According to this article, it suggests that time-sensitive, erasable data defines the future of social media and that there is a certain addictive quality attached to sending personal messages that self destruct.

This trend is undeniable and can be seen in popular applications such as Snapchat, Poke and Wickr.

I believe that it is invaluable to have full awareness of your social presence and delete old messages and pictures that are irrelevant to your future.

However I don’t necessarily think this solves the overarching issue.

The fact of the matter is that once something is posted online or data is transferred you should consider it as good as gone.

It is foolish to think that any of these apps are the answer to this issue.

The genuine solution is to accept the fact that your public profile is a direct representation of who you are in reality.

There are no boundaries anymore, and anything you would be uncomfortable doing in person, should not be done on a virtual platform.

It is unfortunate how privacy and sanctity of personal information no longer exists.

Everything eventually reaches the Internet.

The post Can Social Media Profiles Truly Be Erased? appeared first on Smart Boy Designs.

Gone are the days when you had to go onto a job search website such as Monster.com to find your next employer.

These days, companies are beginning to realize that they can use social media sites for more than marketing their business and strengthening their brand name. The new trend is to place job ads on sites like Facebook and Twitter. Many companies will either take out an ad on Facebook stating that they are hiring or they will post it on their company’s page as a status update.

They do this because it allows them to reach the demographic they are looking for.

This means that if a tech company is hiring for developers, for instance, they will target Facebook users whose profiles indicate their interest in and talent for, website or mobile application development.

Using Social Media for Employee Retention and Recruitment

Twitter is used by companies to communicate with possible job candidates and see what subjects’ they tweet to their followers.

Companies are also using it to spread the word about open houses or employee recruitment events that they run. This allows them to cast a wider net in which to attract possible employees than they would be able to by simply sticking to websites designed specifically for job seekers.

Another social media site being used to find new employees is LinkedIn, which is a professional social networking site. Company profiles are posted on the site and members can follow the companies’ updates on LinkedIn.

When members connect with each other, they are able to see the people their connections are connected to and can ask for an introduction to someone they share a mutual connection with.

As companies find more ways to seek out potential employees, those looking for a job would be wise to use social media sites carefully and in positive ways.

Have you used social media for job searches? Does your company engage social media to find new employees? If not, maybe you should be.

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The newest social media rage is Facebook Home.

Facebook Home is the first in the history of HTC. It is a family of apps as described by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. It is not an operating system and it is not a phone but yet it is so much more than just your ordinary phone app.

A New World…

It is a whole new world where you can see the world through other people instead of apps.

The family of apps will let users display mobile versions of their Facebook newsfeed as well as their messages right on the home screen of a variety of cell phone devices which as based on the operating system of the android.

Facebook Home’s Cover Feed

One of the interesting features with Facebook Home is the cover feed.

This gives you an up-to-date stream of pictures and updates from the newsfeed that is on your Facebook page.

This will be new and fresh as long as your phone is on and will update when you wake up your phone. This gives you an added benefit of keeping abreast of your friends latest activities as they happen.

While the cover feed is a great feature to see what is going on with friends and family in real time, the notifications feature will alert you when something important is posted that is directed at you. This usually occurs when someone posts on your timeline. When this happens, you will be notified with their profile picture.

Then all you need to do is tap the picture to see the notification.

Try it out!

You can get Facebook Home as a free download directly from the Google Play Store.

It is compatible with the HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung Galaxy S III and Samsung Galaxy Note II.

There are several other devices coming in the near future that will be compatible as well including the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4.

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Voice Tutor comes with a host of features that enable vocalists to analyze their pitch levels and singing challenges, and choose lessons that address their particular issue. This highly functional app can be used for breath control and warm up before performances.

(Salt Lake City, Utah), May 16 2013 – Voice Tutor is meant for singers of all skill levels. At small cost, it offers voice lessons and training in a very simple way while still following a proven learning methodology. Also, the app provides a solution for people who do not find time exclusively for music lessons. With the app installed on their iPads, iPhones of iPods, they can learn music on the go.

Co-founder of Voice Tutor, Robert Raab Stevenson says, “We believe that music is the voice of the soul. Everybody sings, even if they hum unconsciously. We have also noticed that most people want to sing well. Voice Tutor is for all those people. We developed the app with an intention of helping anybody who has a passion for music learn the skill without being discouraged by the high cost of conventional music lessons.”

The founders have a lot of experience in music, which has helped them come out with an extremely comprehensive and powerful app with features that address all aspects of learning music. Stevenson is the voice coach of celebs including Rihanna, Justin Timberlake and Kelly Rowland. Although nothing can substitute a real teacher, the app does go a long way in helping people learn music in the right way while simultaneously saving time and money.

One of the highlights of the app is its simplicity. The functions infused in the app are very user friendly. Additionally, the app is designed to make users enjoy the process of learning music.

Mindy Park, co-founder of Voice Tutor said in an interview, “Voice Tutor was initially designed to help my students practice and improve their vocal skills. However, when we realized how successful it was, we decided to make it public. After a lot of brainstorming over techniques, methods and styles in music, Raab and I were able to design a complete app. We can attest that currently, there is no app in the Apple app store that offers the comprehensiveness of Voice Tutor”.

True to her word, Voice Tutor does have a large number of useful features. Users can decide their singing scales by using the comparative diagnostic feature. Furthermore, users can utilize four exercise sets, each of which consist of an hour of lessons, and they can be targeted to specific voice challenges.

Some of the other features included in the app are a pitch meter that keeps check on the user’s pitch, a vocal warm up session that can be used before performing, breathing exercises for breath control and special lessons to sing riffs and runs. Besides, the app can be used in the background while the user performs other functions on the phone. Voice Tutor also comes with remote compatibility.

In all, the app is a good combination of convenience, affordability and effectiveness in learning music.

For more information contact:

Mindy Pack
Voice Tutor App
Email: mindy@voicetutorapp.com

The post Voice Tutor (@VoiceTutorApp) Proves To Be an Effective App that Helps Vocalists Improve Their Singing Skills appeared first on Smart Boy Designs.

It’s an app world out there.

According to iStrategyLabs, the average person has more than 100 apps on their smartphone in which they spend 127 minutes a day using each one. When Apple launched the App Store in 2008 it took nine months for a billion apps to be downloaded. But by the end of 2013, it’s expected that users will be downloading two billion apps per week!

With the competitiveness in today’s job market, seekers should utilize every tool they can for success, including smartphones. About 9.6% of the London population is currently unemployed, according to CTV News. And with a billion active smartphones on earth, it only makes sense to retrain your brain and search for a job through the convenience of smartphone apps.

Career Builder — Free

Career Builder is one of the most widely known Internet databases and has over 300,000 employers listed from around the world.

The app brings the power of CareerBuilder.com, which gets more than 24 million unique visitors monthly, according to its site, at your fingertips. The app is easy to use and allows you to search and apply for jobs from your phone. You can even find jobs near you and attach your resume to your application with ease. This app is ideal for anyone looking for a variety of careers: traveling nurses, educators, writers, CEOs, the list goes on.

SimplyHired — Free

SimplyHired is one of the largest and free job search engines, aggregating postings from across the web, which includes online newspapers and company sites.

The app gives instant access to more than five million job listings. Searching, saving, sharing and applying for jobs has never been easier.

LinkedIn — Free

When LinkedIn debuted in 2003, no one could have imagined its impact.

With more than 200 million members in over 200 countries and territories, it’s the world’s largest professional networking site, according to LinkedIn.com. Now with the app, job seekers are granted instant access to connections and acquaintances.

Pocket Resume — $2.99

Pocket Resume is one of the best-selling apps on the market and allows users to create, save and email resumes from your smartphone.

The app takes all the stress of putting a resume together by doing all the layout work for you and features the most innovative PDF-rendering technology. “Easy to use and gives great results … really like the cover letter addition!” says customer Neuron99.

Interview Pro — Free

With the Interview Pro, leave your fears at the door.

With over 80 interview questions and answers, including the most commonly asked questions, you’ll be mentally prepared for the interview. Sample questions include:

• Why should I hire you?
• How do you handle conflicts with your manager?
• Why did you leave your last job?

Photo by Flickr user Balão da Informática

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While a lot of people moan and groan about the marketers taking over their Facebook and Twitter feeds, the truth is that when you use them properly, the social media portals are important keys to proper online reputation management.

Here are just five ways that you can use social media to your advantage.

1. Super Fast Customer Service

Twitter is especially good for this. The Twitter service will send you an alert every time someone mentions your company (and uses your username). This will allow you to address problems as soon as they are reported. When you are able to talk to a customer and solve his problems quickly, you make your customers happy. This makes them (and those who they talk to) think more highly of you.

PRO TIP: Use this method to reward people for positivity as well!

You just turned her frown upside down!

Image Courtesy of: Kittikun Atsawintarangkul/FreeDigitalPhotos.Net

2. Inform and Entertain

Use your social media profiles to clue your followers and subscribers into things you find interesting or that you know will help them in their daily lives. Do this often! By offering helpful hints or links to articles you think your readers will find interesting, you are proving that you see your audience as human and not just a walking talking pile of money.

PRO TIP: To do this well, make sure that most of your messages are informative and/or entertaining. Keep the self-promotion to a minimum. A good ratio is 5:1.

3. Show Off Your Charitable Nature

Does your company regularly help out non-profit organizations or charities? Talk about that!

Write a blog post about the success of your most recent food drive. Put up pictures from the last event or fundraising activity. People respond well to those who want to help others, particularly those who are less fortunate or in need of help. They are more likely to support and talk up the organizations that do more for the community than they do for themselves.

4. Have Conversations

The best thing about social media is its lack of formality.

It is a way of putting yourself in front of someone else and saying, “Here I am. Let’s have a conversation!” Actively engaging your audience in conversation shows that you are interested in them. It shows that you care just as much about what they think and feel as you do about your own thoughts and feelings. Asking for feedback and then taking that feedback seriously proves that you want to work for your audience.

Yeah, it’s kind of like that!

Image Courtesy of Bplanet/FreeDigitalPhotos.Net

5. Share Your Joy!

When someone you admire says something cool about you, it’s okay to share that with your audience and to publicly thank that person for the accolades.

This shows your own humility—getting excited over a positive mention puts you on the same level as your audience and makes you easier for them to relate to. It also shows off that other people think highly of you, which will carry weight with your own followers.

PRO TIP: Get excited about all of the positive mentions, no matter how big or small the mentioner’s own audience might be. If you only get excited for “celebrity” mentions, you just look like a jerk.

It’s worth mentioning that you will only get out of social media what you put into it. The more you engage (and the more genuine you are as you do it), the more people will engage you.

Good luck!

Erin Steiner is a professional writer from Portland who, in addition to maintaining her own blog and vlog, loves helping people build their own businesses and spends what could arguably be called an “unhealthy” amount of time on Twitter.

The post 5 Ways to Use Your Social Media Profiles to Improve Your Company’s Rep appeared first on Smart Boy Designs.

Facebook has evolved into a major marketing portal in today’s social media centric world.

You can use Facebook to promote your restaurant in numerous ways. If you do it right, your restaurant is going to be overflowing with customers within no time.

To begin with, you need to create a Facebook business page for your restaurant. Install Facebook plugin on your website so that visitors can easily navigate to the Facebook page and vice versa. Once done, you can use it in several creative ways.

Engage your audience

You need to engage visitors on your Facebook page so that they share the page repeatedly over social media channels.

One of the first things to do is to publish exciting content. Use a combination of text, pictographic and infographic content to make it more engaging.

Put up pictures of your restaurant. Hire a professional photographer to capture some great shots and upload them on to the page. Also upload images of delicious looking foods. Add a caption for each picture subtly emphasizing that they are prepared by your chefs. Post a story about how you happened to start the restaurant and develop it over time.

Include a map clearly showing the route to your restaurant.

Add reviews

Reviews add a lot of marketing value to your restaurant.

Request your customers to provide feedback about the different aspects of your business on your Facebook page. You can also collect reviews at your restaurant and post them on the page. Genuine reviews build trust about your business.

Start a regular feature

Start an interesting regular feature such as daily morning news bit or an interesting inspirational story.

Upload a story every morning. Keep in mind that this story does not have to be connected to your restaurant. Select stories on food in general, restaurants around the world and interesting recipes.

The intention behind a regular feature is to emphasize that you want to add value to a visitor’s experience on the page. The focus here is to avoid a marketing tone. The strategy helps bring people to your Facebook page repeatedly, create a community and gradually, build a visitor patronage.

Such indirect marketing tactics can certainly be very fruitful.

Reach out

Identify Facebook communities consisting of people belonging to your region.

For example, most of the colleges have their own communities on Facebook. Also check out communities of different associations and clubs in your region. Monitor conversations that take place within these communities.

When you hit upon discussions about birthday parties, farewell or welcome parties, anniversary dinners and other food related issues, drop in a line about your restaurant. Also drop in an incentive such as a discount coupon.

Facebook gives you unlimited opportunities to market your business. Make good use of it.

The post Using Facebook to Promote Your Restaurant appeared first on Smart Boy Designs.

Currently ranked the number 146 most visited website in the world by Alexa, Slideshare can be a real asset to any marketer or organization that wants to take marketing to the next level.

Most people aren’t really aware of SlideShare but it’s referred to as the quiet giant of content marketing; in other words, amidst all the content marketing buzz this year, if you aren’t taking advantage of Slideshare and similar Presentation sharing sites then you’re missing out.

Here are some really interesting stats about Slideshare that you should know:

• It’s the world’s largest community for sharing Presentations
• It gets over 60 million monthly visitors and 3 billion monthly slide views
• Slideshare grew from 1 million monthly visitors to 60 million visitors in 5 years; traffic has been doubling yearly for 5 years straight

The above are some interesting Slideshare stats because it’s the biggest presentation sharing site online; however, presentation sharing isn’t limited to Slideshare. Some other examples are:

• Author Stream
• Slide Boom
• Slide Snack

These are all massive sites you can submit your Presentations to; however, effective presentation marketing isn’t all about creating your slides and uploading them to presentation sharing sites. It’s far more than that and the aim of this article is to provide you with the information required to successfully market with slides.

How to Get Ideas for Your Slides

Just like with other form of content marketing, the first challenge is getting content that can fuel your marketing. This is no different for presentation marketing; here are a few ways to get ideas for your slides:

1. Events and Seminars: If you have to present at an event or seminar, instead of going back to the drawing board, you can compile your presentation and upload it online.

2. Online Webinars: The content of your online events and webinars can be packaged and turned into slides that can be submitted to sites like Slideshare.

3. Blog Posts and Popular Content: What are your most popular blog posts? Repackage them and turn them into slides to be used to market your business.

4. Industry Trends and Quotes: You can also create slides based on trends in your industry or you can create slides with quotes from experts and influencers in your industry. Sometimes, these experts will share the slide and might even feature it on their blog.

Benefits of Online Presentations

There’s no point in doing it if it would not benefit you; here are some main benefits of presentation marketing that you might want to consider:

1. They’re good for branding: Unlike content on your blog, you can brand your slide presentations to have the look and feel of your company using the right colors and images that can only be associated with your brand; when people see these colors and images anywhere, they instantly think of you. The more people see your slides, the more people know of your brand.

2. You can tap into the existing audience of presentation sharing sites: As I shared earlier in this article, Slideshare currently has over 60 million monthly visitors that they grew to in 5 years; if we’re to follow the trends, then Slideshare will only keep growing massively. This creates an opportunity for your brand to tap into existing traffic from slide presentation sites through your slides.

3. You can get traffic: Slide presentation sites will allow you to embed a link to your site or your products inside your presentations and this creates opportunity for you to benefit massively from traffic from the network.

Just how powerful can presentation marketing be? Real powerful! There have been stories from everyday people whose slides suddenly landed on the homepage leading to 50,000+ views in less than a month.

How to Create Presentations that Get Results

If you want to create presentations that matter, here are a few tips:

1. Your Design Matters

You can easily publish a PDF ebook without worrying about formatting and it’ll still be successful but it is entirely different from slides.

The number one element of your slides you should focus on optimizing is the design; make sure your slide looks as good and as simple as possible. No matter what, avoid having it plain.

Creating beautiful slides can be difficult and here are some resources to help you with creating your slides:

EWC Presenter: EWC Presenter is an all-in-one tool that allows you to create slides, banners and infographics using the HTML5 technology.

With EWC Presenter, you can choose from various elements you’re provided with to create the best slide you can; you can also create interactive slides if you want to.

Theme Forest: Unlike EWC Presenter, Theme Forest is not a tool for creating presentations but a website that gives you access to thousands of design templates; there are over a dozen presentation templates that you can download and customize.

2. Start a blog: Another way to ensure your slide presentations get a lot of views is to start a blog; to really get results from Slideshare and other major networks; you’ll need to create more than one slide. You can use your slides to market your blog, build an audience for your blog and also share your future slides with them.

If your blog generates a lot of views for your Slide, it’ll be added to your overall slide views and also help you rank better on presentation sharing sites like Slideshare.

3. Use a lot of Images

People don’t want to read another long ebook; they want presentations!

One thing of note about really successful presentations on sites like Slideshare is that they contain more images than text; in other words, the goal is to communicate your point via images supported by text.

It’s easy to want to be tempted to use a lot of text but that’ll only ensure your presentation doesn’t get a lot of traction.

4. Have a Smart Title

Not only will your title decide whether people will view your slides, it’ll also to some extent influence whether the editors of the presentation sharing sites decide to feature it on their sites or not.

5. Talk about a Popular Thing

Talk about popular sites, networks, events, public figures or anything else people will be interested in; this could be Facebook, Google or a popular movie star. Look for a way to tie your presentations to them.

6. Focus on Getting Social Shares

Presentation sharing sites like Slideshare have a special category that showcases popular presentations based on what people are sharing on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn; focus on getting a lot of shares on these sites and you’ll have an upper hand.

Joseph is a marketer with years of experience that helps people learn to create interactive presentations and market them.

The post How to Supercharge Your Marketing with Slide Presentations appeared first on Smart Boy Designs.

In business, the personal touch is increasingly lost as people rely on twitter, email and other social networking tools.

Online tools are valuable for daily personal, business and customer relationships but they aren’t the only tools available to you.

Reinforcing your business with offline tools, from thank-you notes to business cards can make a big difference in the right circumstances.

First Impressions

Many of us may carry smartphones or tablets with us, ready to launch email, Facebook or Twitter in an instant.

Even the best tech, however, has its limits. You know what never fails? A business card. On a plane, in a meeting, or anywhere else.

A memorable business card will create a lasting impression, especially if it’s stuck on a fridge or filing cabinet. To help the recipient connect with you online, add a QR code or create a landing page with a simple address, like an about.me page that can link to all of your online accounts.

Showing You Care

In his decade at the helm of the Campbells company, CEO Douglas Contant sent an estimated 30,000 handwritten notes to employees. In a blog posted on Harvard Business Review, he says the notes let employees know he is “personally paying attention and celebrating their accomplishments” and that the cards “build goodwill and lead to higher productivity.”

Sure you could send an email, but those feel impersonal and fleeting. A handwritten card shows forethought.

It is a tangible reminder of the sender’s message. You could tweet that “@BobTheGreatEmployee scored a big client today!” Or, you could pen a quick thank you note to Jim in HR for staying late at FedEx Office to get all of those new employee packets printed and ready in time.

What will make the biggest impact, long term? The handwritten note.

But Where Do I Start?

Terrible handwriting and lack of stationary are no excuse.

Even if you type all day, you should be able to knock out 5-7 legible handwritten sentences at a time. Even a note penned on hotel or vendor stationary is better than nothing.

Companies can save money while buying stationary supplies. Using a credit card like a cash flow with a Plum card from American Express and other companies offer discounts to stores like OfficeMax and FedEx when you use your card to buy the supplies.

Simple note cards can be found at just about any store in the greeting card or office supply area. A nice pen with ink that won’t smudge and that flows without ripping through the paper is a nice start. If you get really into all of this, you can get custom stationary, a fountain pen and a signature wax seal.

For an in-depth look at varieties of stationary and other letter etiquette, the Art of Manliness has a great series of posts.

If, however, you’re not ready to take it to that level, don’t let it stop you from taking the time to hand write a thank you, congratulations or get well note!

The post Don’t Forget to Go Offline Every Now & Then appeared first on Smart Boy Designs.

An impressive phone lets you access the Internet quickly and gives you a large screen with excellent resolution so you can read text and watch movies on the go.

But when making a decision on which phone to purchase, the deal breaker usually comes down to the apps.

With this side-by-side comparison, you can decide whether iPhone or Android reigns supreme.

Advanced GPS

Image via Flickr by Amckimmey and Dylan Anderson

iPhone has an excellent app that gives users excellent GPS directions to anywhere they want to go called, Maps.

The reason that the app works so well, though, is because they use Google Maps App. In case you don’t know, Google also makes the Android operating system.

Android of course, continued to use the well-received Google Maps App. Maps App for iPhone 5 immediately raised concerns amongst consumers who found themselves trying to follow the most confusing directions that seemed to lead nowhere, or definitely not where they had planned.

Eventually, Apple apologized for the app and suggested that iPhone 5 users access Google Maps online.

The Handheld Boombox

Image via Flickr Jon Lech and Marioanima

Apple has iTunes, so it’s a tough competitor in this area.

The iPhone basically works like a really sophisticated iPod so you can listen to music easily no matter where you go. Unfortunately, many people have trouble syncing iTunes between several machines. If you listen to music on your work computer, home computer, and iPhone, then you could face a big challenge trying to share music between your devices

Android has yet to make its own proprietary music app, but Android phone users have plenty of options. Android’s DoubleTwist feels a bit too much like iTunes. If you venture into streaming music, though, Android comes out as the clear winner.

That’s because Android phones support widgets that let you use several apps at once.

Instead of sticking with Pandora or SoundHog, you can use them both simutaneously.

E-books

Image via TechnoFriends

There isn’t a clear winner when it comes to e-book apps.

Whether you use an iPhone or Android device, you have access to pretty much the same apps and content.

Android devices do have one advantage over iPhone in this area. Android makes it easy to copy and share e-books with a USB connection. Just plug it in to a computer and swap files.

With the iPhone, you have to worry about using iTunes, which is notoriously picky about which device it will copy to and from.

Never-ending Entertainment

Image via Flickr by CarlosPacheco and KompasTekno

Who doesn’t enjoy being entertained?

GetGlue has been called, “the ultimate entertainment sharing app” by MakeUseOf.com. GetGlue is “a social network for film, television and sports that connects you with likeminded fans of your favorite bits of entertainment.” It’s sort of like Apple’s advanced version of the TV Guide.  Xperia Lounge was actually created by Sony and made available to Android last year after the application’s initial launch. Xperia includes; music, film, sports and gaming. As an added bonus are privileges to exclusive content such as free tickets to concerts and the FIFA Interactive World Cup.

Apple makes some apps for the iPhone, but most of them come from third-party companies. Android however, has the advantage of Google, one of the most sophisticated software companies in the world. Both of these heavyweights have a plethora of apps for production, entertainment, security and the much-needed navigation.

Google leaves Apple in the dust when it comes to innovative software. With an Android phone, you get everything Google has to offer. With the iPhone, you get iTunes and iMovie. The battle of the T-Mobile Android phones verse iPhone continues.

Which one do you prefer? 

Kristina Jackson is a recent college graduate and passionate freelance writer in technology and design. When she’s not writing, you can find her hanging out with her puppy Louie or taking cooking classes. 

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