Month: April 2010

Making Your Website Social Media Friendly

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The advent of Twitter’s @anywhere service and Facebook’s “like” button, are driving home the point that that social media is crucial for a website’s success. This means that website’s should be, more than ever, social media friendly.

There are a few ways in which this can be achieved.

1. The main page of the website is where users spend most of their time. Take advantage of this and place links to your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other profiles. If you don’t have any of these for some reason, get them immediately.

2. Have a blog. Don’t worry about having to get a web designer to create one; there are many readymade blogs out there on the web. The main reason for having one is that you can implement an RSS feed. RSS feeds allow syndication of information. Many users subscribe to RSS feeds and in turn distribute the information they find there via links. Incorporate your RSS feed into your website. If you need help creating a professional blog, take a look at iClimber’s blog design services.

3. Turn the blog into a business blog. This needs some work, especially in the form of updates. Having a consistent, daily update will increase your reputation and facilitate more interaction with your visitors. Always reply to any comments that you find there as it will help you form relationships.

4. Reduce the clutter on the site and make it mobile friendly. This does not mean that you have to develop separate pages or develop iPhone apps. Just ensure that it will load up fairly fast on a phone browser.

If you need any further professional help in social media marketing services, we highly recommend you take a look at iClimber.com

Promoted Tweets – Twitter Advertising

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Since Twitter launched in 2006 the company has been trying to figure out ways to make money. Traditional advertising has been thought about though not very seriously. It is generally considered that this form of advertising would only drive away the fan base. Now, Twitter has come up with an interesting method to generate revenue – Promoted Tweets.

Promoted Tweets are supposed to be normal Tweets by businesses and organization that will be highlighted. They are expected to appear at the top of search result, much like the sponsored links that appear atop Google’s search results. However there is a condition attached to promoted tweets. They will be removed if there is insufficient re-Tweeting or if there are no replies. Currently big players like Starbucks and Red Bull among other have already geared up to use this new method of marketing.

The big question here is, “will it work?” Twitter users are notoriously finicky and may reject advertising even on this level. If users enter the service in a complaining mood (because they know they will see ads) then the service will surely face doom. This is something that Twitter and the advertising companies will have to watch closely and respond to.

However, if this fails Twitter will have to work really fast to come up with a revenue generating plan. Even though it is unfair by users to expect the service to be free forever, that is exactly what has contributed to its success. Unfortunate as this is, that is the tightrope that Twitter has to walk in order to maintain its dominance in the online world.

If you need professional help in twitter marketing and promotion, we recommend looking at iClimber.

Connecting to the World through Social Networking

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The concept of Social Networking is not new by Internet standards. It has been around for a while and as with anything that becomes popular, people are making money off it as well. If you are new to the scene or are not involved in business you may wonder how something like Facebook or Twitter could help you make money.

Well consider this; Social networking is about making contact with someone else. Once the other person has added you as a friend, you have access to whole load of information about that person. This is something that most businesses don’t have access to and crave for because they can then profile their customers and better understand them. This also enables businesses to have a dialogue with their customers and get firsthand feedback which in normal circumstances does not happen. It also helps a business to create a relationship with its customers and therefore ensure that they retain them for a long time.

However, the process of building relationships and harnessing the information is a long and tricky one. Businesses should be careful in their approach. If they start pushing their products constantly then the contacts they have will start blocking them off. The first rule in this whole process is not to spam. By offering help with their products, giving away freebies, giving out lots of information, etc the relationship can be built up. While this goes on, pushing the product in a very subtle way is the advisable method.

The best part about this method is that, other than getting a person or team working on this, there is no other cost involved, making this an extremely cost effective way of increasing sales.

Los Angeles Computer Consulting Companies

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If you are looking for a Los Angeles computer consulting company, you will be surprised that there will be a few that can help both small and large businesses with their IT needs.

As some organizations do not have their own in-house technical support in place, they normally look for solutions from companies that offer IT services when the need for IT outsourcing (due to the lack of resources and in some cases, for cost cutting) and technical support arises.

Whether one is looking for tech support Los Angeles or for IT services Long Beach, you will be able to pick from the lot as there are several located in these areas that will cater to your needs by providing you cost-effective and tailored IT solutions for your business.

Once you decide on an IT service provider, you can stay focused on the most important aspects of your business without having to worry about the backend (although, important) part of the business. Not only will the transition from your old IT provider to the new one be smooth, but will give you access to newer business technologies that can give you value for money.

What is most important is that you find a consulting company that understands your business needs as well as is able to provide you the right staff that will add value to your business.

Big Brother is Everywhere

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Privacy has been an online issue for a long time. Recently, Facebook revamped its privacy policies and Google Buzz was forced to revamp some of its policies as well. While all this goes on, there are other entities that are working towards stripping those privacies. No, this is not about the CIA, KGB, Mossad or any of those intelligence agencies. It is actually about a company called Teneros, which has released software called Social Sentry that allows employers to monitor the activity of their employees on social networks.

This app is so intrusive it can:

Inform employers when employees are on Facebook, Twitter or other social networking sites

Monitor social networking activity by employees regardless of the device they are using (Computer, iPods, Mobile phones, etc)

Monitor regardless of what network is being used to access the sites

Be configured with advanced rules that send out automatic alerts and notifications

Give detailed reports and statistics

Be deployed in under an hour and requires no hardware or software installation

Using this software to monitor employees’ behavior during working hours is acceptable. However, the software also allows monitoring of everything they are saying on the sites even after working hours. This amounts to an invasion of privacy. While that is the negative side, the positive side is that it allows employers to have tighter control on security especially when it comes to company news leaks.

The pros and cons of this software can be argued about for a while. But the significant fact that emerges from this is that – it is a sign of things to come.