Utah Business

Many of us born before the digital age, often have amassed a large collection of analog media. We may also have older digital technologies that we wish to upgrade to current media standards.

Some advantages of Digitizing your media, include:

*Reduction of Clutter

*Centralization your various media

*Ability to share with friends and family.

*The ability to easily make copies.

Ready to take the digital plunge?

First thing is first, organize your media. Decide what you’d like to digitize. Take inventory and see what you are able to do on your own and what makes sense to send out to a service.

Documents- I am terrible at paper management. In order to stay organized, I scan all my bills, documents, receipts and then discard them. For light scanning, a flat bed scanner will do. For higher quantity scans, I would recommend a Scanner with a sheet feeder. Very Large scan jobs can be farmed out to a professional.

Photos- Been tempted to place your high school photos on Facebook for the 30th reunion? How about digitizing your photos? Small collections can be scanned with a flatbed or sheet feeding scanner. If you have thousands of photos, you may want to utilize the services of scanmyphotos.com for $50 they will scan 1000 of your photos and provide you with a DVD of all your photos.

Negatives and Slides- remember those? For the occasional negative scan, many flatbeds come with a slide adapter. To scan an entire collection, a slide scanner or scanning service may make more sense.

Video- we will discuss a few common video formats. Please be aware if your media is recorded in the PAL or NTSC format to insure you have the correct gear. For more information on the formats, see my article “Top Tech Tips for Olim”

VHS, VHS-C, Hi8 – These formats can easily be converted to DVD with the use of a DVD Recorder. Simply connect RCA, S-VIDEO, or other supported cable from the output of your VCR or CAMCORDER, to the input on your DVD recorder.

If you’d like to manipulate and edit your footage, there are video capture devices and software that allow you to download the footage to your computer where you can make edits and then render the file as a movie to play on your PC or on a DVD.

Digital 8, Mini-DV – These cameras are equipped with FireWire connections which allow you to download your footage to your PC or MAC, once it captured on your computer, the video can be edited and converted to a digital file for your hard drive or “Burned” to a DVD.

Records – Have an old record collection? Are/Were you a DJ with lots of vinyl?

There are specialized USB turntables that allow you to convert your records to MP3 format.

With additional hardware and software, you can mix and manipulate your music. Audacity is a free audio editing program and is a good start.

Cassettes and REEL to Reel recordings With an RCA output from the cassette player connected to the input on your sound card, you can record the cassette to a digital file. With specialized software, you can enhance the sound quality of your recordings. If you don’t have inputs on your sound card, you can pick up a USB adapter.

CD’S- With programs like Itunes or widows media player, it’s easy to copy your audio collection to hard disk, and access them with the computers on your network. You can also make compilation CD’s for the road.

DVDS- With low cost disk space available, it is possible to backup your personal DVD collection to hard disk, where you can view them all in a central location. To backup a DVD to Hard Disk, you will need DVD Ripping software to convert the DVD to a usable format.

Note: In all the above scenarios, we are assuming you are digitizing your own material. Before making copies of any copyright media, familiarize yourself with the laws. In some cases you may be  able to make a backup copy for your own use if you are the rightful owner of the media.

For those looking to digitize your family history, I recommend taking a look at

the book “Digitizing your family history.”

We’ve gone through various media digitization options. Once you have your collection digitized, be aware that digital files do not last forever. It is important to setup a backup and security strategy for your precious data. Please see my article on “securing your data and systems.” I hope this article has been helpful. Share your media conversion tips or experiences on the blog.

Finally, if you need assistance in digitizing or backing up your media feel free to contact us regarding our services.

Social media optimization is a way for individuals and organizations to generate publicity through social networking tools like Twitter and LinkedIn, online communities like MySpace, and automated tools like TwitterFeed and Ping.fm. The term “social media optimization” was originally coined by SEO consultant extraordinaire, Rohit Bhargava, the senior vice president of Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence and author of the Influential Marketing Blog. (Bhargava’s work was so groundbreaking, Jeremiah Owyang, another social media optimization expert, even dovetailed a few of his own rules to the original work.)

Social media optimization is basically a way to promote your blog, website, or even your company’s brand, through social media, without being obnoxious or overtly commercial. Sure, you can blanket sites like Twitter with “Want to lose weight? Download my free report, ‘19 Ways to Lose Weight Fast’” repeatedly, or brag about your latest affiliate paycheck, but that’s not going to get you any followers. At least none worth talking to.

Bhargava terms these people”Twankers” (people who use Twitter for one-way broadcasts about their own greatness) and “Twidiots” (people who only tweet insignificant things like their latest press release or what they had for breakfast). If you’re just having one-way conversations and telling people about the minor, mundane details of your company, you’re not providing any value, and your SMO efforts will be wasted.

Whether you are an SEO consultant or you are new to social media marketing, there are a few rules you need to follow in order to be effective. Bhargava’s five rules of social media optimization included important things like increasing your linkability, helping your content travel, and encouraging the mash up. To that, we would add our own four rules.

* Focus on a few networks, not many. Many social media optimization beginners make the mistake of joining as many social networks as they can, and getting a few followers in each. The problem is you’re getting 10 or 20 followers in 10 networks, rather than 400 or 500 in 2 networks. If you take this narrow route, chances are you will attract the same followers in each one.

* Find people in allied fields, not just your own, to improve your social media optimization. Think referrals, not customers. If you’re in the financial services industry, don’t just focus on finding people who need to invest. Connect with people who can refer those same people to you, like lawyers, real estate agents, bankers, and anyone else who has clients who will need the financial services you offer.

* Provide real value to others. Telling people how they can earn money while they sleep, or “Lose Weight Fast!!!” is not valuable. Steering people to a recipe site for people who are trying a low-carb diet, or writing a blog post about the top five fat-burning foods is valuable social media optimization. Refer people to helpful websites, even if they’re not your own. And don’t be nervous about asking questions of your own. It makes you look like a real person, and not just a know-it-all.

* Commit to a social media optimization program for the long haul. It’s not enough to just use it a few times and be done with it. This is an ongoing process. You wouldn’t take the time to cultivate a new friend and then never hang out with them, would you? Some of these contacts will become your friends online. Ignore them, and you’ll waste all the effort you put into your social media optimization and developing those relationships. Remember, social media marketing is actually about building real relationships, not just broadcasting one-way information. That’s what a TV is for.

By starting a social media optimization program, you’ll accomplish two things: 1) You’ll become a thought leader in your chosen field, and 2) your expertise will lead to more and bigger clients or job opportunities.