Here’s our third installment of our Tech Trends vlog.

Craig and I talk with technology entrepreneur Lee Kelso (www.CloudSmart.biz) about how businesses can and are using the Cloud for cost effective communication platforms.

Let us know your thoughts!

Together my good friend and business associate, Craig Crook, we’ve put together our first installment of what we hope will become a regular video update on our blogs.

It’s nothing fancy, just the two of us talking about technology trends.  For our first installment, we talk a little bit about three technology trends we see developing: Mobile, Location, and Cloud.

One of the “buzz” words that those of us who are into web design often throw around is this whole idea of Web Usability.  Simply put, web usability is an approach to web site development that makes it easy for the end user.  It means that it is easy to use a web site.

Seems simple enough right?  Who wouldn’t want a web site to be easy to use?  Who would ever dream of making a web site hard to use?  Well the answer is a lot of people.  I’ll give just one example – my home town city – Fort Wayne.

Recently, Fort Wayne started a new recycling initiative – One Cart Recycling.  The program, true to its name, provides just one recycling cart.  No more sorting of products.  Simply put all recyclables into the same container.  Sounds like a great idea, right?  The problem is that you have to sign up for this service.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with a sign-up.  The problem is that the city forgot to ask the developer about usability.

Here’s what I get when I try to sign-up:

Can you tell what’s wrong here?  Apparently Fort Wayne really wants me to sign up.  But, only if I have the correct plug-in installed, only if I am running the correct operating system, only if I am not handicapped in certain ways, etc.

I received this message because I have a Apple computer.  And, as a result, don’t have silverlight installed.  And, this tells the 10% or so of people who browse with an Apple computer that you don’t care about them.  But, this is just the start.  Silverlight is estimated to be installed on about 50% – 55% of all computers.  So the city is telling the other 50% that they don’t want them to sign up.  And, this doesn’t even include iPhone or Android users.  Those also wouldn’t be able to sign up.  And, typically (thought not always) silverlight is very difficult for those with disabilities (i.e. vision problems).  So, the city is saying that it has this great One Cart Recycling program that it wants all the residents to sign up for, but not those who use Apples, iPhones, or Android phones, nor the 50% who don’t have silverlight installed, nor those with certain disabilities.

You see, this is the critical part of web usability.  And, it is something any good developer should care about.  To simply sign up for something, I should NEVER force you to download a plug-in, change your browser, switch computers or do anything except just sign-up.  Forcing people to do something extra tells them that you really aren’t that concerned about them.  It says that you would rather make them jump through hoops than get your product.  It says that you clearly didn’t have “ME” in mind when you thought about this.

So, what should you do?  Well, here are a few simple steps to take when developing a site:

• Ask The RIGHT Questions – if you are hiring a developer / designer ask questions like: Will this site work on ALL browsers?  Which browsers will you test it on?  Will it work on both Apple and PC computers and will you test it on both?  Will this work on a mobile phone?  Are any plugins (downloads) needed to make this site work?  If so, what can we do to avoid them?  Will this site be accessible to handicapped people (i.e the blind who might use a screen reader or color blind people who struggle with certain colors)?  Do you follow MODERN web standards – which ones (you might not know what all the modern standards are, but asking your designer to list them will force them to tell the truth)?
• Care About The RIGHT Things - no one would ever deny that the “look” of a site is unimportant.  Of course it matters.  But, other things matter just as much (and sometimes more).  Studies continue to show that people will tolerate a well layed-out site, with clear navigation that is NOT visually compelling.  However, a visually compelling site that is slow to load or hard to navigate will not be tolerated.  Granted people will visit it ONCE because it is cool.  But the cool factor wears off very quickly.  After that, they are left with a confusing, hard to navigate, slow to load site.  While I would never encourage you not to care about the look of a site, I would encourage you to care about more than just the look.  Care about the speed of the load.  Care about the simplicity of finding what you want (how many clicks does it take to get to your answer?).  Care about providing answers.  Care about meeting your customer’s need.
• Think Like the RIGHT Person –  usually site owners think like the owners of the companies.  That makes sense – they are the owners.  But the owners perspective doesn’t matter nearly as much as the customers perspective.  So, while those in your business might know what TERM X means, the customer who visits your site for the first time probably doesn’t know what it means.  Also, what is it like for someone with a small monitor on a really old computer to visit your site?  Does it still work, does it take a long time to load?  Have you tried browsing your site from a coffee shop, from home, from other places?  All this helps you to see what your customers see.  Good websites work for the new person, for the uninitiated.   I shouldn’t have to think to use your site!
• Look at the RIGHT information – Do you know how many people visit your site?  Which page is the most visited?  Which page is the least visited?  How often a person comes to your site and leaves without clicking on anything?  The average amount of time someone spends on your site?  How they arrived at your site – by a search engine or by typing in your URL?  All this is the right information to look at .  And, all of it is available for free, right now.  If your site isn’t giving you this kind of information, then you aren’t looking at the right information.

The list could go on and on.  Web Usability is really a big deal.  Books (lots of books) have been written on the subject!

For now, maybe we can all learn a few things NOT to do from my home city!

What do you think?  Do you have examples of bad usability?  Do you have other suggestions?  Let me know.  Leave a comment below!

For a while now, those of us here at EH Design & Consulting have been working with Eimer Group International to develop a world-class fitness site – currently located at www.eimergroup.com/fitness.

Lately, one of the technical challenges on the Eimer Group site has been allowing users of the site to embed videos from the site onto their own site.  This is the same service that YouTube / Vimeo / Viddler / etc. all offer.

But, developing the service from scratch has some technical challenges.  Just last week, we were able to work out those challenges and develop a simple system that allows users to embed the videos.

Here’s a few features / decisions we went with:

1. use iFrames instead of Embed / Object tags.  This will make the videos more likely to work on mobile (non-flash) devices.  While we are currently using flash videos, in the near future when we make the shift to H.264 videos, the videos will continue to work on mobile devices
2. only “embed” once – we give the clients three “embed” codes (technically iFrame codes, but it’s easier to call it embed).  They have an embed for code for video 1, for video 2, and for video 3.  Once they insert these code, they never have to update them again.  When new videos are posted to the fitness sites, these iFrames are updated automatically.
3. allow office staff to enable or disable the embed feature as needed.  Finally, we wanted to make a way for the office staff to turn on or turn off this feature for individual users.

With all that said, here’s the simple result – one line of code embedded as an iFrame.  Enjoy!

Maybe you’ve heard some of the buzz lately… Google has introduced a new feature – GOOGLE INSTANT.  In case you haven’t seen it already, here’s the deal…

Here’s a normal Google search page:

Nothing special here, right?  Well, that is until I start to type – then something really interesting happens.  As soon as I type ONE LETTER, the page changes and I start to get search results.  Google guesses what I am about to type in, and returns an ever changing search result with each and every letter typed.

For example, for me, I type in the word “fort”.  Here’s what happened automatically:

Based upon my four keystrokes, Google guessed that I wanted information about Fort Wayne.  I didn’t hit enter or return.  The search results just appeared instantly (hence the clever name, huh?).

So, besides being cool and fun, what does this mean for you and I?

1. Search continues to get personal – increasingly more and more often there is no single Google result for a particular search.  If I lived in Fort Worth, Texas, do you think Google would still suggest Fort Wayne, IN when I type the word Fort?  Do you think it would show results for Fort Wayne?  Of course not.  It would show results for Fort Worth, Texas.  Search results increasingly vary.  They change based on your location, your history, your likes, your dislikes – all of which Google often knows about you.
2. Search Engine Optimization is changing –  Typically Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about getting a particular site to appear high on Google for a particular search term.  But, if everybody gets a different result on Google how can I possibly optimize?  Increasingly this is the problem presented in SEO.  While there are still many terms that don’t aren’t very dynamic (meaning they return the same results regardless), I believe that this will continue to change.  Simply put there is no longer a Google first page result.  When asked – “Does your site appear on page 1 of Google for term X”, the answer will be – “It depends” – it depends on where you live, what your history is, what you like and don’t like…
3. The Number of Search Terms will Decrease – While I’m not totally sure about this, I think that Google Instant will help push us all to the middle.  When Google gives us results, I think we’ll start to suffice – thinking that the results we see are “GOOD ENOUGH”.  We’ll click on something that comes up and hope for the best.  Rather than crafting a very specific search term, we’ll start typing, see some general results and click – hoping for the best.  Again, while I’m not sure about the result here, this could very easily mean that niche companies get pushed more and more to the sidelines while the bigger players simply grow bigger.

   For example, if I type in the letters “ORG” I instantly get the results for organic gardening.  But perhaps I was hoping to find “ORGANIC TOMATO FERTILIZER” – but, when Organic Gardening comes up, I think that  it is close enough and I click.  While I might find something of use, the problem is that the niche players can easily get squeezed out.

One last thing.  Looking for some keyboard shortcuts for using Google Instant – Gina Tripani at Fast Company has a great Google Instant guide – http://www.fastcompany.com/1687662/google-instant-how-to-use

What do you think?  Is Google Instant a big deal or just a shiny trinket?  Leave a comment and let me know.

The topic of Search Engine Optimization (SEO for short) is one of huge interest.  In short, it is the process of getting a web site to rank higher in search engine results.  Particularly, it is focused on getting a particular site to appear high in google.

Here at EH Design & Consulting, we’ve been working with many companies on the process of SEO.  And, I thought it would be interesting to give a case study of sorts – AN IN PROGRESS story.

Just recently, we started working with the Family Care Center.  The Family Care Center is a Christian Counseling organization located on the North East side of Fort Wayne.  The Executive Director of the center, Denny Howard, contacted us at EH Design & Consulting, hoping to get his web site to appear higher in google search results.

So, we began the process of working with him.  Here are some of the steps we followed and some of the preliminary results:

STEP 1: Identify Keywords

Often times, this can be the most difficult part of the journey – deciding on exactly what you expect and want people to type in to find you.

For Family Care Center, we came up with the following terms:

• Christian Counseling Fort Wayne
• Marriage Counseling Fort Wayne
• Christian Counselor Fort Wayne
• Marriage Counselor Fort Wayne

Originally, the client had include the word “OF’ and “IN” – i.e Christian Counseling IN fort Wayne / Christian Counseling OF Fort Wayne.

But, we realized the these words are commonly called STOP WORDS – meaning that Google almost always ignores these words (there are a few exceptions).

After deciding on these terms, we did a little more research and learned the the terms “Christian Counseling Fort Wayne” and “Marriage Counseling Fort Wayne” we much more commonly used terms on Google.  Together, there are over 300 searches a month for these two terms.  While not a huge audience on a national scale, to be able to capture even a majority of these searches would be a huge win for Family Care Center.

STEP 2: Benchmark Current Rankings

After having identified some of the critical keywords for Family Care Center, our next step was to evaluate their current search engine rankings.  Typically, we try to create benchmarks on three major search engines:

• Google – with approximately 85% of the search engine market
• Bing – with approximately 4% of the search engine market
• Yahoo – with approximately 7% of the search engine market

We created some benchmarks for Family Care Center.  In this particular it wasn’t difficult.  Family Care Center did not appear in the top 10 pages on any of the three search engines.

So, our benchmarks were that Family Care Center’s site was non-existant on the search engines.  Nowhere to go but up, right?

STEP 3: On Page Changes

Now that e have keywords addressed and have benchmarked our current standings, it is time to make some changes.   The first step in this case was to begin with “on page” changes.

This involves updating things such at the TITLE tag (what appears in the blue bar for Internet Explorer), META tags, H1 tags, etc.

These are changes you can see.  Changes to content.

So, for Family Care Center – we updated all the title to be keyword rich titles – unique titles that included all their keywords.

In addition, we went through each page and added keyword rich H1 tags, Meta tags (stuff you don’t see and not terribly important – but still worth the time).

Also, we went through images and checked things such as ALT tags and TITLE tags to make sure they were keyword rich as well.

STEP 4: Create Links

After making updates to on page items, the next phase of Search Engine Optimization involves creating links to the Family Care’s web site.  Google sees every incoming link as a “vote” from that website that Family Care’s site is “important”.  The important you are, the higher you appear.

For Family Care Center, we submitted them to numerous directories, created links on our own site, added links on facebook, google local, and other places.  This phase is often (and in this case is) an ongoing phase.  New links are created on a regular basis.

STEP 5: Wait 20-30 Days and Evaluate

Once on page factors are updated and links have been created, it’s now time to wait for Google (and others) to re-index and then evaluate.

In Family Care’s case, we waited about 20 days and then did a new evaluation (just a week ago).

The new results were MUCH more impressive:

• Google – bottom of page 1 (Number 10)
• Bing – top of page 1 (Number 3)
• Yahoo – top of page 1 (Number 1)

Not a bad result

STEP 6: Repeat

The sixth and final step is to repeat.  We do further on page updates (tweak our titles, update images, rename directories to be more SEO friendly), create more incoming links, etc.

After all this SEO, the real question becomes – can we measure the payoff?  DO we have new leads, new contacts, new appointments, etc.?

Interested, want to know more?  CONTACT US at EH Design & Consulting to learn more.

While not a very exciting topic, lately, I’ve been thinking about the importance of backing up our data.

Why, you ask?  Well, we had a power outage at my house while our family PC was being used.  Apparently, the power outage happened as the hard disk was in use and the result was that some of the files on the hard disk became corrupted.

Luckily, I had a backup and could restore the files.  But, that made me think more about the importance of backing up our data.

Now, most of you know that I’m not a hardware guy.  I don’t spend my time working on computer hardware.  I spend my time designing web-sites and writing code for web-sites.

But, this is just too important not to take a few minutes to mention it here.

For the last year or so, I’ve been employing a backup strategy I learned from others called 3-2-1 BACKUP!

Here’s what each part means:

1. Have three copies of EVERY important file (the original counts as one – so you need TWO more)
2. Have copies on TWO DIFFERENT mediums – so if you have files on a hard drive, that counts as one.  Then you need files saved on something else – perhaps a DVD or CD
3. Have one copy off-site – this way, if you have a physical disaster (fire, flood, etc.) you have a copy of important files available.

Before I explain each one in more detail, let me add in here a note about the importance of backing up our on-line life as well.  I wrote a post a while ago talking about what I do to backup things like flickr, facebook, google docs, etc.  Read the post here.

OK, here’s a brief run down on each step:

HAVE THREE COPIES OF EVERY IMPORTANT FILE

We can count the original file as copy number one.  But, if we want to be safe, you need to more copies.  Let’s assume that you back up your computer to an external hard drive (as I do).  This now counts as copy number two.  But, it only counts as copy number two if you DO NOT delete the original.  If you delete the original, the “backup” now becomes copy number 1.  You need three copies of every file.  So you have the files on your hard drive (number 1) and copies on an external hard drive (number 2).  Now, you need to figure out where you will store copy number 3 (keep reading).

HAVE TWO DIFFERENT MEDIUMS

This means you store your backups on two different things.  You backup up to a hard drive (medium #1) and to a DVD (medium #2).  This is important because hard drives can and do fail.  So do CD’s and DVD’s.  By having two different mediums you drastically lessen the risk of any one medium failing.

HAVE ONE COPY OFF SITE

In my opinion this is one of the most overlooked parts of backup.  There’s a sad, but instructive story about the great movie director Francis Ford Coppola losing years and years of photos and scripts and notes when thieves stole his computer and his backup drive (read the story here).  If he had backed up his data off site, he still would have lost his computer and his backup drive.  But, he would have been able to restore his data from the off site location.

For me, I use a service called carbonite (carbonite.com).  For around $60.00 per year, I can backup an unlimited amount of data off site.  It’s a great service and is incredibly simple to set up.  There’s many other services similar to carbonite.  But, I haven’t used them.

So, there you have it.  3-2-1 Backup.  Maybe someone reading will be saved a ton of trouble by implementing a few ideas here….

If you spend any time listening to all the newest and latest buzz words on the internet, then you’ve probably heard the term RSS.  It started cropping up a lot more regularly a few years ago and made a lot of noise.  But, as with many things, interest in RSS has sort of died down.  You just don’t hear about it much anymore.  As a matter of fact, most people don’t really know what it is.

But, I’m convinced that the proper use of RSS feeds can be a great way to find new business leads!  Let me explain.

First of all, let’s explain just what RSS is and the problem that it solves.

Suppose I have interest in several different topics – such as Web Design, E-Commerce, and Social Networking.  And, I want to know all the latest news on these topics.  How would I go about getting this information?  Well, one answer would be to repeatedly visit various web sites that have news and  information about these topics – checking if anything new has been posted.  But, the problem is that this can get very, very tedious and very time consuming.  The second option is to hope that these websites have a NOTIFY ME of updates option – meaning I would get an e-mail whenever something new has been posted.  Now this might sound like a good idea, but the problem here is that most of us are regularly bombarded with e-mail.  And, the thought of getting new e-mails every time a change has happened on all the web sites is not a good thought.

The solution?  Use RSS Feeds.  RSS Feed look a lot like your inbox – but they are separate.  And, they are a GREAT way to know when you have a new item.

Here a snapshot of my current RSS Feeds:

As you can see, I have 6 current feeds I am monitoring.  And, whenever a new item is added, I see that number – the same way I see an unread message.  It’s an awesome way to keep on track of things.

For those of you using MS Outlook, here a screen shot of what RSS Feeds look like in Outlook.

For me, I use RSS Feeds to stay on top of many different issues.  But, there are two core types of RSS Feeds I find myself using all the time:

1.  TWITTER SEARCH

I always have at least one twitter search RSS feed being monitored.  For me, I go to search.twitter.com and search for something of interest – such as Web Design – then limit it to within 50 or 100 miles of my locations.  Then hit submit.  Twitter will deliver a result page for me of everyone who has mentioned “Web Design” in a tweet that is within a 50 or 100 mile radius of me.  This is obviously extremely useful.  But, what is even more useful is to save this search as an RSS Feed.  This way, any time a new tweet appears in my area, mentioning my key term, it will show up in my RSS Feed, just as a new message would show up in my inbox.  Within minutes, I’ll know that someone in the area talked about my keyword – and, now I can join in the conversation.

2.  GOOGLE ALERTS

Google Alerts are an amazing way to stay on top of terms that are of interest to you.  You simply visit google.com/alerts and set up a google alert.

For example, you can set up an alert so that you will be notified every tim eGoogle finds a new page about “web design”.  Now instead of being sent an e-mail (which just clutters up my inbox), I choose to save the alert as an RSS Feed – essentially creating a new inbox ONLY for these google alert items.

So, my RSS Feed for “Fort Wayne Web Design” looks something like this:

There’s a LOT of other creative ways to make RSS Feeds work for you.  Have questions?  Comments?  Thoughts?  Leave a comment or contact us today!

In our increasingly complex and fast-paced world, creating your own “personal’ or “corporate” brand has become more and more critical.  According to an article by Fast Company, taking control of your own personal brand is a critical priority:

It’s time for me — and you — to take a lesson from the big brands, a lesson that’s true for anyone who’s interested in what it takes to stand out and prosper in the new world of work.

Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.

It’s that simple — and that hard. And that inescapable.

– The Brand Called You, Fast Company

So, understanding that both personal and corporate branding are critical tasks for all of us, how do we go about creating and maintaining a brand?

In this post, I want to suggest just one simple step, a first step we can all do to start taking control of our personal or corporate brands.

That task is simply to take control of your name.  Whether it is your own personal name or your corporate name – maintaining control over your name is critical.  I want to suggest two simple task you can do to help control your own name:

1.  Register your domain name – with every popular ending

Suppose your name is John Smith.  I would suggest immediately going to a domain name registrar (I use 000domains.com) and registering your name with as many possible endings as you can.  So, for our example, I would immediately purchase johnsmith.com, johnsmith,net, johnsmith.org, johnsmith.tv, johnsmith.me, johnsmith.mobi, johnsmith.biz.

While the domain names aren’t free (they run between $15 and $30 per year), it’s a lot cheaper to buy them ALL now than to try and buy them later from a reseller, or, worse yet, to try and repair the damage when someone buys the same name as you with a different ending and puts up an offensive web-site.

So, take the time and buy ALL your names now – by the way – I own designedbyeh.com, designedbyeh.net, designedbyeh.org, designedbyeh.biz, designedbyeh.tv, and designedbyeh.mobi.  Right now, all these domains simply re-direct to the same web-site: www.designedbyeh.com.

2.  Register your name on EVERY social networking site you can

Whether you use them or not, you should register your name on as many social networking sites as you can.  Now, before you start to freak out and think – “I don’t use these social sites – I don’t even know what they are.”  That’s not the point… YET.  The point here is to simply secure your name in as many places as you possibly can.  And, it’s not as hard as you might think.

I suggest two services to help you with this:

1. NameChk – www.namechk.comThis site is simple to use.  Simply enter your desired name (username) into the text box at the top of the page and click on the “CHK” button.  The site will automatically check if this name is available on 145 social sites and let you know the results.

   For example, here’s a screenshot of the results when I did a Name Check for “ehdesign”:

   
   The red sites are sites where I have already registered “ehdesign”, while the green sites are sites where it is still available.  As you can see from the screenshot, I have already registered the name on many of the sites.  A few are typically reported incorrect (about 6 were on this example).  But, a service like this provides a GREAT starting place.  Just reserving your name, so that no one else does, is a GREAT way to be ready for personal or corporate branding.

2. KnowEm – www.knowem.com

   KnowEm can be a lot more advanced – it will look through more sites – grouped by cateogries such as entertainment, business, blogging, etc. – AND even register your name for you (although you have to pay for this service – usually around $100).

So, are you in control of your own personal or corporate brand?  If not, maybe these two step are two easy steps to get you started.  While there’s a LOT more you could do with your own personal brand – including adding real content to all the site you registered in step 2 above – these two steps are a great starting point.

Ready to go deeper?  Want to know more?  Want to find out other ways EH Design & Consulting can help you? Contact us today for more inforamtion!

I’ll admit it, I love twitter.  I look at my twitter feed many times every day.  But, I’ll also admit it – it can be hard to find any real value in twitter!

When people find out I’m “into” twitter, some common questions come up:

• Why would anyone care what I had for breakfast? – Assuming that the only thing posted on twitter is useless information
• Is there any real value in twitter?

For me and for my business, the answer is a resounding YES to the second question.  I believe that there is indeed real value in twitter.

Today, I wanted to share just two very simple uses for twitter that I think you and your business use.

1.  Use Twitter To Drive Traffic To Your Site

Here is a graph of some of the recent traffic to my blog (as recorded by the FREE stats program: Google Analytics):

Notice the ups and downs on the graph?  Of course, they are impossible to miss.  The obvious question, when looking at this graph is “What caused the spikes”?

The answer: TWITTER!

Each of the spikes in traffic represent a day (or some times a couple of days) where I sent out just one tweet about a new blog post I had.  As a result of the single tweet (and a few kind re-tweet), my traffic for that day made a significant increase.

That’s a GREAT use for twitter!

Of course, any business or person has to be careful about always being self-serving.  If all you ever do on twitter is send out tweets hoping to lure people back to your own web site, then people will stop listening (following you).  But, if you tweet other useful information AND you tweet links to your own site, then people will visit.  If the content is interesting – they will come back!

I would suggest that this use makes it absolutely essential that your business has a blog.  Your business blog needs to be updated regularly (I’m shooting for once a week on my own – a new goal).  And, your business blog needs to have interesting content.  If you have a blog, and if you post regularly, and if you post about interesting content… then sending out regular tweets that link back to your blog WILL increase your traffic (and have some good effect on your Search Engine placement as well).

This alone should make twitter worth looking into.

2.  Use Twitter to Find People Talking About Your Business In Your Area

Wether or not you are on twitter, others are.  And, they are talking about all kinds of things.  Chances are they are talking about your business.  Wouldn’t  it be nice if there was a simple way to know every time someone within a 50 mile radius (or whatever area you work in) was asking questions about your business?  You could jump in, offer answers, offer resources, even offer a sale! Wouldn’t that be a great tool?

Of course, the tool absolutely does exist and it is called… twitter.  It’s a simple little feature built into twitter called TWITTER SEARCH.  Visit search.twitter.com and click on the “ADVANCED SEARCH” link on the right side of the search box.

In the Advanced Search area you can do some amazing things!  The thing we are focused on right now is search by PLACES.

Let’s make up a company.  Suppose you own ANTIQUES R US, located in Atlanta, GA.  And, you would like more people to know about your business.  So, what do you do?  Well, one great option is to use the Advanced Twitter Search to look for anyone talking about Antiques within 50 miles of Atlanta, GA.  Here’s what the Advanced Search might look like:

You can see here that ANTIQUES R US is update to search twitter for the word “Antiques” within a 50 mile radius of Atlanta, GA.  What would ANTIQUES R US find?  A lot.  Below are just two tweets form the last couple of days that may have been interesting to ANTIQUES R US:

Here is some who had the day to herself and visited one of ANTIQUES R US competitors – the Lakewood Antiques Market.  What if ANTIQUES R US had responded to her and said something like: “Glad you loved Lakewood.  If you liked them, you might enjoy us as well – mention this tweet for 10% off”.  Who knows, maybe the person would have showed up

Here’s another:

This person is looking for an Antiques place to visit in the Savannah area.  What is ANTIQUES R US had responded with a couple of excellent restaurants (close to the store, of course) and a personal invitation to visit the store?

Again, the conversation is already happening.  I promise – people are really talking about your business.  The question is whether or not you are going to join the conversation!

Advanced Twitter Search – by location – my second favorite use for  twitter.

Want to know more?  Have your own favorite uses for twitter?  Leave a comment and share your thought.  Or, contact EH Design & Consulting today, and we can talk about all the ways  Social Media can help your business!