There is a lot of talk out there about Social Media, what you may not understand is how to use Social Media with your own web site.  So we're going to give you some tips.

First, in case you're not aware Social Media means the social networking sites such as FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn.

In our experience, the best tools are FaceBook and Twitter, and in that order.  Before you setup these accounts/pages you need to have a purpose for them.  Simply getting everyone to be your fan on FaceBook and setting up a twitter account and following 6 million people won't do much for you.  Yes you need to get fans and followers but, more importantly you need a reason for them to want to see your updates.  You can use those tools to announce special offers, sales, new products and services and handy information.  People follow us on this blog, twitter and FaceBook to stay up to date on the web industry, get tips on managing their web sites and for good ol' curiosity.   We've come up with a short list of steps to follow to having a more successful following.

1. Come up with some special offers and annoucements
2. Schedule your releases of those offers and announcements
3. Create your fan page on FaceBook, be sure to put your logo and contact information on the page
4. Post some photos and at least one offer or annoucement after you post your standard "Welcome to our page!", if people check your page out and all they see is a generic welcome, you're wasting your time.
5. Link your WebSite to the FaceBook fan page and FaceBook to your web site.
6. Create a Twitter account and link it to your site and your site to your Twitter page.
7. Place your Twitter account link in your e-mail auto signature
8. Start inviting your friends, family, colleagues, vendors, etc to your FaceBook fan page.
9. Be sure to mention your web site and other social media outlets in all 3 places, so people can find you using their favorite method.
10. Update your FaceBook fan page at least once a month and with something thats not too spammy and will be interesting.  If you post generic updates that sound cold and informal, people will click the Hide button and your fans will do you no good.
11. Update your Twitter account at least once a week.

If you like automation, you can setup HootSuite.com for free and update all places at once and in advance with their slick scheduling feature.  Or contact us and we can setup your web site to post blog posts and other updates automatically to your Twitter account and FaceBook page.

Now it doesnt stop here, you've got to check those accounts and pages, they dont run themselves and like I said earlier, just having fans isn't going to do it for you.  If you follow these steps, it'll help generate buzz and be a nice component to your marketing mix.  As with any marketing endeavor, adding social networking to your mix won't immediately drive sales and change your life, but it helps with brand awareness and site traffic building.

Happy Webbing.

It's official.  The long awaited upgrade to the core of our web site management system is now in development.  The project is code named Jive, and while we can't disclose too many secrets just yet, we can tell you it's revolutionary.

Jive is the first major upgrade to our popular web site management software, DynaSite.  Jive represents the latest in web technology today.  A dynamic interface, with a rich content management interface and a suite of new layout tools and will still have all the automated content components our customers have grown to love and rely on.  Jive will truly revolutionize the way web sites are managed in terms of layout, content development and customer communication.

We expect to release Jive within a couple months, as we have many other web sites, products and services in development right now.

Stay tuned for updates, be sure to follow us on FaceBook and Twitter!

Happy Webbing

Just launched Avenue Rental, Inc.'s new web site.   http://www.AvenueRentalInc.com.  When you need construction equipment, excavation, generators or just about anything you can think of check with Tom and Tina Voss at Avenue Rental.  They provide one of a kind service to the local area.   We just built them their very first web site, bringing a long established Quad Cities staple to the web for the first time.

Be sure to check them out today.

We just launched Economy Tree Service's first ever web site.

Check them out online today at http://www.qctree.com

Wow, 2009 has been one heck of a year and ends a rather crummy decade in the American culture.  Time Magazine referred to this decade as "The Decade from Hell".

2009 for us has been a real challenge, with all the spam law changes, copyright changes and the explosion of Social Media and its weight on web sites its been a roller coaster to just keep up.  But, we're at the end of the year, entering our 5th year in business and the outlook has never looked stronger.  We have many exciting new web sites and services that'll be rolling out in the first quarter and a lot of great new clients coming on board.

A good friend of mine has just opened his new business, and it makes me recall when I started this company, I learned my knowledge from mistakes has helped me give a bit of guidance to him to keep him on the right path.  As any business owner knows, there many pitfalls and those ready to take advantage of you.

Every year I find myself looking back and seeing whats changed, what I've learned and how the new year will affect us.  I don't think I can ever recall a year like 2009, the level of new clients was sporadic (to say the least) and technology was ever evolving.  My blog readership has increased 600% and we've constructed over 70 web sites now and we're growing stronger, 2010 will be the first time we've rolled out web sites of our own for services we've engineered and developed.

I think my own personal web knowledge has probably increased 10 fold this year, and I don't think 2010 is going to slow me down at all.  I love this industry and I love creating web sites and services to help folks out and make everyone prosperous.

I haven't updated this blog much recently because I've been so busy with completing projects and rolling out new web sites.  So to those of you who've e-mailed me, sorry about that, I promise to do better starting now!

I formed a lot of new relationships this year, gained a slew of new clients and best of all got engaged to my business partner Emily, who has been a critical component to our success since coming on board a couple years ago.  I look forward to our wedding in 2010, our new services and business relationships and friendships we've gained.

So, 2009, and 2000's, I say good riddens!  2010 here we come!  It's on in 2010.

Happy Webbing and a Happy New Year to you and yours!

Jason

So the BlackBerry systems are down, they've been down for hours.  I like many, thought it was just my BlackBerry until I talked to my fiance and low and behold hers was flaky too.  So I called Verizon, they told me that it was a "Research In Motion BlackBerry server issue, its been down this morning and they hope to resolve it soon, and there is no ETA". Comforting words, no ETA.  I've been in tech industry for a long time, and whenever no ETA is issued its for one of two reasons.  1.  You don't want to give false expectations and end up creating more problems or 2. You have no idea what the problem is, how you're going to fix and ulitmately how long your unknown fix will take.

One thing I have always found that helps ease customer's minds in a time of a tech crisis is to keep them informed through whatever channels you have and give them a ballpark of when it will actually be working again. 

BlackBerry servers went down last week, and since then e-mail has been lagging badly.  Research In Motion (the company behind the BlackBerry) has not even released a statement.  Now, don't get me wrong, I love my BlackBerry, and I think that its a great product.  The single point of failure with their whole setup is a bit concerning, but so far its functioned virtually flawlessly.   I'm not critiscizing Research in Motion for having a problem, its technology, its software, its bound to jack up at some point...but you gotta stay in touch.

Take a less from Ma' Belle, reach out and touch some one.

Happy Webbing---or sorta webbing if you are a BlackBerry user like me.

We will be closed on Thursday 11/26/2009 and Friday 11/27/2009 in observance of Thanksgiving.

Thank you.