Mar
09
2009

Why I Have to Have a Smartphone but Can't Live Without My iPhone

iphonepandukasenakaNot only do I work online, but I pretty much live online.  I use web-based applications for just about everything – email, calendar, documents, networking, etc.  It’s much easier to have information available online from any computer than have to rely on having my laptop all the time.  However, the drawback is needing some way to connect to that information without a computer – a smartphone.  Ever since my first blackberry I’ve been hooked on smartphones and having all the information I want at any time with a touch of a button.

Recently Aaron and I finally got iPhones, and now I wonder why we waited so long.  Obviously there have been benefits to having a device that has been upgraded a few times since it first came out.  But the functionality and design of the iPhone makes me wish my computer worked as elegantly (and as a Mac it does come close).  I have yet to run into something I can do on my laptop that I can’t do on the iPhone.  Granted, there are a few things I would rather do on my laptop – and typing long blog articles is certainly one of them.  I also know there are some limitations of the iPhone, but I have yet to run into one that I really care about.

Carrying around the iPhone makes it easy to stay connected to my network and clients, so I’m not as concerned with being away from my computer while I attend business or networking events. And unlike a lot of technology, the iPhone never seems to get in my way.  It’s as easy to use and fun to play with as my first computer way back in the 19**’s. What other technology can you say that about?

(photo by Panduka Senaka @ Flickr CC)

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Mar
09
2009

Morning Edition – Mar 9, 2009

Hope you enjoyed your weekend!

We post links to stories about how to use the web effectively throughout the day on Twitter or Delicious.  Also, if you have a post or link you think is worth sharing, please let us know!

Mar
06
2009

Morning Edition – Mar 6, 2009

End of the week – It’s warm and smells like rain here in Michigan.  Hope you have a great weekend!

We post links to stories about how to use the web effectively throughout the day on Twitter or Delicious.  Also, if you have a post or link you think is worth sharing, please let us know!

Mar
05
2009

Twitter Tip – Automate Tweets with Twitterfeed

twitterfeedThe point of Twitter is to have a conversation, but it also nice to send out useful information to your followers – perhaps links of interest or a link when you post to your blog. Twitterfeed allows you to use RSS feeds to automatically send links to your Twitter account.  Just add the RSS feed from your blog to Twitterfeed and you will automatically tweet the blog title with a link whenever you add a new post.

Once you have an account you can add any RSS feed and tell Twitterfeed how often you want it to post items from your feed (every 30m, every hour, etc) and how many items to post (1-5).  Twitterfeed will only post new items, so don’t worry about posting redundant content.  Once you add a feed it may take a few minutes for Twitterfeed to pick it up.

Twitterfeed can also be used to post directly to identi.ca and custom laconica installations. Using Twitterfeed in conjunction with Ping.fm or HelloTxt you can also post to any sites those services support.

Here at Sazbean, we use Twitterfeed to automatically tweet our blog posts and links we add to delicious.

If you use Twitterfeed, we’d love to hear how in the comments.

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Mar
05
2009

Morning Edition – Mar 5, 2009

Posting was a bit light yesterday – we were enjoying Aaron’s birthday.  Back to the grind today….

We post links to stories about how to use the web effectively throughout the day on Twitter or Delicious.  Also, if you have a post or link you think is worth sharing, please let us know!

Mar
04
2009

Morning Edition – Mar 4, 2009

Happy Birthday, Aaron!  (He’s old today…)  On another note, guess I did some reading yesterday:

We post links to stories about how to use the web effectively throughout the day on Twitter or Delicious.  Also, if you have a post or link you think is worth sharing, please let us know!

Mar
03
2009

Empower Your Employees to Help Your Customers

customerdantaylorYesterday Jason Falls over at Social Media Explorer wrote a post about whether brands were playing favorites on social media.  The problem is that many customers have problems, but often it seems that people who are influencers – who have a popular blog or twitter feed – will get responses from companies that normal people can’t seem to get through normal customer support channels.  I commented that right now many of the people monitoring social media at companies are higher up and actually have the power to fix problems.

Why is this exactly? Why do people have to complain on Twitter or their blog or to their influencer friends to get their problems solved?  Most of us have had an experience with a customer support system where the employee had to follow a script and wasn’t allowed to make any kind of decision. You usually have to try to get up to a manager or another department and even then there’s no guarantee that you’ll get any kind of decision.

What would happen if you allowed your customer support employees to make decisions?  You’d have to provide them with some guidelines, obviously, but what if they could actually help your customers? Many years ago I used to work a few hours a week at Bed, Bath & Beyond (ok, mostly for the discount).  They allowed their employees to give up to a 5% discount to any customer for any reason (usually having to do with a flaw in the merchandise).  Do you know how happy it makes a customer when they come up to you to show you a flaw in a product, ready for a fight, and you just give them a 5% discount without arguing?  How many of those customers were repeat customers?  I’d imagine quite a few.  I’m sure BBB made up the 5% discount with increased sales from happy customers.

All the employees at your company will influence your brand and reputation.  If you give them the power to make decisions that help customers, it will only help your company in the long run.

(photo by dan taylor @ FlickrCC)

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Mar
03
2009

Morning Edition – Mar 3, 2009

Anyone else tired of the cold?  Hope these links warm you up!

We post links to stories about how to use the web effectively throughout the day on Twitter or Delicious.  Also, if you have a post or link you think is worth sharing, please let us know!

Mar
02
2009

Statistics are Vital to Marketing

measurechantrybeeLast week I posted about attaching dollars to statistics in order to make sense of them (and to relate them to how your business is doing).  During a discussion about the article, someone mentioned that it was a great non-marketing post.  I didn’t really respond at the time, but the statement has bothered me since.  Statistics are vital to marketing.  Without statistics, marketing is just a hit-or-miss blanket approach without a strategy and end-goal.  Statistics are how you know what is working and what should be improved (or dropped) and figuring out the next step to achieving your business goals.

Using statistics properly will show how various marketing efforts are affecting your bottom line (return on investment – ROI) so you can figure out how much to spend – and on what.  You’ll also learn more about your customers, your product, and your business. Statistics can give you information about how to improve your product, how to increase customer satisfaction and what your business is doing well.

Many people think of marketing as a soft, touchy-feely pseudo-science, but done properly, marketing should be just as measureable as other business processes and should provide vital information to run your business.

(photo by chantrybee @ FlickrCC)

Mar
02
2009

Morning Edition – Mar 2, 2009

Welcome back to work!  March has started and hopefully spring is right around the corner.

We post links to stories about how to use the web effectively throughout the day on Twitter or Delicious.  Also, if you have a post or link you think is worth sharing, please let us know!