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Help yourself to our free training resources! Here you’ll find lots of free tutorials, how-tos, advice and training tips on a wide range of business, management and IT training subjects. We’re continually adding great new stuff so make sure you follow us on twitter for regular updates.
If you would like help with your social media we offer a great social media training course. We have just launched new HTML5 training and Email Marketing Training course. Search Engine Optimisation training course is also popular.
How often should you tweet?
Simple answer -as often as you’ve got something worth saying, having said that the more often you tweet, the higher the quality of each tweet needs to be. If your tweets are filling up your followers tweet stream they’ll soon get fed up and unfollow you.
Even if you tweet a lot of useful stuff if you also tweet too much useless stuff it will get too time consuming for your followers to pick the meat form the bones, you need to debone your tweets!
What should you tweet about?
It’s not just stuff that others can profit from that you should be tweeting however. I’ts good to mix in some personal stuff too — being you injects a human element into your twitter account that others can relate to.
So tweeting in a nutshell:
- Never tweet worthless junk
- Sometimes tweet personal stuff — especially if it’s something others will relate to.
- Make sure a really big proportion of your tweets are very high value and that this proportion is higher the more often you tweet.
- As a rough guide tweet about 15 – 20 times a day unless you’re consistently delivering exceptional value..
If you would like help with your social media we offer a great social media training course. We have just launched new HTML5 training and Email Marketing Training course. Search Engine Optimisation training course is also popular.
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Posted by Heather Buckley in Social Media on August 17th, 2010 | No Comments »
For in-depth instructor led Management Skills tuition, we offer a comprehensive Management training and Leadership training. We can also arrange bespoke Staff Motivation training courses tailored to your requiremetnts.
In difficult economic times it is really important to keep your teams motivated especially when budgets for giving bonuses and large staff parties are not as large as they used to be. So here are some simple and effective tips to keep your staff motivated…
- Get to know your staff. Take the time to really understand what motivates and interests them, what concerns they may have and what ideas they have to make the department and company more effective. If people feel that their managers are really interested in them they will return the interest in the work they are doing and the company as a whole.
- Praise your people. When your team members do good work, put the extra hours in, come up with a brilliant idea or help a colleague – make sure that you give them praise and a thank you. Praising your people will encourage them to do more of the same in the future.
- Enhance your people’s creativity. Allow your team members to express their ideas and be sure to listen to them and explore those ideas with them – they could come up with the next best thing for your business. Also in brainstorming sessions use a variety of ways i.e. mind mapping/Edward De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats to stimulate creativity and use coloured pens, toys and music to enhance the creative atmosphere.
- Empower your people. Your role as a manager/leader is to get things done through your people and you can do this by effectively empowering your team. Where appropriate involve them in the decision making process, communicate key company information with them and ask for their feedback. Coach them to do some areas of your job that they would find stimulating and motivating and this will give you more time to do strategic thinking and planning.
- Be consistent with your management and leadership style. Ensure that you are consistent with your style, if you are empowering and motivating one day but secretive and moody the next your team will get confused, paranoid and you will lose their trust. Remember every single second you are with your team you are having an impact on them, so make sure it is a positive one.
- Be motivated yourself. The more positive and motivated you are the more likely it is that your team will be as they will follow your example. Take time to understand what it is that motivates you personally and assertively communicate that to your manager. As a leader and manager it is vitally important that you take time for your own learning and development to learn new skills but also to take the time to reflect on what you need to do differently and how you are going to do it. So see learning and development as vital part of your role and an investment.
- Reward your staff. You may not have the budget for staff bonuses or large Xmas parties but you can still do small things to reward your staff when they have met targets, demonstrated excellent customer service etc. Chocolates, cakes and wine always go down well as a thank-you. Or you can be creative and look at other ways in which you can reward staff, for example, introduce flexi hours or write them a handwritten personal note of thanks and praise. In some cases you could get the MD/Chairperson of the company to do this.
- Have a social get-together. Organising the occasional social get together is a great way to boost morale and enable your team to get to know one another better. You can organize a social committee that takes responsibility for organizing such events.
- Celebrate your successes. It is important of celebrate and communicate your successes as a company. Have a success board that is visually appealing and accessible for all staff to see. You could also have a ‘company hour’ once a week in which all members of the company are invited to have some wine/nibbles or tea/cake and learn about what successes the company has had and what the current priorities are. This is an excellent way to communicate directly to your staff.
- Put your people first. Your people are your greatest asset so make sure that every single member of your organization is made to feel valued, talk to them, listen to them, invest in their learning and always put them at the top of your agenda.
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Posted by Colin Welch in Management Skills on August 13th, 2010 | 5 Comments »
thanks to Laurence Simon AKA isfullofcrap on flickr
In a nutshell, if you are serious about Social Media (see our Social Media Training Course) you should use you blog to provide content for Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook accounts. Your blog also gives you a great way to post links into comments on posts about similar topics which is very good for your SEO or Search Engine Optimistation (see our SEO Training course). If you are new to blogging and want to know what to write about check out our regular Blogging Training course.
Here are the reasons why I think every business should be Blogging:
- Blogging defines your business or you as an individual – good for social media (see our social media training course).
- You can ask for feedback on your blog and get others to generate new content – good for SEO (see our SEO Training course).
- You attract links to your site. Posts get picked up by news feeds and other bloggers all the time.
- You can use your important keywords in the body – good for SEO.
- You can make some keywords into anchor text – good for SEO
- You can link to your blog with your microblogging sites (Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Tumbler etc) – good for SEO and Social Media
- You can check your analytics from your blog to see what interests people, what works and where they go next. (see our Google Analytics Training Course)
- You can use your blog to concentrate on individual product or services
- You can advertise special offers or promotions and then link to them from other sites – Good for SEO, or tweet about them etc – Good for Social Media
- Blog posts are a great place to embed videos. Great for SEO and Social Media
We reccomend Wordpress for your blog though there are alternatves around (we offer wordpress training of course!) Wordpress however make it easy to SEO your blog, add plugins and widgets for adding social media elements. The best thing is to integrate your Wordpress site seamlessly into your main site like we do. In fact our free resources section is one wordpress site and our silicon beach training blog is another wordpress site. This is best for SEO as google sees the site and the two blogs as one domain. You can learn how to do this on our customising wordpress templates training course.
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Posted by Heather Buckley in SEO Training, Social Media on August 5th, 2010 | 4 Comments »
Learn how to use Photoshop to remove blemishes from your photographs.
So you have taken the best photograph EVER, but there is a tiny bird in the background, dust on the lens or a spot on your face that just wouldn’t go away that day. With Photoshop you can remove these small blemishes with a few simple steps…
This, and other extremely clever Photoshop editing techniques are covered on our Photoshop Training and Advanced Photoshop Training courses.
Step 1- Find and locate the spots you want to remove from your photograph. Must be a fairly small blemish, as this tool doesn’t work on larger spots.
Step 2- Click on the Spot Healing Brush tool on your Tools bar and select Patch Tool.
Step 3- Circle the small area that you want to remove and then move the circled area to a similar part of the photograph.
Read the rest of "How to Remove Blemishes with Photoshop CS5"
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Posted by Colin Welch in Photoshop Training on July 23rd, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Social Media: The Basics
If you would like help with your social media we offer a great social media training course. We have just launched new HTML5 training and Email Marketing Training course. SEO Training is also popular.
Many will tell you that Social Media is fast becoming an essential tool for business in all areas, but most of these people will not be able to tell you how to use it properly!
- Make sure you’re not selling yourself short, Social Media isn’t just Twitter. Remember, Facebook & even YouTube can be used to help you and your business
- Twitter can still become a valuable SM asset to your company. Look at Chris Brogan’s blog post ‘50 ideas on using Twitter for business‘, which forms part of his Social Media 100 project.
- Do you offer a product/service? Offer support via Twitter. If you’re attempting to create sales from your use of Twitter, think about offering a ‘Twitter exclusive’ voucher code or discount offer.
- Use Facebook pages, users can ‘Like’ your company or product, and you can encourage discussion and feedback from Facebook users. This can be invaluable, especially when you consider the fact that Facebook has over 400 million active users. That’s a lot of people you can potentially reach.
- YouTube is, to me, an almost criminally underused resource for businesses. Start up your own YouTube channel and fill it with interesting, different content. A few videos giving a tour of your offices, or introducing staff helps to create a different kind of relationship with your customers and users. There are more uses for YouTube within your business than you think.
- On a more professional level, LinkedIn is a valuable tool that enables you to build working relationships with fellow professionals.
- Lastly, make sure you blog. Offering a slightly relaxed standpoint from within the business will help others to better understand what it is you do and how they can relate.
However, using all these different platforms can prove to be a fruitless exercise if you fail to consider how these services can help your business. Don’t use SM platforms for the sake of using them, ensure that you can use them well and use them to your advantage. A training program focusing on Social Media would be an ideal starting point.
Pair this with some SEO training, tie it all in together and you’ll be well on your way to creating a formidable Social Media presence for your business.
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Posted by Heather Buckley in Social Media on July 29th, 2010 | No Comments »
- Project Management 2.0: Andrew gives an analysis of how Enterprise 2.0 technologies influence project management. Categories include enterprise and project management 2.0, collaboration, social project management, and collective intelligence.
- Project Shrink: Bas de Baar has over a decade of experience as a Software Project Manager within the publishing, financial, and public sector. In addition to his popular blog there is also an informative video podcast.
- Paul Pondering: He blogs about time management with Outlook, Gmail, Lotus notes, and Groupwise. Project management topics such as benefits and risks are also discussed.
- Learning Leader: Patrick is the founding director of Pearcemayfield, a training and consultancy business. Read his blog for help with vision, stories, Prince2, and more.
- Technology, Strategy, People & Projects: Eric has over fifteen years of experience in corporate and consulting environments specializing in technology and business. Along with posts, every week he links to the best in project management.
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Posted by Heather Buckley in PRINCE2 Training on July 21st, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Business success depends on the ability of management to competently complete company goals. Goals begin with a concept, and with project management, this concept should become a reality. The company can then move forward in the direction of profits. Any good Project Management Training will give you the skills to achieve this. Prince2 training is simply a quality controlled and standardised method of using project management to achieve company goals.
After successfully completing an accredited Prince2 training course employees should be able to deliver goals within time, within budget, and within scope.
Company Leaders need a strategy to build their business and management need the skills to implement these plans. Prince2 training is a world recognised structured methodology for coordinating efficient project management within a defined framework.
If a business need to manage risk to the investment within the project, it is preferable to take Risk Management Training along with Prince2 training.
All managers and project leaders who achieve Prince2 accreditation will have a common language which will enable each team member to understand their roles and responsibilities necessary in reaching the project goal.
All steps in the Prince2 system are interchangeable for the specifics of the project at hand, but they all begin with planning.
Next is initiating, and directing the project.
Management will control all stages and manage stage boundaries for product delivery.
Practical management successful programs (MSP training) can also be beneficial to business.
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Posted by Heather Buckley in PRINCE2 Training on July 13th, 2010 | No Comments »
How to use Digg effectively: 10 steps to becoming a Digg pro!
Effectively using Digg can be hard to do, but when done it’s an invaluable way of achieving high Google rankings and driving traffic to your site. As with all in Social Media Marketing success comes with finding the balance between remembering the end game and remembering that it’s a social network – so no spamming or constant self-promo! This ten step guide will talk you through the Digg must-dos, tell you what big mistakes to avoid and help you decide if Digg is a useful marketing tool for your business. See this guide to the best social bookmarking sites if you’d like to compare Digg with other sites such as Delicious and StumbleUpon.
Silicon Beach Training offer a range of Social Media Training courses including SEO Training and Blogging Training. We’re also on Digg – come and be our friends!
Read the rest of "How to use Digg effectively"
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Posted by Natasha Stone in SEO Training, Social Media on July 2nd, 2010 | 3 Comments »
