Jason Ciment's Blog on Secrets of the Innovative Mind

Lenco Mobile Seamlessly Integrates Mobile And Online Technology

Carmichael — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 22:49:36 +0000

Lenco Mobile allows brand owners to jump from computers to cell phones with their expansion to mobile technology. The company explored the world of mobile marketing and found a successful and efficient way for businesses to reach their customers via their mobile phones. Cell phone technology offers a new form of marketing that extends to websites on cell phone browsers, online coupons, mobile messaging, and mobile advertising. Lenco Mobile has a multitude of innovative ideas regarding how to reach mobile phones. .Mobi websites are websites that can only be reached by internet browsers on mobile phones. Lenco Mobile creates .mobi websites that can manage high traffic and offer a number of services ranging from bank account access to content surfing. Lenco Mobile also has a great mobile coupon platform that offers an incentive to accessing product or service information via the mobile web. Consumers who use their mobile internet to find products are able to receive a digital certificate that acts as a coupon and can be redeemed electronically by the retailer when the item is sold. Mobile advertising is also a great way to market on a mobile phone. Lenco Mobile has a great hold on the mobile advertising market because they use smart tactics, like advertising on mobile games and applications. This is a great way to expose consumers to a variety of businesses.Copyright © 2010 Carmichael. Visit the original article at http://www.jasonciment.com/free-for-all/lenco-mobile-seamlessly-integrates-mobile-and-online-technology/.

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Jumping Rope Exhibition From Navy Basketball Game

Carmichael — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:43:01 +0000

This is one of the most thrilling performances I have ever seen of acrobatics combined with jumping rope. This cheerleading type team was insanely cool. I've seen the movies with Corbin Bleu bec. of my kids and he holds nothing to these girls. Have fun watching. I know my girls will. Copyright © 2010 Carmichael. Visit the original article at http://www.jasonciment.com/free-for-all/jumping-rope/.

OutlookAttachView Plugin Reduces Outlook Folder Size By Deleting Attachments

Jason Ciment — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:09:02 +0000

If you find your Outlook is cluttered with large attachments and you want to save space on your hard drive or just keep Outlook clean and lean, then check out this freeware plugin from my arsenal of time saving tips and efficiencies. OutlookAttachView 1.11 scans all messages stored in your Outlook and displays the list of all attached files that it finds. You can easily select one or more attachments and save all of them into the desired folder, as well as you can delete unwanted large attachments that take too much disk space in your mailbox. You can also save the list of attachments into xml/html/text/csv file. Get more freeware advice from Cnet. Price: Free Operating system: Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP, Windows 2000 From NirSoft Freeware

Copyright © 2010 Jason Ciment. Visit the original article at http://www.jasonciment.com/software/outlookattacplugin/.

Design Flowcharts with Efficiency

Jason Ciment — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:36:23 +0000

Once upon a time, every company or business decision was just a big idea, nothing but a concept somewhere in someone's head. Usually, these big ideas strike like lightening - without warning. It's exciting to think of something new, and I'm always eager to implement it as quickly as possible for the benefit of my business.

I'm all about the flowchart, as it provides a way for my company to visualize our future plans. It doesn't take me long to scribble my ideas on a piece of paper with lines and circles. Making changes requires erasing and redoing, and it's pretty easy to get frustrated. Time is money, and there's got to be a better way to get your ideas across then a bunch of messy notes on a whiteboard. You want an impressive, professional looking map of your brilliant plans to correctly convey to your coworkers or clients. There are plenty of advanced programs to help you create complex diagrams, but they're usually pretty expensive.

Smooth Flowcharter (SFM) is a program that allows you to create webs and flow charts quickly for a fair price. SMF allows you to use both words and drawings to communicate information to your clients and coworkers. The program has a very self-explanatory design, so you don't even have to read the manual in order to get started. It's easy to drag shapes from the object palette and place them in your document. Once you've added at least two objects, you can begin to connect them, dragging lines from one object to the other.

When you first open SFM, you'll see the menu area, the palette, the overview window, and a new document. To start, pick an object from the palette on the left and drag it into your document. By clicking on the text inside the object, you are able to edit it. You can enlarge the object by clicking on it and then selecting one of the green points that appears. Simply click and hold onto the point, dragging it to either make the object smaller or larger. When you hold your mouse over an object, port indicators will appear. A port is the section of the object that allows you to either initiate or terminate a link. Just click and drag from one object to another. When your mouse is no longer hovering over an object, the port will hide automatically.

Now that you know how to easily create an organized flow chart, you can finally bring your ideas to life with the confidence that comes from having a professional plan.

Copyright © 2010 Jason Ciment. Visit the original article at http://www.jasonciment.com/daily-tips/design-flowcharts-with-efficiency-2/.

Don’t Let Customers Abandon Their Shopping Carts

Jason Ciment — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:09:13 +0000

Imagine you walk into a department store to pick up a gift for a friend's birthday. You've got places to be, so you're looking for this to be a quick run to the mall. You get to the store, and you easily find two gifts that are perfect for your friend. You're ready to get out of there, but the line of 20 people in front of you comes between you and your quick exit. While you're waiting in a seemingly endless line, you decide that you probably don't need to get your friend two things when one would be just fine, and down goes the first gift. Once you finally reach the cashier, the credit card reader appears to be broken. After four swipes of your card and a hasty panic that you've been charged four times, you decide to just give up and leave the store empty-handed. You decide that you'll just try again tomorrow.

In the world of e-commerce, a scenario like this is all too common. For online businesses, shopping cart abandonment is a serious concern and can often mark the difference between profitability and loss. On a daily basis, customers visit online shopping websites, initiate the checkout process, and leave before actually completing it for any number of reasons; some of these include:

* checkout requires too much personal information

* checkout is too long

* changed mind

* site requires registration before purchase

* site is unstable or unreliable

* high shipping prices

* long delivery times

* checkout process is confusing

Be mindful of these reasons and take another look at your website. Are there any changes that you know that you can make? A good place to start would be taking a look at these four helpful tips:

* Know your abandon rate

o If you have an extremely low abandon rate percentage, it's not always a good thing. If your abandon rate is any percentage less than 50%, you've got a bigger problem. Most likely your customers are having issues with cart adoption, meaning that there aren't enough customers adding items to their carts. If customers aren't even adding items to their carts, it can be as much of a problem, if not more, than customers adding to their carts and taking off before checkout.

* Determine when shoppers are abandoning their carts and why

o It's very important to know when exactly shoppers are leaving their carts. The further they get in the process towards the checkout line, the less likely it is for them to leave. Are they leaving towards the beginning of the process? Maybe they're getting frustrated waiting for items to be added or pages to load. Does your "Review Your Purchase" page look too much like a confirmation page? Maybe they think they've made their purchase too soon. Are they leaving as soon as they hit the payment page? Maybe you need to look into increasing the number of payment options that you offer. You have to find out where your users are getting frustrated, and you can do this with time trials, server calls or restates.

* One page or multi-page checkout?

o Many companies are ditching their old, multi-page checkouts and switching to a checkout that is just one page. Ideally, having both would be the best bet. For guest shoppers and users who aren't quite computer saavy, the different pages with billing information, payment information, and review and confirmation of the order are great for making the process less overwhelming. For returning customers, a one-page, one step checkout is preferable. It's important to offer each user the checkout format that they are most likely to complete. You have to think about what's right for your customers.

* Offer a guest checkout

o If you feature a guest checkout, it's likely that up to a quarter of your customers will choose it. The main reasons for this have to do with passwords and speed.

Copyright © 2010 Jason Ciment. Visit the original article at http://www.jasonciment.com/daily-tips/dont-let-customers-abandon-their-shopping-carts/.

The Twitter Series: All About Twitter Security

Jason_Ciment — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:23:42 +0000

Every now and then, you hear about a Twitter hijacking. Even President Obama has confirmed that his Twitter account has been hijacked before, which resulted in the immediate shutdown of his account and an investigation by the Twitter team. According to Twitter, the accounts were hijacked using the company's internal support tools. Basically, someone hacked into the tools that Twitter's support team uses to help people who had forgotten their passwords or needed to edit their email address. Twitter immediately took the support tools offline. Even though the big stories like this all revolve around high profile celebrities, Twitter security is a real issue, even for the average twitterer. Want to know more about Twitter security? Here are some answers that may interest you.

* What exactly do hackers do when they break into Twitter accounts?

Typically, hackers take over Twitter accounts in order to post links to spam or viruses. Obviously, fraud is an issue as well. Followers tend to trust the people that they're following, so any messages encouraging users to buy into a scam or to believe false information is a danger. For instance, a hacker could tweet about a fraudulent charity and post the link, asking followers to contribute. False rumors about companies and stocks can also have terrible results.

* What can you do to protect your Twitter account?

Protect your Twitter credentials - Be vigilant and be on the lookout for suspicious Twitter activity. If someone's links or postings or suspect, go with your gut feeling. Users can install client side security tools that ensure that they are giving their information to the genuine Twitter site only. Also, control and keep tabs on your Twitter information. Any application or website that comes with an automatic posting capability poses more of a threat.

* Is there anything else you should look out for?

"Twitter-squatting" occurs when the names of people or organizations are registered by fraudsters. It's safest to make sure a person or brand name is registered fairly quickly in order to ensure that no one else can register first. The "Trending Topics" sidebar on the right of the Twitter homepage also poses a threat. A hacker could tweet multiple different sentences using the same keyword, and have a malicious link connected to that keyword when it shows up in the "Trending Topics" section. Copyright © 2010 Jason_Ciment. Visit the original article at http://www.jasonciment.com/daily-tips/the-twitter-series-all-about-twitter-security/.

The Twitter Series: How the Bigwigs Use Twitter to Beef Up Their Business

Jason Ciment — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:23:47 +0000

In the past, powerhouse companies have had the marketing aspect of their businesses covered from top to bottom. Radio, television, print, online, and in-store advertisements have paved the way for their success. With so many people spending so much of their time on social networking sites, lately, these companies have had even more ground to cover, but they're certainly showing us all how it's done. From Starbucks to Dell to the Gap, all of these companies have taken to the social media sites of the worldwide web to get the word out about their stores - and their great deals and sales. Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn, and Twitter - they've got all the bases covered, and they know where the people are.

When it comes to content, these businesses are using every resource they can get their hands on. Youtube is filled with advertisements, news clips, and educational or instructional videos. On Facebook, customers can become fans of their favorite businesses. Twitter allows the businesses to give their customers live updates on everything ranging from free giveaways to guest appearances to special deals. What unites all of these networks is their ability to allow customers to provide feedback and feel like they are personally connected to their favorite stores, restaurants, or shops. The companies know that this seemingly personally connection is the key to success. It's more than just the companies reaching out because the customers are reaching out, too. Every time they write on Starbucks' facebook page or respond to Apple's tweets, they are providing useful information to the companies that they support. A customer can ask a question about a store via Twitter and receive a response right on the same page less than ten minutes later, and that is a powerful thing.

Let's take a look at how Starbucks uses Twitter. First off, it's got a concise profile with a link to its website - a definite must. It's also got its logo right there on its page so big that you can't miss it. And then there's the content. Customers post all types of things, including questions as to what ingredients are in the whipped cream, how much a shot of soy costs, and how late the stores are open. Comments include enthused exclamations about how fabulous the coffee is and the other products that customers are getting. Starbucks' response to this is to promptly answer every single question AND offer its followers exclusive deals and coupons available only through Twitter. What does all of this mean? That there are about a million thrilled Starbucks fan addicted to its Twitter updates. These big businesses really know what they're doing when it comes to using Twitter to benefit the company.

Copyright © 2010 Jason Ciment. Visit the original article at http://www.jasonciment.com/daily-tips/the-twitter-series-how-the-bigwigs-use-twitter-to-beef-up-their-business/.

The Twitter Series: Let Twitter Boost Your Business

Jason Ciment — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:19:38 +0000

At first glance, Twitter is a social networking site that became overwhelmingly popular incomprehensibly quickly. With hundreds of thousands of users and the benefits of real-time communication, Twitter grows more and more in its uses and its applications every day. Among Twitter's many advantages, its ability to boost your business is a huge plus. It presents the very valuable opportunity to put out postings that could potentially be seen by thousands of your fellow twitterers. Having trouble seeing the many chances you have to capitalize on Twitter's success? Just look at the statistics:

New data from comScore indicates that Twitter grew in popularity over 700% from February 2008, the month when it first reached 10 million users. The number of worldwide users grew over 5 million shortly after that. In the U.S. alone, visitors climbed over 1000% in a year's time. Adding to Twitter's reputation as a great resource for business, its age demographic proves that it's attracting the audience that you're seeking. The two largest age demographics are the 45-54 crowd and the 25-34 crowd. Now that you're sure that Twitter makes for a solid time investment, you've got to know the exact means necessary to benefit from it.

The searches that dominate Twitter are the same that would take over any search engine, meaning that entertainment news is always at the top of the list. In the right column of your Twitter homepage, you'll find a "Trending Topics" sections, which provides a list of the top of users' top searches. Although this aspect is similar to the searches on other search engines, the benefits of real time conversations allow you to know what Twitter users are interested in at any given time. That said, you have to remember your use of Twitter is about leads, clients, and customers. Go ahead and type the service or product you provide in the search box. You'll be surprised to see how many people are inquiring about so many different things. The best thing that you can do is to make a personal connection with people related to your industry. Make sure that they all know that there's a real person with real, useful information behind that Twitter name and profile. Identify one niche of your industry that you can fit into and share retweets, information, and links related to your business to let everyone know you're truly a specialist at what you do.

Copyright © 2010 Jason Ciment. Visit the original article at http://www.jasonciment.com/daily-tips/the-twitter-series-let-twitter-boost-your-business/.

The Twitter Series: Blog And Tweet in Perfect Harmony

Jason Ciment — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:39:55 +0000

It's no surprise that the average blogging twitterer would rather attract droves of blog readers than twittering followers. Darren Rouse, founder of TwiTip and ProBlogger whose audiences are comprised mainly of twitterers and of bloggers, respectively, found that even the Twitter users understand the value of increasing the number of blog readers. This result isn't surprising since it's fairly clear that writing and managing a blog is a bit more extensive of a job than writing a 140 character Twitter entry. However, this does not mean that there aren't separate, valuable advantages to both forms of communication. Just look at the benefits of having an increased number of blog readers:

* They require more effort and more time to maintain.

* They provide more information and thus are more extensive and detailed.

* Blogs were popular, are popular, and will most likely remain popular.

* The more readers you have, the more likely you are to be linked to on Twitter.

Now for the advantages of having a lot of Twitter followers:

* More followers means more interest in what you're offering

* The real-time conversation element adds a more personal connection.

With all of these advantages in tow, it's nice to know that you don't have to choose between the two. Users of a blog and of Twitter know that it's easy to use them hand-in-hand. In fact, they can even help each other. The first key is writing valuable, useful content on your blog that Twitter users will want as a link. Do the same on Twitter with concise and informative posts. Include a prominent link on your blog so that people can follow you on Twitter. Incorporating the enlarged Twitter logo on your blog will appeal to readers and bring them to follow your tweets. Link to valuable content from others when you tweet, as well. If Twitterers enjoy the information that you link to, you'll gain followers of your own. Also, feel free to mention your blog on Twitter from time to time, as long as you don't shove it down anybody's throat.

Copyright © 2010 Jason Ciment. Visit the original article at http://www.jasonciment.com/daily-tips/the-twitter-series-blog-and-tweet-in-perfect-harmony/.

The Twitter Series: Build Links with the Help of Twitter

Jason Ciment — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:16:08 +0000

If you're familiar with the versatility of social media, you know that Twitter is not only at the forefront of communication, but is also an extremely valuable resource. Do a simple search for something, anything, on Twitter. What do you get? Tons of links, news updates, inquiries; there are endless options. With all of the hustle and bustle of Twitter, it can be difficult to use the social network to your advantage. Usage is so widespread and related to so many different topics that you've really got to create a place for yourself targeting a specific industry. Remember, it's not about gaining thousands upon thousands of followers if they're not interested in what you have to offer. However, if you use Twitter the right way, it's easy to get the business you're looking for and the exposure that you need. Now, let's get down to the business of link building on Twitter.

Generally, links on Twitter are nonfollowed and usually shortened by a shortener. If you're smart, you can turn a tweet into a link from a highly trusted website. There are many people on Twitter who have a great deal of influence in very specific areas. If I'm promoting search engine optimization, I can quickly search Twitter to find the people who are posting similar ideas and reach out to them outside of Twitter. If I really want to build links with Twitter, it's all about quality, not quantity. Say I post a search engine optimization article link on Twitter, and ten people re-tweet that posting. This may not seem like a lot, but I've got to look closer at these ten people. Upon looking at their profiles, I immediately see that they are all experts in their fields with plenty of overlapping followers interested in the same industry. Overall, it seems that I've found a loosely structured community who had shared news about the URL that I chose as a link.

As a result, one of the ten who re-tweeted my post may have linked my URL to his or her popular and reputable website. Thus, I have successfully and influentially built links. The wide world of Twitter can certainly be intimidating, and it's easy to get distracted from your ultimate, business-driven goal. As long as you stay focused and steer clear of the follower frenzy, (this is NOT about getting as many followers as you can) you'll be able to focus on creating a niche in your industry and using Twitter to your business advantage.

Copyright © 2010 Jason Ciment. Visit the original article at http://www.jasonciment.com/daily-tips/the-twitter-series-build-links-with-the-help-of-twitter/.