Posted by Angela | 0 Comments

Tweet Faster!

Internet Search has hit a new level. After Bing and Google both integrated a real-time feed into their search results, the world is catching on to the trend. We want our updates and we want them NOW!

Twitter is our pioneer, facing the old, slow updates of Internet olden days and still having the determination to create realtime streaming for third-party Twitter apps. Apparently, TweetDeck and Echofon are both currently trying out the new Streaming API that pushes data to appear in realtime across these desktop applications. This new feature is called User Streams and has gotten much praise so far.

Friend updates, direct messages, search results all come up in an instant. You will notice this especially id you were to search a very popular phrase like Apple or Google. The results will appear so fast it is hard to read what they say.

So if you didn’t like TweetDeck before because it lives on your desktop, this feature just made it a lot cooler. However, before you get too excited, it is still just in beta and doesn’t have plans of coming out until at least the end of August.

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Posted by Angela | 0 Comments

Facebook Vs. LinkedIn: Best of Both Worlds

Since we posted our favorite online tools article we have received a lot of negative feedback regarding our choices for the least favorite tools. So I am going to take back a few on that list for just a moment and tell you how to properly use two of them to better your business.

Facebook is for a business, a full business.

You can’t make a personal Facebook page and expect to get any business related offers or chat started. If you do want to impact Facebook on behalf of your whole business, you should look into creating a Fan Page. Facebook is a social website, not a business-professional website so this is the only way to draw a line between business and personal life.

If you want to create a Fan Page you can do so here. A Fan Page needs to be updated regularly and house plenty of information for Facebook users to understand what your business does. Take advantage of the “Info” tab on your page and list what services you offer. The last thing you want is for a potential customer to leave your page because they didn’t understand your message. Also, be sure you have your website URL listed somewhere convenient. The main point of the Fan Page is to drive traffic to your website. Other good things to list are the office address, a phone number, and hours of operation. You also have the option to upload photos just like on a personal Facebook page. I would definitely utilize that aspect of the page as well. This is where you can show some personality or maybe show off some of your best work. Pictures of employees make the company more personal and pictures of your work show viewers that you are good at what you do. Check out our Facebook page if you want an example.

I mentioned briefly that a Facebook page needs to be updated regularly, but now I’ll stress my point. By updating regularly, you are drawing the viewer in. You are keeping things interesting. Maybe link to a blog post, or write a small update about a new service you offer, or even something about your latest work like, “Just finished the Ramsey job! Great work everyone and thanks for the team effort!” To engage your audience, you could also make it a point to have some kind of weekly contest or question. Maybe ask your fans what questions they have about computers (an example appropriate for Keystone). Then take your favorite answer and write a blog post answering it. The more you involve other Facebook users, the better.

LinkedIn, on the other hand, is for the individual.

You create an individual, personal account where you represent your business. You can connect to others who work with you but the focus of this networking site is completely individual. By making business contacts (equivalent to “friending” on Facebook) you expand your influence; so the more connections you make, the better. When you have significant news, update your profile and all your contacts will see the update in their news feed.

Don’t be afraid to connect with people. Connect to anyone you have ever worked with and anyone who you have ever worked for. Connect with people who you could imagine needing your services. Maybe I find a young man trying to promote his start-up. I design websites and think I could definitely help him get some attention, so I connect to him. Just be careful to not get too random with your connecting decisions. Get too aggressive and people brush you off like a spam email. Here’s an article that describes more ways to make the most of LinkedIn.

For an individual with a start-up company, an unemployed individual, someone who works for himself, or any small business entrepreneur, LinkedIn is an excellent tool. These individuals just need to be familiar with the system and how to get the most out of LinkedIn.

Personally, I think LinkedIn is more for the entrepreneur and Facebook for the larger business or company. The main difference between the two  are intentions. LinkedIn is made up of people who are purposely interested in making business connections, while Facebook is made up of people interested in socializing with some businesses thrown in trying to grab their attention. While Facebook provides a larger pool of potential customers with over 500 million users, its users may not want your business updates as distractions. LinkedIn users know what they’re getting into. They know it is going to be work chit chat 24/7 on that website. So take your pick and good luck in your ventures.

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Posted by Angela | 0 Comments

The Lessons of an Intern

The points I list below are probably the most valuable lessons I have learned at Keystone over the past two summers. Being the office intern doesn’t just mean running to McDonald’s here, it actually means writing blogs, managing our social networking efforts, putting together our e-mail marketing campaigns, and applying SEO work (just to name a few). My intern lessons might be valuable to you and your business as you try to expand your influence on the world of the Internet.

#1. How to write a blog:

When I started at Keystone I had just finished up my freshman year of college. Early on in the job, Jeremy told me that I would be writing for the business blog. I’ll be honest, I was very overwhelmed. Writing for the business blog meant communicating Keystone’s values, teachings, and interests on the Internet… and the Internet is a very big place. Also, since I had just finished up a freshman English class, my idea of a blog was a well written, essay-structured, news piece. I eventually realized the more relaxed you are, the better your blog article will be. Blogs are not like essays; save those for college and proposals. Blogs are like conversations with your readers. And because you are constantly fighting the other blogs for readers, writing style is what can put you ahead. Humor is a great way to attract readers, one way I still strive to perfect, and readability. Make your blogs very easy to read by keeping them to the point and interesting.

#2. The importance of social media for small businesses:

It has been said probably millions of times, but I’ll say it again. Small businesses should definitely take advantage of social media for marketing to a large audience. The social media market has really taken off recently and beats paper marketing any day. With sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, a business can get its message out to hundreds of people with just one status update, or just one blog post. I have also learned that there are tons of online tools out there to make social media marketing easier. For example, HootSuite lets you send the same status update to your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and others. HootSuite is probably the best tool of its kind because it has both iPhone and Droid applications as well as letting you access multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts. With this tool or something like it, social media marketing becomes easier than ever.

#3. The importance of E-mail marketing:

Since I became the most frequent blog poster I started watching our site’s stats frequently. If the stats were super low for one day, I would assume my article didn’t appeal to our readers and if the stats were great, I’d try to write more posts like that one. One way that always guaranteed high numbers for the blog was by sending out the KeyNote. The KeyNote is our E-mail marketing newsletter filled with links to great articles that we send out every two weeks or so. By including some of our own blog articles in the KeyNote, I am making the KeyNote more Keystone centralized and I am driving traffic back to the blog. We love Emma for e-mail campaigns because of its easy to learn system and its advanced stats analysis. Sign up for our biweekly KeyNote here.

#4. What SEO means:

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. On my first day of work here, I would not have been able to tell you anything about SEO. But today I feel so confident in my SEO knowledge that I’m actually writing on it! That’s a big step for me. Back to the point, SEO is certainly important to any business with a website (which should be most businesses). Getting your website to been ranked higher on Google seems like an unreal dream, but with SEO it can happen. SEO is a strategy, if you will, that web developers must integrate into the website. By using the most descriptive text and pulling keywords from that text search engines are more likely to rank that website higher for that keyword. This is only one small aspect of SEO work. There are hundreds of criteria that Google goes by when ranking websites. Some others include external links to your website, your domain name, the age of your website, how often your website is updated, and many many more. Just be weary of those other businesses promising SEO without really knowing what they’re promising.

Other than these few lessons I have also learned how to make the perfect 12-cup pot of coffee, the quickest route to McDonald’s, lyrics to too many Jamie Holland favorites, how to type without staring at my hands, how to pull an Adam Arnold joke on Adam Arnold, where the extra pens are, how men think, and who to go to when I need a funny YouTube video.

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Posted by Angela | 0 Comments

Why is Everyone Talking About Clouds?

The first time I heard someone talk about the cloud (in which they were not describing the fluffy white things above us in the sky) I tried to use context clues to figure out its meaning without any success. So I will share my knowledge with you: When someone is talking about the “cloud” they are referring to cloud computing.

The concept of the cloud, or cloud computing, is simple but not necessarily what you would be inclined to think. The cloud refers to Internet-based computing and sharing. Let’s try to make it simpler, it is like Google Docs as opposed to Microsoft Word. Documents stored in Google Docs can be accessed from anywhere by multiple people because it’s online. Contrarily, a Microsoft Word document would have to be emailed through the Internet for another person to have access to it. It’s also like Microsoft Live as opposed to Microsoft Word.

Google Docs is a good example because it is starting to create a following. Google Apps and Microsoft Live are becoming more and more popular for businesses because they allow employees to access data from anywhere. The Premier Edition of Google Apps provides Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Video, and Google Groups among other features to an unlimited number of users. That means all the documents and videos stored here will be accessible from anywhere with a computer and Internet connection.

Web Producer Jeremy Scott described the advantages of cloud computing to me by saying, “A cloud server is like a network of several redundant servers providing more security. Meaning, we can’t have one server go down and ruin everything.” Another advantage can be speed because based on your location, you can hit the closest cloud server. By hitting the closest cloud server, your connection is faster and possibly more reliable. The main advantage of cloud computing is accessibility.

Now, there is a new tool to measure the cloud’s speed called CloudSleuth. The tool has proven that speed does indeed vary from operator to operator (i.e. from Google to Microsoft, to Amazon.com, etc.). The best it has tested so far is Microsoft’s new Azure platform with a response time of 6.46 seconds. Microsoft also won the title of most reliable cloud system provider because it ranked best for service availability. That’s pretty fast, isn’t it?

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Posted by Angela | 0 Comments

Facebook’s Asking Questions

Facebook has a way of balancing good and bad… or maybe I should say distracting us with something good when something bad is actually happening. With all the privacy uproar going on recently, Facebook has just come out with a pretty cool, new feature to make us forgive them.

Similar to Yahoo! Answers, Facebook Questions lets you ask a question about anything and direct it toward your Facebook community. There will be a new “Ask Question” button on the homepage that gives you easy access to the Questions feature. Even though this sounds an awfully lot like Yahoo! Answers, there are a few characteristics to set it apart.

Let’s say you have a picture of the amazing cake at a party you recently attended. And man, you really liked that cake. But you wish you had the recipe… Well you can post the picture of the awesome cake on your Facebook with a question attached like “Did anyone get the recipe to this delicious confection?” Maybe the host of the party will let you in on their culinary home run. This scenario leads me to think of other examples that might be in the future of this feature. Think Texts from Last Night meets Facebook… Eek!

Anyway, another advantage of this Q&A is the large pool of voters you’ll have. Asking an opinion question like “Should I go see Inception? Or save my $10?” I know, I know. I don’t see how you’d get two sides to that argument either. However, asking any kind of multiple answer question on Facebook will allow you to do a little polling. Facebook has 500 million users, remember? That is quite a sampling pool to pull your conclusions out of.

You can also use the Facebook tagging feature within questions maybe to direct your question at someone specific or to narrow your audience (or to compare cuteness of friends). Facebook also allows you to follow a question from its birth to its end. That way you’re not left wondering forever what the answer was. You will also be able to browse through Facebook questions by category. Categories have to do with the topic of the question. Or questions can be sorted by author.

Happy Facebook questioning!

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