tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51018423778847263922024-03-13T21:39:49.086-07:00Facebook Wall PosterAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-8400420418480788002015-07-27T13:03:00.001-07:002015-07-27T13:03:21.670-07:00Hen Party Games<div style="text-align: justify;">
Every Hen Party has to have games. Depending on the level of debauchery of your group, your games can range from the seemingly harmless to the incredibly outrageous. Listed below are some ideal hen party games to jazz up any party.<br /><br />Pin the Cucumber on the Hunk - Get a poster of a sexy stud to pin to your wall (your local print shop may be able to blushingly assist you with the print work) and get the girls to blindfold themselves and attempt to pin the appendage on! Your appendage representation can be as innocent (a real cucumber) or as naughty as you wish. A word of caution: to protect from wine spills and other damage, laminate your appendage first.<br /><br />Truth or Dare Poker – This can be achieved with an ordinary card deck, but a naughty deck from www.cocky-hen.com would definitely help. Rather than betting money, you bet dares. See how far you blush to achieve that flush!<br /><br />Drinking Dice – The number you roll determines what you drink, and how much. To keep this one from a bad ending, you may choose to customise your list to only include drinks that Hens in your party will actually drink.<br /><br />Dirty Minds – A series of raunchy clues lead toanswers. Here’s an example: it’s long, hard and red, and you can wrap your fingers around it. If you use it too often, you’ll damage your wrist. Theresult? A red pencil!<br /><br />I’ve Never Ever – You say “I’ve never ever…†and then say something scandalously cheeky. If someone in the group has actually done it, they have to drink. Depending on how well you know your party guests, you may end up surprised, or very inebriated.<br /><br />Another excellent bar game to play at your Hen Party do is Hen Night Back Slappers. A set of 10 different labels are to be stuck on unsuspecting bloke’s backs. The labels say really silly things like 'still a virgin', 'mummy's boy'. Now, for an extra dare, see if you can stick them on their fronts! Hen’s Night Back Slappers can be found at www.cocky-hen.com.<br /><br />There are heaps of games you and your girlfriends can do to make the night memorable. Just remember to keep it in perspective and have fun!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-23706378876796961202015-07-13T12:12:00.002-07:002015-07-13T12:12:44.139-07:00Opportunity Is Everywhere!<div style="text-align: justify;">
Today, in this day and age, there are more millionaires and
billionaires walking around than has ever existed before in history.
People are getting filthy rich everywhere you look. You can't turn on
the TV without seeing actors on TV sitcoms or dramas pulling down
millions per year. You see movie trailers of famous actors promoting
their latest blockbuster film. Then, you have young kids like Justin
Bieber on posters and wall calendars and t-shirts. It seems that kid
just suddenly appeared out of nowhere. One month nobody had even heard
of him and the next month he's everywhere! Now, obviously, he has tons
of fans so some people had heard of him, but old guys like me had never
heard of him before (I, personally don't listen to his music), and then
suddenly I saw him everywhere I looked. Love him or hate him, he was
right there in our faces.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But, money isn't just being made by
actors and performers. Look at that kid who invented Facebook. Facebook
is Free for anyone to join and connect with friends from all over the
world. Did I mention, it's free?! And yet, Facebook is now worth
Billions! Yes, that's Billions with a "B". Holy crap, that's a lot of
money!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
There's money being made with Apps for iPhones and with new technology created every few months.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It
seems if you have talent, good looks, or are smart enough to come up
with some new technological program, app or social medium than crazy
success and piles of cash are sure to follow.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
On the flip side,
there are a lot of angry people out there in the world, because they
don't have any talent to act, sing, dance or have the good looks people
would be willing to pay good money to see. They don't have the smarts to
invent a social network or create some latest coolest software or app.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
There
are millions who are being left behind, working at low paying jobs,
angry that they are in the have-not group instead of the have group.
They see people getting rich and living that fabulous life that they
crave, yet they feel powerless to achieve.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So, then we have people
feeling worthless, depressed and hopeless. The gap between the haves
and the have-nots grows wider every day.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So, what is my point? Am I
just here to stick my finger into the sore spot of the hopeless and rub
their faces into their lack of success? In point of fact, I am. I want
to wake people up!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
See, I believe everyone has something to offer.
Even if you can't sing or dance or are smart enough to invent the next
big thing. We all have something to offer.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I started off this
article by stating that there are more millionaires and billionaires
walking the earth than at any other time in history. It's not like we
live in a communist country where there are no opportunities for anyone.
We don't live a few hundred years ago where life was hard and very few
people achieved any degree of success.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Opportunity is everywhere,
if you'll only stop feeling sorry for yourselves and try some things.
Focus on what you can do instead of what you can't. Think of ways you
can help other people. Think of service businesses that you might be
able to start: Mow lawns, do yard work, walk dogs, shop for people, fix
computers, etc.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-66510266510887558512015-06-23T12:02:00.000-07:002015-07-13T12:15:49.823-07:007 Creative Ways to Generate Visibility for Your Brands<div id="article-content" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In an overcrowded consumer marketplace that continues to add new
products and inventions each year in every imaginable category, it's
important to determine how your products can stand out in this saturated
space.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For entrepreneurs and small businesses, it's always a
juggling act where and how you want to spend your time, energy, money
and resources while working with limited budgets and minimal resources.
So your objective is to implement strategies that generate visibility
and the best publicity for your brands with the least amount of time and
resources.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Here are seven creative ways to generate visibility for your brand.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
1.
Add guerrilla marketing strategies to your campaign. There was a term
invented by Jay Conrad Levinson called guerrilla marketing that relies
on time, energy and imagination rather than big marketing budgets. It's
an advertising strategy that focuses on low cost and creative strategies
for marketing a product or an idea. Tactics used are unconventional and
often localized or involves a large network of individual cells or
groups whose goal is to create buzz in order to promote a product or an
idea. Levinson states that guerrilla marketing efforts works best for
small businesses and entrepreneurs because they have closer
relationships with their customer. But big businesses have also joined
the bandwagon and have included this strategy to execute their marketing
campaigns. Some examples include, those multiple posters that you see
on walls and fences (record labels still use this frequently), street
promotions where freebies are handed out, and those annoying flyers that
you find on your car windshields:). Car graffiti or car signage is
another type of guerrilla marketing. And, the most current craze right
now is flashmobs! Wondering what a flashmob is? If you've seen the
AT&T commercial where the guy starts dancing and then he gets a
message on his phone and realizes he had the wrong time...well he was
supposed to participate in a flashmob...a group of people who assemble
in a public place to perform something at the same time.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
2. A
publicity strategy which is especially popular for fashion and
lifestyle-type products is the use of celebrity endorsements. There are
public relations (PR) agencies that are well connected and have a great
rolodex where they can get products in celebrities' hands. The objective
is for the celebrity to be seen with the product in public or on a
reality show or to talk about it, thus create a frenzy of consumers who
want to buy the product or service. Sadly nowadays, it's a known fact
that big celebrity names are actually PAID to tweet to promote products.
Product placement is also another type of PR where your product or
brand is used for a television show or a movie. Both strategies can be
quite pricey than most people would think.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
3. Use both offline and
online marketing. The advent of internet marketing has been another
great solution for entrepreneurs and small businesses challenged with
generating visibility with very tight marketing budgets. Offline
advertising include print, radio and television ads; all of which are
mediums that are cost prohibitive. So, online marketing has become the
way to generate visibility for smaller businesses. However, online
marketing isn't necessarily free. Search engine optimization (SEO) and
Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising - meaning optimizing your website or
blog so you get on the top of search engines like Google or Yahoo, and
online ads on highly visited sites and blogs cost money too, although
more affordable than more traditional advertising.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
4. Social media
has become one of the best ways to build brand awareness. Facebook,
Google+, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and other social media platforms
have become one of the best ways to generate visibility. Going viral or
viral marketing is another marketing term used that utilizes more
innovative-type strategies to promote and market a product such as
videos, blogs, texting and mobile digital applications. The goal is to
create a buzz using non-traditional, guerrilla or grassroot-type
marketing strategies, creating hype so that it goes viral and therefore
creates greater impact in a short period of time...similar to a virus.
This is another way to generate visibility without having to spend
money. All you need is a computer and a list or connections.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
5. A
website and/or a blog are essential tools when generating visibility for
your products. A well-designed, beautiful and expensive but static
website is no longer the way to go. Adding interactive features to your
site such as videos, slideshow presentations, interactive games and
social media icons/links, feeds, and the ability to comment and join a
conversation, not only allows your prospective customer to stay on your
blog or website longer, but it also encourages brand awareness and
allows the customer to build a relationship with your brand and affords
the opportunity to invite them to spread the word to their network.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
6.
Use your expertise to boost your brand's credibility and generate
visibility. Creating an eZine (online magazine or newsletter), writing
articles for your blog and other niche blogs and websites, submitting
articles to article submission sites and directories, and joining groups
where you comment on Q&As are all great ways to establish online
presence, generate visibility and present your expertise to your
prospective customers. The more people know, like and trust you, the
more chances you have of selling your product or service.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
7.
Finally, one of the oldest and probably still the most effective types
of marketing is word of mouth. The power of trends and brand names is so
prevalent in our society that we're either influenced by advertisements
or driven by the desire to have what other people have. Then, there's
the power and pressure of persuasion especially amongst kids and teens.
If a "cool" kid in school has a "cool" product or it's the next best
thing that everyone is talking about, then almost everyone wants to have
one. Successful products and brands are usually built on word of mouth,
success stories and testimonials. This is probably the cheapest and
fastest way to generate visibility (and sales) for your brands.</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-35132320688778177992015-06-16T12:02:00.000-07:002015-07-13T12:14:49.489-07:00Humans Enslaved<div style="text-align: justify;">
By "humans enslaved" I mean not so much physical ownership and
physical slavery imposed on you by others, the form of slavery that has
been and often still is practiced in the world, but often self imposed
mental slavery. You are a slave and what is enslaving you is in fact
you. But if you want a scapegoat, you can pin the blame on society for
brainwashing you in the first place since none of what follows is
hardwired or innately carved into your little grey cells.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
TIME:
The basic premise here is that when the clock ticks, you jump. How often
do we say "Can't talk now"; "I'm late"; "Gotta run"; "Its kick-off
time" or its time for (the meeting, catching the train, the dinner
party, etc.). It never ends. Alarm clocks, the factory siren, the
referee's whistle, your life is regulated by the clock from the moment
you get up in the morning till the moment you lie down at night. You are
indeed a slave to Father Time!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
MONEY: Money is not always of root
of all evil. Some people are just born nasty! Still, the average person
worships the great dollar bill (or equivalent), and for good reason -
you avoid getting a "go to jail" card since you can pay your bills. But
quite apart from the necessities - bills, the rent/mortgage, food,
clothing, heat, education and medicine - we tend to be slaves in not
just needing, but wanting, more and more and more, and more and more and
more requires more and more and more money. And thus, a major part of
our existence and purpose is to acquire wealth - and that's hardly
something that's modern to the here and now. It's been that way since
Methuselah was a brat in diapers (and even before that when you consider
those Ancient Egyptian tomb robbers). If your bank account is bigger
than anyone else's, well it's the golden rule - them who has the gold
makes the rules. Be it gold or the dollar bill, you're a slave in
pursuit.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
POSSESSIONS: Be it gold or the dollar bill, you're a
slave in pursuit. Why? You want things, stuff, possessions. You get
bragging rights if your (fill in the blank) is bigger, more expensive,
and/or larger in quantity, than that of your peers. You are a slave to
obtaining stuff way above and beyond the basic necessities for all sorts
of psychological reasons. Instead of the application of "enough is
enough", you let the concept of "shop till you drop" rule your mental
roost.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
FADS & FASHIONS - THE LATEST MUST-HAVES: You are
blitzed with hundreds of ads per day, in print, on TV, on the radio, on
the Internet, even non-promotional 'ads' in the form of news stories,
articles, etc. that note and log trends in society. You are told, via
these ads and 'ads' what's hot and what's not. What's the latest style
in ladies shoes? What are the latest in-colours? Should you get carpet
or tiles? What's the newest kitchen gadget? What's the newest toy?
What's all the latest rage in laptops? What's the hottest new TV show
either on TV or on DVD? The list of fads and fashions that you MUST HAVE
are as lengthy as a telephone book! From the hula hoop to the whitewall
tire; from the microwave to the convertible; from the espresso
coffeemaker to the miniskirt (or hotpants); now what's the latest
bestseller in books? Who's the latest artist with a top ten hit? Of
course multi-millions part with their $$$ all in pursuit of owning the
latest MUST HAVE - actually it's MUST HAVES, hundreds of MUST HAVES. And
so we are slaves to Madison Avenue and equivalents around the county
and around the world. And it must work. The ads have enslaved us (though
the buck stops with you) otherwise there'd be no new fads and MUST HAVE
fashions. But of course today's MUST HAVE is next week's BORING, to be
replaced of course with a newer version of MUST HAVES! It never ends.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
MARKETING:
Even if you apparently don't want unnecessary possessions and don't
partake of the latest fads and fashions, there's a whole marketing
enterprise out there designed to make you reconsider and dance to their
tune; grab you by the privates and make your heart, mind and wallet
follow to the beat of their drum. You're hopelessly outnumbered and
outgunned. There are numerous ploys or tricks into making you cough up
your money, often slogans and buzz phrases. See if you recognize a few:
"Last chance"; "Never to be repeated"; "Our pain is your gain"; "Below
cost"; "No extra cost to you"; "Hurry, last days"; "On sale"; "Exclusive
to"; "Limited offer"; "Limited edition"; "Once in a lifetime offer";
"Sale ends..."; "Limited time only"; "Buy two get one free", and
hundreds more buzz phrases. There are many variations on the theme. I
mean this type of strategy works; otherwise the strategy would have been
abandoned eons ago. You may think you're immune, but the odds are your
enslaved just the same.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
APPEARANCES: If there ever was an
obsession, this is it. From time immemorial, anyone and everyone has
been a slave to how they appear to anyone and everyone else. But if you
stop and think about it, what counts is the real you, what you
represent; your characteristics; your personality. How you dress, your
hairstyle, your makeup, your adornments, your house, your car; your
social smarts and etiquette are really irrelevant. If you go to work in a
smart suit and tie, or in your birthday suit, neither has anything
whatever to do with how competent you are to do the job you are paid to
do. A Nobel Prize winner is still a Nobel Prize winner even if he plays
the bongo drums, likes to visit strip clubs, womanise, and lists
safecracking as a hobby! Without naming names, the late Nobel Prize
winning theoretical quantum physicist Richard P. Feynman's book "What Do
You Care What Other People Think?" should sum up the concept that
superficial appearances are just that - superficial. Would you sooner go
down in history as a snappy dresser without a hair out of place, or as
an Einstein, notorious for having a rather poor sense of adornments or
dress sense?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
LIFESTYLE: You can accept the fact that some people
are better athletes than you; some people are smarter than you; some
people are better at leadership than you. But you probably cannot accept
that some people have, and deserve to have, a better lifestyle than
you.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Humans constantly compare themselves to others. It's hard not
to when the lifestyle of others, especially the rich and famous, are
thrust in our faces by all manner of ways and means; from quality news
sources to the tabloids. And much like the often artificial desire for
stuff, to have the latest gadget, to be attractive to the rest of the
world, so too do we cultivate in our mind's eye an idealistic lifestyle
that we can strive for, but never achieve, since we keep raising the bar
because someone else's bar is above ours. No matter what your lifestyle
level is, you know someone who has a better lifestyle, and since you
feel you are their equal (or probably their better) you acquire an
attitude "I deserve."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Two points: someone has to be 'top dog', and
that 'top dog' is relative. 'Top dog' could mean wealth; it could mean
health; it could mean education, it could be fame; it could be
achievement, it could mean lots of things, but it's not going to all of
the above simultaneously. So, you have to pick-and-choose what lifestyle
means to you. But whatever criteria you choose to pursue, of course
someone else will have already scaled that Mount Everest. Rather than
accept your place in life as somewhat below the summit, you often become
enslaved to reach the summit too. Of course with lots of people
desiring the same, that summit in theory could get awfully crowded, and
as we all know from childhood, there can only be one "king of the
mountain" at ay one time. That fact however never seems to reduce your
enslavement to climb, ever climb and knock that other bastard off their
perch!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
TRADITIONS & HABITS: More likely as not, you're a slave
to various traditions and personal habits. You might say something like
"that's the way my parents did it; that's the way their parents did it
and their parents before them and as far back as you care to go - it's
tradition and we observe tradition and no correspondence will be entered
into on the matter!" Or, it's such-and-such a time; such-and-such a day
or date, therefore such-and-such will be done or observed. Sound
slightly familiar? We're often creatures of, slaves to, tradition and
habits without ever stopping to question "why"?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
CHRISTMAS:
Christmas just has to be singled out especially from the rest of the
book of days because it's at the extreme end of our numerous traditions
and habits. By any way you care to measure things, Xmas can be the best
of times but it's usually the worst of times (conveniently forgotten one
year on). The Xmas propaganda (i.e. - the Xmas Season) starts months
before the appointed date and is relentless in its build-up and
intensity. It extends several weeks past the use-by date when the Xmas
wrapping paper and Xmas cards are now 50% off, and those post Xmas sales
where you're tempted to by next years Xmas gifts now. And then the Xmas
bills arrive just to remind you about all those fun times you had over
the past several months.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Do you do Xmas because you want to, or
because society has so shoved this concept down your throat ever since
you were knee high to a cockroach that you now just go through the
motions by rote because you have got to appease that great deity called
"Shop Till You Drop"? Translated, do you do Xmas just because it's
expected of you? The latter you admit? I thought so. I mean what sane
person voluntarily desires to max out their credit cards for gifts for
others who probably don't need or want them and will just shove them
towards the back of their closet? What sane person voluntarily spends
hours in crowded stores just for the pleasure or satisfaction of maxing
out their credit cards on behalf of others? There's hardly a store you
can shop in that isn't loaded to the rafters with Xmas trimmings. What
sane person would voluntarily, laughing all the way (Ho, Ho, Ho), spend
hours writing and addressing Xmas cards to persons they really don't
give a damn about? And isn't it just jolly good fun wrapping up all
those gifts? Do you honestly look forward to hearing all those Xmas
songs for the millionth time? There's hardly a shop in town (not to
mention buskers) that doesn't bombard you with endless repetitions of
Xmas music. How the staff can stand it is quite beyond me.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I'm
sure you just love being exposed to Xmas spin multi-thousands of times
per Xmas Season and not just the repetitious music and endlessly reading
the word "Christmas" or "Merry Christmas" but those endlessly repeating
Xmas images and Xmas colours. It hardly qualifies as subtle or
subliminal - you're clobbered over the head and you love it - "pay
attention stupid, it's time to do your Xmas bit or else there's no Santa
for you!" Now this isn't some national emergency as in "Uncle Sam Needs
You!", rather the Chief Executive Officers of the retail sector need
you, especially if they are to get their Xmas bonuses!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And what
about slaving over the kitchen stove preparing that special Xmas meal
for all those relatives you'd really rather poison? Speaking of Xmas
dinner, why not try something different for a change, like pizza,
spaghetti, macaroni & cheese, chicken pot pie or even sirloin steak.
Fish & chips would make a nice change too! No? It has to be ham or
turkey and plum pudding / mince pies / Xmas fruit cake according to
someone's (whose long since dead) tradition. Actually it's not your
fault. That's the Xmas dinner fare that the supermarket catalogues and
store displays feature, in LARGE PRINT, that twist your arm and in a
manner of speaking end up shoving this
must-have-because-it's-traditional Xmas fare down your throat; this time
literally! Boring! Same old fare! No imagination! So, being an
independent minded SOB, its fish & chips for Xmas dinner for me (and
no leftovers either).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So why do you do it, year after year after
year? Because society says it's that time of year to test your 'right
stuff', to see if your heart (and sanity) can stand the pressure one
more year. Society says you snap to attention at Xmas and you reply, via
your wallet, "Yes sir! I will sir. Thank you sir"! Society says you
will run the annual Xmas obstacle course, and run it you do, and aren't
you proud of yourself, huffing & puffing, when you cross the finish
line. So, if you do Xmas for any reason other than because you want to,
you really honestly and truly want to, then you're enslaved, hook, line
and Xmas sinker.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Quite apart from the commercial aspects, you're
enslaved to Xmas if you do Xmas for religious reasons because you're
still being led up the garden path by the nose. Why? It's because you're
celebrating Xmas for the wrong 'religious' reason. Xmas is all about a
natural rebirth, not about a supernatural birth. The latter, the alleged
birth of a Christ, was superimposed by the Christian church over the
real pagan reason for celebration around the late December period. That
original celebration centred on the return of lengthening daylight after
the Northern Hemisphere's Winter solstice. Therefore, celebrating Xmas
as the birth of Christ is not only incorrect, but irrational in that the
date of Christ's birth isn't know by anyone. And celebrating Xmas for
any reason in the Southern Hemisphere is ludicrous for either of the
above possibilities. You've all been suckered yet again.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
TECHNOLOGY:
We're enslaved to our technology fixes, and to those repairmen and
their extravagant bills who fix our fixes when those fixes need fixing. I
mean when the TV goes on the blink; when the hard drive crashes, the
fridge conks out, even when there's a power failure, well we may not
panic, but we get a tad close to it. We've all seen those quasi
end-of-the-world movies where the few survivors have to rebuild
civilization from scratch without all those modern technological
conveniences like gasoline and electricity, and it's not easy. Could you
survive without supermarkets and clothing stores or modern hardware
shops? Would you like the task of separating a teenager from her Twitter
or Facebook? Video game addiction is well known. The commuter who has
to, shock horror, take the bus because the car broke down is NOT a happy
camper. So what bits of technology are you enslaved to, and who forced
you to adopt those bits in the first place?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
AUTHORITY: I haven't
received my bill - I'm not at fault yet if I don't do something the
powers-that-be are sure to cut off my (fill in the blank) for
non-payment. Do you ever find yourself in that sort of situation? The
onus is always on you to rectify things even when you're totally
innocent of any wrongdoing. I've found myself, usually several times a
year, having to chase up items which could result, if I fail to do so,
in some bureaucratic authority figure come crashing down on me even
though I'm not at fault of any wrongdoing. That's enslavement. We're
enslaved to another deity - the great god of bureaucracy. We've all had
experiences akin to banging our heads against a bureaucratic stone wall.
It's always the ordinary person who has to prove, out of fear of some
authority, that it was the system at fault, and since when does any
authority figure admit that the bureaucratic system to which they are a
part of is flawed? The ordinary person is guilty till proven innocent;
it's never the fault of the system.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
POWER: Power may not always
corrupt and absolute power may not always corrupt absolutely, but we
tend to seek power; we're all slaves to seeking power and all slaves to
keeping what power we have. It may be very local like the husband who
beats the wife who in turn screams at the eldest kid, to the older
brother who was screamed at now in turn bullying his younger sibling, to
that brat kicking the dog, who then chases the cat. I guess it stops
with the cat. Of course it might be power at the office - always seeking
promotion so that you have more people under your command/supervision.
It might be seeking political power, from local mayor to prime minister.
But we all feel good having someone, or something, we have power over.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
LEAVING
YOUR MARK - LEGACY & POSTERITY: You don't have to leave any
physical record of yourself behind, not even a carved tombstone, but
you're a slave to whatever inner drive compels you to do so. People tend
to be obsessed (a form of mental slavery) with being noticed, even
after death and even if only anonymously. There's architecture, from the
pyramids to Stonehenge to modern skyscrapers and houses. There's
graffiti (not a modern phenomenon). There's artistic works from
hieroglyphs and cave art and petroglyphs to all the various arts and
crafts we have today as well as those that form part of our cultural
legacy. The upshot is that in the long term, while most try, few
succeed. How many of those hundreds of thousands of Ancient Greeks are
remembered today, yet probably nearly all sought some sort of long-term
legacy.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
HOBBIES: Hobbies are any dedicated activity not normally
related to day-to-day survival, usually, but not always involving
collecting things. If you started to list now the various hobbies
engaged in by peoples around the world, past and present, you'd probably
still be jotting them all down this time next year! The critical point
is that all too often the hobby controls you and not the other way
around. Much of your entire existence and purpose revolves around your
personal hobby obsession. It's that transition from fan to fanatic that
marks you as enslaved.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-77733156452127747512015-06-09T12:02:00.000-07:002015-07-13T12:14:09.725-07:00Technology Reaches Farther Than Ever<div id="article-content" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
After the tragic and brutal murder of Neda Agha-Soltan on
desolate Tehran soil, the man who shot the footage of it in a
journalist-banned area knew he had done something monumental. He
recognized that he had done something that would infuriate his
government and had to be mindful of his own safety.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He considered
posting the video to YouTube or FaceBook, but those were too mainstream
and were monitored meticulously. Instead, he turned to a close
confidant, emailing him the low resolution, minuscule two-megabyte
video. Quickly, this friend propagated it to everyone, sending it to
"Voice of America", the newspaper "The Guardian", and five of his
friends. The message was inscribed with: "Let the world know."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
People
copied the video and posted it on multiple websites and others who had
their own video and picture evidence came out of the woodwork. After
appearing on YouTube, it aired on CNN, and soon everyone in American
knew the once-nameless girl who is now the poster child of the Iranian
protest movement.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Once upon a time in a less-than-idyllic age,
authoritarian regimes could simply snip a few phone lines, and block a
couple of foreign interlopers from their sites, but that time has
passed. The advent of modern technology has changed the way people
operate, and made it that much more difficult for the system to suppress
information. The public now has virtually (no pun intended) unlimited
amounts of media from which to communicate, and no matter how many are
blocked, more will appear.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Iran's attempts at pulling the wool
over their citizen's eyes and their foibles and triumphs are being
carefully observed and monitored. Minds that were once imprisoned are
fighting for their rights to privacy and their rights to speak freely,
and not have certain things concealed from them, especially injustice!
Bob Dylan was right; the times they are a' changing.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
There is one
lesson the government in Iran is proving to be infallible. While they
may be able to limit their own citizens from accessing and posting
content on the Internet, they cannot stop anyone from outside their
jurisdiction from doing so. People in America and other countries around
the world are there to lend a helping hand (or proxy server) to these
oppressed peoples, allowing them to remain heard and exercise their
impromptu cameraman skills.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Almost three dozen governments around
the world are known to actively monitor and censor their citizen's
Internet access and web activity. China, Uzbekistan, and Cuba are on the
list, but the recent winner has been Iran. Maybe soon they will have
their own pithy headline, like "The Great Firewall of China." As the
decades have progressed, Internet censorship is actually showing an
increase in these countries, but it is a moot point. The censor can't
win. All they can do is stall and frustrate. It's like a game of
whack-a-mole; one medium is censored and another is reporting three
minutes later.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This censorship has always been a tit for tat
system. When the people have some sort of uprising, no matter how small
in scale, the government gets nervous, thinking it is losing control. So
they do some censoring, create a scene, and flex their muscles so the
public is clear about who is in charge. Sometimes they do it as a
pre-emptive measure as well. On the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen
Square massacre in China, they actively blocked sites about a week
before, so the public couldn't find a place to come together and start
an e-riot.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Iran is actually very sophisticated in their Internet
censorship. When countries first started doing this, it was very
unstructured and easy to get around. People had no trouble defeating the
censorship methods employed by the government and it was only a minor
inconvenience, but it was the principle of the blocks that angered them.
Now, in Iran the censoring is actually a complex infrastructure, with
all Internet traffic squeezed through a sieve to find incriminating
information. Although this stops the grassroots of the computer user
community from surfing the web, the computer can get around these blocks
with myriad tools. Being resourceful is the only way to defeat these
injustices.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Because of those computer savvy and determined
netizens, the Internet is rich with raw, uncut footage of the Iran
protests, police brutality, and other crimes against the people. You can
see the evidence of their actions on other forms of communication as
well: news networks on T.V. eat this stuff up, and play it 24/7 with
their world highlights. As was mentioned earlier, the censor cannot win.
The Internet will always find a way to defeat the injustice and get the
real news to the people who need it, and won't be stopped by the
government crying "insubordination" or "treason" as someone tries to
talk to friends on MySpace.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Although safe once they are on the
Internet, in real life the risks are quite genuine for these amateur
journalists. People taking pictures are often harassed and threatened,
and their cameras confiscated, and they face the threat of being sent to
jail. On June 12, when the controversial outcome of the Iranian
election was announced, the country shut down text message servers for a
time, which was the prime tool of communication that the protestors
used, and so continues the endless game of whack-a-mole. The government
knocked down mole #1, and out of slots #2 and #3came Twitter and Skype.
Once the government finds a way to thwart this method of speak, the
people can always go back to the archaic art of speech: all share a
common vernacular, and word of mouth can spread like wildfire if the
message is incendiary.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
When the government is serious about
getting something censored, and tired of the whack-a-mole game, they can
employ professional companies. Even before the much anticipated
election and its dubious outcome, the country of Iran was well-known for
running a tight ship on the subject of sensitive matters. They have a
great infrastructure for filtering and blocking that suppresses
information that is considered harmful or slanderous by the government.
Obviously, these companies don't condone or endorse government
censorship or any sort of privacy invasion, but whistling to the tune of
multi-million dollars, and they will do anything. This was empirically
proven when Iran brought in big names Siemens and Nokia to help engineer
an impregnable wall that had no loopholes for their citizens to utilize
and bypass their security checks.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Although some are scared into
submission by their repressive government, many are just determined to
circumvent the measures taken by their rulers, for there are always
loopholes. Many of these headstrong Iranians have utilized proxy
servers, which can help these illicit surfers remain anonymous while
browsing, and allow these incognito citizens the freedom of avoiding
being tracked while online.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In exchange for the small tradeoff of a
slight performance reduction in their browsing speed, these Iranians
can surf any site they want without being blocked. Tor, a volunteer run
proxy server, reports that Internet traffic using their servers to surf
anonymously from Iran has shot through the roof, when the censorship has
been heavily deployed and is breathing down every civilian's neck.
There is hope! Some people will not put up with this injustice, and will
fight and be resourceful in finding ways around it.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
These
despotic tyrants hope to completely sequester their countries from the
rest of the world, so no one knows what is going on within their
borders, and the citizens don't know what they are missing on the
outside. They also want to eliminate any website or document that would
hurt their ideology at all. This simply cannot be done in today's world;
the genie is out of the bottle. The people know better, and they are
not going to take it.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Some governments are trying harder than ever
to censor and strip their citizens of their freedom and privacy rights.
China is a real over-achiever when it comes to this. They should be
awarded a big medal for all of the work they put in keeping their people
shielded from the rest of the world, and completely shut off.
Isolationism can only work for so long. You can feel the rumble every
time you log onto a news site, or view a shaky hand-held camera video
from a persecuted Iranian. It's getting more intense, and the feeling is
becoming more palpable every day; even the government is perturbed by
the vibrations.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It is an earthquake, slowly emerging, but every
time the tremors die down, the racket grows as another program
infiltrates their defenses. The people can feel it, and they are fueling
it. It is an earthquake, not to destroy and hurt, but to knock down the
monolithic skyscrapers that bar the public and infringe on their
privacy and freedom rights. It's growing, and the authoritarian
governments had better check their Richter scales and, however
grudgingly pursue change before it's too late. Bob Dylan may have been
an idyllic flower child, but he was also a soothsayer of his day, and
his words ring as true as they did back in the summer of '69, the summer
of purple haze, psychedelics; peace, love and rock n' roll: "There's a
battle outside and it's raging'... It'll soon shake your windows and
rattle your walls, for the times: they are a changing."</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-48862514133573672982015-06-02T12:02:00.000-07:002015-07-13T12:13:42.074-07:00Listening to God on the Appalachian Trail<div style="text-align: justify;">
We live in a fast pace world, where our minds have to travel even
faster. Throughout history, life has never been this way. Think about
your day. You wake up to the sound of an alarm, not a rooster. You get
out of your allergy free, down alternative, Poster-pedic bed and turn
off the electric blanket as you place your feet on the ground. You walk
across your heavy face weight, high density, plush, synthetic fiber
carpet and take the few steps to your indoor bathroom. You do your
business, close the seat that you had your name engraved on and flush
the chrome handle on the piece of finely constructed porcelain.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Next,
you turn on the water with a simple twist of the wrist, no pumping,
priming or walking a mile to the well, carrying a bucket on your head,
required. You grab the latest technologically advanced toothbrush, the
Crudomatic x2312, and slap a dab of teeth brightening, taste bud
dissolving toothpaste on your Crudomatic x2312 and push the button. This
device that resembles some sort of James Bond type spy-ware starts to
go to work in your mouth.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Stuff is flying all over your bathroom.
You are careful not to swallow any of the solution that you placed on
your new toothbrush...you have read the warning labels that say, "DO NOT
SWALLOW. IF SWALLOWED SEEK MEDICAL HELP IMMEDIATELY!" After you clean
up the mess that you have caused all over your faux marble vanity, you
look at the clock that is screaming, "You're late." You turn around and
with a flash you have tied your machine made tie on to your tanning bed
tanned neck. You rip the cleaners bag off of one of your professionally
steam cleaned and pressed tailored suits and run down the steps. Then,
you help the kids go through the production line of, "Have a good day at
school" and rip open the plastic package on your "breakfast." The label
on your "breakfast" says that it is packed full of vitamins and
minerals so you take a bite of the artificially instituted genetically
engineered vitamins and the "minerals" that have been classified as
minerals, due to the intent of medical based research. You get half way
out of the door and realize that your cup of coffee is still sitting in
its automatic fresh brewed, just the way you like it, holster. You know,
your gunshot that you need to open your eyes the rest of the way.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
You
only got 5 hours sleep last night. After you played an artificial game
of golf with the kids on the television screen, you had to catch up on
your Facebook messages, send out your friend request and play Farmville.
Oh, and yesterday would have been a disaster if you did not't get your
Sports Center update so you had to watch the days news. When you saw
12:05am on the clock you started wrapping up the day and walked up the
stairs to bed and started thinking about everything that you didn't get
done.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So, you need that cup of coffee in order to stay awake long
enough to get to the next cup of coffee. You drink up and push the
button to start your car. You tell Mr. Bluetooth to open your garage
door and pull out into the man made mirage of a world that God created.
You stop at most of the stop signs and make your way to the freeway.
They call it a "free"way of all things, as people are traveling as fast
as the law will allow them and a little faster to get to a place that
they are told what to do; compromise morals, to meet the bottom line.
This place that you are traveling to is what you have to do so that you
can play on your computer at night while worrying about what you need to
get done. So, you press the gas peddle a little more, risking a ticket,
higher insurance rates and an embarrassing aggravating moment with a
police officer. (Which reminds me, have you heard the one about the guy
that got pulled over and the police officer asked him, "Sir, do you have
any ID." The man replied, "About what?") You pull into work and turn
off your radio. You, "dut dut", push your car alarm and lock the doors
simultaneously, report to work, do some of the things you are supposed
to get done and drive through the smog alert back to your neck of the
concrete jungle.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
You meet the kids for dinner at the families
favorite grease pit (the world has told us what is acceptable to eat)
and you and your wife discuss how you will divide and conquer. One of
the kids has indoor soccer practice and the other has to study for a
test on evolution and how man was formed by a "big bang." You find time
for a preliminary check of your email and Facebook messages on your
iPhone on the way home. You don't think that your eleven year old little
boy minds that you are paying attention to a 3 inch screen while
driving instead of him. He is busy texting his friends on his iPhone,
playing his own hand held game with his iPod in his ears, listening to
his favorite pop star singing about "itches and oes" and bumping and
grinding with that hard body thang at a bar all night. You would never
let him listen to such things but you didn't have the time to check
during your busy day. You want to know more about him. You long for it.
You want him to talk to you more but this is the way times are now. They
have busy lives to with school and hobbies. How could you ever take
care of them if you did not work like you do? Things can't change, you
would not be able to keep up, if your schedule was different.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
We
live in this concrete world that man has made. Our God wants and longs
for you to get the iPod out of your ears and find time for Him. He is
not looking at the 3 inch screen instead of you. He is here. He is
waiting to have a relationship with you. I have lived in the city my
whole life. Although, I had the pleasure of having a Grandfather who had
a farm....my favorite place on earth. As a boy I played in the barn,
chased cattle through the field, walked through the mud getting a little
dirt on my hands and everywhere else. I remember the joy that my
grandfather and I would experience together doing things around the farm
that only such a place would provide. I remember running to him when I
caught a tadpole and how proud he was. He was happy because I was happy.
He was proud because he provided this environment for me to find such
childhood wonders.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
We have a God that is the perfect father; the
perfect grandfather, if you will. He has made this green and living
earth; full of beauty and amazement, peace and joy. God made it for us. I
imagine God looking down at an individual who has discovered something
that they have never seen before, something that He created, with deep
satisfaction. When you walk through the woods on a hike to discover more
of God you are surrounded by His artwork. No doubt it is difficult to
impossible to escape the "busy" where you currently are...I believe that
God wants to get you away long enough to rekindle a campfire in your
soul. Come and let God do the rest.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Sadly, this aspect of life,
many have never experienced. We have built literal walls which have
blocked the young and the old from being a part of God's incredible
masterpiece. He painted the heavens and the earth. He designed the trees
and the waters; the mountains and the birds. We have installed concrete
and metal over what God has created. I can't help but ask the question,
"Do we think that we can paint a better picture?" He designed you and
I. I believe that in man's ever increasing knowledge of providing for
ones wants, man has forgotten about his need. We have forgotten how to
listen to God. I believe that nature, a hike through the woods, allows a
person to be in the place that God has designed for just this...to
listen to Him. As we step back from our "priorities" God can work to
align ours with His.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Never in the history of the world has man
been in the absence of nature, the nature that God created. I feel that I
must give an opportunity to others to experience something that they
may have never experienced. I feel that taking all of the other elements
out of sight, all the busyness and routine, and leaving them for a few
days is absolutely essential to the spiritual state of a man. Come on
The Walk with us. Come, listen to God, you will not return the same.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Disclaimer:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I
believe that God is about progress and I do not feel that a city or a
building is wrong to build. I do not believe that working in a city or
even using a Crudomatic x2312 is wrong. However, I believe that, as a
whole, we leave little room for the voice of God.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<em>Genesis 11</em></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<em>The Tower of Babel</em></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<em>
1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2As men
moved eastward, [a] they found a plain in Shinar [b] and settled there.</em></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<em>3
They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them
thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4Then
they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that
reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not
be scattered over the face of the whole earth."</em></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<em>5 But
the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were
building. 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language
they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be
impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language
so they will not understand each other."</em></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<em>8 So the LORD
scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building
the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel [c]-because there the LORD
confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered
them over the face of the whole earth.</em></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-58489720932795825012014-05-18T12:13:00.000-07:002014-05-30T12:55:59.896-07:00Using Facebook For Marketing Your Local Business<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPJEL3Vik3b_Ab9SRwcvpep3NYfYWMMHQ-o7AjXrCTJbccO5_bp4WOjnn834ERnwAy061j1Zg3ueNzt5MXX9gt-P9el9BfIwgvpsUg9TuypTQ0n-12I5a9MgJ40a7oFaXuccqU6VdZlZXl/s1600/0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPJEL3Vik3b_Ab9SRwcvpep3NYfYWMMHQ-o7AjXrCTJbccO5_bp4WOjnn834ERnwAy061j1Zg3ueNzt5MXX9gt-P9el9BfIwgvpsUg9TuypTQ0n-12I5a9MgJ40a7oFaXuccqU6VdZlZXl/s1600/0.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
Back in the earlier days of the Internet, having a well-positioned static informational web site was good enough for your local business to have some degree of success. So many business owners had their kid or someone they knew throw together a website 3, 5 even 10 years ago and they haven't paid any mind since.
These local business owners are leaving a lot of money on the table by simply not keeping up with the times. Nowadays, not only does your website have to be engaging, but having just a website simply isn't enough anymore. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In order to be successful either online or off, you need to get your brand in front of as many people as possible and keep it in front of them in order to earn their business either new or repeat. When it comes to building your brand online, this means "setting up tables" where people are hanging out.
The number one visited site in the world in 2010 was Facebook. This is definitely the place where people are hanging out online. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
With over 600 million users worldwide and growing, 50% of which log-in on any given day, it is important as a business owner that you grasp the magnitude of this social media powerhouse and how using Facebook for marketing can help you grow your business.
Not only do people go there to connect with friends and family, they also go to interact with businesses both large and small. This presents an opportunity for local business owners to build relationships with prospects and deepen relationships with existing customers.
Social media sites in general can be viewed as extensions of your website and give you another place to get found so people can learn about your products and/or services. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Over two million websites have integrated with Facebook and the sites feed traffic to one another.
The greatest challenge for most business owners is they simply lack the time and/or expertise to put together an effective Facebook marketing strategy. For those business owners that take a more proactive approach, consistency often becomes an issue.
A big mistake most business owners new to social media often make is to simply post links and offers to "buy my stuff." With social media, buying comes after relationships are built, generally not before. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So how are quality relationships build?
First step is to create a plan. This includes the frequency of posts as well as the type of content shared. You want to post content that add value to people's lives.
This includes videos, article and blog posts that educate your consumer and position you as an expert in your field. This may include Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's), tips, how-to's and more. Even third part content is great as long as you know it will appeal to your audience.
Pictures, coupons, offers, promotions and testimonials can also be shared. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Testimonials in particular are extremely important and you should encourage your customers to share the experiences they've had with your company on your Facebook wall.
Not only will the visitors to your page see the comment, but it will also show up in the news feed of the poster, so all their friends will see it as well. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations frequently taking action based on the experiences their friends and followers had with various products and services. It's called social proof and shows credibility so that new consumers can make purchase decisions with confidence based on a friend's good word. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Another great way to get people to interact with you is to post questions. You can also create engaging campaigns such as polls, contests, sweepstakes and product giveaways. Getting your fans to engage and communicate with you can give you valuable insights into what your customers like and dislike providing useful market research.
There are professional social media marketing consultants that can help you in all facets of managing your Facebook business presence. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This includes optimizing the page, creating the marketing plan, the content, promotions and the day-to-day dialogue to keep your fans engaged. This leaves you to do what you do best and that's running your business.
The important thing is to get out and create your Facebook business page and start building your presence. Whether you've already created your page or need one created, it's time to get serious about leveraging the most trafficked site in the world.
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-37249736146067805672014-05-11T12:13:00.000-07:002014-05-30T12:29:36.887-07:00Turning the Other Cheek on Facebook <div style="text-align: justify;">
As you monitor the comments by fans on your Facebook page, you may swell a bit with pride to constantly see missives praising your business, your products and customer service. Ultimately, however, the pendulum will swing in the other direction - it does hold true that you can't please all the people, all the time. Just your luck, the one person who suffers a negative experience connected to your business - regardless of the situation - may surely take his/her voice to the streets...and Facebook. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As you maintain your social media presence, it's important to do so in a manner that lets people know there is a human being behind the profile picture you display to the Facebook world. The Facebook page backend does allow you to adjust who can post to your page's wall, photo albums, and message board, but if you are the type who fears backlash and wants to limit consumer opinion, you may wish to step back and evaluate why you have a Facebook page in the first place. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Limiting a forum for fans to speak their mind makes a powerful statement about the way you handle feedback, good or bad. If somebody is unable to post how they feel about your products and services to your page, do you think they will wonder if your company listens at all?
Not only that, blocking any kind of communication from fans keeps the good feedback away, too, so prospective customers won't see how others like you. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For a company intent on catering to people, it's necessary to listen to the people.
So let's say you are browsing your fan page and you come across a thumbs-down notes. Perhaps somebody visited your brick and mortar store and claims to have been treated rudely, or maybe somebody purchased your product, book, or service and was not satisfied. That comment is sticking out there like a stain on your reputation, visible to anybody browsing your page. What do you do? You have a number of options available. </div>
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1) Delete it. The temptation to change history and remove the comment is always strong. Out of sight, out of mind...or is it? You don't really know how many people will see a bad mark once it's posted, and if you do erase it consider the possible fallout: will people call you on the deletion? Will the original poster retaliate with more negative remarks, not just on your page but elsewhere in spots you can't administrate? While you have the option, removing a bad review should be considered carefully. Weigh the legitimacy of the claim against the poster's intent - if somebody is posting a general "You stink!" without backing it up you may be able to chalk it up to general trouble-making. If specifics about the bad experience are mentioned, it's time to evaluate the complaint and do something about it. </div>
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2) Ignore it. You could also continue to post and answer other fans as though the complaint doesn't exist it. Of course, that may work as well as deleting the comment. If the fan expects an answer or compensation, you may find he/she doesn't want to be ignored. This could lead to trouble on your fan page as more fans catch wind of the silent treatment, forcing customers to wonder if this is how you truly handle business issues. </div>
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3) Respond privately. One point in your favor is that when somebody posts a negative review on Facebook, it's not done with anonymity. Whereas people can hide their identities on Google reviews or blogs, with Facebook you know who the plaintiff is. Therefore, you can seek to appease the poster with a personal missive offering some kind of compensation (a refund, a freebie, etc.) and hope for the best. A display of personal apology may inspire the poster to retract his/her complaint and keep you a customer. </div>
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4) Respond publicly. Even better, showing not only the plaintiff but everyone subscribed to your page that you heard the remark and intend to make good shows your willingness to listen and heed negative feedback. No person, no company is perfect, but as you work to correct wrongs in productivity and customer service it shows that you are prepared to progress toward perfection, and are willing to take it on the chin once in a while. You could offer the poster some kind of compensation, while at the same time offering your fan base a general discount on products and services. </div>
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Above all, do not ignore poor grades on your company. How you respond to feedback on Facebook creates a powerful image in the mindset of those who check your page for updates. Act professionally, and your fans will treat you as such, even if they are frustrated at times.
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-49036926169355200812014-05-04T12:13:00.000-07:002014-05-30T12:28:17.601-07:00Why Facebook is Re-Writing Marketing Books?<div style="text-align: justify;">
Imagine you had a party that got reported around the world. A party that never took place at all.
So here's what the fictional party looked like.
"A birthday party invitation posted on the popular social websites Facebook and Bebo attracted some 400 guests and gatecrashers.
The birthday girl, British 16-year-old Jodie Hudson, and her mother Amanda learned too late the disaster the online invitation would cause to their luxurious Marbella vacation villa. The villa suffered ruined walls, destroyed carpets, and broken banisters,doors and furniture. </div>
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And apparently they threw a TV into the swimming pool." As I said: The party never happened.
But month after months parties such as this do happen.
If you were to trundle down to downtown Auckland you'll find hordes of party-goers. They turn up. They drink. They dance. They socialise. And more importantly they don't destroy furniture or throw TVs into the harbour.
And the primary source of attraction isn't an email newsletter.Or posters plastered all around town.Or someone making a call to invite you to the party.
Amazing as it may sound to your ears, it all happens on Facebook.
But surely Facebook is for a younger demographic, you argue. </div>
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And again, you'd be a lot of the mark.
Because savvy marketers across the planet are using Facebook to gain supporters and customers. And contrary to what you may believe, the demographics of Facebook has changed rapidly. Suddenly, it's your customer that's on Facebook: And he/she is no teen.
But how do we know this to be true?
There's proof, of course, but let's see why Facebook seems to work better than email or other media. The biggest reason why Facebook works is because it's a lot like how you get business offline. If you look at about 80% of your business, you'll notice one striking fact. </div>
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That the chunk of your business comes to you via word-of-mouth.
And that's how Facebook works.
You post your Facebook profile.
And people find you.
God knows how they find you, but they do.
And the reason why they find you is because your customer is doing all the hard work. Because it's so easy to put up a page on Facebook, most people do. </div>
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The next thing they do is populate the page with things they like. And some of the things they like are things that you sell.
So let's look at the examples: </div>
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1) Gail Martin: Author of Science-Fiction books. </div>
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2) An Auckland DJ who wanted to prevent bars from closing at 3am. </div>
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3) Barack Obama who wants voters to show up--and vote for him. </div>
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4) SpyBar that has theme-events that attract party-goers. </div>
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5) The All Blacks that gets support for the Tri-Nations Trophy. </div>
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6) Auckland Salsa Freaks for people of all ages to learn a new
dance move. </div>
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So let's expand on three of these many examples
Example </div>
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1: SpyBar
In the past, SpyBar used to use email newsletters to generate traffic to their events. Despite sustained efforts, their email list grew slowly. This is because it required party-goers to get to SpyBar's website and then register.
Traditional methods such as printing posters, and sending out physical invites were costly and time-consuming.
Facebook has none of these constraints.
The party-goers were already visiting Facebook on a regular basis. And were just one click away from landing on the SpyBar Facebook page. What's even more interesting, is that in almost every case, it was the party-goers themselves, that introduced their friends to the SpyBar Facebook page.
Result:
Whenever Spybar has an event, all they have to do is post their event (and posters) on Facebook. And send a notification to all their Facebook friends. Immediately there's a response. Party-goers have an RSVP mechanism that enables SpyBar to then gauge the numbers of likely attendees.
Example </div>
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2: Gail Martin: Pre-selling Science Fiction Books
Most publishers do diddly squat for their writers. In most cases,publishers will promote the super-star authors, and leave the rest of the authors to do their own marketing. Gail Martin uses Facebook by getting onto Science-fiction sites and driving visitors from there to her Facebook site.
This enables her to build a 'database of friends.' And when a new book is about to be released, she can not only create a buzz around the new book, but can also use Facebook friends to promote her book to their friends.
Because a large number of her books sell in the gift-giving period running up to Christmas, she can then manage a campaign that not only gets her speaking engagements, and book-signings, but also push up the sales of her book at just the right time.
And a lot of this activity is simply done by the 'friends'. All Gail has to do is send out one notification. Then friends take over, telling friends. And the ball starts rolling.
Example </div>
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3: An Auckland DJ who's against bars closing at 3am
On 10 July 2008, Auckland Police decided to submit a plan - which would dramatically alter Auckland's nightlife - to the city council with a plea for the 24-hour licensing policy to be brought into line with other districts.
Immediately an Auckland DJ, decided to put together a group on Facebook. This group would be dormant unless the plan went forward.The Auckland city council shot down the plan, but well over 1000 people had already signed in to the Facebook page, ready to protest should they be deprived of their vodka and martinis at 3am.
Facebook as you can see, is a group-building activity
Most pages were initially set up just to meet others online. But that situation has morphed into something bigger. If you're selling ice-cream as Movenpick does, you can start up an Ice-Cream Lovers Event.
If you're selling bread, as Baker's Delight does, you can start up a group that adores Cheesymites. If you're selling real estate, you can literally do open-homes for specific houses online, separating each group based on the type of house they prefer. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-41594483192534018442014-04-28T12:12:00.000-07:002014-05-30T12:24:45.027-07:00Shop Online for Better Decisions<div style="text-align: justify;">
Shop Online to make better decisions.
With growing spending power, the Indian Middle & Upper class are taking the online shopping experience in India to a new height. Reasons behind this can be numerous but one of them is that we find offline shopping a bit difficult for people who cannot choose what to buy easily. </div>
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Have you ever realized that as a shopper not everyone likes to visit the same shop more than twice without buying anything? If you do not know the reason read on. How do you feel when you ask the salesman to show you the Neck Tie or a Wall Hanging art for the second time in 2 days? No one does it intentionally but all this because you are too confused and unsure which one to buy? Notice the eyes of the sales staff staring at you in a strange way when you leave the counter Third time with the same reaction? This is because each time you enter the showroom the sales staffs expects to make a sale out of you and this hope rises because you are returning visitor. </div>
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An overly choosy nature brings in with it this embracement even to a great extent when you have to look at the product many times before making a purchase.
A perfect way to avoid this scene has been seen in as shopping online in India. Not only shall you be able to find the best products at one place that not all Malls offer but you can also enjoy the benefits of taking a decision in the comfort of your room without worrying about the sales staff who thinks you are here to waste time. While you are online you can simply start to choose, compare, shop all over again any number of times whenever you find the slightest of doubts about the choice that you made. </div>
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You need not give any reason, or body language signals that make you look natural. Let us just take an example that you are interested in buying a wall art product for your home and you think of Posters or Fine Art Print as a wall hanging option as opposed to oil paintings. Buying art online is far more easy and fun than the experience offline. First of all the shopkeeper that shows you this affordable art from the shelf space shall expect you to make use of your Aesthetic sense in less than 5 minute and shortlist a few out of so many, then he shall expect you to make a decision and proceed to buying it on the spot. What shall you do if you think that taking an opinion from your sister or husband? Would you bring them along with you the next time? Answers can be many but all quite improbable. </div>
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When shopping online, the case is a lot different as when you do the same thing online on an art print poster website or eBay store as you can keep looking at the large collection of posters for as long as you like and even think of saving it for your future use or opinion of your friend.
In any good standard eCommerce store you shall find links to share products, email it to your friends or even save it in the gallery for future shopping. You can ask any of your Facebook friends' to comment on the product or email your colleagues about the, price, description etc so they can help you make that decision easily. </div>
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Moreover on the shopping website you come across reviews, ratings and suggestion from customers that are really handy to buying online.
So the next time you are thinking of buying products that need a lot of aesthetic choice, recommendation about the model or reviews, Online Shopping is the best help for you. After all you the website does not make you feel strange ignored even when you look at hundreds of their posters and shop for a one on your tenth visit.
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-21709006587743911902014-04-27T12:12:00.000-07:002014-05-30T12:23:29.806-07:00Social Media Management <div style="text-align: justify;">
Promoting yourself or your business can be very time consuming especially when it has to do with Facebook and Twitter. Two of the most heavily used internet sites on the internet are Facebook and Twitter. Either you use them or you don't. Many people who use these communication tools for business have no idea how to use them properly and then give up too quickly. </div>
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There is a way to help in this area. It is easy to hire someone manage your Facebook and Twitter accounts through social media management.
A social media management company can be used to help your company or personal identity grow on interactive sites such as Facebook and Twitter. They can find you more fans or friends to communicate with. </div>
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They can also help with your daily communications of your fans and followers. This takes your hands off of making posts daily and thinking of daily tweets. It is a great time saver.
A social media management company can also develop a marketing strategy that will help your Facebook and Twitter accounts explode into a viral realm of success. They will have ideas such as how to market your Facebook page and Twitter account in the offline world. </div>
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They can come up with ideas such as printing your Facebook and twitter pages on your receipts to having posters on your walls with the follow us sign on the bottom. These ideas are simple but a good social media management company can come up with even more creative ideas.
One of the most difficult tasks of a Twitter and Facebook manager is to keep your followers happy and also interacting with them on a daily basis. </div>
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A great social media management company will do more than do daily posts, they will also get your followers to retweet for you to start something viral and they will get people responding to posts on your company's Facebook wall. Social Media is all about establishing a relationship with your past and future customers. The more interaction your company has, the more your company will be remembered. </div>
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Overall, handling these types of sites on your own is time consuming. You have to go through the daily tasks of finding Twitter followers that will actually read your posts and Facebook fans that will like your business. Even if you have the time to do it, are you developing the proper marketing plan that has in effect on your bottom line? A good social media management company will help you in amazing ways and increase your customer base by establishing a never seen before daily relationship.
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-79696839275819938672014-04-20T01:30:00.000-07:002014-05-30T12:56:43.402-07:00Will Digitally Targeted Posters Drive Your Customers Up the Wall?<div style="text-align: justify;">
I was recently subjected to a spate of ads on my Facebook page crudely targeting me specifically by my age. I didn't find this useful or engaging, but rather considered the ads to be intrusive and hectoring. It got me thinking about the dangers of media that knows too much about its viewers. It's reasonable that when you view content on the web the banner ads reflect things you have recently been searching for or looking at. </div>
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I don't mind getting targeted for theatre tickets or shed paint if that's what I have been viewing. The creativity of the ads is also not compromised in this kind of scenario. However if a billboard was to change its message to reflect something personal about me, I think I would find this sinister and almost threatening.
In Tokyo at the moment just such a billboard is being trialled. Fitted with a camera it can work out your age and sex and change the ad displayed accordingly. </div>
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This might just be the start. In the future the camera might be able to tap into online information about you. While the possibilities might seem endless for the advertiser, it seems to me that many people might be fairly horrified by this, feeling their privacy was being grossly infringed. An advertisement's ability to charm would also be compromised by such a direct approach. Subtlety has always been the most successful way to persuade consumers, especially the English who have never liked the hard sell. Banging them over the head tends to be counterproductive. </div>
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So will we see this innovation in the UK? More than likely this digital version of the foot-in-the-door salesman will arrive here soon. Poster companies need to regain some of the media spend lost to the internet after all. When it does arrive however, advertisers would do well to remember that knowing something about your target market doesn't mean ramming it down their throats. I would suggest "Hey you look menopausal, try this HRT" is never going to be a successful headline. </div>
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As ever, gently engaging your audience with something they are likely to identify with is the key to sales success. We're all only human after all.
I run an advertising and design company specialising in both online and traditional marketing. Our specialist areas include design and copywriting for advertisements (press, radio, TV and posters) websites, brochures, e-shots, newsletters, packaging, mailshots, banner ads and exhibitions. </div>
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We can buy media and offer SEO through partner companies. mhm grax was formed in 1990 and since then has worked with clients, big and small, across practically every product field including travel, housebuilders, charity, automotive, technical, b to b and games. We are based near London Bridge.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-32219481769798663732014-04-13T12:11:00.000-07:002014-05-30T12:21:35.755-07:00Check Out These Interesting Facebook Apps<div style="text-align: justify;">
Facebook is one of the most visited social networking sites, with over 400 million active users, out of which 100 million users access the network through their mobile phones. On an average, people spend over 500 billion minutes on Facebook every month. You can update your status, comment on your friends walls and play with thousands of apps like FarmVille and mafia War. There are some really interesting Facebook apps which are worth trying. </div>
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Honesty Box - It is a simple app which is getting popular by the day. As the name suggests, this app lets your friends speak their mind. You can present a question on your profile and let your friends reply anonymously. Do not be surprised if you even get some unpleasant responses.
QOOP - The Photo Store from QOOP permits you to render your Facebook photos into their printed counterparts like posters, prints, photo books and more. </div>
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Once you have purchased an order, you can share it with your friends so that they can order copies for themselves.
Mingleverse - It is a cool app on Facebook that is already quite popular. It offers live 3D voice chat on Facebook. The app provides a virtual room in the form of a tennis court or a farm house, from where you can send invitations to your friends to join you. </div>
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Each member in the chat room appears in a distinct avatar and can walk around while engaging in a voice chat with the 3D voice chat plug-in.
This app has excellent media sharing features. The room has a video screen where you can watch YouTube videos with your friends. You can also show your pictures, use your webcam or watch TV. </div>
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Caption.iT - This app lets you personalize your photos and other images. Your friends can make them from your profile or you can send them to your friends. With this app, you can make cool designs on the mirror or scribble on the sand.
Weekly Schedule - This app allows you to post a graphical presentation of your weekly activities so that your friends can view it. This makes it easier for your friends to know when you would be available to get together. Or instance, if you see that your friend has a class till 2 pm, you will know she might be free for a coffee post 2 in the afternoon.
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-12545454937228835942014-04-07T12:10:00.000-07:002014-05-30T12:20:44.732-07:00The Facebook Backlash and Your Social Campaigns <div style="text-align: justify;">
Not everybody is happy with Facebook right now. Accusations of breach of privacy and disregard for online safety have prompted grassroots protests and mass deletions of accounts on the premise that not only does the social network do nothing to protect user privacy, but actually encourages distribution of information not necessarily meant for everybody's eyes. If you use Facebook, perhaps you've seen viral status messages from friends imploring you to make adjustments to your settings to ensure that the complaint you make about your boss isn't broadcast to the free world. </div>
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Reports that some users prefer to delete their profiles altogether may concern other die hard Facebook fans, and as a business with a strong Facebook presence you might wonder if this backlash will affect the way you promote your products and services.
The privacy concerns making the news, naturally, concern users who are wont to share personal information and photographs on their networks. While they believe at first only select friends have access to the data, neglected privacy settings may allow certain (read: embarrassing) information to be found in Internet search. </div>
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We've all heard stories of people getting fired from their jobs or losing out on other opportunities thanks to a slip of the keyboard - an outsider might opine, "Well, don't post anything you wouldn't shout into a megaphone," yet one can argue users and Facebook need to meet halfway on ensuring security measures.
As a business, you want exposure for your Facebook page. Despite the grumbling, Facebook is still one of the most used websites on the Internet - it's a powerful search engine and marketing tool, and as you amass fans (or people who "like" your page and company, per the new policies) the opportunity to expand your reach grows. </div>
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If you are concerned about losing fans due to a protest against privacy settings, know that you do have a few options for keeping your page visible and the information available, even to people who don't use Facebook. </div>
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1) Integrate the content into other networks. Feed status updates into your Twitter account to capture that audience, and place a fan box on your main website. If you use Squidoo, there is now an option to embed a fan box in a lens, too. Anywhere you can place your page's RSS, take the advantage. </div>
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2) Keep your page active and visible. Offer as much data on your page to new visitors and those who do not use Facebook. As a business page, you should feel comfortable with the information you post there. Don't give away any trade secrets, but encourage participation with the content you do provide. </div>
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3) Be respectful of current fans. Make sure whoever monitors comments on your page is courteous to posters. Just as the products and services you impart online are available to others, so are bad vibes. If you receive a complaint, be tactful in your response, because that's what people will see. </div>
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The impression you make on Facebook coupled with the timeliness of your information will keep people on your page.
How will Facebook fare in the future? Like Google, it may continue to grow and offer amenities we can't live without, or it could go the way of lesser social networks if and when another player comes along. Whatever the fate for this network, it is still a top used site and as such holds importance in your social optimization. Mind your p's and q's on your Wall tab, and you should be fine.
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-20791889142469041342014-03-25T12:10:00.000-07:002014-05-30T12:19:13.739-07:00Top 5 Facebook Apps That You Haven't Tried Yet<div style="text-align: justify;">
Let's face it, you spend most of your day on Facebook, updating your status, commenting on friends walls, and playing with the thousands of apps available. We are all familiar with some of the top apps like Farmville and Mafia Wars, but here we look at the Top 5 Facebook Applications that you haven't tried yet. </div>
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1. Mingleverse
Easily the coolest new app on Facebook that is completely under the radar. The Mingleverse application brings live 3D voice chat to Facebook. The app gives you a virtual room (like a beach house, or a basketball court) and you can instantly invite your online friends into your room. Each person appears as a customizable avatar that can walk around the room and talk using text chat or use your voice with the 3D voice chat plug-in.
The best part of the app is the media sharing features. There is a video screen in the room where you can watch YouTube videos together, show off your pictures, go live on your webcam, or watch TV together through Justin.tv - it's really like having someone over in your living room. </div>
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2. Honesty Box
Honestly Box is a simple application gaining in popularity and is not for the faint-of heart. Honesty Box, as the name suggests, lets your friends tell you what they really think. Pose a question on your profile and your friends can reply anonymously. Yes, that's right anonymously, so don't be surprised to find a few unpleasantries. </div>
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3. Weekly Schedule
Facebook may have made us more social people, but there is no denying it has taken away from actual face time. Weekly Schedule allows you to post a graphical display of your weekly activities for all your friends to see, making it easy to know when you're available to get together. See that your friend has class from 1-2pm on Tuesday? Then you know she's available for a coffee afterward! </div>
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4. QOOP
Facebook is now the largest image storing site on the internet and QOOP's Photo Store allows you to turn your Facebook photos into printed products like photo books, prints, posters, postcards, shirts, and more. Then, after you purchase an order, you can share it with your friends so they can order a copy for themselves. Just remember that Facebook compresses your images, so you won't want to print anything larger than say a 4x6.
5.Caption.iT
With the Caption.iT App you can personalize your photos or other neat images. From your profile your friends can make them for you or you can send them to your friends. Write a message in the sand, with lipstick on a mirror or on your favorite photos!
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-53064705870265703682014-03-17T12:09:00.000-07:002014-05-30T12:17:35.506-07:004 Step Guide to Meeting Women <div style="text-align: justify;">
With all the social media sites out there, one has taken the world by storm: Facebook. And it only comes naturally that guys will want to leverage this new tool to meet women.
It's not too hard to meet women on Facebook, but you have to do it with some understanding of how to play the game. Because there are many ways to do it wrong, and only a few to do it right...
I've been eyeing this method to meeting women for some time, and I agree completely. It IS a mega-mega opportunity to meet women...
...if it's handled right.
First of all, let's remember the catastrophe that is "MySpace." (May it rest in peace.) That social network has been so polluted and abused that it's really not useful anymore. I know I don't take it seriously. </div>
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What happened there?
Well, first of all, everyone got slammed with spam. A few clever programmers and bulk friend programs, and suddenly you had MySpace pages that looked like web sites from the year 1998.
Cheap backgrounds, silly wallpaper, and everybody's page looked like a 14-year-old girl's bedroom, complete with Britney Spears posters.
Enter Facebook.
A whole lot classier than its trailer-park cousin, Facebook has maintained a better image. But with a bunch of cool toys and add-ons that made it interesting and more fun. </div>
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So how can you work this great social networking tool to help you with your dating life - while not looking like some pervert who got kicked out of the alleys of MySpace?
I'll give you a very simple 4-step model to use. This is the one that my friends and I have used consistently to get results online.</div>
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1: Connect with the guys - and other women - who have a lot of cute girl friends.
In other words, connect with people that YOU are not interested in dating who have big networks.
You must be very indirect at first using Facebook.
Remember the lesson from MySpace - Don't be a spammer!
This is not "match.com" or an online dating site, so don't just start sending out invites and emails hoping to score based on numbers. We've come to hate the abusers, and you'll just get your sorry ass kicked right off.
Start out with light connections. Think "friends first."
Don't make your Facebook profile look like you're trying to meet women. Be subtle.
What you're trying to do is multiply your results and increase your connection potential by meeting more people who know more people.
If you just start trying to hit on the women you're interested in right off the bat, you'll be limiting your results with shortsighted thinking.
Think out to the LONG term. The more cool people you connect with and forge relationships with, the more likely you are to connect with a woman naturally. </div>
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2: Connect with women you are interested in VERY indirectly.
What you have to do is send a simple friend request - and make sure you include a message with it!
You just say something like, "Hey, I saw we're both friends with Greg... Then I noticed you're a snowboarder, too... Ever go to Tahoe?"
You see what I did there? I left a question INSIDE my friend request. For her to answer it, she's going to feel compelled to add me.
It's also just something people are looking to do. Let's face it, we all measure our social success by how many people we've got as friends on Facebook. We all want a HUGE network, so women will WANT to add you - if only to increase their friend count. </div>
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3: Start leveraging the tools.
Facebook has a huge amount of potential for the guy who wants to take advantage of them. You can add all kinds of cute little applications to send virtual drinks to friends, send goofy gifts, or even start your own polls and surveys.
But one of the best tools you need to be using is the GROUP function on Facebook.
In fact, in preparing for this article, I created a group to start connecting you guys together and enabling men to share information.
You can do this, too. Just create a group based on your passion and your local area.
I'm going to advise you to avoid starting a group based on "Warcraft" or on the latest hot actress.
Make your group something a woman can relate to and might be interested in. Maybe it's the television show "Lost..." or maybe it's about all things Italian.
Ba-da-bing! Now you've got a hook to use to invite her into your group. </div>
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4: Start escalating and creating more opportunities.
Remember, this is a VIRTUAL tool. It's online.
In other words, your connections don't REALLY exist anywhere except on some server in an air-conditioned room in a data center somewhere.
It's up to YOU to bring these connections to life with events that you can invite people to.
Most people will stroll around this virtual network, but then never take it into the REAL world. That's where YOU come in.
Maybe once a month you should organize a happy hour at your local favorite bar. Or maybe you make a Facebook group for wine tasters, and then every other Friday you meet up and go tasting the latest Pinot Noirs. </div>
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THAT is your opportunity to start looking for romantic potential in the groups. You have to remember that you can't be a Facebook "pickup artist" and try to attract women online.
You have to build a network, forge some connections, and meet women in person to start creating the attraction.
That being said, you can also send out some playful introductions to women you don't know and see if they bite. (Just make sure your profile has enough interesting bait for them to nibble at...)
- Write on people's walls...
- Send a few virtual drinks...
- Send some good karma...
- Use the "Flirtable" app...
For the man with initiative, the Facebook world is yours.
So step up and start creating the social network, then start meeting the women in it.
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-86615874292232834062014-03-11T12:04:00.000-07:002014-05-30T12:32:51.808-07:00Words, Grammar & Punctuation<div style="text-align: justify;">
There, their and they're are not interchangeable. More often than not when I read a message on Facebook, there's a word misused and then another person attempts to correct it. Usually the word is corrected wrong, too.
In high school, my English teacher shared a wall poster created by one of the upper classmate for a school event. The poster read, "Their is a program after school for the handicapped. </div>
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There needs will be discussed and donations taken for they're athletic equipment. If you can help, bring contributions to the auditorium."
In a red felt tip marker, a student had crossed out the first "their" and scrawled in "they're." The class got a good laugh, and the instructor laughed with us, then asked us to write a response to the posted, using all three words correctly.
In third grade, my grandparents had played "their" game with me and taught me the difference between, they're, their and there. </div>
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I spent the better part of the next thirty minutes sharing the difference between the three words, and correcting the poster.
There now...
There, refers to a place, explained and identified by the 'e' on the end of the word, matching the 'e' on the end of the word place. You can't forget that over there is a place and there is an 'e' on the end of there and place.
Their, the possessive form of the word contains the letter 'i' thereby identifying the word as personal, as in belongs to them. </div>
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Theirs. Anytime the word their has an 'i' in it, it becomes a possessive form of the word as in their house, their car, their clothes. Personal is therefore possessive and includes the letter 'i'.
They're is a contraction. A blend of two words they and are, allowing for the softening of the language and the slur of the words, removing the 'a' from are and adding an accent to blend the two and become they're. The word is used to describe who they are, what they're doing, and how they're behaving in the common gist of conversation. They're my three favorite words to confuse and explain.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-2295724166685407502014-03-03T12:04:00.000-08:002014-05-30T12:34:11.597-07:00Three Steps to Effective Follow-Through in Social Marketing<div style="text-align: justify;">
It's one thing to have an active social network account with scores of fans and followers, and another to regularly provide information and incentives to keep people interested. Unless you monitor your profiles for feedback and follow up on concerns and questions, however, you will soon discover these online hubs become stale and provide nothing more than another source for inbound linking. Management of social networking page is not unlike tending a garden - your attentiveness and care fosters growth, and like the bees that collect pollen to spread to corners you may not notice people will assist in your account's popularity if they feel it's worth promoting. </div>
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It goes without saying, then, that you (or whomever is in charge of your social marketing) remains on top of monitoring your accounts. The longer it appears your pages and statuses are neglected, the worse it looks for your company, and it may allow competitors or spammers to overtake your space. Follow-up on feedback, and follow through on social promotions. Here are just a few ways to achieve this level of dependability. </div>
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Respond/Reply: If somebody posts a question on your Facebook wall, answer it. If somebody plugs your Twitter account during a #followfriday spree, acknowledge it, and thank YouTube members who compliment your videos. Even if a fan makes a general comment, or promotes something unrelated to your company on the fan wall (it will happen, but do not chide the poster and risk alienation), don't let the opportunity pass without at the very least clicking the "like" button. Make your social presence conversational, and monitored the comment threads created. </div>
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Give Users Alternatives: Are you set up on UrbanSpoon, ePinions, or Yelp, or a relative review network? Take a moment to mine good reviews and brag about them on Twitter and Facebook. The promotion you give helps others know you're found elsewhere and may encourage them to click through and add their own experiences.
Reward Good Mojo: If you notice a day or week where fan participation is quite active, show them you're listening. </div>
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Offer a contest or deep discount, a freebie related to your business. When you've hit a point that people will check out your social profiles because they want to, and not necessarily because they're looking for incentive, giving them a nice surprise is one way to foster that good feeling.
If you promise customers and clients the moon via social media, don't wait until the evening hours to make good. Nurturing your presence is a job meant for any hour of the day, nothing is simpler than clicking a response window to say thanks.
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-27268406898912288052014-02-24T12:04:00.000-08:002014-05-30T12:35:35.829-07:00Chicago White Sox Radio Broadcasts in Greenville<div style="text-align: justify;">
In the 1950's and 60's I remember listening to Chicago White Sox games on radio regularly with my grandfather. He had an old tube style radio cabinet in the living room, and also owned a small transistor radio that he would use when sitting in the front yard. Listening to White Sox games isn't particularly unique except that I was living in Greenville, South Carolina at the time. </div>
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The games were hosted on a small hometown radio station, WMRB-1490AM, located in downtown Greenville. As I grew older I sometimes wondered why would Chicago games broadcast into the Deep South?
My interest was rekindled in 2006 when an investor purchased and relocated the Shoeless Joe Jackson house located at 119 East Wilburn Street. Unbeknownst to me, Jackson's house was located just two blocks from where I attended Crestone Elementary School in 1958-60. Moreover, my grandpa and I lived less than one mile from East Wilburn Street. Jackson's house eventually became the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum now located in downtown Greenville. It was placed adjacent to the stadium that hosts a Single-A Boston Red Sox affiliate, the Greenville Drive. Again, I asked myself as to why were White Sox games broadcast in my hometown. Was Shoeless Joe Jackson's legacy connected to the broadcasts? Were the broadcasts the result of a fan base that had developed around Shoeless Joe? The idea was both interesting and intriguing.
I begin my search by contacting the new owner of WMRB 1490AM radio. WMRB was purchased by Randy Mathena in 1987 and renamed WPCI. Randy was friendly and responsive to my queries but was unable to substantiate the White Sox broadcasts. I wrote a letter to the widow of the founder of WMRB, Frank Cope, but didn't receive an answer. I found a research paper on the history of WPCI Radio written by some Furman University students. The paper was helpful in providing a general history of the
station, but it did not mention the Chicago White Sox broadcasts. I also contacted Arlene Marcley, the curator of the new Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum. She allowed me to place a poster in the museum soliciting information but still no leads.
It was in early 2010 that I found a hint on Facebook. I had made a random posting to the Greenville, SC Facebook page and received a comment from a Greenville native. He believed that during the Textile Mill baseball league days, some mills adopted Major League teams. My contact theorized that Brandon Mills, where Shoeless Joe got his start, may have adopted the Chicago White Sox. Were Chicago White Sox broadcasts the result of Shoeless Joe Jackson's affiliation with the White Sox and his playing time with Brandon Mills of the Textile Baseball League? I was sure that I struck pay dirt.
A quick Google search steered me toward the book, "Textile League Baseball: South Carolina's Mill Teams, 1880-1955" by Thomas K. Perry. I wrote Mr. Perry a letter about the theory and he responded with an email. Perry wrote, "After we moved away from Greenville, Dad would take me on fishing trips to Lake Hartwell. The cabin, owned by my great aunt and uncle, was wonderfully rustic, and had no television. During those spring evenings, we would listen to the White Sox games, and I was intrigued with the performances of Tommy John and his teammates. I remember asking Dad why a Greenville station would carry the Chicago games, and he said it was because Shoeless Joe played there years ago. Not an official explanation, I know, but Dad was raised on a mill village in Anderson, SC, so he knew the history of textile sports (he played basketball). I believe his explanation to be true, though I have no official documentation."
Alas! Finally, I had confirmation that someone else had heard the broadcasts; but what of the purpose and their origin? I thought Mr. Perry had just written a historical narrative on Textile Mill Leagues. Surely, during all that research, if mill teams had adopted Major League teams, he would have found evidence of it. I went back to Randy Mathena of WPCI and shared with him Perry's comments. This reignited Randy's interest and he gave me the telephone numbers for Jim Cope, son of former owner Frank
Cope, and retired WMRB disk jockey, Bill Krieger. The hunt was on.
I first telephoned Mr. Bill Krieger who was now in his mid 80's. We had a delightful conversation discussing the history of WMRB and the city of Greenville. He said Frank Cope purchased the 1490 AM radio station with the financial backing of the Simpson partner of Belk-Simpson Department Stores of Greenville. Cope named the station WMRB taking the call letters from the phrase, "We Make Radio Better".
Regarding sports broadcasts on the station, Krieger said WMRB was the host to South Carolina Gamecocks football. Frank Cope had also purchased the rights to broadcast "The Masters Golf Tournament" originating in Augusta, Georgia. He confirmed that WMRB became host to Chicago White Sox baseball broadcasts. Krieger said that Frank Cope and a local business associate from Household Finance brokered an arrangement with the Chicago White Sox organization. The corporate headquarters for Household Finance was located in Chicago and they were key sponsors on the White Sox Radio Network. When I asked Krieger if he thought the White Sox broadcasts had anything to do with Shoeless Joe Jackson's fame, he stated he had no recollection that Shoeless Joe's popularity had anything to do with the broadcasts. He believed it to be purely a business decision. He also went on to say that the Chicago White Sox broadcasts ended in the late 60's and were eventually replaced with the Atlanta Braves in the early 1970's.
I then called Jim Cope, the son of Frank Cope. Jim Cope told me was about 10 years old when his dad purchased the radio station. He remembered the Chicago White Sox and Atlanta Braves radio broadcasts. Without telling him the details of my previous interview with Bill Krieger, I asked Jim to give me the reasons why his father would broadcast Chicago White Sox games in Greenville. Jim stated he had no details or knowledge of the conversations surrounding the reasons why the broadcasts got started. Cope did state that his dad would have based the decision solely on business and how it would benefit the station. I asked Jim if it was possible that with Greenville being the home of Shoeless Joe Jackson, and given Shoeless Joe's popularity, could that have been a factor in the decision? He stated he did not recall any discussions or an atmosphere of popularity of Shoeless Joe during that time. Jim Cope did not believe Shoeless Joe had anything to do with his dad's decision to bring the Sox to WMRB.
Fully armed with this new information, I began a web search to find a connection between Household Finance and Chicago White Sox. I quickly found a blog entry by a Lee Abrams regarding play-by-play baseball and other chatter. Abrams stated, "I remember the transistor under the covers. Bob Elson and Don Wells calling a Chicago White Sox night Game...every ad was for "Friendly Bob Adams" with Household Finance. They took you right there...an indescribable magic that combined tension, joy and a sense of security and warmth that said all is OK with life...especially since we have Hoyt Wilhelm warming up in the bullpen." The Household Finance connection collaborated Bill Krieger's 85 year old memory and the puzzle was now complete. Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Chicago White Sox broadcasts in Greenville appeared to be nothing more than an amazing coincidence.
Feeling comfortable that I had run my investigation to the finish line, I sought to document the results of my research. I produced a PowerPoint graphic depicting the history of radio frequency 1490AM WMRB, now WPCI. After combining the graphic with the interviews and other source files, I sent them off to the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum and the Greenville Historical Society. Both agreed to catalog my research for posterity's sake. I also created a poster that now hangs on the wall of the Shoeless Joe</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-64449967422334159392014-02-17T12:04:00.000-08:002014-05-30T12:37:10.711-07:00Twitter and Affiliate Marketing<div style="text-align: justify;">
Affiliate marketing has definitely left its mark (and continues to) on the Internet. Whether searching for something specific, opening up your web-based email account, or simply surfing, you have undoubtedly encountered a multitude of banner advertisements, pop under advertisements, and pop up advertisements in all shapes, sizes, and varieties. Truthfully, the effectiveness of affiliate marketing programs is undeniable as it continues to benefit both the merchants and affiliates with increased views, sales, and profits. </div>
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As affiliate webs grow more and more dense, they are taking over more and more territory, extending to new places such as social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others. This should of course come to no surprise as the Web as a moneymaking resource is undeniable. The question is are these social site postings effective or are they just ruining the social networking experience for everyone by distracting from the true posters on these sites. </div>
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Should posting advertisements and affiliate links be taboo on sites dedicated to social networking? These sites were initially created in order to provide online community for networking whether for business or personal/social. A quick look at Twitter or Facebook posts, and one finds that the content represented is often, if not mostly, trivial. </div>
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Why then would there be any question of ethics involved with the posting of affiliate links or advertisements? If websites for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and any other major newspaper are fair game for acai berry, online degrees, online dating, and any other multitude of advertisements and links, why not Twitter, Facebook, and others? Perhaps the question should be how affiliates can effectively post to these social networking sites without being banned by moderators or flagging posters, and if it is worth the trouble. </div>
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Anywhere online users might congregate is most likely worth the effort considering the magnitude and size of the prospective audience involved. Anywhere affiliate links can be seen and clicked on increases the chances for affiliate programs, merchants, and affiliates to make sales, convert customers, and generate profits. How to avoid being accused of spamming is key, and this can be skirted by simply not copying and pasting computer generated, non-descript form messages, as these are most definitely off putting.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-19469808704871422482014-02-10T12:08:00.000-08:002014-05-30T12:38:52.665-07:00Managing Your Social Media Profiles As a Job Seeker<div style="text-align: justify;">
As you continue to work hard to obtain computer certifications and the job of your choice, it is time to start paying attention to how employers perceive you.
When Facebook recently announced that it had successfully crossed the 500 million membership milestone, both Internet gurus and users applauded the achievement with much online fanfare. However, there is a south side to the scenario-your prospective employers and recruiters can now learn as much about you as your friends and fans not all of which may exactly be flattering. Bottom line? Your online reputation is just as important as the professional image you happen to project in your resume. </div>
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As a person looking for employment in the workforce, this holds even more true for you because companies in a variety of industries, but specifically the IT and IT-enabled services industries routinely investigate prospective employees not simply through background investigation firms but also directly on Almighty Google by Googling your name within quotation marks for an identical match within the organic search results. </div>
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Here are a few potent reasons why you should not simply consider but also implement the strategies outlined below right away once you are ready for the job market upon completing your certifications.
Prioritizing your Commitment to Online Reputation Management
Your online reputation is no longer relevant only to banks, mortgage companies and credit card issuers. Your employer too is very interested in checking you out on the Internet and seeing what others are saying about you. On any platform in which you wish to participate such as blog comments, forum posts and contributions to groups and discussion lists, your "two cents worth" should really be worth a quarter. </div>
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Your comments and observations should be intelligent, insightful and thought-provoking. Never ever slam, flame or defame a fellow-poster because negative data always tends to stick out like a sore thumb in the minds of those who are checking you out for employment purposes. If there are a hundred comments either by you or about you that happen to be in positive in nature and only one negative comment, your prospective employer is going to remember the latter. Leave it to the psychologists to figure this one out. </div>
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Peruse your Facebook Profile with a Critical Eye
Facebook is the primary social media forum that employers are checking out these days and given the recent controversies regarding privacy issues that continue to surround the website, no information about you is protected on Facebook. It is therefore time to become proactive. </div>
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Replace both covertly and overtly personal photographs with neutral snapshots. Pictures of you hanging around bars and pubs in the company of like-minded creatures will need to go especially if they happen to be "action-oriented." A little whitewashing Tom Sawyer style just might be in the offing since you will also need to rid your Wall of all detrimental graffiti.
Linking up with LinkedIn the Right Way
If you happen to have a professional work profile on LinkedIn or any of the professional networking social media websites such as ZoomInfo, Tribe.Net, Spoke, Ryze, JigSaw, ecademy and others, take it for granted that your future employers will be paying you a courtesy visit. Like Facebook, these websites too can be accessed in one of two ways-either through a search conducted on the major search engines or through the search function each of the websites has to offer. </div>
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Your profiles should be crisp, sharp and truly professional with no spelling or grammatical errors. Mention all your computer certifications clearly in reverse chronological order listing the most recent computer certification first. Most importantly, the data you are posting on these websites should remain fully consistent at all times with your resume. If you are a regular participant at LinkedIn Answers and LinkedIn Forums, your contributions should be meaningful and constructive. </div>
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Many employers pay LinkedIn as a part of their premium service offerings to gain unqualified access to the website through vertical search. It is therefore a good idea to examine your LinkedIn Connections and their Connections just to make sure that you are indeed in the right company and are not perceived as hanging out with the wrong type of online crowd. Your LinkedIn online album and picture gallery should contain only snapshots that project you professionally-making presentations in front of a large audience, attending a meeting, dining with formally dressed colleagues, waiting at the airport reading the Wall Street Journal... you get the picture. You are your own brand and you need to manage it wisely.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-77090808985561937432014-02-03T12:04:00.000-08:002014-05-30T12:39:42.867-07:00Relationship Building - Why Do You Post Comments?<div style="text-align: justify;">
Posting comments should accomplish two things:
Get more visibility for you
Build a relationship with the owner of the material you comment on
Now, unfortunately some people only post comments for the first reason and do not think about the second one. Let me give you a perfect example. I posted a video on my Facebook wall the other day. The subject of the video was the importance of doing your homework to find the best network marketing opportunity, instead of just jumping in and possibly wasting years in the wrong company. </div>
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Nowhere in this video did I ask people to tell me what company they think is best. Nor did I mention my own company. I did mention the mentoring service I offer, but this service is not an MLM itself (in fact it is not even an affiliate program.)
It is very important to realize that most people who offer training in MLM, even if it is an affiliate program you can make money on, have a primary MLM company and are building a team there. They offer training to build relationships with people, not to get pitched on other companies! And they certainly do NOT want other people trying to pitch an opportunity to their contacts. </div>
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When you post a comment and mention your opportunity or add your link, you are pitching your deal to the owner of the content as well as to all of their followers. Do you think that is a good way to build a relationship?
So, how do you think I felt when people started posting links to their opportunity as comments on this video I posted? I deleted their comments and placed my own comment that I did not welcome opportunity links being added. </div>
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One lady got upset and decided to hide me from her news feed. Another guy said he thought this was on his wall, so he doesn't understand the difference between the news feed and the wall.
For anyone else who might not understand this concept on Facebook, when you post something on your wall it goes to the newsfeed of all of your friends. If anyone posts a comment, all of the original poster's friends see it. You are never just posting a comment on your own wall for your own friends when you comment on something another person posted on their wall, that comes through on your news feed. Of course, the same is true when you post a comment on a blog; all readers see it. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-53622851042201800662014-01-27T12:04:00.000-08:002014-05-30T12:41:35.811-07:00Social Marketing Strategies - MLM and Social Marketing Spam<div style="text-align: justify;">
There is a nasty little trend rearing its ugly head in the social networking world. It seems that no domain is immune to spam, and multi-level marketing firms are guaranteeing that along with email, sites originally intended for social purposes are under attack. Micro-blogs and the like are finding themselves targets of wall spam and other unsolicited intrusions by MLM firms. </div>
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How Social Spam Can Affect You
Everyone has figured out the multi-level marketing tricks with e-mail. We have all learned to ignore, delete, or both. Now the MLMs have some new tricks up their sleeves and they are taking social networking sites hostage in their latest attempts to make a quick buck:
Friend invitations. As a member of a primarily social site, you expect to read tidbits about your friends such as their latest vacations, job promotions, and so on. </div>
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When your friends' invitations include links to the latest and greatest hair loss product along with a minute amount of personal information, you have become a victim of spam. Your account will likely become inundated and your participation in your social networking site nothing more than a chore.
Wall spam. For those who are members of such social networks as Facebook, beware any mention of products and services with specific links on your "walls." Be conscious of possible multi-level marketing schemes that transform your wall into the poster child for wall spam that solicits something you have likely never heard of, much less endorsed. </div>
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Application invitations. Absolutely ignore any friend's invitation to "check out this cool new app!" Someone is trying to make a quick buck from your friend connection. The "cool new app" is yet another MLM scheme trying to worm its way into the social scene through unsuspecting social networking members.
Why MLMs Are Targeting Social Networks
Social networks have become one of the primary means of communication for many internet users. Multi-level marketers understand the possibilities of extending their reach through the social network sites and are attempting to prey upon their members to fulfill their own marketing goals. </div>
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Blogs. Blogs have allowed MLMs to take advantage of the medium and overrun blog sites with unwanted solicitations for anything and everything. Comment boxes are often no more than another open window for ad links from marketers.
Instant Messaging. IM services such as Skype are not immune to the dreaded MLM ploys. When links are included with a message from an unknown member, there is likely a spam attempt involved that may have malware attached. </div>
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Communities. Large social sites such as Facebook and MySpace have launched their own counterattacks to stop the influx of MLMs and their disruptive attempts to invade the private conversations of legitimate members. Constant updates of their programming and user agreements are attempting to deter the unethical if not illegal practices by such multi-level marketers.
What You Can Do
Multi-level marketing cannot be stopped completely but there are steps to take to help curb the behavior:
Ignore. Pay the solicitation no mind. </div>
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Never click on a link of unknown origin.
Report. Let your hosting services know of any suspicious contact. Many MLM solicitations contain malicious software that can harm your system.
Respond. Get vocal and spread the word. If word of mouth is good for the MLMs, then it is just as effective against them.
There is hardly a sure-fire way to keep multi-level marketing spam away from some social networking sites. However, by keeping it out of your social marketing plan and taking active steps to deter their spamming behavior, they may find another route to take, or better yet, a new business to get into.
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-14801571512576085262014-01-20T12:04:00.001-08:002014-05-30T12:45:14.389-07:00Recruiting Volunteers For Nonprofit Marketing<div style="text-align: justify;">
Today, the web is a crucial part of any nonprofit internet strategy. Social media encourages and facilitates human interaction. These days the term typically refers to platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace that can be accessed from computers, mobile phones and other devices, allowing users to communicate more or less in real time. Social platforms offer a variety of applications for communication, marketing and file sharing, and are served directly or indirectly by third-party websites such as Flicker (for photo sharing), YouTube (video) and PayPal (online money transfer). </div>
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Social media is becoming the standard for nonprofit fundraising and volunteer recruitment. The variety of means to gather and organize people is almost limitless. Facebook alone offers "walls" to post brief messages, an inbox, status reports that alert the user's entire network, and options like "pokes" and "likes" which can serve as little reminders and free advertisement.
Perhaps the fastest and most concise way to recruit volunteers is through Twitter. </div>
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Users can post messages of 140 characters or less to which everyone who subscribes to the user's feed - friends, family, and fans - becomes notified. One simple message, or "tweet", is all it takes to make sure everyone you know is aware that you are in need of assistance, and messages can be "re-tweeted" by the recipient, opening up a whole extended network of friends of friends of friends, and so on.
There are a number of things that make social online media a superior way for organizations in need of funding to gather volunteers. </div>
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First of all, it's free. While third parties may charge for their services, social media platforms currently do not, and a charity's success is limited only by time and ingenuity.
With the variety of nonprofit resources on the web, almost anything a charity could think to do for their cause can be aided by social media, including the recruitment process. Social media can be used successfully by those without marketing expertise or access to a professional print shop. </div>
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There is an abundance of websites geared towards providing people with advice on just about anything, much of it for free. While there will always be a period of trial and error with any new endeavor, feedback and response is much faster with social media as they are web-based, and mistakes are no longer a waste of paper.
Social networking speeds up the start-to-end time of a campaign because the recruitment process no longer involves putting up posters around town, advertising in newspapers or cold calling. </div>
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Social media also make the prospect of volunteering more attractive as much of volunteers' work can now be done from home.
Today, the pool of potential volunteers is worldwide. Access to social networking sites is available almost everywhere and information and money can easily get from one place to another instantaneously. While this may mean increased competition from other charities around the world, nonprofits in Facebook, Twitter and social sites now have a global reach.
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5101842377884726392.post-238847593225730192014-01-20T12:04:00.000-08:002014-05-30T12:44:08.082-07:00Social Media Is Sweeping Our Nation<div style="text-align: justify;">
Social media is sweeping our nation, is it here to stay or will it
have its day and then fad from glory... like our old friend, the eight
track tape?</div>
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According to industry expert Sree Sreenivasan,
cofounder of DNAinfo.com and a journalism instructor at Columbia
University, social media is here to stay.</div>
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Sree was recently a
keynote speaker at the Vacation Ownership Investment Conference (VOIC)
in Orlando Florida, where he talked about the future of this new
business tool.</div>
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"We are at the infancy of a great revolution,"
proclaimed Sree, "harness the public attention with social media or else
get left behind." Sree believes that social media must become an
integral part of any marketing plan as we move forward in this age of
technology.</div>
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Sree encouraged us to look at social media of today...
like the television was in the 50s. No one of the time expected the TV
to be able to compete with radio, let alone become the mass media
instrument it has become today. Large companies wouldn't dream of a
marketing plan that did not include television advertising to promote
and build their brand. In 10 years, Sree believes we will regard social
media in the same way.</div>
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So you know you need to jump into this new
and unknown territory but you have no idea where to start. Take heart,
the internet is full of helpful information on the subject but to save
you some time, here is what I have learned from scourging the web and
our friend Wikipedia.</div>
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<u>Social media:</u> Internet
forums, weblogs, social blogs, microblogging, wikis, podcasts,
pictures, video, rating and social bookmarking, collaborative projects,
blogs and microblogs, content communities, social networking sites and
virtual communities. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing,
vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging and crowdsourcing to name
a few. Many of these social media services can be integrated via
social network aggregation platforms.</div>
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<b>Communication</b></div>
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• Blogs: Blogger, ExpressionEngine, LiveJournal, Open Diary, TypePad, Vox, WordPress, Xanga, ning, GoDaddy
</div>
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• Microblogging: FMyLife, Foursquare, Jaiku, Plurk, Posterous, Tumblr, Twitter, Qaiku, Yammer, Google Buzz
</div>
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• Location-based social networks: Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook places, The Hotlist
</div>
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• Social networking: ASmallWorld, Cyworld, Facebook, Hi5, LinkedIn, MySpace, Orkut, Tagged, XING
</div>
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• Information Aggregators: Netvibes, Twine (website)</div>
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<b>Collaboration/authority building</b></div>
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• Wikis: PBworks, Wetpaint, Wikia, Wikimedia
</div>
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• Social bookmarking (or social tagging):[16] CiteULike, Delicious, Diigo, Google Reader, StumbleUpon, folkd
</div>
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• Social news: Digg, Mixx, NowPublic, Reddit, Newsvine, MyWeboo
</div>
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• Social navigation: Trapster, Waze [17]
</div>
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• Content Management Systems: Wordpress
</div>
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• Document Managing and Editing Tools: Google Docs, Syncplicity, Docs.com, Dropbox Reviews and opinions
</div>
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• Business reviews: Customer Lobby, Yelp, Inc.
</div>
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• Community Q&A: Askville, EHow, Stack Exchange, WikiAnswers, Yahoo! Answers</div>
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<b>Brand monitoring</b></div>
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• Social media measurement: Attensity, Statsit, Sysomos, Vocus</div>
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<u>Before you go cross eyed and start hitting your head against the wall... you don't have to do everything out there!</u> You can start with a Facebook page, a Twitter account or a company blog.</div>
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If
your company has the resources to hire someone to manage your social
media great, but if not, all is not lost. Find an employee that has
some social media savvy and get started.</div>
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The important thing to remember is that social media is intended to be... well... social. This is not a <i>set it and forget it</i>
endeavor! It doesn't do any good to ask for public input or opinion if
no one is paying attention. If negative input is seen, take the
opportunity to make things right for that customer. After all it is
cheaper to keep a current customer then find a new one.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12123849994569230635noreply@blogger.com0