Are you an Online Renter or an Owner?

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in Online Presence

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When it comes to your physical residence, you probably know the differences of property ownership versus renting.  There are some pros of each.

Some of the pros of ownership are:

·         Each month you put money into your asset instead of someone else’s pocket.

·         Once you finish paying off your mortgage, you have a very significant asset.

·         As long as you make your payments, no one can take your home away from you.  When renting, you can get kicked out at the end of your lease.

Some of the pros of renting are:

·         Renting is less expensive than ownership.

·         If something breaks, it is someone else’s problem.

Your online residence is similar to your physical residence

What most small businesses don’t realize is that the same thing applies to the online world.  Everyone knows that for a business to survive in today’s world it needs to be online, however they don’t consider the difference between buying and renting their online residence. 

Owning your online residence

Owning your online residence means having your own domain, something that you own and can do whatever you’d like with.

Renting your online residence

Renting is using someone else’s services to host your residence.  For example, having an email address from Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail or any of the other fine online email sites.  It also includes having a blog on blogger.com, blogspot.com, wordpress.com, typepad.com,  etc… 

Social networks are also rentals

Using social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace and Twitter, which are all great tools, to recruit an audience is something I strongly suggest however, by building a presence on them, you are once again renting. 

You should recruit on the above networks because that is where your customers reside.  You need to visit their primary residence and let them know you exist.  You may even want to open up a branch on one of the sites by building a group or fan page and inviting everyone to join.  Just beware that if anything ever happens to the network you are using, all of your work and contacts will be lost.  Your goal with any social network should be to recruit an audience and then bring them back to your site.

 

The main advantages to owning your online presence are:

·         You look much more professional and are more likely to be taken seriously.

·         Nobody can change the rules on you and make you alter or take down your site (as long as you aren’t breaking any laws of course).

·         You don’t have to worry about a site shutting down for any reason causing you to lose all the information you have saved on their system.

The advantages to renting your online presence are:

·         It is significantly easier to set up.

·         If something isn’t working properly, it is someone else’s headache.  You may lose some service uptime but ultimately, the site owner will fix the problem.

 

Conclusion

There are benefits to renting and owning your online presence but for maximum results in the long run, you should own your presence but recruit new audience members through rented space such as social networks.

Dead Men Tell no Tales and Companies need to Speak up to Stay Alive

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in Transparency

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Hush-Hush Doesn’t Work Anymore

In the past, it has been very common for companies and organizations to want to keep everything completely “hush-hush”.  Whatever happens in the company stays in the company.  This strategy may have worked in the past but now, if a company withholds information, they will be suspected of the worst.  Clients and customers will start to wonder what they have to hide which will lead to either investigation or some level of distrust of the company.

Transparency is King

Social media is allowing companies to become transparent through the use of blogs, micro blogs, social networks and other social platforms.  When a company is open and has nothing to hide, it makes their customers feel easier about doing business with them.  On the other hand, in an age where many companies are sharing and opening up to the public, any company who is not will be suspect. 

Transparency gives you Authority

Another reason to be transparent and let the public know about the inner workings of the company is because it gives you authority over the stories that break about your company.   In these tough times some companies are finding themselves in a situation where they have to downsize a large portion of their work force.  Imagine if a company keeps everything completely “hush-hush” and 500 employees show up one day to find out they have been downsized.  There is a good chance that they will start talking and spreading stories.   It is very likely that one of the devastated ex-employees will call the press and give them their side of the story.  Without a public statement from the company, the only facts that the press has to go on are the ones from the ex-employee, which are likely to paint the company in a negative light.

Great Companies Play Offense

Now imagine that the company has been open and honest all along.  They made a public statement on their blog about the situation that the company is in and that they will have to downsize part of their workforce.  Even if a recently downsized employee calls the press, the press will most likely go to the company’s blog as a source for their primary information. 

Inferior Companies Play Defense

If a story gets out about a company it is significantly more difficult for the company to control the situation than it would be if they made the first move and kept the public informed.  Companies think that by keeping things “hush Hush”, they maintain control but the truth is that the only way to maintain control is to be the one keeping the public informed.

How can your company play offense and maintain control?

Exponentially Increase your Intelligence

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in Search Online

The most important skill to have is to know how to find what you are looking for. There are often times when a problem arises at the office or anywhere else and you have no idea how to solve it. Sometimes you don’t even know enough to know who to call. For example, you are checking your email just as you do every other day but all of a sudden an error message shows up and you have no clue what it means. A common reaction is to ignore the error or to declare your computer broken. Here are some tips on what to do the next time you are in a similar situation.

Just Google it

Google.com or other search engines such as yahoo.com, msn live.com, or ask.com can be great resources and should be the first place you turn when you have a problem. All the major search engines have extremely complex algorithms that are programmed to understand what the searcher is looking for and to give them the most relevant results.

To perform a search, just go to the search engine of your choice (click the links in the above paragraph) and enter whatever it is that you want to know. The search can be as simple as typing in “walmart” if you want to go to Wal-Mart’s website or as complicated as looking for information on where to find a rare tropical fish that you’d like to add to your aquarium.

Back to the computer error message, finding out what it means, and how to solve your problem is quite simple. Just copy the error message into the search engine and hit enter. You will most likely come up with results either from the software that you are using or from other people that had the same problem. By clicking on the top few results, you should get either the answer to your problem or a lead toward finding your answer.

Search through forums

When it gets more complicated the best place to look are forums on your topic. For example, if you are looking for a problem in Microsoft Outlook, search for “Microsoft outlook forum”. Once you find the forum you are looking for, browse around to find the answer you are looking for. If you don’t find your answer, feel free to join the forum and post your question. Most forums are filled with passionate people who will jump on the opportunity to answer your question.

Just knowing where to look for your answers can exponentially increase your intelligence.