Barians Business consultancy

The gulf oil spill

noreply@blogger.com (Barians Business Consultancy) — Fri, 28 May 2010 02:52:00 +0000

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

The gulf oil spill

Why You Don’t Need to Pay Top Dollar to Learn About Social Media

noreply@blogger.com (Barians Business Consultancy) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:09:00 +0000

Categories: facebook,twitter,social media,marketing
Tags: lives identity personal real media social assistant cyberspace virtual twitter
If you don’t know how Social Media can be helpful for your business, hire a Virtual Assistant.

With all the hype surrounding social media and the benefits that they can provide businesses, more and more companies are getting interested in using social media for their own. There are plenty of companies that want to take advantage of social media but don’t know where to start and don’t know just how they can take full advantage of the different social media.

If you want to use Twitter and the other social networks for marketing, public relations or other aspects of your business, you don’t need to pay top dollar to attend social media seminars, buy software, and enroll in online programs that will teach you how to use social media in your business. What you need to do is do your research online. There are countless studies and articles published online regarding the different social media. You just need to filter all these information and use only the pieces of information that are valuable for your business.

You can also hire a virtual assistant to help you with the social media tasks. Virtual assistants, because of the nature of their work, are very tech savvy and make full use of the different social media and communication channels for their own work. They can really help you figure out the best way you can use social media in your business.

Of course you need to make sure you also know what you want out of social media and understand which networks will most likely deliver the results that you want. The VA will help you implement all your social media plans so that you don’t have to spend your own time on them. Social media can take up much of your time. Sure, these services are free. But they are not entirely free because you need to put some effort into in.

A virtual assistant is the ideal person to do all the social media tasks for a company because a VA will perform all the tasks needed and you only need to pay the VA for the number of hours that he or she will work for your company.

Improve Your Website’s Usability in 30 Minutes or Less

noreply@blogger.com (Barians Business Consultancy) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:04:00 +0000

You can eat lunch in 30 minutes. You can watch a primetime TV show in 30 minutes. You can even organize your sock drawer in 30 minutes.

Given that an easy-to-use website is one that is much more likely to generate sales for your business, it would behoove you to take 30 minutes out of your day (in addition to organizing your sock drawer…) to implement fixes to your site that will improve usability and deliver better results.

Five Simple Steps to Improve Website Usability in 30 Minutes or Less
#1 Eliminate the Technospeak
Don’t assume that all of your website visitors are going to understand your industry lingo and acronyms. Strive to use easy-to-understand language.

#2 Focus on the Site Visitor’s Goals
Think of the major objectives of your website visitors. Why are these people on your site? Make it clear right on your home page what they should do next in order to accomplish what they set out to do.

#3 Get Right to the Point
State the most important information at or near the top of each page. Remember that many people do not scroll down web pages.

#4 Include Contextual Links & Make Sure All Links Work Properly
Add links to the copy within your website to guide your readers to more detailed information and answers on specific topics found on other pages in your site. Internal, contextual links is a great way to add usability without cluttering the page. There are a variety of tools on the market to automatically check the links on your site.

#5 Give the Site Visitor Options to Contact You
Make sure that you are offering your prospective customers at least three options (e.g., telephone number, email address, online form, chat functionality, Twitter, etc.) to contact you with questions.

These are just a few suggestions to help you quickly crank out a number of usability improvements to your website. If you need additional help, let me know below or at contact us page. Thanks!

Six Ways to Deal With Small-Business Stress

noreply@blogger.com (Barians Business Consultancy) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:31:00 +0000

Even though there are signs that the economy may be starting to turn around, this has been and continues to be a stressful year for most business owners. I often think stress should be spelled $tre$$. I cannot think of many jobs that pay a good amount of money that don’t also offer a good amount of stress. The interesting thing about entrepreneurship is that you can encounter stress either because you are busy and growing and making money — or because you are not. After many years of ups and downs, I have some tips on how to deal with stress in productive ways:

1. First, identify the real problem. Entrepreneurs often say they just need more sales or more credit. From my personal experience and from looking at other businesses, I have found that this is frequently just the symptom. More often, the problem is bad marketing, bad management or poor financial management (often pricing and debt-structuring mistakes). It might take someone with more expertise to analyze the situation and identify the weaknesses and solutions. Joining a business group, interviewing new accountants or reaching out to other business people you respect can make a huge difference.

2. Separate the fear from the anxiety. Fear is rational, a healthy emotion that keeps us from doing reckless things and helps keep us focused. Some would argue that starting a business is reckless, but I think it’s more of a calculated risk. In business, you have to manage fear and overpower it. Whether the tight rope is 100 feet up or 1,000 doesn’t make much difference. Don’t look down. Look straight ahead. Focus. Take action.
Anxiety, on the other hand, is unwarranted and irrational worrying. Do your best to recognize anxiety and eliminate it from your mind. I know, it’s easier said than done, but you do have to do it. Go to a professional if you have to. Exercise. Many studies have shown that exercise reduces stress.

3. Forgive yourself. Business is not easy, and there is no way that you can do business and not make mistakes. Wasting energy on looking back and feeling stupid is an exercise in futility that you cannot afford. Stop feeling guilty. Save that for the way you treat your spouse or children when you are in a bad mood. Stop that, too. You can do it. Roll with the punches.

4. Keep perspective. Look around you. Life is not fair. Horrible things happen every day, most of them not to you. Self-pity is kryptonite to the superman/superwoman entrepreneur. I have read many books on successful people. They all had serious problems along the way. Their success is as much about tenacity as it is about working hard or being smart.

5. Accept responsibility. There is no one to point fingers at. It’s all you. If you didn’t know that when you signed up, too bad. Now you have to figure out how to make it work. This is America. Everyone loves the underdog. (If you are not in America, never mind.) After you have accepted full responsibility, re-read No. 3.

6. I don’t want to sound trite, but you need to think positively. If you think negatively, you will fail. If things are so bad that you can’t do any of this, throw in the towel. Get it over with. Take the hit. There is no shame in failing. You took a shot. It didn’t work. The sooner you can get it over with, the sooner you can move on.
Entrepreneurship is not easy, and it is not for everyone. It can provide great rewards. It does get easier. It should get easier. It takes time.

Link Building

noreply@blogger.com (Barians Business Consultancy) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:35:00 +0000

Good or Bad Link Building Can Help or Kill Your Website

If you are creating a new website or trying to optimize your current site, link building is one of the most important elements in search engine rankings. The sites you are linking to can either make or break your website. It takes a great deal of “grunt” work to successfully build links of value. Farming out your link building to just anyone can be a dangerous proposition.

Knowing the Right Way to Linkbuild Comes From Experience

At Virtualassistant.org, we have been link building for websites since 1999. During those many years, we have seen lots of fads come and go. Our vast experience performing the various tasks of link building is what sets us apart from the rest of the virtual assistants offering link building services. The rigorous system we put our VA’s through has a platform of training second to none.
A major objective of effective link building is to increase the page rank of your site and to finding relevant sites to offer as a resource to visitors to your website. The biggest mistake people make in link building is thinking that the quantity of links is the most important factor. This is absolutely incorrect. It’s the quality of your links that make a difference.
Our experience has taught us that you should link to sites that are complementary, but not competitive to your website. It is imperative that links to your site should come from a “good neighborhood”. Links from porn and gambling sites, for instance, will harm your site because search engines frown on them. For example, if your website is about golf, you should link to golf topic related sites such as instruction, equipment or golf associations. If you link to Bulgarian car rentals, poker sites and cheap airfare, you are defeating the purpose of linking. Having links from related websites carries much more weight with the search engines when they measure your links. It's much more complicated, but this gives you a general idea.
Why do search engines measure links? The founders of Google developed link measurement as an indicator of search relevance. This allowed them to have another measuring tool other than keyword relevance. Google’s unique Page Rank system allows them to have an additional tool to determine which pages users considered most valuable. Google then gives these pages more “weight”. A frequently used term in link building is link popularity. This refers to the quantity and quality of incoming links that are pointing at your site.
The links to your website that will provide the most power are those referred to as trusted or authority links. Government (.gov) and educational (.edu) websites are among the most valuable. If your website is about the problems of asthma, linking to the Center for Disease Control section on asthma would be considered a link to an authority site. Another effective linking strategy is acquiring local business links like the Better Business Bureau and your local Chamber of Commerce. Relevant city and state government sites also pass on tremendous power.
Three characteristics of effective links:

Anchor text – this is the actual text that visitors click on to follow a link
Link location
Link intention

Web 2.0 Linkbuilding

Link building has evolved tremendously in the past few years. There are now many new platforms you can incorporate into your website to achieve successful link building. Using social media websites, also referred to as Social Media Optimization (SMO), is very effective. Excellent social media websites include Digg, Blogoria, Facebook, MySpace, del.icio.us and Wikipedia.
Using social media is a quick and effective way to link build and promote online content. Social network linking can provide a huge “jump start” to your website with an initial spike in traffic and a long-lasting bounce via referral visitors. Gaining links through social networks like blogs and portals is an approach that is very search engine friendly. Social media allows users to:

Create accounts/profiles
Grow a network of collaborative members
Submit, tag and vote on content
Comment on content

Be careful however, it’s easy to become “spam” oriented with linking on social websites.

Link Analysis

Another part of the extensive training our VA’s go through is learning how to use tools for competitive and quality analysis. Some web tools our VA’s use help to streamline many of the tedious and repetitive tasks associated with link building. Other ones are great for marketing analysis. A good example of one of these tools is a customer survey. These survey’s contain questions to help you discover where visitors go when they’re not on your website and what motivates them to buy when they visit your site. Another useful strategy is having embedded content in images, videos and pod casts.
Two other good avenues to increase traffic are directory submissions in directories like DMOZ and Yahoo and news syndication sites such as Topix.net and Yahoo!News. Continuous training keeps our VAs up to date on current directories.
As a good rule of thumb, one of the best ways to obtain good links is to create good content. At Virtualassistant.org, we have developed innovative content building strategies that are designed specifically to get effective links. Our VA’s have been thoroughly trained to effectively use these proven methods.

Bad Link Building Services Are More Common than Good Ones

You should be very careful if you decide to outsource your link building. Frankly, most of the outsourced link building is ineffective at best and harmful at worst. Many link building companies are either using outdated methods, trying to cut corners, dishonest or all of the above. If someone tells you they can procure hundreds of links for your website, you can be certain these are not quality links in good neighborhoods. Also beware of “link farms”. The reason for Google algorithm is to replace human editors with a mechanical process of using “spiders” to index and count millions of websites. Google considers paying link farms for links a violation of their terms and services and they may remove your website from their search index completely!
Another area of frequent problems is reciprocal linking. Many people violate web protocol by using unethical reciprocal linking methods like cloaking their forwarding URL. Sometimes scammers will say they have added your link to their directory. When you go to inspect, you find your “link” was just a text CSS styled to appear as a hyperlink that incorporated the “On Click” command to redirect to a target website instead of yours. Another scam is to fill out the supposed reciprocal link form, only to later receive an email asking for payment for doing so. Three of the most common frauds are absent back links, hidden links and redirect script for back links. If you notice your websites page rank is declining, check your links for these problems.
Don’t hire just anyone to do your link building. Proper link building can generate huge rewards; improper link building can get your website banned from search engines. Our team at virtualassistant.org is trained in a wide variety of proven formulas developed from years of hands on experience. Leave your link building to the pros.

Important functions we perform to effectively promote your site include:

noreply@blogger.com (Barians Business Consultancy) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:34:00 +0000

Directory Submission – Our years of experience have helped us to identify the directories that will provide power to your infant website. We won’t waste your time or money with directories of little or no value.
Search Engine Optimization – This is our “crown jewel” at Virtual Assistant Inc. We have specially trained our virtual assistants in the use of our proprietary SEO tools. Using our innovative SEO formula, we have helped numerous websites reach the top of search engines for the most popular search terms in their field. Initially, we perform a keyword density analysis to form your title tags, META tags and the development of your page content. We have the most cutting edge online optimization tools available to drive traffic to your website.
Article Writing/Submission – Search engine spiders love fresh content. We have identified several online magazines that our VAs write articles for that will provide a significant search engine boost as well as added exposure for your site.
Link building – A common misnomer when it comes to link building for your website is “more is better”. This could not be farther from the truth. In fact, improper linking can actually hurt your site. Our virtual assistants have completed a training program that instills in them our mantra “Quality over Quantity." Linking can make or break a website. Our VAs will find the most appropriate and powerful links for your particular website.

If you don’t know what you’re doing in trying to promote your website, you can cause serious and irreparable damage. Our virtual assistants know Google’s algorithms and will help keep your site in Google’s “zone of acceptance”. We can also set up and administer Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns for you.
Proper promotion of your website will give you an edge over the competition. Whether you are part of a huge corporation or a “one man band,” our skilled virtual assistants will use our proven strategies to drive more visitors (business) to your website

Using Twitter For Targeted Marketing Campaigns

noreply@blogger.com (Barians Business Consultancy) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:41:00 +0000

Twitter has come on to the social media scene in a powerful way. With millions of "Tweeters" around the globe, this is a difficult market to ignore. What makes Twitter different from other social media sites? Why should special interest or consideration be paid to using Twitter over MySpace or Face Book in terms of target marketing? These questions are sure to come to mind for the uninitiated, however, they are easily answered after only a short experience with Twitter.

Twitter is extremely different from the traditional social media formats like MySpace and Face Book. First, Twitter is vastly simpler and easier to use, even for a technology novice. While the other formats require extensive profiles, components and maintenance of a personal profile site, Twitter requires a simple registration to create the profile, then a user is off and running. All that is needed for Twitter is the ability to type simple blurbs about your current activities or interests. A user can "Tweet," or write a blurb, as often or as infrequently as they desire. There are also many companion programs available for Twitter which can manage your postings, to allow them to be scheduled and uploaded when the user wishes, if they do not want to be online all the time, but want to remain active with posts. These add-ons can also manage contacts, responses to posts and updates from "Tweeters" whom the user has chosen to follow.

Twitter is also unique in the fact that personal information is not available unless the user posts it as a "Tweet." Therefore, people are much more comfortable with interacting freely and networking with others. On the traditional social media it is rare to see anyone with more than a few thousand people in their network; however, there are man "Tweeters" with followers ranging into the hundreds of thousands and even millions. (Think Ashton Kutcher). But how does this relate to Targeted Marketing? Certainly a large market exists, but targeting specific market segments is easy on Twitter as well. Many Twitter members are promotional spammers, just putting large volume out, hoping for some interest. This is not what this article is referring to or advocating.

Twitter has a "real time" search capability, which allows users to view "tweet" threads on any keywords searched for. This allows a marketer to search for their product or service keywords, and to find those "Tweeters" whom are currently discussing topics related to their products or services. This is especially useful when those potential consumers state that they are looking to purchase or have a need for those items. Twitter allows members to respond to posts freely. These responses can contain links to sites and specific pages. Therefore, it is easy to direct qualified, interested traffic to your through such targeted postings.

However, Twitter offers another advantage as well...Through network building, your reach is increased. Every user who follows your account also gets a copy of each posting you make. With a large following, this can mean thousands, or in Ashton Kutcher's case, millions of links to your site with a single targeted posting. For this reason, it is important to socialize and be real, as well as to do business posts. Those users who are like a constant infomercial lose the interest of followers quickly and become irrelevant. Building a network of followers and following appropriate users is just as important, if not more so, to marketing than the posts themselves.

Twitter has positioned itself remarkably well in today's blog-centered society. In a sense, Twitter is a micro-blog site, where users give very short blogs, rather than long, well organized blogs like traditional sites. This is useful because it lends itself to RSS feeds. These feeds can be used to create interest in your site, as those who visit your site may subscribe to your Twitter feed in order to keep up to date on information, product offerings, sales, or just on your goings on. Personally, my Twitter account has a link to it on my company website, ezinearticles.com has a link to my Twitter account as well, to automatically inform my followers when I post a new article, as does Twine.

In doing targeted marketing for a client, I have created numerous links through posts, but I have also established a mutual following with two key manufacturers who supply my client with products. The value of this is twofold, one I get up to date information from key suppliers and two, suppliers see my efforts to increase sales for one of their distributors, which increases sales for them. Never underestimate the value of good PR like that. One caveat, keep your personal shares business appropriate, you do not want to share things which could create a negative image of you or your company. My final tip for Tweeting into commercial success is to just jump in a give it a try.

Happy "Tweeting" I hope to see you there. Feel free to follow me and say hi if you do come to Twitter, I would love to hear about your successes and your ideas.

My Twitter Feeds: http://twitter.com/bbconsultancy

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Scott_Schwartz

5 Ways to Stay Out of Debt When Unemployed

noreply@blogger.com (Barians Business Consultancy) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:58:00 +0000

As the old adage goes, when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging – a classic piece of advice to be heeded by those who have found themselves jobless and getting further and further into debt.

Image by Coljay72

The downturn in the global economy has struck hard, and some people are suffering from the brunt of the fall out more than others. Unemployment numbers are at theirhighest levels since the financial turmoil of the 1980’s, and the situation only seems to be getting worse rather than better. And because lending was totally out of control in recent years, many of those who are now unemployed have access to large sums of money on credit, which they use unwisely with no means to repay their debts. It’s a predicament that could all too easily get out of hand, further compounding the amount of debt owed.

To ensure a bad situation doesn’t get any worse, it’s important for those currently unemployed to nip their bad habits in the bud and set up a good survival strategy so their chances of incurring yet more debt are limited. Here are a few ideas that will help you escape sinking further into debt while looking for work:

1. Devise a Budget

Before you know what you can spend, you have to know what you have available. The only way to do that is to draw up a budget. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy; you could do it on the back of an envelope, if you like. Start by tallying up what money you have available (severance package, spouse’s income, savings, unemployment insurance, etc.) and then divide by six – the amount of months it may take you to find a new job. If your geographic area or industry has been badly hit, you may need to plan for longer. You will then have more of an idea of how much money you have available to spend each month.

Now tally all of your monthly outgoing expenses. Start with the most important ones – your rent or mortgage, food, and utilities. Then move down the list: travel, car expenses, health care and any outstanding loans or credit card debts. Get everything down on paper.

You are left with two numbers: one representing your income and the other your expenses. Provided the income is greater than the expenses, you should be fine, but those who are unemployed will be very unlikely to be in this position. If that’s the case you need closely scrutinize what you do with your money.

2. Make Do With Less

It’s important to take a close look at your spending habits and see what you can do without – at least temporarily, until you’re back in work. Depending on the circumstances, you may have to be quite brutal. It’s time to ask yourself what are necessities and what are luxuries. You may need to forgo the luxuries for awhile.

Do you really need deluxe cable television or satellite TV? Do you need new clothes or Starbuck’s lattes? Probably not. It might require some tough questions to fully determine what you can and can’t afford on your budget, but in the long run you’ll be better off for having made the sacrifice.

3. Look for Additional Sources of Income

While you’re job-hunting it might be useful to think about other ways you can bring in some much-needed cash to keep you going.

Declutter – now might be the time to sell some of your extra belongings on eBay, or in a garage sale. It will give you something to organize, help clear out some of your cupboards/closets and bring in some cash.
Consulting – do you have a skill or a knowledge which you can offer on a consulting basis? Can you teach someone else how to do what you do? Would someone pay for your expertise in a certain area?
Start your own business – is there a business idea you have always wanted to explore but never had the time? Now might be the right time to draw up a business plan and seek funding.
Rent a room – Do you have a spare room in your house that you could let to help pay the bills?
Casual jobs – don’t overlook dog walking, babysitting or doing yard work. They will get you out of the house and interacting with people, which is important for developing your network.

4. Fight Depression

It’s natural to feel depressed when you’ve lost your job, especially one you’ve had for a long time, and it’s hard to not take it personally. You must do everything you can to fight the urge to get down in the dumps. It’s all too easy to start charging everything to your credit card in an attempt to cheer yourself up, even though you know it’s the wrong thing to do. Thinking, “Oh, I’ll pay that off when I get a new job.” That will only lead down the slippery slope of debt, and the further you get into debt when unemployed, the longer it will take to get out of the red when you’re back in work.

Acknowledge that you’re experiencing a temporary set-back, adopt a positive attitude and you’ll soon get back on your feet and find another job. It’s important to keep physically active – go for a walk everyday – it doesn’t cost anything, and avoid day-time TV like the plague – it has a tendency to suck people in, keeping them from focusing on what they should be, and that’s finding a new job.

5. Ask for Help

Now is not the time to go it alone. Put your pride aside and ask your friends and family for help – whether it’s emotional support, a loan or a hot meal; their assistance will make a huge difference. There are resources in your community too which can help, whether it’s a food bank, a charity, or job search assistance.

If you’re eligible for government assistance, then be sure you apply for it. You may have to jump through some hoops, but it is better than losing your house or saddling yourself with additional debt.

And, if you’re not going to be able to meet payments on your mortgage or credit cards, then you can’t ignore the problem. You must phone them up and speak to them. Explain your situation and ask for help in finding a solution. Banks and other creditors are much more understanding than you would think. Don’t be tempted to go to debt management agencies, either. They will only charge you to do what the banks will do for free. Creditors just want to get their money back, so will help you devise a repayment plan that suits your budget.

These are trying times. Remember that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Keep your focus on finding a new job and follow these tips to help you meet that goal without falling further into a hole.

With a Virtual Assistant Twitter Doesn’t Have to Be a Waste of Time...

noreply@blogger.com (Barians Business Consultancy) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 21:20:00 +0000

Now this age is the age of Social media marketing... That is being used in very much effective way.... Twitter is also one of these social media tools.. Many people and companies Consider Twitter as the waste of time... As It has very limited features... And huge spamming is to face on daily basis....

So,

Do not waste the potential of Twitter, hire a Virtual Assistant to manage your Twitter account

People who don’t use Twitter often regard it as a waste of time. Because of the 140-character limit of Twitter, many people cannot see how valuable the network can be for their business. They don’t see how posting 140-character messages can be very useful especially since the network is updated in real time and the service provides this wonderful opportunity to network with millions of people. The value of the network lies in the network per se but in uses that people find in the service.

Twitter can only be a waste of time, if you do not use it to your advantage. If you are a CEO who has to steer the business to success, adding tweeting to your task may not be the most efficient way to use your time. In this sense, Twitter becomes a waste of your time. There are probably a hundred other tasks you could be spending your time in that will help your business grow in efficiency and profitability. One of the ways you can use it to your advantage without spending your own time on the network is by hiring a virtual assistant to manage your Twitter account for you.

Hiring the VA to create your tweets ensures that you have an updated Twitter account. Regular updates are very important in maximizing the usefulness of Twitter. When you update your Twitter regularly, you gain more followers who learn to look forward to your tweets.

The secret of course in gaining followers, brand-building and developing brand loyalty on Twitter is to post messages with value. This can be hard to do for a CEO who is up to his neck in tasks. Thankfully, a virtual assistant can do this task for the busy CEO.

For this to be an effective set-up, the VA just has to understand the business and the company’s goal in participating in Twitter. To have good control over your Twitter account, you can also implement a social media policy not just for the VA but for your employees as well.

Some CEOs choose to have the VA only do the messages that the CEO has to approve before it goes up on the site. There are CEOs who trust the VA will do a good enough job that all Twitter activities and social media tasks are left to the VA.

Contact us for the the services of the virtual assistant...

Just email me at : nadeembari@msn.com

Or Click on it:

Contact ME

Contact Us

noreply@blogger.com (Barians Business Consultancy) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 13:05:00 +0000

Marketing Plan + Startegy

noreply@blogger.com (Barians Business Consultancy) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:50:00 +0000

Coming Soon

What is Social Media Marketing?

noreply@blogger.com (Barians Business Consultancy) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:18:00 +0000

There are some famous words by a website, "Social Media Marketing is like teen age sex. Everyone wants to do but don't know how? And when it is done, One feels, "Its not that better". :-)
The key with social media is a bit like your holidays vs. work days. A nice balance can make a world of difference. Too much will keep you hiding behind a computer and too little – well chances are you won’t know what you are missing out on!
As a marketer, I find this topic overwhelms and confuses many business owners. Quite frankly, even in the marketing world – the jury is still out on the trends. But rest assured – social media is not going away. As our children grow up and take over corporate North America, the names of the tools may change, but the overall usage will only become more and more in use.
To start, let’s look at what Social Media really is. According to Wikipedia (which is itself a social media tool, by the way):
Social Media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate:

Technology + Human interaction = the construction of ideas (text), pictures (graphics), videos and/or audio.
There is shared meanings and collaboration.

Social media is not finite – there is not a set number of pages or hours.

Several formats can be mixed.

Social media is typically available via feeds, enabling users to subscribe via feed readers, and allowing other publishers to create what are called “mashups”.

2 Key Ways Social Media can help your business.

1. So people can find you and your business more readily on the internet. Such optimization includes adding links to services such as Digg, Reddit and Del.icio.us so that pages can be easily ’saved and submitted’ to and for these services.

2. To position yourself and/or your company as an expert or leader in your industry. This includes writing content that is remarkable, unique, and newsworthy. This content can then be marketed by popularizing it or even by creating a “viral” video on YouTube and other video sites.
Examples of Social Media
Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few. Examples of social media applications are Google Groups (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference),MySpace (social networking), Facebook (social networking), Youmeo (social network aggregation),Last.fm (personal music), YouTube (social networking and video sharing), Avatars United (social networking), Second Life (virtual reality), Flickr (photo sharing), Twitter (social networking and microblogging) and other microblogs such as Jaiku and Pownce. Many of these social media services can be integrated via social network aggregation platforms like Mybloglog and Plaxo.
Beginner Steps #1
Set up a LinkedIn account and possibly a Facebook account. LinkedIn is a social site geared to business. Facebook tends to be more personal, though some people have certainly used it for business as well. It is free to set up both accounts. At a bare minimum, include your company web address and contact details. Try to use key search terms in your descriptions.
Invite Your Existing and Ongoing Prospects to link up with you.
Bigger Steps #1
LinkedIn has an Answers function where you can ask and answer questions. Answer at least one question a week in your area of expertise. When your answer is chosen by the questioner it helps you to earn Expert status in your industry.

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About BB Consultancy

noreply@blogger.com (Barians Business Consultancy) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 00:08:00 +0000

About Us:

Barians Business Consultancy is a team that provides its services to its clients for online business solution. Here we say about our team that,

“Get the power of a team for the cost of one expert! Team members use their combined expertise to deliver a superior work product.”

We have been providing our services to our potential customers for last 2 years. In this time we are working with two organization; The Seth Shannon Foundation and Blue Bird Jobs. We are maintaining the services for bluebird jobs and keeping its social media on track. The team members we have:

Nadeem Bari (MBA-Marketing) (Team Leader & Expert)

Wasim Bari (MSc-Computer Science) (Technical & Social Media Expert)

Rizwan Ahmed (BBA) (Social Media Expert & Writer)

We offer our services for:

- Social Media Marketing Plans

- Social Media maintenance (facebook, Twitter, Blog, Digg, Myspace, likedIn)

- Start-up Plans

- Business Plans

- Marketing Plan

- Strategy Development

- Professional Proposals

- Budget and Spending Plans

- Business Growth Ideas and Opportunities

- Business reviews

- Entrepreneur ideas and plans and reviews

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