Redmond Business Solutions, LLC

Temple Shootings... What is the Solution?!

2012-08-06T01:58:00.003-07:00

I did a little experiment on my personal Facebook page today after the terrible Sikh Temple shootings. Always wanting to know why, I'm an Aquarius, what can I say. :) Anyhoo, I wanted to hear what others thought would be the solution to the rash of gun violence that is plaguing America.

Below is the story, my question, and the responses. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

I'm still thinking about my response. What's yours?

What is the solution to our country's epidemic of gun violence? I honestly don't know. Anyone? All opinions are welcome, and haters will be deleted. Keep it professional.
Sending love and peace to those touched by this awful massacre at a Sikh Tempe in Wisconsin this morning. ♥

UPDATE: A gunman opened fire Sunday morning at a Sikh temple outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, killing six people and wounding at least three others, including a police officer, before being shot to death, police said. A law enforcement offi

cial told NBC News the gunman was dressed in tactical gear and armed with a single handgun.

Read more and stay tuned for updates: http://nbcnews.to/OSL69p

Photo: A man wipes away tears on Sunday outside the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wis. (Jeffrey Phelps / AP)

1 · · Share

- C: This Temple is mere miles from where I grew up. So sad that people can see different, and think bad.
  
  11 hours ago · · 1
- C2: I think if everyone carried and learned hire to use a sidearm or a sword or both the world would be a much more polite place. Also if NO one had access to weapons the works would be safer. too late for that.
  
  10 hours ago via mobile · · 1
- P: the only way our country can turn around from all these actions and hatred is to truly turn this country back to the Christian beliefs that this country was based on, that is the reason we have always been the strongest, safest country in the world. We have taken prayer out of our schools, the 10 commandments out of our courts and a huge percent of our country believe that everything good in our lives, we did on our own. NOT!
  
  10 hours ago · · 1
- A: Start by banning automatic assault weapons, end the hate filled media like Fox and Limbaugh who reinforce hating your neighbor.
  
  8 hours ago via mobile · · 1
- S: I agree with Pat. We need to put God back into things,not try to take him out. Whatever happened to "In God We Trust"! Out country was founded on this belief. Get with it people before it is to late!
  
  7 hours ago · · 1
- S2: How about respect for EVERY type of worship? Instead of just the worship of a prescribed GOD? Perhaps the idea of compassion for all instead of for only those who we deem similar to us would make the world a better place.
  
  7 hours ago · · 3
- S1: That is true S2. We must respect every type of worship. After all; there is ony one God and the way we chose to worship him is up to us. The important thing is that we DO believe!
  
  7 hours ago · · 1
- A: The problem with P & S1's point is that Christianity has been hijacked in this country by those filled with hate (Rush, all of Fox, Westboro Baptist Church, etc), who preach a lot, but mirror the exact opposite of what Jesus taught. This leaves a bad taste in the mouths of those who love others of different faiths, races, sexual orientation, etc. if one is not raised in an environment of love & respect & kindness towards all, then hanging the 10 commandments it government buildings will do nothing to help us.
  
  6 hours ago via mobile · · 2

It's been a while...

2012-07-28T02:47:00.001-07:00

Wow, we've been gone a long time.

We're back. We're blogging. Did you miss us? Probably not. But if it happened again, you will.

It's been a long road to where we are now. Clients have come, clients have gone. Met some great people along the way. Had amazing things happen. Had some pretty crappy things to, but we're here to move forward. We're here to write this little note to anyone who may read it to tell you our 'mission statement'. Think Jerry Maguire.

Redmond Business Solutions, LLC is on stronger ground than we've ever been. *I* have made some strategic decisions as of late that will help secure our future, and our sanity.

1. We will not represent nor will we work with a client in which we do not believe.

2. All clients who hire Redmond will receive the best care, ever. You will also receive the truth, albeit direct, that we believe you will need to hear. Most of the time it will be really good. Sometimes it will be constructive. Just know that we want the very best for all of our clients.

3. Redmond is not a non profit organization. We need to make money. Don't ask us to 'do you a favor' or 'work for free'. Don't tell us 'when we're rich, you will be too'. That's great if you really mean it, but until the time of your wealth arrives, we have bills to pay. We attend training classes, networking programs, purchase software, travel costs, living expenses, etc. We're here to make money, too. We spend a lot of time becoming experts in our field. Please respect that.

4. We listen. We advise. We support. We innovate.

5. Expect the truth. Said it before, I know. Just making sure you're listening.

6. Your nephew. Yes, your nephew can build websites. Unless your nephew is a certified member of the graphic design professional organization AIGA, has a certification in the full Adobe suite, can write CSS code after years or experience, has owned their own business for over 5+ years, and has 30+ years in business organizations, sales, operations, project management, graphic design, marketing, branding, social media... please don't try to compare our services to what your nephew can do. If that's what you believe is our competition, you should probably go ahead and hire him. We'll be here when you're ready for real business assistance.

It's getting late, and I think we've covered almost everything. Great to see you all again!

Until tomorrow...

Jan

Erasure’s Andy Bell Asks Everyone To Give A Little Respect

2010-12-20T17:48:00.000-08:00

Erasure’s Andy Bell Asks Everyone To Give A Little Respect

"...for the times, they are a changin..."

2010-12-05T18:24:00.000-08:00

How do you keep up with technology? Our business is to be focused on it, but what about yours? Unless your company is like ours, it must be challenging.

Maybe we can make it simple for you. Here's some fun stuff that's going on right now that business should check out.

1. If you're not using Foursquare, go RIGHT now and add your business. How better to get word of mouth advertising than have someone check in from your business, and have all of their friends see it. "Jan has checked in at Hanny's". Hanny's? What's Hanny's.... Yeah, FREE advertising to a smart group of spenders that are loyal, and LOVE to check in from your location. Go, add your business. We'll wait.

2. NEW Facebook! Is it improved? We're not sure yet, but it's going to be different. Be prepared for the changes. If you don't have a social media expert on staff or outsourced, you're already behind your competition about 5 years. Do it. Now.

3. Twitter. Yes, it's been around for a while, but for those of us who use it on a daily basis, there is a resurgence of Twitter lovers coming around. It's almost like the technology was there, like Bluetooth, for instance. It was created, but no one really knew what to do with it. NOW we're all getting it, and it's proving to be invaluable. There's no better way to directly contact your loyal and soon to be loyal customers and clients that to create conversations with them on Twitter. For those people who get it, it WORKS!

4. Does this surprise you? This is what your competition is doing to promote themselves:

1. Twitter : 88%
2. Facebook : 87%
3. LinkedIn : 78%
4. Blogs : 70%
5. YouTube : 46%
6. Social Bookmarking Sites : 27%
7. Forums : 26%
8. Social news aggregators : 22%
9. Ning : 17%
10. MySpace : 11%

5.What are you going to do now? What's the next New Media idea that you need to know about? You need someone who cares about your business, and is keeping up with New Media. If you don't choose Redmond to do that, choose someone, or you will lose the marathon.

www.myredmondonline.com

Rethinking How We Learn and Work

2010-11-29T12:50:00.000-08:00

Why, asked psychiatrist and author Edward Hallowell, do we get our best ideas in the shower? He was addressing an audience of educators and families sponsored by the 92nd Street Y in New York City, asking them to rethink how we are raising and teaching children.

Hallowell answered himself. It is the one last refuge, he said, the one place where we aren't being bombarded by media and where we can be alone with our thoughts and feelings.

Have you noticed, asked the technology thought leader Linda Stone, what happens when we sit hunched over our computers, responding to a steady stream of emails? Stone was speaking to a group of business leaders I had organized, asking them to rethink how we work and live today. Stone, too, answered herself. She said that we get "email apnea," which she has defined as a "temporary absence or suspension of breathing, or shallow breathing while doing email." She has written about the dangers of email apnea -- how it can disturb our bodies' balance of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitric oxide -- and even how it can trigger a physical flight or fight stress reaction, without giving our bodies the opportunity for rest and recovery so necessary for our mental and physical health.

I don't think it's an accident that there are so many calls to rethink how we learn and work today. Our images come from an industrial mentality. Interestingly, these images aren't just reflected in our ideas. Schools today often still look like classrooms of the past, desks all lined up, facing the teacher, who is supposed to dispense knowledge. And although offices have migrated away from an assembly line vision, the shift into cubicles is not that different from a factory floor mentality.

Technology is disrupting these visions. Barely a day goes by when I don't hear concern about what technology is doing to us and to our children. As Linda Stone has written, we can't continue to function on what she calls "continuous partial attention," which she differentiates from multi-tasking. We aren't just shifting from one task to another, she has written, but we are hyper-alert, paying attention to input coming from every direction at the same time, including listening to conversations, responding to computers and smart phones.

A page one article in article in the November 21st New York Times by Matt Richtel explores what is happening to children who are "growing up digital," asking how they can learn to focus in a world of distraction. This was the same conclusion I came to in my 10 years of research for Mind in the Making. The first essential skill I write about for children is "focus and self control." I point out, however, that we don't learn to focus by sitting still and listening passively but by active engagement.

There are some reoccurring commonalities in these calls for rethinking how we learn and work:

We need to focus on managing our attention and energy, not just our time. We tend to divide our days into time chunks. And that is definitely true for children. Think of the school day, separated into classes that change every 50 minutes or so. Now some schools are experimenting with providing longer time periods for learning and finding that it can be very effective. Linda Stone has noticed thatadults who measure their accomplishments by what they can cross off their to-do lists are more burned out than those who manage their attention. And Tony Schwartz continues to show companies that they will be more effective if they focus on promoting employees' energy, not controlling their time.

We need to give ourselves time for rest and recovery. Ask anyone who is really proficient at anything -- from intellectual to artistic to physical pursuits. They need time for full engagement and time for rest and recovery, as well as time for plugging in and unplugging from technology. Yet, our images of working hard at school or at work revolve around running non-stop, squeezing more and more in. And recess at schools is increasingly being abandoned, presumably to provide more time for studies -- but often to the detriment of those studies.

We need experiences that are first hand, engaging, meaningful, and give us some autonomy. Reviews of the research on learning for Mind in the Making make it clear that these ingredients go into the best learning environments. So the teacher who tries to pour knowledge into children as empty vessels or the boss who has a command and control approach are less successful than those who provide us with experiences where we feel can make a difference, that are meaningful to us, where we have some say in what we do, and where there is a response to what we do. This is one reason that digital media can be so engaging. We aren't passive recipients -- we do something and there is a response. The best schools and workplaces are figuring out how to use these principles in designing learning and work experiences.

And let's not forget happiness and fun. At the business conference I organized, Ross Smith of Microsoft reported that when his team created games as a part of their work, their work results were much more impressive. Playful learning continues to emerge as significant in effective education. And it is no accident that the CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh's new book on Delivering Happiness is a best seller.

It is time to rethink learning and working!

Follow Ellen Galinsky on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ellengalinsky

Please won't you be our fan!

2010-11-28T11:01:00.000-08:00

Yep, sing that just like Mr. Rogers would have done!! Here's the deal. We want new fans who want to be fans. You want something fun, informative, intelligent to read. We want to give it to you!!

So, in our quest to recruit you (do we sound like Harvey Milk?), reread our last blog post, become a fan, and for all of you that become a fan, we'll give you our Painkiller Concoction recipe (and a few other things) for FREE.

Come on, who doesn't like free stuff?

Redmond Loves You!

A fun Sunday time out.

2010-11-28T10:40:00.000-08:00

Anyone that knows the staff (all 3 of us) at Redmond Business Solutions know what we LOVE Hula's Modern Tiki! YUM! A delicious and fun place to eat and drink the evening away. One of our favorite drinks at Hula's is the Painkiller.

TODAY... as we like to play mixologist, we're going to try and duplicate it! It should be a fun and tipsy affair.

Check back for updates.

Great advice from one of our favorite Bloggers....

2010-11-28T10:27:00.000-08:00

Happy Sunday, Everyone! We hope you all had a fantastic Holiday (if you celebrate it) with your loved ones.

I came across this blog on Huffington Post today and found it very relevant. While, I don't normally post other peoples work on our blog, I found this article very engaging. I hope you joy it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-galinsky/rethinking-how-we-learn-a_b_787688.html?ir=Business

Social Media for Small Business

2010-09-02T17:05:00.000-07:00

Social media for small business – marketing your brand online

-Redmond Business Solutions

Investing in your brand online isn’t just about spending money, it’s about building a presence that will resound with your customers, and keep them coming back time and again.

Building your brand online will not only help build awareness and help raise your reputation, People will become invested in it and remain loyal to your brand.

Some tips to help build your brand online:

Don’t put your eggs on in one basket. It pays to build your brand through multiple channels. From an organic search perspective, make sure that your brand name and messaging is consistent in your title tags and in your meta descriptions. It’s important to also ensure that your messaging is consistent with your brand voice throughout the various channels you chose to use. By creating and being consistent with your messaging, consumers will be able to readily recognise and recall your brand. This has the potential to make you stand out when customers are ready to make an enquiry or purchase.

Plan for social media integration. As part of your strategy to bring and build your brand online, you need to know what you want your brand to say or do. How do you want to interact with your market and how do you want it to respond?

Look first at some of the tools available to help build your brand online, you need to know what is right for you – Facebook? Twitter? YouTube? LinkedIn? What about other niche blogs and forums? Determining what is right for you may take time and research to identify who and where your audience is. It’s important to look and listen to what people are saying about you and your brand; chances are people are already talking about you even if you haven’t got a presence on these social media channels. If people aren’t talking – start conversations yourself. Look for people who are talking about things that relate to your business and join in. It’s important to understand that interaction does not mean pushing yourself on people – be conversational.

Treat online reputation building as networking. There’s not much difference between traditional networking events and networking online. They’re both about building your reputation.

Tapping into your offline contacts can help with building your online reputation. Some of these contacts are likely to already be using online strategies of their own; with the right approach they will likely help you.

Many people using online tools are willing to ‘introduce’ you to their contacts, they could mention you and show links to your website, which will also enhance your search presence.

Plan how your brand will speak. Determine how and what your audience wants to hear; mostly this will come through your initial social media activity. This will form the basis of your brand’s online tone.

In working on what your online voice will sound like, it’s important to:

Speak with your audience, not at them – it doesn’t and shouldn’t always be about business.
Be consistent with the way you talk online; Be conversational;
People do business with people – have a personality for your brand.

Dealing with Unreasonable Customer Expectations

2010-08-18T22:30:00.001-07:00

A big thanks to my friend, Brad, for allowing me to repost this article. Excellent information on

managing client expectations and avoiding problems before they start.

Dealing with Unreasonable Customer Expectations

Posted by Brad Egeland

We all hope that customer expectations have been accurately set coming out of the sales process. Ideally, the customer will have a draft project schedule in hand, a budget (i.e., contract/price),Statement of Work (SOW), and hopefully their own list of business processes and high-level requirements that they’ve shared with sales to get to this point of the project – deal signed and complete and ready for Kickoff.

Often a customer will say “we need this project completed in ‘x’ number of weeks.” You want to accommodate the customer as much as possible. After all, they are the customer and they’re paying for it. But it’s a dangerous trap to fall into when you agree to any sort of customer proposed timeline before you have a detailed understanding of the customer’s affected business processes, the requirements of the project and the resources for the project.

The Crazy Promise

I led a project for a major airline that had been given the impression by our sales team that the implementation of an enterprise solution could be done within 90 days of Kickoff. Never mind that the configurable/customizable system…

Had never been implemented for an airline industry customer
Usually took 6-12 months to implement in known industries
Was targeting UAT and deployment over major holidays when resources from both organizations were planning time off

The airline managed to coerce Sales into agreeing to basically ‘guarantee’ the 90-day implementation timeline. Remember, this is without any involvement from Project Management – I would never have agreed to the 90-day timeline if I had a say in it. The airline also put out a press release in the airline industry that they were implementing this enterprise-wide system in 90 days…no pressure!

The Project

A project that starts off with unreasonable expectations from the customer definitely does a disservice to the customer. Not only can major problems be experienced, but also other issues like timeline crisis, major scope issues, requirements changes, and budget overruns are all highly likely occurrences on a project of this nature.

In my example project, we hit the 90-day mark while still only about 2/3 of the way complete. The customer’s expectations had long since been reset, but because so much had been promised to the customer they were, needless to say, not happy during most of the engagement. We added resources, went onsite for some rapid configuration work, and therefore began to run into the very predictable budget issues along with the timeline issues we were already experiencing.

Summary

For this project, in the end the outcome was a fully implemented and workable solution. However, customer satisfaction began low and never really recovered. The original deadline was missed by 3 full months. The budget went $38,000 over and due to issues on the customer side, it was never successfully embraced and deployed in the organization and is still floundering in terms of usage and internal deployment to this day.

Customer satisfaction is everything and if your project starts out with unreasonable customer expectations, run! Seriously though…work hard to bring reality in to focus. Educate the customer; work with the customer to reset the project timeline expectations based on the known requirements. Work with them to reset the budget expectations based on the known requirements.

Also work with management in your own delivery organization to ensure that you have the proper expertise on your delivery team. At this point you want to do your best to both meet the reset customer expectations and minimize customer dissatisfaction that has likely already started due to the original expectation issues.

The Cost of Free Design Logos

2010-08-18T20:36:00.000-07:00

A few logo design sites provide free design logos. These logo design sites offer services ranging from free business logos, free logo designs, free business card logos, free corporate logos collection, free trademark logos and free logo art. Yet the one commonality of all the logo design sites offering free design logos is that the customer generally received little of value at the risk of greater trademark liability.

Logo design sites that offer free design logos often give no thought to how greatly your company's future image will be tied to the entire company logo collection. Worst, free design logos for many companies are often used from a small group of company logo samples. Consequently, creating a corporate logo from a logo design site offering free design logos increases the possibility of your trademark logo infringing upon a company logo collection that was also created from the same free corporate logos collection. Free design logos indirectly cost your company by creating a logo that has no bearing to your particular company with the logo design probably infringing upon another trademark logo. Trademark assistance from a trademark lawyer is clearly required when getting free design logos because the potential risk of infringement is greater.

Conversely, the best logo designing draws upon the unique aspects of your corporation and corporate identity brand building. The best logo designing will not only use your company's attributes when creating a corporate logo, but particularly when creating a whole company logo collection. Great logo design will provide you with numerous examples of business logos and logo design samples from their professional logo design portfolio. The logo design company will then use your feedback to narrow the potential company logo examples to a chosen few. Trademark assistance from a trademark attorney should be sought to review a trademark search report for each sample corporate logo. A trademark attorney should then draft a trademark application for the trademark logo with the least risk of infringing upon another mark. For more information on the aspects of logo design and registering a trademark click on How to Trademark a Logo.

Ironically, paying for the best logo designing and creating a corporate logo that reflects your corporate identity brand building can actually be cheaper than trying to get free logo design once you fully examine the true costs of free logo designs.

2010-06-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

A repost of an article we did for Mashable regarding WHY OH WHY to use Twitter.

The Top 5 Ways Smart People Use Twitter

BY Redmond business Solutions · POSTED ON MARCH 20, 2009

To be honest, my first impression ofTwitter was that it was for folks who had way too much time on their hands who narcissistically wanted to broadcast every random thought that crossed their brains.

While this may be true in some instances, there are also some very smart, professional, forward thinking people whom I respect who are using Twitter intelligently.

Yep, you heard that right–I just used the words “intelligently” and “Twitter” in the same sentence. :)

Like cell phones, email, and blackberries, Twitter is a tool that can either add value to your working life or become the perfect interruption machine, depending on how well you use it.

To keep yourself from falling into the Twitter abyss, it might help to focus on these 5 smart uses of Twitter:

She whispered into the wrong ears.
Originally uploaded by swirlingthoughts.

1. Marketing and Communication. The absolute tipping point for me taking the plunge into the Twitter pond was seeing that my friend Gavin Heaton, a very bright guy involved with the marketing/advertising world, was waxing poetic about the marketing and communications potential in Twitter.

I found this insight from Gavin in the comments of this post at The Viral Garden:

The way that you can use Twitter is what fascinates. If conversation is king then Twitter is great… watch the way David Armano uses it to instantly update his “followers” and move from conversation to action. The potential for brands is enormous.
As we continue to invest in the constantly-evolving story of our brands, then conversational enablers like Twitter will become integral. I don’t think Twitter is for everyone, but for a targeted niche (even a large one), it could be a knockout.

And from David Armano himself:

If you are interested about marketing, conversations and the ways which we communicate with each other (and how this is changing and evolving), you should at least investigate what the hoopla is all about. My recent experiences with Twitter tell me that the service is morphing due to how users want to use it. What was once initially designed to answer the question “what are you doing?”, has turned into a free-form communications service where people are having burts of shorthand conversations, sharing links and information in rapid-fire fashion…Personally, I think Twitter is a pretty powerful tool for anything involvingpromotions, events and communities.

While not many of us are marketing masterminds like these two fellas, those of us who are online entrepreneurs should always be on the lookout for new ways that we can market our businesses and create a dialogue with our target market.

I haven’t completely wrapped my brain around the marketing potential of Twitter for businesses, but my ears are perked to hear how folks in the marketing/branding sector of the blogosphere are using Twitter.

2. Microblogging. For a news blogger, the 140 character limit in Twitter can be extremely liberating. No need to labor over a post or look for the perfect image. It’s “just the facts ma’am”, and although Twitter will never replace blogging, sometimes the bare basic facts are all we need.

Folks using Twitter as a scaled down blogging platform where they provide a link to a hot fresh news item and include a few words of opinion are being very helpful at providing info and story leads and saving us time.

It’s much easier for me to get ideas for story posts by looking at a microblogger’s Twitter feed than by trudging into my Bloglines account. Good-bye RSS feed reader! (If you’d like to see what microblogging looks like, check out Techmeme’s Twitter feed.)

The extra cool thing is if you subscribe to the feed of someone who is microblogging news and you put the Twitter Timeline in the sidebar of your blog, you and all the visitors to your blog can see the steady stream of fresh news items.

Grillin Up Some Ribs
Originally uploaded by bintibee.

3. Business Networking. Twitter is a social software, so it’s super easy to meet new people and bring people together. Over the course of my first Twitter outing, I was able to easily, casually introduce two friends of mine via a light hearted Twitter session. I had actually wanted them to meet each other because I thought they could possibly do a joint venture together, but I didn’t want their first meeting to be “business-y”.

Could this initial meeting have been done via IM or phone? Yeah, sure, but not in such an informal way. The strength of Twitter in networking is that it’s like meeting someone at a backyard barbeque, as opposed to a formal business meeting or networking luncheon. The informality is a great ice breaker, and it encourages folks to let their guard down a little.

I feel like two folks who meet via Twitter (or a backyard barbeque) will be able to get comfortable with each other more quickly than if they met in a more business-y setting.

4. Breaking news & getting scoops. The first time I heard of this happening was when Duncan Riley observed that the story about ScribeFire signing Chris Finke was broken exclusively on Nick Wilson’s Twitter account.

It’s actually not that surprising that some tech news is being broken via Twitter. Twitter is informal chatting with friends, and it’s only natural that if you’ve just brokered a blog sale or you’ve just added a new member to your team that you’ll share the news with your friends.

The interesting thing about Twitter is that it feels like an intimate IM session, but it’s actually not private at all. People let their guard down on Twitter, and if you’re in the tech news reporting field you might get some juicy leads via Twitter.

The kind of news that’s likely to be broken via Twitter is tech news, and in order to scoop it you need to be Twitter watching the movers and shakers in the tech world. (In order to Twitter watch someone, just add them to your “friends” list.)

5. Streamlining your electronic inboxes. When you start using Twitter, you’ll probably find yourself using IM, social bookmarking, RSS readers and email less.

Aside from the public chat feature Twitter has, it also has a private direct messaging feature, so you could use that if you had a private message to send. You could also use Twitter direct messaging instead of email, which I’ve noticed some of my colleagues doing.

By using Twitter you may actually be able scale back on the influx of incoming information and electronic devices you use, which is something we can all appreciate.

As for those people who have been completely turned off to Twitter because of some of the more frivilous, immature uses of this global communication tool–I hear ya!

There’s only one way to deal with those annoying folks: Ignore them.

Instead, imitate the people who are using Twitter intelligently.

If you do, you just might find a new way of connecting with your target niche, scoop a story before your competitors, meet a future business partner, or streamline your arsenal of electronic communication tools.

If you’re still not convinced of the merits of Twitter, that’s fine.

Twitter is not for everyone, but if you’re the slightest bit intrigued as to why smart folks are singing the praises of Twitter, the only way you’ll ever satisfy your curiousity is to try it out for yourself.

Twitter what? Here's the answer...

2010-06-29T15:07:00.000-07:00

An excellent article regarding Twitter by Andy Beal:

Micromedia tools such as Twitter, Plurk, and Pownce have introduced the concept of group conversations. Similar to instant messaging, Twitter allows you to send quick, short messages to hundreds of friends at once. Anyone that signs on to “follow” your Twitter profile will receive an alert—via instant message, mobile text message, or email—each time you send a new message.

How can you use services such as Twitter to build your reputation? The service is still relatively confined to early adopters, but is already showing great promise as a tool for building your brand.

Assuming that you’ve already matched your Twitter username to your personal or company brand, here are some suggestions for using Twitter to build your online reputation:

1.Start conversations with notable peers.

Don’t be the guy that jumps on Twitter, “follows” 10,000 people, then tweets “@” them every two minutes. That’s not the type of reputation you want to build for yourself.

Do be the guy that follows those that have influence and audience in your industry. You’ll learn a lot just from listening to their often unguarded comments, but if you have something valuable to add to their conversation, send them an @andybeal or @chrisbrogan, or @garyvee. If you can engage them in a conversation, they might just @ you back–alerting their thousands of followers that you’re a person worthy of their time, in the process.

2.Share valuable industry news.

If you’re the kind of person that’s always discovering breaking stories, share those with your Twitter network. Maybe you’ll “tweet” something not yet seen by a popular blogger. They may not always give you credit in their blog posts, but you can bet you’ll quickly get on their radar.

I’ve personally credited and linked to Twitter followers that gave me a “heads-up” on a breaking story and seen others credit me for sharing a story with them. How’s that for reputation building? You’ve just become the guy that keeps the top bloggers “in the know.”

3.Build your blog audience.

We all know how hard it is to build a blog’s audience. How often do you check your Feedburner stats to see if you’ve inched up or down that day? Conversely, building your following on Twitter can take much less time, and work–I’m adding up to three times as many Twitter followers each day, than blog subscribers.

OK, but how do you get your Twitter followers to start reading your blog? Er, you ask them? Well, actually, you cherry pick your best blog posts and share them with your Twitter followers–many of whom likely don’t already read or subscribe to your blog.

Tools such as Twitterfeed can automate the process for you, but be careful not to overload your Twitter followers with blog post updates–you want to build a positive reputation, remember?

4. Stay connected at conferences and trade shows.

Twitter really shines, when it’s used by conference attendees. “OMG Google’s Larry Page just farted on stage,” while fictitious, would be great fodder for the Twitterati. You may attend a conference as a complete noob, but Twitter can help you leave as a “someone.”

The next time you attend an event, look for the official Twitter account. @BlogWorld is one example of a conference that makes heavy use of Twitter. Follow the Twitter updates at your next conference and you’ll learn the location of the secret parties, or where Guy Kawasaki plans to have dinner that night. For anyone uncomfortable with networking, Twitter is a great tool to connect with other conference attendees and build your reputation without having to actually shake hands.

5. Monitor your Twitter reputation.

Monitoring Twitter for mention of your personal, or corporate, brand can save you a lot of future reputation headaches. Conversations about your brand can happen on Twitter, hours before someone decides to migrate the conversation to something more widespread, such as a blog.

Here’s a real life example. I recently had a bad experience with Office Depot. On the evening of July 14th, I posted this on Twitter:

The next day, my “Office Depot Joins the Reputation Deadpool” post went live on Marketing Pilgrim. If Office Depot were actively monitoring Twitter, it could have saved itself a huge reputation headache by resolving the situation, before I posted to my blog.

Don’t panic, you don’t have to monitor Twitter manually 24/7. You can use search.twitter.com (formerly Summize.com), TweetBeep, or Trackur to automatically alert you of any Twitter discussion involving your brand.

There are many more ways that you can use Twitter to grow your brand and manage your reputation, but it wouldn’t be fun if we’d didn’t keep the conversation going.

Can Social Media Help the Real Estate Market?

2010-06-28T15:44:00.000-07:00

As the real estate industry looks for new ways to market and sell property during the downturn, technology firms are launching ways to use social media — like FavRav’s new Facebook referral tool – to help businesses grow.

But not everyone believes Facebook, Twitter and other social media networks can help them expand their businesses.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said the social network is on track to reach 1bn users by the end of next year, while speaking at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festivals earlier in the month. LinkedIn and Twitter also have seen tremendous growth in recent years.

FavRav said its automated platform allows small businesses, like brokerage firms that can’t afford social media experts, to promote themselves on Facebook, where existing customers, or buyers, can provide recommendations to friends and family.

“We’re really the place people come when you need a trusted referral from friends on important decisions like your first child’s pediatrician, a Realtor for your next home purchase or an insurance agent to help you protect your family,” said FavRav co-founder Bill Manos.

Also recently, technology companies like Top Producer Systems, which is operated by Move Inc., released the next generation of its product suite for real estate agents. In addition to giving agents and brokers the ability to pre-qualify leads and generate real-time market data, the new software includes the ability to capture updates, status changes and direct postings from Facebook and Twitter.

“Top Producer 8i gives real estate professionals an information-age advantage by offering a seamless integration of Facebook and Twitter feeds with instant access to the comments, needs and activities of client contacts and leads,” said Frederick Herot, vice president of customer marketing for Move Inc.

But not everyone has made the leap into social media. Topher Thiessen, who works at Reverse Market Insight, a consulting and data services provider for the mortgage industry, said Facebook and Twitter don’t play a role in their business.

“We are focused solely on business clients like banks and mortgage firms, and haven’t yet determined any real value in trying to leverage those websites,” Thiessen said.

David Puno, director of operations at Commercial Capital Fund, a commercial real estate lender, said his company is only using LinkedIn.com, a site that enables businesses and colleagues to connect with one another, as a tool for its business.

“We think Facebook and Twitter are good for some businesses, but not ours,” Puno said.

Frank Leogrande, an appraiser at Grande Appraisals in Florida, said Facebook and Twitter are virtually useless for the appraisal industry with the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC) limiting contact between businesses.

“I use none of them [Facebook or Twitter] for business purposes. I am registered with all of them but the appraisal business is so HVCC regulated now that unless you are an AMC, you cannot do work with brokers anyway,” Leogrande said.

With the launch of the FavRav tool, Matthew Ferrara, CEO of Matthew Ferrara & Co., a real estate consultant, said real estate agents and brokers have always relied on referrals, and these sites, if used correctly can generate more.

“Realtors have always relied heavily on referrals to drive their business. Many realize that having a social media presence is critical, but don’t have the expertise to execute and are overwhelmed at the prospect,” Ferrara said. “Social media tools like FavRav can be a good option for realtors trying to engage potential customers and increase their social media visibility, but who don’t have the time to be a social media guru.”

Bruce Ailion, a broker with RE/MAX in Atlanta, said he works with his son to take full advantage of the interaction between social media and real estate. Like 80% of brokers, he said, he’s behind the leading edge on this aspect of the business. But recognizes a value in it.

“As a 30-plus year broker, I feel these methods of communication are essential to the future of real estate marketing,” Ailion said.

What has RBS, LLC been up to??

2010-06-19T10:52:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since we've updated our blog, and much has happened. Redmond Business Solutions has been very busy! New clients, new projects, and much to do, which is fantastic! Let's get you caught up!

We've signed a few new clients. We're in the middle of a big job with Acacia Fine Homes www.acaciafinehomes.com. They're a new real estate company based in Maricopa, AZ, specializing in home sales, home rentals, property management, and short sales. RBS, LLC designed logo, business cards, real estate yard signs, document templates, and their new website from scratch. That's right, FROM STRATCH!

We started with the wire frames, wrote the HTML and designed it to the EXACT specifications of the owner of Acacia Fine Homes. We're now working on some Adobe Flash modules for the website and then it's on to the next step: social media branding and marketing. Blogging will be a big part of their branding, as well as discussing industry news. We plan to use Facebook and Twitter to help with Acacia's brand recognition and to separate them from the pack. While the company is new, the company has a full line of staff with many many years of experience in the metro Phoenix and Maricopa areas.

In April, RBS, LLC has the honor of helping the Harvey Milk Foundation, Gay American Heroes, and the Milk Party Los Angeles, LLC with the first ever "Harvey Milk Day" in California. We'll fill you in on that in our next blog. Time to make the donuts! :)

Staying Mobile Keeps Your Small Business Active During the Holidays

2009-12-24T21:00:00.001-08:00

Go Mobile to Maintain Small Business Buzz Through the Holidays

Dec 24, 2009 -

It's that time of year when work becomes secondary and the holidays take priority. Travel, unpredictable weather, family outings, and last minute shopping runs replace the routine 9 to 5.
Unfortunately, even though the majority of the workforce will be taking time off around the holidays, social media never takes a vacation, so neither can your SMB's social media presence.

You can, however, keep the tweets, Facebook updates, blog posts, and work notes coming without a computer using these handy mobile applications.

Stay All-a-Twitter

It's especially important for small businesses to maintain an active Twitter presence with no extensive or perceivable gaps. At any time someone could have an important question or encounter a big bug and turn to Twitter with their query or complaint.

To keep both an active and passive glance on your Twitter account while you're mobile-only, try HootSuite or Tweetie 2 for iPhone.
The latter is a $2.99 fan favorite on the iPhone and includes everything you'll need to keep an eye on your replies, view your Twitter Lists, explore trending topics, and search for mentions of your company name.

HootSuite, a newly launched $1.99 iPhone app is tailored towards the business user and boasts convenient features like scheduling tweets in advance, and stats around the links you share on Twitter.

If you're on a BlackBerry, keep Seesmic's BlackBerry app handy for access to your account, Twitter Lists, saved searches. You'll even benefit from alerts for DMs and replies while the application is running in the background.

Android users can use a version of the Seesmic app on their phones too, but most users have an affinity for Twidroid, a feature and style-rich application that comes in both free and paid versions. Features like Twitter Lists support, bit.ly integration, desktop widgets, background notifications, and the ability to merge multiple accounts will make your Twitter for business behaviors less work, more play.

Keep Facebook Fans Engaged

Almost anything you can do on Facebook's web site, you can also do on your mobile device. You can go the SMS-only route and update your Page or Profile status via text message, and/or receive SMS updates for messages and wall posts as they happen.

You can also grab one of the company's many mobile apps - they've got one for iPhone, Palm OS, Sony Ericsson, INQ, BlackBerry, Nokia, Android, Windows Mobile, and Sidekick - or use their mobile site to keep an eye on Page activity.

Blog From the Road

While your business blog can probably afford a few days off, there's no reason why it has to stay stagnant. WordPress has a fantastic and robust iPhone app for moderating, maintaining, and updating your WordPress.com or self-hosted blog. There's even a beta BlackBerry version of the WordPress application, should that be your primary device.

TypePad has an iPhone app, as well as mobile applications for Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian Series 60 devices. With Google's platform, Blogger, you can email your blog content to automatically post to your site from any device after you associate your mobile phone with your blog.

If you've become accustomed to quick blogging platforms like Tumblr and Posterous, all you really need is an email account to update either of them in seconds with text, photos, and videos. Of course, they both also have iPhone applications that make the blog posting process even easier.

Extra Goodies

If you're sitting around the fireplace but you can't get your mind off work, Evernote makes the perfect app -- available for most mobile devices -- to quickly capture your passing thoughts as a text, audio, or photo note. Since your notes sync to the web and the desktop software, you can access, edit, and share them when you get to the office on Monday morning.

And if you really can't put work off, grab Documents to Go for iPhone, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, or Palm OS for accessing, updating, and creating Microsoft Office documents on your mobile device. Google Documents are a good alternative as well.

Social Media Proves Successful for Small (and Large) Business ROI

2009-12-23T14:19:00.001-08:00

As more and more businesses – big and small – start to embrace social media, it becomes equally important for businesses to track their return on investment (ROI) from different social media tools and campaigns. It's important to measure the positive and negative impact that any strategy has on your business and this is just as true with social media as it is with anything else.

When measuring the ROI from your social media tools, keep these things in mind:

Establish a current performance baseline and define clear goals.

When looking at how to measure social media ROI, you need to first define your goals and establish a baseline for your current levels. If your goal is to increase customer conversions or social media mentions, you need to have a baseline level of what those conversions or mentions are before starting a new campaign.

Metrics are meaningless without context or direct behavior correlation.

It's easy to assume that ROI is just metrics. That's not true. Metrics make up how you calculate ROI, but they aren't the same thing. In order to calculate ROI, you need more than just the number of people following you on twitter. However, the number of referrals your web page gets from Twitter and the number of those visits that turn into conversions is useful information.

Tools and services are wonderful but they won't do all the work.

There are lots of different tools and services you can use to help track different measurements that go into computing ROI, but ultimately, you are still going to need to do the heavy lifting yourself.

To make it easier, try to make your information trackable whenever possible. This means using shortened URLs that come with analytics add-ons and offering coupon codes or other promotions based on where a customer finds out about your business (so your Facebook code would be different from your Twitter code).

Tools are still an important part of the process, so here are some to check out:

Google Analytics – Google offers a lot of tools for tracking traffic and activity on your different sites. The ability to see where users are coming from, how often they stay and where they go can be very helpful when calculating ROI.

HootSuite – HootSuite offers tracking and management tools for Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. One of the nicest features is the ability to pre-set posts and to also track the activity on each link you send through the client.

Vitrue SRM – Vitrue has a fantastic tool aimed at larger businesses called Virtrue SRM (Social Relationship Manager). It's basically a CMS for controlling all of your different social media activity. Scheduling posts, tracking links, comparing performance information of different types of posts or different designs, link and video analytics – this does it all.

Social media might be a different way of marketing or connecting with customers, but the ways that you can tell if it is successful or unsuccessful are the same as anything else. Social media isn't a magic bullet, and having a Facebook Page won't make your business instantly more profitable. By defining goals, setting a baseline, and tracking and correlating actions to results, you can figure out what works, what doesn't, and ultimately figure out what solutions are worth investing in, and what options need to be altered or set aside.