We love this project. The Annual Toy Drive is a project started by Shana Kay in 2008. The project aims to run toys for various orphanages each year.

To keep tabs on what happens this year, visit www.annualtoydrive.org.

Follow them on Twitter: http://twitter.com/toydrivect

• Leaders can communicate directly with customers, suppliers and investors, as well as employees, helping disseminate and explain strategy.
• Blogs give the writer an opportunity to answer critics in a controlled forum.
• Compared with conference or printed memos to all staff, enterprise blogs are highly cost effective.
• Sharing their ideas freely in an honest voice brings the blogging companies new connections and generate trust which will lead to business opportunities galore.
• Blogs have a broad impact on the nature of online media by giving an opportunity to publish words, pictures and – ultimately – multimedia to the web without specialised geek skills.
• A well written blog can give a human face to an otherwise anonymous enterprise.
• They boost your search engine rankings if you add fresh content on a regular basis. Google and other search engines rewards sites that are updated often, that link to other sites and most importantly, that has many inbound links.
• People are far more likely to give great feedback if they know someone specific is listening. The power of these feedback loops can generate big benefits.
• Blogs’ diary format gives a sense of immediacy, and regular posting soon creates a large, searchable database of information hyperlinked to extra relevant material.
• They mark your company as authentic and forward-looking.

For more benefits of business blogging, visit: Enterprise Blogs.

Courtesy of Smart Brand Blog

If you’re one of those who still believe that there is no value in social media, think again. With the recession, companies have gone through retrenchments, downsizing their companies and outsourced certain functions. However, some companies have opted to see the opportunity by embarking on a technology route. What do I mean by this? Let’s take the example of retrenching a key staff member, does the role disappear?

Not likely. What happens instead is that the process becomes automated, which appears in the form of a lovely piece of technology (point one). What this means is that we now have less staff in the office with systems replacing their retrenched peers.

More and more companies are opting for Software as a Services (SaaS), which means that employees can operate from anywhere, at anytime. This also means that there is a new potential audience, in the form of online visitors, which may not have existed before.

Opportunity knocks. Say goodbye to costly traditional offline marketing and hello to online marketing, which can be more cost effective. In addition to this, you have more control over:

• your budget
• your audience
• your platform

So what are you waiting for? If it’s a lack if time or if you’re are unsure of where to start, speak to us. We can help create a campaign to suite your budget and audience. Get socializing today. Join the community, listen and engage and develop the products or services they are asking for. It will make all the difference to you business/brand in the long run.

On the other hand, Twitter can be actively used as a tool to push out messages that capitalize on the attention you’re receiving from other users. Yes, I’m talking about self-promotion and marketing. This involves active user engagement. Here are 5 uses for Twitter:

1. Make New Friends. Like any other social network, Twitter has a built-in function for you to befriend and track the messages of other users. This is an easy way for you connect with people outside of your usual circle. Make an effort to add active users you find interesting. A Twitter acquaintance can be developed into a long lasting friendship.

2. Network for benefits. Twitter can be used as a socializing platform for you to interact with other like-minded people, especially those in the same industry. It can be used to establish consistent and deeper relationships for future benefits such as testimonials or peer recommendations.

3. Use it as a ToDo list. Use Twitter to record down what you need to do while you are away from the computer. Mark the tweet as a favorite to file it for referencing. Another alternative is to use an Online task management service that is synced with Twitter. One example is Remember The Milk.

4. Business Management. Twitter can be used as a company intranet that connects employees to one another. Workers can liaise with each other when working on group projects. Particularly useful when certain workers go out often in the field. Updates could be set to private for security reasons.

5. Notify Your Customers. Set up a Twitter feed for the specific purpose of notifying customers when new products come in. Customers can subscribe via mobile or RSS for instant notification. Twitter can also be used to provide mini-updates for one-on-one clients.

For more tips, visit Dosh Dosh

For more information on Shana Kay – visit her website: http://www.shanakay.com or follow her on Twitter

You will be exposed to:

•    structured learning through workshops
•    ongoing personal mentorship and coaching
•    group-centered learning
•    women-centered peer networking

For more information on the programme – visit their website: http://www.femafrica.com or follow them on Twitter

You can do anything online, share everything with everyone and purchase goods from Thailand from the comfort of your chair. The Internet has revolutionized the way we interact with each other. Some say it is invasive, and I would agree. But I would also agree with the way social media has brought us all closer together.

Ways to use Facebook for your business:

Manage your profile:

1. Fill out your profile completely to earn trust.
2. Establish a business account if you don’t already have one.
3. Stay out of trouble by reading the Facebook rules regarding business accounts.
4. Install appropriate applications to integrate feeds from your blog and other social media accounts into your Facebook profile. (Although you should be careful before integrating your Twitter feed into your Faceboook profile, as a stream of tweets can seem overwhelming to your contacts.)
5. Keep any personal parts of your profile private through Settings.
6. Create friends lists such as “Work,” “Family” and “Limited Profile” for finer-grained control over your profile privacy.
7. Post a professional or business casual photos of yourself to reinforce your brand.
8. Limit business contacts’ access to personal photos.
9. Post your newsletter subscription information and archives somewhere in your profile.
10. Connect and share with others Obtain a Facebook vanity URL so that people can find you easily.

For more tips, visit: Web Worker Daily .