contributed by eric hall of eh design & consulting

Keeping track of your brand can be a difficult task. With all these on-line, social conversations happening it can be difficult to really know what is being said about you, your company, your products, etc. But knowing what is being said about you, your business, your key markets is CRITICAL. As I’ve said before, if you don’t know about these conversations, you can’t join in the conversations. And, I guarantee, conversations are happening. The only question is – are you going to participate.

So, if we agree that there are conversations happening online (blog posts, product reviews, twitter posts, facebook comments, youTube videos, etc.), the question is “how do I find out about these conversations and join in”?

Well, that a great question and there are a lot of good answers. In a previous post (Two Simple Business Uses For Twitter) I described one method – using the Advanced Twitter Search based on location. This is a great way to find people who are twittering about you or a topic of interest within a certain distance from you (i.e. anyone talking about “antiques” within a 50 mile radius). But, what if you want to join in on conversations happening on other mediums? What if you want to know about blog posts, web site updates, facebook posts, etc.?

The answer now is Google Alerts! Google Alerts are a great way to get regular updates any time Google finds a web page with your search term. Using Google Alerts, you could get an e-mail every time Google finds a new web page that mentions the search term you chosen. You can choose to get e-mails immediately, and daily or weekly digests (summaries). You can also choose to have the results delivered to an RSS feed – my personal favorite. Assuming you choose instant e-mail notifications, you would receive an e-mail every time Google finds a new article, blog, video, image, etc. that contains your search term. What an awesome way to join in the conversation and help to control your brand.

Here’s the basics of how Google Alerts work:

1. Visit www.google.com/alerts and create your Google alert. The main screen (once you are logged in – you will have to have a Google account) looks like this:
   Simply type in your search terms, select a type (for instance – if you only want to get results from blogs, etc.), select How often, and select where to deliver the information to (you can choose RSS later)
2. After you click “CREATE ALERT” you’ll be in the manage screen. It looks like this:
   You can see from this screen shot that I had two Google Alerts set up – both being delivered to an RSS Feed, updated immediately (as-it-happens). So, any time the words EH Design (my company) or Eric Hall (my name) appears in a new page in Google, the RSS Feed will get updated. I’ll know immediately whenever sometime is talking about these terms. Since this time, I’ve added a couple more Google Alerts – basically centered on my around some of my key SEO terms – Fort Wayne Web Design, Fort Wayne E-Commerce, etc.

   Here’s what the RSS feed looks like in my browsers (I’m running Apple Safari – so Internet Explorer would look a little different):
   

3. My final step is to Monitor my RSS Feeds in a convenient RSS Feed Reader. Since I use an Apple, I monitor my RSS Feeds in my E-Mail program (called, Mail). So, just as I would go to Mail to view any no e-mail message, so I go to mail to check if there is a new e-mail message, I also see if there are any new Google Alerts. Here’s what it looks like in my Mail program:

Google Alerts – a great way to keep up to date with your own brand, product, search terms.

Want to know more? Have other ideas about? Leave a comment and share your thought. Or, contact EH Design & Consulting today, and we can talk about all the ways Social Media can help your business!

SOCIALTEXT ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE BRINGS MORE COLLABORATION TO THE WORKSPACE

Socialtext is creating new ways for business staffs to collaborate online through enterprise social software.  The Palo Alto, Calif., group was founded in 2002…

Let us know how this is impacting you.  Are you using this – Google Wave – Google Docs – SharePoint — something else??

I’ll admit it, I love twitter. I look at my twitter feed many times every day. But, I’ll also admit it – it can be hard to find any real value in twitter!

When people find out I’m “into” twitter, some common questions come up:

• Why would anyone care what I had for breakfast? – Assuming that the only thing posted on twitter is useless information
• Is there any real value in twitter?

For me and for my business, the answer is a resounding YES to the second question. I believe that there is indeed real value in twitter.

Today, I wanted to share just two very simple uses for twitter that I think you and your business use.

1. Use Twitter To Drive Traffic To Your Site

Here is a graph of some of the recent traffic to my blog (as recorded by the FREE stats program: Google Analytics):

Notice the ups and downs on the graph? Of course, they are impossible to miss. The obvious question, when looking at this graph is “What caused the spikes”?

The answer: TWITTER!

Each of the spikes in traffic represent a day (or some times a couple of days) where I sent out just one tweet about a new blog post I had. As a result of the single tweet (and a few kind re-tweet), my traffic for that day made a significant increase.

That’s a GREAT use for twitter!

Of course, any business or person has to be careful about always being self-serving. If all you ever do on twitter is send out tweets hoping to lure people back to your own web site, then people will stop listening (following you). But, if you tweet other useful information AND you tweet links to your own site, then people will visit. If the content is interesting – they will come back!

I would suggest that this use makes it absolutely essential that your business has a blog. Your business blog needs to be updated regularly (I’m shooting for once a week on my own – a new goal). And, your business blog needs to have interesting content. If you have a blog, and if you post regularly, and if you post about interesting content… then sending out regular tweets that link back to your blog WILL increase your traffic (and have some good effect on your Search Engine placement as well).

This alone should make twitter worth looking into.

2. Use Twitter to Find People Talking About Your Business In Your Area

Wether or not you are on twitter, others are. And, they are talking about all kinds of things. Chances are they are talking about your business. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a simple way to know every time someone within a 50 mile radius (or whatever area you work in) was asking questions about your business? You could jump in, offer answers, offer resources, even offer a sale! Wouldn’t that be a great tool?

Of course, the tool absolutely does exist and it is called… twitter. It’s a simple little feature built into twitter called TWITTER SEARCH. Visit search.twitter.com and click on the “ADVANCED SEARCH” link on the right side of the search box.

In the Advanced Search area you can do some amazing things! The thing we are focused on right now is search by PLACES.

Let’s make up a company. Suppose you own ANTIQUES R US, located in Atlanta, GA. And, you would like more people to know about your business. So, what do you do? Well, one great option is to use the Advanced Twitter Search to look for anyone talking about Antiques within 50 miles of Atlanta, GA. Here’s what the Advanced Search might look like:

You can see here that ANTIQUES R US is update to search twitter for the word “Antiques” within a 50 mile radius of Atlanta, GA. What would ANTIQUES R US find? A lot. Below are just two tweets form the last couple of days that may have been interesting to ANTIQUES R US:

Here is some who had the day to herself and visited one of ANTIQUES R US competitors – the Lakewood Antiques Market. What if ANTIQUES R US had responded to her and said something like: “Glad you loved Lakewood. If you liked them, you might enjoy us as well – mention this tweet for 10% off”. Who knows, maybe the person would have showed up

Here’s another:

This person is looking for an Antiques place to visit in the Savannah area. What is ANTIQUES R US had responded with a couple of excellent restaurants (close to the store, of course) and a personal invitation to visit the store?

Again, the conversation is already happening. I promise – people are really talking about your business. The question is whether or not you are going to join the conversation!

Advanced Twitter Search – by location – my second favorite use for twitter.

Want to get in touch with the author? Contact Eric Hall at EH Design & Consulting!

There is no doubt that a dysfunctional organization produces more waste than a functioning one. Many individuals can sense when something is just not right. The hair on the back of your neck raises or maybe it’s the feeling in your gut, but how do you know when your Information Technology environment has gone bad? Here are five signs of a dysfunctional Information Technology environment.

You know your IT environment is dysfunctional when…

…Your Projects Don’t Move

In a dysfunctional IT organization projects are stuck in a perpetual state of undone. It’s like the Roach Motel – projects go in, but they don’t come out. The project backlog is always growing and never shrinking. The IT organization is always hopping from one burning project to the next. What catches projects on fire? It’s not the next project the enterprise agreed to start, it’s not the project with the best return on investment, and it’s not the project that will strengthen the organization’s weakest link, it’s the project from the department or department head that screams the loudest.

…You Have IT Lurking in the Shadows

Shadow IT is the pseudo IT operation that does not report to the Chief information Office or IT Director, has a separate set of priorities (that of the sponsoring department), and usually is the result of a slow and unresponsive IT organization. Shadow IT says the sponsoring department no longer trust the IT organization to deliver their projects in a timely and accurate manner. In truth shadow IT is costly often resulting in rework since the staffer is generally not held to the same standard of work (testing, integration, functionality, documentation, etc.) as the IT organization.

…Your Computer Equipment is Continually Failing

Dysfunctional IT organizations are constantly fixing the breaks in the dam without ever fundamentally fixing or replacing the dam. This is not the normal cycle of break – fix where a problem is identified and eventually resolved. Dysfunctional IT is always fixing the same projects. Are the servers constantly running out of space or crashing? Is the network always slow? Is the email full of spam? Are applications unavailable? Do you constantly have to reboot your desktop or laptop? Then you are experiencing a broken IT organization.

…You are Your Worst Enemy and You Don’t Even Know It

When your organization is unfamiliar with, or intentionally ignores, the protocol established to get projects completed it is broken. It is unhealthy when organizational leadership wants to install an application or hardware that does not fit the technical corridor and cannot understand why operating within the corridor is more cost effective it is unhealthy. This should not be interpreted to mean that the technical corridor is fixed and should not be expanded, but suggests there is a process to expanding it. When the organization does not understand how governance and effective use of assets help to move projects along it needs to be repaired.

…Your IT Organization Thinks its Hot – but it’s Not!

If your IT organization actually thinks it is doing a good job when everyone else in the organization thinks it is a joke, then your IT organization is dysfunctional. If your IT organization can not show you metric that demonstrate it is meeting the service level agreements, then your IT organization is dysfunctional. If your IT staff spends more time in the office, data center, or cave and less time in the business units, then it is dysfunctional. If the CIO or IT Director is not investigating trends or developing strategy, then it is dysfunctional.

There is no doubt that dysfunctional IT costs the organization. Return for more tips to combat bad IT or if your organization is currently experiencing these challenges contact us immediately to schedule a SWOT analysis.