Put Your PDA To Use: Six Tech Tools For A Healthier You
Forget going to the weight room or penciling calories into a food journal.
Tons of new technologies have been designed to help you get fit fast and conveniently. Check out these tech-savvy tools to aid in physical fitness.
Wi-Fi Scale
The advanced Withings scale, which measures weight and body fat, automatically sends your daily statistics to your phone or computer. You can then monitor your weight over time, catch patterns and set goals. The scale allows multiple users, so the whole family can lose weight together.
It might look like a run-of-the-mill bathroom scale, but the Withings scale is WiFi-enabled to track your weight directly on your computer.
Tweet What You Eat
While there are many food journal sites out there, Tweet What You Eat should particularly please the health-minded nerd in all of us.
The system syncs with your Twitter account so that you can send it messages throughout the day about your eating habits.
It also lets you log your weight and tallies daily caloric totals. SMSenabled Twitter lets you record your weight via text message, so you can keep up with your journal from anywhere - at a restaurant, on the street or in your kitchen.
While your food log can be kept private, many users find the public atmosphere of Twitter particularly motivating.
Body Bugg
Finally - a device that calculates exactly how many calories you burn in a day. Worn on an arm band 24/7, it provides accurate and detailed information about caloric expenditure and heart rate.
While it will track calories burned during exercise, the device is especially useful for learning how much daily activities - like house cleaning or playing with your kids – actually burn calories.
Any dieter knows that weight loss is a matter of calories in and calories out. The Body Bugg has calories out covered.
Wii Fit
While you might not have played a video game since you were a kid, Wii Fit is designed for users of all ages and health levels. The console guides you through all fitness needs, from cardio to strength training to yoga.
It even lets you chart your progress by calculating activity levels and body mass index. Cheaper than a gym subscription and certainly more fun, a Wii Fit in your living room leaves no excuse not to exercise.
Mobile Apps
There are hundreds of apps out there to help you reach your fitness goals.
Some of our favorites include Lose It!, which helps you track your daily calories and exercise; Fitness, a comprehensive database of exercise tips and videos; and iTreadmill, which turns your iPhone into a pedometer. Since you already carry mobile devices everywhere, apps might be the most convenient way to get healthy.
Social Networking Boosts Your Business!
 Ryan Seymour is a PC hardware specialist and the Tech Experts client service coordinator. |
You can’t turn on the television, read a newspaper, or even browse online without hearing about the business benefi ts of “social networking.” What is social networking, and how can it help build your business?
Loosely defined, social networking is nothing more than a group of people who share a common interest getting together online. It gives you the opportunity to create a virtual meeting place where your clients, prospects, vendors and even employees can talk about things going on in your company, ask questions, promote products or sales, and announce special events.
Social networking eliminates time zone differences, a huge factor for many. People from all over the state, country, and even world can connect and communicate easily in real time, opening many doors that geographical boundaries once closed. In a nutshell: Social networking helps you stay in touch!
There are a myriad of social networking sites on the Internet, and each is geared toward a slightly different demographic or type of user. More than likely, you’ll want to participate in a couple different sites to stay in touch with the most number of people.
The most used sites for business networking include Facebook, LinkedIn.com, and Twitter. Don’t discount the value of participating in online forums and writing your own blog.
Facebook
Facebook (www.facebook.com) has become one of the most popular online relationship building sites. It’s a central point for a lot of different things, like posting status updates (what are you up to right now?), photo albums, and even videos. You can also keep up with what everyone else that you’re “friends” with on the site is doing – and in this case, friends can mean true friends, or business acquaintances.
When you log into Facebook, you’ll see all of your friend’s latest updates about what they’re up to – and when they log in, they’ll see yours, mixed in with other friends they have. Some people post every small detail of what’s going on in their lives, and others post infrequently or only when they have something truly important to say. Neither approach is right or wrong – what you decide to post is more of a personal preference.
LinkedIn.com
LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) is probably the largest online business networking site. You can post your resume, join special interest groups, search for people you want to meet, and request introductions from your friends to other people you want to meet. That may be the most interesting thing about LinkedIn - think of it as an online “six degrees of separation.” Your LinkedIn network extends from your friends, out to friends they know, out several levels.
Twitter
Twitter (www.twitter.com) is a very popular new online meeting place. Twitter is what’s known as a “microblogging” site, because posts or updates you make are limited to 140 characters at a time. These entries are known as “tweets.”
Ping (www.ping.fm) lets you tie it all together. Ping is a service that will take your update and post it to all of your social networking accounts at one time.
Forums and blogs
Online forums are a great way to meet people who are interested in similar topics, and there are literally thousands of active forums online. It’s easy to participate, and you’ll fi nd a lot of forums are incredibly active. To boost your online exposure, which boosts your company’s profi le, look for forums that focus on topics your clients care about. Then, post answers to other people’s questions. You’ll quickly demonstrate your expertise.
It is easy to say that everyone (and every company) should have a blog, but the reality is, in order to be successful, you’ll need to blog regularly. You have to enjoy writing and be willing to commit to posting on a very regular schedule, or risk losing readers.
By becoming part of a social networking site, you’re not only opening your business to all World Wide Web users, you’re actually making your business more accessible to the public to be available to purchase your products and services. Connecting with other businesses also gives us the ability to share common ideas and practices in groups who share common ideas and business goals.
Should Your Small Business Have A Blog?
 Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company. |
By now, everyone is familiar with socal networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Businesses and business owners are flocking to these sites to promote their companies and their brands. And with socal networking all the rage, blogging has become the forgotten stepchild of web marketing for small business. But this doesn’t make sense.
Blogging can be one of the most effective marketing tools for the small business owner because it’s easy to start, it’s easy to maintain, and it’s easy to leverage in enhancing your marketing mix. Here are some reasons why you should consider a blog for your company.
Improve Search Engine Rankings
Google, Yahoo and Bing LOVE blogs. They’re indexed almost overnight, and usually rank high in the search engine results. This helps you drive more qualified traffic to your website.
Engage with Prospective Customers
Blogging presents a unique opportunity to engage in dialog with your prospective customers on a continual basis. Anytime a new prospect visits your blog, you immediately leverage the vast arsenal of posts, comments and writing to help sell your products or services.
Dig Deeper
The pace of business is fast. Blogging is an opportunity to dig into a particular subject a little deeper without slowing down. You can write an extended blog post, or you can break up your thoughts into a dozen posts related to a particular topic.
Improve Your Writing Skills
One of the biggest benefits to blogging is the opportunity to improve your writing skills. Ideally, you’re going to post several times a week - frequent writing and editing means your writing skills will improve - which helps the rest of your marketing efforts, too.
Be Unique
Let’s face it - most business marketing materials like company brochures are incredibly boring. Blogging lets you put a little personality into your marketing. Customers and prospects get to see the real you, and your uniqueness could be the difference between you winning the business, and your competitor winning.
Listen and Learn
Read all the blog comments and email you receive, and read the comments on other blogs about your writings. Learn what your customers and prospects are thinking.
Test Ideas
Innovation is the engine that drives business growth. A blog is an excellent platform to test thoughts and ideas in a risk-free environment.
Become An Expert
Prove your expertise to new prospective customers with your knowledge and insights.
Supplement Your Other Marketing
Support your other marketing investments by leveraging your blog for promotion, marketing and feedback.
Get Subscribers
Many readers who like what you write will subscribe to your blog, providing you with a direct, ongoing communications channel with your target audience.
Uncover New Opportunities
The more you blog, the more opportunities will present themselves to you. You’ll gain a reputation as an expert in your field, which means clients and prospects are already sold on your ability to deliver results.
Tech Experts maintains two blog sites for our clients. The first, www.ExpertsGuys.com, is a blog written and maintained by our technical staff. It offers interesting ideas and timely technical advice based on our daily service work.
My blog at www.ExpertTechTips.com offers some of my insights on small business computing with an eye toward growing your company.
We offer a blog hosting package, that will work alongside your existing website. For example, if your website was at www.MyTechExperts.com, we could set up a blog site for you at blog.MyTechExperts.com (or at any domain name you’d like).
If you’re interested in learning more about blogging, or would like to set up a blog site for your business, please give us a call at (734) 457-5000.
What Should You Blog About?
What is going on in your industry right now? Look for interviews given by industry leaders, tips, opinion pieces, research, news, and posts from other bloggers. Find out who are the main bloggers in your field, and then determine what new or alternative context you can provide.
These all can give you ideas for your posts. While you might not be unconvering big news, you should concentrate on generating thought leadership by stating your own view of that’s going on in your industry.
Be Alert: Actively monitor your industry with Google Alerts, Technorati, and Blogpulse.
Get a Nose for News: Keep on top of big issues with news aggregators like Google News, Techmeme, and Topix.
Then, go beyond the news and try to describe your own experiences, interests, expertise, case studies, etc. Personal stories can often resonate with your readers.