Lumenica, llc » Small Business

10 fun and practical twitter tools to help you become a more efficient tweeter!

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:47:54 +0000

A list of different Twitter tools to make tweeting, efficient, fun and practical

1. www.twitterbackgrounds.com- customize backgrounds for your twitter account

2. www.Twellow.com: Directory of public twitter accounts. Organizes by categories. Great to see who to follow related to what you’re interested in.

2. www.Friendorfollow.com: Who are you following that’s not following you back? Who’s following you that you’re not following back? Find out!

3. www.Tweetdeck.com: A desktop Twitter application. To allow users to send and receive tweets and view profiles. It is the most popular Twitter application

4. www.whatthetrend.com: Find out what’s trending on Twitter and why.

5. www.Bit.ly: Shorten a URL, Track clicks. Similar to www.Tinyurl.com

6. www.Twittercounter.com: Offers Twitter user statistics and historical follower count.

7. www.Tweetchat.com: TweetChat helps put your blinders on to the Twitter-sphere while you monitor and chat about one topic.

8. www.Search.twitter.com: Search everyone’s tweets – in realtime

9. www.Twittersheep.com: Enter your twitter username to see a tag cloud from the ‘bios’ of your twitter flock.

10. www.hootsuite.com: An online based Twitter management tool which allows you to tweet on multiple twitter accounts, track statistics. You can create groups, schedule tweets, view tweets as threaded conversations.

A post on Online Marketing Blog discusses Five New Twitter Tools it mentioned some great new gadgets.

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Working from home the good, the bad and the lessons learnt

admin — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 02:26:18 +0000

“You are so lucky, I wish I could work from home” I remember hearing several of my friends telling me that once I announced to the world I am quitting a job I love to pursue my business full time and fall in love once again. Though the idea of not commuting for hours seemed attractive I had my reservations about working from home. I am sharing the good the bad and the lessons learnt from working from home.

The good:

1. No commute: rush hour traffic, spending my life of I 495 and the toll road bye bye

2. Saving money on gas: I can’t believe this but I actually don’t have to get the tank full every week-what a concept.

3. Dress Code-casual: No more wearing the power suit spending half an hour infront of the mirror and wearing painful heels. Ouch!

4. Networking here I come: I can actually go to networking events refreshed and since I have more flexibility I can go to the breakfasts, power lunches and evening networking events.

The bad:

1. The wall and me: One of the things that have been the greatest challenge is my brain storming sessions, over the past few months my wall and I have had several brainstorming sessions, arguments and discussions. There is a plus side to this-I always win the argument.

2. Distractions: There will always be a neighbor’s kid that’s crying too loud or a trash truck begging you for attention when all you want is some peace and quiet

3. The kitchen calls: whether it’s the dishes in the sink or the junk food you’ve hidden, somehow they all have a voice and call out to you while you work

4. we are open 24/7: one of the worst things about working from home is that you forget to close shop. You tend to work during the day, during dinner, while entertaining guests and sometimes in your sleep.

The Lessons Learnt:

Lesson 1: Wake up on time

Lesson 2: Get out of the PJs and into work clothes

Lesson 3: Hide the cookies

Lesson 4: Stick to a routine

Lesson 5: Choose a room that you use for work only

Lesson 6: close the door when you work and let everyone else in the house know a closed door means a closed door

Lesson 7: Learn to close business

Lesson 8: Learn to take breaks, if you work non-stop you will get unproductive

Lesson 9: Do not take any personal calls while working on business, unless they’re important

Lesson 10: Have a good support system – friends, family, mentors, other business owners, a good lawyer, a good accountant and anyone and everyone who can offer value to you and your business. Keep them close!

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Start up Killers-Highlights and Comments

10 free Online Poll and Survey Applications:

admin — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:03:38 +0000

As a business consultant one of the most common things I urge businesses to do is to get feedback, know your customer, ask questions. During a recent meeting, a client asked me to provide a list of common poll/survey applications that can be utilized.

Here is a list of the different tools I have tried out, got any others, add them to the list:

1 Linkedin Polls: I have personally used Linkedin polls and have found it easy to use and simple. Easy to create. Can be shared with with your network or selected professionals. View real time results. Get external link that can be distributed to anyone.

2 Poll Code: Free. You can customize with colors and fonts. Quick post option for Myspace, Facebook and Wordpress.

3 FreeOnlineSurveys.com: Create email or web based surveys. Free. You can create upto 20 questions. Data Analysis feature available. You can insert videos from youtube or google video within survey.

4 Poll Daddy: Free. Real Time reporting. Embed pictures or html within poll/survey. International language support. Export data as XML, CSV, and receive results via email or RSS. Works with blogger, TypePad, Wordpress etc.

5 Facebook Poll: I haven’t had any problems but I have heard some complaints. Free. Application is easy to add. Can be added to personal profile or business pages. Allows you to add HTML tags to the polls.

6 Survey Monkey: Free version is quite powerful. Powerful designs available. Different lay out options, Send automated responses to those who haven’t responded or left the survey incomplete. Powerful reporting tool. Highly recommend it for the analytic tools alone.

7 Constant Contact: Free 60 day trial. Gives sample questions. Survey wizard is quite powerful. Customize poll with colors and your logo. Can be embedded within website or blog. Create custom invitation. Send auto-reminders. Analyze invitations and results.

8 Ace Polls: Free. Can be added to website, blog, myspace, wordpress, email link etc. Simple and easy to use.

9 Google Forms: Google Forms is a great way to collect information, I have utlized the online based system to gather information from clients or getting feedback specific to a client. You can create a private poll or a public one and publish it on the web. For more information about Google Forms and other Google Docs, read my post 10 ways to use Google Docs for Small Business.

10 Twt Poll: Another online based poll, great for social media usage. You do need to have a twitter account to use the product. Ability to customize the look and feel of the poll. To see more features, click here to see video.

Got any other suggestions? Email me at rabiyaj@lumenica.com or post a comment below.

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10 ways to use google docs for small businesses

admin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:56:44 +0000

We are on our way to celebrate our two year business launch anniversary. As I reflect over the last two years, I started thinking about the different tools that we used that helped our business be a success. I quickly realized that we could not have been where we are without the help of Google Docs. Below are some of the ways we and other small businesses use Google Docs

1. Create word processing documents, we used it to write proposals and develop website manuals.

2. Share documents with other people on the same project, this was helpful when people involved on a project were not in the same physical location.

3. Created a document that could be edited by multiple people simultaneously for collaboration purposes. This was very important for us when we were trying to meet a deadline.

4. Divide documents into different folders/labels/projects-always nice to be organized!

5. Share folders with selected people, helpful to make sure there is a consistent way of sorting and organizing documents. You could have folders project based or sorted in what works for your organization.

6. Create forms to collect information from clients- For projects that required specific information, we would create simple forms and use them to gather the information we wanted. Made us look professional and helped us gather the information we needed.

7. Create forms for feedback after completion of projects-Always nice to get feed back in a professional way.

8. Email form or embed form in blog or website for quick responses-love this option!

9. Create presentations with Google presentation tools. Helpful if you don’t have MS Powerpoint.

10. Create spreadsheets using Google Spreadsheets-helped us with managing time spent on each project and amount of money owed by each client!

These are some of the ways we used google docs to help with our business. Do you have any stories to share? Tell us under comments or tweet them to me at @bizincubation !

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