel appreciated and valued by their fellow Twitter peeps.

It’s also an interesting way to understand how others perceive your presence on Twitter. It may help you to change or modify your tweets if you feel it’s an incorrect perception. It may also give you a positive perception of yourself, which can be a great source of encouragement if you’re feeling a lack of motivation in your endeavors.

Seeing DMs come in from @listwatcher is also a great reminder to continue adding people to your Twitter lists. It’s very easy to forget about this relatively new feature, which provides a great way to connect and keep up with new and old friends by reducing Twitter’s noise.

#2: Support Your Twitter Lists With Hootsuite.

Hootsuite.com is the holy grail of Twitter applications. Hootsuite has many incredible features, but we’ll focus on Twitter lists for now. Be sure to add your Twitter lists as columns in order to scroll down and take time to review them. Give back by retweeting great quotes, links and any other interesting tidbits that you discover.

The great thing about sharing your appreciation in this way is that it doesn’t take an enormous amount of time to retweet great ideas and content. All it takes is scanning down the columns of your Twitter lists and finding the ones that would be beneficial for yourself and your friends to retweet. When I find great tweets, I add them to my Twitter favorites, which is another way to show your appreciation. Others can view your Twitter favorites and find interesting people to follow from your favorite tweets.

Tweetdeck provides some similar features, but one of the best advantages of Hootsuite over Tweetdeck is that it doesn’t take up a lot of resources on your computer. It’s possible to view multiple columns of Twitter lists in Hootsuite without having to worry about resource issues. It also provides for a much faster response time—I used to waste time waiting for Tweetdeck to load. I’ve been an avid Hootsuite fan since I’ve made the switch.

#3: Ask Your Friends How They Want to Be Listed.

As I added my friends to certain Twitter lists, I thought to myself, “What if this person wants to be listed differently?” This prompted a blog post in which I asked my friends, Which Twitter List Defines You? View some of the responses and consider asking your friends, especially if they’re known for multiple talents. As you can see, Denise Wakeman shared a variety of different options.

It’s not necessary to write a blog post to ask your friends; it can also be accomplished by sending a private direct message or sending a public @ reply, depending on your preference.

The approach is your decision, but the goal is the same: discover your friends’ Twitter list preferences and share them. There are some people who find it hard to initiate conversation on Twitter. Simply asking for a person’s Twitter list preference can also be a great icebreaker in meeting new people.

This exercise helped me to better understand my friends, learn which Twitter lists they would appreciate being part of and can also help build a sense of community as others share their thoughts.

Twitter lists can provide a great directory at a glance without having to go to other websites such as Twellow or WeFollow, although these are great sites to find new relationships. Start thinking of how you would like to be listed so you’ll be prepared when you’re asked for your Twitter list preference.

#4: Share Your Lists on Listorious.

Listorious.com is a fairly new site that features the top Twitter lists around the Twitterverse. Create a new account and add your Twitter lists to the directory. This gives exposure to your friends as you create and add your Twitter lists to this site.

Once you’ve added your Twitter lists, it’s possible to recommend people from Listorious after clicking on your newly created list. Just add in the person’s username and there’s an option to tweet it right at that moment. This is an incredibly easy way to show that you appreciate and value your friends. Take some time to search around and find some great Twitter lists to follow.

If you would like to learn more about using Twitter lists, make sure to check out this very popular post on How To Market Your Business With Twitter Lists here on Social Media Examiner. I learned some new things from this post, especially about SEO.

How To Get Started Using Text Message (SMS) Marketing

Various forms of mobile marketing, text messaging, mobile ads, mobile apps, and location aware services, are getting lots of buzz currently. 

Marketers large and small are coming around to the reality that those little hand held devices are increasingly significant parts of every day life for consumers.

While some of this technology and the marketing plays it will produce is still a bit out of the immediate picture for small businesses, I believe that text messages or SMS is here now and should be a part of every marketing plan.

SMS stands for Short Message Service. It is a technology that enables the sending and receiving of messages between mobile phones and is a standard feature on all modern mobile devices.

Recently, some carriers started adding Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), an upgraded version of the SMS through which you can send and receive multimedia messages such as texts, pictures, video clips, audio clips, etc., with any other compatible cell phone, but for this article I will focus only on the more commonly used SMS. 

There are two primary ways that marketers are using SMS. The first is what might be referred to as bulk sending – you have a database of opt-in mobile subscribers and you send them messages. The second is a mobile generated request that relies on what are called short codes – text “get more info” to 12345.

Using both of these approaches in various combinations provides the greatest flexibility.

The fastest way to get up and running with text campaigns is by employing one of the growing list of mobile SMS providers like these below: 

• EZ Texting
• Text Hub
• Mobile Storm
• Involve Mobile
• Cellit Mobile Marketing
• 4INFO

The following examples may give you some ideas on how to integrate the use of text messaging into your current marketing efforts.

1) Text for info – I think this is a service every small business should start using right away. The idea is that you set up a hub of information that people may want to receive and allow them to request it via mobile device. For example – for more information on our upcoming events text “events” to 12345. You can create a multitude of options here and get people interacting with your content via mobile with very little work on your part.

2) Members only – Another great way to start getting people interacting with your brand via mobile is to create content that is only available to mobile subscribers. I saw an author use this tactic brilliantly by creating a chapter to his book that was only available via text.

3) Limited time special – Offering flash specials only available via text for immediate use is a great way to keep mobile subscribers interested and responding. This could be a great way to make a slow business day pick up some steam. Cappuccino's half price Tuesdays after 4pm.

4) Customer follow-up – Once a customer makes a purchase you can offer a series of follow-up messages that could include thank you, more information about usage, warranty reminders and add-on offers. Car Dealerships in the US are already using this feature to remind clients about oil-changes.

5) Coupons – Mobile couponing is almost a separate industry, but offering coupons to subscribers via mobile is a great way to stimulate trial. This one is a great example of mixing sending texts to subscribers and offering short code “grab a coupon” options to stimulate trial of your products and services.

6) Event buzz – If you host in person or online events you can increase engagement by offering updates, reminders, and follow-ups via SMS campaigns. The up to the minute feel of text messages makes it a perfect way to add last minute surprises and create event buzz.

7) Content stations – taking the short code approach to full use you can set-up a bit of an information or content station that would allow people to choose codes from a menu of options to pick and choose the kind of information that would like to receive. This could be detailed information on products or simply newsletter alerts segmented by topic.

There are many opportunities to easily explore marketing via text messaging and now is the time to start building those lists and campaigns as more and more of your customers and prospects grow to expect this kind of interaction.

How does screen resolution work? And why does making things bigger (physically) make things smaller (in pixel count)?

Often when clients get nice new fancy computers or even just bigger screens they're disappointed to see things are in fact SMALLER, not bigger at all, why's that?

Screen resolution seems like a very simple thing, and most of the time it is.

The problem is sometimes it's not. And it's not in a way that let's me say "smaller is actually bigger" with a straight face.

Yes, making things smaller can make things bigger.

Told ya it'd be complicated.

We'll start with your computer display or screen or as it's more commonly called the "monitor" (because in the old days it was where computer

operators monitored the operations of the room-sized computer).

Your monitor is comprised of "pixels" - individual dots - that are arranged in a rectangle. Each is one point of light and that one point of light is capable of being a color - any of hundreds of thousands or millions of different colors, in fact.

The dimensions of the rectangle of pixels on your monitor is it's maximum resolution. For example, the monitor I'm looking at is 1920 pixels wide by 1200 pixels high - a little over 2.3 million pixels:

Windows, of course, allows you to configure the screen resolution that it displays as. This is independent of, but limited to, what your monitor is actually capable of. For example, attempting to display something larger than 1920x1200 on my monitor will likely result in no output at all - my monitor is incapable of displaying anything larger. (Your video card represents an additional limitation, but I'm explicitly ignoring it here, assuming that it is more capable than your monitor, which is frequently the case.)

The ideal setting is typically to set Windows to display at your monitor's maximum resolution.

This is the ideal setting because as we'll see in a moment, there's no scaling or stretching. Your monitor has exactly one pixel at each point Windows is expecting there to be one. The monitor's physical characteristics match what Windows is attempting to output.

So far we've seen that the ideal setting for most is to match exactly your monitor's capabilities, and that if you try to display something larger, in terms of pixel count, then you may get nothing at all.

What happens if you display something "smaller" in pixel count?

I'll use 1024x768 as my example:

When you use Windows at this resolution, things get more cramped:

Windows that were, perhaps, 1000 pixels wide now take up most all the available space on the screen.

When you attempt to display 1024x768 on a monitor capable of larger resolution, like 1920x1200, several different things can happen.

Centered: the 1024x768 display that Windows is trying to create might be centered in the 1920x1200 physical screen:

This will typically feel smaller, as only a portion of the displays physical screen is being used. This is fairly rare among computer monitors, but it can happen. I've seen it more often in older laptops, particularly at boot time when Windows attempts to display an 800x600 screen on a laptop monitor typically much more capable.

Proportional Stretch: the 1024x768 display is stretched to fit the physical area, but while maintaining the original ratio of height to width (the "aspect ratio"):

This is extremely common behaviour for monitors that are asked to display a resolution less than their maximum.

One thing to note, however, is that sometimes what's on the screen can seem somewhat fuzzy. The issue is that what was intended to display as a single pixel on, say, a 1024x768 display is now "stretched" over more than one to expand into some portion of the 1920x1200 monitor. Depending on the specifics and how you calculate it, this example attempts to stretch 1 pixel over about 2.4 pixels. Since partial pixels are impossible, fuzziness results.

Perhaps the most remarkable point, however, is the most confusing: Because the smaller image has been stretched to fill a larger physical area it appears larger. Compare the Internet Explorer

Window in 1920x1200 native on the left to the Internet Explorer Window in 1024x768 stretched and centered on 1920x1200 on the right:

This is the part where I get to say - with a completely straight face - that making your screen resolution smaller may in fact make appear bigger on your display.

Stretch-to-Fill: the 1024x768 display is stretched to fit the physical area, but the ratio of height to width is not preserved.

What you might notice here is that everything looks ever so slightly elongated horizontally.

What's happened here is that the image was stretched vertically, taking what was the 768 pixel height of the displayed screen to fit the 1200 pixel height of the monitor. If you apply that same ratio (3/4) to the width, you have only 1600 pixels to fit on a display that is 1920 pixels wide. Where in the prior example we simply centered the result, displaying gray or black bars on either side, in this example we stretched that 1600 out to 1920 without changing the 1200 pixel height. The result is that while the image fills the entire monitor, it appears horizontally elongated.

The bottom line is that "making things bigger" can mean either of two things:

• Increase the resolution, adding more pixel to your screen and giving it a logically larger surface area as measured in pixels.

• Increasing the size of something on the screen, making it visibly bigger.

As you can see, there are many approaches, and yes - making things bigger (physically) by making things smaller (in pixel count) is in fact one of them.

Apple iPad guided video tours

Microsoft to release Emergency Security update for Internet Explorer 6 and 7 Today.

Microsoft today announced it will issue an emergency security update for Internet Explorer (IE) today (March 30th 2010) to patch a zero-day vulnerability that has been used to launch drive-by attacks for at least several weeks. 

The update will be delivered using a standard windows update format sometime after 1 p.m. ET, you'll likely see the small yellow shield in the bottom right corner of the Windows Desktop screen, near the clock.

It's recommended that you either install the update or not use Internet Explorer until after it has been installed (You could use firefox instead) For those clients who prefer to have their updates installed FOR them, please let me know if you need and a remote-access session can be arranged to safely install the update. 

Tuesday's update will be the second out-of-band update -- Microsoft's term for one outside its normal once-each-month Patch Tuesday -- in the last three months. Microsoft last shipped a rush IE update to customers in late January, to fix eight flaws, including one that had been used to attack several companies' networks , including Google's and Adobe's.

"The bulletin is being released to address attacks against customers of Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7," said Microsoft in an updated advisory .

As it did in January, Tuesday's out-of-band update will patch more than just the zero-day. It will, in fact, plug critical holes in every edition of IE, including the newest, IE8. "The out-of-band security bulletin is a cumulative security update for Internet Explorer and will also contain fixes for privately reported vulnerabilities rated Critical on all versions of Internet Explorer that are not related to this attack," said Microsoft today.

Microsoft first warned users of the vulnerability in IE6 and IE7 on March 9, saying at the time that the bug didn't affect the browser's oldest and newest editions, IE 5.01 and IE8, respectively. At the time, Microsoft called the attacks "targeted," a term it uses to describe small-scale exploitations.

Within two days, hackers were spotted using the vulnerability to conduct drive-by attacks from malicious sites, and an Israeli researcher had published exploit code on the Internet.

Today's announcement caught researchers by surprise. "I thought it would take longer than this," said Wolfgang Kandek, the chief technology officer of security vendor Qualys. "The fact that it's coming out now tells me that Microsoft is seeing a real reason to patch before the next [Patch Tuesday]. They accelerated this update for a reason, so I think that they've seen the attacks increasing."

Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security, agreed. "I wasn't necessarily expecting it. It's been less than a month since Microsoft issued its advisory," he said. "But they wouldn't move the timeline unless there was a good reason."

Like Kandek, Storms assumed that Microsoft pushed up the release of its cumulative IE update because it has seen an increase in attacks exploiting the zero-day.

Microsoft may patch two other outstanding vulnerabilities in IE, Storms added, ticking off a pair of security advisories the company has issued this year. In February, Microsoft warned of a bug in IE running on Windows XP that could be used by hackers to access files on the PC; earlier this month, Microsoft told Windows XP users not to press the F1 key when prompted by a Web site, citing an unpatched vulnerability that attackers could exploit to hijack PCs running the browser.

Tomorrow's update for IE will apply to all versions of the browser -- IE 5.01, IE6, IE7 and IE8 -- and affect all supported editions of Windows, including Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003, Server 2008, Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2.

If it follows it's usual timetable, Microsoft will issue the update sometime after 1 p.m. ET.

No Flash On The iPad? No Problem. Brightcove Turns Videos Into HTML5.

The lack of Flash on the iPad is a sore point for many and often listed as one of its greatest potential weaknesses. Not allowing Flash on the iPhone is bad enough, but on the larger iPad with full-screen browsing, its absence will be much more noticeable. Or will it? Already the Web is adapting. Videos powered by Brightcove, for instance, will stream in an HTML5 video player when it detects an iPad. On the iPhone browser, the video thumbnail will open up the Quicktime player. It will also work on Android phones.

Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire is agnostic about the Flash Vs. HTML5 debate. “HTML5 is great,” he says. “It is an open standard, and firmly entrenched in the Apple device platform. Flash can’t reach those platforms for political and business reasons.” But HTML5 simply cannot do everything Flash can, especially when it comes to supporting advertising, audience measurement, customized players, and social sharing. So he decided to bring HTML5 video to parity with Flash for anyone who uses Brightcove. (Note that this is for videos playing in the browser. Brightcove already supports video playback in iPhone apps).

It will take until the end of the year to reach full parity with Flash, but that is his goal. At first, Brightcove videos will play back in a very basic HTML5 player when they detect an iPad. But over the next nine months or so, Brightcove will add the same audience measurement and advertising features available in its regular Flash player. Brightcove will still display the video in Flash when the viewing device supports it, but for the iPad, iPhone, and even Android phones, videos will play in HTML5 and most viewers probably won’t notice the difference.

Already today you can see who these videos work on the iPhone. For example, Brightcove turned on the capability for Techcrunch videos such as this one when viewed in an iPhone browser. When the iPad comes out, you will be able to watch our videos on there as well, along with videos on the sites of the New York Times and Time magazine, who also use Brightcove.

Making HTML5 playback available is just something all video platforms will eventually do. Ooyala is set to offer it for the iPad as well, and YouTube is moving in that direction as well.

How to Create a Facebook Fan Page For Your Small Business

A Facebook fan page is a great way to promote businesses for which you want to build an audience. This guide will walk you through how to make a Facebook fan page.

Facebook fan pages can be created for virtually any businesses. Creating a fan page isn't difficult, but you do need a general idea of how Facebook works to pull it off successfully. You'll need to log on to Facebook using your personal account information, head to the advertising section to create the page and then decide specifics for how you want to design the page.

Facebook is the most popular social networking site in the world, with over 300 million registered users.http://mashable.com/2009/09/15/facebook-300-million/ Creating Facebook fan pages has become a popular way to get your business or idea into the minds of those users.

Facebook fan pages allow you to network and connect with those outside of your immediate circle of Facebook friends, without necessarily revealing a lot of your personal information. You can use this easy-to-follow guide to make a Facebook fan page, turning some of those 300 million users into customers.

5 Tips for Getting Started With Google Buzz | Social Media Examiner

Google Buzz is important, not because it’s the next big thing, but because it’s from Google and is bolted onto one of the world’s biggest email services, Google’s Gmail.

When a service launches with millions of users right out of the gate, we need to take notice. That said, it’s still the early days for Google Buzz. It might be a bit premature to be jumping on this bandwagon with both feet. So what should you do?

In this article I’ll reveal what you need to know about Google Buzz.

The good news is Google Buzz is not particularly complicated or new. Google has used the most basic features from other popular platforms: friends and status updates.

You can post short messages, comment and “like” other people’s messages, plus share links and photographs. All familiar stuff. Your initial friends will be from your Gmail address book and you can find other people with the usual searches for email address and name.

Here’s Google’s launch video for Google Buzz:

What follows are the basic facts and tips so you “know enough” not to get left behind, but not so much that you need to spend the next week learning yet another social networking service!

#1: Got Gmail? You Have Google Buzz

If you have an existing Gmail account, you’re likely either all ready to go or about to be. Google Apps email users are still waiting, unfortunately.

Luckily for me I already had a Gmail account from a while ago that was still working. To get started, you’re going to need that Gmail account, even if you only want it for Buzz.

#2: Get Your Personal Profile

It seems that Google Profiles will be more important going forward. Profiles is the other service that’s heavily tied into Buzz. You can find mine and fill out your own here.

#3: If You Use Facebook, Buzz Will Be Familiar

As mentioned above, it’s very much like FriendFeed and Facebook.

You add status update messages, links and photographs, and people can comment on them or “like” them. You can comment and like other folks’ stuff in return. It’s all very easy.

#4: Import Your Other Social Sites

In addition to posting links and messages, you can import your blog posts and photographs. You can even import your tweets.

That’s how I find most people are using the service right now. They’re importing their other stuff and spending just a few minutes in conversation and so on, while still dedicating most of their time to Twitter and Facebook.

#5: Listen and Friend First

While you can import all your other content, it might be worth holding off.

Add your friends, browse around and get familiar with the service before rushing headlong into importing all your stuff. Some people are already unfollowing “noisy” people.

It’s going to be a while before the “rules” of this community are ironed out. The best use you can make of it right now is connecting, conversation, and finding cool content.

Interestingly, while most excitement is about Google SEO and sharing content, a lot of people are complaining that conversation threads are moving off blogs and Twitter into Buzz, which makes it a whole new important place to listen to what people are saying.

What I Like About Google Buzz…

1. Buzz is lending itself to real in-depth conversation threads (like in FriendFeed), rather than fleeting but snappy chats like in Twitter.
2. Better signal-to-noise ratio. So far it is growing like Facebook without the “Farmville” rubbish.
3. It’s all very familiar … but does that mean Google has no innovation in Buzz?

So far those three items do not add up to a hugely compelling reason to make this your primary social tool, but it is worth a look.

Server down? You've just lost potential customersServer down? You've just lost potential customers

A recent article from USA Today on the importance of "the network" to small business.

 

Pay attention: I'm going to discuss something today that's critical for your business, but that you probably never think about. Your network. Yes, I know it's geeky, but stick with me. This is important.

Consider the following scenarios:

• You're running a small hotel, it's the week before Memorial Day, and suddenly, your connection to the Internet goes down, and you can't accept reservations.

• You're on deadline for a report to your most lucrative client, and suddenly, you can't send e-mail.

• Your e-commerce store is up and running, but suddenly, you can't download orders to your shipping clerk or upload payments to your bank.

• You've got a critical file to share with a team member who works remotely, but suddenly you can't access your server.

• You use the Internet to get cheap phone service, and suddenly, you've got no dial tone.

Today, the network is a mission critical component for small business. We turn on our machines, and we expect the network to be there. Until it's not. Then we panic. Worse, we don't know what the problem is: "It's the router. It's the modem. It's the DSL. It's the software."

All I know is that in my business, I just need the network to work. And I need it to ALWAYS work.

That's why networking giant Cisco is on a mission. The corporation known for enterprise-level networking equipment — all the dull stuff like routers, switches, hubs and the like — has created an entire group within Cisco to serve companies with fewer than 100 employees.

I recently visited their Small Business Technology Group, (SBTG) which fills more than a large building in Milpitas, Calif. Their task: develop new products and services especially for small companies to give those who run small companies the technologies we need to build and run competitive businesses. And, make sure those technologies work together seamlessly, all the time.

"When you get to the point when you realize your connection to the network is critical, then it's important that it's dependable, reliable," said Ian Pennell, senior vice president, SBTG. "You don't have to tinker with it."

"The killer app of the Internet is the Internet," said Pennell. And that will only be more true as we increasingly use Web-based services for our bookkeeping, payroll, contact management. "The heart of Cisco is all about connecting everything to everything on the network."

At the Technology we help clients implement the RIGHT solution for their IT needs, often this means calling on suppliers like Cisco to supply the equipment, it's good to see they're listening!

Personality plays a big factor in Twitter success

I opened an account on Twitter back in 2007. (www.twitter.com/thetechcoach) At first, I really had no idea what I was doing. I just knew that if I was going to get on board with this new thing called “social media,” I’d better learn all I can about Twitter, and watch how others were using it.


I learned that following others on Twitter that had similar interests was a good first step. I searched Google to find small business and technology companies that were already on Twitter, and I followed them. I engaged in 140 characters or less micro-conversations, a little at a time. I found that if my Tweets included some of my technology and general small business knowledge, a few other like-minded folks would follow me back, it seemed it was working

But the real surge came when I lent my own personality to my tweets, I tend to be a bit sarcastic in a fun way and have been told I have a sharp wit, I let that spill over into my Tweets. I have found those two qualities to be very beneficial on Twitter. If I add some humor to the equation, I usually get several new followers within hours.

The best part of being active on Twitter has been the chance to meet people from all kids of industries, and even throughout the world, that are part of my industry, or industries that rely on the services companies like mine provide.

So don't be afraid to be yourself on Twitter, if you succeed in conversations by being yourself in real life, do it on Twitter too, it'll pay off, and don't worry, people aren't NEARLY as easily offended as you might think they will be.

10 Essential Social Media Tips for B2B Marketers: 10. Don’t Be Creepy

If you use social media like a keyword searching robot, you are going to come across as creepy and turn off potential clients. Don’t be creepy.

Use best judgment and common sense when approaching people using social networks. If you wouldn’t want to be approached the way you are approaching another user, don’t use that approach. It’s as simple as that. Social media etiquette isn’t much different than real life relationships, so what won’t work in “real life” probably won’t work online.

Respecting boundaries doesn’t mean you can’t still answer questions, engage and follow-up with potential leads, it just means that if it’s clear that the other party isn’t interested, or more importantly, if the context of their communication really doesn’t involve or seek out input from your company, don’t do it.

Context is really important in social media and it is something that is very, very easy to overlook. While we think that using keywords and Google Alerts are good methods for keeping atop of your field, that doesn’t mean you can automate your responses or just go into autopilot based on those alerts.

10 Essential Social Media Tips for B2B Marketers: 9. Use Social Media for Giveaways and Promotions

Sometimes, the hardest part of social media is sticking out from the sea of other users. Giveaways and promotions are a great way to help differentiate yourself and your business. Using Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, you can target your desired customer base and then let them know (if appropriate) about different promotions or giveaways related to your product. If you offer a service, consider giving a free year to a loyal customer. If you manufacture products, give some away.

Offer a coupon on your company’s Facebook Page and pair it with a lead-generation form for future contact. Let people know on Twitter about specials or contests that are going on and follow-up with those that show an interest. Perhaps you can have a retweet contest where you can monitor responses or host some trivia on your Facebook Page. You can also open an online survey to get feedback about your offerings and reward participants. The possibilities are endless. Creativity in this capacity breeds success.

Companies like Wildfire make it really easy to build these sorts of promotions directly inside your own social media channels.

10 Essential Social Media Tips for B2B Marketers: 8. Find and Follow Industry Influencers

B2B social media marketing is often about connecting with the right people and about building relationships. Social media makes both of these actions simple and painless. Being aware of who the influencers in your industry are and then following them, whether it’s on Twitter, Facebook or their own blogs, is the first step to building a connection with those influencers. With a genuine relationship, these influencers may be able to help you make your mark in the social media marketplace. This is especially true of influencers who may already have your target audience at their disposal.

This doesn’t mean you need to retweet every tweet or share every blog post on Facebook, but it does mean that you should be aware of who the movers and shakers are. By following them and then reaching out when appropriate or just to get to know them further, you have a much better shot at getting some attention.

Even if you’re not necessarily connecting to influencers, social media affords the opportunity to connect with other people in your industry and your customers. Use the various social media platforms as an opportunity to connect with these industry colleagues and peers and build upon each other. Consider celebrating your colleagues’ or customers’ success. Make it known that you’re here to help them — not just yourself. Repeat this process with anyone of interest and you’re bound to attract eyeballs.

10 Essential Social Media Tips for B2B Marketers: 7. Leverage Your Analytics for Business Metric Measurement

After you’re involved enough in the social space, you’ll likely see tweets, retweets, traffic, and social network links that point to various parts of your company website. Take a look at your website analytics and start seeing where you’re making a difference, especially as it relates to ROI measurement. Don’t lose sight of your business metrics and start considering practical social media measurement to assess clickthroughs, popularity of links, and other important metrics.

As part of measurement, consider using URL shorteners. Not only do they make links more manageable (and limit the number of characters in a Tweet or Facebook message), they also can be a great way to track data as many URL shorteners provide valuable statistics about the performance of each individual shortened URL. Monitor this data throughout the process with your main website analytics package to see if your message attached to the shortened URL resulted in conversions.

When looking at conversion trends or successful tools in building leads with social media, reviewing analytics data is crucial. It gives you insight into content that performs very well in the social space but also through other marketing techniques, such as search engine optimization. Use the data as an opportunity to improve your content or your social media/search marketing efforts.

Get a Kindle on your computer for FREE from Amazon! (PC and MAC)

Well-read people usually have packed bookcases. Some even have home libraries. However, many do not. Modern bookworms store their libraries on a hard drive.

E-books are growing more popular every day. Amazon's Kindle is a big reason why. But maybe you don't want to buy one. Are you left out of all the e-book fun?

Not anymore. Amazon has released Kindle for PC and Kindle for Mac. You can store and read Amazon's more than 450,000 e-books on your computer.

Now, you'll still have to buy the e-books themselves. But you'll get one of the largest e-book collections online. You'll get even more out of it if you have a Kindle. Your reading is automatically synchronized between devices.

PC – www.amazon.com
Mac – www.amazon.com

Why Your Brand Needs to Be on Facebook Now!

With 450 million users globally (and millions more being added each week) Facebook () is dominating the web in unparalleled ways. Yet, even as the social network has steadily grown over its short but remarkable history, many brands have remained on the sidelines of the social media revolution.

Facebook was the most visited site on the web for the week ending on March 13, 2010, surpassing even Google in week-long stats for the first time in history, according to Hitwise. The shift in user habits and audience targeting is palpable and it provides marketers, brand managers, issue advocates, and political campaigns today with an age old choice: Adapt and change or face irrelevance and extinction.

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A Social Media Parable

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In many ways, the fundamental decision facing those looking to compete in the next decade of social media dominance is reminiscent of Dr. Spencer Johnson’s bestselling business tale Who Moved My Cheese? It’s the story of two mice named Sniff and Scurry and two “littlepeople” named Hem and Haw who find themselves facing this same predicament.

As the fable unfolds, the book’s four main characters arrive in their maze one day to find that their once abundant cheese supply has disappeared. Sniff and Scurry knew this day was coming. They recognized that their cheese supply was dwindling and set out to find a new source.

Hem and Haw, on the other hand, hadn’t noticed that their cheese was running out. Rather than adapt, they retreated into the all-too-human reactions of fear, denial, and disbelief as they hopelessly waited for the change to prove passing.

For those who have not read this late-90s change agent bible, I won’t spoil the ending. The moral of the story however is clear: Change happens. To survive it, you must anticipate it; and to be successful, you must embrace it.

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Realizing the Critical Value of Facebook

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In the modern day maze that is the digital and social media realm, these lessons were again on display as the online community debated the value of the new Facebook user statistics this past week.

Viewed simply, the cheese moved again this month –- and just as intelligent companies adapted their marketing and communications models for the advent of Google () over the last decade, Facebook’s dominance has forced another “change or become extinct” moment. To thrive in a rapidly changing marketplace, corporate communicators must understand that the shift now underway is just as powerful as the one that transformed Google into the modern Yellow Pages and turned a Silicon Valley start-up into a $200 billion everyday necessity.

Unfortunately, most of today’s C-Suite decision makers lack the foresight of Dr. Johnson’s furry friends Sniff and Scurry. Far too many executives still see Facebook as a vast, uncontrollable outpost for college slackers –- one better equipped for picture sharing and random life updates than corporate reputation management, crisis response, and brand bulletproofing.

But the numbers don’t lie. Almost half-a-billion users each spend an average of nearly 6 hours per month on the site –- inhabiting networks that are largely free of corporate messaging, spam, and expensive advertising. This ought to make at least a few corporate titans rethink that next $1 million Super Bowl ad buy (even if Google did buy its first in 2010).

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3 Ways Your Brand can Get Started on Facebook

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Facebook users are openly sharing their life’s passions, personal interests, and their affinity –- or lack thereof –- for corporate brands, political candidates, and the key public policy stances. In effect, they are openly sharing every bit of marketing data a 21st century company covets.
For those still wary of change but now ready to dip their toe into the waters and begin to understand and benefit from the power of social, there are three free and relatively painless steps to begin the journey through the social media maze:

• First, evaluate your current advertising efforts and identify how they can best be tailored to Facebook. Consider allocating 10% of your current Google AdWords or online advertising budget to a 90-day trial run on Facebook. Be sure to develop clear benchmarks for success, and remember, unlike Google AdWords, Facebook ads rely on both keywords and a variety of demographic information –- information you no doubt have already identified as key indicators of your target audience(s). You can now put this information to use to further micro-target your advertising buy, narrow the net you are throwing in the online marketplace, and increase the return on your investment.

• Second, conduct a survey of your employees to see who is already on Facebook and thus, who may be your company’s most social media-savvy employees. You may find that your workplace is brimming with talent just waiting to be unleashed. For now, these future brand ambassadors may be ideal candidates to develop your Facebook presence and initial advertising program.

• Finally — and this may seem obvious — become a face on Facebook yourself. Become familiar with the site, its features and the value hundreds of millions of people find in the world’s most populous online community. It may ultimately not be for you personally, but as with almost every new platform, the best way to understand its value is to give it a try yourself.

For those still looking for meaning in the numbers released earlier this month, the message is clear: Not only has the cheese moved again, the entire creamery has up and relocated. It won’t be coming back. And no manner of hemming and hawing is going to change that fact.

10 Essential Rules for Brands in Social Media The 1% Rule and How to Make It Work for You

These days everyone seems to have advice about how to run your social media marketing program. There are so many tips floating around, it's hard to know what truly essential strategies you should follow to effectively use social media to build your business. Questions abound: Do Facebook fans drive sales? Why should I fund forums for consumers to pillory my products, ridicule my service and tout the competition? And, whatever I decide to do, how I will I know if it's working?

In the search for truth, sometimes social media is its own worst enemy. With a self-credentialed guru waiting at every click, finding actionable, fact-based insight is tricky.

So, in a modest attempt to bring a dose of sanity to this intellectual frat party, I've reined my impulse to lob more "personal picks" into the fray. Instead, I'll follow the wisdom of an august data mining colleague to just "let the data speak."

Our process was to query data from hundreds of our brand clients to see what testable truths emerged -- and here's what we found: 10 rules that hold up across category and time.


1. The 1% Rule
In category after category, our data show that a small fraction of site visitors are responsible for a substantial portion of total site traffic. On average, the percentage of influential users (defined for our purposes simply as a visitor who's subsequent sharing actions result in at least one additional site visitor) on a given site is 0.6% and rarely above 4%. However, these influencers regularly generate 20%-50% of total site traffic and an even higher share of conversion (defined however a site owner so decides). To make social media marketing effective, marketers have to identify and engage -- and better recognize and reward -- these super-influentials.

2. The 2-4X Rule
When it comes to conversion, visitors driven to a site by influencers are to to four times more likely to convert compared to visitors from other sources, such as display advertisements or paid search. That means your landing pages for people coming from shared links and social sites should reflect these visitors' interests and offer enticing deals that will encourage them not only to convert but to share the deals with others.


3. The New Media/New Pipes Rule
In today's socially driven internet, it matters far more what consumers do with your content than what you do with your content. What they say about your brand means more than what you say about your brand. Our data shows that content spread from consumer to consumer through word-of-mouth is far more powerful at driving brand preference and purchase intent than content distributed by the brand itself. This has profound implications in social media. To illustrate, if a brand puts content on its Facebook fan page, it is far less likely to go viral than if an influential consumer puts that very same piece of content on his or her page or posts it to a relevant community of enthusiasts.


4. The Martha Stewart Rule
Throw your own party; don't just cater someone else's! If you base your social campaigns in venues you don't control -- such as Facebook or YouTube -- you may get great "attendance," but data show it's hard to convert and retain these party-goers. If your goals are anything beyond building brand awareness, it's better to have a house of your own where friends can find you -- such as your own branded social site, contest site, or customer forum.

5. The Power of "Weak Links" Rule
Influentials generally do have many direct "friends" and "followers," but what makes them truly valuable is the number and relevance of their extended or indirect connections. As Albert-Laszlo Barabasi illustrated in "Linked," you are far more likely to find your next job through a friend-of-a-friend than through an intimate contact. These "weak links" matter in the "real world," and they matter even more online. A critical implication for marketers is the need to track the extended social graphs of their content if they are going to be able to understand and activate the dynamics of influence.

6. The Feed the Fire Rule
Consumers love to share relevant, engaging, useful, and entertaining content with their friends. Make it easy for them to find your content and make it easy for them to share your content. Ninety percent of internet pages have fewer than 10 links pointing to them -- making them effectively unfindable. Avoiding this abyss of irrelevance requires more thought and effort than just pasting a sharing tool on your pages. It means actively syndicating and curating your content and distributing it not only through your brand's social graph, but through the graphs of your most influential advocates and fans. Easy ways to do this include following/friending your influentials' followers/friends and retweeting/posting content even if it's not yours.

7. The More Things Change Rule
Our research consistently demonstrates that e-mail and IM remain popular ways to share content. So don't throw out your old e-mail marketing methods just because Facebook and Twitter are the newest communication platforms du jour. The tried-and-true methods of getting customers to share links via e-mail and IM are still extremely valuable sources of traffic. Furthermore, incorporating social elements into your e-mail, such as incentives to share, can dramatically enhance an investment you're already making.

8. Horse Before the Cart Rule
Success in social media happens when brands infuse their content with social dimensions (Facebook Connect, most notably), not when they simply stick their ads and content in social forums. In other words, if you want to succeed in social media, your brands and content need to have social attributes -- content worth sharing, brands worth talking about, sites that encourage consumer participation and dialog. If your social strategy relies on advertising in social media, it's probably better to hang on to your money.


9. The PR Pitfalls Rule
Blogger outreach and content seeding may be popular ways to get your message into the social world, but our data show that more than 90% of seeding has no material impact. Up to 5% gets some response, but less than 2% of seeding drives valuable traffic. In other words, if you can't track efficacy of these efforts, don't bother.


10. The Customer-Service Rule
Social marketing programs succeed when they provide a service to the consumer. Traditional media-planing processes that begin with reach and frequency targets are largely unhelpful in social media. Reach and frequency -- as well as engagement, preference and conversion -- are positive consequences of giving consumers content that is sufficiently relevant and useful that they propagate your message across their own social graphs. Focus on providing useful content and offers to your target audience and they will spread your messages for you.

Social media isn't a science, but applying data-backed principles to your social efforts provides a structured framework that will enable you to improve effectiveness and ROI over time. And one final note: Every rule has exceptions. We live in dynamic times. Find what's true for you -- and share.

Gmail Adds New Security Features

Today Google has introduced a new Gmail alerts system to further protect users from hackers and scammers.

Should Google detect any suspicious activity happening with your Gmail account, you’ll now see a bright red warning below the search bar alerting you to the issue. You can then click the “Show details and preferences” link to view logs around your Gmail account’s most recent access points, and determine whether or not there’s a cause for alarm. You can also change your password from that window if need be.

The new security mechanism works at the IP level to automatically match IP addresses with broad geographic locations, with irregularities triggering the system to respond. So, “a login appearing to come from one country and occurring a few hours after a login from another country may trigger an alert.”

Right now the protective mechanism is available to individual Gmail users, but it should be rolled out to Google Apps customers in the future. It’s a smart idea and a necessary feature addition that we hope works to protect Gmail users from malicious individuals.

23 Rules Of Testimonials Based Marketing for Small Business

The following is a list of guidelines and rules that can be used to help entrepreneurs collect, develop and use customer testimonials in their small business marketing. It’s important to use testimonials the right way because it’s definitely frowned upon to use a testimonial in a misleading way.

1. Ask for testimonials: Don’t be shy about asking for a good testimonial to be used in your small business marketing. You never know unless you ask and if you’ve done your job as a company, odds are you know what the answer will be before you even ask.

2. Make sure the testimonials are real: There’s nothing worse than getting called out for having a fake testimonial either on your Web site, blog, printed marketing materials or online marketing information. This is a quick way to drop your credibility in the eyes of your customers.

3. Like-minded audience: People want to hear good things from other people they can relate to. If your target audience is of a certain demographic, make sure your testimonials are from people in the same demographic.

4. Constructive criticism: Understand the difference between constructive criticism and negative feedback. Constructive criticism, when done the right way, can rally people around your company and make you look real.

5. Get a photo: When possible have photos next to the people giving the testimonial.

6. Offer your own testimonial to a complimentary company: Sometimes the best way to receive is to give. Ask other complimentary small business owners if they’ll swap testimonials with you.

7. Have sales staff encourage testimonials for small business marketing: Your sales staff most likely has developed a close relationship with your customers. Teach them how to ask for a good testimonial and make sure they do it on a regular basis.

8. Have testimonials on lots of different pages: If you’re going to place testimonials on a Web site or blog (and we advise you do this), try to spread out testimonials on multiple pages so that the good vibes can be reinforced wherever visitors click.

9. Focus on success stories: Encourage your customers to use their testimonials as a way to showcase how your product, service, employees or cause helped make their life easier.

10. Be careful with competitors: This is one area you want to walk a fine line because it can easily backfire on you. Avoid saying bad things about your competitor in your marketing, but if a customer is going to call attention to a positive difference between the two companies you may benefit from it.

11. Strike when the customer is happiest: This one goes without saying. Don’t ask a customer for a glowing testimonial if you’ve just bungled their order.

12. Create a process for collecting testimonials: Employees work more efficiently when they work within a system of procedures. If others are in charge of collecting testimonials work out a system with them so that it’s automatically collected upon working with every happy customer.

13. Get information on the person leaving testimonial: Try to collect information like name, phone, address and email address from everyone offering a nice testimonial. You never know when you’ll want to reach out to them in the future either for a public relations story or email marketing initiative.

14. Use testimonials as a sales tool: Especially when you’re selling to a specific customer set, merchandise specific testimonials for other prospects that fall into the same category.

15. Use specific testimonials that speak to certain customers: For example, if someone wrote a nice testimonial about your windows, don’t use them to sell a customer looking for new plumbing.

16. Use video testimonials where possible in small business marketing: We now live in a YouTube age. Use those Flip cameras to easily record nice video testimonials of your customers saying nice things. You can then upload the testimonials to a YouTube page, or your Web site and blog.

17. Offer constructive ideas on a good testimonial: Some people want to leave a nice testimonial but they just don’t know what to say. This is your chance to help them by making some suggestions of a good testimonial. Some tips include having the customer talk about the quality service they received; how easy it was to work with the company; getting product on time and how it saved them money in the long run. No doubt they’d love to work with you again in the future.

18. Create a testimonials page on your Web site or blog: It’s nice to have testimonials on many pages, but you also want to have one place where you can direct people when you really want them to see the power of great testimonials about your company.

19. If possible, consider SEO in your testimonials: What keywords do you use to promote your company in search engine rankings? If possible, encourage your customers to use those phrases in their testimonials.

20. Ask if your testimonials will also speak to the media on your behalf: A great way to achieve good small business public relations is to offer up some happy customers whenever you’re working with a reporter on a story. Keep a list of happy customers willing to speak with the media and always have it ready when reporters come calling. Your ability to respond in a timely manner may land you another story in the near future.

21. Use social media as a way to get testimonials and create interaction: Spread your testimonials around on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

22. Get written permission to use testimonials: Especially for video, always try to get written permission from the customer if you’re planning on using the testimonials in other marketing literature.

23. Offer up rewards or freebies on glowing testimonials: Customers give you testimonials because you did a good job taking care of them. Reward them and take care of them even more so that they rave about you. It’s not about buying them off, it’s about creating a relationship based on value.

What other tips or rules would you add to this list of testimonials for small business marketing? Please leave a comment here.

Implementing A Social Media Strategy for your Small Business

Social media is the newest and hottest form of marketing today.  Every time you turn on the TV or read an article on the Internet, it refers some how to this new phenomenon.  It has so many uses for small businesses from engaging with their customers  all the way to customers actually solving the problems of other customers.  Perhaps the greatest benefit of social media marketing for small business is the low cost.  Most social media networks are free.  The only cost that a small business has when participating is time.  Here are some steps that can help a small business get started into social media marketing.

Establish your Social Media Objectives

Don’t jump on the social media marketing gravy train just because it is the new buzzword.  You need a plan and just like any investment, you need to determine what you want to accomplish.  This is a critical step if you want to measure your Return on Investment (ROI) or develop your own internal metrics tracking.

Setting up your objectives can help to guide the timetable for implementation.  Well defined objectives can assist in prioritization and with creating the best way to implement your social media strategy.
During the objectives stage, you should also address content management issues.  It is usually a good idea to assign a specific employee or department to create and manage the company’s social media pages, you need someone to respond to messages and question quickly; usually within a time-frame of 24 hours.

Evaluate your Employees Social Media Knowledge

Before you start a social media campaign, you need to understand your employees’ level of knowledge and interest.  Social media marketing is a relatively new marketing platform.  There are rules and a proper etiquette to follow, make sure that your employees understand these procedures and that they are interested and motivated to take part in the various conversations.  If you employee any interns or a volunteer staff, you also need to look at their level social media savviness.  Training and more training can be an excellent  strategy to put everyone on the same page.

Listen to the Social Media Conversation Before you Start Talking

Ask questions on and offline to learn more.  Share best practices among employees and identify expert users to follow and recommend connections.  Focus on making connections with persons in target companies, industries and geographic regions.  Join groups and lists of industry groups to ensure that you maximize your exposure and business opportunities.

Conclusion

More and more companies are expected to engage in social media activities during 2010.  Proper planning and execution is the key to integrating a social media marketing strategy into your organization.
What are some other key factors in creating and integrating a social media strategy?  Be sure to post your ideas in the comments below.

Social Media Use Doubles for Small Businesses

This month, survey results announced that the number of small businesses using social media have doubled since 2008. This news was published on the Small Business Success Index co-sponsored by Network Solutions and the University of Maryland’s Robert H. School of Business. The researchers asked 5000 business owners during December of 2009 about their social media use, and the results were interesting.

Small businesses saw substantial growth in the frequency and use of social media as a way to reach customers. From December 2008 to the end of 2009, the number of small business owners using social media doubled from 12% to 24%. That’s a lot of business owners actively participating in social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and company blogs.

How Small Businesses Socialize

Of the small businesses who actively participate in social media, 75% said they have a company page on a social network site. 69% said they actively update their company status and post articles or other links of interest on social media sites. And 57% said they are continually building a network through sites like LinkedIn.

Though Twitter usage is relatively small, with only 26%, it is still a growing trend, and businesses are continually exploring the uses of the site. Most of those who use Twitter say they post Tweets about areas of expertise, and 16% say they use Twitter as a service channel for customers.

Uses of Social Media

61% of business owners say that social media is used to attract new customers, while 46% use it to stay connected with current customers. 52% say they use social media to develop awareness of their business.

The Bottom Line and Social Media

Does using social media ultimately affect the bottom line? Most business owners think so. 70% of business owners who use social media say it meets or exceeds expectations, while only 26% say it falls short of expectations. 53% said social media has paid for itself, while 22% believe they have shown a profit from social media use.

And though most small businesses are not profitable through social media, 45% said they expect social media to be profitable in 2010. Are you going to be one of the profitable ones?

How To Test And Fix Your High Speed Internet Connection

There’s been a big kerfuffle since the FCC recently proposed to give broadband a goose.

If the National Broadband Plan goes as it should (and no, I’m not counting on it, either), almost everyone in the U.S. will get high-speed Internet access (the goal is 90% coverage); average speeds will increase by 20%; and everyone will get malware and viruses lots more quickly.

As it is, the U.S. is near the bottom of the broadband pile, with speeds averaging 2.5- to 10-megabits per second (Mbps); Japan, France, and Korea lead the pack at warp speeds ranging from 160 to 100-Mbps. Read BusinessWeek’s World’s Fastest Broadband; check some numbers from 2007; and if you’re a hard-core techie, dive into some OECD specs from 2009.

The dust-up happened when the FCC said most of us are paying for an “up to” speed, but not always getting nearly that advertised rate. The FCC offered to test your bandwidth speed. That’s nice, except it uses two testing services and the results at the sites vary, sometimes substantially. (Read How fast is your broadband? Even the feds can’t be sure in the L.A. Times. (Thanks for this, Barry.)

For comparison, I downloaded a 700MB file using JDownloader at 7:00 am, noon, and 5:00 pm. I clocked my Charter Communication cable connection and throughput was consistent: It stayed mostly at 350 kilobits per second (Kbps) with lots of bursts as high as 460 Kbps. In megabits per second, that’s 2.8 Mbps with bursts as high as 3.7 Mbps. (Techies: That’s based on 350 kilobits per second = 350 Kbps = 8*350 = 2800 Kbps = 2.8 Mbps.)

With any speed test, resist the temptation to check e-mail or browse the Web while testing so as not to alter the results.

If any of the online tests I’ve listed this week won’t work, you might need the most current version of Flash Player and Java. (Start on the Java site, click the “Free Java Download link,” and then click the “Download Java Now” button for Windows. And be careful: During the installation, make sure to deselect the Yahoo toolbar option. [top]

Broadband Tests: Pedal to the Internet Metal

BroadBand DSLReports: The granddaddy of online testing, DSLReports gives you a stack of tests to try. The Speed Test (choose the “Flash 8 plugin based speed test”) has a cool speedometer that displays your upload and download speeds. You can test your speed by using any of six servers in different locations. You’ll get a good average by testing with two: Try one close to home and another across the country.

Line quality test: If you’re worried about your connection, use the Line Quality test to look for packet loss and excessive latency. If you register and log in when testing, and then come back for another test, you can compare results between tests

SpeedTest: The site is powered by Ookla, one of the two tests that the feds use–and which the L.A. Times article implies overestimates results. But Speedtest is quicker to get to than DSLReports and is has an oh-so-nifty auto dashboard-like interface, the kind you want to show off when friends are in your office.

Fix Your Broadband’s Sluggishness

If your Internet connection is really sluggish, like emulating dialup, consider doing a couple of the tests I mentioned this week every hour or two for a few days–and keep a log. If you’re getting nowhere near advertised rates, send the results to your ISP — and raise a high-speed ruckus.

If you complain vigorously, and can substantiate your complaint with test results, chances are good, or at least better, that you’ll get some help.

And it could be something simple causing the problem. Here are a few typical issues (and solutions) to high-speed hassles:

• If you have DSL and your phone lines are old and cracked (ditto for cable modem); or if any of your lines have been chewed by squirrels or other vermin, performance can degrade substantially. Ask that they be replaced. You may get lucky and they’ll do it. My Copyeditor, Kim, kvetched and said it ain’t easy. “Will Charter replace in-home phone lines? Speakeasy certainly won’t… we had this problem for years and were told that we could pay big bucks for the ISP’s contractor to do this, or big bucks to AT&T for them to do it. Ultimately the problem went away when we had everything rewired during our remodel.” Good point.
• Use the cables that came with your modem. I know, you really like the 40-foot replacement cable you’re using; unfortunately, it could be degrading performance.
• Don’t throw away the ferrite chokes (they look like plastic cubes) that wrap around the modem’s cable and power line. They keep RF interference out of your LAN. If you didn’t get any with your modem, sometimes a simple filter on the lines can reduce interference from other electronic devices. Your ISP can supply them.
• If there are devices in your office that can emit RFI, such as halogen lamps or AM radios, they could slow down your connection. Isolate your modem from those items.

5 Tips to Be a Killer Blogger

Every person has the talent to be a killer blogger. But unfortunately many don’t try hard enough while other quit half way. The important thing is that you stay focused on your aim to be a successful blogger
. I have written five tips that can really use. If you fulfill these points then you can be sure that you will be a killer blogger soon!

1. Display Credibility
The most basic thing to be a killer blogger is that you need to earn credibility in your niche. It basically includes, what are your achievements? Are you someone who has become really successful in your field? Suppose if you have a make money online niche, then how much you earn money online. You will have to tell your readers what were the ways that you employed to make money online.

2. Share All Your Experiences
A common trait of all killer bloggers is that they share everything to their readers, all their success and even their failures, the techniques which they employed and failed badly, or some thing that you should definitely avoid while blogging. It is these posts that really get your blog readers.

3. Provide Information that No One Else has
This point is more of common sense but, it is something all newbie bloggers fall prey to. If you are simply giving away the same stuff in a reused and recycled manner – your blog will become just another blog. Your aim should be to make a brand out of your blog name and create loyal readers who can refer your blog to others.

4. Comment on other blogs
Yes, sure it seems cool to have hundreds of bloggers coming over and commenting at your blog without you not even visited their blog ever. But the task seems difficult unless by chance you are Darren Rowse, Guy Kawasaki or someone of that level. Since, you are reading this – the chance seems a long shot.

5. Be a Fun Person
It is of utmost importance that you are a fun person who knows how to use intelligent humor in all his posts. It is especially important when you may be explaining something really technical. Also a good sense of humor can take you really ahead in creating a rapport with your readers. If all your posts and serious and dry then it is a lot like reading a textbook on physics or chemistry. A fun person is always liked more as a blogger.

Hope you liked all the five tips that mentioned. Are you fulfilling all of these criteria’s while blogging?