Engaging in Social Media - Optional or Mandatory?

Most businesses and professionals are either engaged in social media or debating whether to start. For those who don't wish to actively participate in social media, ignoring it may not be an option - at least not a good one!

Engaging in social media stops being optional when we are mentioned by customers, competitors or other professionals in any of the online forums available. That is especially true if that mention is negative or simply not the way we wish to be perceived. Managing a reputation online should (must?) be a part of any professional or business marketing strategy.

This was brought home to me when one of our less technically sophisticated clients received a negative review on Yelp. They came to us as their technology providers asking for a way to have the offending comment removed. (The short review said the office was nice enough but tried to "push" expensive services not needed by the reviewer.) After explaining why we wouldn't be able to remove the offending review we helped the client set up a mini-social media blitz with positive reviews from customers. It was pretty simple to generate enough buzz from their customers to drown out the single negative review in the search engines.

This client will not be engaged in creating content for a blog or even Twitter or Facebook, but will continue to encourage their clientele to submit reviews online.  

Another reason to at least establish social media accounts is to ensure that no one else can use your identity in the major social media hubs. I had no idea how many Michael Boys were out there until Facebook and Twitter. Nor was I familiar with the photographer with whom I share a name famous for his photos of young, naked women.

Twitter has shut down accounts simply because someone else has a domain name identical to a Twitter account name. Most businesses probably need a stable of domain names and social media IDs to prevent others from cyber-squatting, or using a name identified with someone else or their business.    

Here are some FREE sites to help track mentions and reputations on the Internet:

• Google Alerts - Probably the best-known way to track mentions on the Internet. Create as many alerts as needed for an individual name, company name, social media handle etc. Alerts can be via email, text or feed. 
• Addict-o-matic - no feed or alert support, but complete results. 
• Social Mention - includes email alerts as well as ranking/analysis of searched phrases.
• Yasni - includes email alerts and a widget to place on websites.
• Pipl - includes public record searches.
• Spy - limited source search.
• Username Check - determines availability of an entered user name for about 68 sites. 
• BackType - another tool. 

Tracking social media reputation need not be a time consuming task, and domain names can be purchased and held. In the era of social media and the Internet, where some say privacy is dead, this is simply a new cost of doing business.

You should follow me on Twitter here. Call or text me at 1-949-212-2168 and visit On-Site Technical Solutions.

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Social Media, Your Business and Your Bottom Line

Here's the intro article for On-Site Technical Solutions latest online monthly newsletter - we'll have that published in a day or two!

Social Media, Your Business and Your Bottom Line

Do you have a personal Facebook page? Does your business? Are you Twittering yet for business or pleasure or both? How many videos have you posted to YouTube? Do you have a LinkedIn profile and is your business on Merchant Circle?

However you answer those questions, expect your family and your business to become much more involved in social media. Making light of Twitter and the twits using it might be fun, but social media and networking are serious, big businesses and will be impacting your business and your bottom line.

By now you have a web site that is either integrated into your sales and marketing process or is simply an online business card. Without a website a business does not exist to most of the population - every business that wants more customers has a website that is a necessary component of any marketing plan. Expect that marketing plan to include social media in the near future if it doesn’t already.

Some of the more prominent social media tools for businesses include:

• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Merchant Circle

Facebook has more than 300 million users and grows by hundreds of thousands every day. While the demographics for Facebook were originally skewed to the student population, that has rapidly changed. The typical Twitter user is not from gen-Y, but is 30-54 years-old. They are your customers and you’re going to need social media to connect with them and grow your business.

Search engines LOVE social media. If you’re on LinkedIn you already know that entering your name in Google Web Search will give you a first page link for your name. Search engine optimization (SEO) for your website and business is going to get much more difficult without incorporating social media into your marketing plan. The search engines also love Merchant Circle – you need to be there!

Social Media Policy

Because of the growth of the social media phenomena every business should begin thinking about a formal Social Media Policy. Businesses already using Facebook, LinkedIn et al. should already have a written policy governing the use of these media. But even businesses not using social networks should at least incorporate social media use into existing Internet use policies – be proactive. Don’t have an Internet use policy? Better get that done first!

We’ll be talking much more about social media and networking. Please call or text Michael (1-949-212-2168) if you have any questions about social media or you’d like to set up a time to talk about it. If you have no idea what it’s all about or you already have sophisticated plans in place, feel free to call, text, email or comment on our blog at www.on-sitetechnicalsolutions.blogspot.com.

You should follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/mhboys

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The Cloud Will Save You Money

The On-Site Technical Solutions August newsletter is out.

On-Site Connections

Here is the Notes From the GM column for August:

Here at On-Site Technical Solutions we are in the process of moving our internal business systems to The Cloud. We have already migrated to Google Apps for mail and document sharing and use Google Apps and Service Sidekick for sharing calendars. Once we move QuickBooks from the server to The Cloud we will no longer have any internal business applications running locally.

That means we have no need for the hardware or a network to support our internal applications – we let our vendors handle that in The Cloud. No capital expenditures for that hardware, no licensing for the network and powerful computers attached to the network to run those applications. Everything is a monthly operating expense.

Add an employee? Add the licensing to our monthly operating expense. Lose an employee? Drop the licensing from our monthly operating expense. All of our data and systems can be accessed from any computer or PDA (iPhone, Blackberry, Palm etc.) with an internet connection.

With Office 2010 Microsoft will be offering a free web version of their flagship product. Inuit wants its QuickBooks and Quicken customers to move to The Cloud so it can get out of the disk burning and mailing business – saving Intuit millions of dollars in production costs. Everything Google creates is in the cloud. Google, Microsoft , Amazon and others are spending BILLIONS building gigantic, portable data centers to support the move to cloud computing.

Scott has tested the Google Apps app on the iPhone and is going to be migrating from his Blackberry to an iPhone. I’m the conservative one; I’ll wait until my Blackberry dies to make a decision on the next PDA. The iPhone interface is simply perfect for Google Apps and Scott will also be able to use an iPhone app for remote support for customer servers and workstations.

The technical world is changing faster than ever and we can all expect to be doing business differently in a very short time. The changes we are now seeing are simplifying technology, making it less expensive and easier to use and support.

Why am I discussing this and what does it mean for our customers? The iPhone now has more than 35,000 apps and counting. Eight months ago we looked at Google Apps and said it wasn’t ready to run a business. Today we’re using it to run our business and some of our customers businesses. The world is changing and businesses are going to get on board or get left behind. We can ensure that businesses navigate the labyrinth that is technology today and make the best fit for each business.

We’re already saving customers the expense of running Exchange servers and for our smaller customers even the expense of a network server. If we’re not talking directly to you about how the changes in technology can run your business cheaper, more efficiently and effectively, call me or Scott.

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Caution Advised When Using Social Networking Web Sites for Recruiting, Background Checking

Workforce.com tells us that using sits such as Facebook and MySpace is being used as a tool for recruiters and employers, but it may be a risky one.

Quoting from the article, "By looking at the highly personal sites, employers can inadvertently learn about matters such as candidates’ age, marital status, medical problems and plans to start a family, Lenard says. These topics typically are off limits in job interviews because they can be grounds for discrimination suits if people aren’t hired. Seeing such information on a social networking site conceivably creates the same liability problem..."

Using the sites this way may also be a violation of the terms of use, which typically include a non-commerical use only clause.

Here's the full article (free subscription required):
Caution Advised When Using Social Networking Web Sites for Recruiting, Background Checking

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