Around The Business

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Tony’s Pizza. All opinions are 100% mine.

Every week my family and I gather for dinner and a movie. Whether we are about to watch the newest Disney movie or travel to the forgotten realm of movies geared towards dear old dad (not that ever really happens), we always gather to eat dinner around the TV and enjoy a family movie together.

Many of those nights dinner has been Tony’s Pizza. Ever since my high school years Tony’s pizzas have been a stable in my freezer. Working my way through high school and college at the local IGA on Canton Pike, I was always looking for a good pizza from the freezer section. Most, I found Tony’s as my pizza of choice.

Now that I am a father of two wonderful girls, and married to the most amazing bride for five years, I still seem to always find Tony’s pizza in my freezer. Really that’s what life is about when are you married with children (you just heard the theme song also didn’t you), finding those things you enjoyed in your life, and sharing them with your children. I hope my girls see how much I enjoyed sharing the small things, like Tony’s Pizza, with them and I hope they take those same small things and share them with my future grandchildren.

So next week, I hope you can join the Richards family for some Tony’s Pizza and a good movie.

I have been banned by Twitter. My account which I used to speak with many of my followers and readers has taken off the Twitter Stream. Here is the email I received from Twitter:

Now I am not one to break the rules. I understand that I may have followed more then my allowed at one time, but now I am being banned with this my only warning. That’s not far Twitter! I don’t spam people besides my blog, I don’t send out look at my cute friends links and I build and speak with my clients and friends on a daily basis.

Here is what I had to say to Twitter:

I will keep replying to them until I get a good solid answer to why I was singled out for doing what thousands online do everyday, follow people.

Most businesses today recognize the power of blogging and are using it to their advantage. Everyone from the bigger companies to much smaller businesses are taking advantage of the free advertising and wonderful increase to website traffic that can be gained from successful blogging. There are some mistakes that you should avoid if you are blogging for your business. Unfortunately, these mistakes have been learned the hard way, but you can learn to avoid these mistakes before they happen to you.

To read the rest of this article click HERE.

In case you’re a bit out of the loop, Facebook has been receiving pressure from outside sources after some Facebook Group Pages were created that spoke out against the Holocaust and denied it ever occurred.  There were two groups in question at the heart of this controversy, “Holocaust is a Holohoax” and “Based on the facts…there was no Holocaust,” and both were removed from Facebook today as it was determined that they were violating Facebook’s Terms of Service allowing messages that spread hate on their Walls.

To read the rest of this article click HERE.

WordPress is a relatively SEO friendly blogging tool to begin with. It offers a linking structure that makes it relatively easy for spiders to crawl your pages, and the code contains very little validation errors if any at all. However, there are a few additional steps that you can follow in order to make your WordPress blog even more SEO friendly, and most are so simple to implement that there is absolutely no reason not to.

To read the rest of this article click HERE.

Whether you are blogging for business applications, or for personal growth, the process of writing daily is a rewarding activity in many ways. The individual writer is able to benefit from the satisfaction that is gained from personal reflection. Blogs afford the writer the means to distribute information and ideas everywhere the internet can reach. For the business, blogs enable a conduit within which real time feedback and communication with customers can occur, as well as dissemination of information in order to bolster a company’s credibility with peers and customers.

To read the rest of this article click HERE.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Allison Maslan, author of “Blast Off!”. All opinions are 100% mine.

I have a question for all of my readers that I would like to post to you:

Are you where you want to be?

Are you where you want to be, doing what you want to be doing with your life? Are you attaining your goals? Is your life making you feel fulfilled?

Now, what kind of person would I be if I didn’t share with you what I felt about these questions, and my answer is “No”.

I have always dreamed of starting a business, living life on my terms and experiencing the day to day working world in whatever manner I see fit.

That is my dream (you don’t know how many times I just typed the word was), and for a long time I didn’t think I could attain it. At least I didn’t think so until I stumbled upon Allison Maslan and her new book, “Blast Off!”, in stores now for $24.00 and available on Amazon for even lower.

Blast Off! Is an amazing book that can teach you, (I think inspire is a better word) that whatever dream you have in your life, is completely in your grasp. Blast Off! Will provide you the required guidance  to structure your goals to make them easily obtainable. Allison will encourage you to reach for your goals, and also provide you with the skills along the way. Blast Off! will walk you through step by step strategies to elimate any roadblock that may be standing in your way.

Thank you Alison for making it easy to once again dream of starting my own business, and showing me in very through steps how to succeed at it.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Allison Maslan, author of “Blast Off!”. All opinions are 100% mine.

OK, it’s 2010 and we all know the most important information you own is no longer your birthdate or social security number, it is now your password. But is your password, the gate keeper to your business, personal and social life, as strong as it should be? The online company Imperva recently posted the top 10 most used passwords currently used online and ladies and gentlemen if you see your password, change it now.

• 123456
• 12345
• 123456789
• Password
• Iloveyou
• Princess
• Rockyou
• 1234567
• 12345678
• abc123

If you are having problems coming up with passwords that you feel are strong enough, check out GoodPassword.com to help you create a password strong enough to protect you.

Now that the business is online, what’s your Social Media Policy? Most businesses are not fully up to speed in the social media policy department. Take a second to think about these few questions:

1. What happens if an employee is spending company time on social media networks?
2. Does the employee need to identify him or herself as an employee on social media networks if they are talking about the company?
3. What happens if the employee is saying negative comments towards your business in these social media networks?

As a business you cannot limit the amount tweets updates and post your employees are posted per day. You also shouldn’t try to limit it. Give your employees the freedom to talk about your customers and what they are doing online. This action kills two birds with one stone. Your employee establishes a great relationship with your client, and also shows outside readers the mindset of your business. You need to spend some time as a business owner and establish some effective social media policies.

Establishing effective policies does not include a long list of do’s and don’ts. You as the employer have to establish a very clear idea of what the company would like to avoid online, and what activities would be encouraged by your company.

As you write your social media policies remember, your business comes first. Second the freedom that social media provides your employees comes second.

Here is a list of the Top 10 Social Media Resources online today. How many are you on?

1. Facebook.com
2. YouTube.com
3. Myspace.com
4. Twitter.com
5. Flickr.com
6. Photobucket.com
7. Linkedin.com
8. Digg.com
9. Ning.com
10. Yelp.com