Writing a social media post that will generate comments, likes, and replies takes practice.  It can be frustrating when you feel as if no one is reading your posts.  As you figure out what works best for your audience, one of the easiest techniques to encourage conversation is to simply ask questions.

When writing a question, keep it simple, clear, and easy to answer.  The point is to invite your audience to join the conversation, not to confuse them.  Here are five types of questions that can increase engagement:

1.  Ask yes/no or true/false questions
Readers are more likely to respond to questions that require less thought and shorter answers. Begin these questions with “Yes or No”/“True or False” so your readers can quickly understand that one word is all that is required.

2.  Ask poll questions
Facebook’s Question feature is a great way to poll your readers.  Options for answers can be easily and quickly selected.  You can either input options or your readers can add their own.

3.  Ask fill-in-the-blank questions
Fill-in-the-blank questions can produce some creative and fun answers.  Begin these questions with “Fill in the blank” so fans know what to expect.

4.  Ask for tips
Social media enthusiasts love to share their personal experiences and insights.  This form of question can nurture a sense of community among your followers through their shared experiences and advice.

5.  Ask fun questions
Asking off topic questions isn’t always a bad thing.  These questions create a human connection with your brand.  Something as simple as asking about weekend plans or favorite vacation spots can generate a lot of activity.

Once your post receives a response, acknowledge someone when they answer.  You can “like” or retweet their response or even better, comment back to deepen the conversation.  If someone asks you a question, be sure to respond.

The dreaded due date for individual tax returns in 2012 is just around the corner on April 17th.   Even in this digital age, when most of us finish our tax return, we will invariably wind up with a lot of tax paperwork lying around.  Before you shove those paper documents into a filing cabinet never to see the light of day again, here are some helpful tips about how long to keep each document type:

You should keep your tax returns forever.  Even though the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has a statute of limitations for auditing returns of 3 years, in special circumstances, they can go back as far as you have filed!  Supporting documentation for tax returns, like mortgage statements and property tax information, can usually be discarded after 7 years.

If you have statements for the acquisition of assets, such as purchasing a home, or buying stocks, you should keep these documents until that asset is sold plus the tax period.   This means that you will need to keep the sale records for, you guessed it, 7 years.

A great resource to help figure out how long you should save specific tax records is the IRS’ Publication 552.

Once you know the retention guidelines for your documents, I am sure Innovatively Organized can think of a few ways to store all those documents without cluttering up your office!   Contact them if you need help getting your files in order now because it’ll make filing your taxes so much easier for next year.

For additional tips on organizing your documents, download our Paper Management 101 webinar or take a look at our favorite organizing products in our Amazon Store.

Maintenance is cheaper than repairs.  I always stress that maintaining your home in good working order by performing regular maintenance is much less expensive than paying for repairs after something has gone wrong.  I’m talking about those chores like cleaning your gutters twice a year, cleaning your dryer vent and refrigerator coils, flushing the hot water tank, inspecting the roof, attic and crawl space plus several more.  These tasks are not difficult to perform and don’t really take too much time.  Here are a few tips and tasks to maintain your home:

1. Create a seasonal schedule for maintenance. It makes it easier to remember what needs to be done and when.  
2. Keep notes on the repairs and service you’ve had done to your home in a file folder labeled “home maintenance” along with service contracts and contact numbers for your plumber, electrician, and handyperson.  
3. Inspect all electrical cords, wall plates, switches, and outlets.
4. Replace furnace filters.
5. Check the exhaust fans in the kitchen, bathroom and laundry room for adequate draw.  Light incense and hold it close to the fan while it’s on and if it draws the smoke into the fan, it is working properly.
6. Inspect washing machine hoses for wear and damage. Replace hoses if they are older than two years. 
7. Clean your dryer vent hose from the dryer all the way to where it exits the house, if accessible.  There’s a long-handled brush made just for this.  
8. Clean refrigerator coils and make sure there is adequate clearance around the appliance for good airflow.  
9. Take a break and wait for spring to arrive.

If you’re not handy, have no desire, or are just intimidated by the thought of doing some of the maintenance tasks, then hire the work out.  Think of it like doing preventative maintenance on your car i.e. changing the oil, wiper blades, brakes and tires.  Your home is likely your largest investment and also your biggest expense.  With regular scheduled maintenance you can keep those repair bills to a minimum and reduce the stress of home ownership.

Amy Ecklund is the owner of AmyWorks, which offers home maintenance and repair services, workshops and practical problem solving.  For more information call (206) 478-2019.

1. Add tasks on the go with Dial2Do.  Never again forget an idea, task or other reminder while driving or on the road.  Program Dial2Do into your cell phone and it will record your task, translate it to text, and email it to you to handle later.  Just three bucks a month.
2. Carry a Moleskine and pen with you at all times.  I keep them in my jacket pocket every day.  It’s a great place to take notes on the run, in a meeting, and anywhere you’re without a computer or larger note pad.
3. Have a sales call list with you at all times.  If you’re delayed at the airport, sitting in traffic or just have an hour to waste between meetings, make that time productive by knowing in advance which prospects you need to catch up with.  Use your CRM system to build this list, and print it out before you leave the office if necessary.
4. Carry a list of inactive, past or lost accounts for follow-up.  Same idea but focused on the accounts you are no longer actively pursuing.  Maybe you lost the account but the incumbent is fumbling the ball.  Maybe that next phone call will catch an inactive customer at the right time to drum up new business.  Focus this call time to increase your conversion rates.
5. Check in with channel and referral partners.  Find out what they’ve been up to, discuss new project and promotional ideas, etc.  There’s a theme in these last three recommendations, of course.  There are always people to call you just need to know which are the right calls to accelerate business forward.
6. Use a CRM system with full-feature apps.  This has become a standard feature for most CRM systems, but make sure you can easily and quickly access all of your pertinent contact information, pipeline details, etc. from the road.  Updating your pipeline and contacts from your smart phone should be equally fast and easy.
7. Have a system for quickly capturing to-do items for later.  This can be as simple as creating boxes next to to-do items in your notes, and capturing those to-do’s in a separate task management system when you’re back at the office.  The trick, no matter how you do it, is to capture more of your action items and follow-up tasks quickly, and increase your completion rate afterward.
8. Have a consistent system for carrying and accessing your “essentials”.  Think of the handful of “tools” you consistently need when working away from the office.  Smart phone, notepad, pen, business cards, Bluetooth headset.  Create a consistent system for where to store and access them in your jacket, your purse or briefcase.  The faster you can get to them, the more often you’ll use them.
9. Wear a watch, and set it five minutes early.  Not only will this help you stay on time more often, but it makes checking the time in the middle of appointments far more subtle (which is a good thing).
10. Keep a USB charger in your car.  Makes it easy to plug in your smart phone while traveling so it’s always charged and left with the most battery life possible.

Do you use Apple’s Mail application on your Mac? It’s a capable email application and one of its best features is that its abilities can be extended using plug-ins. These plug-ins let you customize Mail so it can better meet your preferences and needs. Here’s a list of 9 plug-ins for Mail that’ll let you increase your productivity.

MsgFiler lets you quickly file email messages into one of your existing Mailboxes (aka folders). Using either a menu command or a keyboard shortcut you can file a message into a folder. Simply type the first few characters of the mailbox’s name and select the desired mailbox from the list of matches.

SpamSieve offers better spam protection then Mail’s built-in junk mail filter. It accomplishes this by using Bayesian filtering methods. It require some initial training, but it’s very effective.

MailAct-On is an incredibly robust plug-in which lets you use keyboard shortcuts to quickly file, label or flag incoming or outgoing mail messages. That is an over-simplified description of its capabilities. This video introduction and video review will give you a more complete understanding of it’s capabilities.

MailTags let’s you assign keywords, priorities, categories and due dates to actions mentioned in an email. It lets you escape the constraints of folders by allowing you to organize and find your messages by keyword or other metadata that you’ve assigned. Made by the same developers, Mail Act-On and MailTags can be used together or separately.

WideMail reconfigures Mail’s layout. It moves the message preview area from below the list of messages to the right of it. This layout uses your screen’s space more efficiently. Apple realized this layout was very popular so they made it the standard layout in version 5.0 of Mail which comes with Lion, Mac OS X 10.7

Attachment Tamer gives you control over Mail’s handling of attachments that you send. Be default, Mail will display an attachment, such as an image, in the body of the email that you’re composing. Attachment Tamer lets you change this behavior and send the image as a regular attachment instead.

MessageFont lets you set Mail’s default font when you reply to or compose a new email message. Mail’s preferences appears to let you set the default font, but this affects only what you see, not what the recipient sees. MessageFont changes which
font is seen by the recipient.

MissingAttachments scans an email message and notifies you if you have referred to an attachment, but forgotten to attach a file. Unfortunately this plug in hasn’t been updated to work with recent versions of Mail.

MailUnreadStatusBar displays an icon to the upper right corner of your screen which lists the number of unread email messages you have. You can customize it to track multiple folders. Its icon then displays a menu listing the unread message count for each selected folder and lets you go directly to any of the listed folders.

In my opinion, these are some of the best plug-ins for Mail, but you can read about dozens more at the Hawk Wings web site.

1.  Start with clear definitions & next steps by stage

2.  Use a consistent CRM tool (even if it’s Excel)

3.  Develop a discipline for adding new prospects daily