Notes From the Desk

Promoting one’s business or group is one of the most important things to do to become successful. Unfortunately, this task usually takes a back seat to other priorities. I don’t care if you are the local high school hockey team or a multinational corporate company; there are avenues that every group should be taking to expand its viability, reach and influence in the world. If customers don’t know about your business or group, than they can’t join or purchase your merchandise. Here are five simple things you can easily do on the Internet to spread the word.

1. Start a group on LinkedIn: LinkedIn is the business version of Facebook and having an individual page is great but it doesn’t fully promote the company. Creating a group page on LinkedIn helps individuals or groups find your company. With a LinkdIn group, you can easily distribute news and other information to the public in one localized place.
2. Start a business page on Facebook: Facebook right now is the number one social networking website out there. While it is not as formal as LinkedIn, Facebook has a bigger and wider net it can toss to attract more people to your business. Also when a person joins your group on Facebook, Facebook does you the favor of promoting your business to all of that person’s friends on Facebook.
3. Create a Digg account to promote your eNews: Digg.com is a news website where the articles are submitted by the users. Users recommend news they have read on other sites to all the other Digg users. If you have been including your newsletters as part of your website this is a great tool to promote your news to new people who have not heard of your group or company.
4. Participate as a group: Recently I participated in a charity bike ride and to register you need to use a website called getmeregistered.com. With this site there are many features that people rarely use. One such feature is that you can organize a business group or organization to participate in the event. A group can be 1 person or 100 people, but the benefit is you are putting your company or group name out there for the world to see. While promoting a good cause you are also promoting your business to a new group of people.
5. Submit your website to DMOZ.org: DMOZ.org is a free online directory that you can submit your website to be listed. DMOZ.org is used by people looking for specific companies to fulfill their needs. The secondary benefit of DMOZ.org is yahoo.com, google.com, and other search engines will follow that link to your website. Thus creating a free external link back to your site, which is great for your search engine optimization.

Recently, a friend of mine was in a job interview and was asked to explain a few things on his Facebook page that the company was curious about. The first thing they asked him was to explain the religion he had posted on his Facebook profile. Racking his brain, he tried to remember what he had posted on Facebook. It finally dawned on him that he was still listed as a “Follower of the Church of Darrell Williams.” While this may be a funny inside joke among friends, it may not be so funny to potential clients or places of employment. Is there such a thing as a personal Internet identity that is separate from your business identity? As with everything on the Internet, there is no clear-cut yes or no answer, but with a little luck we can wade through the murkiness.

First off, a good rule of thumb to think of when dealing with posting anything on the Internet is that once it’s on the Internet it is there forever. Even if you remove those comments or embarrassing photos, they are most likely still out there somewhere. With websites like archive.org you can bet that there is copy of something you posted 5 years ago.

So does this mean the end of fun on the Internet? Can I post on Facebook, Flicker or MySpace without being scared I could get fired for what I just posted? What this does mean is that you need to think twice about what you post. Students and employees throughout the country have been expelled or fired for photos or comments posted on Facebook and MySpace.

If you want to control what the public can see of your profile on the Internet, make sure to use the security settings on forums and social networks. Make it so only approved friends can view your information. But don’t forget that your friends can download the pictures from your pages and repost them, so this is no guarantee of safety.

The bottom line is the Internet and social networking sites have made the world a much smaller place. While your personal Internet identity and business Internet identity are not one yet, the lines are blurring and the day will come when what you post on the internet can and will come back to haunt you. The Internet is still a playground where you can have fun, but remember the rule of thumb, what is posted on the Internet is there forever.

When the word CAPTCHA is mentioned most people scratch their heads and show an odd expression on their face. A CAPTCHA is the numbers or letters you need to type at the end of a survey or contact form to prove you are not a computer/SPAM. CAPTCHA’s are appearing all over the Internet almost as fast as spam is (and sometimes just as annoying).

So the question is, when does CAPTCHA become appropriate to use? To be honest there is no cookie cutter answer for this. Each form or survey needs to be taken on a case-by-case basis. But a good rule of thumb is that all surveys and forums should have a CAPTCHA. SPAM can kill a forum and destroy survey results.

A contact form generally should not include a CAPTCHA. There are other methods that a developer can put into place to help prevent spam getting through the form.  The reason for not automatically placing a CAPTCHA on a contact form is that contact forms are where new customers come to get in touch with you. You do not want to add an extra step that might discourage them.

A final note to remember is that SPAM will always find a way. It’s like water finding the path of least resistance, it will get there eventually. So take some steps to help slow it down by having a CAPTCHA or removing the email link on your site and replacing it with a contact form.