Are you harnessing the power of social media?

The computer age brought us Moore's Law which states that the number of transistors that can be fitted onto a chip doubles every 2 years. There is a similar phenomenon that is happening with the internet and the way we communicate.

Our communications have evolved at such a rapid rate, it can be hard to catch up. In the last 2 years, facebook, twitter and many other sites have quickly become the way people interact with each other.

Is your business making the most of social media? Do you have a lead capture form on your fan pages? There are many ways to optimize social media and many more coming as our computers and phones keep getting smarter and faster.

What Happened To Craigslist?

Craigslist has always been a great tool to find good deals. If you know what you want and do some research, you can do very well. I have sold items I no longer needed and bought 2 cars on Craigslist and was very happy with the value I received from this free service. Something has changed. when looking for another car for the teenagers, I found the car ads to be littered with scams of too good to be true car deals with offers to ship the vehicles from another state. The scammers also prey on people looking for a job by stealing information and or money from desperate job seekers. Craigslist has put scam alerts on the site but it hasn't stopped the thieves. It must work well enough to keep the crooks posting the ads.

Buyer beware, in hard times, there are plenty of shady characters looking to fleece people of their hard earned money. Honest people can find it difficult to believe that someone would defraud them out of money so they become good targets. Greedy people think they can get a too good to be true deal and fall for the scam also.

It makes me sick to see scum of the Earth people using any way possible to steel from people. Those of you doing this, please refer to my post on the Golden Rule.

I'm hoping this will pass. It will make looking for things on CL much more efficient.

Hard Times Define Your Business

When times are good, almost anyone can make it in business provided they have the commitment and aptitude. When times are not so good, "the wheat gets separated from the chaff" Those that are committed to their businesses and have saved from the good times have a much better chance of surviving when times are lean. Hard times can make all of us focus on the important things and make us more mindful of what we have and hence, become better stewards of our resources.

It is also a time to define your business as being honest. When times are hard, it can be tempting when opportunities arise to take advantage of customers. When you pass up the chance to take advantage of someone, you sow seeds of honesty and trust.