But the truth is you can leverage the benefits of Twitter quite easily and many businesses are finding that it is worth investing the time.  Take Dell, which recently announced that it had generated nearly $7 million in global product sales on the social media platform.

You may not be able to reach the same targets as the computer giant, but you could get a boost in customer interaction and with it a hike in sales.

Twitter itself is making a concerted effort to engage businesses – its guide for business is a fantastic source of information about advertising, other business services and a way to find out about any updates which might be of interest. But in the meantime…

Here are my top tips for making the most of Twitter:

Customise your platform

There are so many business which set up their profile on Twitter and don’t do anything to it. You must give it the injection of brand power that it needs.

By not using a suitable profile image and background you are telling people that you don’t care about Twitter and the chances of them following you are slim. Make your profile and background as personal to your business as possible – images of your team are a great way of doing this.

Give your tweets personality!

No one will want to follow your account if your tweets have the personality of a stone. Be chatty and engaging in your Twitter messaging and people are more likely to want to engage with you. Feel free to send pictures or videos of your staff and office. It will make your account more human and people will be able to relate to your brand easier.

Help and engage people

You should make sure that your Twitter action isn’t just a one way street – have conversations with people and talk to them as you would someone coming into your store or office. If you simply tweet about your products or services without ever talking to people directly you will miss you on a chance to build an army of loyal followers who will share your content and promote you to their followers.

Use Twitter cards to get the most out of your content

If you have social sharing buttons on your business site which encourage people to Tweet your content or products – you can add a piece of code to your pages which create expanded Tweets or ‘Cards” when people share on Twitter.

For example, if you have products and someone Tweets one, if you have added the product card code, their Tweet will appear with an image, the price and availability of the product.

Use hashtags to get your Tweets noticed

If you use a hashtag before a relevant keyword or phrase, your Tweets are more likely to get found by people. If the keyword is trending your Tweet will appear for people in trend maps or if someone searches that term your Tweet will appear. Most of your Tweets should contain hashtags unless you are having a conversation.

Reports this month suggest that aging networking protocols used by nearly every Internet-connected device are being increasingly abused by hackers to conduct what are called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

Anatomy of a DDoS attack

Put simply, a DDoS attack is capable of being targeted at any device that has some level of Internet connectivity – and at that means an increasing amount of all types of office hardware. These often quite basic machines are often referred to as “IP-based” devices where IP stands for Internet Protocol.  The DDoS attack exploits what are unfortunately the inherent vulnerabilities that must exist if we want to be able to work with standardized open network protocols across the web.

In today’s world of Internet-connected “smart” devices, we now know that printers, routers, CCTV units, electricity meters, digital TV recorders and even refrigerators are being routinely hooked up to the Internet to allow users to manage them remotely.  As more and more everyday appliances become IP-enabled, they help create what we call the “Internet of things” and these devices have become prime candidates for hackers, activists and blackmailers who seek to compromise their power and turn them into botnets or similar malicious platforms used for distributing attacks. Distributing attacks via unmanned smart devices makes it more difficult to trace the source and it is easier to overwhelm the target.

From a small business perspective DDoS attacks can manifest themselves upon printers, routers, hubs, cameras, sensors and any other network-connected device. In terms of form and function, the DDoS attack sees the device “coopted” or placed under co-operational control so that some other party suddenly has access to it.

It is an inconvenient truth is that if we want to live in a world that uses the open doors and passageways of the Internet to make life easier, there will always be a certain amount of people out there who wish to exploit it for the wrong reasons.

Managing it is not rocket science

As the owner-manager of a small business a little knowledge can go a long way here. You do not need a working knowledge of network protocols, just being aware of the danger is half the battle. By at least knowing that your networked hardware is at risk, you can ask your security vendor, consultant or service engineer what to do about it.

Also be aware that no business is too small.  If you have a couple of office desktops or laptops, a router-driven Internet connection and a few mobile devices to plug in, then you are well within the sights of DDoS. The best way to protect yourself from attack is to identify all of the devices accessible on your network, whether they appear to be sensitive or not, and manage them properly.

There’s no denying that remote management of otherwise dumb devices comes in very handy, but there is a trade-off.  That’s why you should add every single one of them to the list of things that must be properly managed and secured.

For many companies, particularly startups, small companies, virtual firms and organizations with remote employees, cloud based technologies make a lot of sense.  And it also makes sense that the more popular ones are the ones that provide storage and collaboration –these are easy to setup and not as mission critical. There are a lot of myths about cloud computing in 2013 that just aren’t true.  Here are some of the more common ones I hear from my clients.

“It’s cheaper and cost beneficial.”  This may be true if you’re a startup or are migrating to a relatively inexpensive cloud application.  But if you have existing applications and you decide to move your entire organization to a cloud based infrastructure you’ll likely pay about $100 per month per user.  That’s exactly what I’ve been seeing and that’s a lot more expensive than just buying a new server and having an IT guy service it for a few hours a month.  There are many inexpensive cloud based applications but the more robust, the higher the monthly fees. And if you add up the monthly fees over a 5-7 year period and compare it just buying an application you’ll see that you could be likely paying more.  I expect the costs of the cloud to continue to decrease over time, but for now it could be more expensive.

“I can connect anywhere, anytime.”  The reality is you’re not as mobile as you think.  That’s because to use the cloud effectively you need internet access.  And depending on where you are this is easier said than done.  Many places say they offer free Wi-Fi but sometimes it’s so slow it’s almost not worth doing the work.  It’s not uncommon, particularly for a business traveler, to hit dead spots and experience agonizingly slow speeds which can really hurt productivity.  Internet access and speeds continue to improve, but they haven’t caught up with the functionality that a lot of advanced cloud based apps offer.  Many of my clients experience frustration with this.

“My data is less secure.”   If any cloud provider tells you that your data is 100% secure than they’re lying to you.  Nothing is 100%.  But I’m going to bet that your data hosted on their server is way more secure than in your own internal environment.  That’s because successful companies who offer cloud based services and who want to continue being successful build their business models around data connectivity and security.  They will always be using the latest security applications and have more security resources deployed than you could ever hope.  Breaches will happen, but I favor the security of cloud companies over my IT guy.

“My service provider is guaranteeing me a long term, flat, monthly fee.”   True.  For the time being.  But my biggest question about cloud application is how much you will allow your business to become dependent on the cloud provider.  How much are you willing to relinquish control over that “flat monthly fee.”  What if your cloud services provider decides to increase it 10%?  What can you do?  What’s your recourse?  Are you going to move yourself off of their platform and go through the inconvenience of finding another solution?  Or will you opt to self-manage your cloud applications? Nothing ever stands still for long in IT.  Nothing.

We’re also in the hold of a lengthy period of slow (or negative) growth which has made streamlining and cost-saving an essential part of business. It’s time to shave off extra fees and clear the way for growth.

Here are my top five tips on spring cleaning your business:

Review your offering

Are your products or services fulfilling their needs? When you have had success it’s easy to become complacent. Have you looked at what your competitors are offering? Are there extra products or services that you could add which would enrich your customers’ experience?

It can be hard to keep track of where the market is going and what advances have been made in your industry. Hot new products and services may pass you by. Take this chance to look around at what is happening in your market – make sure your business stays relevant.

Conduct a talent review

During a downturn there are times when cutting staff to cut costs is a necessary action. But streamlining your talent doesn’t have to mean axing people – there are other ways in which you can boost your efficiency.

Look at where the talent in your company lies – is everybody in the best possible position? Are there hidden skills lurking within your ranks which could be better used? Make sure the culture encourages ideas and people know that their opinions are valued.

Update all of your security systems

All of the spring cleaning in the world won’t save you from cyber crime if your antivirus and internet security aren’t up to scratch. The latest figures from PwC have revealed that cyber crime against small businesses is on the rise and it is more important than ever that you have updated your systems and have the best possible security package for your business.

Have your staff got anti-virus software on their smartphones? It is increasingly popular for employees to access work information such as emails on their phones so make sure that you are covered by encouraging them to download a free security app such as the one offered by AVG.

Spruce up your social media

For many smaller businesses keeping on top of social media can be a difficult but setting up a profile and neglecting it can do more harm than good. The benefits of social media marketing are becoming stronger as time goes by so investing a little bit of time in getting these channels up and running again will bear fruit in time.

Why not come up with some exciting social media campaigns which will breathe a little life into your social profiles? There are plenty of examples out there and guides to coming up with fresh ideas which work well on the individual platforms.

Consider a move

This may seem like an extreme way of spring cleaning, simply up and moving offices leaving your excess trash behind but it could be an extremely effective way of saving costs in the long-run. When was the last time you reviewed how much you pay for your premises? It might be time to move to another part of town where you could pick up some bargains.

If a full-scale move seems like a bridge-too-far why not just try and get a discount on your current premises? If your lease is coming to an end it might be worth negotiating with your landlord for a better price.

The London Olympic Games was a fantastic catalyst for the strategy as companies up and down the country trial different flexible working patterns – and it went down like a storm.

According to research by Cisco, 35% of business now feel that location of work will be irrelevant in the next two to three years.

The benefits of offering flexible working are well-known. It can boost productivity by cutting travel times, increase job satisfaction and open up employment to people who can’t work to traditional time schedules such as parents and carers. Getting it right can be a win-win for you and your employees.

But flexible working can throw up some challenges for employers too. There are certain steps they can take to avoid these becoming problems. Here are my top five:

Have a clear flexible working policy

If you approach offering flexible working without putting a policy in place you may run into problems down the line. The team needs to know where they stand and that there is not one rule for one and a different for another.

Are there certain roles that will never be suitable for flexible working? Are there times of the year when it won’t work for the company? These are the kinds of questions you should be asking and turning into a clear guide.

Make sure people have the tools they need

If you have organised for a member of staff to work flexibly, make sure you know they have the tools they need to work remotely. This might mean ensuring they have the correct hardware they need to carry out tasks and also that they have remote access to essential materials such as documents, emails threads etc. Do they have access to emails on their phones? For example.

Make security a priority

When your employees are accessing work related documents outside of the office you need to ensure that their personal devices are secure to avoid any security breaches.

A strong business security package should be installed on all devices and smart phones should also use a security app like AVG for Mobile. This means that wherever your employees are, you know how secure your data is.

Make sure everybody is clear on their responsibilities

When everyone is not in the same building or room, the chances of tasks falling through the cracks can rise. If everybody is well aware of what they and their colleagues are working on this should stop things getting neglected.

There is a lot of software which can help your employees to continue communicating their work to each other. Cloud software such as Google Docs allow employers to work on documents together in real time, leaving comments as they go so everybody knows where they are at.

Ensure there are regular face-to-face meetings

If someone is working flexibly, you should ensure that you have regular meetings to maintain a connection between the employee and the company culture. Sharing of ideas and collaboration can start to get lost if there isn’t regular contact at the office.

Timeshares.  I bought one of these about 6 years ago for $5,000.  It’s in Hawaii.  It’s a week at a resort.  A really nice resort.  And I’ve never used it.  The timeshare is completely legit.  It’s part of the RCI network.  The last I looked it was not under 10 feet of lava.  Some day I plan to go there.  But we’ve always had something else to do.   But each year I pay the maintenance fees.  And then I give it away.  I’ve given it to my favorite customers.  One year I gave it to an employee.  For the past two years I donated it to a Catholic Hunger Relief charity and they used it as part of their silent auction.  It raises thousands of dollars.  No, I’m not really that charitable.  It’s just that the charity is run by largest client and that makes him happy.  Timeshares are an excellent thing to give away.  Remember, we’re only talking about the week – the recipient is responsible for getting there on their own. But who wouldn’t like a week in Vegas or Disney in February?  And how can this not be good for business?

People like gift cards too.  Try Plastic Jungle.  They offer gift cards to most major retailers/restaurants at a discount.  There are others like them so shop around.  The way they work is this:  someone gets a gift card for $100 they don’t like.  They sell to Plastic Jungle for a steep discount, but at least it’s something.  Plastic Jungle then marks it up and sells it for a discount off the list price, usually 10-20%.  You buy a gift a card for TGI Fridays or Bed Bath & Beyond.  In fact, you should buy 10 or 20.  Then at various times of the year you should give the card away to whoever you like.  Hopefully someone with a strategic value to your business.  Who wouldn’t want a free gift card.  And on the spur of the moment?

A once a month gift is great too.  Try Amazing Clubs or Godiva Chocolates.  Pick a customer that you like and send them a $25 box of chocolates or food basket.  It doesn’t have to be Christmas.  Anytime during the year is great.  It’s a surprise and it’s fun.  Be sure to address the gift to the customers’ employees, like the sales department or the office staff…the people who you deal with that don’t get much credit.  They will love you.  And your customers will love you.  And it’s relatively inexpensive.

Finally, go to Café Press or any of the other websites that sell promotional items.  When you have events during the year, like client lunches or seminars (you are doing this, right?) then hand out something free with your logo on it.  They have no minimum order.  You can put your logo on anything – a T-shirt, coffee mug…whatever.  People like this stuff.  They’ll bring it home and keep it for years (I have coffee mugs dating back to the ‘90’s in my kitchen).  And you’re getting free branding and a kind reminder.  It’s free, but it lasts a long time.

Free stuff?  People love it.  Your customers love it.  Work it into your marketing budget this year.  You’ll see it pay off over time.

When it comes to the types of enterprises targeted by criminals you may be surprised to hear that small to medium sized businesses bear the brunt of the activity, taking 40% of all targeted attacks. Unfortunately the cost of cyber breaches to individual businesses looks set to rise.

The EU has introduced a new directive designed to increase cyber security across the majority of businesses in the EU. While the intentions of the directive is to help small businesses, many fear it is simply adding expensive red tape, the cost of which will be hard to meet.

The Directive will require huge swathes of companies to tell regulators each and every time they have a data breach. Not only does this cost money, around 6 per cent of turnover on average, it could also do reputational damage by forcing companies to reveal insignificant breaches.

The Directive is part of a wider drive by the European Commission to battle cybercrime. It is thought that by enforcing ‘high common level of network and informational security’ that a strong level of trust will be created and crime will diminish.

Regulators already require telco businesses to report any data breach but the Directive opens this out to many more.

The list of sectors which must adopt EU standard security and report any breach now also includes energy, transport, banking, stock exchange, healthcare, ecommerce, social networks and public administrations. There aren’t many companies which don’t fall into these categories.

With this is mind, small businesses up and down the country must pay extra attention to cyber security or risk facing higher costs than necessary. They must do everything in their power to avoid costly breaches.

Advice on avoiding data breaches

Understand where your data is stored and who has access to it

To protect your data you must first understand what you have, where it is kept, who has access and how sensitive it is. Most small businesses have data stored in many places from their employees’ smartphones to third party cloud services to computers in the office.

Take the necessary actions to protect this data and know who has access to what at all times.

Make sure all your staff are fully-trained to avoid breaches

Every single person in your organisation probably has access to some form of data or simply uses your computers. From your newest interns to your CEO, everyone must know how to avoid malware and how to properly protect the data they are in contact which.

The smallest glitch in your defence could allow something malicious into your systems and cause a report worthy breach. There should be rules of behaviour for all describing how to protect vital data.

Ensure you have strong antivirus and internet security protection

Your computer system must be protected by the latest security technology. Without this you are not only leaving yourself open to attack but could also face penalties from the European Commission which now requires that businesses have adequate protection.

With increasingly mobile workforces you must ensure your employees personal mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets have protection also. There are services such as the AVG Anti-virus app which are free and go a long way to protecting your data when it is on the move.

Know what to do if you have a breach

More than ever it is important to avoid having any breach of data but you must be prepared for a time when you do. By understanding the steps you must now go through to report a breach, you can save time and worry if and when it does happen.

Yes it could be costly but it is now imperative so it’s best to be prepared. Visit the Information Commissioner’s Office website to see how breaches must be reported.

As small business owners and managers we are well aware of the benefits of optimizing our websites for search. The rise of so-called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) technology exists to affect the “visibility” of a website in terms of what should be a search engine’s “natural” or “organic” search results.

As SEO considers how people use popular search terms to look for the content they want, a website “optimization” process can involve the editing of site content to include those terms both in the surface text that is presented and in its deeper HTML technology behind.

Now do the math and follow this theory through for a second.

If for example the term “breaking sports news” gets great search engine ranking because a lot of users search for it and a lot of genuine sports sites use it in their body text, then what’s to stop bad guys from designing websites loaded with malware peppered with the same term at both front and back end?

Search engine algorithms go some way to protecting us here. They now look for “keyword density” and can spot attempts to manipulate ranking much more effectively than the early- to mid-1990s when search technologies were in their infancy.

But it’s a race and the bad guys are always looking at ways to stay one step ahead of the algorithms. They will develop websites harboring malware that hijack popular topics with content that will earn search ranking value, even when the content itself has nothing to do with the terms used on the page.

Web developers now have the opportunity to use tools from Google and other vendors to ensure that their websites are not compromised by malicious search engine optimization techniques.

Microsoft TechNet’s Jimmy Kuo uses a working dummy example of SEO manipulation to explain how these techniques play out in the real world. It’s only a fairly small step from here to fully functioning SEO optimized malware.

The emergence of these techniques speaks volumes for the way the web itself is developing behind the home pages that we see every day. Firms today need to pay more insight into these engine room mechanics and realise that the pressing need for comprehensive antivirus protection layers across their business is more urgent than ever before.

What company today operates without a website? Practically every firm in every business segment has a web-facing front end to act as a customer store front and product or service information channel.

If your company’s website ‘goes down’ for any reason, the loss of face and reputation can be long lasting for customers who can quickly become disenchanted by lack of service.

With this ‘reliance’ on website uptime in mind, some valuable lessons have been highlighted this month by the hack that occurred on the very popular open source web content management tool WordPress. The service was attacked and as hundreds of thousands of small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) use WordPress as the engine behind their web presence, the botnet behind this attack will have caused concern among many firms who have suffered from their websites being unavailable on both the front (user-facing) and back (company-facing) end.

A total of some 64 million websites are built using WordPress and an estimated 371 million people read content posted on this service in any one month.

The BBC News service this month reported that the botnet targets WordPress users with the username “admin”, trying thousands of possible passwords. Surprising though it may sound, many users still exist with the “admin” username left unchanged from the point of initial sign in, thus leaving themselves more susceptible to malware based attacks of this kind. Other users with more personalised usernames are also thought to have been affected.

The attack itself began a week after WordPress confirmed that it had improved its own security systems by introducing an (albeit it optional) two-step authentication log-in option.

According to instructions from WordPress itself, “When you log in to your WordPress.com account, we’ll prompt you to enter a secret number. To get that secret number, you’ll need to download the Google Authenticator App on your smartphone. It generates a new number every 30 seconds, making it virtually impossible to guess.”

Again turning to the BBC report, it appears that this attack was perpetrated by hackers using what was described as a “relatively weak” botnet constructed by a group connection of home PCs. This network was then engineered to build a much larger botnet of far more powerful connected servers that could spread the attack further.

Once again we come back to the very real threat this kind of malware presents to the small to medium sized business who commonly use these kinds of free and open source tools to build up and maintain their online presence.

While hackers continue to derive value and pleasure out of disrupting the lives of ordinary citizens and companies, the best option is to adopt strong password policies, two-factor authentication options (where they exist) and robust anti-virus and malware security software throughout the business, such as AVG Business Edition 2013. 

Facebook’s business pages have been around since 2007 and millions of companies now use the platform to strengthen their brand, advertise and connect with customers.

But simply having a Facebook business page isn’t enough, if you want to get the most out of the platform, you have to work a bit harder. As a small business you may think you don’t have the resources to focus on this but there are plenty of ways to make the process painless.

Here are our top five tips for small businesses on Facebook:

1. Use Facebook’s tools to highlight your important posts

Often when you post something on Facebook it’ll get lost, not only on people’s news feeds but on your own Facebook page as you add more posts. If there is something you want to highlight or give priority to an extended period of time there are a number of timeline features to help.

You can pin a post to the top of your timeline so that it will stay at the top regardless of how many other posts you have. You can also highlight a post which makes the post stretch across the width of your page, taking up two columns.

2. Use exclusives and offers to keep fans engaged and encourage more

Often your customers will expect something in return for their continuing engagement with your Facebook page. It’s a nice idea to offer exclusive news and updates via Facebook but there is also the opportunity to give your fans discounts on the platform through the “Offers” option.

It’s free to create and post these “Offers” which will appear in your fans’ timelines and can help to drive sales.

3. Post relevant content regularly

It’s a good idea to post as regularly as possible if you want your Facebook page to be a success. Post your own content such as news or advice pieces which may come from your company blog or newsletters which your fans will find interesting. Try and remember that Facebook tends to be a place for lighter more entertaining content than the more serious stuff.

But if you don’t have time to concentrate on creating new editorial, don’t be afraid to post content by other people. Bringing your fans’ attention to relevant content written by others is perfectly acceptable and it’s good to foster a mix of in-house and external posts.

 4. Make sure you avoid Facebook scams and malware

Your love affair with Facebook will quickly fizzle out if your business gets caught out by a Facebook scam or hack. There are a number of ways you can avoid falling prey to these tricks.

Make sure your employees are all trained to recognise a scam or malicious link and stay clear of them. Also make sure your internet security protection is up to speed and running well. AVG’s Internet Security Business Edition 2013 software for example has built in social networking protection to check links exchanged through social networks.

5. Use a third party platform to manage your Facebook and other accounts

Chances are if you have a presence on Facebook, you are also active as a business on Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. Keeping on top of all of these and making sure you post regularly can become a trial but there are platforms which help you to manage these social accounts simultaneously.

Services such as HootSuite and Sprout Social are designed with busy business owners in mind and let you post to all of your networks with one press of a button.

Readers trust CNET to provide objective and comprehensive advice to help them decide what technology and IT solutions they need.  CNET’s in-depth product reviews always provide a reliable guide to a product’s quality and capabilities. Over the years they have been a regular advocate of AVG’s security software and we enjoy a very good relationship with them.

In particular CNET praised Business Edition for bringing “its stellar track record from its single user line” and highlighted how “AVG’s experience combined with a simplified remote management workflow makes this an attractive solution” and worth taking for a trial run.

I would like to thank our hard-working development team in helping us get this recognition .

Saving money if and where possible can leave you with spare funds to pay for the things that simply can’t be scrimped on. The internet and the rise of apps has means it has never been easier to find the software and services you need, for cheap or free.

Whether you’re looking to secure your business, create email campaigns or look after your accounts – there’s a free tool to help you do so.

Here are my top five free tools:

1. Google Docs

When it comes to office suites Microsoft Office has had a monopoly on the market for many years. But there are alternatives and Google Docs is one such tool which can look after all of your enterprise needs.

You can create everything from word documents and spread sheets to presentations and drawings. You can then share these with your team, collaborate with a chat box on the side of the document and see changes made in real-time. If needs be you can download to documents to your desktop as Word Docs, Open Office, PDF or HTML.

All for free.

2. AVG Anti-Virus Free

Cyber-crime is a threat to all businesses and making sure that your computers are protected from malware is essential. AVG Anti-Virus has a free download for 2013 which is one of the most fully-featured free packages out there.

It can be used to track and remove viruses from your PCs. It also contains the ‘AVG Do Not Track’ feature which gives you control over which websites can use your data. Of course this is just the very base level of protection. For greater peace of mind it’s worth looking at paying for business-strength protection (which comes with phone support) or paying your trusted local computer contractor a nominal amount each month to look after it all for you via the cloud.

Given that you and your team are going to be working around the clock and on the go, make sure everyone also has the free AVG for Mobile app on their smartphones which will protect any sensitive data on there and give you the power to wipe the devices should they get lost or stolen.

3. MailChimp email campaigns

Most businesses send out email campaigns to their subscribers, it’s a great way to get extra traffic to your site if needs be and create awareness of your brand among your customer base.

MailChimp has a great free plan which should be big enough to cover your needs when starting off. You can send up to 12,000 emails a month to a list of up to 2,000 subscribers.

The package gives you designer templates, lets you integrate the emails with your social networks, look at reports for your email’s performance and even conduct A/B testing to help you create the most effective campaigns.

4. Natural HR management software

You may only have a small team to start off with but keeping on top of HR functions is an important part of retaining talent and putting together the best possible team.

Natural HR offers free web-based HR software to help you keep track of employee information securely and in the cloud so no need for back-ups.

5. Free Plus Accounts

Whatever the size of your business you need to have an accounting system in place. You might not have a CFO yet so having the right software can save you from making a mess of the books.

Free Plus Accounts allows you to keep track of quotes, invoices, customer and suppliers lists and well as an audit trail and access to your accounts from anywhere.

If you are to create a truly mobile workforce, giving employees access to their company documents and emails on personal devices is an unavoidable consequence. The freedom to work using home-sourced technology removes barriers and, according to many reports, increases productivity.

But allowing access to company data on personal devices comes with a security risk. While some companies choose to clamp down on the trend, this isn’t always the best tactic. With adequate risk management, BYOD can work for you and your employees.

Here are five top tips on implementing BYOD

1. Create a tailored BYOD policy

When you are creating a plan, you need to look at your company’s own needs and specifications. How much sensitive information do your employees regularly come in contact with? What are the biggest areas of data risk?

It may be the case that certain departments have restricted access on their personal devices. Any criteria should be clearly outlined leaving no room for argument should someone not understand why they don’t have access to certain things.

2. Communicate the plan with all departments

There is no doubt that having an IT department that fully understands and is capable of implementing your BYOD plan is essential but there are implication for all employees and departments – HR, Legal and Finance departments are equally as important in making your strategy

3. Make sure you have the highest security software on all of the devices

Before staff are allowed to start using their own devices for work purposes, your IT should make sure they are all full of the necessary security applications. Firewalls, encryption and system authentication should all be taken into account.

Anti-malware protection is a must for mobile devices, as is the ability to remote wipe them should they be lost. AVG’s antivirus app for smartphones is free and not only allows you to wipe any device remotely but can also be used to locate the missing device using GPS.

4. Establish a plan for support

How much can your employees rely on the IT team to help with the management of their devices? You need to establish what is possible and what is cost effective.

It might not make sense to have your IT department service all of the devices but do you want to take a chance when it comes to your businesses data? It might be a good idea to limit the devices which are part of your approved BYOD plan.

5. Put in the structures needed to remove access when needed

If someone is leaving the company or has breached the terms of your policy and therefore had their access right removed, you need to be able to block specific users. Being able to manage the devices from the corporate side as well as from the employee side is important.

For now, there are great mobile applications available for any busy professional looking to become more productive with their smartphone or tablet, whether it runs on Microsoft, Google or Apple technology.  I’d like to share 10 mobile apps we use in my company every day.  These are not in any particular order.  Maybe you’ve got a few to add?

1 – Evernote. 
I do a lot of writing.  And thinking.  And when I come up with a brilliant idea I pull up Evernote on my smartphone.  Whatever notes I take are automatically saved on the cloud so I can access these brilliant thoughts from any other device, wherever I am.  Evernote power users upload photos, images, graphics, websites and other stuff.  And they love the powerful searching too.  Notes can also be shared.

2 – E-mail and text.
Duh.

3 – HopStop.
Ever try to figure out the New York subway as an out-of-towner?  It’s easier to get your PhD at Columbia.  That’s why I use Hopstop every time I go to New York or any other city in the country where I want to use public transportation.  You put in your starting and ending point and the application guides you through the rest, be it subway, bus, train or rickshaw.

4 – GoHowAirport.  
For frequent travels, learning how to best utilize time between flights is critical for staying productive.  GoHowAirport has detailed information for just about every major airport in the U.S., like where to eat, where to find Wi-Fi and where to shop.  That way you can have a plan of attack for when you land and not waste a moment of time while on the ground.

5 – Customer Relationship Management.
If you’re using a CRM application in your business (and you better be) like Salesforce.com, ZohoCRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Sugar or others, you’ll need to make sure you’re using their mobile application.  It’s the only way to keep up on your calendar, callbacks, next actions and notes about that customer you’re about to meet in the next hour.  You can update your daily activities too and the system will have that information real time for others to use.

6 – Square.
We’ve learned to take payments on the go from clients, particularly those lovable ones that always seem to take just a wee bit longer than necessary to pay.  With Square, we ask for a credit card, swipe, enter and we’re done.  Yes, we pay a 2% fee, but that’s nominal compared to the time we’ve wasted before tracking down payment on our open invoices.

7 – Freshbooks.
And speaking of payment, I’ve found that the biggest hurdle to getting paid on time is getting an invoice out the door on time.  With Freshbooks you can create invoices right from your mobile device and email it out so that your customer has it in his hands at the same time your service guy is walking out the door.  No excuses for not getting it processed as immediately, right?

8 – WhatsApp.
Travel internationally?  Hate paying those zillion dollar fees for texting?  I rely on WhatsApp for whenever I go to the UK or Europe.  It sends text messages for free over your web connection to others that have also signed up for the service.  It’s not only a great way to keep up to date with clients but also to stay in touch with your family without fretting over the cost of each text message.

9 – Kindle.
If you own a Kindle remember you can also download the mobile app right to your phone or tablet.   This way whenever I have downtime I can catch up on the latest book I’m reading or any of the services I subscribe to right from device.

10 – An advanced calculator.
Most devices come with a simple calculator but if you’re in the financial services business or need to make more complex calculations incorporating present value or logarithms then you must download SolveMyMath’s scientific calculator.  You’ll have power at your fingertips and won’t need to carry around an extra device either.

At its most innocuous level, spam is simply annoying; but at its most harmful spam can be used to smuggle damaging malware into your systems through doctored documents, links or attachments of any shape or form. It is this danger factor that we need to remember when we now look to the increasing prevalence of so-called Internet BACN (or bacn).

What is bacn?

The term bacn itself has been coined due to this content’s proximity to both spam and that data which we might actually consider to be real meat i.e. information that we genuinely want to get hold of. In a recent article the BBC describes Bacn as the comparatively innocent looking newsletter style messages, user group updates, notifications, limited special offers and all manner of “special alerts” that traverse the pathways of the Internet on a daily basis.

Most of us can spot bacn with not much more than a quick glance at our inbox; but falling between two stools of real junk and real messages makes bacn harder to trim off. Although many online webmail services (including Gmail and Hotmail) now provide filters and “rules” to remove newsletter-style bacn out of a user’s line of sight automatically, its wider presence is still felt by millions of users everyday.

The problem is that all of us have the occasional taste for bacn and do in fact positively sign up to receive it in the first place.

Many small to medium sized business employees will sign up to receive regular updates from product sales groups, business community opportunity signboards and other socially- or commercially-driven information sharing vehicles. So this is content that we ourselves have already welcomed and confirmed an interest in.

The danger factor here comes from the potential for this channel to be compromised with malware, especially when many of these updates will typically come from (or appear to come from) partners, suppliers, industry bodies and known entities.

It is not hard to disguise spam as bacn

Both items fall into the same basic food group as it were,  so it is not hard to disguise spam as bacn – and this is the pain point that SMBs need to do something about.

Firms should first control and limit the amount of bacn flowing into their employees’ inboxes across desktop, mobile and cloud-based computing environments. By tuning email filters and applying malware protection technologies here, companies can keep their data assets protected appropriately.

By taking back control of bacn firms also have the opportunity to quantify and qualify the amount of bacn-type content being consumed by employees. There are direct productivity implications if staff members treat themselves to too much bacn every day when they should be performing more work tasks.

Everybody knows that bacon can be very tasty but too much is bad for you, the same applies to bacn. Check whether you have the right email filtering and antivirus protection technologies and if not make some changes so that everyone knows they need to trim the fat.

Some do, of course.  Comedians, speakers, service companies and other consumer-related businesses have built a profitable engine around social media sites.  People in the media use social media all the time to do research and communicate with others.

So why do I encounter so many business people that have yet to use social media effectively?  I think it’s because they failed to ask themselves three key questions before ever getting started.

1. Where are my customers?
2. Who will do the work?
3. What are my expectations?

Let’s start with customers.  If you’re running a neighborhood flower shop it makes sense to have a Facebook page for your store.  This is a hobby to most people.  It’s fun.  And you can draw in your community there.   But if you’re running a company that makes silicon coated paper for user in the packaging industry I’m not so sure having a Facebook page will bring you much better.  Or a Twitter presence.  Or a site on Pinterest.  Your customers are not there.  And if they are on any of these sites it’s probably to play games or reconnect with old friends rather than to talk about silicon coated paper.  If your customers are not on social media then you shouldn’t be either.  Go where your customer are.  It’s OK not to have a Facebook page if no one’s going to visit it.

If you do decide to have a social media presence get ready to devote a lot of resources to it.  Who’s going to do the work?  Larger companies now fully devoted social media teams.  I have a person who helps me keep up with my tweets and updates during the week.  I can’t do it all.  A social media site needs to be active, informative, educational and a place where people coming back to.  You’re busy enough as it is and this won’t happen by magic.  You will have to have someone do this.  Which means you’ll have to pay someone to do this.  You’ll have to spend time supervising that person.  You will have to very familiar with what’s happening on your site(s) and be planning out content that you want to deliver.  It takes time and money to do all this.

And so why are you doing this?  What are your expectations?  Many business people think that social media is another form of marketing.  It’s not.  It’s about building a community.  It’s about communicating information to help your customers stay close to you and, if you do a good job at that, bring in new customers.  My best clients who use social media to its maximum advantage focus on customer service first, and marketing second.

Social media is just another way, another tool, for keeping your community close.  Maybe you have a better way to do this.  Maybe you frequent trade shows, conferences, send emails, make a lot of phone calls…whatever.  You don’t have to have a social media presence.  But if you do, make sure you’re answering the above three questions.

There has been a swathe of time-saving business applications launched over the past few years which can help you to streamline your activities.

Here is my pick of the bunch.

Evernote

The tag line for Evernote is “Remember Everything,” a concept driven home by its elephant logo and something which any business boss can struggle to do at the best of times.

The award-winning app allows you to take notes, capture photos, create to-do lists and record voice reminders and makes them searchable across all of your devices. You can also share anything you’ve saved with your colleagues.

AVG AntiVirus

One of the biggest concerns about carrying your business life around on your mobile devices is the threat of loss, theft or cyber-crime. You information is precious so keep it safe with AVG’s real-time antivirus and anti-theft apps.

It allows you to protect yourself against malicious hackers, wipe sensitive data should the device get lost and even locate the device should you lose it using Google Maps. The real-time security scanner also protects you from downloaded apps and games.

Card Munch

A continuous stream of meetings, networking events etc. means your pockets are probably jam-packed with business cards and you can guarantee you won’t be able to find the one you want when you need it.

Card Munch, bought by LinkedIn in 2011, lets you take a picture of a business card and convert it into a digital contact and connects it with that person’s LinkedIn profile so you can get even more useful information. You can flick through the cards on your phone when you need to find one.

Dropbox

Dropbox App lets you bring your docs, photos and videos everywhere. When you need to access an all-important file, share one with another member of your team or if you run off to a meeting and forget your presentation – having Dropbox on your mobile device could save the day.

Having access to cloud storage on your mobile devices is a great way to make sure nothing gets lost as it will always be backed up.

Hailo

There aren’t always enough hours in the day and there certainly aren’t enough to be spending time waiting for taxis. When you’re trying to run from a lunch with your investors to the bank or to meet potential clients, you don’t want to be late.

Having Hailo means you can rest assured that there is a taxi just around the corner coming to get you. The app launched in London but for those of you that travel, Hailo is now also live in Chicago, Boston, Dublin, Toronto and is about to start up in New York.

1. Who else do you know that I know?
Start naming names:  your accountant, your attorney, other people you’ve run into in the tech business yourself.  Ask for references.  See if you can find a common connection with other people in your hometown.  Connect on LinkedIn and see if you share connections.  Call those people and ask them about the firm.  What have they heard?  Any experience?  Any problems?  You need to get validation of the firm’s services and reliability from someone you trust, or at least someone independent.  If you can’t find someone credible that can vouch for the IT firm then you don’t want to go any further.  Even in 2013, personal recommendations are the strongest validation for hiring an outside service provider.

2.  Tell me about your business.
It’s important to know about the firm that you’re about to partner with.  They will be responsible for the infrastructure that you’re using to run your business.  So who are you, Mr. Potential Service Provider?  How many employees do you have?  Do you use contractors and when?  How long have you been in business?   How many clients do you have?  Where would my company fall amongst your client base?  Would we be one of your larger clients or smaller?  Do you have any family members in your business?  Where are your offices?  You want to work with a business, not just some guy who’s already got a full time job.  Family businesses imply a livelihood and a shared goal of success.  You need to see evidence of infrastructure.  History.  Experience.  A system in place for doing business with clients. You need to be comfortable that you’re not this company’s first client.  Or its last.

3.  If I were to call you at 10PM would someone pick up the phone?
This may be extreme, but the point is this:  when you have a problem will the tech provider be available to solve it?  What are their support hours?  Who is providing their support?  If it’s remote support how is that done?  What is their response time?  Will you have a dedicated person providing services or a support group?  Do you provide mobile phone numbers and email addresses for your support people?  Whatever he says…don’t take his word.  Test him out.  Call his offices at 10PM.  See who picks up the phone.  Drive by his building.  Stop by to say hello and see what kind of an office he runs.  Ask to meet some of his support people.  Are they long term employees or part of a revolving door?

Notice how I’m not even suggesting you ask about fees or costs?  Because it doesn’t matter.  A reliable, trustworthy, credible IT partner wouldn’t overcharge you.  And you shouldn’t try to do deals or bargain him down.  Let him make a living.  Don’t let him feel like you’re beating him up for every five minutes he spends.  If you’re a profitable customer for him he will likely go out of his way to think of more services to provide for you which could in turn help your business.  If you’re a jerk, he’ll run away every time you call and do the bare minimum.  I know this.  I’ve been there.

Unfortunately, you can never be sure.  Hiring a technology firm, like any service provider, means you’re going to have to take a leap of faith.  You’re going to have look that person in the eyes and, like Larry David does on almost every episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, make a judgment:  do I trust him?  Will he do what he says he’s going to do?  Does he know what he’s doing?  Hopefully these tips will help you  judge correctly.

My company’s been in business for over seventeen years.  We’ve done hundreds and hundreds of small business IT implementations.  We’re like any technology firm.  You’d think with that kind of experience we’d have it down pat.  But we don’t.  Every year we have great projects…and some that didn’t turn out quite as well as we’d hoped.  We try and try to avoid those bad projects.  But we still have them.  You don’t want have a bad project, right?  Here are a few things to consider before hiring your next technology partner.

My people are very good at what they do.  We know the software that we sell inside-out.  We can customize it with our eyes closed.  We’re excellent at training.  If you hire us I promise you we’ll get your company super productive with this technology.  You’ll be doing things quicker and better and be way more productive than you ever were.

But be careful.  I can be greedy.  Sometimes I want the work…too badly.  I’ll nod my head and agree to things that I shouldn’t.  I’ll make assumptions and cross my fingers under the table hoping that I’m right.  I go into some projects feeling less than 100% confident of success.  I have been known to gamble a bit.  If it pays off I profit.  If not, I take my lumps and move on.  Are most IT firms like me?  I’m sure many wouldn’t admit it.  But the numbers don’t lie.  If we were all less greedy, and more honest with our clients on their expectations and our capabilities, we’d be seeing better project success rates.  But that’s just not human nature.

For example, I noticed at the beginning of a recent project that timelines were too tight.  The client was asking too much of his people.  Resources were thin.  Other projects were going on.  Work was scheduled to happen through the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.  I knew from experience that people are seldom productive at that time of year.  I knew that there were too many distractions to keep his people focused on the project at hand.   Yet I said nothing.  I should’ve battled to make the timelines more reasonable.  I should’ve explained that, other than the SEC or IRS, there are few reasons to kill your people over a deadline.  I should have told him how our best projects always built in enough extra days to accommodate unforeseen problems.  I didn’t say any of this.  I didn’t want to rock the boat.  And the client wasn’t pressing.

I also didn’t say anything when the inevitable happened too:  mission creep.  I watched silently as the client’s internal project manager agreed to change after change to the plan as users tested the application and made their suggestions.  She was just trying to please.  Instead she was hurting the project.  I should’ve put my foot down and drawn a line in the sand.  I should’ve pointed to other successful projects, where proposed scope changes were documented, reviewed and approved for implementation…in later phases.  Again I didn’t want to rock the boat.  So I let it all happen.

And here’s what eventually happened:  the project failed.  So did I learn?  Will this ever happen again?  Yes it will.  Why?  Because sometimes your technology partner doesn’t say what he or she should be saying.  Sometimes we’re too greedy.  Can you trust your technology partner?  Sure.  But keep your eyes open.  Question what they say.   Remember their agenda may not always be consistent with yours.  Be aware of scope creep.   Don’t let your project be the one that is neglected.  And ask the right questions before you hire.  What would those questions be?  Ah!  Stay tuned….I’ll reveal those next week!

For businesses of all sizes, using the right equipment to do the job is a prerequisite for growth and ultimately success. You and your team need to trust the tools you use to work efficiently and accurately, without them breaking or slowing you down.

It’s why logistics companies update their fleet every few years, why companies move or update their office space regularly and, for that matter, why as consumers we upgrade our smartphones every 18 months at a push; 12 months if we can get a good enough deal.

But the same doesn’t always apply to businesses’ attitude to their IT networks, including the hardware systems and software programmes that help all companies to communicate, do research and marketing, access data, strategise, administer payroll and so on.

Technology companies upgrade their product lines every year with major releases complementing, in the case of software, regular tweaks and fixes that enhance user experience. It means old versions go out of date quickly – a fact that hands a competitive edge to businesses prepared to invest in the latest, quickest and most powerful systems.

A case in point is Microsoft’s Windows XP platform. An article published by The Economist journal in November suggests that use of XP peaked in 2007 when it provided the engine for some 80 per cent of the world’s computers. Late last year it was still the second most popular operating system in the world despite the release of Windows Vista, 7 and 8.

But despite more than one billion machines still running on XP, the IT industry has moved on. Mobile technologies and cloud services are now the order of the day. Official support from Microsoft for the XP platform will draw to a close in April 2014, meaning patches and fixes will no longer be available from official sources.

More to the point, XP has already fallen well behind its more modern counterparts in the security stakes. According to Microsoft Intelligence Security Report, the operating system is twice as vulnerable as Vista or Windows 7, and malware infection rates have increased sharply since security updates started drying up a few years ago.

This example alone is an important reminder that out-of-date technology can seriously encumber your business. The ‘stick’ is that old and obsolete IT equates to slowness and disruption; the ‘carrot’ is that having up-to-date IT means you have an opportunity to steal a march on your competitors.

Better IT means faster working, impressed and happy clients, deadlines met and employees satisfied. Upgrading is not an expense, rather an investment in growth, so it’s less a case of ‘can I afford to’ and more ‘can I afford not to’. Next time you upgrade your vehicles, premises or furniture, think: ‘could our network use the same treatment?’

By Dan Matthews

Dan Matthews is a business owner and journalist with more than 12 years’ experience writing in print and online.

Dan has written for, amongst others, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Financial Times, The Guardian and Growing Business Magazine.