Gaining Control Over Social Media

Tonight I want to address an issue I am seeing on an continued basis. Your personal online content. I read a terrible Facebook rant over the weekend and I’m sickened that a business professional would put her hateful opinions for clients and peers to read on her personal Facebook page.

Now, some of you might say that it is her personal page. Sure it is, it is just archived onto Google’s search engine for the world to read. She is entitled to her hateful opinion but she is going to have business lost to it. Peers will soon catch on and stop referring her too. I will not repeat what she said, only that it is filled with hate and aimed at a certain demographic of sexually orientated people.

I can’t stress enough that nothing you write is personal anymore. Friends can quickly become enemies and take screen shots of your “private” social media accounts for all the world to see. Don’t ever write anything on your personal pages that you wouldn’t want to proudly read- out-loud- in front of a client or potential client.

As a business professional, you don’t have a personal life. Your clients’ lives are your obligation- both personally and professionally when it comes to branding and visibility. Voicing your own opinions online (even via a personal account) will harm your own reputation- right or wrong, this is the culture we live in.

Keep it professional and keep those negative or opinionated posts off of social media!

Twyla Garrett

One Habit Harming Your Business

I’m going to share the most vital of business tip I can – you have a bad habit. In fact, most entrepreneurs do. I had to become aware of this bad habit, which is why I am passing it on to you. Once you become aware of this habit then you can start to work on breaking it.

So, what’s the habit? Living in the past. Yes, the past. You see, dwelling in the past keeps you from moving forward. It is important that you do whatever it takes to bury the past so you can come into the now. You can’t think about mistakes or should’ves. You really have to focus on planning to move forward and think about possibilities.

People who live in the past or judge the present based on how they have experienced the past tend to be dreamers, not do’ers. It is important that you are both. I use to live in the past. I thought about all the money and time wasted learning lessons and thought how impossible it seemed for me to move forward. Then, one day, after realizing that I was frozen by my past , I decided to dive right into my future. I worked on shrugging off irrational fears of what could happen again and made a plan to move forward and prevent these things from happening again. I didn’t become glued to past results, I worked on moving forward because of the past results.

If you can learn to move forward from the past, you will be successful. There is no question in my mind about this strategy. So, I ask you today, what about your past is making you fearful about moving forward today? Whatever it is, address it and then figure out a plan to move beyond it.

Until tomorrow,

Twyla N. Garrett

Is A Mobile App Really Needed?

Business owners sometimes don't want to invest in technology because they feel it will not benefit their business. And, in some cases, this is true. So, how do you know if paying to develop a great mobile app is really needed?

Stats released by BuySellAds.com state that worldwide app revenue is set to hit $15.1 billion by the end of 2011, a 200% increase over 2010, while other research from Deloitte LLP says that 45% of smartphone users download a new app at least once a week. In the same Deloitte research, however, they found that 80% of the apps they reviewed had less than 1,000 downloads.

The type of mobile app, the type of consumer phone, the type of business you are in makes all the difference. According to recent numbers released by Pew Research, only 35% of Americans own a smartphone. While that is rather high and will only increase, that’s still 65% of consumers that can’t use an app. If you’re looking to reach the masses, you need to evaluate how many of your customers are actually using these devices, and if they are, which platforms (iPhone, Android, etc.) they prefer.

My best advice is to give the power to your consumers! Run a survey and see if they really want, and will use, a mobile app for their cell phones and what types of cell phones you have. Since this topic is so subjective based on business and phone type, you want to do more research based on a market survey before making any huge decisions.

Until next time
Twyla