Thursday, February 12, 2009

Ways to Twitter - I have 11, Can You Add to My List?

Because I work as a virtual assistant within real estate and bookkeeping, primarily with small businesses, I am being asked a lot about Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. How should I use these platforms? Should I use them? What do you suggest?

Below are some ideas that I share with all my clients because the reality is that if you don't use these platforms on a consistent basis then you won't get anything out of them either. Like anything else in your business, consistency and clarity of information is necessary as well as a plan.

11 Ways To Twitter

1) What you're working on right now

2) Links to interesting websites or articles you've found

3) Announce a new product or service you're preparing to launch

4) Links to cool tools or services you've found helpful

5) Thanking people that have recently inspired you or helped you with something

6) Questions about something you want to know about, like an issue you're having with something

7) Send out a poll or link to a survey. The answers can be the subject of your next blog post or video

8) Mention how cool it is to be working on "x". This highlights the type of work you do, and people looking for this type of help will be able to find you

9) Announce to your tweeps that something great just happened to you.
--you just received an award or nomination
--you been asked to speak at a big seminar
--you just landed a huge client
--you just finished completing a certification course
--you been contacted to do an interview about your business

10) Schedule a series of tips as individual tweets

11) If you're at an event, tweet about the experience as it's happening

So what other suggestions do you have for your Tweeting practices? I'd love to learn more.

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posted by The Office Grapevine at 7:18 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

SEO Tips from Business Wire

I wish I had thought of this information myself, but it comes to us from Business Wire. Remember that it's still early in the year and accomplishing your marketing goals starts with some of these great tips.

When it comes to getting your press release seen online, the rules for writing may be different from what you've practiced in the past.

  1. Choose and use your keywords. Think like your reader: What words are most likely to be searched for by people looking for what you want them to find in your release? Choose/use those words multiple times.
  2. Use bold, italics, headlines and subheads to make key phrases and keywords more visible. Emphasized text may help your release stand out and can positively impact search engine results.
  3. Keep your headlines short. Google recommends headlines between 2 and 22 words for optimum visibility and search results. Google results display only the first 63 characters of each headline.
  4. Keep it readable. While your goal is to appear high in search engine results, don't miss the mark by writing copy that's overly repetitive, spammy or unreadable. You want search engines to find you and for readers to click through to your text. Strike a balance.
  5. Be careful with puns, innuendo and double meanings. Search engines, spiders and robots have no sense of humor. Keep this in mind when trying to attract their attention.
  6. Write timely content that provides useful information to readers. Provide tips, advice, or analysis in your press release that is relevant to your industry or your customers' interests. Search engines are more likely to include releases that are honestly useful in their results.
  7. Utilize hyperlinks and anchor text, but don't overdo it. Too many links can flag your release as spam and get you kicked out. One link max per 100 words is recommended. Choose relevant links that direct traffic to the specific pages you are promoting rather than generic company links.
  8. Be consistent. Some words have multiple spellings— such as "t-shirt" and "tee-shirt," or "email" and "e-mail." Stick with one spelling to avoid appearing illiterate, preferably choosing the more frequently searched spelling.
  9. Keep it fresh. As releases age, they tend to drift lower in the search engine results pages. A campaign of several releases is more likely to drive results than a single press release.
  10. Publish on your own website. Be sure to publish releases sent on the wire or EON: Enhanced Online News to your own website also. Since links are like votes, link to them. Work with your web team to make sure your site is optimized.
  11. Use Business Wire for the Big Bang; EON: Enhanced Online News for the Long Tail. We've witnessed the best outcomes when press releases are sent on Business Wire and EON: Enhanced Online News. Business Wire provides the big burst of attention; EON: Enhanced Online News gives it the Long Tail and allows it to live forever online.
Below are the upcoming Feature Topic Series Copy Deadlines:
March
16 Easter & Passover
19 Sports & Hobbies II, Fantasy Sports
23 Personal Finance II, Taxes
26 Fitness & Health II
30 Family II, Men’s Focus
31 Workplace & Careers I

April
2 Going Green Consumer II, Earth Day
6 Education I, Graduation
9 Diet & Nutrition II
13 Family III, Baby
16 Technology II, Electronic Games
20 Mother’s Day
21 Arts & Entertainment II
23 Home & Garden II
27 Asian Heritage Month
30 Pets I

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posted by The Office Grapevine at 9:42 AM 0 comments

New Year, New Passwords - Look at Monster.com

I write a blog post for one of my clients all surrounding technology with tips, tricks, great free and open source stuff. I'm reprinting my post from this past Monday here because I believe it is important for as many people as possible to know what has happened over at Monster.com.

I wanted to share this important information that comes direct from Monster.com.

First of all, as a reminder, with the new year you definitely need to start changing all your passwords. It should be something unique to you with both letters and numbers. If you can remember to put in a capital letter or unique symbol all the better.

On January 23rd Monster released a letter to all subscribers about the full impact of the hack into their site. The information stolen from the Monster database were user IDs and passwords, email addresses, names, phone numbers, and some basic demographic data.

Thankfully, resumes were not hijacked. To Monster's credit they do not collect sensitive information like social security numbers or financial data.

Monster has already initiated corrective measures including changing your password. If you have not logged in recently, you should go and change your password immediately.

It's human nature and I have to admit that I use a similar login/password combination for the many sites where I need to login. I am equally guilty of this as well, so I have followed my own advice (for a change!). I would encourage you to change all your passwords on other sites especially if you use the same password for any other sites.

Remember, passwords should be unique and changed every 6 months to ensure your personal information is completely secure.

You may have several different passwords but keep it consistent and rotate among 4-5 different passwords to keep it safe. And don't forget, use something that you will remember without having to write it down.

And to quote Hill Street Blues, and "Hey, hey! Let's be careful out there!"

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posted by The Office Grapevine at 9:24 AM 0 comments