Alberta Business Marketing

photo © 2008 _Superbeast_ | more info (via: Wylio)
Over the weekend, .02% of Gmail users had their email accounts wiped clean. That’s right, they had all of their email deleted from their account accidentally by Google. To make matters worse, Google even deleted the backup version of the data!

Before all you “Keeping my email on my own computer because I don’t trust the cloud people” get too excited, know this.
Google is promising Gmail users whose accounts reset this weekend that they will have their lost data restored. That’s because Google has a tape drive back up of accounts on hand as well. That’s right, data is double backed up.

Although the tape back up will take a while to get email restored to everyone, the fact that Google keeps an offline version of email accounts stored for safe keeping (Just in case!) is good news for online email users.

Those of you who keep your email stored on your own computer might ask yourself – What if my harddrive goes down? Do I have a back up? Do I have a double back up? How long will it take me to restore my back up if something terrible happens to my computer?

Thankfully for Gmail users who may have been hit hard by the problems caused by Google won’t have to do any of the heavy lifting to get their email accounts back online.

Nevertheless, this Gmail user is indeed glad he wasn’t in the .02%.

Tags: free web marketing stuff
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Tags: free web marketing stuff, social media policy, this week in tourism, Video
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You’ve been waiting for this one. Todd shares his thoughts on providing information for travelers on touchscreens in your visitor centre.

Why touchscreen kiosks are a bad idea for your tourism region.  Send this link to your chamber of commerce, destination marketing organization or regional tourism association if they are considering investing in touchscreen kiosks.

Kiosks break down and make it inconvenient for travelers to get the information they need.
Instead, invest in:

• providing free wifi for travelers
• monitoring twitter and facebook and answering travellers questions.
• making your information for travelers handheld friendly
• answering regional visitor questions by text message!

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Many folks use Twitter status updates on behalf of their brand, instead of as a person. Some folks do both, engage as a person and as a business.
On Facebook, Business pages have been a distinct entity, with quite limited types of engagement being possible in comparison to personal pages.
Well, things have changed. If you have updated your business page profile your changes are live now. If you wait, changes will eventually appear over the next month or so.

Facebook gives business Page administrators the ability to use their Facebook page much like a personal profile. Users of the new profile will see a new link that allows administrators to “Use Facebook as (your business page)”.

Once using Facebook as your page, you have the flexibility to interact with the other areas of Facebook as a page.

• Get notifications when fans interact with your page or posts
• See activity from the pages you like in your news feed
• Like other pages and feature them on your page
• Make comments as your page on other pages

For example, you can “Like” another businesses Facebook Page and interact with that page any time as your business.
When you “Like” other pages (note not individual facebook users), your News Feed will now feature a stream of updates from your page and the pages you have liked. Visitors to your page will have the opportunity to view Everyone’s content on the page – or Your business posts and the comments made on them by visitors.

What I’m most excited about is that administrators can also receive email notifications whenever someone engages with your page, just like a regular profile.  Pretty cool for folks who don’t have the time to check in directly with Facebook to see who is engaging.  This allows brands to interact and engage with visitors to the page  much more easily.

If you haven’t yet, update to the new Business Page format, there are some great new ways to engage with your guests and other pages.

Tags: Facebook, facebook pages
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This Week in Tourism: Todd loves peanut butter, and it has a lot to do with social media. Find out why?

Tags: peanut butter, social media, this week in tourism
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