You would literally have to live under a rock not to notice the impact that social media is having on the world. It’s a marketing revolution out there!  Twitter, for some, is used mainly for entertainment. This is clear, as top “tweets” of the day are typically witty and make readers crack a smile.  For example, “Did you ever realize that lol also looks like a small man drowning?” was one that I read and chuckled at today. But for many, Twitter also can be used for business. In fact, for many who know how to use it correctly, Twitter can be a very powerful sales and marketing vehicle.

If you’re using Twitter for business, your level of know-how and commitment may be high, or low — and there are a lot of you who fall somewhere in the middle. And people like you are most likely desperately searching for efficient ways to find the RIGHT people to follow on twitter.  You’re in luck because I recently read a great article on just that:  How To Find The Right People To Follow On Twitter

Not even quite at the finding-the-right-people level yet?

If you don’t really know how to use Twitter to benefit your business but really want to learn more about it, then you’re in luck. Twitter recently released their “Twitter 101 for Business Special” for people just like you. Click here to read up on it and learn more.

SS

Share on Facebook

Here at Everon, we use Google Docs a lot. It’s an excellent tool for small businesses. By providing an easy way for team members in different locations to collaborate on documents, it has become a dominant force in the world of small business productivity.

But Google’s not resting on its laurels.

This week, they rolled out a new interface for Google Docs, which promises to allow even more small businesses to do away with Microsoft Office and go straight to the web for team collaboration. As Fast Company points out, it’s faster, allows inline comments, and lets you collaborate in real-time with other team members thanks to its live-editing functionality.

But our favorite part is the new Drawing feature. With it, you can finally ditch your whiteboard and collaborate in real-time on the web.

To access Drawing from Google Docs, just click on “Create New” and choose “Drawing” as the document type. It’s as simple as that. You now have access to a powerful tool that will allow you to create images and flow charts, similar to Visio.

(Image Courtesy of Shaun Ahern, our resident Picasso)

Oh yeah. We’re going to get a lot of use out of this one.

You may not be able to ditch your desktop productivity software just yet, but the new Google Docs Drawing feature takes that idea one step closer to reality.

For more info on all the new Google Docs features, check out the Google Blog here.

Share on Facebook

The Great Game of Business philosophy is a powerful tool for any business.  From Jack Stack’s original book, to business building workbooks, conferences, webinars, and more — Stack’s overall philosophy of concepts, approaches, and strategies have been extremely influential in how we run our business here at Everon.

Each year, The Great Game of Business sponsors many events that are geared to help attendees improve business results, and drive those results. Everon Technology Services fully endorses these events, and encourages you to look into attending some in the future. The 18th Annual Gathering of Games Conference is being held in St. Louis, MO from May  5 – 10, and promises to be a powerful event.

For more information on any of these – or any other Great Game of Business Events – please contact Amanda Kuda at The Great Game of Business by phone or email at akuda@ggob.com or 417.829.8275.

Share on Facebook

If you regularly surf the web, you’ve likely stumbled onto Get Satisfaction by now. Marker by the little ‘Feedback’ tags that show up on the sides of pages across the internet, Get Satisfaction is a customer feedback engine that allows companies to hear concerns directly from their customers.

And let’s be clear: it’s not just limited to internet companies. Anyone can sign up for a page and begin taking suggestions online. You don’t even have to be affiliated with the company to create or manage a Get Satisfaction page (although it obviously helps) – company devotees can easily create pages for their favorite brands and try to build awareness of customer concerns.

In short, for any business that actively focuses on customer service, it’s a great tool that’s worth checking out.

And now Get Satisfaction has taken it to the next level. Got a Facebook fan page? You can now turn it into a fully-featured customer support engine, thanks to the newly-released Get Satisfaction Facebook Social Engagement Hub. This plug-in allows your company Facebook page to seamlessly integrate with Get Satisfaction’s main site.

How does it work? Here’s a key example: if someone posts a question, it will automatically search GetSatisfaction.com and discover whether it already exists, then either display the appropriate response or create a new question on your Get Satisfaction page. (There are other features, too, but adding this functionality to Facebook is obviously the biggest story here).

ReadWriteWeb lists a number of other advantages to the service in their review – most notably, the fact that Facebook users tend to be very active on Fan pages. As a result, this service gives you more ways to interact with and get feedback from your strongest supporters. Not to mention the fact that it allows you to leverage some of your Facebook content from outside of Facebook’s ‘walled garden.’

We think Get Satisfaction is an excellent service – one that’s only enhanced by this new offering. It’s definitely worth a closer look for any small business in search of a more direct link to customer feedback.

Kipp

Share on Facebook

Google plans to deliver 1 Gigabit connections to 50,000 homes

Google recently announced their plans to begin building and testing an ultra high-speed broadband network in the US. Google will start by rolling this out in a small number of locations, and then expand on from there to hopefully around 500,000 locations. Google’s goal: offering fiber-to-the home connections that will reach 1 gigabit per second.

Googles states that at this point, this is being considered an experiment; they haven’t even decided where to build the network yet. Want the network to reach your house? You can nominate your neighborhood for consideration here. Be sure to get your nomination in by March 26 deadline.

If this connection takes off, what will that mean for us…and our wallets?

Google plans to offer these connections at comparable, competitive prices. Google firmly believes that this effort will help to make the internet more accessible and more fast for everyone. The US has been lagging behind other parts of the words in regards to broadband speed and adoption. Time will tell if Google  can help us bridge that gap.

For more information on Google’s experimental fiber network, please access the following YouTube video

Stephanie Spino
Marketing Manager, Everon

Share on Facebook