Theodore Lyons
July 2009

Social media has become the yellow pages, the word of mouth and the Better Business Bureau of today. And without harnessing it properly and early on, a company’s image could get a bad reputation before it even has a chance to create one.

Social media is changing the way we view our world at blinding speed. Only a few years ago, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter, sites that are used daily by millions of people in thousands of cities world-wide, didn’t even exist. Now these sites have become a mainstay of many individuals. People use LinkedIn to network with employers. MySpace and Facebook have cut in to people’s available time at home and at work, acting as a community for friends and relatives. These two sites combined can account for close to two billion hits a month. It is staggering the amount of users and visitors these sites get each day. 

Along with the throngs of children and adults spending countless hours on their social media web sites, companies have now jumped into the fray. Having a presence on the social sites allows companies to get a foot in the door of the next possible marketing explosion. 

Today people are using these social media sites to exchange emails, chat, share pictures, view videos and now even provide feedback. Anyone can get on Facebook and join a cause that they feel deserves their support and attention. With LinkedIn, employees and potential employees can connect and share their feelings and perceptions of employers. On MySpace artists, such as Colbie Caillat, are getting discovered by record companies and making it big in the music business, getting record contracts and international attention.

 You can search YouTube for just about any product and find a rant or rave about it. Companies are watching these as well, and why shouldn’t they be. A business can get an almost instant view of what their current and potential customers think of their latest products. A simple viral post (a blog, or video post that suddenly get passed along to millions of people within days or even hours because of instant popularity on the web) can get your product into the eyes of millions of potential customers, and usually at a fraction of the cost. It took a while but Menots and Coca-Cola finally capitalized on the popularity of the explosive YouTube videos including their two products by holding a video contest at Coke.com.

Microblogging services Twitter and Yammer have turned social networking into customer service channels. CRM vendors such as SAP and Salesforce.com are investing in and integrating with networking platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. The business world clearly wants to get social. Though the question remains, do companies know how? (McKay 2009) With this much access to individuals out on the web, companies can now form a powerful strategy to gain attention from top talent, and receive notability as a possible great place of employment or provider of service.

Social networking is gaining momentum as a direct connection between business and its’ customers and employees. Social media sites are fast becoming a mainstay in the corporate industry.  For gaining exposure to larger audiences, look to Facebook: “Consider establishing or joining a network on Facebook based on your business or industry category to tap into people’s affinity for the topic. By doing this, you’ll cut through the clutter and clearly establish your niche, keeping the interaction focused on the specific subject matter.” (Klein 2008)

There is an obvious negative side effect of a viral post as well. If one or many customers dislike something or see it as possibly harmful, a viral post can literally eliminate the credibility of a company. Vincent Ferrari, a blogger who posted an audio recording of his encounter with an AOL customer service representative, proved just this. The representative’s persistent attempts to convince Ferrari not to cancel his account offended listeners’ sensibilities to the extent that approximately 300,000 of them requested to download the audio file. The story went ‘‘viral’’ as it was picked up by thousands of other bloggers and websites. It eventually drew the attention of such mainstream media as The New York Post, The New York Times, and NBC. It can be presumed that AOL’s management was embarrassed, to say the least. (W. Glynn Mangolda, and David J. Faulds, July-August 2009)  

Motrin—Johnson & Johnson’s well-known brand of over-the-counter pain reliever—had offended mothers with a marketing campaign centered  around moms who “wear their babies”—a tongue-in-cheek campaign aimed at neck or back pain “inflicted” by baby-carrying devices. Immediately after the campaign launched, in mid-November 2008, the brand took a beating. Motrin was accused of spreading derogatory messages and, a crime many marketers might deem far worse, not understanding its target audience. Moms (and their readers) twittered and blogged their frustrations. “A baby will never be a fashion statement,” read one angry tweet. Perhaps even more on the minds of moms was the lack of immediate response from Motrin. In the time the company took to respond, hundreds of moms had voiced opinions on the topic, thousands had commented, and millions had seen the newest campaign now framed in an unseemly light. (McKay June 2009) This forced the company to go in to “damage control” mode. Since they did not get on top of the issue from the start it took on a life of its own. These mothers banded together, slowly gaining speed and popularity and whittling away the brand image of Motrin.

Businesses are also using sites like Twitter and LinkedIn to find potential employees. Just like other social media networking sites, potential job seekers can check up on potential employers in just the same way. Recent posts about how an employee was terminated because of what she had posted on her public blog site enraged the social media hungry Internet blogosphere. One of the earliest cases to bring national attention to this issue was filed in 2005, when a Delta Air Lines employee sued after she was fired. She alleged discrimination after she’d posted racy pictures of herself on her “Diary of a Flight Attendant” blog. (The case, mired in the Delta bankruptcy, has not yet been resolved.) (Stafford 2009)

There were two major results of this viral blog post. First the blogger became instantly famous inside the Internet community. Her blog started receiving national attention and extremely large amounts of traffic. If harnessed well this could lead to thousands of dollars of potential advertising dollars from ads posted directly on her site, visible to every visitor. Thousands of potential customers seeing a specific product advertised by the hosting site that her blog was signed up with. Secondly was the bad publicity that the airline received. With this mark on their public record, Internet users and bloggers label them as uptight and too strict with their employees. These posts, when searched for on sites like Google or Yahoo and the likes, can instantly put a bad taste in the mouth of potential employees and even customers. 

The use of Social Media Websites (SMW’s) has caused a recent boom in information availability of potential applicants. Unfortunately many students applying for graduate colleges and careers have put themselves in vulnerable positions by uploading inappropriate, unprofessional and unappealing material on SMW (Roberts, Roach 2009). These SMW allow a glimpse into applicants “after hours” lifestyles, publicly and privately.

Conclusion:   

Although social media is a relatively new form of communication, it has been widely adopted making it a viable resource for interaction with others around the world. Without utilizing social media as an early adopter, businesses run the risk of being left behind by competitors and defamed by a few unhappy customers or employees.

Works Cited
Roberts, Sherry J.; Roach, Terry, (Feb 2009), Business Communication Quarterly,
    Social Networking Web Sites and Human Resource Personnel: Suggestions for
     Job Searches, v72 n1 p110-114 2009. 5 pp. (Peer Reviewed Journal)

Lauren McKay, (June 2009), CRM Magazine; Everything’s Social (Now), Vol. 13
    Issue 6, p24-28, 5p, 2

W. Glynn Mangolda, and David J. Faulds, (July-August 2009), Business Horizon,
    Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix, Pages 357-365

Diane Stafford, (June 2009), Social networking sites become objects of
    embarrassment for some companies, http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/1241136.html

Karen E. Klein, (Aug 2008), Are Social Networking Sites Useful for Business?,
    http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/aug2008/sb2008086_346094.htm

Ok, now for helpful advice. Backup your data. Do it every 6 months or even every 3 months. Either way, back it up. I have tried a couple of backup solutions. 

Where ever your files are at…. Copy them to a DVD or an External Drive
Documents
Pictures
Music
Videos

You can buy an external drive at Wal-mart or any online retailer. I like these…
http://www.buy.com
http://www.newegg.com

Or you can get software that can help you do this. I have found a blog that I really like.  Ashraf does a great job of testing software and giving free alternatives to software that usually costs a bundle.  Here is a great page that discusses GFI Backup software. http://dottech.org/freewaresr/7372 Lately I have been using the free version of Macrium Reflect Free http://bit.ly/6sPlgu.

http://www.gfi.com/downloads/register.aspx?pid=bkuphm

D:\MyPictures\10.10.2009_Wedding
D:\MyPictures\10.10.2009_Bar_Pictures
that way when i am looking for photos I know exactly what date they were taken and what event they correspond with.
 
Step 2
Create a folder inside your dated folder called “Small”
For Example
D:\MyPictures\10.10.2009_Wedding\Small
Then I use a free software that can take all the pictures in the original 10.10.2009_Wedding folder and resize them at 20% or 30% of the original size then output them into the folder called “Small.”
This way if you need to attach them or upload them to Flickr, Facebook, Twitter or what ever; you have a very nice viewable copy of the original in a smaller size that uploads quicker. (Also it sends out a picture of much lower quality, this way it still looks good to anyone you want to see it and it is too low quality to let anyone blow it up and steal the image for their own use.) For this I use IrfanView or FastStone Photo Resizer.

Good Luck and remember to backup all your Pictures to DVD or External Drive regularly. Nothing is as upsetting as loosing all your pictures from the first 3 years of your baby’s life or proof that your best friend “superman tackled an Easter bunny!”

Revo Uninstaller is a freeware (never costs you anything $.)

“From dottech.org website,” This is reputable free software. RevoUninstaller does what the standard windows uninstaller does + more. It uninstalls whatever software you want, then it scans the registry for left over entries from that software, and then it scans your computer for files left over by that software. At each step you are prompted to delete what is found; you can always opt out if you want. RevoUninstaller has a reputation for being very safe.

http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html

Overview

Here is an Overview of what needs to take place in order to restore you Slow or unresponsive PC back to its Factory Original quickness.

1. Backup your current Documents, Music, Pictures, Favorites
2. Find or create a set of Restore Media CD / DVD’s
3. Boot PC into Restore Mode and Use Restore Media
4. Follow prompts on screen and PC should be returned to Factory Original startup.

__________________________________

Step By Step Instructions

1. How to Backup your important files.

Find your files and use burning software to copy and burn them to a CD or DVD.

Or

Copy files to a USB flash drive. They can be purchased at many stores like MicroCenter, Best Buy or Wal-mart. 4Gigabyte is the minimum size you should get.

This will retain your files for future use. If you restore your PC to Factory Specs, it will most likely delete all of these files. Back them up periodically.
 

2. Restore Media is a set of CD’s or DVD’s that came with your PC that can be used to restore your PC to Factory New Settings.
You may be able to create a set of discs from the working PC.

Go to… START -  All PROGRAMS -  ACCESSORIES  -  SYSTEM TOOLS  – CREATE RESTORE MEDIA.

Otherwise you might be able to contact your PC manufacturer and order a set to be mailed to you.

3.  If you created a Restore Point using the Windows System Restore. You can easily go back to a date when your PC was much faster. This is the easiest and least intrusive way to see some progress on a slow PC. It restores your PC to a faster time and “leaves any new files in your My Documents Folder untouched.” However, you need to have made this restore point back when your PC was running faster and performing properly.

Go to… START -  All PROGRAMS -  ACCESSORIES  -  SYSTEM TOOLS  – SYSTEM RESTORE
otherwise you are left with the last effort. Restore to Factory Defaults.

3.  To boot your PC into Restore Mode, use the following Keys depending upon your make or model.

Dell XP = Ctrl+F11
Dell Vista = F8
EEEPC = Esc
Compaq = F11
HP Desktop Vista = F11
Emachine = F10
Acer = Alt+F10

4. Follow the prompts on the screen to restore your PC. Once all is finished it will start back up to a Clean Windows Operating System screen. You can then copy back all your Backed-up files to their Original Locations..

Use a PDF Printer to print your files electronically. Now you can save some more trees you hippie!

Use a free PDF Printer like CutePDF to print your files. That way you can have a digital copy of your files.

Print Receipts for Online Purchases
Print your online tax documents so you can reference them at any later date.
Resume.
Letters etc…
 

Set up an account online with Google Accounts. Once you have a GMAIL account you will be able
to access the documents section (and of course you can use it for email.) Either create a word document, excel-type document or Upload your
PDF files to store online.

Save Changes.

Modem (cable or DSL) should be provided by your Internet Service i.e. Comcast, Qwest, Cox.

Either a New Wireless Router out of the box

Or

Used Wireless Router.

Used Wireless Router reset to factory defaults.

Unplug router from all cables.
Find small RESET hole or Button on back of router right near the Power cord plug in.
Using ballpoint pen or paperclip¦ Hold the RESET button in and plug in the power cord. As it powers on¦ Keep holding the reset button for up to 20 seconds while it powers on. Lights will flash and some may turn orange or red. This is ok.
Let go of the Reset button and let it finish booting.
 

Plug a Cat 5 Ethernet cable from the Modem into the WAN port of the router.

Plug a Cat 5 Ethernet cable in to the router LAN port and other end into your PC.

Manually Set your PC IP address to       
192.168.1.100
255.255.255.0
192.168.1.1

 
Open Internet Explorer

http://192.168.1.1

Username            :

Password            : admin

Change your IP address scheme to 192.168.XX.1  XX can be any number 2-254
This will make your network unique. If your work network uses default 192.168.1.1 your VPN connections will not work until you change your home IP scheme to 192.168.XX.1
 
Save changes.

Log back in to http://192.168.xx.1

Administration – Change the password to a new distinct password

Save changes

Log back in to http://192.168.xx.1  with

Username            :
Password            : yournewpassword

Setup the following info for a secure network connection.
 
WPA  simple and easy to use. Security is a pass phrase.
WEP  more secure and requires a 26 character pass code with only the
letters A-F and numbers 0-9.
SSID is the network name your users see when looking for available wireless networks.

Broadcast set to ENABLE to allow users to see it. DISABLE and you will need to create a connection to the network blindly within windows.

Copy your security settings down.