Tyler Olson's Blog

It has been on my to-do list for approximately three months to do a number of changes to LinkedIn and drive additional value through it.

On Sunday Evening, I was up late finally taking action on that goal.

I always have more with Social Media I want to do, it’s just a matter of the amount of time I want to spend, what should happen in what order, and thinking through ahead of time what my goals of a campaign are going to be.

For this campaign, my goal was to see how many people I could get interested in what SMCpros has to offer within one day. I think I spent about 45 minutes planning and implementing the campaign.

Tomorrow we will know more about how the final web traffic count turned out. However, Sunday had a significant spike and I didn’t start the campaign until 10:51pm.

I can say I ended the day with 12 e-mail that I can directly attribute to this LinkedIn Campaign and 3 phone calls (one almost signed a deal valued at $1,300 with us on the spot).

I always remind people that they should not expect to break-even on their first day working with us – but even I am amazed at how often we can achieve such extraordinary results in a short amount of time.

What’s your most recent Social Media success story? Please comment below

Update: After 48 hours, I had 22 e-mails and 3 phone calls all asking to meet with me to talk about what we do.

It has been too long since I have updated my blog. And it is definitely time to change that. There are many things I can write about and enjoy writing about. But you are the reader, not me. What would you like see on my blog?

- Social Media case studies?
- My Christmas Wish List?
- Personal Adventure stories?
- What’s going on in my life on a day-to-day basis?
-  Things I learn along my entrepreneurial journey?
- Viewpoints I have on political, social, economic topics?

You are the reader. I’d like to create something you would enjoy coming back to frequently. Something you would like to learn about from me.

Please comment below, e-mail me, facebook me, or somehow get a hold of me to let me know what you’d like to know about me. And I will do my best to do that.

Thanks,

Tyler Olson

According to comScore, Twitter grew 131% in March 2009. That followed 55% and 33% growth rates in February and January, respectively. Recently, twitter has received a lot of media attention due to the Kutcher v CNN battle to see who would be the first to a million followers. Oprah also had a full show about the impact of Twitter on people’s lives.

Studies show that a lot of people come to twitter a few times and never come back. Part of the reason for this is because the purpose of twitter is not intuitive. Twitter is designed to be a conversational tool and as expected, it is difficult to have conversations when you first join when you don’t know what to do and do not have anybody following you.

However, Twitter is a phenomenal marketing opportunity for salespeople. For many relationship-based businesses, twitter provides an opportunity to market to the people who know you, trust you, and are interested in knowing more about what you do. For example, when I tweeted that I started blogging for PCWorld back in January, a number of people who had been following me on twitter and facebook responded and asked if we can help their businesses and organization setup social networking strategies.

Your salespeople can and should be using twitter to generate additional leads as well as providing ongoing communication to their current accounts. Be warned, there are proper and improper ways of using twitter and if you do not follow twitter etiquette, you risk being blocked or potentially banned.

As an IT person, I regularly post on twitter and facebook the importance of backing up computers, tips on how to use social networking for business, and requests for referrals. These updates generate additional business from our clients and can help you generate more business as well.

Tyler Olson has a vision, a passion for technology, and a love for entrepreneurship. Tyler’s current business, HelpMeTy.com, started out of his dorm room two and a half years ago to fix computers and make Web sites. The company now provides remote IT support as well as web services for many people and businesses. You can follow him on twitter @TyOlson

After touring Lake Tahoe / San Francisco / Silicon Valley with about a dozen young entrepreneurs from around the world in late February, I changed many of my short term and long term goals… I’ll probably continue to post those on this blog over time, so go ahead and subscribe to keep updated on what’s going on in my life. 

One of my short term goals was to buy a domain name related to my name and create a web presence around me and not just my business. Thus, I bought http://TylerOlson.net (still working on http://TylerOlson.com – just don’t tell him it’s me). Since that point, I’ve raced to implement some SEO practices I have learned from one of my businesses, HelpMeTy, because I wanted (when I say wanted, I truly mean needed to satisfy my inner competitive drive) to get ahead of TylerOlson.org who is a state house rep for Iowa. For those who want to know a little bit about SEO (search engine optimization), when .gov and .us websites links to you, Google highly respects that. And since this state house representative has some of those, I knew it would be a hard battle. On a side note, I have a personal vendetta against this particular state house rep because his campaign refused to give me a lawn sign for me to put in my room. 

Anyways, today – April 29th, 2009 – http://TylerOlson.net officially is in the #1 spot of Google when you search for Tyler Olson (it might not be in Iowa due to Google’s custom geographical results) and I fully intend on keeping that way. Because I will be playing with some other SEO activities in the near future, I might accidentally hurt my ranking for short periods of time, but do not worry: Tyler Olson (this one) will win.

Update: I lied. Google’s search results are so personalized that it recognized that I probably would feel better if my blog came up #1 for me. Which honestly doesn’t make me feel any better. I guess I have a little more work to do. Still in the #3 position. Updates to come…

Check me out on PCWorld.com!

Facebook continues to evolve as it strives to master its own business model. With the latest evolution, Facebook makes its service more valuable to businesses. With the updated Fan Page, businesses now have the ability to send updates straight to the news feed of any person who has chosen to be a fan of that business.This will help companies make their online marketing strategies more viral.

Additionally, Facebook is adding an analytics tool called Insight so you can better understand the demographic of your fans. If your business currently does not have a Facebook fan page, now is the time to jump on the opportunity for maximum early exposure.

Be aware, however, that millions of Facebook users are complaining about the latest changes and Facebook has been known to make quick decisions based upon user feedback. Additionally, it currently appears that people who became fans of business pages prior to March 20 will not receive newsfeed updates from fan pages unless they “opt-in” to it, which is uncommon for many Facebook users. We will have to wait and see if Facebook makes further alterations based upon recent feedback.

Tyler Olson has a vision, a passion for technology, and a love for entrepreneurship. Tyler’s current business, HelpMeTy.com, started out of his dorm room two and a half years ago to fix computers and make Web sites. The company now provides remote IT support as well as web services for many people and businesses.

Virus Name: Conficker
Classification: Highly Dangerous
Infection Level: Very High (10+ million computers)
Impact Date: April 1^st, 2009.
Impact: Unknown

Please check to ensure that your windows updates and antivirus updates are working properly. If you have been regularly installing updates, you are protected.

We find that many people do not install windows updates because sometimes they cause problems or they are not using a legitimate version of Microsoft Windows. Additionally, we find many people whose antivirus subscriptions have expired.

We highly urge anybody who has, in the past, avoided running windows updates (including business users) to immediately run updates. For business users who stagger windows updates, please read this bulletin to locate the particular patch you should push.

If you do not currently have an up-to-date antivirus system, we recommend purchasing either Trend Micro Internet Security 2009 or Norton 360 3.0.

If you would like assistance making sure that you are up-to-date, please e-mail support@helpmety.com or call us at 612-743-7450. We do not typically answer phones on the weekend, but we will do our best to answer the phones and follow up with you immediately. We will run a special package of $90 for a remote checkup to ensure you are protected from this virus along with a basic optimization of your computer (effective through April 1^st). Click here to sign up for this package and get your name on the list immediately.