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What is Social Networking?
Social networking is no longer a buzz word, but an Internet phenomenon. It represents a way for people to interact without traveling half way around the globe or even leaving their home’s comfort. Read on to find out exactly what social networking is and its potential to enhance your life.
Think of it like this. We all have at least one friend. To keep in touch with that friend we call, write, and meet face to face. Through our jobs we meet other friends. The more interactions we have with people, the more chances we have of meeting more folks.
Social networking sites provide the platform for getting to know more “friends.” It is like our job or school or church. They supply the venue and we mingle to find people who have similar interests. Someone had the bright idea to package this not unfamiliar social concept into a cyberspace platform. Now, people can meet others they already know but have lost contact with and new people.
Social networking took off among the younger generation first. They found a way to talk to their friends when they weren’t within sight of each other. For guys, it meant meeting girls in a non-threatening social situation. For girls, the feeling was mutual.
But, social networking is not just for the teeny boppers. Adults enjoy social networking as well. The first social networking sites we all heard about were Facebook and MySpace. This was mostly due to controversy surrounding what some Generation Y kids were posting, but it made parents aware of the social networking craze.
Adults use social networking for a number of reasons. First, it is personal. We reconnect with busy friends and family. If you can’t reach Aunt Charlotte because she’s always off around the world on one adventure or another, post new pictures of the kids on your MySpace page. She can view them when she comes down from Mount Everest.
Social networking gurus discovered that while finding old friends, business owners could form valuable alliances through their associations on social networking websites. Now, social networking has become valuable to anyone wanting to develop a website presence for their business. Social networking for business is akin to going door to door and telling people about your product. Create a compelling business profile and draw in the people you know by joining social groups with similar interests.
Social networking has a place in the life of both young and old alike. Use it to meet new people, make business contacts, stay in touch with family, or just to beef up your Internet presence. The wave of the future is social networking. Don’t you want to join?
Becki Noles is the virtual business manager and online marketing dynamo of the Virtual Accuracy Companies. She and her associates work with the top business and marketing coaches in the United States and the world over providing SEO, Pay Per Click, website development and technical virtual assistant services. Get the free 9 part series “How to Market Your Business” by visiting The Selon Group (a division of the Virtual Accuracy Companies).
How Good Is Your Memory?
Keeping the memory in good condition is a vital part of the brain’s function. Every now and then, our actions greatly depend on a lot of information we retrieve from our memory bank. Such information can either be short term (such as specific tasks that we have to do) or long term (such as the ability to drive a car or repeat an instruction we read from a book). While long-term memory may come spontaneously without too much effort when the need arises, short-term memory requires recalling information from the accumulation of things stored in our memory. This is why you need to keep your memory in great shape to achieve efficiency in your daily endeavors:
- Keep your attention focused on the needed information to be stored in your memory bank. Even with distractions around you, stay focused on the subject. The more concentrated you are on the information, the better the chances of retaining it in your memory.
- Utilize the most ideal sense or senses when gathering the information. This is what we call acuity in sensing our environment. Be aware of the color or details of a picture, or the particular sound or smell of the thing involved. All our bodily senses are attuned to collect information depending on the circumstance at hand. While our sense of vision may be the most used in gathering information, our senses of hearing, smell, taste, and touch are equally important and helpful in remembering things, situations, and information about something or someone.
- When you’re not sure that the information you are about to remember would really be retained by your brain, it would be better to write the information. This could be proven effective especially in gathering very long and tedious information like lecture notes or a personal interview. Just be sure you don’t forget that you have a note at hand; and of course, don’t misplace the note.
- Maintain a balanced diet. A well-proportioned diet will result to a conditioned memory. Oily and sweet foods may cloud the memory. If you cannot completely eliminate a bad diet, gradually cut down your intake of these memory-inhibiting foods. Doing it gradually cushions the effect of withdrawal symptoms and you’ll get adjusted to the new lifestyle you are creating. This is not only beneficial to the memory, but we can say you’re on your way to a healthy life. Drinking lots of water brings lots of advantages to your overall health, and memory is not an exception.
- Don’t deprive yourself…get enough rest and sleep. Having enough sleep does not condone laziness; oversleeping does. So don’t feel guilty resting or sleeping as long as it is not overdone. You need it badly to keep you revitalized from the tiresome demand of work.
- Take time to relax. Breathe deeply if you must. Keep your thoughts organized before acting on them. Keep away from stress and anxiety. It may be impossible to completely eliminate stress since it is part of our challenging generation, but try to keep it down as much as possible. Stress may bring your memory into its inefficient level. Avoid the habit of saying to yourself that you might forget things, because you’re more likely to if you do. This just builds your anxiety level up to its panic mode.
- Stay positive, creative, and energetic. Your memory needs to be within a circle of various things. Things that come in various shapes, sizes, and colors can motivate your creativity. This is a positive way of discovering your surroundings in all its variations and diversities. Avoid being enclosed within the four walls of your room just like you’re a prisoner. The only time to be enclosed is when you have to rest or sleep. Don’t be a couch potato. There’s a very exciting world out there waiting to improve your memory.
The very best way to improve your memory is between infancy and adolescent. As we grow old, memory starts to fail. But a strong memory that we can develop during the prime years of our lives will definitely enhance us to be good thinkers. This can be done by continuously exercising our memory through reading and other cognitive activities like the habit of solving crossword puzzles. The more you do these, the better memory retention is developed.
Becki Noles is the virtual business manager and online marketing dynamo of the Virtual Accuracy Companies. She and her associates work with the top business and marketing coaches in the United States and the world over providing SEO, Pay Per Click, website development and technical virtual assistant services. Get the free 9 part series “How to Market Your Business” by visiting The Selon Group (a division of the Virtual Accuracy Companies).
What Is Search Engine Optimization?
The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Ask. Search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret, to get credit for finding the most valuable search-results and to deter spam pages from clogging those results. A search engine may use hundreds of factors while ranking the listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually. Algorithms can differ so widely that a webpage that ranks #1 in a particular search engine could rank #200 in another search engine. New sites need not be “submitted” to search engines to be listed. A simple link from a well established site will get the search engines to visit the new site and begin to spider its contents.
If you are unable to research and choose keywords or work on your own search engine ranking, you may want to hire someone to work with who deals with search engine optimization on a daily basis.
Search engine marketing and promotion companies, will look at the plan for your site and make recommendations to increase your search engine ranking and website traffic. If you wish, they will also provide ongoing consultation and reporting to monitor your website and make recommendations for editing and improvements to keep your site traffic flow and your search engine ranking high. Normally search engine optimization experts work with your web designer to build an integrated plan right away so that all aspects of design are considered at the same time.
About the Author
Becki Noles, Visionary of Virtual Accuracy Companies has been at the forefront of stream-lining coaching and entrepreneurial businesses since 1998. Utilizing her background in marketing, publicity, corporate training, advertising and media, Becki custom tailors and implements individualized action plans for taking coaching businesses to the next level. As a Virtual Assistant her business partners with top business and executive coaches in the United States, Canada, Switzerland and the world over.
kO′ch VA adj. 1. a highly specialized and niched virtual
assistant who is in tune with their coaching clients and customizes solutions based upon their individual needs and goals 2. differs from a general virtual assistant as they only partner with members of the coaching industry [syn: 
