<![CDATA[Social Media Management. Maximize Your Visibility.

<![CDATA[Social Media Management. Maximize Your Visibility. - Blog]]>Thu, 24 May 2012 01:05:17 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[Get Goal-Directed]]>Sun, 25 Mar 2012 17:04:24 -0800http://www.enduracom.com/1/post/2012/03/get-goal-directed.html

There is a lot to be said for having a goal or two, and even more to be said for writing them down. Last year I was inspired to make a ‘bucket list’—you know, the list of things you want to do before you die or, less elegantly put, kick the bucket. The last time I thought about dying I made a will, but when I sat down to ponder my List, I was not thinking about dying. I was thinking about living. And how I was choosing to spend the time I’ve been allotted in doing it well. Within days opportunities came my way and having those written goals helped me channel my resources into some unforgettable accomplishments.

Having and listing goals is the essential difference between success and failure. In business they’re calling them S.M.A.R.T. goals, and I hope this blog inspires you to sit down and set some goals for your business.

SMART GOALS

S pecific: Stating your goals as specifically as you can, rather than in a general statement will give you a better chance of attaining your goals. Answer the “5 W’s”—who, what, when, why, where? For example, a general statement would be “Use social media to boost business.” A specific goal would be more like “Set up social media accounts on Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, and WordPress and hire a community management company to maintain and maximize my online visibility through increased blog posts, status updates, and customer service using these outlets.”

M easurable: Measuring your progress keeps you on track and on target so you can recognize when you’ve met your goal. Ask the “2 H’s”—how much, how many, and determine the deciding factor that will show completion. For example, monitor your Google analytics to see where your website traffic is coming from and whether it correlates with your increased social media activity.

A ttainable: If you put your mind to anything you can achieve it. Remember this when you’re writing your goals down so that you won’t shoot yourself in the foot and give up before you get started. Don’t feint in the face of a long-distance goal! Goals are something you aim for, not necessarily something you accomplish overnight. It’s true that once you’ve established a goal, you’ll find resources to direct and dedicate to accomplishing it that you never thought of. You can grow into your goals!

R easonable: Having said all that about attainable goals, your goals should still be within reach of the amount of energy, effort, and expense you’re willing and able to commit.

T imely: You need to limit the time it should take to meet (and measure) your goal. When you give a goal a deadline, you start the timer and that’s a perfect way to spark the sense of urgency required to get started and sustain your effort until the goal is reached.

SMART goals create a watershed effect. They can get you up in the morning, focus your effort during the day, and let you sleep like a baby at night. They inspire and energize in a way that nothing else does. So go, set some smart goals.

]]><![CDATA[Time Warp]]>Fri, 16 Mar 2012 07:13:45 -0800http://www.enduracom.com/1/post/2012/03/time-warp.html“From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There’s more to see than can ever be seen,
More to do than can ever be done.”
Elton John, The Circle of Life from Disney’s The Lion King soundtrack

In our busy lives few would dispute that there is more to do than can ever be done. Forget saving time in a bottle—we’d all like to bottle it, and pop the top when we feel like we’re ‘running out of time.’ I remember a quote I heard from Oprah, over a decade ago, that “you can have it all, just not all at one time.” How? Not by ‘getting more time’ but by getting a grip on the time we do have so that we use this ever-diminishing resource to its maximum productive potential. Here are three essential steps for making every moment count:

1. Accept Limitations
The first thing to do is accept that there is more to do than can ever be done. I don’t mean in a discouraging or pessimistic way that makes you quit before you start, but in a realistic way. Acknowledging that time is finite and that it doesn’t expand to fit everything we want to do into it, then we’ll be empowered to work within the confines of limited time. Such boundaries are not limiting but instead freeing because they require prioritizing. And a prioritized life is a productive life. No one can do too much and do it all well. If you want to be successful, you have to do something well, and that means not doing too much.

2. Select Priorities
A word to the wise: prioritizing isn’t easy. It’s simple, but not easy. When I started running long distance five years ago, at the same time as I went back to work full time, I had some difficult choices to make. In order to get my training in, I had to wake up early. But I’m a night owl, and loved the quiet evenings after the kids were in bed, to read, write, or watch TV. For a while I could ‘do it all.’ But after several weeks of burning the candle at both ends—hitting the sack at 11pm and getting up before 5am to run—I was forced to work out a prioritized plan of recalibration. Running was the priority, but to do that I had to get to bed earlier, so something had to go. A tough choice, but one I have lived with for five years, and still manage to carve out productive time in between. It’s hard saying ‘no’ but it’s essential If you’re going to say ‘yes’ to success, you absolutely must say ‘no’ to the unnecessary.

3. Expect Change
You don’t have to be like me, with an active family and a spouse who travels a lot, to encounter all kinds of curveballs on any given day. You know that no two days are the same and no plan is carved in stone. But, as a colleague reminded me today, blessed are the flexible for they shall not get bent out of shape! Change is inevitable, so have a strategy to deal with it so that you can deal quickly with it, and get back on track, priorities intact, picking up where you left off as soon as you can.

Do you have some examples of how you’ve managed any of these steps that will benefit our readers? Feel free to comment!

]]><![CDATA[When Risk Outweighs Reward, Don’t Take the Risk.]]>Wed, 19 Oct 2011 12:02:37 -0800http://www.enduracom.com/1/post/2011/10/when-risk-outweighs-reward-dont-take-the-risk.html

Rainy Day
I had a small accident yesterday that has me thinking about being perpetually prepared. I always have a large golf umbrella in my car—living in South Florida there’s usually an 80% chance of rain regardless of what you see on weather.com. For several weeks, though, I’ve been driving around with an umbrella that doesn’t open, a detail I discovered in a deluge when I was out grocery shopping, but have failed to address.

So when I arrived at a party in pouring rain, I was left with little recourse but to make a mad dash from car door to house door. I’m not sure how I slammed my thumb in the (car) door, or how I got it out, but I’m quite certain nothing has hurt that much in a long time! Arriving at a party soaking wet is one thing, but showing up in shock and agony is quite another. My hosts and friends were awesome, and within minutes I had ice on the thumb and a drink in my (other) hand, but faced with so much pain and swelling even a day later I am determined to learn something from this.

1.     Don’t put off an easy solution—a little time and money go a long way.

2.     When risk outweighs reward, don’t take the risk.

3.     Don’t miss an opportunity to prepare for ‘just in case’—you don’t know when it’ll come around but you do know that it will.

4.     Don’t deny your need for assistance—let your friends help you.

When it comes to social media, these are great lessons. Creating and maintaining a Facebook page is an easy and inexpensive little thing you can do, and it’s risk-free. It’s kind of a classic application of a little going a long way. An umbrella’s easy to tote around if you don’t need it, but when you do it’s worth its weight in gold! Struggling to find a starting point or sustain what you started? Give us a call—we’re here to help!

The song “Catch a Falling Star” by Perry Como is a quirky reminder that you never know when ‘love may come and tap you on the shoulder’, but you know it will, and when it does, you’ll be ready.

Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket

Never let it fade away

Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket

Save it for a rainy day

For love may come and tap you on the shoulder

One starless night

And just in case you feel you wanna hold her

You’ll have a pocket full of starlight!

                                                            Perry Como

Needless to say, I swung by the store on the way home and picked up a brightly colored, polka-dotted umbrella and have had several occasions to use it already with no ill effects. It’s sitting right here next to me and I am loving the fact that it’s a rainy day!

[thank you to © Blotty | www.Dreamstime.com   for this photo]

]]><![CDATA[No Reverse]]>Sun, 18 Sep 2011 11:54:15 -0800http://www.enduracom.com/1/post/2011/09/no-reverse.htmlThere's a good reason why it's easier to go forward than backward - we're built for it! Have you ever tried ice skating in reverse? Not so easy ey! It looks easy when the professionals perform, but for the rest of us, not so much. And we all remember how easy it is to ride a bike - going forward!

Have you ever been stopped at a traffic light and a vehicle next to you starts moving forward - and you feel like you're suddenly in reverse and you panic lest you be on a collision course with the car behind you? Well, in business as in traffic, we can find ourselves in 'relative reverse' unless, as we bop along in life, we determine intentionally to progress. Nowadays this concept finds considerable application in technology. Look at it this way: If everyone around you is moving forward, pressing on, advancing, and you're still doing the same-old, you might be in relative reverse. You'll be getting behind without even trying - and that, of course, doesn't make any sense. Just like we've learned from our earlier years, it's just easier going forward.

Social media is a good example of the forward movement, yet many businesses are spinning their wheels, standing still, going in relative reverse.

Ask yourself, should I go forward or can I just keep doing what I'm doing? Well I say you've got to take a step, but take it one at a time - going forward!
]]><![CDATA[Enthusiasm]]>Tue, 07 Jun 2011 17:00:05 -0800http://www.enduracom.com/1/post/2011/06/enthusiasm.html More often than not, this word occurs almost euphemistically – I was less than enthusiastic about another late night, for example. And yet it is an awesome word: it doesn’t only feel good to say, it feels good to be! Enthusiasm is intoxicating, inspiring, infectious, and invaluable to success. If you’re ‘less than enthusiastic’ about something you can be assured that others will take their cue from that just as much as they would from your enthusiasm. So take a deep breath and determine to exude enthusiasm. Before you know it you’ll be like the Pied Piper with an equally enthused following!

]]><![CDATA[Good Luck With That!]]>Fri, 27 May 2011 00:00:00 -0800http://www.enduracom.com/1/post/2011/05/good-luck-with-that.htmlMy husband is the luckiest guy I know. Personally anyway. He wins stuff all the time. One night after a golf tournament he won five out of the 20 draw prizes. He won a Waterford crystal bowl at another. He even won a Green Card and the only way he’d be luckier is if he’d won it 10 years earlier and saved us the price of a nice Corvette in the process. One thing he hasn’t won yet is the Florida (or any other) lottery, but I imagine that if I stick around long enough he will. Oh yea, and did I mention, he’s my husband, which means he’s married to me – how lucky can one guy be in a single lifetime?

Gary Player, a famous South African golfer in the 80s, once said (approximately) “I’m a lucky guy. But one thing I know, the harder I work, the luckier I get."
” So here’s the deal. You have to do the work. Even if you believe in the law of attraction, you still have to do that work, you still have to figure out what you want so you can put in the effort to attract it. And I think that’s as good as it gets. We’re not in Eden anymore – work is a fact of life here!

Being in the right place at the right time takes effort. You have to do the research and book the tickets. It’s a bit like being a storm chaser – you don’t just wake up one day and decide to go looking for tornadoes somewhere in Kansas! No, you check the weather services, you research where – and when – the conditions are ripe for a twister, and you meticulously plan a trip to a set of coordinates most likely to deliver your quarry.

So what do you want from your life and your business? If you want to get in the way of the best kind of luck, you have to plan to do the best kind of work. Nothing is ever a waste if you’re always on a path to somewhere instead of a road to nowhere. And you’re more likely to get there if you don’t expect to arrive overnight
So keep working at it – tweet, post, blog – and the best of luck to ya!
]]><![CDATA[Balance of Power]]>Tue, 24 May 2011 16:01:46 -0800http://www.enduracom.com/1/post/2011/05/balance-of-power.html

At a blogging conference this past weekend, Susan and I were privileged to sit down with Guy Kawasaki following the release of his new book “Enchantment.” Well technically we sat in the same room while he regaled the audience about being better at business, although Susan did actually sit down with him while he autographed our copies of his book!

For my part, after an hour of ear-tickling about enchanting others, it was surprising to find that Kawasaki’s tips are easier said than done. Well, as ‘they’ say, if it was easy everyone would be doing it! But, I had determined to take away one thing to actually act on from each session I attended, starting with his, and today presented the perfect opportunity to put my plan into action.

Kawasaki’s first few tips are really simple good manners and genuine interaction (yes yes, these are in short supply these days, so worth repeating, particularly in his finessed format!) Smile a genuine smile (duchenne smile – rock those crow’s feet y’all!), dress appropriately, have a good handshake. But when it comes to habitual manners, he advocates that when someone says ‘thank you’, that you DON’T just default to ‘you’re welcome.’ Say what? Isn’t that polite? Well yes, but it falls short.

As a mom with middle school kids with separate schedules and a commute to school, I rely on ride sharing. Several of us do. Between school plays, band and choral concerts, athletics events and full-time jobs there’s frequently a friend in need. It’s often a well-oiled system and not something anyone can keep track of who owes whom from when. And yet I feel like I’m the one who needs help the most and am always struggling to keep the status quo and not be the ‘freeloader’ – not easy in the generous circles I run in! I need a solution but more than that, I need others to be the solution so that no one feels obligated and no on feels indebted.

Kawasaki recommends ‘invoking reciprocation.’ It’s a principle that enables people to pay you back, so that then they feel free to ask you to do more things, and that keeps relationships going and deepening. How do you pull it off? Gentle reminders. Next time someone says ‘thank you,’ Kawasaki says, respond with ‘you’d do the same for me.’ I’m glad I heard him say that on Friday, because when I got my friend’s text saying, ‘Thank you so much!’ as I arrived at school to pick up our daughters, I texted back ‘YW, u’d do the same 4 me!’

And she would, and does. I just hope she’ll do the same 2 me next time I send her a TY text.

]]><![CDATA[Local Business and Twitter]]>Tue, 24 May 2011 15:33:33 -0800http://www.enduracom.com/1/post/2011/05/local-business-and-twitter.htmlIf you have a local business - you need Twitter. Open an account and search for any word related to your city such as: the name of the city, a landmark, an event, the mayor, newspaper etc. The Twitter accounts that are posting that information have 'followers'.
Here's what to do: FOLLOW the people who follow the other person! Pretty soon you'll have those followers... following YOU! And so on and so on.

Contact us if you need help or training for setting up your TWITTER account.
]]><![CDATA[In The Mix]]>Thu, 28 Apr 2011 08:29:30 -0800http://www.enduracom.com/1/post/2011/04/in-the-mix.html I have a green pool. OK, it’s a turquoise-green now but not quite the Caribbean azure it should be even if it isn’t the pond-green of yesterday. Why am I telling you this? Well, at my house, the pool, like the rest of the surrounding outdoors, is my husband’s domain. I am far less equipped for turning the screws on the filter etc than I am for stirring a made-from-scratch cheese sauce. Be that as it may, there are times when compromise is called for – like yesterday.

Based on long-distance telephonic instructions, I ventured into uncharted territory—the pool store—with a water sample. Scott was super-helpful: he tested the water, diagnosed the problem, and dispatched me with detailed instructions and forty dollars worth of chemicals. But here’s the thing: the pool has been getting greener by the day for almost a week. Every day my husband treated it with more chlorine – figures: color to clear takes bleach, right? Wrong!

Like many things, the solution wasn’t that simple. It has entailed a specific treatment with acid, anti-phosphorescents, and a clarifier, together with filter cleaning twice a day (this is a very big deal) and sweeping the walls and floors of the pool to assist the Barracuda’s lame suctioning.

So what’s my point? Sometimes a successful solution isn’t what you think it is and it’s seldom just one thing. It’s a case of testing your commercial waters, mixing things up to target an exact problem or goal, and maybe even a bit of work out of the starting blocks to kick-start the process. Let’s not just do a website and hope people visit from your business cards! That’s like dousing the pool with chlorine—it’s necessary but not sufficient and may end up just being plain wasteful. You need a mix, finely tuned like a tasty recipe, that includes an intentional balance of social media, online presence, an eye on trending, Ezine articles, and solid website updates.

It’s time to test the waters and determine a solution—our workshop coming up this Saturday is a great start (kinda like a visit to Scott at the pool store) but you can call us, find us on Facebook, look us up on LinkedIn or tweet us and we’ll be happy to help turn your green waters blue.

]]><![CDATA[The Royal Wedding]]>Sun, 24 Apr 2011 10:07:44 -0800http://www.enduracom.com/1/post/2011/04/the-royal-wedding.html

It’s good to see that romance is alive and well in the world! This week, our beloved Prince Willy marries Kate Middleton in the Gen Y wedding of the century. What an ideal silver lining to the storm clouds of international wars, electoral wars, and natural disasters pervading the rest of the news.

I was 14 for The Royal Wedding on July 29, 1981. In South Africa it was practically a national holiday! I vicariously walked down that aisle, in that fairytale dress, and wearing that ring! My daughter is almost the age I was then, but as an American, she’s less clued in to that whole real princess thing. Much like Kate—and even Diana—who’s a regular, down-to-earth, personable perfect princess!

I hope that Kate and William stay as happy as they look and are right now. I hope that history will repeat itself in this generation’s Royal Wedding, but that this generation will learn from history for how they treat them after. I hope we all do our part to keep them from becoming future paparazzi fodder. Let’s love the ceremony and wish Kate and William everything that is best in the world as they walk into their shared life together.

Long live Prince William and Princess Kate!

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