techSOAP

Biggest News since the JooJoo!!

I am sure there is a lot of other news that is bigger than this, but for me its the biggest news since I heard about the Joo Joo/Crunchpad dispute last week.

I have started a new position at Kaseya.  I am excited to join the Product Marketing team focused on the service provider market and will handle all the social media marketing efforts for Kaseya.  So if you are an IT company using Kaseya I want to talk to you.  Or if you are just considering Kaseya, OR if you just said, “what’s kaseya?”  find me on twitter here and let’s talk. 

Starting here has been like trying to catch up to a plane on the runway taking off!  Lots of great things coming out from Kaseya in the New Year! 

I look forward to posting more here at techSOAP and at Kaseya’s Blog

 

Technorati Tags: ITSP,it,technology,Kaseya,cozthegrov,job,marketing

Make Money with Sponsored Tweets

This is a sponsored guest post written by Zac Johnson on behalf of Sponsored Tweets. Post powered by Sponzai

A couple weeks ago I signed up with Sponsored Tweets, a new program available through Izea. The concept of Sponsored Tweets is simply… get paid to send out tweets through Twitter. Since joining, I’ve had several opportunities come through, and have already made several hundreds of dollars. Here’s a bit more on the site and how you can make money too. View Sponsored Tweets

How does Sponsored Tweets work?
Everything about Sponsored Tweets is very simple and easy to setup. You create your account, and login with your same Twitter account info (through Twitter). Once your account is created, you just need to set how much you want to be paid per tweet, and then you wait for a new opportunity to come in. When you receive a new opportunity, you just need to approve or deny the tweet. Some advertisers write what they want you to say, but many leave that up to the tweeter. You submit the “tweet” for approved, and once approved, the money is deposit into your account.

Is this allowed by Twitter, and Ethical?
To answer the most important question, YES! This is allowed by Twitter! and Sponsored Tweets mentions this several times on their web site, as they have worked with Twitter through the process of making the site. As for being “ethical”, there is full disclosure. When a tweet is sent through Sponsored Tweets, it is seen on twitter as “sponsored by…“, “Ad“, or “brought to you by..“. It’s this full disclosure that keeps the tweeter, the advertiser and the reader all legit.

What does a “sponsored tweet” look like?
Depending on whether or not your advertisers provides an ad copy, your tweet can look like anything. Whatever you submit will be sent over to Sponsored Tweets for approval. Other than that, it will look like a regular tweet going out through your account. The only difference is that the url is through bit.ly and instead of being posted from “web” or “tweetdeck”, it says “from Sponsored Tweets“… as it should for full disclosure.

Is anyone making Money with Sponsored Tweets?
As mentioned, in just my first couple of weeks, I’ve made an extra few hundred bucks just for a few minutes of my time approving ads, and I have a fairly small twitter following. ShoeMoney also posted about how he has earned thousands from tweeting advertiser links independently and through Sponsored Tweets.

Who else is partnered with Sponsored Tweets?
There are actually a decent amount of big name tweeters already signed on with Sponsored Tweets. I haven’t seen a way to signup online (have to call) as an Advertiser to access a full list of tweeters available, but they do have the following “featured tweeters” listed in the login area. Some of these accounts (like Kim Kardashian) have over 2 million followers.

That’s a quick summary of what Sponsored Tweets is all about, and how it’s making money and driving leads through Twitter. It’s fairly new, and always great to get into a new revenue source on the bottom floor.

Should your business embrace instant messaging?

Instant messaging in one form or another has been around since computers were first connected to a network. Today instant messaging is  a very common tool that people use for personal communication, and has moved in to corporate life to play a key role in enabling teams to work more effectively and efficiently. While that sounds almost like a marketing pitch let’s look at some of the key indicators of whether instant messaging has a place in your business. Here are a few of those key indicators in no particular order.

· If your business is organized into teams; especially geographically diverse teams.

· If you business is highly transactional and if those transactions require cross-organizational cooperation.

· Any business that is decentralized with remote workers spread over many time zones.

· For businesses utilizing offshore resources instant messaging reduces language and accent frustrations.

· Any business that requires near realtime communication between employees at any and all levels.

Of course many business owners and managers have some just concerns about allowing instant messaging in the office. Chief among those concerns is that of lost productivity to personal conversations both internal and external. Early in the popular adoption of instant messaging there were very few “private” instant messaging networks. Thankfully today there are many choices. Most choices for instant messaging are delivered through “Unified Communications” platforms. Microsoft Office Communication Server or “OCS” is one example. However many companies today simply choose a standard instant messaging network (MSN, AIM, Skype, Google Talk) and a standard user naming convention for new employees and share “buddy” lists. With this form of communication commonplace the adoption of instant messaging is exploding in the workplace without the degradation in productivity that was previously feared.

 

What are you using internally for IM?

Technorati Tags: im,unified messaging,OCS,skype,AIM,business,technology,IT,collaboration

A year later the landslide continues….

Okay, so I remember the day Google announced their Chrome browser and I was sharing an office with a bunch of web design guys who collectively groaned.  Their complaint: We don’t need ANOTHER browser!!  At the time, I thought, “Fair enough, but I can’t wait to try it.”

I like even the reason that Google birthed this project.  According to sources, Google was looking to do things with HTML 5 along with some other technologies (read: Google Wave)  that just weren’t possible in any of the current major browsers.  Bravo Google! 

Just over a year later, I have to say I am totally hooked.  Chrome is BY FAR the fastest browser I have ever used; by a landslide!  Here’s proof right after they launched.   One of my favorite things is the super clean interface.  Safari, IE, and Firefox have gone through updates this year that bring them all on par with most of the navigation features I love from Chrome, but NONE have improved their speed to match Chrome. 

This landslide victory for Chrome was primarily relegated to the PC, but now with the MAC version the landslide is complete!

Google Chrome will continue to be my browser of choice, and now with the announcement of Chrome OS, maybe there is even a Chrome netbook in my future.

Did you know?... 4.0

In preparation for the upcoming Media Convergence Event from the Economist, an updated version of the “Did you know…” series of videos.  This one deals with the shift in our attention from “traditional” media outlets to online and mobile channels.  Is your business doing anything to make the switch?

 

Technorati Tags: video,convergence,media,mobile,online

Social Media Knows Me Best…

We’re all in the midst of a communication revolution.  The way we share information about ourselves; the way that we learn about people we connect with in person and online; the way that companies and brands learn about us, is all changing! 

This shift is unprecedented and totally exciting to me and to share in that excitement I ask you to watch this video below.  It may scare you, but it excites me.  Tell me what you think when you’re done.

This came from my friend’s blog, Finding Rest.

 

Technorati Tags: social media,networking,business,twitter,facebook,communications,marketing

What’s in your Dashboard?

Do you have a dashboard for your managed services practice?  If not, you are missing out on an amazing opportunity to connect with your prospects and customers in a very real, very significant way.  For many people not doing IT we are just geeks who operate in a black box of sorts.  Dashboards give outsiders a glimpse of all that you do for them.

Here is an excerpt from Seth Godin’s Blog that I think has incredible relevance for ITSP and IT Departments alike.

Building good dashboards isn’t difficult, but it’s an excellent marketing strategy. A few brainstorms:

1.  If you can add a digital dashboard to your service, do it.

2.  If you can make the dashboard public, it gets more powerful.

3.  Highlight data that changes behavior.

4.  Allow the user to highlight the information that matters to them.

If you have an office, then a publicly viewable dashboard can be a great sales tool and should be an integral part of any customer visit.  Some of Seth’s points are most relevant for web dashboards, but the most important is that it is public.  Or even just semi-public (customers only).   Putting the data out there holds the service provider accountable, and provides a transparency that builds trust.

If you have a dashboard let’s see it.  Post a link to the dashboard or a screenshot in the comments.

 

Technorati Tags: SMB,ITSP,msp,business,sales

Your Attention Is What “THEY” Want!

In the world of television everything started with the users having to be in front of the TV at the time a show or an event was being broadcast to partcipate.  The broadcasters could be certain to have your attention at that time.  Then came the  VCR which allowed you to be somewhere else while a show ran, with this the broadcasters weren’t certain they’d have your attention.  The latest in this time shifting of attention is with the DVR, no it is easy to NEVER have to be in front of the tv when the broadcast happens.  They have lost the guarantee of your attention and with the stored versions, they’ve lost the guarantee that you’ll see or pay attention to the commercials. 

The opposite is happening with social media.  It started with blogs, which were updated every so often ranging from weeks/months to days/hours.  Nevertheless, you consumed on your terms.  Then came twitter/facebook/linkedin status updates.  Now you had a way to both convey and to follow others in a near or at real-time manner.

I am firmly in the camp that believes Google’s biggest asset is knowing what you’ll click on and for how long, when, etc.  They have attention data.  For the internet to be valuable to advertisers they need to know where, when, and how you will give them your attention online. 

Twitter, Facebook (even more now with the FriendFeed acquisition) have created environments that are hard to be away from for many users.  I know I can’t keep up with my Facebook News Feed anymore, the first page only has stories from the last hour or so. 

They have succeeding is making users WANT to be online so they don’t miss something.  This is what television had in the early days, but it’s what just coming to the interweb.  This feeling of urgency, of needing to be online to know what’s happening. 

I know I feel the tug, do you?

 

Technorati Tags: social media,social networking,twitter,facebook,marketing,web

A key path to profitability for MSPs - Know your ratios!

I originally posted this one in June on Kaseya’s Blog, but I just had a conversation with a client about staffing ratios and in this world of challenging economics maximizing your staffing ratios can be the difference between red and black! 

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I want to talk about ratios.  Ratios in the ITSP market are a good indicator of profit margins.  In the internal IT arena ratios represent maximizing ROI.    The ratio I am thinking most specifically about is that of staff to end-users.  How many endpoints can one staffer support?  This is where no matter what type of organization you are, you can begin to measure and/or quantify the cost or burden for support on a per unit basis.   Ratios will mean different things based on your situation but for most they are useful for one or more of the following:

• Understanding headcount
• Growth planning (strategic non technical, offices, cap ex, etc.)
• System Capacity planning
• Identifying overages (support costs, headcount, cap ex, etc)
• Setting SLA’s (less staff means SLAs may need to slide)
• Understanding your profit/loss origins (are you profitable at your current ratio?  What ratio do you need have?)
• Budgeting (are you always over/under on certain line items in your budget?)

I challenge you to discover the ratios in your business that can lead to meaningful decision making.  The ratios may be staff to customers, staff to end users, staff to servers, staff to workstations, servers to workstation, infrastructure spend to users, training to profit, profit to hours, hours to profit, hours to cost.  You get the idea.  Get to know the ratios that matter most to you then be strategic about setting goals around those ratios.

I want to hear who has the best staff to user ratio.  I’ll start with Kaseya’s  1:150.
Sound off in the comments.

Technorati Tags: smb,itsp,managed services,profit,business,technology

What the F**k is Social Media?

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

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