The new social media site, Color, launched a couple of weeks ago to mixed reviews. For a Beta release, you certainly don’t expect perfection, but the unintelligible instructions, the lack of any coherent FAQ’s, and the complete removal of security made us take a step back and think before we recommend use to our business clients.

Conceptually, it’s fantastic. Associating photos and making sharing of videos so easy based on proximity is greate. People are voyeuristic and will want to know what’s happening in their area. Practically, it seems that there is a fatal flaw with the complete lack of security. We sincerely hope Color figures out a way to continue with their concept but address the security concerns.

Start, Stale, Stopped is Seriously not what you want to hear when discussing your business’ social media efforts.

Many times I’ll meet with clients and they tell me how they started out in social media… they thought they were ready for action but didn’t realize the time commitment and inspiration needed to keep up. How many times have you been web surfing, found out of date content and left the site thinking that the business must not be legitimate or all that great? Personally, it’s what I check first. If I see a website with a blog post that is two years old or an events calendar where the last event happened forever ago, I immediately think that the business owner isn’t taking their business seriously. Just like your website should not appear to be created by your neighbor’s kid, your social media content should never be stale!

Keeping up with fresh content and ideas can seem like a daunting task for busy professionals, but that’s where Elite steps in to fill that void. If you have a nasty case of stale content, let us know. We can treat it, ensuring your content is fresh, reflecting your business’ voice. Keep your social media Sizzling!

P.S.: Stale Content=Lower Search Engine Rankings, too!

I was a military mom. My son served in the US Marine Corps and traveled the world. We communicated by email when he had access to the internet. But if he wanted to send a birthday card, Mother’s Day card or Christmas card he was out of luck because there are no Hallmark Stores in the Iraqi desert. When Ben was in Boot Camp, writing home was required and all the writing supplies, paper and envelopes were made available to him. But once deployed how was he to keep up this practice that made his mom so happy.

Enter Sandy Allnock, of Federal Way, Washington, a paper-crafting card maker who in 2007 got the idea to send a bunch of her extra cards to troops overseas. It was a simple idea; send cards to the troops so they can send a greeting home to family and friends. She started with a post on a message board to see if anyone would be interested in joining her in sending cards to heroes. Today OperationWriteHome.org has sent nearly one million cards to our troops overseas, all donated by thousands of card making hobbyists. Volunteers pack boxes of handmade cards every 6-8 weeks to ship to contacts overseas for distribution to our heroes. Each box contains a special package of letters and children’s drawings to encourage our troops with a positive message of thanks and encouragement.

According to Sandy, “Social Media is the primary growth mechanism”. The OperationWriteHome.org Facebook fan page has been “liked” by over 6,000 friends who actively comment. Groups of crafters from online sites like Flickr and Splitcoast Stampers to local stamping stores sponsor OWH card drives. I know of a young card maker in Missouri who has organized card drives at her local Archiver’s store. She has gotten the word out asking for donations of supplies using Flickr discussion threads.

The OperationWriteHome.org website has a professional look. Visitors will find easy to use tabs that take you to all the information about OWH and how to get involved. There are card galleries, videos from the heroes on the frontlines and a busy discussion forum. As a non-profit organization OWH accepts donations to help with shipping costs using PayPal.

Check out OperationWriteHome.org and think of all the military moms and dads, husbands, wives and kids who are receiving cards from their heroes overseas.

I keep running across this YouTube video. I’ve seen it on some of my friends’ walls on Facebook, and then today, someone emailed the link to me. I admit it. Sometimes I don’t watch the videos people email me. The description on this video indicated that it was a “short film,” so I clicked it. I’m so glad I did. Take a look and see.

I’m struck by two things as I watch this video. One is that we, as a human race, need to help our fellow humans more. But secondly, I realize that words mean things. This man’s initial sign was straightforward and to the point, yet not much help was being given. Once a young woman who was passing by changed the wording on his sign, people began to help more. The question is why were people more willing to help after the sign was changed?

I think their perception was changed by the second sign. Even if it’s a cold, wet, miserable day, it’s still a beautiful day, which this man will never see. The second sign made passersby appreciate what they have – something that the man asking for help doesn’t have. Sometimes it takes a kick in the pants for us to drag ourselves out of our own world and look around. Once we do take that time and look around at what we have and what others don’t, I hope that we will make the time to help our fellow humans just a little bit more.

I hope you have a beautiful day. If you can think of ways to help out others, let us know in the comments section. We love to hear your ideas!