Clay Edwards » technology

Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh)

Clay Edwards — Wed, 12 May 2010 18:15:38 +0000

via smallbizassist.com

great video on how social media can help your business grow…

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The Bloom Box: a power plant for the home

Clay Edwards — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:20:20 +0000

Watch CBS News Videos Online

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Monsanto is at it again

Clay Edwards — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:23:41 +0000

I received the following email from the makers of “Fresh the Movie”. I thought it was important so I’m posting it here. Hopefully you think it’s important too and will help stop this non-sense!

Genetic food giant Monsanto is at it again. Its next target: a new product that could eliminate all organic alfalfa, a key food for raising organic-fed cows and pigs without any genetic engineering.

The USDA is well on its way to approving Monsanto’s genetically modified alfalfa. In its own report, the USDA says that not enough consumers care enough about organic foods for the USDA to block Monsanto’s modified alfalfa seeds. [1] This is absurd since one of the main reasons people buy organic food is to avoid genetically engineered crops.

The USDA is only accepting public comments for the next two weeks. We need you to write to the USDA right now and tell them they must not approve Monsanto’s mutant alfalfa. We’ll deliver your comments before the deadline. [2]

Click here: http://action.freshthemovie.com/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1753

Alfafa is one of the major food sources for certified organic animals, not only because of its quality as forage, but because Monsanto’s patented genes are already found in 95% of soybeans and 80% of corn. If the USDA lets Monsanto sell its new alfalfa, it will inevitably overtake organic alfalfa crops through the natural pollination process. [3] As a result organic farmers may be feeding their cows genetically modified food.

Just like its corn and soy, Monsanto’s alfalfa is designed to tolerate its leading herbicide: Roundup. We can’t allow Monsanto’s greed to take-over one more crop. The consequences to our choice as consumer, to biological diversity, to the survival of our small and organic farmers depends are too dire.

Monsanto’s domination of our food must stop. For the USDA to shrug it off like nobody cares is to add insult to injury. We only have two weeks to submit our comments.The fight for FRESH food will continue, and with your help we’ll make it clear that people care about the food they eat.

Let’s show the USDA and Monsanto that people want food free from Monsanto’s modifications. Write your comments to the USDA now and say no to genetically modified alfalfa.

The fight for FRESH food will continue, and with your help we’ll make it clear that people care about the food they eat.

Thanks for all you do.

Technorati Tags: fresh, organic, food, genetic, Mansanto

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Coolest new Tablet pc coming soon! You gotta see this thing!

Clay Edwards — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 01:18:43 +0000

This is pretty amazing! Looks like an oversized pda type of cell phone but with much more capability. It has a wierd/cool new optical mouse too. Check out the video. I bet you’ve never seen anything like this before!

more about “Coolest new Tablet pc coming soon! Yo…“, posted with vodpod

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5 Tips for Using Video to Grow Your Business in 2010

Clay Edwards — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:03:27 +0000

It’s no secret that online video is hot. A recent study by comScore revealed that in October 2009, more than 167 million viewers in the U.S. watched an average of 167 videos each, while YouTube () reached 1 billion views per day – or 41 million views per hour – in the same month.

At my company, we’ve seen our own surge in video viewing. Video () now accounts for the largest number of files uploaded into online meetings on our platform.

Given that many of our customers work in sales and marketing, what I infer from these numbers is that video marketing is poised for a huge year in 2010. The reason is clear: video simply engages people in a way that static text and images cannot. There are dozens of studies that show the power of video to boost customer interaction, drive sales, encourage viral sharing, and build brand awareness. And according to MarketingSherpa, 95 percent of the companies that have used online video marketing are happy with the results and expect to use it again in the future.

Luckily, it’s never been easier to create marketing videos. You can create videos for free using stock images and still photos on services like Jivox, or even transfer existing TV spots to the Web. You can also create screencasts on sites like Screenr in under an hour by recording voice over still images, screenshots, and slides. If you want to shoot your own video, you can edit the footage using sites like Pixorial or Jaycut (). Of course, you can also hire a video production agency to create the videos for you.

Whatever type of video you create, make sure it’s short – under two minutes is usually best, but 30 seconds is even better. Simplicity is also key. Keep voiceovers straightforward and music at a minimum. If you want an example of the power of utter simplicity, check out the unique videos that explain hundreds of complex subjects produced by Common Craft.

Here are some great ways to use video to boost your business next year:

1. Punch Up Your Web Site

The easiest way get started is simply to embed your videos on your Web site. You can use YouTube to do this, or alternatives like Vimeo () or Sorenson Media. Once you’ve got the videos playing on your site, make sure they are easy to share by adding a “share this” button on each video so that viewers can pass them along via Twitter (), Facebook (), and other viral channels. Already on Twitter, 8 percent of all shared URLs are links to videos on YouTube.

2. Use Video to Sell

We’ve found that our sales reps see 20 percent higher close rates when they play a video at the beginning of their virtual sales demo. Other online services report similar results: Jivox, an online video ad platform, used this video demo on their web site to increase registrations by 25 percent – they even embedded a signup form right on the demo page to collect registrations. You can also use services like Wistia to share a video with prospects and track how they interact with the video.

3. Use Video in Your Online Ads

Online video ads are growing in popularity because they are effective in driving sales. According to a study by the Online Publishers Association, 52 percent of people who watched an online video ad took action after viewing the ad, such as visiting the advertiser’s website (31 percent) or searching online for more information on the product (22 percent). A full 12 percent went on to make a purchase – giving video ads one of the highest conversion rates in the industry.

4. Help Customers Get More Value Out of Your Product

The power of video is that you can show prospective and existing customers your product instead of just telling them about it. At our company, we developed a short video that explains how to use our product. This has dramatically increased product usage for both online and mobile customers. Another great example is Jigsaw: they use crowdsourcing to gather and vet business contact information, a new approach that relies on customer participation. They’ve created a whole set of slick video tutorials on their site to make it easy for people to fully utilize the service.

5. Go Mobile

Make sure your videos can be viewed on many different devices. A good rule of thumb for whether you should modify your videos to work on mobile devices is: “If a video is worth sharing on Twitter, it’s worth making it mobile-phone-friendly,” since 40 percent of Twitter users access the service via mobile devices, according to an October 2009 study by Crowd Science. Already, there are more than 4.1 billion mobile phone users worldwide – at least 10 percent of which are video-enabled smartphones. Make sure these mobile warriors can view your videos.

The Bottom Line

Online video is a powerful tool in today’s marketing arsenal. With 2010 fast approaching, make sure your company has a clear video strategy in place that works alongside your online, social, paid media, PR, and other marketing strategies. Your customers want video, so give it to them!

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iPhone apps I’m currently using

Clay Edwards — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 18:53:18 +0000

Here are some screenshots of the apps Im currently using and testing on my iPhone. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions I’d love to hear them!

Enjoy

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

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Awesome, simple and affordable contact management system!

Clay Edwards — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 23:20:01 +0000

Manage your daily tasks, build your relationships, and turn contacts into customers; all in one place, available all the time and from anywhere you want to work.

Oprius allows distributors to import data and get to work immediately. The service is designed for ease-of-use, so anyone with basic computer skills can quickly learn the intuitive navigation.

The subscription-based internet service was created especially for network marketing and uses the same secure technology as online banking, making your information safe at all times.

Use your calendar and define the tasks you need to accomplish. Review your contacts, assign them to groups, and make them an integral part of your sales process. In the Relationship Builder, you can create and schedule sales campaigns that address whole groups of customers in a pre-defined, step-by-step process.

The Phone Assistant gives an overview of your up-coming calls from which you can focus in on each contact and the next steps you want to take. It allows you to schedule phone appointments — using your calendar — and shows each contact’s details and call history. In addition, pre-defined and proven call scripts — all part of the package — can be associated with any selected contact, which can help greatly in closing your sales.

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Social Networking in a Nut Shell

Clay Edwards — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:57:30 +0000

I have been dabbling in social networking for a little while now and am finding it to be quite educational, fun and intellectually and financially rewarding. I thought I’d put together the bulk of what I’ve been using and learning about and share them with whoever is interested. That is what I’ve done here. I’ve included some links to some valuable social networking sites and tools. Please keep in mind that I am not a professional social networker and have just been experimenting with it a bit, but have really taken a liking to it. Feel free to use this information as you wish.

Here are the links:

www.Facebook.com huge social networking site!

www.InsideFacebook.com tips and more about Facebook, it’s history and where it’s going.

www.FacebookAdvice.com tips on how to effectively use your Facebook page.

www.delicious.com social bookmarks (web based bookmarks that you share with others and they share with you)

www.linkedin.com social/business networking site. More of a resume posting tool than anything but still good to have. You can update your status here and incorporate your blog feeds and more.

www.Ziggs.com like linkedin but not as popular yet, although has great tools and alerts you when someone “searches” for you on google

www.Ping.fm syndication site for posting status updates to multiple different social networking sites and blogs

http://ping.fm/E8oji Outlook plug in for Facebook

http://ping.fm/gvpnc outlook plugin for twitter posting

www.Twitter.com microblogging site

www.TweetBeep.com a tool for being alerted when someone “tweets” to you directly or with your name in their tweet (or any keywords you wish to be alerted to, kind of like Google alerts)

www.twitter.alltop.com resource page for twitter tools and associated sites

http://ping.fm/8i9ms twitter toolbar for your browser with built in tools, tips and more

http://tweetburner.com twitter browser plugin for sharing and tracking your “tweets”

www.twittercoaches.com life coaches on twitter that will send you daily messages for a positive mental attitude. I highly recommend!

http://brightkit.com allows you to manage multiple twitter accounts, have multiple “authors or posters” per account, and have pre-scheduled tweets go out from multiple accounts (kind of like a drip campaign)

http://ping.fm/1u5mv great tool for finding out what people are talking about on twitter

http://www.twellow.com a tweet directory of sorts. you can post your profile in categories here

http://ping.fm/haCi2 post to twitter with your voice from your phone by calling a number and speaking your tweet

http://ping.fm/fZdIH for when you want to post more than 140 characters on twitter

http://ping.fm/FQytl just plain cool, no matter how you slice it! I love that the government is finally embracing technology to stay in touch with the public. They’re using YouTube too, in case you didn’t know.

http://tweetwasters.com find out how much time you spend on twitter

http://ping.fm/DWlhA a twitter group for real estate agents (you can just go to www.twittgroups.com if you like and search for which ever group you’d like to join/follow/start)

http://ping.fm/bF9ac custom twitter backgrounds/wallpaper for fun or self promotion

http://ping.fm/frKsA works like a drip campaign for twitter, also lets you auto follow your followers back, instantly sends a tweet to your followers, and sends you a daily tally of your direct tweets

http://twitterment.com a search engine for twitter

http://ping.fm/ZtKDp another search engine for twitter

http://bit.ly a URL shortener for posting links in twitter without exceeding the 140 character limit. Works great for the curiosity approach for your followers as well. Gets them to click the link because they can’t see where it leads. There is also a browser plugin you can drag and drop for easy use

http://budurl.com another URL shortener

www.tinyurl.com another URL shortener, this one I use the most because I can convert a site to a short url just by right clicking and selecting “create tiny url”, then the link is already on my “clipboard” for me to post to twitter/facebook or wherever

http://ping.fm/4Y5rV find out how you can improve your Twitter account by get “graded”

http://ping.fm/1t28i find out how you can improve your Facebook account by get “graded”

http://twitpic.com allows you to share photos via twitter

http://ping.fm/KHdNw user and topic search tool for twitter

http://twitterholic.com the best tool for finding power users of twitter to follow and learn from, and possibly share with, if they follow you back

www.twitxr.com great tool that allows you to share pictures from your mobile phone and automatically publish them on social networks and photosharing sites, tell your friends where you are and what you are doing and automatically add your location to your pictures and status updates.

http://ping.fm/LAZP9 awesome desktop software for twitter. Very handy. You can make groups of your favorite followers, use a tag cloud to find out what’s popular at the moment, keep track of your direct messages, and stay up on your twitter feed/who your following without having to constantly refresh your browser.

http://www.utterli.com another socialnetworking site kind of like twitter but more advanced. Here’s a tip: there is a Facebook application for this you can add to your Facebook page. You can also cross post to other sites with this site/tool. There is a great video on the site that tells you how you can use this.

http://hellotxt.com this is another social networking “tool” that is pretty cool. You can update your status and read your friends’ status across all main microblogging and social networks all at once. You can even share photos, videos and music from here and cross post to other sites as well.

http://friendfeed.com another social networking site that cross posts to other social sites such as twitter and facebook. Also, you can set this site up so if you use Delicious social bookmarks, and you bookmark a site (pending you have it set up to share) a link will be posted to friendfeed of the site you just bookmarked and then cross posted to facebook and twitter (or wherever else). This is a great way to share websites you like with others. I use it all of the time.

http://ping.fm/PdwiJ Profilactic is a social media aggregator/lifestreaming service that pulls together just about everything you and your friends create online. It supports 190 social sites by default; however, you can add as many custom sites as you’d like. It also integrate seamlessly with WordPress, so you can add a lifestream to your blog.

www.socialtoo.com social survey tool

www.Yammer.com This is pretty cool. It’s like Twitter but for private use within your company, and it’s free. There is an iPhone application and a desktop application too!

http://www.viddyou.com a social video posting site

http://vimeo.com another social video posting site

www.jingproject.com I’m sure you may have heard of this one but it’s great, it’s free and it’s an awesome tool for “showing someone how to do something or asking how to do something” by capturing your screen and microphone and allowing you to email a link to the captured video to a friend within minutes (or save and share on YouTube! for tutorials or something like that)

www.tubemogul.com syndication site for posting a video to multiple sites all at one time through this one portal site

http://www.eyejot.com a great way to stay in touch with your database via email (video email that is) and it’s free. They even have a browser plugin for easy use.

since I’m kind of covering video here I’ll throw in a link to a site that covers some great tips on producing good videos: http://ping.fm/5ZXh7

http://ping.fm/aH6Eg a site/tool that is a portal window into your email inbox and multiple social networking sites all in one place

www.Fuser.com combined “inbox” for your email, facebook messages, myspace messages and twitter messages

http://www.ning.com a site to create your own social networks!

http://www.twine.com a site/tool you can use to stay up on things you’re interested in.

http://www.squidoo.com another very popular social networking tool. You build a “lens” to promote what you’re into and then promote it. You can actually make money with these too. Lot’s of people build these and then post links to them on twitter. You can incorporate Google adsense into it as well, I believe. Here are some examples http://ping.fm/Phlantwitterapps and http://ping.fm/uPYnNUseTwitter

www.myspace.com another huge social networking tool that I have a page on but tend to stay away from because my personal opinion is that it’s more for the youth generation and not for business/adult users. Just my take.

OK, I think that’s more than enough to be overwhelmed at this point. The trick is to start with the basics.

1. Create Facebook and Twitter accounts (at least)

2. Start getting used to using each of those and update your bio’s and contact info

3. Start “friending” and “following” people you admire, like, trust, respect and want to learn from

4. Actually USE these great tools. Don’t be afraid. If your kids can do it, I’m sure you’ll be fine!

5. Pick one additional tool per week to learn and incorporate (unless you can handle more)

6. Search YouTube for tutorials on Facebook and Twitter, or anything you want to learn!!!

I hope this helps and you are at least a little less intimidated with social networking.

Oh, and last but least, “friend” and “follow” ME!!!! I’d be happy to help you in any way I can and I’d love to be your friend too!

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Social Networking for Business

Clay Edwards — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 06:53:55 +0000

Click image to play video

Click here to watch

Due to the file size I had to upload a fairly small video. I will try to break this down into smaller segments in the future and upload in multiple parts.

Thanks!

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