There’s a local car dealership offering to buy cars from those who are in need of cash.  Unless they plan on downgrading on monthly payments or sorts, its a terrible idea.

While there may be many who are out of jobs this season, how do they plan on finding a new job and getting there everyday if they sale their car?

Same principle in business – don’t fire your sales team.

Currently, there are many companies cutting their sales time – non-salary, commissions-only sales associates.  Why?  They don’t get paid unless they make the company money.  Fire and consolidate the management first.  If a company let’s go of the sales teams, who needs management?  There’s nothing to manage.

To many this may seem like common-sense, but what kills me is there are companies who don’t get this basic principle.

For example. there are web development companies here in Atlanta, Georgia that have boards of directors.  First, why does a web development company need a board of directors boggles me.  But, these companies are letting go of their designers and developers – the workers responsible for product fulfillment.  They’re keeping their boards, though.  Stupid.

Don’t sell your car; don’t fire your sales teams.  These are the channels that increase you and your company’s income potential.

In my previous post, I shined a little light on the repercussions Facebook platform apps can have on the productivity and performance on an individual.  But, how does Facebook apps create sluggish, under-performing companies?

Again noted, Facebook can be an incredible contributor to a company’s bottom line.  It’s a fantastic resource for generating leads and promoting brands, goods and services.  Companies need to define acceptable usage policies for social media so that the incorporation of social media is effective within the overarching marketing strategy.

Facebook is a fantastic tool for acquiring leads and growing your business.  However, Facebook does offer a new set of distractions.

I’m splitting this post into two parts in order to direct the content to two different, primary audiences: the individual looking for work; and, the business owner.   Depending on your current position, you should be aware of the distractions that may be causing you or your business to be less productive. 

Also, these two posts may seem hyper-critical, but please realize, my belief is quite simple…If you don’t like what you’re doing or the results, stop complaining and either change your attitude or change what you’re doing.

Occasionally, Google will introduce an enhancement to its search engine allowing users to “opt-in” for use prior to releasing the addition live.  These enhancements are found in Google Labs (www.googlelabs.com). One current feature in the labs is Google’s Social Search.

Supposedly, Google offers subscribers the ability to search their own networks for relevant results to their query. Those results, in turn, may be given higher precedence than those results returned from outside the user’s network.  Notice the word “may.”  I’ve yet to see any such results.  Perhaps, my network isn’t big enough.  However, I would have thought with a few thousand friends, someone’s got to be talking about the same thing(s) for which I am looking.  Maybe, we’re just not compatible and I should find new friends.

Or, maybe Google has yet to penetrate the social community for the same issue with which it has always struggled. Furthermore, Google now introduces its own hurdle.

Website Magazine’s November issue lists 50 leading web sites for marketing and business development professionals. As one could imagine, the list paints a different picture than that which would have been constructed only a few years ago.

As Website Magazine points out, the use of social sites has increased among top enterprises.  Among the listed social sites are Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ning and Yelp.

Blogging sites have also become increasingly popular with enterprise trend setters.  Of course, the two most well-known, free blogging platforms, WordPress and Blogger, were ranked high in the list – #’s 9 and 11, respectively.  And, blogs could not receive nearly as much customer attraction if it wasn’t for the aggregators that push their content to subscribers and increase the blogs’ visibility.  A few aggregators, namely, Digg and Technorati, were included in Website Magazine’s list.

Finally, any company seeking to solidify their online presence, must now syndicate video content.  YouTube is now the second-largest search engine, following only its parent, Google, and provides easy and rapid traffic generation through professional and grass-roots video creation and delivery.  It’s no wonder that YouTube was #4 on the list.  Other video platforms like Blinkx, MetaCafe and Ustream.tv were included in the top 50, as well.

In conclusion, I must agree with Website’s disclaimer, “Keep in mind that the sites on this Top 50 are not an acknowledgement of their effectiveness but rather their popularity.” Website Magazine asserts that the effectiveness of the given sites still highly depends on the manner in which they are used.  Again, I completely agree.

Ever had issues like this while trying to fill your car with groceries?

On a previous post, I discussed the importance of diversifying your social media marketing channels due to the attacks on the social network Twitter.

As these attacks were taking place, marketers rushed to other channels such as Facebook and FriendFeed.  This, in turn, brought heavy stressed upon the infrastructure of these two servers making their responses to traffic requests quite sluggish, as well.

Over the past few days, we’ve witnessed some of Facebook’s own growing pains. 

Until recently, the extent of using Facebook for charity has been restricted to “Causes” – user-generated pages for organizations and charities providing a mechanism for allowing contributors to donate online.  This has been one way for organizations to “virally” get their message out and acquire new supporters.

However, due to the recent, massive flooding in Atlanta, the local Christian radio station, 104.7 FM – The Fish, has discovered a new way to serve the community through Facebook.  The Fish and their morning show hosts, Kevin and Taylor, are using their Facebook news feeds as a platform for posting community needs and responses.

For someone seeking assistance, the individual would post their request to either the main feed of the Fish or to the feed of Kevin and Taylor.  Community members receive the status updates in their own feeds and have an opportunity to respond to those needs.

Many would argue that social media has weakened the “back porch community.”  For Atlanta this week, Facebook has done the opposite – brought strength and encouragement to a hurting city.

Very cool video I came across this week.

Shawn Farquhar is a two-time World Champion of magic.  Shawn can do some incredible things with a deck of cards.  This video highlights one of those astonishing tricks - an act created around the song "Shape of My Heart" by Sting.

With all the cuts, shuffling and fanning of cards, Shawn keeps track of each one.  Check it out, it's worth a watch.

If you think back to your first car (and if it was like mine), it might not have been your dream car or even the coolest car on the block, but at least it got you from point A to point B.  In comparison to riding your bicycle or riding the bus to school, however, your car was the best.

Your first car may not have have been a Mercedes or BMW, but, plain and simple, it worked.

Unfortunately, many companies have the same philosophy when engaging in Internet Marketing, “It may not be the best, but it works.”  Or, “I don’t care what it looks like as long as its something.” 

Personally, I have been instilled with the belief, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.”  The Social Media community follows this belief, as well.  The community can immediately determine the quality of the brand or product by its deliverance through Social Media channels.

Also, please don’t confuse quality with “high dollar”.  Not all quality has to be expensive – and in most cases concerning Social Media, it’s very inexpensive.  Most of what I, personally, do for myself costs next-to-nothing and 80% of my revenue is generated from Social Media.

Concerning quality, I’m referring to clear, concise deliverance; orderly, fresh presentation; and, of course, remember the audience you are targeting. Flat, basic landing pages may be great for older demographics, but the Social Media community is, for the most part, familiar with technology – its okay to use Flash, video and other Web 2.0 medias in your Internet marketing collateral.  Interestingly enough, the older demographics (55+) are now Facebook’s fastest growing demographic compared to only 4 months ago (which was 45+).  Familiarity with Web 2.0 collateral is rapidly expanding to the retirees.

One final note…

Your type of quality may not be considered Social Media quality.  In other words, what you may find exceptional, could be completely bland to a member of the Social Media community.  If you don’t know how to reach the Social Media crowd, hire someone who does. Furthermore, remember to take their advice.  After all, that is why you hired them.