Archive for the ‘Small Business’ Category

Apparently Facebook and Android do not go well together and other Social Media Risks

It’s Facebook. Again. This time it’s a vector for smartphone malware.  According to an article on PC world,  since the Android is more open source than either the iPhone or the Blackberry, it’s more prone to getting malware.  Apparently BitDefender called Facebook the largest mobile malware….Facebook has a lot of problems doesn’t it? The malware gets on the devices through bad links on Facebook, since the malware is platform independent.

So here’s a refresher on Social Media risks.

• Turns out scams are more common then we think. Twitter accounts get hacked, malicious links get posted and so does Facebook. However, both sites are trying to improve their security.
• Many people often use the same password for numerous sites. We get it, it’s hard to remember so many passwords. So, write them down on a piece of paper or in a journal(do people keep those anymore?) and stick it somewhere safe.
• Don’t give too much information out either. Those vacation plans of yours, they might be better written down in an word/excel document and stored on your computer.
• Don’t post comments when angry! (They get around) And if it’s something really bad, there will be consequences. It’s fine to say something about how your toast was burnt this morning and how you hate burnt toast, but it’s another thing to say something about your company, your significant other, etc..
• Don’t click on any funny links! See a status  update about how a friend needs money because her car got stolen in Chicago? Call them and check to see if it’s true. Most of the time, it isn’t. (This happened to me once. Turns out she really did need the money.)
• Make sure your company has a flexible Social Media security policy. Technology keeps on changing, so a flexible policy is a good policy!
• Keep up to date on the latest Social Media scams and threats. People keep coming up with new ones all the time!

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Archive for the ‘Small Business’ Category

DC Area Friends, SmallBiz & Startups – Come to the 28Corridor Tweetup This Thurs #28ctweetup

I talk to the Swami on my way home nearly every night from Herndon.  No I do not talk to myself or my imaginary friend in the passenger seat (though if I had one, I would imagine I was sitting with Mike Holmgren and ask him when will the Browns return to relevance in the NFL?).  The person that I talk to is the Social Media Swami, Shashi B.  That call often begins on Route 28, right off the Dulles Toll Road and next to beautiful Dulles Airport.  We typically chat about our day, what is going on with KikScore, how Shashi’s daughter (and Kikscore intern) Mitali is enjoying college as well as a host of other things.  It allows us to catch up with each other during the nearly 40 minute drive home to our respective homes in the District and in Maryland.

So it is only fitting that Thursday, Shashi is organizing the first ever 28 Corridor Tweetup.  That would be the same 28 that we drive on every day.  For those not familiar with Route 28 in Northern Virginia, here are some “beautiful” aerial pics!  The “excuse” (as if we need one!) for the tweetup is to get together to welcome the wonderful Lisa Byrne, @dceventjunkie, to Network Solutions  (our co-sponsor from last year’s fantastic Social Commerce Camp). Lisa just started working on Shashi’s fantastic team last week.

As more folks started to tweet about the tweetup, it dawned on us that lets try to get area small businesses, startups, bloggers, nearby airport baggage handlers (bet they have some great stories!) and anyone else together to join us at Ned Devine’s in Herndon, VA for the tweetup.  So please come on out on Thursday.  We would love to see you there.  Spread the word and tell your friends.

By the way here is some extra incentive, if we get more than 30 attendees, the Swami will sing the Lady Gaga song of the crowd’s choice (I hear there are a lot of people voting for Poker Face!”).

Click here for the details on the 28 Corridor Tweetup. The hashtag by the way for Thursday’s event is #28ctweetup.

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Archive for the ‘Small Business’ Category

Want faster broadband? Go mobile!

Well in the US anyway. According to this study, the US is third for m0bile broadband quality.  However, that’s only in mobile broadband. Confused by all the figures? This article gives you a good summary. The US is ranked 15th in the world in terms of better broadband access, along with France, Latvia, and Canada. The best place for broadband access….No, not Japan or Sweden….it’s South Korea!

I believe that the study measured it in download and upload speeds because that’s what the article said, plus one of the graphs was showing downloading and uploading speeds in the requirements. I do wish the second graph-like thing on pg 16 of the PowerPoint came with a key because it was a little confusing.  I believe what it means by “household penetration” is how many houses have broadband access. Looking at the graph, it seems like most of the countries who are leading in household penetration are not broadband leaders.  However there are still quite a few countries that don’t really seem to have proper broadband.

The PowerPoint also stated the countries that were ready for future applications. The US was not one of them. It was, however, in the list of numerous countries that enjoy current applications without (many) problems. There are quite a few countries that are barely or unable to support many of today’s applications.

On the other hand, the US has a negative difference between the broadband in its main cities and outside them. The study didn’t say how far outside the broadband quality remained the same, but it’s still good news. The country that has narrowed this gap the most is Poland. What I found interesting was that Japan was below the US.

The graph on page 8 of the PowerPoint shows that many of the developing countries are focusing more on developing broadband in their cities because they acknowledge that it is an important part of their economic development. On the next page is a list of cities that have the quality required to be “smart and connected.”  The PowerPoint does not explain what this is. It doesn’t look good for the US here, because the only city that fits that requirement is …..(take a few minutes and guess, I want to know what guesses you came up with)…….New York. (I’m pretty sure all of you guessed this. Just once I would like to see a place like Tulsa get into some technology list.) Ok! The next page……I’m not sure h0w to read this or what the bubbles are talking about. (I don’t know that much about broadband….yet) So, moving on!

I don’t really understand the chart and graphs on pages 13 and 14, but I do know that the Social Media slider should be all the way to the right. The second to last page talks about the relationship between broadband leadership and innovation economy.  I believe it means that there is a positive relationship. The thing that I took away from this is that the US, if it wants to be on the very edge, should probably improve broadband quality. Maybe that should be it’s resolution for this year?

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Archive for the ‘Small Business’ Category

Returning an Unwanted Gift? It Might be a Little Easier This Year!

Now that we are 10 shopping days past Christmas I hope you have already returned all of the gifts that you didn’t want.  I was just reading this article in the Wall Street Journal about how most larger retailers are now starting to ease their return policies this holiday season. 

The article makes special note about how Best Buy has stopped charging their 15% restocking fee for certain items.  I think this is an interesting point because it shows how ridiculous some retailers return policies have been for the past few years.  The fact that Best Buy has actually been charging people so that they are happy with their shopping experience shows how far the pendulum has swung in the favor of the merchant in recent years when it comes to returns. Hopefully in a few years there will be no such thing as restocking fees and other return policies that retailers have in place will be eased considerably.

I actually have a recent first hand experience of trying to return a large ticket item that was purchased as a gift from Amazon which is one of the largest online retailers in the world.  Since the gift I was trying to return or even exchange (I was willing to do either) was purchased longer than 30 days previous to the day I was returning it within days after Christmas I was told that my only option was to return it, pay for return shipping, and only get reimbursed for 85% of the value of the item.  30 minutes on the phone with customer service later and Amazon was paying for the return shipping and I was getting a gift card for 100% of the value of the item but I had to put up a considerable fight and jump through a few hoops to make this happen!   Ridiculous!

Anyway, I think there are a lot of really non-consumer friendly return policies out there that are hopefully about to reversed over the course of the next few years.  Does anyone out there have another unbelievable return policy that they experienced first hand to share?

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Archive for the ‘Small Business’ Category

KikScore Site Down for Routine Maintenance on 1/5/11 from 8:30PM to 10:30PM mountain time

Due to routine maintenance the KikScore website will be unavailable on 1/5/11 from 8:30PM to 10:30PM mountain time.  Our apologies for any inconveniences that this causes.

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Archive for the ‘Small Business’ Category

Swami Speaks & You Should Listen – An Excellent Article For SmallBiz

We do not usually do this and we are probably breaking an unwritten rule for your own blog about sending readers to another site.  But we do not really care because the article that our dear friend, Shashi B (the Swami!), recently wrote is worth a read for every small business, startup and entreperneur.  The article is posted at one of our favorite sites, Small Business Trends that is run by the small business expert, Anita Campbell.

The reason why the article is so good is it deals with what is probably one of the most important marketing tools for a small business or startup: your website.  The post is titled Top Website and Website Design Trends for 2011.

Please tell us what you think about the Swami’s post.

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Archive for the ‘Small Business’ Category

How to Boost Your Company’s Facebook Popularity

Most small business owners today are starting to recognize the power of managing their online presence. Having a Facebook page is an important part of managing that presence. But how can business owners gain popularity on Facebook?

Facebook users today have the option of selecting “likes”.  A user can publicly press a “like” button to indicate that they “like” a brand or a company that they support. So how can you increase the number of users pressing that button to support your business? Here are a few tips to help make your company more popular on Facebook:

-Make sure your audience and former customers know that your company has a Facebook page. Obvious, I know. A recent study by DDB Worldwide and Opinionway Research made this concept even more clear and found that three-quarters of Facebook users worldwide decided to “like” a brand/company only after the company extended an invitation or advertised. In other words, your audience is not necessarily seeking your business out on Facebook. So make the first move! Also, make sure your Facebook page is mentioned on your company website and on your Twitter page,  and on any other social media website you may have.

-Keep your audience entertained by posting interesting content regularly. If you post interesting articles or content, your Facebook fans will be more likely to share this information with their Facebook audience. This could ultimately bring more fans to your Facebook page and to your business.

-Encourage your audience not only by posting interesting content but by eliciting their feedback and then responding accordingly. Your fans will be more likely to submit feedback if they think you’re actually reading their feedback and responding to it.

-Reward your Facebook fans with special offers posted only through your Facebook page.

-Don’t overwhelm fans of your Facebook page with constant messages. After awhile, they may stop reading them or even remove your company as a “like”.

What are some other ways to boost your company’s Facebook popularity? What has worked for you? What hasn’t worked?

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Archive for the ‘Small Business’ Category

Happy New Year!

Just want to send a note to wish you all a happy new year from Kikscore. In the spirit of the new year, I’m sharing a few of my new year resolutions:

1. Eat less cheese – cheese is now being packaged in very mobile, snacky packaging. I’ve spent 2010 eating a half brick of cheese a week due to this development.

2. Stop caring about the Minnesota Sports teams – 4 sports teams, all of which are terribly disappointing. They are worse for me than all that cheese.

3. Fewer magazine subscriptions – through redeeming airline miles, I receive 6 different weekly magazines. I can’t keep up and I feel like I’m behind on my homework every time I get a new one in the mail.

I know I have other things to work on, but this is my start for 2011.

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Archive for the ‘Small Business’ Category

Introducing the Approme Store!

Did you know Google Chrome has an app store now? I switched back to Chrome(my uni webpages wouldn’t show up   Opera) And noticed that there was a section for apps. I got a couple of drawing ones and they seem to be ok.  PC World has an article about five good businesses apps.

1. Rainmaker: I thought this was an app that lets you create your own weather from the name. But no, it seems to be a profiling service. By that I mean it gathers information about contacts in your gmail address book and puts that information into one place….is what I got from the description. In theory, this seems to be a good idea, but I’m not sure how well it’ll work in practice…especially since one of the examples of information it gathers was mugshots. Anyway, it’s a paid service ranging from $9 to about $39 a month. (If you consider using it for a company, you need to contact them to negotiate pricing.)
2. Springpad: This is described as a supercharged notebook/To-do list.  Apparently you can build your notes around webpages too. The description says that it’s smart enough to realize what you’re doing and will add a field to reflect it. The To-do lists give you the option to set alerts before your due dates arrive. The description does not make it seem any different than Evernote(which also has a Chrome app by the way) except that it is free to use. I think I’ll try this one out, but if it can’t integrate hand/mouse drawn images very well(like Evernote), I probably won’t use it. Free
3. Simplebooklet: This is an online presentation tool.l PC World’s article says “It fills a blindingly obvious gap in the market: creating presentations that can be viewed within a browser, and accessed via a simple URL that you share with others.” To me this sounds a lot like Slideshare, the only difference being that one can’t make presentations in Slideshare, one has to upload a presentation. Otherwise, I don’t really see the difference between it and Slideshare from the description alone.  Free for up to 20 MB of content.  If any of you readers use/have used/tried out both of these, which one do you like better?
4. World Time Planner: Ever been afraid of keeping someone up too late? Wanna know what time to call that person in Thailand(I picked a random place) for that telephone conference? This app seems useful. It lets you click and drag a slider to see what time it is in various cities. It also gives you daytime and nighttime symbols that let you know when the working day starts and ends. The only problem I see with this one is, what if you don’t need the time for London, Beijing, Tokyo or any of the other common cities that most world clocks give you? Like if you need to know the time in Vaduz(the capital of Lichtenstein), you’re not going to find it immediately. Free and it even works offline.
5. Read Later Fast: This lets you save pages to read later. This is a really good app. It lets you archive pages. Which is necessary if you want to find something again. I’ve had problems with disappearing pages and I’m going to install this as soon as I get my laptop back. Free

So, out of all these which ones did you like the best and why? Or if it’s not on the list, what is it and why do you like it?

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Archive for the ‘Small Business’ Category

7 Posts from 2010 That Will Help Your Business Now – 2010 KikScore Blog Greatest Hits

As 2010 winds down, we wanted to share with you a few posts that if you only have a few minutes on the KikScore blog we want you to read.  As many of you know, we pride ourselves on publishing good content that covers small businesses, startups, entrepreneurship, while telling the first hand accounts of small business that sell online and trying at the same time to be a little humorous and even including some references to sports and pop culture.

So here are our greatest hits that we hope you check out:

1. Should Start up Companies and Small Business Release Their New Software Early or Wait Until Its Perfected? – This is our post that discusses the age old dilemma for startups on when is the right time to launch your product.  We had some very personal experience on this issue.  I am sure there are many startups that are facing this very issue right now so that is why it made our list.

2. Issues Escalation and Support Guidelines in a Startup Environment – This is a very detailed and thoughtful post about the process needed to approach the inevitable support issues that get escalated to your service department by your customers.  The post frankly applies to many different types of businesses, from small, medium to large but is especially fitting for startups.  It is a must read especially for software startups.

3. Lessons Learned for Small Business from Sandra Bullock’s Heartbreak – Everyone probably remembers the shocking news that came out this spring about Sandra Bullock’s husband Jesse James and his infidelity.  This post is especially helpful to small businesses and startups that are looking to partner with other companies or use new vendors and contractors for key business operations.  It gives key information and tips to help with conducting diligence before you make these important decisions.  And we do this by tying it all back to Sandra Bullock and Jesse James marriage!

4. Our two posts on reviewing your business on Memorial Day (Check that BBQ and Your Business’ 2010 Goals) and Labor Day  (5 Steps to Help Close 2010 Strong) – Every business should take the time to periodically conduct self-assessments to measure progress.  These posts give detailed tips on conducting the self-assessment for your business at key times of the year and the Labor Day post also outlines concrete steps for taking the learnings from your analysis and acting on those learnings.

5. Building a Startup Company and Having a Family at the Same Time – Ever wonder how entrepreneurs, small businesses, startups balance work, life, family and crazy schedules.  We all face this issue frankly and in this post we discuss tips on helping to find that work/family balance.  To be honest, this is a post worth re-reading throughout the year to keep yourself grounded.

6. Manly Cupcakes and Tips on Finding, Understanding and Appealing to Your Target Market –  This is a straighforward post that appeals to all businesses and startups.  The reason why it is one of my favorite posts of the year is that every company should ask these key marketing and customer demographics questions  about your product, customers and market.  These questions and your answers to them will keep your business and startup more sharply focused and successful.

7. How Do You Judge a Website? –  This post is important for every business because it frames the way potential customers, leads, partners and even investors get their first online impression of your business.  It is a valuable post that businesses can come back to in order to remind them that no matter what you do, these key features of your website will drive the way key influencers view you, your business, your website and your product.

We hope you enjoyed all of our posts this year and we look forward to a great year of content in 2011.

We would love to hear your favorite posts as well as any feedback on our content.  Also let us know if you want us to cover any particular topic and we would be happy to consider writing on a certain subject, especially if it helps the small business, startup and entrepreneur community.

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