There is a lot of debate about the value of Facebook & Twitter. Here are two things that can make them worth some of your time.

1. Follow people, businesses or organizations that matter to you. Identify those who are in your field or in your area of interests. People are watching who you follow.

2. Add value to the people who follow you. If you run a business or lead an organization make sure that you are adding value when you contribute something on twitter. Don’t say things here that you wouldn’t say in a relevant business meeting. Please, don’t tell everyone about your morning breakfast from your work account.

It’s really easy to lose sight of WHO your website is for. We all know it is for our customers. In fact, I would argue it is for the people who aren’t our customers yet but who we really want to be our customers. TRUTH is that we are all guilty, us included, of designing our sites (and other marketing materials) and writing our content the way we know how to. Worse yet we are all are guilty of designing and writing for our personal tastes and styles not for what would be most effective in reaching new costumers.

We all need to stop doing that and we need to start zeroing in on our target audiences.

I read this article about a business owner who has over 2 million monthly subscription customers. He spends a majority of his time writing, editing, re-writing and fine-tuning their website and marketing content. The E-myth (great classic book about small business) teaches us that we need work on our businesses not just in our businesses.

So here are some simple challenges to all of us:

• Study your front page / landing page – Is it geared for new customers?
• Look at your language – Is it clear? Is it proper? Does it have your customer in mind? Are you too wordy?
• Does your website navigate easily for the most important information?
• Do you have a clear call to action?
• Have you any idea how much traffic your site is getting and other important statistics? (Link it up with Google analytics)
• Spend 1-5 hours EVERY WEEK fine-tuning your messaging on your site – Learn how to make it the powerful tool that it can be for placing you first in your market category.

[Ryan also writes for RedBikeLeader.com - engaging & developing young leaders]

I think this may be our third year participating in blog action day. Here at factor1, we have been pretty green and believe that change isnt as hard as everyone makes it out to be.

So i thought i would share some tips we use often here in the office, and personally in our own home. I’ll try and keep them light and easy, but I may toss in a few hard core hippie tips.

• Shut off the lights. Really. We hardly ever turn on lights in our offices. Natural light is the best!
• Print only if you absolutely have to. Check out Evernote to save items important, but dont need printed. I LOOOVE evernote.
• Let your computers and printers sleep when not in use. They use a ton less power. And no screen savers either. a sleeping LCD is super quick to wake up.
• Shut down your computer at night. I swear I know people who leave their towers on for weeks at a time. for no reason.
• Clean. seriously. dust bunnies on the back of your computer make it run hotter. This will keep your computer lasting longer too.
• Recycle. Seriously. We share office space with a realtor who thinks recycling papers is hard. i dont understand how.

Some Super hippy tips:

• Ride your bike to work. I do this probably 95% of the year, and love it.
• Compost. its really easy these days. You generate less trash at the curb, plus you get nice dirt for your garden. I promise it doesnt smell much either.
• Garden. Fresh veggies are the best. Organic, pesticide free, and as close to local as you can get.
• Shower every other day. Unless you get all sweaty, every other day is perfectly acceptable in my book. And no one has to know. Well i guess now you know i skip a few showers a week.
• Dr Bronners Bar soap can replace your shampoo, and body wash. 100x less packaging, no plastic, and eco friendly.
• Eat less meat. Not a vegan / vegetarian my self, I enjoy a well balanced diet of natural foods with as little processing as possible. To grow, and process meat of all kinds is an amazing waste of water, oil, land, and other resources. Tons of stats on this, but most research shows our bodies were NOT meant to consume meat 7 days a week. We probably have meat once or twice a week in our home, and its usually local, grass fed, free range, organic stuff.

I could go on and on, but i wont.

So go, change the world, cut back on the resources you use.

Just like that new car you had your eye on, the 2010 models are in. We are really excited to launch our new site. Its cleaner, faster, easier to use and better than ever. Ohh and the blog has been updated too.

Some highlights (and geek talk)

• Super clean html & css files
• jquery portfolio system to preload all images, and navigate between items
• wufoo forms!
• an ie6 redirect to make ie6 users aware of the errors in their ways (factor1studios.com/ie6.php)
• mobile friendly (we are still fine tuning, but it works great overall)
• Funny content for all ages.

We hope you like it.

Share your feedback!

This is what trying too hard looks like.

the new terrible chevy volt website

So clearly Chevy is trying their hand at social media integration. Lets count up all the “apps” shall we.

1. videos
2. facebook link
3. ohh i can create my chevy account
4. a foum
5. a blog
6. photo feed
7. news
8. polls
9. events
10. twitter tweets
11. and a site share stuff at the bottom

Wow. all on the home page. This site does NOTHING to promote what the volt is, why its cool, or why i should care. Instead it blasts me with its attempts to get me to engage. Unfortunately I dont really want to subscribe to the blog, be their friend on twitter, because I dont yet care about the car, or the site.

For me, the home page is overwhelming, and over the top. I appreciate the video, i think videos are cool. And a blog / news updates are good. The layout and presentation is so far behind the times. We used to see sites like this in the late 90’s.

The volt is a cool car, and should really be impressive for chevy to launch. this site is more in the way of other marketing efforts than anything.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll offer my solution. What are your thoughts? Am I being too harsh here?

So we have been really exploring the use of twitter as a tool around her for Factor1 (follow us here factor1). The jury is still out on it being useful for us.

In my 2 week exploration, i find some people are litteraly just brodcasting white noise. Twittering to twitter, even if they have nothing to say at all. Its pretty annoying, and I un-follow those people quick.

Are you one of those people? Here is a quick tool to help you know. 

www.followcost.com

We can, and often do, talk about anything here on this blog. So what do you want to know? About factor 1 details maybe? The inner workings of a project? Matt’s favorite beer with an in depth analysis of why? How you too can design an awesome website? 

Ask away, and we’ll address it in future posts.

this commercial has a GREAT spin on name recognition, humor with the obvious and not taking yourself too seriously – who won’t remember this the next time they are needing some quick money for their gold? (how many of us can really  relate to that anyway?)

We use wordpress here at factor 1. A lot. I really dig wordpress for blogging personally and here at factor 1.

In the progression of mobile phones, and browsing the internet, I find myself wanting to edit my blogs away from my desk. 

So I found some great new plugins for the non-iphone but still PDA phone users. 

wphone – is a great admin panel plugin to strip the WP admin panel to be a super lightweight, fast loading easy to use tool. It’s great on IE for Windows Mobile, BlackBerry’s browser, and even the iPhone.

I actually would recommend this plugin for those on a slow starbucks wifi, or on a mobile data / laptop card too. Its easy to decide to use it when logging in, by simply checking a mobile admin option. 

WP mobile edition – is a super easy way to re-program the front end blog view to be mobile friendly. 

I know, i know, iPhone can display sites in their entirety. But Im a blackberry kind of guy, and I know a lot of windows mobile people too. Maybe someday if the iPhone comes out on a CDMA carrier (like sprint) i will join the club of iPhone geeks. 

today is blog action day.

I think my part of this movement, should be to discuss marketing, entrepreneurship, and how to tie them to action.

In reading a new book, Brewing a business, Sam Calagione states that any good invention is tied to a passion and a dream. Thomas Edison did not want to simply create a light bulb. His desire was to create a safe, affordable light solution so that more families could have light. Candles and oil lamps where costly and dangerous.

In this thought process, it is very clear, that Blake Mycoskie of TOMS shoes, was to make life more comfortable. He truly believed that people of all financial situations needed the basics of life, one of those being shoes. In its first year of business, TOMS shoes sold 10,000 pairs of shoes, and last November, more than 50,000 pairs were delivered to children in Africa. TOMS matches donations dollar for dollar.

This year TOMS plans to distribute 200,000 shoes around the world.

Now I dont yet own any TOMS. Maybe I will have to, Since I have always believed in their cause, and the way they go about their business.

So my question is this. How can you take your business, organization or ministry, and make a difference in the world. How can you effect poverty?

Here at factor 1, we do a number of things both locally, and internationally with finances. But on a bigger note, we dedicate a large portion of our time and work load to non-profits. Because my passion to create effective websites for the greater good, and to aid other companies in their marketing efforts, we have been able to partner with, and assist great organizations. People like Food for the Hungry, Hope for Adoption, Hoops of hope, Golf fore africa, Amy’s hope, Because Justice Matters, CURE, and others.