Rochester Brainery: Leveraging LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter for Businesses

We are teaching at the Rochester Brainery on May 2nd from 7-9pm EST

[highlight]Details on the class[/highlight]If you own a business, development of online content can help grow your business- and we don’t mean just having a website. LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter are all great, free tools for your business. These tools be used to recruit new employees and interns, spread information, post deals, seek out new clients and more. But how? We’ll answer that question as well as discuss time management, integration and more in Leveraging LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter for Businesses.

The class is normally $15 and you can purchase directly at Rochester Brainery OR for at least the rest of today you can pick up this deal on Living Social for 50% off.

Phrase I am loving: Try Hard

Last week I read an article and buried deep within the text was this phrase as defined by Urban Dictionary

Try Hard: A person who puts a large amount of effort into achieving a certain image, or counter-image, to the point where it is obviously contrived. Rather than achieving an image through genuine personality, the try-hard consciously attempts to fit a certain style through deliberate imitation, forced style, or scripted behavior. That is to say, he/she is trying hard to create an image.

You don’t have to look too far to find your first real life example of Try-Hard – in fact I bet if you sat back for a minute you would be able to find one with great ease.  There is no better place to spot Try-Hard mentality than online – it reeks of catfish (no offense to the actual fish).

The thing that I know is this: authenticity works. Being YOU works. You can get better, you can work hard, you can evolve and grow and try. I’m all for supporting people on that path. But when you find yourself caking on the Try-Hard I ask you to pause – hold it back a bit today.  Be a little bit more real – show some real glimpses into you and see what happens.  The ease of it is refreshing and you’re going to like it. Trust me.

 

 

Say Less – Do More

We’re launching a website for Capra Strategy – no joke – you are on it.

I’ll be honest. I’ve resisted having a business website for a long time which is interesting because it’s part of what we do.

I had lots of great reasons to not have a website – the primary one being: We didn’t need one.

And that’s kind of how I role and how we do business. If you don’t need a website – if you just need a Facebook page we’re going to let you know that.

But now, we need one. So a site is created. And I love it. Like most things it started off small and in the midst of development there was a sitemap and there were LOTS of pages and then a really wonderful thing happened: I read this article about simplicity being the solution.

This led to me finding a red pen (almost everything I do has a list written in a moleskin because it’s my process), which took a bit and further fueled my desire to use it a lot.  And what netted out is what you see here.  It’s simple really…

We are way finders – for businesses, for people, for passion and we don’t compromise on the passion part.

Why removing Google Reader from the Line-Up is a mistake.

This morning I got a text that read “have you heard about google reader?” and the word “no” came out of my mouth like in a thriller mover when they finally see the thing that’s been chasing them.

Hopefully I’m not breaking the news to you but Google has decided to cut Google Reader from their lineup of apps. I have been using Google Reader since 2004 and as they’ve taken functionality away (share in particular) I have been disappointed but the alternatives have not been good enough to move.

Here’s why I think this is a huge mistake:

Google has placed an increased emphasis on the creation of relevant content as a key function to increase natural search position. Given this, brands and people looking to create a platform, have started blogging as a method to constantly refresh, create, generate content around their message.

So now we have a mass of content to read from brands and people we have become attached to and no where to do so in an efficient way.

From a company perspective forcing readers to my webpage has more power as I can expose you to other relevant brand messages in my sidebar and in headers – some of which will be paid advertising spots.  So from a business perspective I can see the support coming in for the removal of Google Reader.

The downside is for the consumer of this content – your ability to consume countless blog posts each day will diminish – your desire to visit 300 pages each day will stifle your productivity and you will become more selective.

Will this force the cream to rise or will it hurt the new-comers to the blogosphere?  Time will tell.