Quora

One week after Tyler Emmert’s birthday, and he had Friday Lunch responsibilities…and he delivered, superbly. Amazing burritos with beef and bean mixture and brown rice. And very fresh Cilantro! Thanks Tyler!

Have you been spending time on Quora? Evolve Systems maintains an active account on this social media platform designed for businesses. We’ve chosen one of our employees, Stuart Blessman, as the official face and name for Evolve Systems on Quora, but he routinely goes around the office looking for answers to some of the questions that are posted on Quora. Our account can be found here: Evolve Systems on Quora. Bear with us, we are getting the hang of it…

If you haven’t heard…

In response to increasing civil unrest, the Egyptian government appears to have disabled almost all Internet connectivity with the rest of the world. The Internet’s global routing table, which is used by Internet routers to determine where to send traffic, has had virtually every Egypt-bound route withdrawn, giving the Internet traffic no path either into or out of the country.

That’s from the Ars Technica article. Being primarily an Internet based company, we’ve been watching this story unfold with great interest over the past few hours. Discussion during lunch today brought up the topic briefly. We hope everything in Egypt sorts itself out peacefully soon, and we’ll be keeping an eye on future developments.

We posted this video on our Twitter account earlier this week. Many businesses still don’t see the need for social media, believing it to just be a fad that will shortly blow over…much in the same way the Internet was just a fad 20 years ago, but I digress…Anyways, this video is well worth watching. You’ll be shocked and stunned at many of the statistics presented. The question now is, what do you do with this information?

Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh)

Another highlight from the Twitter feed: statistics about how churches are using their websites to reach their congregation and surrounding communities. Evolve Systems has worked with a number of churches before, all from different denominations, and we’ve enjoyed being able to help these churches build attractive website that serve more purposes than as simply “Internet yellow pages”. If your congregation is online, shouldn’t you be as well?

And finally, we’re not going to tell you who to cheer for in this year’s Superbowl, but only one team has a quarterback this cool…we think this speaks pretty well of who should win the Superbowl.

Have a good weekend!

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Can’t get enough of social media marketing? Neither can we! That’s why we are pointing you towards hundreds of great articles on how to get the most out of marketing your company on websites such as Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, WordPress, and so many others. To see an overview of great articles posted by Mashable, click here. If you have just started a new social media account, here are some ideas Evolve Systems has for you:

1. Become friends or follow companies you can partner with or are in the same line of business as you are. Following competitors will help you to learn how they promote their company so you can find ways to create an edge over theirs.
2. Tell your friends and followers who you are. On Twitter, custom-made backgrounds are great because the space available allows you to say a little bit about yourself.
3. Don’t over promote yourself. People don’t come to social media to be blasted with advertising. Talk to your users and when someone writes something especially nice, try giving a discount or special offer to them.
4. Always put contact information where users can see it. People want to contact you sometimes without going to your website, so keep your contact information somewhere near your brand name.
5. Share interesting information about your company or industry news. For example, Evolve Systems has a company lunch every Friday and we love to share topics that come up during lunch.

If you are without a social media account, try looking for one that best suits your company. Twitter is used a lot for sharing information and new articles. Users tend to enjoy reading trending news or topics and less information is needed to get the point across. If you are looking for potential customers to follow you, Facebook for business is a good feature because people are able to send you messages and your news comes up directly in their personal news feed. Of course, every company should have a blog of some sort because company/industry news is important to your business partners, clients, or target audience.

Sometimes the upkeep on social media accounts is difficult, so many companies hire content writers to do the work for them. If you have questions on content or setting up a social media account, Evolve Systems offers special packages to help you from setup to maintenance. Take advantages of our special tips and tricks for online marketing and a packet made just for you to help maintain social media accounts.

And of course, Merry Christmas to all of our friends, family, clients, partners, and coworkers! We hope you enjoy yourselves this holiday season.

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Here is an article well worth reading – Setting Proper Client Expectations

Setting client expectations isn’t easy. We live in a sales oriented world and people want to hear how you’re going to bring them vast sums of wealth with the magical arts of SEO. Unfortunately, it’s never that easy.

Similarly, SEO and other forms of Internet Marketing are an important area that marketers need to think about. But just what kind of expert do you need? Someone who can craft fantastic graphics, someone who can do comprehensive analytics with you, or a person you can eventually put your full faith and trust in in order to do what’s best for you, your company, and your website. Here is a great place to start – What do You Expect Your SEO Expert to Know?

The key is to pick the important areas to you.

Just like doctors can be experts in multiple areas, lawyers can be experts in multiple fields of law, and plumbers can be experts in multiple types of… um, clogs, SEOs can be experts in several areas as well. But an expert in all of them? Hmmmm, not likely.

Unfortunately, you cannot just turn over all your advertising efforts to your SEO guru and expect him to do everything for you, especially if he doesn’t live in house. Good managers know that it takes multiple people to manage an advertising and marketing department: you need a manager, a social media person, a marketer, a collaborator, a graphic designer, and ideally an army of interns and copyeditors. But what do you do if it’s just you, or if you have a limited budget? Outside help is always great (which is why Evolve Systems does what it does for so many), but sometimes you just need to buckle down, do the research, and begin implementing your own marketing strategies.

The 12 Step Program for Online Marketing

Here also are a few simple tools that can help you rank your website for SEO purposes. Know that these are not supposed to be comprehensive or determinative; they are merely guides to help you realize your blind spots and how best you can market your website and service in the future.

SEO Audit Tool Comparison

Hopefully these have been helpful! If you need some more advice, feel free to give us at Evolve Systems a call. We’d love to sit down and talk with you, both in a consulting as well as a contract work.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to go make some tacos!

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Today, we’re gonna take a break from the regular collection of interesting links and focus a little bit more on…well, ourselves! We believe we have some of the most outstanding products in the field, and we’d like to share a little bit more about them with you.

One of the most important parts of our business here at Evolve Systems is credit card processing. We even do payments at the table through credit card processing machines. There are of course different kinds of machines that are used for different functions. GotMerchant.com has an excellent list of the various types of machines that are available.

Of course the ‘bread and butter’ at Evolve Systems is our content management system, Amiro.CMS. There are different platforms out there for managing your website, such as Joomla and Drupal, but we believe Amiro.CMS offers one of the most convenient, easy to operate platforms out there. It specifically is set up so that you take control direct control of your content. There has not been a whole lot of research done on the pros and cons of content management systems, but this article is a good start at weighing the risks and rewards of Amiro.CMS and others. Through Evolve Systems, we can set up and have a website running for you in a matter of days, depending on which modules you choose, functionality, and CSS integration, as well as other factors.

Then there is our X-Cart system, proudly labeled “the world’s best shopping cart software!” X-Cart offers the convenience and usability businesses demand when it comes to their online shopping carts. X-Cart is an extremely powerful tool that can be used for shipping, tracking, inventory management, and of course, direct sales. One little known feature of X-Cart is it’s ability to implement a “members only” section, if you were looking to establish and reward a more select group of cliental.

Finally, and although we offer other products than these listed, we also do monthly Website Maintenance Plans that feature very strong SEO strategies and social media elements. We will work with your marketing and media departments to come up with SEO keywords and descriptions and links that will build your web presence in Google, Bing, and other popular search engines. We even offer an appraisal package whereby we rate your website and offer helpful tips that are easily implemented to improve your rankings.

So this is just a quick picture of some of what Evolve Systems offers. One of the mottos we brandy around is that “we help you manage change.” Amongst these products, if there is any you are interested in, please feel free to call us and set up an appointment or browse our website!

…ok, one not so serious link for today! I Can Haz Cheeseburger? Yes, plz.

“Kthnxbai.”

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Our favorite lunch of the year was made by Emmie Bradley, Help Desk Technician. She cooked an authentic Philippino meal, all of which was delicious. The highlight of the meal was definitely Turon, a Philippino dessert made with bananas and jack fruit and then deep fried. Here is her incredible recipe!

Turon

Ingredients:
lumpia wrappers
One Bunch of Miniature Bananas sliced the long way
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar (Mix the two sugars together and set aside in a bowl)
Flour (mix with water to make a paste, acts like glue)
jackfruit, slivered
Directions

Peel and cut bananas to fit the wrappers. I use rather large bananas so I cut them both lengthwise and crosswise to make 4 pieces. Adjust this so that your banana “fits” so you can roll it like and eggroll.

Spread a little brown sugar on the lumpia wrapper, add the banana. Alternatively, you can roll the banana in the sugar instead of sprinkling some on the wrapper. Then add a few pieces of jackfruit.

Roll like you would an eggroll. Wet the end flap with flour mixture to seal.

Deep fry at about 350 degrees until golden brown. It generally takes me 5-7 minutes per batch.

You can also sprinkle the sugar mixture over the turon when you remove it from the oil.

Serve!

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Some of our clients have had the opportunity to join us for lunch, and they enjoy seeing our staff interact. Topics of conversation can be anything! We try to stay away from work topics to truly give ourselves a chance to recharge and reconnect. Occasionally, however, we’ll brainstorm for awhile and some of our best ideas come out of these lunch sessions.

On the tangible side, lunch preparations can be challenging, as we don’t have a kitchen facility in our office. We have a large Nesco that is put to use often, and we do store a grill out back for the warmer months. However, we have nearly perfected the art of lunch in a crockpot! For example, did you know you can make meatloaf in a crockpot?

Here’s the recipe for a fantastic meatloaf, and it works out perfectly in a crockpot!

Marnie’s Favorite Meatloaf

Sauce

6 Tbs brown sugar

½ c. ketchup

2 tsp nutmeg

2 tsp mustard

Pepper

**Marnie recommends doubling the sauce for extra flavor.

Spread sauce over meatloaf. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes in the oven or for 3 hours in a crockpot.

Serve with corn and mashed potatoes. Leftovers make for awesome meatloaf sandwhiches!

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