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Showing posts from August, 2013

Use Social Media to Shop Around for Service Providers

By Filipinayzd (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Hiring a third party for services for a small to mid-size business can be tricky and time-consuming. Payroll services are a good example of this. Even with an office manager or human resources point of contact on staff, there are a lot of intricacies surrounding with holdings, filings, and government regulations like the Defense of Marriage Act, Immigration and Health Care Reform that should probably be left to the professionals. The first step in hiring third party services is knowing what you will remain responsible for in the eyes of the law when you outsource. Next, it is time to shop around. Here are a couple things to consider when shopping around: What Do the Basic Fees Cover...Exactly? Many providers offer a "free" trial for a few months. Unfortunately, these often end up costing a lot

Don't Leave Your Customers Out of the Conversation

For the past few weeks, the topic is sharks and quite possibly the most popular "B-Movie" buzz on social media to date is Sharknado. The SyFy channel movie, which aired for the first time in July, has been a social media mega-success, making it more successful online than the ratings. Sharknado Proves People Want to Be a Part of the Conversation Studies have shown repeatedly that people like to be a part of a community. However, Sharknado proves it. People don't have even have to watch the movie to know what it's about. A tornado casts mean and hungry sharks out into the land. A trailer shot shows a hero defending himself against an air-borne shark with a chain-saw. It's so predictable that you almost know what the movie will look like ahead of time. What content marketers didn't see coming was the social tornado that Sharknado would create online. On Facebook, 85% of the modest 13,000 fans were "talking about" Sharknado on July 24. Toda