Susan Finch Solutions

Who Owns Your List of Followers and Fans?

Many companies are spread thin, especially small businesses, when it comes to maintaining and setting up social media venues such as Twitter accounts, Facebook fan pages and the like.  Everyone wants to pitch in and help. Or do they? Many times our employees are well-intentioned when they take the initiative to set these accounts up with their email as the contact because it's easier, etc.  I'm warning you - set up company policies regarding the use of the company name, tagline, logo, lists as soon as possible. It's difficult to go back and gain "custody" after a messy divorce.

If an employee sets up a Twitter account for your company using their email address, and then proceeds to represent the company with their tweets and efforts, this is no longer THEIR Twitter account.  People follow with the assumption they are following the company or product. If a list of followers is gained, then the staff person is fired or leaves the company, they can simply change their Twitter username and retain the list of followers. It's similar to stealing a company client list or mailing list of customers.  Don't think that some people won't intentionally do this to gain a big list of YOUR customers and fans with the plan to leave and bring the list with them.

QR Codes need to be mobile friendly and offer incentive.

From AdAge - the article is good, but the conversation in the comments is much more revealing and helpful.   Some of the handy ways to use them is for instructional videos when shipping out products - how to assemble,maintain a product. QR codes makes it easy to update the online content if it needs to change frequently. Cuts down on printing space and having to throw away print runs. Print ads - especially fashion, need to link to mobile friendly or mobile detecting landing pages, preferably with video or something more engaging the the original "flat" location of the code. It's the opportunity to "speak" to your potential and existing customers.

Some silly uses include adding them to your email signature - really?  You thought that was a clever idea?  How about on your website? BAD idea.

Do you use QR Codes?  How do you use them? Are you seeing any success?  Tell me about it please by commenting.  I'm working with a client to create landing page videos that are also mobile friendly explaining the product in the ad and then giving them a place to go to buy the product online.  So much easier to give a lengthy, compelling message than just with a flat/print ad.

Ever wonder how to delete old gmail contacts from being suggested?

Since all of my accounts come and go through gmail, I had a huge amount of contacts. And, as people delete old account, I was annoyed that when I created a new message to them, their old accounts kept being suggested even though I updated their records in my contact information.

Has this happened to you?  In gmail there are two lists of contacts.  Click on "contacts" under the left column navigation.  Then, click on "other contacts."  THAT is the list compiled from everyone you've ever replied to, old or new.  Find the contacts you want to delete or merge and go through your list. Save and then try to send an email to one of those folks.  Only the emails you left alone will be suggested and primarily those brought in from your "contacts" list.

I hope this helps you thin out and avoide sending your correspondence to outdated email addresses.

What is the Right Solution for Client SEO? Avoid a sad ending.

I've had several clients recently hire SEO firms that give them great promises. I always caution client when choosing an SEO firm to "push them to the top" for many reasons.

1. Their methods could give results - temporarily and then get you blacklisted due to their shady practices.

2. The rankings only last as long as you continue with the SEO firm at their inflated rates.

3. ANY competitor can come in a bash another for their lack of SEO skill.  That's easy. We do it with another's web design, programming language, lemon drop martini execution.  If we feel we are good at something, we will defend it to the death.

When it comes to SEO a client can really be duped. It's always easy for another SEO firm to come in a check the SEO work of a website and make all kinds of claims about the lack of proper SEO on a site even if the site is "completely perfect" from an SEO perspective. These are cheap shots that cost many companies a lot of money.

DuBuff Law Group, LLC shares about the new Internet Copyright Law

The DeBuff Group law firm is on top of communicating all laws and tips for businesses, especially as it relates to intellectual property, copyrights and trademarks.  Thank you, DuBuff for your newsletters.

The New Internet Copyright Alert System

 

A coalition of major entertainment companies and Internet service providers (ISPs) is creating the Center for Copyright Information to crack down on Internet piracy. The ISPs, including AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon, have agreed to send "Copyright Alerts" to Internet subscribers when their connections are being used to illegally download content owned by the major entertainment companies. The first alerts will provide educational information, but if a subscriber receives multiple alerts and fails to respond, the ISPs may limit the user's connection speed or block the user from accessing the Internet.

Basic Branding Checklist

1. Do you have a domain that matches your company? Not something.blogger.com or mystuff.wordpress.com - but your OWN domain?  GET ONE.
2. Did you set up an email account to MATCH that domain?  DRIVE THAT DOMAIN HOME!  Set up the email.  Everything about your business needs to tie to that domain.
3. Do you reply from that email and not simply forward to your Yahoo or Gmail account?  Make sure you do reply from the same email address for consistency.  Gmail makes it easy to allow you to check many accounts AND send from those same accounts automatically. (if you don't understand this, get help from a professional).
4. Do you have your contact info in your email signature.  Oh, back up - do you have an automated email signature?  MAKE ONE.
5. Does your email signature include the following:  first, last, company, DIRECT LINE, email address, URL?  Why email address you wonder?  Well, sometimes people forward your emails and they'll need a way to reach you and perhaps give you more business.  Have it all in there! 
6. Do your business cards and website match in look?  You want people to know they've arrived at the right place.  Matchy, matchy, matchy.
7. Do you have a personalized voicemail message on your office phone AND cell phone? Have you called it lately?  Listen to hear what your clients and potential clients will hear.  Will they feel valued and important?  Will they be happy when you return their call?

This wil get you started today.  I'm going to learn to do this better myself at a wonderful branding workshop event by Jen Barth from BigSmall Brands.

How to help tech support help you quicker.

For those of you who have to regularly or even periodically contact tech or IT support via email, there are some ways you can help them solve your issues quickly and with fewer back and forth emails. 

It's similar to walking into a restaurant hungry.  Ordering: "I'd like lunch today." When actually you were interested in the daily vegan specials that were gluten free due to your intolerance, and you'd like a vegan beer to go with it.

Do you go into Starbucks and ever order "1 coffee" without being bombarded with at least three questions in rapid succession?

Until someone launches the "mindApp," we support people are stuck asking you the questions to get in your heads the old-fashioned way without assumptions.

This may seem like a lot of detail, but try this - they'll thank you and help you quicker:

How to remove Bing as your default search engine in Firefox

This just bugs me.  Never know what you'll get with a MS update.  Bing is one of my least favorite add ons that I never request!

If you want to restore the Google Search (Google search results page), it's very EASY, just follow my directions.

1. In your Firefox address bar, type "about:config"

2. Yellow warning triangle will show up on the web page, but don't be alarmed, just click on "I'll be careful, I promise" button

3. In the FILTER bar, (looks like your typical address bar), type in "keyword.URL"

4. Double click it and another smaller window will pop up. Replace the highlighted text with the FOLLOWING text:

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=
(select the URL above and copy. Make sure you don't have any extra spaces, or you can right click and copy the link to make it easier.)
"Copy Link Location" and then PASTE IT in the box that I mentioned above.

5. Click OK and you have your Google back as your default search engine in your Firefox browser.

Source(s):

Personal experience and http://kb.mozillazine.org/Location_Bar_s…

 

The importance of a good headshot

There are instances when you may be invited to speak at an event, participate on a panel, guest author an article or get promoted.  These events have one thing in common; they all require a good headshot of you.  A headshot is a photo, not an avatar or cartoon but a photograph of yourself from the shoulders up dressed professionally.*

If you have ever been asked to speak and don't have a high resolution headshot to provide, it is almost guaranteed that the people posting the information will turn to the popular online photo resource, "GOOGLE," to find what photos they can of you. It may not even be you, it may of you dancing on tables.  Go to Google and type in your name if you don't believe me. Then, click on the "images" category in the left of the results.  Any of these could be used for your headshot if you don't provide one. Not pretty, huh?

Twitter and Texting Abbreviations Have a Lot in Common

There are abbreviations unique to Twitter, but most are the same used in texting.  If you find yourself walking through phrases to create these abbreviations, you want to make sure others will be able to decipher your quickspeak.  Keep to the list of common ones. These may help:

Technical Twitter abbreviations:

• MT = Modified tweet. This means the tweet you're looking at is a paraphrase of a tweet originally written by someone else.
• RT = Retweet. The tweet you're looking at was forwarded to you by another user.
• DM = Direct message. A direct-message is a message only you and the person who sent it can read. IMPORTANT: To DM someone all you need to type is D username message.
• PRT = Partial retweet. The tweet you're looking at is the truncated version of someone else's tweet.
  AND, Please retweet. This is for when you want help getting the word out to your followers followers.
• HT = Hat tip. This is a way of attributing a link to another Twitter user.
• CC = Carbon-copy. Works the same way as email.