RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser almost made it through his company’s quarterly earnings call without taking a jab at Apple and the iPhone. But near the end of the call, he took a quick mathematical poke at Apple to drive home his point that there are plenty of opportunities to launch a mobile music service that […]
McAfee on Thursday acquired data loss prevention company Reconnex, inked distribution pacts with HP and Toshiba and reported better than expected second quarter earnings.
The company said it acquired Reconnex, which makes technology that automates data protection, for $46 million. McAfee said Reconnex will allow it to deploy data loss protection systems faster and offer customers […]
If blocking P2P traffic is bad, isn’t banning it worse?
It’s now been reported not just once, but twice, that AT&T is banning P2P traffic by its wireless customers. That will not make iPhone 3G customers happy.
So if the first item on the agenda tomorrow for Kevin Martin’s Commission is to penalize Comcast for “secretly degrading” […]
Updated throughout: EDS said Thursday that shareholders have approved the HP acquisition of the IT services company. Internally, rumors about impending layoffs at EDS are surfacing, but a company spokesman called the rumors “completely factually incorrect.”
According to a statement, 98.8 percent of EDS common stock was voted for the HP deal–that equates to 72.4 percent […]
I hate passwords - especially in a corporate setting. We’ve all been there - your password must be between 6-8 characters and must include at least one letter, one number, one symbol, yadda yadda yadda. Oh, and you’ll be asked to change it every 60 days. Sigh. OK, I recognize that IT departments do that […]
by Jennifer Laycock
It’s been said the devil is in the details. Unfortunately, I’m not really a details kind of person. I’d like to write it off and say my mental energy goes into creativity; but the truth is, I’m just really forgetful. It’s why we have insanely organized people like Rachel and Vickie on staff to keep us organized. That’s why yesterday’s Columbus Tweetup served as a great reminder of one of the common mistakes small businesses make when it comes to social media.
They forget to bring their business cards to the party.
Yesterday was the second organized Tweet-up in Columbus. (If you aren’t familiar with Tweet-ups, they’re basically a gathering of Twitter users from a specific city for networking and general merriment.) We’d had our first Tweet-up last month, gathering together about 24 people, most of whom I’d already met. This month, we doubled in size. Fifty-six people showed up yesterday to a great lunch hosted by Baja Sol (which by the way has super yummy salsa).
Unfortunately, I realized about ten minutes before I got there that I hadn’t grabbed a stack of business cards to bring with me.
Doh.
I called Rachel up and asked her to bring extras of hers so I at least had something to hand out, but I kicked myself repeatedly over the fact that I was now too far from home to turn around and go get them. Then I asked myself why I keep forgetting to restock my purse with a fresh supply each time I come home.
Since I’m big on analogies, my next thought was how many companies do this exact same thing in an online environment.
See, a business card is one of those things you should have with you at all times, but I’m certain I’m not the only small business owner who forgets to carry them.
A few weeks back I was volunteering at our church’s food pantry. During the course of the evening I met about a dozen new people at my church. I got into a work conversation with roughly half of them and all of those wanted to know more about the site and what we offer. Of course I had no business cards with me, so I had to write our URL and my email down on scraps of paper for them.
That actually happens to me fairly often. It’s easy to try and remember to take cards to a networking function, but sometimes we forget that those work related meetings and conversations can sometimes happen spontaneously. In fact, just this week, Rachel ran into someone at Panera Bread who introduced her to someone else in our industry here in town.
You just never know.
It’s the same online. I’m willing to bet most of you include your work URL or your business blog URL in your profile at sites like LinkedIn and Twitter, but do you include them in your profile elsewhere? I rarely use Flickr for work. It almost exclusively contains (protected) pictures of my kids and (public) pictures of my bento boxes, meals I create and local shots from around Columbus.
For the most part, I don’t expect to make business contacts through Flickr. I go there to be part of communities that revolve around my hobby. That said, it would be a mistake for me not to link to Search Engine Guide or explain what I do in my profile.
You see, there’s a surprisingly high level of crossover in interest online. Add in the fact that establishing a personal connection via shared interests can quickly strengthen an online relationship or give you an opening to spark conversation and you’re doing yourself a serious disservice if you aren’t including your business URL in your “fun” social media activities.
I remain amazed at how many of my Lactivist readers are Search Engine Guide regulars and how many Search Engine Guide regulars also visit The Lactivist. In fact, during the year after I launched that site, I’d get just as many people approaching me at shows to talk about breast feeding as I did to talk about marketing. The breast feeding conversations almost always led to business contacts, but they were more memorable because we already had a shared interest.
Don’t pass up the chance to make new business contacts because you think some of your social media activities are “just for fun.” There’s business opportunity in nearly every interaction you have. Forgetting to link to your business from your social media profiles is like forgetting to keep a supply of your business cards in your purse or wallet.
Free White Paper: How to Optimize for Google
A free 10 page white paper on how to optimize a website on Google the right way - so the website succeeds.
The headline on a Facebook-Intel announcement today is FB’s selection of Intel-based processors to beef up its infrastructure as the company expands. That’s good news for Intel. Facebook has become one of the most popular Web 2.0 sites/platforms on the Internet and people are starting to use it as a replacement for e-mail, photo- and […]
by Sage Lewis
Search Engine Watch steals the show this week with three informative articles. We learn about Microsoft’s BrowseRank, Compete’s site traffic comparison tool and China’s search engine Baidu’s soaring profits. Google makes an appearance this week as well. Search Engine Roundtable reports on Google’s governmental search engine, Uncle Sam, and the Comscore press release sites Google as number one of the top 50 U.S. web properties for June of 2008.
Free White Paper: How to Optimize for Google
A free 10 page white paper on how to optimize a website on Google the right way - so the website succeeds.
by Sage Lewis
Search Engine Watch steals the show this week with three informative articles. We learn about Microsoft’s BrowseRank, Compete’s site traffic comparison tool and China’s search engine Baidu’s soaring profits. Google makes an appearance this week as well. Search Engine Roundtable reports on Google’s governmental search engine, Uncle Sam, and the Comscore press release sites Google as number one of the top 50 U.S. web properties for June of 2008.
Free White Paper: How to Optimize for Google
A free 10 page white paper on how to optimize a website on Google the right way - so the website succeeds.
Oracle said today that it will acquire longtime partner Global Knowledge Software LLC, a provider of self-service training automation software. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter.
GKS’s Personal Navigator product is resold as a component of Oracle’s User Productivity Kit, in use by more […]