Sure, there's Google and Bing for performing keyword searches, and they do a great job of it.

But let's say you want to find a phrase that might appear in a long blog post or New York Times article online.  Must you always read through hundreds (or thousands) of words to find what you're looking for?

Well, thanks to Ctrl+F, you can easily find what you're looking for in no time at all.

On any web page in Firefox, Internet Explorer or Chrome browsers, you can hit Ctrl+F (hit the Control key and F key simultaneously) to open a small search box in your browser.  Type in what you're looking for and presto . . . your browser will highlight all instances of the word or words on the current web page.  You can even click "Next" or "Previous" to jump between instances of your search term on the page.

And for you Safari browser users, just hit the Apple+F keys to get the same effect.

And if you cringe at the thought of using keyboard shortcuts and prefer the sweet sound of a mouse click, just click "Edit" then "Find" in your browser's toolbar menu.

Give it a try and let me know if this could be a time saver for you.  It sure is for me.

But rather than me describing their service, let me share a recent email interview between myself and Mark Brogley, founder and CEO of All Financial Advisors:

1. Who are you and tell us a little of your background.

Mark Brogley, mechanical engineering degree, and 30+ years of diverse experiences, successful serial entrepreneur.

I spent 12 years gaining professional and management experience with 2 of the best corporations in America (GE & Corning) before jumping into creating high-tech start-ups. In 2001, I was co-founder of a highly successful lead-generation company where we built and grew 13 high-quality, online lead-generation directories connecting consumers with service providers. These directories are still ranked #1 organically by Google as the best resources in their respective categories.

fabeetle is the brainchild of Brandon Gadoci, a former financial advisor, who is attempting to leverage technology to capture the voice of the client to help consumers make more informed choices when selecting a financial advisor.

In fact, I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Brandon about fabeetle and what it represents, both for consumers and the advisors that serve them, and his development plans for this innovative platform.]]>http://www.advisorblogger.com/home/rss-comments-entry-4996208.xmlAlain de BottonTED TalksTed TalkslawainmcneilSun, 23 Aug 2009 14:47:30 +0000http://www.advisorblogger.com/home/2009/8/23/a-kinder-gentler-philosophy-of-success.html314988:3285467:4983205

Happy Friday!

Today's post is my conversation with Leslie Banks, Director of Marketing with Morningstar.  Find out how she and the Morningstar team use social media.

You can follow Leslie on twitter at @lesliebanks (psst...she is listed on Money Magazines 12 Financial Twitterers Worth Following).  

Thanks Leslie for your time and for sharing with the AdvisorBlogger community.

Please leave or share your comments below.

 Check out Morningstar Advisor on Facebook

Instapaper 

It literally takes about 2 seconds to start using Instapaper. You can install it as a "bookmarklet" in your internet browser's bookmarks bar and when you find an article or website you'd like to read or revisit later, just click on Instapaper's "Read Later" button.

Instapaper will then save a link to the article/website in your Instapaper account that you can easily read later on the web or on your mobile device.

A big thank you and shout out to Julio Varela for today's post on AdvisorBlogger.  Julio is a good guy and fun to follow on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/julito77.  Check out his thoughts on his blog at http://www.juliovarela.wordpress.com.  He is an passionate Red Sox fan and secretly roots for the St. Louis Cardinals (not really).  Thanks Julio.

Julio Varela's Blog is a Great Read

Are you feeling like this when it comes to your social media efforts?

This Social Media Thing is Too Much!

Yes, you have done it all. You have your Twitter account, you have your Facebook account, you are on other sites, you are writing great blogs, and you have a gazillon friends. You are raring to go, ready to conquer the world and get your pages and your business up the rankings.

Weeks pass, you tweet all the time. You get tons of @. Your FB fans love you. You made connections with every country in the world. This is going great.

You check your stats. Traffic hasn’t changed much. You check your sales. Still the same. All you keep thinking is: all this tweeting and posting and status updates have done NOTHING. You feel like doing this:

Well, we are here to help. Here are 5 “big picture” tips to make the best of your Social Media Expectations, with the understanding that you should ALWAYS follow the #1 Non-Negotiable Rule of Social Media: Always be yourself, don’t stop being yourself, genuinely connect with others, andNEVERjust shout out your awesome business opportunity 24/7. People will tune you out immediately.

Here goes:

1. Start small, stay focused: Target one thing. What does your business want to do online? Launch one product? Shout out a new announcement? At v5, we went into social media with one goal: promoteFernando Varela. That is it. And we because of this focus, we have just begun to grow and expand to other parts of our business, after 9 months of just focusing on Fernando.

2. Social Media Time = Appointment Time: Treat your daily Social Media like a business appointment. Treat it like a client. Add it to your calendar and work it. Rinse, repeat, and do it again the next day.

3. Engage, engage, engage: Remembering the #1 Non-Negotiable Rule of Social Media, submerge yourself and interact with your base. Be friendly, positive, initiate the conversation, push your stuff authentically and with honesty. You would be surprised what happens when you reach out in a geunine way, and not in a “check out my business now or else” way.

4. Be social, but not always: Saying hi and saying “this social media thing is awesome, I have met so many people” can only go so far. Start understanding what your different groups need and then provide that need. For example, when we launchedPublishon@PublishGroup, we focused on the book publishing community, who are struggling to understand how the digital content movement is disrupting their world. So, what we do everyday is find relevant links about these challenges and tweet about them. We believe this adds value to that community.

5. Find a purpose and refocus: Yeah, we know this sounds like the first one, but it is an important one: if you find yourself just laughing and joking and having fun with your groups (and that is not a bad thing) and feel your work is being ignored, stop, and say: “My next tweet/post/update is going to add value to my online world.” Find something interesting (news, blog, event) that pertains to your group and post it. Redirect yourself, and then have fun after you feel this ship is right.

Pretty soon, you will be feeling like this. Hit it, JB!