Social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, are becoming more popular and are one of the first places people go when they get on the Internet. These sites offer a plethora of “social” features, including e-mail, photo sharing, and chat.

Facebook is the number one social networking site. There are more than 350 million active users with about half a million people joining every day. Facebook has almost 60% market share from the United States.

Why Does Facebook Matter to Marketers?

Microsoft and Google recently partnered with Facebook to integrate Facebook and Twitter updates into search results, which opens the door for more real-time search results. So having an understanding of Facebook (and Twitter) can create new ways for search marketers to reach their audiences and brand themselves.

Facebook also presents a unique marketing opportunity for businesses with Facebook Business Pages. As more people participate with social media sites, marketers are learning that these sites are where people are learning more about products, services, business, etc. Like most social media sites, marketing on Facebook has a viral effect.

Here are some benefits of using Facebook:

• Customer interaction: Provides a place for a conversation between a business/brand and customers to happen. Through this interaction companies can build better relationships with customers.
• Reputation management: Companies can learn more about how the brand is perceived online. This is done through comments and direct feedback and with monitoring conversations both positive and negative.
• Customer acquisition: As people become fans of a Facebook page, they get a notice posted as news item for their friends to see. This viral approach will then lead to new viewers.
• Drive traffic: With increased activity of a Facebook fan page, traffic will likely increase to the company’s Web site. Facebook pages also appear in universal search results.
• Branding: Can generate brand awareness to new audiences in addition to a company’s corporate Web site.
• Advertisement: Directly target geographic and demographic criteria for the products/services you wish to promote.

Businesses and brands can’t have a profile, but they can have a Facebook page. This page is designed to house the information about your company or brand.

Think of it as a mini-Web site. You can post company and contact information, post videos, blogs, Twitter updates, and other relevant content. One impactful feature is the ability to interact and have conversations with your customers.

Just like personal profiles, Facebook pages can have friends (or fans), the ability to upload pictures, walls that fans can write on, and other applications. If you plan to send out any form of communication, you do that by sending “updates” which will then appear on the update tab or on people’s walls if they’re fans.

Those planning events can create events with fan pages (and also with group pages). These events will show up under the users’ request of their profile. If they have signed up or RSVP’d to the event they will also show up in their upcoming events dashboard.

How to Promote your Facebook Page

A promotion is a good way to reach out to your customers and make them aware of your new Facebook page. Offer a discount or prize drawing for customers who become fans.

Let your fans know that you would like them to share their feedback on your products or services. Be prepared to receive this feedback, good or bad. This should be a given with any type of social media marketing strategy.

When your customers (or fans) interact with you on Facebook, their friends will see those comments on their news feed. This is one way to leverage the power of Facebook as a viral marketing tool. This should attract more fans and prospective customers.

How can we help?

webSURGE help you manage your Facebook account and drive your Facebook viral marketing initiatives. We can also develop and manage an effective Facebook Pay Per Click advertising campaign which will drive targeted customers to your business.

For more information, contact Joe Crestuk at webSURGE, LLC (315) 579-4065 www.websurgenow.com

With the holidays upon us, it is easy to get caught up in the hectic commercial side of things, and loose sight of what is really important. Family, friends and giving. I have even noticed myself getting short tempered from time to time (imagine that…) and have caught myself missing the simple beauty of this season more often than not.

I hope you and your families and friends can make the most out of this joyous time, and take time out from the hustle bustle to reflect on what this season means to you.

In the photo below are my Wife Beckie, Ebenezer Scrooge, and yours truly, Joe Crestuk

The answer is yes.

It also makes sense that there are some significant foundational rules that web 2.0 applications follow and these basic building blocks are probably going to remain the most consistent regardless of future changes to web 2.0 applications:

1) Bring Human Beings Together

2) Express Emotions

3) Offer Transparency

These three pieces are definitely found in the “secret sauce” off all successful web 2.0 platforms, and are bound to remain in the future of applications to come.

Human beings want to relate to other human beings. The Internet offers a “safe” environment to do so, and some of the best social sites make these connections naturally.

Emotions are the most powerful communication method, and to offer a platform where users can express their emotions in an online community, and remain unique, is one of the best ways to establish a solid online community. People make most of their decisions based upon their emotions. This is true for decisions to make a purchase, decisions on where to go, decisions on what to do, decisions on just about everything.

Transparency and openness online are key as well. To offer a community-driven platform, where users can call the shots, make the remarks, rate the products, make the jokes… this leads to a healthy online community, and is key to a great web 2.0 offering.

Knowing there will me extreme change in the way we use the web in the very near future, we can still get the basics right. This way, we have an edge on our competition  for the long haul. Keep open to change and do not get lost in the forest only to loose sight of the trees. The greatest mistake we can make is to believe we have all of the answers. The best anyone can do in this fast changing landscape is keep informed relating to the latest trends, but work from the basic principles we have already learned.

Oct. 26th, 2009 By Angelina

It’s a common problem among computer users: after a few months, our computers become weighed down by programs and all sorts of other junk, and inevitably become sluggish. For the less tech-savvy users, this may induce thoughts like “Why is my computer so terrible?” or “I guess I could always upgrade this… what-cha-ma-callit RAM thing”.

Regular maintenance is usually required to keep a computer optimized and running at its best. Here are four programs that will make your computer faster, and four trade-offs to help make the best use out of the amount of RAM that’s installed on your computer.

MSConfig

For those who despair endlessly that their computer lags too much at start up yet don’t know how to go about fixing that, taking a look through MSConfig would be the place to start. Msconfig can by accessed by hitting Windows-R, which brings up the “Run” dialog, and typing in “msconfig”. Under the “Start Up” tab, there is a list of programs and executables that are launched when the computer starts up.

Having a lot of programs that start up when the computer boots is one of the main reasons that boot times are so long, for most PC users. Thus, the remedy would be to go through the entire list and uncheck anything that is unnecessary to have on boot up. If there are any entries you are not sure about, be sure to check them thoroughly on the internet before messing with them, as unchecking the wrong entries could potentially mess up the functionality of some of your programs.

CCleaner

CCleaner stands for “Crap Cleaner” and that is exactly what the program is great for. Over time, temporary files bog down your system, and take up unnecessary space in your harddrive. Thus, it is good PC maintenance practice to go through your computer once every while, and delete all the temp files.

It is incredibly simple: just navigate to the Cleaner tab in CCleaner, check everything you want to clean up (it would be best to leave the “Advanced” section alone, unless you know what those entries refer to), and then clean Analyze. You’ll then see an overview of what CCleaner is about to clean up and delete, and how much space CCleaner will free up for you. To permanently erase the temp files off your computer, simply click “Run Cleaner,” and all those temp files will be history.

Temp files aren’t the only junk files cluttering up your computer, however. Broken registry keys also pose a huge problem when it comes to useless files clogging up your system. Fortunately, CCleaner also has the ability to keep your registry clean.

To do this, use the “Registry” tab in Ccleaner. Once again, select all the entries you want CCleaner to prune, and let it do its thing. The only difference between this type of maintenance and clearing temp files is that if you accidentally delete a key that is still being used by your system, your computer can begin to function strangely. With that said, you should back up your registry settings before you give CCleaner the go ahead to torch everything. When you click “Fix Selected Issues” to delete the faulty registry entries, CCleaner will prompt you to back up your registry, and you should always click ‘yes’.

CCleaner was also discussed by Stefan in his article How To Uninstall Applications Efficiently And Remove Obsolete Files.

Revo Uninstaller

Revo Uninstaller is like the on-steroids version of your own Add and Remove Programs option in the Control Panel, but it also scans your computer for any files that the default uninstaller doesn’t catch, and deletes them. Revo’s layout is pretty much exactly the same as the Add and Remove Programs dialog, so it should be simple to navigate.

Revo also has a panel that lists all of the clean up tools that are provided with Windows systems. This menu can be accessed by clicking the Tools icon, and then the Windows Tools tab on the left.

For a more in-depth review of Revo Uninstaller, check out Jimmy’s article Revo Uninstaller Will Hunt Down Your Bloatware.

Defraggler

So once you’ve cleared all of the unnecessary files from your computer, there are now a bunch of holes where the data for those files used to be. While this may seem like no big deal to most people, having random gaps of empty space can also slow down your computer, because the rest of your files are still splintered into many different pieces, and the newly generated empty space isn’t being used efficiently. The more pieces a file is split to, the longer it takes the computer to access that file, so it makes sense to put all these pieces back together, once space has been cleared up to store whole files.

Defraggler is one of the best free defragmentation tools on the market. The visual representation of the space on the computer as pieces of files are being reunited is extremely enlightening, because most people don’t realize the extent of file splintering on their systems.

But cleaning up your computer isn’t the only thing you can do to optimize how fast your computer runs. Believe it or not, the programs you choose to perform daily actions such as chatting, or opening PDFs, can also affect your computer’s running speed.

Best Program Trade-Offs

This section discusses several alternative applications that perform more efficiently and provides your computer with the speed boost that it needs. Especially on slower computers, the difference is quite noticeable. Try it them out for yourselves!

1. Pidgin vs. AIM

If you don’t mind the spartan interface, Pidgin is a great multi-protocol IM client with a light footprint. Unfortunately it doesn’t natively support video chat, but it does have a plug-in for Skype (although you’ll need to have Skype running to use it).

2. Firefox or Chrome vs Internet Explorer

I recommend this switch not just based off memory footprint, but also because both Firefox and Chrome trump IE when it comes to customization and start-up times.

3. Foxit Reader vs Adobe Reader

Adobe Reader is notorious for its slow load times, especially when it comes to huge documents. Being a student, I regularly load 500+ page PDFs (the digital versions of my textbooks), so having to wait ages for them to load would be severely detrimental to my productivity. Foxit Reader, however, is so snappy that a 500+ page PDF loads almost instantly, and the browser integration is much smoother and faster than that of Adobe Reader. Once again, the interface is a bit more spartan, but Foxit definitely packs more features, and is a very worthy switch.

Click here for Guy’s article on more light alternatives to Adobe Reader.

4. VLC Player vs Windows Media Player

VLC is like the Pidgin of media players in that it supports a multitude of different video formats, and has a quick loading interface. Another great, recently implemented feature of VLC is that it can now be skinned to fit in with your windows theme!

5. Foobar2000 vs iTunes

The great thing about Foobar is that it is so customizable: everything from the layout of the interface to the plug-ins to extend the program’s capabilities can be tweaked. Many people worry that without iTunes, they wont’ be able to sync their iPod or iPhone, but Foobar actually has a plug-in to support iPod syncing.

Today, I’ve covered eight of the best programs for de-crapping your computer and maximizing your available RAM. Hopefully you’ve found a few of these programs to your liking, and decide to trade out your slow, sluggish apps for something a bit more snappy. Here they are again:

CCleaner – Download
Revo Uninstaller – Download
Defraggler – Download
Pidgin – Download
Firefox – Download
Chrome – Download
Foxit Reader – Download
VLC Player – Download
Foobar2000 – Download

Try out our suggestions, and let us know if they help speed up your computer a bit. If you have your own favorite programs for speeding up your computer, let us know in the comments!

I also like the holidays (even though they all come on so fast) it seems all the stores are already setting up their Christmas sections, and it is not even Halloween yet. It is a busy time of year, but it is also a wonderful time. Halloween is a time for fun parties, and for watching the kids get scared of the ghosts and goblins that adorn the yards of our neighbors homes.

I hope you and your business are getting prepared for the winter months as well. Nothing is more rewarding than knowing you have prepared for every likely event that may effect your business! One way webSURGE can help you is by reviewing your sales processes. If the weather is bad, can your customers still buy from you? With our e-commerce services, they can. Call now to find out more…

Just in case you were wondering, I am the guy on the left

Outlook 2003 Setup

To see a step-by-step tutorial on how to configure Outlook Express please click the link below:

Outlook Express Setup

Email settings for an Email Client (Outlook, Eudora, MAC mail etc.):

Incoming mail server: mail.yourdomain.com
Outgoing mail server: mail.yourdomain.com
Outgoing mail server does require authentication.

Incoming mail port: 110 for POP3, 143 for IMAP
Outgoing mail port: 25 (If 25 does not work, try 26, as some ISPs block port 25)

Username is the same one as you use for webmail (the full email address).
(If entering “username@yourdomainname” does not work, try “username+yourdomainname”)

** No SSL boxes should be checked **