Apr 12
15
Pinterest Marketing: Why (Not)?
Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social networks in the world. Millions of people spend more time on Pinterest than on Twitter or Linkedin for instance. Marketers are flocking to the site as well. So: what could be the reasons for your small business to use Pinterest for marketing? Or is your money and time spent more effectively elsewhere? Find some clear criteria in this article… Continue reading
Posted in Social Media by .
Learn how to show 360 degree panorama photos on your website in 3 easy steps. Because visitors like them, they can be good for SEO. In this article you get a quick overview of the three steps it takes to create, embed and view 360 degree panorama photos on your Wordpress site. It includes a short review of some popular and experimental solutions and how they relate to different browsers and devices your visitors might be viewing the panorama on. Continue reading
Posted in Technology by .
Mar 12
22
5 Facebook Fanpage Design Tips
As many of you have experienced, Facebook has implemented it’s so called timeline design first on the personal profile and since this month also on fanpages.This means that in order to have an effective fanpage for your brand, service or community, you should design it in such a way that it uses the timeline to it’s advantage. Here are 5 design tips for your fanpage in the new layout. Read more… Continue reading
Posted in Market Trends Networks Social Media Technology by .
Yesterday, Apple unveiled it’s latest IPad. This is a significant event because Apple dominates the tablet market (100+ competing devices) with a stagering market share of 62% and rising. Also: Apple now defines itself as a post-pc corporation and sees the Ipad as it’s flagship product before it’s other “Post PC” products: IPhone, IPod, (and Apple TV). The IPad, Apple says, epitomizes it’s post pc strategy.In this post I’m not going to comment on wether the New IPad is a great achievement or revolutionary (“resolutionary” as Apple likes to call it). Instead I’m simply going to try to read into each of the changes made, the way in which Apple defines itself through them and through the IPad as a Post PC corporation. Continue reading
Posted in Consumer Culture Market Research Market Trends Networks Social Media Technology by .
Smart Social Media Marketing: 2 Creative uses of social media, mobile and local technologies to win targeted leads and customers and build customer loyalty. The marketers of these two companies have thought through the advantages that social has to offer and come up with some creative solutions that make sense. Continue reading
Posted in Consumer Market Research Market Trends Social Media Technology by .
Investments in 4G technology will drive further development of the social, mobile, local web. Mobile carrier O2 tests new infrastructure in the City of London. Continue reading
Posted in Consumer Market Research Market Trends Networks Social Social Media Technology by .
What factors should you take into consideration when choosing a mobile solution for your (wordpress.org) site? Don’t know where to start? You’re in luck: I have compiled a mini-report benchmarking 12 popular mobile solutions that could be applied to your WP site (some of them were developed especially for the platform, others are more widely applicable).The solutions are compared for costs, technology, and many other factors. In the report you will find tables with benchmark information for these and other factors for all mobile solutions as well as comments below each table. Read this post with a summary in the form of seven questions you should ask yourself before going mobile and some quick answers and/or download the report. Learn more>>
Recently a debate has been sparked about the impact of personalized filtering algorithms on the search results different individuals will get from seemingly universal search engines such as Google, Bing etc. The argument made is that these personalized algorithms learn from our online search behaviour and will increasingly modify results to better cater to our preferences, significantly changing overall search results per individual. If all search engines do this, the argument goes, then in the end, all of us are each trapped in a particular information bubble determined by what the filter algorithms perceive as our preferences. What if we add the effects of social and local to those of personalized algorithms to search? Read more… Continue reading
May 11
28
2011: Year Of The Cloud
I recently visited the IDC Cloud Conference in Amsterdam to get an overview of some of the major trends in cloud computing and it’s impact on enterprise IT. What is cloudcomputing? What impact does it have on my organization, processes and products? What do Amazon S3, Google Apps, Salesforce.com, Box.net, Microsoft 365, Sharepoint, Shopify and LinkedIn have in common? What are Saas, Paas? Iaas? Multi Tennant server environments? Virtualization? Why should I care? What risks and opportunities are involved? In the article below you will find some answers. Continue reading
Recent surveys by Forrester and ComScore can teach us interesting things about the usage and worldwide distribution of social media. Forrester has mapped age, country and gender across seven types of social media users they’ve defined. ComScore has mapped social media penetration in world wide markets. Find out more: what social media user type are you? What types are dominant in your market or demographic? Continue reading
New economic opportunities are often associated with technological innovation and market deregulation, at least in the last few decades. But how does one compete in these markets without large funds or unique technological capabilities, as most small business owners must? Understanding the fundamental risks and opportunities beneath market deregulatory models and accessing lowcost technological means such as open source software and social media, could be the start of your own unique answer to those questions. Learn more… Continue reading
Feb 11
18
4 Shopping Carts Reviewed
Choosing an online shopping cart can be quite difficult because there are so many variables to consider such as SEO, security, social media readiness, media integration options, integration with your real business processes and bookkeeping, taxes, shipping, payment options and more. In addition you can choose a self hosted option or opt for a system that is hosted on the servers of the shopping cart vendor. Learn more… Continue reading
Posted in Advice Desk Research Market Research Marketing Marketing Strategy Technology by .
Want to get serious about using Twitter to market your services? Need to measure how much impact a topic has on Twitter? Or just curious about your Twitter “performance” or someone elses? Good news: there are lots of analytics tool you can use to measure topics, followers, retweets and more. Some of them even provide you with free useful tools and widgets to integrate into your site or blog. Continue reading
Feb 11
4
Facebook Revolutions?
Are social media revolutionary engines? Are the Egyptian protests a Facebook Revolution? Is this why the internet was shut down in Egypt? I decided to investigate this claim by the mass media and gather some statistics on social media usage by Egyptians on the topic of the protests from within Egypt in the last week. Continue reading
One way of approaching product- and business development is watching technological trends such as: Social Media, Green Technology, Tablet PC’s, Mobile Apps and “The Internet of Things” that offer the promise of new markets opening up. How do you integrate these technology trends… Continue reading
Dec 10
23
Skype When Your PC Is Turned Off
Why limit your use of Skype to the time you spend behind your PC? With these simple steps you can enjoy access to your contactlists, calls and chat on your desktop phone and mobile with your PC turned off. If you use Skype for business networking, you’ll find some suggestions as well. Learn more… Continue reading
Google’s Agenda is to push cloud-computing and make their Chrome browser a platform from which you use all your productivity and other apps. In this article you will find a way to build a communications and office dashboard in less then 10 minutes by simply adding a number of powerful free apps form the Google Chrome App Store. Are you ready to embrace Google’s vision? Find out by giving it a try.. Continue reading
The new technologies emerging everyday from the world of web 2.0 markets are placing new demands on governments, businesses and individuals. Great opportunities and potential threats require new skills to deal with the constantly increasing “Openness”. Freedoms and responsibilities closely associated with an ever increasing transparency force people from all walks of life including business to come to grips with a new ethos as the accomplishments of the winner and runner up of Time Magazine’s Person Of The Year in 2010 illustrate.Are you ready for the new “Openness”? Continue reading
Nov 10
17
Social Media: Make or Buy?
Developing a website or service that enables web 2.0 social interactions and caters to mobile devices and other preferences of your audience can be either difficult or easy. Before you start off on a development rampage it is probably smart to make a few strategic choices that can save you time and money in the long run. These are some of them. Continue reading
Nov 10
13
VoiP PBX: Small Business Benefits
A VoiP PBX has many advantages to offer a small business. First of all VoiP calls are cheaper and in many cases free. But that’s not all. If you never want to miss a call, communicate from your mobile, desk phones and from softphones and applications, while making a professional impression over all channels, a VoiP PBX is a relatively cheap way to achieve this integration. Learn more about the many professional options VoiP PBX’s have to offer. Continue reading
Posted in Consumer Customer Focus Efficiency management Market Trends mobile PBX phones Resources softphone Technology VoiP by .
Professionals create a lot of specialized information that is locked within the organization and inaccesible to others. This could be much more of an asset then is currently the case for many organizations. Some suggestions and practical guidelines on unlocking the power of this knowledge for commercial purposes. Continue reading
Posted in Advice Blogs Consumer Culture Customer Centric Customer Centricity Customer Focus Customer Focus Customer Satisfaction Desk Research Everyday Forum Guerilla Marketing Management management Market Research Market Trends Marketing marketing Marketing Strategy Media Network Networks news Organization Resources Social social Social Media Social Media Strategy Technology by .
Android is a popular and fast-growing platform for web 2.0 enabled smartphones. Surprisingly: different smartphones and devices have different versions of Android pre-installed.Want to know which version is on your smartphone or want to install Android on your old Windows Mobile 6 phone? Learn more… Continue reading
Oct 10
31
The Social Network: A Review
Is Mark Zuckerberg an evil genius? Is Facebook the defining entity of our times? There has been much talk about “The Facebook Generation” and the evil mastermind behind it. If the movie “The Social Network” is a true story then we can all rest easy: Facebook was just a mediocre idea executed to perfection and backed by the right people at the right time and initiated by a driven perfectionist. Continue reading
Oct 10
30
Skype’s Best New Features
Skype 5.0 is out of Beta and offers some great new functionality to manage your contacts, make (video) conference calls, group chats and keep abreast of your friend’s activity on Facebook. Where the Beta seemed somewhat unstable, the full version works like a charm. Learn more… Continue reading
New Digg keeps annoying. Where we earlier reported they deleted your content with the transition to new Digg, we now find them auto-posting in your name. Determining for you which stories you Digg. Continue reading
Five awesome social media plugins for your WordPress blog. If you have a WordPress.Org blog you have a choice of hundreds of thousands of plugins. Some of them work, some of them don’t, some are great, others are…crap. Read the reviews for some great Social Media Plugins or list your own favorites in the comment section. Continue reading
Posted in Blogs Guerilla Marketing Marketing Social Social Media Social Media Technology by .
Microsoft seems to be opening up to third party Social Media in a big way. With Outlook 2010 you can integrate Social Media account information for your contacts in new and exciting ways. When you open an email for example social media account info associated with the sender is displayed and you can befriend them straight from Outlook.This functionality is even backwards compatible with Outlook 2003 and 2007.
In order to activate this functionality for your Outlook installation you have to do 2 things… Continue reading
Posted in Consumer Market Research Market Trends Networks news Social social Social Media Social Media Technology by .
Sep 10
16
Xing’s Best New Features
One of the more innovative new features at Xing is called “The Mobile Handshake”. They also added powerful search and sort functionality, outlook integration, more (advanced) mobile features, share buttons and a toolbar. It is a thorough overhaul and offers great value for money if compared to some of the other larger social networks. But apart from the “Mobile Handshake” it seems Xing is not taking any big risks as in trying to be on the forefront of technology. Continue reading
Posted in Consumer Culture Desk Research Market Trends Social social Social Media Social Media Technology by .
You probably have a Skype subscription or use some other VoiP (Voice Over IP) service. Now you have another alternative:Google Voice For GMail and Google Chat!It may very well be that this step by Google is a sign that the VoiP market for consumers is now maturing and will replace the landline and mobile infrastructures in the next few years. More cheap VoiP devices will be developed and cost of usage may be lowered even more dramatically. This will give home users and small businesses similar opportunities as have been around in the corporate market for years.Is it time to ditch your landline? Maybe (not). Learn more… Continue reading
The problem with Google Wave is not so much on the technological side as it is in the distribution model.This month Google said it will drop the experimental service Google Wave.”Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked,” said Google senior vice president Urs Holzle in a blog post.Clearly Google Wave offers a promising combination of technologies, allowing you to chat, share, bookmark and collaborate in all kinds of other ways in a single stream of activity.Had Google taken a more open approach to the product’s introduction with many more third party plugins and options, more along the lines of Twitter’s business model, I think the product might have been a success. Continue reading
Aug 10
26
Free Social Media Monitoring Tools
Googling the term you’re after is just not enough. If you want to know where you stand in terms of brand awareness compared to the competition, you’d better have some tools to make it easier for you.Find some in depth search tools in this article. Multi-site trackers, tools to measure Twitter and Facebook activity as well as tools for bloggers. Learn more about them and try them yourself: they’re all free. Continue reading
Yoono offers some great tools to stay upto date and know what your friends are upto on several social sites and IM’s. It also gives you a powerful capability to multi-post updates to these platforms. There is a desktop app, a browser addon and an IPhone app available. It’s a free service so give it a try. Continue reading
Posted in Consumer Culture Everyday management Networks Social social Social Media Social Media Technology by .
Digg have recently updated their site with some great new functionality, making it a more complete platform. All of this is great ofcourse but unfortunately it seems they have discontinued the Diggs/History of Digg members. Continue reading
With so many Social Media out there: create accounts for the right reasons. These twelve ultra short reviews give you the main capabilities and drawbacks of each site in a few sentences each and links to an instant network and relevant tools.Part III in a series. Continue reading
With so many Social Media out there: create accounts for the right reasons. These twelve ultra short reviews give you the main capabilities and drawbacks of each site in a few sentences each and links to an instant network and relevant tools. Continue reading
May 10
19
Social Media: Ultra Short Reviews
In this post you’ll find a dozen very short reviews of Social Media networks and tools: their advantages over other networks and capabilities that you may be looking for. You can immediately see an example of this by following the links in each review. If you are looking for an instant network on each site: feel free to join our groups on each of them to find other Social Media Explorers. Continue reading
Having a company blog makes a lot of sense. Wordpress.com offers a lot of value for a free blogging service but as soon as you need any functionality beyond the considerable free resources to give your blog some professional appeal, you have to pay a fee or there are limitations in place.Installing Wordpress.org is a simple process which only takes a few minutes. Adding functionality and customizing can be quite time-consuming. There are some implications to choices you make during the process which you may not anticipate. This blog could be of help to you to make the right decision between Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org. Continue reading
Networking is supposed to be fun but with the growing number of Social Networks and profiles we have to keep up to date, the commercialization of platforms and the huge amounts of spam and other uninteresting or even damaging crap we are bombarded with: is it still…fun?
By taking control of our online data and having access to it in a single place we could:
Posted in Advice Blogs Customer Centric Customer Centricity Customer Focus Customer Satisfaction Desk Research Forum Management management Market Research Marketing marketing Media Network Networks Organization Presentations Resources Services social Social Media Social Media Strategy Technology The HOB The House Of Business Whitepapers by .
Since we all spend so much time using and enjoying Social Media, I would like to give those of you that haven’t seen it yet a tip: www.flock.com has enhanced it’s browser for optimum social media usage. Continue reading
Blogging can be a very fulfilling activity: but what’s the point of laughing out loud at our own wit when no one else reads our posts? The sad reality of many blogs is that they are not read at all. So much for your hard work…
Now SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an industry for a reason: it’s too boring and complicated for anyone to be interested in pursuing it seriously except SEO experts and nerds. So let’s look for a quick and easy fix for mere mortals! Continue reading
Apr 10
27
It All Comes down To Ballistics
Trying to combine Business and Social Media can feel like a slippery slide as mixing friendship and business holds some risks: nobody wants to risk a friendship for a crappy product and nobody wants to offend their friends by saying no to them. So: what if we could reduce this risk? What would it take to make this risk into a negligable calculated risk? Basically it all comes down to ballistics… Continue reading
Apr 10
27
Social Media Obstacles
Internet in general and Social Media in particular hold the promise of a sense of frictionless and effortless movement through a world without obstacles between you and your success: but are they? Here are some easy shortcuts to avoid financial, social and technological obstacles and turn them to your advantage. Continue reading
Facebook’s versatile micro-blogging service FriendFeed and Twitter’s trendsetting service have put micro-blogging in the forefront of the Titanic struggle for domination of the internet by some of the largest Social Media sites. But what does Google bring to the table when it comes to Micro-Blogging? Buzz… Continue reading
If ever there was a great metaphor for Social Media this must be it: we each contribute something to a seemingly random structure of words, thoughts, code, images and before you know it we’ve created something from nothing: solid ground to stand on and in our case do actual business on. Continue reading
Apr 10
27
Free Network Alternatives
With these five alternatives you can prevent the cost of your Social Media usage to spiral out of control. Wether you are looking for ways to create a powerful online presence that you host yourself, are interested in making new business friends or are looking for ways to monetize your online presence: this blogpost offers a number of viable alternatives to suit your needs. Continue reading
Apr 10
26
Social Media Opportunity!
A network for professional networkers and networking professionals can’t go without tools and opportunities to utilize these tools both to make the experience of Social Media more effective and more pleasurable and to do business on a level that suits your needs. These are three such opportunities revolving around tools that unite business and social media. Continue reading
Posted in Ambassadors Associates Networks Resources Services The HOB by .
Apr 10
26
Science Of The Retweet
The surprisingly intricate Science of The Retweet may give you some new ideas on how to utilize Twitter and Twitter search as a resource for your business.Find out about the best URL shorteners, keywords and other statistics on the best ways to attract attention with your tweets and how you can influence the likelyhood that you are being retweeted. Continue reading
Posted in Media Network Networks Presentations Services Whitepapers by .
Executives all over the world are inundated with an endless stream of information. Digital files, hard copy documents, pictures and videos are constantly coming in or out of an office. Collecting, organizing, archiving and retrieving such information is becoming a common challenge, especially, when critical and immediate decisions have to be made. Solutions… Continue reading
Posted in About Introduction Media Network Resources Services The HOB Whitepapers by .
Managing Your Presence On Many Social Media: A Problem? Not at All!
Lately I have seen messages of people on all kinds of networks saying they can’t manage their presence on all those networks anymore and are leaving some of them because they simply can’t manage it anymore.You can save a lot of time networking if you do it a certain way: the easy way!
Five tools to save time networking while maintaining an effective presence on a large number of Social Media. Continue reading
Oct 09
22
Social Media Trends
What can ordinary small business people learn about the adoption of social media for business purposes from trends in the social media markets such as the recent purchase of FriendFeed by Facebook and the rise of Twitter? Continue reading
Posted in About Blogs Introduction Network Networks Resources Services The HOB Whitepapers by .
The HOB.Biz now has it’s own Online Office Collaboration Space where you can edit and share many kinds of documents and even websites. All of these capabilities are fully integrated with MS Office environment and you can edit and store the documents from within MS Word, Excel etc. It’s called The HOB Networker PRO Silver Edition and is part of a series of solutions for professional networkers as well as networking professionals. Continue reading
Posted in Media Network Networks Presentations Resources Services The HOB The House Of Business Whitepapers by .
Oct 09
14
Instant Network Principle
Our “Instant Network” principle might be of significance to your own networking efforts:
The principle is best encaptured in the My Social Media page.
On this page you can choose an activity or subject on the basis of which you can make a selection in a large number of internet clubs and social media which you can log into directly.
But that’s not all: each of the social media has (or will have) a companion Social Media Club in The HOB.Biz as well as The House Of Business or The HOB.Biz facilities on the network itself.
This not only means that we have about twice as many members: it also makes it excessively easy to find a network of people you know wherever you go and instantly be in the know about how to best use and benefit from networks, social media and internet-clubs,and other insider information! Continue reading
Sep 09
24
The Magic Word: Web3.0
In business school one of the most iconic examples of the failure of a technologically superior product at the hand of a technologically inferior product cited is that of the Philips Video 2000 facing Sony’s VHS system. The reason cited: that Sony was smart enough to make sure thousands of video’s were available for it’s inferior system where Philips paid less attention to distribution and more to technological development. Consequently the VHS system reigned for a decade and the Video 2000 withered away. The one system starts from a top down engineer’s mindset, the other from a bottom up user interest approach. Similarly social media generate huge amounts of content: to each his own, where websites who don’t cater for user interaction have less content and fail to cater to each individual’s taste. Continue reading
Posted in About Introduction Media Network Networks Resources Services The HOB The House Of Business by .
Sep 09
24
Where we are…Everywhere
At The HOB we are always innovating: integrating new ways to leverage Social Media for Business, adding new applications and amassing a vast amount of business know how with an excellent group of professionals and business owners. Learn more… Continue reading
Posted in About Introduction Media Networks Presentations Resources Services The HOB by .
Sep 09
17
Our Blog…Your Blog!
Welcome to The HOB Blog!
The House Of Business (The HOB) is your Indispensable Business Development Resource!
The main purpose of this blog will be to explore the subjects that interest us most of all: the connection between Social Media, business and how to deal with them effectively and hopefully in an original manner.
You’ll be able to find and access many of the fascinating blogs of our Residents, Associates, Trustees and Ambassadors from this platform. If you are in our network yourself, you’ve just found a new way to let the world know about your own blog!
You can visit our site at: http://www.thehob.biz to join our network and use these reources and services free of charge. Continue reading
Posted in About Blogs Introduction Network Residents Services The HOB The House Of Business by .
Jul 09
23
The King Of All Eskimos
Every sales person could tell you that a client gives of signals and that those who know how to play into them could sell a refrigerator to an eskimo. But: do you really want to sell fridges to eskimos? Wouldn’t you rather control which precise audiences you target? A well defined target audience could be the solid basis of your organization’s success. But it doesn’t stop there…What about Social Media? Continue reading
Mar 09
3
The Crisis & Customer Centricity
Customer Focus: solution or problem in times of crisis. As organizations brace themselves in economically hard times it seems a good moment to evaluate the benefits and risks of the Customer Centric machinery they have put- or have neglected to put into place: What is the potential of a Customer Focus approach in times of crisis: what risks are involved. Which measures and values should we adopt to make such a strategy pan out under the current conditions? Versatilty, flexibility and originality appear to be at the basis of some striking and inspiring successes even in an economic crisis. Continue reading
Dec 08
11
Secrets To Unknown Brand’s Success
What are decisive factors in the success or failure of an unknown brand? All of us have had to make the decision wether or not to buy a service by an unknown brand: what are our motives in doing so or not? What causes the sudden rise of an unknown brand such as easyjet? If you’re wondering how to successfully launch an unknown brand yourself or want to look more explicitly at your own buying behaviour as a consumer of services: read the Unknown Brand Poll. Our small panel of highly trained professionals might give you some insight in your own (sub)conscious decisionmaking and in the ever changing commercial landscape around us. Continue reading
Posted in Advice Consumer Culture Customer Centric Customer Centricity Customer Focus Customer Focus Customer Satisfaction Economy Guerilla Marketing Links Management management Market Research Market Trends Marketing marketing Marketing Strategy news Organization Polls Research Social social Strategy by .
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Job Folbert is the CEO/founder of Imocial. Join his network or contact Job directly:
E-Mail: blog@thehob.biz
Network: http://hobhub.biz
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