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Month: October 2017

Good Security Protects These 3 Critical Things

Posted on by ARRC Technology

The cybersecurity you use doesn’t just protect you from the latest malware—it’s an insurance policy that protects your staff, your clients, and the way you do business. Data breaches are no longer a thing of science fiction movies. They happen all around you. Breaches are a costly nightmare that can affect your business from every angle, avenue, and outlet.

Even if your company has gone years without a breach, don’t let that false sense of security put you at risk. All it means is that your current security investments have paid off and you’ve thwarted irreparable business heartache so far.

Below are three aspects of your business your security measures are keeping alive and well. Use them as incentive to either continue your proper security methods or spur you into investing your time and money into an efficient cybersecurity plan.

  1. Your Reputation

When it comes to your reputation, you are what you breach. And if you’ve been known for breaching a little here and breaching a little there, then chances are your potential clients aren’t as ‘potential’ as you think they are. As soon as your partners or clients sense security concerns with your business, they’ll start sniffing around for newer, safer outlets.

And once your reputation has been damaged, it’s incredibly difficult to recover, especially with the online rating community. It’s common to quickly Google a business and judge them based on their Google ratings, so make sure a data breach doesn’t create negative ripples. By keeping on top of your cybersecurity measures, you’ll maintain control of your bottom line, the satisfaction of your customers, and your reputation.

  1. Your Clients

How will your clients feel about you and your business if they feel their data isn’t completely secure? The last thing clients want or need is to have their financial or personal information stolen, kidnapped, or damaged. Lax security measures would mean long-term issues for them and would ultimately create permanent distrust of your business.

Rest assured knowing that effective security measures equate to happy clients and quite possibly, new referrals.

  1. Your Wallet

Your security budget may be large, but it’s nothing compared to the mountain of expenses that come with a breach: data loss, angry customers, upset partners, wary employees, and a soiled reputation. So continue to invest in that protection software, actively change company policies, and consistently update your devices because they’re saving your wallet from a world of misery and extending your company’s lifespan.

Good cybersecurity also protects your data from being held hostage by ransomware, which could also cost you an arm and a leg to recover. Plus, you’d be paying a ransom to criminals, which wouldn’t feel good at all.

So keep your security plan active and updated as often as possible.

Improve Your Electronic Etiquette with 6 Tricks

Posted on by ARRC Technology

It’s probably safe to assume that in one eight hour period you send more emails than you speak words. If you have a regular office job, you probably use email all day, every day. Sad, but true.

But because of this, it’s important to know the dos and don’ts of proper email etiquette. You don’t want to be giving off the wrong impression, do you?

Can I send an emoticon?

This is a bizarre one. In the past, absolutely no way. Now, however, things are a little different. Emoticons add a personal touch to emails and they can also help in your efforts to be humorous. If used correctly, an emoticon can make a detached email seem friendly or help soften an otherwise harsh body of text.

Is it funny or is it just awkward?

Writing is a funny thing because one sentence can be read a million different ways. One person may interpret something completely differently than you did based on how they read it, their education level, their personal experiences and the way the wind blew ever so gently that day.

This means you should always be careful when you use humor, especially in a professional context. What you find hilarious may come off as rude and belittling to someone else.

Stay away from Caps Lock. 

When you capitalize complete words or sentences, people tend to feel threatened. They automatically think, “Is he/she angry with me?” Or they think you’re too incompetent to use a computer properly. Do you not know where the caps lock button is? Either way the cookie crumbles, it’s not good.

Use spell check.

The lines are so blurred nowadays that you finish emails through text messages and end a phone call when you physically walk up to the person you’re speaking to—however, this doesn’t give you the right to use bad grammar and spell words incorrectly.

Spellcheck your email and always make sure you use complete words. In emails, do not use: cuz, k, y? or ya. Save that for your texts, and even then, only with close friends and family. Your boss or manager likely won’t be impressed with poor English skills.

Is that a novel or an email?

Let’s face it. We don’t like big globs of text (take note of what you’re reading right now). It’s intimidating. If we receive an email with a massive amount of text, we glance through it (missing important information) or save it for later (and never come back to it).

When you write an email, keep it short. Break up your information and highlight key information (bold your font or use the highlighter function).  If you can’t get your point across with limited text, then you’re better off picking up the phone so you can go in-depth and maintain their attention.

Did you say hello and goodbye?

You wouldn’t begin a conversation with someone you just met or barely know without a greeting. You also wouldn’t walk away from a conversation without ending it with a suitable goodbye. That’s just rude… and weird.

If you’re speaking with a client or a partner, always greet them properly: Hello, Hi there, How’s it going, Good morning. And, before you send your email, wrap it up with a goodbye: Thanks for your time, Talk to you later, Let me know if you have any questions.

Regardless of how you feel about email, if you use it on a daily basis, it would behoove you to polish up your etiquette so you make a great electronic impression.

How to Effectively Market on Social Media

Posted on by ARRC Technology

Social media is a very unique form of marketing because it exists inside the lives of your consumers. If they follow you, by default, you follow them. What could be better than that? Social media can be a cost-effective marketing platform that builds followers, creates brand loyalty, and engages consumers.

Here are five traits of successful social media marketing so you can get the most out of your social media platforms.

Start a conversation.

Speaking of conversations, make sure you start some. That’s why you’re on social media, right? Interact with consumers, generate brand awareness among potential customers and get people to talk about your product, service or industry. If you see some negative replies, look at it as an opportunity. Your responses can establish who you are as a company and transform your followers into true fans.

Treat your followers like customers.

Your social media followers are more than just a number, they’re digital customers with a powerful voice the whole world can see. Respond to their comments—whether they’re positive or negative. Thoughtful interaction goes a long way and can create lasting brand loyalty.

Images, images, images.

More and more, people prefer to receive information through visuals. Images are easier to digest for customers when they are on-the-go. As a result, images generate more clicks, more likes, and more shares. If you’re absolutely dead-set on sharing a large amount of copy, try to place content on top of images.

Calls to action are key.

You don’t just want to engage your following, you want them to click through. Create a call-to-action (CTA) that will motivate your followers to click your link, try your product or check out what you have to share. CTAs result in a higher follower-to-customer conversion rate and increased brand loyalty.

Timing is part of the strategy.

Posting to your social media outlets should be a regular activity, at least daily.  But there’s more to it than that. When you post is even more important than how much you post.

The “when” depends on who your audience is, what social media channels you’re using and what kind of information you’re sharing. For example, professionals are online at different times than teenagers, and they are more likely to click a link in the evening. They’ll also probably be on LinkedIn during the day and Facebook at night.

To Procrastinate or Not to Procrastinate?

Posted on by ARRC Technology

We’ve all heard the arguments before: lazier people are more creative, and oftentimes, wildly more successful (they have all the time in the world to waste which means they come up with some pretty radical ideas). But then again, that’s not to say that busy bees can’t be creative or successful either. Google’s head of marketing has over 20 meetings each day—she’s pretty darn busy and if you ask most anyone, rather successful, too. And we’re all guilty of procrastination. But is it really such a bad thing?

So then the question naturally becomes: to procrastinate or not to procrastinate? And while the choice is ultimately yours to make, here are a few reasons that lend a little positivity to each side of the coin.

To procrastinate:

  1. It can make you more creative.

For some, procrastination can lead to a better outcome, causing you to think of more efficient solutions and more innovative ideas in order to avoid tedious or boring work.

 

  1. It can lead to more important items.

You might put it off, but you’ll probably do something else in its place to justify your procrastination—something that is equally as important, if not more important.

 

  1. It can reveal the missing ingredient.

Delaying doesn’t come out of nowhere. Chances are your mind is focused on the little details or maybe even the bigger picture. Sometimes you need to clear the fog before you can make something really shine.

Not to procrastinate:

  1. It can actually take more time.

Many think procrastination uses more of your valuable time, decreasing brain function and causing the effects of sleep deprivation. Like mentioned before, your brain energy is spent stressing over what you aren’t doing and what you need to be doing.

  1. It can use more energy.

When we don’t give our minds time to evaluate, plan and decompress, it takes away from our energy—ultimately affecting our work in negative ways. Putting items off until later will give us less time to decompress, as well as more time to stress over not doing something.

  1. It can create bad habits.

If you procrastinate once and you’re successful at it, then you’ll probably do it over and over again until something negative happens. And don’t be naive… It will happen. It’s important to nip this habit in the bud. Once procrastination becomes a habit, it gets easier and easier to justify the negative consequences of it.

There are plenty of other pros and cons to each side, but the general rule of thumb is: as long as your work gets done, it doesn’t really matter how you got there. Everyone is different and works in different ways. If procrastination works for you, continue on. If you prefer being a busy bee, keep on buzzing.