How many points of interaction can you give your site visitors? Plenty. That’s why ‘Web 2.0’ and ‘social media’ get so much attention. Potential online tactics for engaging your audience include blogging, polling, forums, rating a product, Facebook, Twitter, desktop widgets… it’s a long list, and getting longer. And implementation is getting easier, which is fortunate, because your visitors, as they catch on to the social media trend, tend to expect more.

Just the other day, YouTube became the second-largest search engine behind Google – bigger than Yahoo, MSN, or Ask. Yet even in Internet terms, YouTube is a young company. Its success results from providing an interaction point that, in hindsight, everybody wanted and therefore enthusiastically adopted. And let’s be clear: it’s also blurring the traditional distinction between content ‘publisher’ and content ‘consumer.’ Basically, it’s increasingly easy to be both.

To take one more example of social media, and how it connects consumers and business: Tehcnorati, originally a blog search engine, now connects blogs and social media sites with advertisers and indexes more than 1.5 million new blog posts in real time every day. Technorati likes to describe itself as 'placing brands at the center of a global conversation.' 

Thanks to Web 2.0 innovations, online communities now arise with surprising speed. And while we can’t all be as successful as YouTube and Technorati, we can learn some lessons from this measurable phenomenon.

Click here to learn how Quicksilver integrated social media into a new consumer site for the Academy of General Dentistry.

If you browse the web while you are at work, you have probably heard the term firewall. A firewall is a special hardware and/or software package dedicated to monitoring data transmitted from inside the company and received from the outside World Wide Web. Through a series of filters or rules, certain data is allowed to pass through the wall, while other data is dropped. In this day and age where computer viruses and hackers run rampant, a firewall provides a much needed and sometimes massive measure of security, protecting your company's data from outsiders while preventing users from visiting malicious websites that are equally damaging. Here’s how it works:

Let's say that there are 500 employees in your company. The company will have hundreds of computers with network cards connecting them together. In addition, the company will have one or more connections to the Internet through something like T-1 or T-3 lines. Without a firewall in place, all of those computers are accessible to anyone on the Internet. A hacker can probe those computers and make connections to them. With a firewall in place this cyber intrusion is less likely.

As much security and safety as a firewall offers, events like webcasts are often blocked, too, because they involve an active and on-going data stream from an unfamiliar source. If a large number of internal users are logged onto the webcasting stream at one time, your company's overall network usage and speed can be burdened. Imagine those 500 employees using 500 kbps (kilobits-per-second) or 50,000Mbps of simultaneous streaming. If your company only has one T-1 line, your network could be crippled for those employees who are not participating in the webcast.

If you are considering webcasting, it’s important for the content developers to form a close partnership with your Information Technology team. A firewall is not a piece of technology that can be toggled on and off like a light. Pre-webcast preparation involves testing all segments of the webcast's path from the point of origination to a viewer's computer. Knowing the path and pitfalls will ensure that critical messages reach your employees without disrupting your day-to-day operations.

Click here to find out about Quicksilver's experience with webcasting.

Survival tips from 33 years in business and four economic downturns…

Quickly respond to clients – be available, take calls, respond to emails and let clients know we are as involved and interested in their business as they are. They should to be confident we are here to help.

Understand key performance indicators – review performance metrics that are important to making good business decisions regularly and take appropriate actions.

Implement projects with clear direction – make sure everyone in the company knows how to accomplish their assignments on time, on budget, by following our common process.

Capitalize on a suite of service offerings – be able to offer one-stop-shopping for clients and make sure they know all of our capabilities. Make these offerings fresh and appropriate to the times.

Keep a positive attitude and a sense of humor – as the leader of the company, attitude and laughter are directly responsible for my and the company’s health and sanity.

Stay out of debt – without owing principal or interest to anyone, we are able to adjust our business freely and clearly during both good and bad times.

Invest in stable, supportive technology – don’t go into tough times without a great infrastructure in place. Build it during the good times and use it like crazy in the bad times.

Leverage expert advice – I joined the TAB Board in 2001 where I receive monthly coaching and the support of other small business owners. It has been invaluable.

Visibly market our services – Use every medium possible to stay in front of our target audience. Use the Internet, print, networking opportunities and all other sources to keep Quicksilver front and center – after all we have what you need.

Encourage focused innovation – Listen to our clients and develop innovative solutions that meet their needs. If we hadn’t done this, we would still be making glass mounted slides.

Retain talented staff – It’s a lot of effort getting the right team in place to deliver world class creative work – but we’ve done it. If you work with us, you know what I mean.