FOUR WAYS TO SPEND A SNOW DAY

Four Ways to Spend a Snow Day

(Long Island, N.Y.) Last weekend’s blizzard may just be the first of the harsh weather Long Island faces this winter. The recent snowfall was the heaviest Long Islanders have seen in some time. In areas of the East End, residents were asked not to drive. The Towns of Southampton and East Hampton declared a snow emergency, prohibiting anything except emergency vehicles on roadways. The Tanger outlets in Riverhead closed on Sunday due to the snowfall and on Monday, schools in the Town of Islip and eastward were closed. Were you snowed in?

For kids, a snow day means a true day off, a day of sledding and snowmen and snowball fights. But for small business owners, a snow day might mean business as usual (especially if you work from home) or it could mean a day to catch up on tasks that usually fall by the wayside. For instance, if you own a contracting company and your trucks can’t go out, you might take the day to catch up on paperwork and follow-up sales calls. How did you spend last Monday?

Forecasts are predicting more snow and rain for this weekend. It looks to be a long, hard winter. Here are some tech-related things you can do during the next snowstorm. If the power’s out, you can perform most of these tasks through your iPhone or Blackberry.

1. Set up (or update) your social networks.

Is it time to set up a Facebook fan page, revamp your Twitter background, or update your LinkedIn bio? If the information is old, out-of-date or just getting dull to look at, a snow day is the perfect time to make the rounds and refresh your social network data.

Maybe you landed a new, big-name client and need to add the project photos to your website portfolio. Maybe you earned some more certifications and need to add it to your bio.

If you don’t have a strong social network set up that takes advantage of all the major social networking sites, what are you waiting for? Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to update (or launch) all your profiles in one step. Expect to spend a few hours completing the tasks. But it sure beats shoveling the driveway (again).

2. Write an editorial calendar for your blog.

I hate when this happens: I have a few minutes to update my blog, but have no idea what to write about. An editorial calendar solves this problem. Sit down with a large calendar (I like the kind printed on whiteboard material, or one of those “takes up your whole desk” calendars.) Take a half hour or more and brainstorm ideas for your blog, allocating one topic per day or week. (However frequently you update.)

Having a calendar in front of you makes you more mindful of holidays, occasions and seasons where you can create tie-ins. I like to create my calendars up to six months in advance. Just keep going until you run out of ideas. I write more about keeping an editorial calendar for your blog at Writer’s Roundabout.

3. Touch base with former clients or prospects you haven’t connected with in a while.

A snowstorm is a perfect time to spend a few hours chatting. If they’re local (or in areas afflicted by similar storms) the weather makes the perfect conversation-starter. “I was going through some old files and thought of you,” is also an honest but friendly greeting that won’t make anyone uncomfortable. When you “ping” someone this way, remember – you’re not selling. You’re just touching base to see how they’re doing.

4. Perform data back-ups.

When was the last time you backed up your computer system? If you’re like me, it’s been quite some time. We get so busy in the day-to-day aspects of running our business that we forget crucial things like backing up our data – until it’s too late.

Paul Corrigan, owner of Holbrook-based Simply Windowing, (www.simplywin.com) a full-service technology firm, recommends an external hard drive with Symantec Back up Exec for small businesses. Larger businesses that run on a server can upgrade to Symantic Back Up Exec with tapes. “The more data you have, the more often you want to back up,” Corrigan says.

For small business owners and solo-preneurs, a fully-automated, easy-to-use system like Rebit may fit the bill. Rebit is an external USB hard drive back-up system. Simply plug it in and Rebit runs automatically. That way, you know you’ll be protected during the next blizzard.

Dawn Allcot

December 23, 2009 1:32 PM Eastern

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