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Renters Nightmare - How One Mortgage Bank Is Spreading The Word Of Homeownership
When AmeriFrist Home Mortgage wanted an "outside of the box" way to connect with customers and share the advantages of owning a home, the YouTube Channel "Renters Nightmare" was born. Over time, the channel will feature several videos that poke fun at the common "challenges" of renting and why buying a home is such a good idea. 
What makes these videos so unique is they were created to help tell a story with viewer interaction, giving the person watching the video the ability to click-through on options embedded in the video to get to the next part of the story. For example, in Romantic Evening, you've got the option of giving Mom (who interrupts your hot date) the Jedi Mind Trick to make her go away, but will it get rid of her? You'll have to watch the video to see for yourself. Stay tuned to Renters Nightmare for more videos coming soon. Granted, I'm a bit biased since they are a customer, but this is a great example of a business using video (and having fun) to connect with their community online. They also have a more traditional AmeriFirst Mortgage YouTube Channel that features interviews with AmeriFirst mortgage experts and helps to educate people looking to buy a home of their own. |
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Business Lessons From a Triathlete? You Don't Need to Swim, Bike and Run to be Successful
Recently on Free Webinar Wednesdays, my partner Jeff and I welcomed Bernie Borges to the show, "Chief Find Officer" with Find and Convert. He shared his thoughts on ways to "turbo charge" your career using social networking.  As a triathlete myself, I was inspired by the session and wrote this blog post to share my thoughts. Actually, I had this post "rattling around" in my head for some time now. I have always thought there were similarities to the discipline of a triathlete and a successful business person. Thanks to Bernie for helping bring it to life. The Mindset of a Triathlete - Set written goals
- Get a coach
- Accountability partner
- Join clubs
- Develop a routine
- Work on your technique
- Find educational resources
- Make a commitment
If you stop by to read it, feel free to post a comment and let me know what you think. Hopefully some of the points will inspire you too! |
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Keep Important Files in Sync and Backed Up with Online Tools
In past issues of the Internet Minute I've talked about Carbonite, the online, automated online backup service that will keep all your files safe (for less than $60 per year). If you're not using a service like this to keep your files safe, just one crash and you wish you were! But what if you have multiple computers? Wouldn't it be nice to have all of your important files available on any of these, automatically synchronized for your convenience? Good news... you CAN! I'm going to share some sites you can use to securely create copies of your important files "in the cloud" and then sync them with whatever computer or mobile device you want over the Internet. This is great if you use a laptop, desktop or need access to files while "on the road". The best part is all of these services offer free plans to get you started, so you can get going without any cost (and just a little bit of time to set things up). Introducing Dropbox  I've been using the free version of Dropbox for several months now and have found it to be super easy and reliable for keeping files synced between the various computers in my business. I get 2 GB of online storage and information is securely copied over the Internet to all my other computers automatically. I now have access to my important files regardless of what device I'm using, which saves a lot of headache on my part.
Plus, I can now access the synchronized files directly from my Android-based smart phone or my iPad. So even if I'm out of the office, I can quickly get to documents for review (without having to rely on my laptop). And one of the best features is that if one of my computers crashes (gasp), I can quickly get to my files on one of the other computers and access all my important documents. I know Carbonite will be there for me as a complete backup, but with Dropbox I've got one more way that I'm keeping my information safe and secure. You Have Other Options Too!  There are other sites to check out as well that do similar things (and they too have free packages for you to try before you buy). I've got an account with Box.net and use that more for storage of files that I don't need on my hard drive any longer, but don't want to delete them entirely (just yet). I've also read some very positive things recently about SugarSync and will be giving their service a try as well. Their free account offers up to 5 GB of storage, which is the most of any of the services I've found so far, and the features look pretty impressive.
Regardless of which service you use, the great part about these services is they help take some of the anxiety out of managing your files across multiple computers. Are you using the "cloud" to make your life more convenient in other ways? If so, I'd love to hear what you're doing. |
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Speaking Schedule Now Online
I've already completed speaking sessions for the American Bankers Association, Nebraska Bankers Association and Graduate School of Banking and have several more to go. Coming up in April I'll be headed to Utah, northern Michigan and Mississippi for sessions with some great organizations.  | Presenting at the 2011 NBA Executive
Management Conference |
If you'd like to check and see if I'll be coming to one of your conferences this year, you can now view my speaking schedule online. I'll be presenting on topics such as search marketing, digital strategies, analytics, mobile marketing and ways to leverage social technology (just to name a few). If you're going to be at any of these events, be sure to come up and say hi!
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Welcome to this month's issue of the Internet Minute. As we put a wrap on the first quarter of 2011, I'd like to share with you an exciting project we just completed featuring interactive YouTube videos. It's a great way to engage the viewer and creatively get your message across.