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Five Ways to Manage Your Company’s Social Media And Online Reputation

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

Your company’s online reputation is one of your most valuable assets. A good reputation instills confidence in clients and prospects, and gives you the upper hand when competing for business.

In large part, social media has taken the control of a company’s brand and placed it in the hands of the consumer. It doesn’t matter how you define your brand, it all comes down to what your audience says.

One negative comment on a social networking site can spread like wildfire. To help prevent that, here are five tips on managing your company’s social media and online reputation.

Set up e-mail alerts
An e-mail alert will send you links to any new web activity around a keyword or search phrase. Use variations of your company’s name and the names of key employees. While alerts won’t show you everything on the web about your company, it provides an excellent daily snapshot.

Keep an eye on industry forums
Discussion forums are a combination of blogging and social networking. If there are forum sites for companies in your industry, they bear close monitoring. They are a breeding ground for oftentimes anonymous and unfounded consumer complaints.

Consumers will often turn to a forum when they have troubleshooting questions about a product. They are looking to their peers for the solution to their problem.

By becoming an active member of the popular forums in your industry, you’ll be able to directly respond to customer questions or complaints, building a stronger reputation and customer service program in the process.

Social media silence = death
If you find your company on the defense, make sure you respond quickly and efficiently. Companies no longer have the luxury of waiting a week, a day, or even a few hours to issue a press release to tell their side of the story.

When bad news breaks, respond quickly. Social media is all about instant connections, so clients have little patience for a company that takes their time responding to a bad situation.

Build strong relationships with industry leaders
Almost every industry has a blog (or blogs) dedicated to it. Popular and well respected bloggers have quite a bit of power when it comes to a business’s online reputation. A popular blog reaches thousands of people a day, so what they say has a far-reaching effect. Having a popular blog author on your side means you have their unspoken endorsement.

It also means that you have a strong support network if someone starts attacking your company online. Having a community of industry leaders on your side is a great way to defend your company’s online reputation.

Keep communication lines open
One of the easiest ways to hurt your online reputation is to shut yourself off from clients and prospects. If you don’t allow them to communicate with you (for better AND for worse), you are removing yourself from the conversation.

Encourage your customers to write online reviews about your company. Thank the ones who write a good review, and definitely reach out to the ones who weren’t as positive.

Customers are the lifeblood of any business, and communicating with them quickly and honestly will build a strong and positive online reputation.

The best way to manage your online reputation? Be proactive. Invest the time to build a solid social media reputation and before you need to defend your company from attacks or criticism.

Microsoft Office 365: Work Anywhere, Anytime?

Microsoft is coming out with a new product called “Microsoft Office 365.”

This product is being pushed more for the business market and not towards home users as much as their popular “Microsoft Office Suite.”

Microsoft Office 365 is a subscription based web application that essentially gives you your copy of Microsoft Office anywhere you are and at any time, using Internet Explorer and a web connection.

This software is powered by Microsoft’s already popular “SharePoint” collaboration application.

Office 365 doesn’t give you access to all of the applications available in the traditional Office suite – for instance, Outlook isn’t included in the package – yet.

Microsoft Office 365 includes Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft OneNote, and something Microsoft is calling Microsoft Outlook integration.

Outlook integration links a local copy of Outlook that is installed on your PC to the Office 365 suite in the cloud.

One of the best features in Office 365 is the ability to share files and documents on the go through a web interface that acts like a centralized server for your company.

This connection is 100% secure with encrypted data transfers and is password protected allowing only those who know the password to access to your company’s data and files.

This gives you access to the documents that you were working on in the office while you are on the road. And, anyone else in your organization that needs access to your files can use them anytime, anywhere.

Another advantage of using a web based application like this one is that, since it is a web hosted application, you don’t need to install any software.

You can access your documents from any computer with and Internet connection using just your password. The ability to store and work on your documents anywhere doesn’t come without some caveats.

Although Microsoft guarantees 99.9 percent uptime, most Internet service providers don’t. If your entire organization was deployed on the Office 365 platform and your company’s Internet connection went down, you could very well experience a bout of low productivity until everything came back online.

Office 365 and other cloud services are undoubtedly the wave of the future.

If you’d like to explore some cloud solutions for your organization, please give the office a call at 734- 457-5000.

 

Google Makes “Plus One” Available Web-Wide

If you’ve seen those “+1” widgets are at the bottom of a lot of websites, articles, and links, then you’re in tune with Google’s latest social networking push.

Think of the “Plus One” as being similar to Facebook’s “Like” button or a thumbs-up icon. It’s a way to indicate that you find a page helpful or useful.

Clicking on the +1 does more than just increment a counter. Clicking a +1 widget requires that you have a Google account. The first and most visible thing that a +1 does is add the page to your Google profile.

Your profile page can be public or private, serving as a personal list of pages that you found valuable.

You’ll start seeing +1 icons appearing in US search results, too. If you see the icon underneath a search result, that’s an indication that a friend (or friends) have found that link useful. Your Google “friends” are contacts you’ve stored in your Google Account.

As time goes on, search results will become more useful as you can see which links and options are recommended by your friends, and might be useful.

Staying Safe: How To Back Up Your Outlook Email Data

Your Outlook data file, also called a PST file, contains all of the data that is created and received in Outlook such as emails, contacts, notes, your to-do list, calendars and other Outlook data.

If you rely on email for your day to day work, keeping your Outlook data backed up frequently could save you hours of frustration and potentially lost data.

Over time, your email data file grows and shrinks as you receive and delete email. While not extremely common, the data file is prone to corruption – which is the most common way Outlook users can lose data.

To prevent corruption and possible data loss, always keep in mind:

Close Outlook properly – shutting down your email without going through the “File, exit” dialogue can cause file corruption.

Watch your file size – A PST file that exceeds 3gb can be problematic. Although Microsoft says newer versions of Outlook (2003 and newer) will support PST files up to 20gb, in our experience, Outlook operates best if you keep the file below 3gb.

To manually back up your Outlook data file in Windows Vista and Windows 7, follow the steps below.

1. Open “My Computer” and browse to your C:/drive.

2. Click on tools. Once the drop down menu is displayed, choose Folder Options. If the tools menu is hidden press alt on your keyboard to display it.

3. In Folder Options, click on the view tab.

4. In the middle of the window there will be a list. Under Hidden Files and Folders, check show hidden files and click ok.

5. On your C:/drive browse to the users folder, and select the user account you are using.

6. Select App Data, then Local.

7. Scroll down to the Microsoft Folder and open.

8. Select your Outlook data file. It is usually named Outlook.pst. Right click the file and select copy.

9. Open the destination of your choice, such a flash drive, or a different folder on your hard drive.

10. Right click and select paste.

11. You have successfully created a backup of your Outlook Data File.

To manually back up your Outlook data file in Windows 2000/Windows XP follow the directions listed below.

1. Open Computer and browse to your C:/drive.

2. Click on tools once the drop down menu is displayed click Folder Options.

3. In Folder Options click on the view tab.

4. In the middle of the window there will be a list.

5. Under Hidden Files and Folders check show hidden files, click ok.

6. On your C:/drive browse to Documents and Settings and select the user account that you use.

7. Select Local Settings then Application Data, and then scroll down to the Microsoft folder and open it.

8. Select your Outlook data file. It is usually named Outlook.pst. Right click the file and select copy.

9. Open the destination of your choice, such a flash drive, or a different folder on your hard drive. Then, right click and paste.

We recommend backing up your Outlook PST file at least once a week for normal users, and if you’re an email power user, daily backups make sense.

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.

Tech Experts Launches New Website, Support Portal

We’re excited to announce our new website, which has been under development for several months. The new site is much more intuitive and easier to navigate.

Links to our most-used features – connecting to Remote Support and our Tech Experts Support Portal – are now at the top of the page. You’ll also find links to our social media sites such as FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

We’re in the process of consolidating all of our technical support resources, such as email setup guides, web hosting control panel instructions, and support ticket creation and review functions into one easy to use support portal: http://www.MyTechExperts.com.

Your feedback is very important to us! If you have the opportunity to review the site, please let us know your thoughts by sending an email to info@MyTechExperts.com.

It’s Severe Weather Season… Do You Have A Disaster Plan?

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

Perhaps it’s just me, but this spring has been one of the worst I can remember in terms of severe weather. The flooding and tornadoes we’re seeing around the country should serve as a wake-up call for small business owners to review their business continuity plan.

A disaster recovery plan prepares a business to deal with disaster scenarios such as fi res or tornadoes that disrupt the business’s operations.

Although larger companies create such plans as a standard operating procedure, small businesses tend not to do this type of planning.

In fact, according to Symantec’s 2011 SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey, only 50% of small businesses have a plan in place for a disaster or data loss.

Your disaster plan serves two purposes. First, the plan should limit the financial impact a manmade or natural disaster has on your company.

Second, the plan should establish the steps you will take to begin operating again quickly following a disaster. Developing the plan and making employees aware of it helps protect your business and mitigate risk.

Plans should name specific employees that will play key roles in the event of a disaster, and identify critical assignments that each employee must complete in a disaster scenario.

Finally, the plan should focus on keeping your company’s irreplaceable data safe. That data includes customer information, email correspondence, sales information and accounting and financial records.

Most businesses our size don’t have the resources to implement redundant office locations, but the plan should include a strategy operating at an alternate location.

The resources needed to resume operations within 24 hours of a disaster may differ from those needed to resume operations within three to four days. The plan should call for the minimum set of resources possible to meet the established targets.

We’ve put together in a free report that will help guide you through the planning process – from assessing the risks to setting up in a new location. The report is free – simply call the office at (734) 457-5000, or email info@MyTechExperts.com for your copy.

Five Microsoft Office Add-ins Help Improve Productivity

If your company does any type of word processing, data spreadsheets, or even use email then you probably know the benefits of having Microsoft Office.

Did you know that you can enhance your experience by using third party add-ins? An add-in is a mini program which runs in conjunction with a web browser or other application that enhances the functionality of that program.

Here is a list of add-ins for the Microsoft Office Suite. Keep reading to learn about some of the add-ins available to make your everyday tasks easier!

Duplicates Remover for Microsoft Outlook
Duplicates Remover is a powerful and flexible plug-in for Microsoft Outlook intended for the search and deletion of duplicated items in Microsoft Outlook folders.

Duplicates Remover can search in single folders as well as different folders for any duplicates. Duplicated items can then be set to automatically be copied or moved to another folder of your choice, marked with a flag letting you know that item already exists somewhere in another folder, or simply deleted.

Microsoft Mathematics Add-In for Word and OneNote
Microsoft Mathematics Add-in for Word and OneNote makes it easy to plot graphs in 2D and 3D, calculate numerical results, solve equations or inequalities, and simplify algebraic expressions in your Word documents and OneNote notebooks.

Microsoft Mathematics Add-in can add a little extra help when planning your budget for next year, or simply create great visuals using its graphing feature.

SendLater for Microsoft Outlook
SendLater is an easy-to-use and convenient email scheduler with a recurring email option. It allows you to schedule automatic email, follow up and handle your email correspondence in a timely manner even if you are away from your computer.

It also allows you to send a delayed group message as a single email to all recipients or use the “Send personally” feature to conceal any information about other recipients of the same group message.

In this case the recipient will only see his/her name and address in the To, CC or BCC fields, as if the message has been sent to the recipient personally.

Ultimate Add-in for Microsoft Excel
The ultimate Add-in for Microsoft Excel includes a general collection of over 90 different utilities and more than 30 custom written functions to help make life with Excel a little easier. Ultimate Add-in will allow you to customize the menu to bring all of the menu settings in one place to easily show/hide the items you want.

Ultimate Add-in can also optimize your workbooks, rebuilding the whole data spreadsheets and saving the components to a series of files and reloading them into a blank sheet. Serious file space can be saved by using this utility.

Attachments Forget Reminder for Microsoft Outlook
Attachments Forget Reminder is a powerful Microsoft Office Outlook Add-In. It scans each outgoing email and if it finds any of the specified key phrases (e.g., “see attachment” or “in the attached file”).

If no file is attached to the message, the program will give out a notification. It then asks you if you meant to attach a fi le before sending the email, giving you a chance to insert the attachment. The add-in works with Plain Text, RTF, or HTML based email formats.

There is many more add-ins that you can install to improve functionality within the Office suite programs, these are just some of the few I like.

Go ahead and search online for yourself and see if you can find some good add-ins that makes your job simpler!

Windows Updates… What, When, Why?

Windows Update can be confusing. Microsoft throws a lot of stuff at you, often with little information.

And somehow you have to figure out what you really need, what you might like and what Microsoft wants you to have for their own purposes.

It doesn’t help that most of the updates have totally useless names. Without looking it up, can you tell me why you may or may not need Windows Vista (KB950124)? I can’t, either.

Unfortunately, if you don’t keep up with the patches and security fixes for your version of windows, you run the risk of not only being more vulnerable to a malware attack.

Hackers are always looking for security holes in operating systems and application software to gain access to your computer.

There are many types of updates that can be available for your server or workstation and in most – but not all – cases you will want to install them.

A lot of updates come from Microsoft. Another source is hardware providers that may have made some of the hardware in your computer (like video cards, sound cards, network interface cards, Etc.)

Updates can come from other software that you install to do your work or make your computer run better (like Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash).

The updates that come from Microsoft generally offer more features to a product installed on your computer such as Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, or even Windows itself.

Windows Update also delivers very important patches that correct issues with the operating system and could potentially allow hackers access to your fi les or anything accessible on your computer.

This can include devices that are connected to your computer such as your router, printers, external hard drives, network attached storage, etc. This can be a serious security risk if your computer is on a network domain.

Gaining access to a user’s computer that has administrative rights to various aspects of the network or server would allow hackers to do much more damage than on a PC you use at home.

In a business setting it is an absolute necessity that you keep your server/workstations up to date with all security patches that are appropriate to your environment.

Just as it is very important to keep your operating system up to date, it is also very important that you keep your programs up to date.

One of the most abused programs in regards to gaining access to users’ computers is Adobe Flash and Reader.

These programs are patched regularly to prevent attacks. Since Flash is used on many websites, and Reader is used for many business documents, you almost certainly have them on your computer.

Recently, Adobe announced a vulnerability discovered within its Flash software that allowed hackers to connect remotely to your computer and use Flash to control every aspect of your computer.

This has since been patched (as long as you updated your Flash player), but it just goes to show how easily your computer can be compromised if you do not keep it up to date.

There are times that you may not want to update your software. One example, and there are many, might be your video card drivers.

You may not want to install this update unless you have a specific need.

Sometimes, updates of these type can cause hardware to malfunction and there are times where the update is designed to fix a specific problem. If you don’t have the problem the update fixes, you probably wouldn’t install that update.

If you have any questions, feel free to call a tech today at 734-457-5000.

Feature article By Tech Experts Staff for Tech Experts

 

Twitter 101: A Beginner’s Guide To Tweeting Responsibly

Thanks to Charlie Sheen, everyone is talking about Twitter. Whether you love him or hate him, you have to admire his uncanny social networking skills and ability to generate some buzz.

In a nutshell, Twitter is a social media oriented microblogging site. A typical Twitter update – known as a “tweet” – might provide a quick update on what you’re doing or request help with a problem. All in 140 characters or less.

That’s “micro-blogging.” You can send updates from your PC, a cell phone, PDAs, tablets. How can Twitter be useful and how to sign up?

Twitter for fun and family
To use Twitter in your personal life…Keep your friends and family updated on your life when you don’t have the time or inclination to call or e-mail. You might tweet, “We arrived home safely from our trip” or “the car’s running again. It was just a fuse.”

Real life tweet: A passenger on a plane that skidded off a Denver runway last winter used his cell phone to tweet about the event moments after it occurred.

His friends never had to worry about his safety, because they got his tweet and learned that he was unharmed before the incident was reported in the media.

Arrange social activities, even at the last minute. Rather than place dozens of calls to find someone who is free, send out a single tweet. This tweet might read, “I’m going fishing. Anyone want to join me?”

Real life tweet: Basketball Star Shaquille O’Neal used Twitter to inform his friends and fans that he was sitting down to dinner alone in Phoenix. A pair of local basketball fans drove to the diner and hung out with him.

Solicit opinions, advice or assistance on short notice. You could tweet, “Can anyone suggest a good place for dinner in Albany?” or “My car broke down in Portland. Can anyone recommend a good mechanic?”

Twitter for business
To use Twitter in your professional life… Keep colleagues and clients up-to-date about schedules and plans. You could tweet, “Any customer expecting a service call today will receive one by 5:00 p.m. despite the snow” or “My flight was delayed. Can someone stand in for me at this afternoon’s meeting?”

Search for tweets about your company, industry, or products written by other Twitter users, and then provide fast feedback.

A plumber might offer responses to plumbing-related questions to build goodwill with customers. A manufacturer might respond to a complaint about a product with troubleshooting tips, turning negative buzz about the company’s customer service.

For example, cable company Comcast has a customer service employee monitor Twitter for mentions of Comcast and respond quickly.

The website TweetBeep (http://tweetbeep.com) and Twitter’s own search page (http://search.twitter.com) can help find relevant tweets.

Show clients and potential clients the person behind the business. Customers are more likely to trust you if they believe that they know you and like you as a person.

To build this human connection, tweet about your hobbies, your charitable work, or your company’s softball game, in addition to your business and products.

How to sign up
Twitter is easy to use. Visit www.twitter.com, click “Get Started-Join!” and follow the simple directions. E-mail a link to your twitter web page to keep friends, family, colleagues and clients posted on your life or business.

You can find people to follow by clicking on “Find people” from your Twitter home page.

Warning: Click “setting” then check the box by “Protect my updates” on your Twitter account page if you want to maintain control over who reads your tweets.

Leave this unchecked only if you do not expect to share sensitive information and would like to reach strangers as well as friends.

Always be careful. If you are going to be out of town for a few weeks, you may not want to tweet about that everyone can read your posts.

You can also choose to receive tweets from individuals on your cell phone. Though Twitter is free, your service provider may charge you when you send or receive messages from your phone depending on your plan.