This great article written by Allyson Fralish, with AT&T Networking Exchange Blog, explains ways you can get the most of your IT dollars. Small businesses can only have so much budget for each department, so it's important to spend that budget wisely. Learn more with the article below.

Is your business taking advantage of real-time collaboration? If not, this article from AT&T Networking Blog presents seven ways that will help you establish a successful unified communication system.

Collaboration means more than sending emails or leaving voice messages for co-workers, putting decisions and projects on hold while you wait for their replies.

Now, tools like audio, video, and web conferences are enabling real-time interactions between employees, partners, suppliers, and even customers. These tools are doing more than reducing travel costs; they’re creating opportunities for more personalized and productive exchanges.

But how do you move your collaboration initiatives forward? These seven steps can help you chart your course, choose the right collaboration solutions and win organizational support.

1. Define the business reasons for change. Identify your organization’s specific drivers for change – from speeding revenue cycles and reducing costs to maintaining customers – and how working in a more collaborative way can make those critical changes happen.

2. Determine the key roles essential to achieving change. What specific roles are involved in accomplishing the desired outcome? Consider external partners and suppliers, engage IT and establish key performance indicators to track progress.

3. Document the business processes performed by each role. Examine the total workflow in each business process and engage business managers and users, because they know it best.

Small businesses are becoming more and more vulnerable to cyber attacks because more criminals are seeing them as easy targets. There are some simple things you can do to make yourself less vulnerable. Check out the tips in the video below to learn how things such as upgrading your OS and having a dedicated computer for your financials can protect you.

Everyday corporate networks are faced with increasingly complex threats to IT security. But there’s an entirely new approach that can help you minimize risks. It’s called “Orbital Security”—and it just might save your company’s data.

Orbital Security allows you to create an IT security strategy based on the relationships your company has with clients, competitors, employees and suppliers, and enables you to prioritize risks and build policies that define various levels of access to your applications.

Join Steven Hurst, CISSP, Director of Security Services and Technology for AT&T, for “IT Risk and Security Rewards: Navigating a Rapidly Changing Cyber Environment.” This new webinar will explore the three key elements contributing to increased risks—elements you can’t afford to ignore—and show you how and why an Orbital Security approach can help you combat those risks.

April 30, 2013 @ 10:00am PT

 Register Now

Reducing all five of these expenses will surely help your bottom line overall, but one in particular can offer big savings. Number three in this video is your internet expense. Although there may be a way to cut your internet bill, you should re-focus on getting a bundled service from your provider. Bundling your services usually allow for the biggest savings possible. Find out the other four expenses you should look to reduce in the video below.

I found this article from AT&T Networking Blog exchange pretty interesting. On a personal level, I really don't like the thought of someone using SMS as a way of marketing, but on a business level, it opens up a whole new territory to broadcast your message. Although, I really don't see a high enough number of SMS opt-ins to build an effective campaign. However, these strategies should be used with your email makerting strategies, which also can target consumer's smartphones. Consumers are much more willing to give out their email address over their phone number for marketing subscriptions. Learn more on a developing a successful marketing campaign below.

6 Critical Steps To Add Mobility To Your Marketing Mix

So, you’d like to start incorporating mobility components into your marketing campaign.  With so many new ways to touch your customer with your message, it’s easy to just jump in and see what sticks. But before you go crazy (and possibly waste money or frustrate your customers), there are some basic rules to follow for better results:

1. Plan.

Develop your marketing goals first and then choose the mobile marketing components that will best help you reach your goals.

2. Ask permission.

Ask your customers how and if they want you to communicate with them:

• Ask them to opt in (resist the urge to just buy a list of cell phone numbers and email addresses and start “spamming” that list incessantly)
• Ask them which types of communication they prefer (SMS? Email? Other?)
• Ask them how often they want you to communicate with them (Daily? Monthly? Only about a specific topic? Only when there’s a special offer?)

I found this article written by Alan See on AT&T's Networking Blog. It talks about the importance of knowing who is viewing your LinkedIn profile. This is a great feature that LinkedIn offers, but I wish it came standard with a free account. They will show you a few people who have recently viewed your profile, but if you want anything more than that you have to subcribe to their premium accounts, which range from $25/mo to $100/mo depending on the features you want. Are any of you using LinkedIn premium? Do you find it a good return on investment for a small business?

4 Reasons To Know Who’s Looking at You by Alan See

HaHa, made you look!  When my kids were little they would taunt me with that phrase.  It was intended as a playful insult because they tricked me into looking at something that didn’t exist.  With my business team, that phrase is code speak for marketing content and messaging that creates a favorable impression catching our target audiences’ attention.  And in that situation no tricks are involved, it’s all talent and by design!

In the world of social media marketing, the “WHO’S VIEWED YOUR PROFILE?” module on LinkedIn is in my opinion, a made you look requirement for serious networkers.  This feature is no trick; it’s designed to help you understand who’s been looking at your profile recently and how many times you have shown up in search results. Here are four reasons why you should like this feature and why I want to make you look at it.

1. Cross platform check point and building block:

Social media is great for business when used in the right way. Although it's intended as a way to get in front of millions of people in a very short span of time, using it to spam people with your business and services is not how it should be used. The video below discusses how you can use social media to become a likeable company that consumers enjoy interacting with. As mentioned in the video, use Twitter to find people that need help and engage in a conversation with them. Show them that you care and you want to help them. This can go a long way and will certainly make you stand out from all the companies trying to sell their products and services on social media. Learn more in the video below.

This is such a good article written by Allyson Fralish, Lead Marketing Communications Manager, AT&T Business Solutions. Cloud is such an important technology for businesses as it opens up so many more opportunities for small businesses to take advantage of. The days are over of spending thousands of dollars on hardware and maintaining your own equipment. Learn more about what Allyson recommends using the cloud for.

I know ten minutes is a lot of time to spend watching watching videos, but when it comes to protecting your business, these password creating tips are well worth it. There are two different videos below, both part of the same segment that provide multiple solutions to password problems everyone goes through. These are great tips and something you should really consider doing both on a business and personal level. See the password tips below.