Widely popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, and LinkedIn have immense potential when it comes to generating new business. Even though almost all employees nowadays are familiar with these networks, it is unfortunate that the average business does not make the most out of these platforms, despite them being free to use. Social networking for your business is a great way to reach out to potential customers and maintain communication with existing ones.

• By engaging users in social networking activities for your business, you send out an impression of being on the cutting edge, giving you a competitive edge in the industry. Despite the dedication and constant work that social networking demands, it has several advantages to offer your business.

• Being active on social networks gives customers a chance to check-in when they visit your business, serving as an efficient way to spread the word about your business.

• A social network gives you a wide audience to reach out to, by making your business accessible to friends of friends. This means that if an existing customer who is active on your social networking page likes/ shares an update, this makes you visible to their entire network of friends.

• Social networking for your business also gives you a chance to establish your professional credibility and expertise through blogs.

• Social networking sites like Pinterest are a good choice for businesses that rely on the impact of images to generate interest among existing and prospective customers.

• One of the biggest advantages offered by social networking platforms to business owners is free marketing. Businesses can use these channels to offer deals to engage current followers and attract new customers.

• These platforms also make it possible for businesses to have direct access to their customers, being able to instantly address any doubts or queries, express gratitude, provide suggestions, spread information, and showcase their brand by way of conversation.

• Conveying the right tone and ensuring consistency in the brand image projected on social networks gives your business a personality and a voice, increasing the impact of your marketing efforts.

• LinkedIn serves as an excellent platform for networking with business professionals in a particular industry, which can go a long way in spreading the wings of your business.

The key to successful usage of social networking for your business lies in thinking out of the box. It is important to constantly evaluate your strategies to ensure that you are making the most out of social media.

A computer network is bound to have network connectivity related issues, which is why every network user should be familiar with at least a basic level of network troubleshooting. Sometimes the issue can be resolved by simply tweaking a wire or typing a command, saving you hundreds on calling in an IT expert each time something goes wrong. The following simple guidelines take you through a step-by-step tutorial on how to diagnose and solve common networking problems:

• The first thing to do should be to make sure the physical condition of the network, i.e. the network cable is intact.

• Next, execute a command prompt with IPCONFIG /all. Make sure that the IP address, default gateway, and subnet mask are correct. If there is any error at this stage, modifying it should bring the network back online.

• If that doesn’t work, the next step should be to use the PING command to ping the servers by IP address. This is one of the simplest commands to diagnose networking problems and is present in almost all operating systems. DNS issues should be ruled out by pinging the server’s name.

• If these commands do not work, the issue usually lies in the internal DNS. Pinging a website like www.yahoo.com tests external DNS resolution.

• If the DNS resolution is fine, you need to run NetStat ‘’’’a to rule out a Trojan or virus having infested the machine.

• If no viruses are detected, a pathping or tracert run between the machine and the internet can help to identify any pending network problems. For instance, you might notice another computer using the same IP address and host name as your network. The solution for this is using Angry Ipscanner.exe to identify the host name or query the IP address. If you are working on a Linux or MacOS machine, you can use a similar tool known as traceroute.

• If none of these techniques diagnose a network issue, this usually indicates that there is no problem in the machine, but the issue lies in the network itself. For this, try firing up Wireshark to listen to all the traffic and responses for your network. If you are not familiar with how to decode the data at this stage, you can make use of one of the many useful online resources available to get help with that.

Centex Technologies is a leading IT support and networking company providing complete computer network installation and repair services. We serve Dallas, Killeen and other surrounding areas in Central Texas. For more information, call us at - (972) 375-9654