Over the years I’ve posted quite a few video tutorials on here and on other sites.  The problem is that they were scattered all over — many on here, quite a few on Google Earth Blog, various ones on my Google+ account, etc.  Recently I set out to get all of those organized, and the result seems to be pretty good.

With the help of Ali Green, we’ve put together a new site called A Brighter Web.  On the site we have over 60 video tutorials on topics such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and WordPress.  We’re adding a few new videos every day, and we’ll be expanding our range of topics over time.

With that in mind, what would you like to see on a site like that?  More social platforms, like FourSquare and LinkedIn?  Or perhaps software tutorials, like Photoshop?  Leave a comment and let us know what you’d like to see, and we’ll certainly take your ideas into consideration moving foward.

Thanks!

Working toward A Brighter Web is a post from: MickMel

Last week, I saw a speech that Gary Vaynerchuk gave to a bunch of RE/MAX realtors on the topic of social media engagement and it was quite awesome.  Here’s the video if you care to watch it:

Watching it inspired me to pick up Gary’s latest book, “The Thank You Economy“.  Awesome book, highly recommended. The folks at Marlow’s Tavern really need to read it.

As a general rule, we enjoy Marlow’s.  They have a few locations near us, good food, and solid service.  Tonight we took our babysitter out there for her birthday, but the evening had a few minor issues, and I think they could really benefit from having more of a “Thank You” approach to business.

No birthday desserts

We made sure to mention that today was our babysitter’s birthday, because we knew that Marlow’s did the little free cupcake dessert like most restaurants.  Nope, not anymore.  ”Some people lie about it being their birthday, so we can’t do that anymore.”  Uh-oh.  Really?  Did that surprise them?  Of course some people will lie about it — that’s why you give them a cheap cupcake and not a free steak. We had three adults and two kids, with a total bill of $78, and they’re concerned that they might give away a $3 dessert that isn’t legit?

While you certainly need to watch out for people taking advantage of you, this just seemed really shallow.  Companies that do customer service the right away (like Zappos) just focus on treating their customers like rock stars, and don’t worry so much about potentially giving up $3 every now and then.

My food was SLOW

It was remarkable.  The other four people in our party got their food fairly quickly, but I didn’t.  So I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  We’re guessing it was 10-12 minutes before my food arrived, which is crazy for a place like that, but things happen.  However, I still don’t know what happened.  I got a quick “sorry ’bout that” when they brought it, and that was it.  It was clear they didn’t care about the issue a single bit. A much better approach would have been like what Scott Stratten had happen at a hotel a few years ago; he had a very bad breakfast, but they apologized and explained the problem and he was much happier as a result.  Here’s his full write-up of that experience.

I decided not to press the the issue with them, just to see how they’d handle it.  Simply put, they didn’t.  No apology from anyone, no deduction on our bill.

(Speaking of the bill – $2.50 each for kid’s drinks?  Wow!)

Twitter

With those in mind, I did a little digging when I got home.  They’re pretty solid on Twitter (@MarlowsTavern), so I poked around for a while.  The content they push out is solid, but their conversation skills are weak.  They reply to some comments, but it appears to be at random.  Just in the past week:

• Jennifer asked whether a dish at Marlow’s was gluten free.  A few days later, she got a reply from them — yes!  Excellent.  So she replied back asking if they had a gluten free menu, or how they should request gluten free products.  Crickets…
• Robbie tweeted that he was taking his wife to Marlow’s for her birthday.  A quick “congrats” would have been nice, but they simply let it go without comment…
• Another user tweeted to rave about their Sunday buffet.  Again, no reply.

Seriously, businesses need to build true fans to be successful and here are people actively telling their world about your restaurant — and you ignore them?

Google Place Pages

How about their Google Place pages?  They have a handful of locations, so I just checked out a few of them.  I found these two gems rather quickly:

• “The salmon was tasty, but I won’t be returning“
• “Probably one of the worst meals I have ever had“

The response from Marlow’s, as expected, was silence.

Google+

Needless to say, they’re not on Google+ yet.  Not that I can really fault them for that (it’s new, smaller than Facebook/Twitter, etc), but people are already talking about them on there…

Website

Since they’ll probably be reading this, I’ll toss in a few suggested website tweaks as a bonus.  Their website is really pretty solid (many restaurants have dreadfully awful sites), but it could use some adjustments:

• On your front page, you have a link to your “to-go” menu.  Seems like people might often be in the car when they call for that.  And the menu is a PDF?
• In the footer, “copyright 2007″.
• Also in the footer is the “designed by” garbage.  Don’t leave that on there.
• Your canonicalization is a bit messed up.
• “Follow us on Facebook”.  Don’t you “follow” people on Twitter and “like” them on Facebook?  People get confused enough, so don’t switch them up for no good reason.  I’ve never liked the words “follow us” anyhow, because it implies that “you should follow us and we’ll send you a bunch of crap”.  I’m glad the Twitter widget (which you have on your site) says “Join the conversation” instead, as that sounds much better.
• Your Entertainment page encourages people to visit you on MySpace, which you haven’t updated in about two years.  Can’t blame you for the lack of updates, but you should probably remove that link.

It just takes time

Social media can be difficult for some businesses.  If you sell toilet plungers, it’ll take some work to come up with a creative campaign.  For restaurants, though, it’s dead simple.  Just put in the effort, connect with your patrons, and prove that you really care about them.  I should also mention that their Facebook pages (like this one) seem to be managed quite well, so they’re not totally ignoring everyone.

At the end of the day, these weren’t killer problems for Marlow’s.  We certainly think less of them, no doubt, but we’ll be back eventually — they’ll just be a little bit lower on the list.

Marlow’s Tavern, meet Gary Vaynerchuk is a post from: MickMel

I encourage many of my clients to use video to help show their customers what they have to offer.  Quick, simple videos can be quite helpful and aren’t very difficult to make.  Some examples:

• Car Dealer: Give me a two-minute tour of the latest greatest car on your lot.
• Realtor: Take me on a quick tour of the home and show me why I want to buy it.
• Photographer: Show me around your studio and explain why you chose the equipment you have.

Well-produced videos certainly have their place, but they tend to be slow and expensive to create.  With a Flip camera (or even a decent cell phone) you can grab a quick video and have it on YouTube in a matter of minutes.

What inspired me to write this post was a short video I saw today from Tim Terpening.  He works for Domain Homes in Tampa, FL, and there’s going to be an airshow in town this weekend.  As it happens, one of their neighborhoods is right next to MacDill Air Force Base and has a great view of the action, so they’re encouraging people to come hang out in their neighborhood by offering free parking and free food.  His video is a perfect example of what I’m talking about:

It’s under two minutes, he shows some of the planes doing some practice runs the day before, and then explains the deal they’re offering. Perfect.

If you want to build the killer well-produced video from time to time, go for it, but simply grabbing a camera and talking to your customers can be an amazing way to connect with them.

Simple video can be amazingly effective is a post from: MickMel

A lot of you have been watching my “How to install WordPress in less than 10 minutes” video, but I’ve been asked the same question a few times: “After I install it, then what?”

This short video will show you some of the next steps I take after I’ve installed WordPress to help make the site ready for prime time — setting up comment features, permalinks, etc.

If you need additional help with your blog, I’m continuing to add more videos to my “Simple WordPress Tutorials” post, so check it out.  If you’re trying to do something that isn’t listed on that page, let me know and I’ll create a screencast for you.

Update: This video can now also be found at A Brighter Web.

I’ve installed WordPress — now what? is a post from: MickMel

Below are three of my favorite videos of all time.  They’re all quite long (averaging just under an hour each), but I re-watch all of them from time to time to stay fresh on the ideas presented in them.

Scott Stratten: The Biz Media Sessions
Scott (@unmarketing) puts out a bunch of great info on how to use  social media, and this video is a great overview of some of his ideas.

David Allen: Getting Things Done
I’m a big fan of GTD, and it’s greatly changed how I’ve organized my life over the past few years.  David Allen is the man behind the system, and this was a talk he gave at Google a few years ago.  Lots of great tips in there.

Merlin Mann: Inbox Zero
A major aspect of GTD, at least for me, is keeping my inbox completely clean.  Merlin offers some great advice in this video on how to actually make it happen.

Any other great videos out there that should be on this list?

Three videos that you must watch is a post from: MickMel

If you’re just getting started with WordPress and you’re stuck on how to use some of the features, I hope that the videos below will be helpful.  You’ll find four short videos in this post, to show you how to create links, add images, add PDFs and embed videos.  Enjoy!

These videos have been moved to the WordPress section of A Brighter Web, along with many others to help you with your WordPress site!

Some simple WordPress tutorials is a post from: MickMel

I often have people ask how they can quickly crop and/or resize pictures in Windows.  I use a free program called Paint.net (found at getpaint.net) that does a very nice job.  Here’s a quick video showing how it works.

Of course, this only works in Windows.  If you have a Mac and have suggestions on a similar program for OSX, please leave a comment to let people know about it.

Update: This video is now also available over on A Brighter Web.

How to crop and resize images in Windows is a post from: MickMel

This Christmas, Santa brought Macey a Peg Perego “Polaris 800 Twin” 24-volt ride-on four wheeler.  It’s a pretty cool vehicle.

We’re glad he chose a 24-volt model, as we have a rather hilly yard.  However, it still had a tough time with all of the leaves (plastic wheels don’t grip especially well), so I spent some time with a leaf blower and rake and cleared a track that went around the back yard.

They loved it!  Here’s a video of them riding around, including a cool “first-person” view, which involved me duct taping my Flip Video camera to the grill and letting her ride around a few more times.

Fun times!

A ride on the four-wheeler is a post from: MickMel

As many of you know, Google has been giving away thousands of free laptops to help promote and troubleshoot their upcoming “Chrome OS” operating system.  In a nutshell, the entire operating system is just a browser.  No files, no “desktop”, no real programs – just a browser.  It’s an ambitious move to say the least.

I’ve been a big fan of Google Chrome since day one.  It’s amazingly fast and stable, I use it as my primary browser on every computer, and I’ve mentioned it in various posts a number of times.  If you don’t currently use it on your PC/Mac, I highly recommend that you download it and try it out. That being said, I wasn’t sure how well it would function as an operating system.

To confuse things further, Google already has an excellent operating system — Android.  While it’s mostly just on phones right now, it’s beginning to show up on various laptops and tablets.  With that in place, where does Chrome OS fit in?  After playing with the laptop for a few days, I’m beginning to see the light.

The laptop is pretty cool to look at — rough black, with not a single sticker or logo anywhere on it.  The specs are very minimal, and virtually identical to my netbook; an Intel Atom processor, 2 GB of RAM, etc.  There is no hard drive in here either – just a 16GB solid state drive, similar to what you’d find in an iPad.  Since you can’t save anything to it, 16GB is more than enough.

Here’s a quick video that shows some of my thoughts on the device:

And here are a few more videos, both from Google.  This first one gives a rough overview of how it works and why you’d want a computer like this:

The last video is a fun look at why saving your data in the cloud can be so useful, as Google destroys a handful of laptops:

It’s not too late to apply to get your own, which you can do at this site. They’ve probably given most of them away by now, but it can’t hurt to apply. Good luck!

The first retail laptops with Chrome OS loaded on them are expected next summer from Acer and Samsung.  I’ll certainly let you know as I hear more details about those.

Thoughts on the Google Chrome OS laptop is a post from: MickMel

Over the past few months, I’ve been using my Droid X in the car a lot more.  It started with just the voice-activated bluetooth calling, which is quite handy.

Then I got the windshield mount and started using Google Navigation for a few trips, leaving my Garmin in the other car for my wife.  Google Navigation is quite awesome and it has a few things that I just love:

• I can have it show satellite imagery instead of just beige maps, which is great for big parking lots and a little nicer to look at on the screen.
• It automatically syncs with my “starred places” in Google Maps, so I can just look up a location in Google Maps on my PC, “star” it, and it’ll automatically be waiting for me on the phone.
• It incorporates real-time traffic info into the time estimates, which make them much more accurate than most other GPS models.
• It’s free!  Free to use, and all of the road/POI updates are free and seamless.

Next, I started using Pandora quite a bit at home, so I loaded the app on the phone and I’ve been using it in the car (again, via bluetooth).  I have a variety of stations for myself, but also a few for when the girls are in the car with me (Disney, etc).  I pay the few dollars a month for the “plus” version, which means I have stations that:

• Have no commercials.  Most Sirius/XM stations don’t have commercials, but they still have hosts that interrupt after every song to promote themselves and/or other stations on Sirius.
• Are tuned to my tastes.  As I rate each song, it gets better and better.
• Keep a variety. With my iPod, I tend to be bad about listening to the same songs all the time.  Pandora does a nice job of mixing it up with new songs, based on which songs I’ve told it I like.

Even with all of that happening at the same time on the phone, it handles it remarkably well.  Here’s a quick video showing how I have things set up in the car and how easy it is to use:

Do you have a similar set-up in your car? Leave a comment and tell me about it.

Droid X + Ford SYNC = Awesome is a post from: MickMel