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Tips for Creating a Social Business

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There’s no doubt about it: marketing has gone social.  Customers are more apt than ever to start tweeting about their service.  So what are you going to do about it?

Commit

It’s likely you’ve either thought about or have already set up a Facebook account for your business.  However, many business owners fall into the trap of neglecting their social media accounts.  These accounts should be treated like another touchpoint for your business, like adding another customer service number that the whole world can see.

Keeping on top of updates like when you’re having a sale and responding to customer comments is essential.  Though it may add another hour to your day going through your social media outlets, it will create another layer to your marketing dynamic.

Contemplate

If you haven’t created a Youtube, Twitter, or Facebook account for your business yet, you should probably take a deep breath and think about it.  Although it takes a few minutes to set up, you must be willing to commit.  A poorly maintained social media outlet is like having an unkempt front entrance.

Lacking in time and resources to commit to a  social media campaign is a sure sign you quit while your ahead.

Comprehend

Should you chose to accept this task, you should invest in media monitoring apps.  For example, Radian6 is a paid services that gives you reports on your various social media outlets.  That way you can track and see what garners attention and what doesn’t.

Social Media is still in it’s infancy.  It seems like the Wild West where every business, large and small, are on the frontier.

As always, you can count on us in case you need an it services company to cover all your IT needs.

Shorter, More Productive Meetings: Yeah there’s an app for that

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Less Meeting is an app that works with Outlook or through your web browser.  Like it’s name suggests, the app is geared towards making business meetings more productive and thus having them less frequently.

Step One: Setting Up

This app allows you to sync your calendars across various platforms including your Google Calendar and iCalander.  Selected contacts can then be invited and reminded of meetings.  Well begun is half done, as they say.

After you meeting time set, the app allows you to fill out a short outline of what you want to cover.

Step Two: Setting Limits

Probably one of the most intriguing aspects of Less Meeting is the workplace culture that it tries to create.  Meetings are designed to have a thirty minute limit.  Metrics allow you to measure what everyone is done who is attending the meetings.

For example, any notes taken or documents submitted are tracked centrally.  This allows the person running the meeting to see productivity during the meeting.  Thus, the best practices can be deciphered.  Like how Jim needs to be sent two reminders for every meetings because one just isn’t enough.

Step Three: Be More Efficient

Less Meeting has plenty of built in typing shortcuts so you can take notes more quickly.  It’s a little clunky at first, but as time goes on it goes better.  As stated before, all notes are tracked so they can be easily organized and presented.  These notes can be exported via e-mail.

Step Four: Follow up

Meetings are ends in and of themselves.  They’re tools to make sure things get done.  Less Meetings has a follow up feature.  You can assign tasks based on the notes taken during the meeting and send to-do lists to various employees.

After the lists are send, your employees can then write back saying that they have completed their tasks or require clarification or help, etc.

Step Five: Go Forth

Meetings are always going to be a drag.  With the Less Meeting App, maybe they’ll be less of a drag.  The pricing is based on the number of users, ranging from $12-8 a month.