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Small Business News: Running Your Business

business, financial, marketing, money, Saving, Tips | Posted by novel-notes.info

Apr 20 2012

We talk a great deal about the tools and strategy and about the marketing and tech, but what about the basics of running a small business each day? If you’re in the trenches thinking about your next move, this roundup is for you. Startup isn’t the end of the story. Here’s news for running your business each day!

Getting Started

Things to do before you start. A checklist you may want to review before ever kicking off your new venture, this bunch of considerations is meant as a reality check to be sure you have what you need for the long hall. Though you can’t anticipate every eventuality, being prepared will help you react to the unexpected. Management Direct

Customer Service

Learning to talk to your customers. For example, don’t shout. But everybody knows that, right? Wait! Did you know that using all caps in a Twitter or other social media channel can be considered shouting too? Learning how to deal with customers and clients in any medium should be number one on your list of things to do. Get Busy Media

Social Media

How to use LinkedIn, Facebook. Two of the most powerful social networking Websites on the planet can be used interchangeably to operate the modern business but also have individual strengths: LinkedIn as a B2B and business networking tool, Facebook as a marketing vehicle extraordinaire reaching a huge membership base. Small Business Marketing Tools

Marketing Makeup

How to avoid big marketing blunders. Melanie Kissell lists some truly massive missteps on your way to marketing your business. No matter what your product or service, if you find yourself committing one of these transgressions, rest assured you are not doing your business any favors by continuing. Solo Mompreneur

How to create great marketing swag. Always think marketing both great and small. Getting your name, brand and message out can be crucial and can be done in many ways. When marketing creatively, don’t forget the obvious. Be sure to consider factors that will make your marketing irresistible and help it spread more quickly. Sprouter Blog

Ideation

Evaluating new ideas. Running a business often involves coming up with new ideas…regularly. Whether you’re comfortable with the creative process of ongoing ideation that comes with successfully managing a small business or not, the real issue may be how you judge and whether or not others “get it.” Fast Company

Management Mechanics

Switching management styles. Though you may not think of yourself as a manager, as a small business owner you must regularly interact with others, whether employees, contractors, suppliers or partners, to get things done. But what do you do if your style of interaction isn’t working? Here’s more about taking the next step. Inc.com

Self-development

Moving outside your comfort zone. What is the greatest breakthrough a small business owner or entrepreneur can have? Maybe it’s moving outside of your comfort zone. In this post, Small Business Trends founder Anita Campbell talks about the day she got her “big break” and what it meant. Small Business Trends

Financial Department

Small business retirement savings. With no one worrying about your retirement savings but…well…you, small business owners need to take extra care while planning ahead. But small biz owners who have sunk some savings into their ventures may also need to catch up. Here are three tips that may help. Open Forum

Final Thoughts

10 mistakes you shouldn’t make. If your small business isn’t making the progress you feel it should, the answer may have less to do with your products or services than the choices you’ve made and the reasons you’ve made them. Check out this list of 10 big mistakes and see whether any apply to your business. The Frugal Entrepreneur

From Small Business Trends

Small Business News: Running Your Business

Small Business News: Running Your Business
AB User – KDY

Tags: business, financial, management, marketing, melanie-kissell, modern, money, post, Saving, small business news, small-business, style, thoughts, Tips
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ROI of Social Media is Unknowable and Other Wisdom from Fashion140

business, marketing, money | Posted by novel-notes.info

Apr 20 2012

Do you ever wonder why no one every asks you the ROI for print or TV? That’s because they learned a long time ago that you couldn’t measure the direct response from consumers through either one of the channels. And yet, when we talk about digital marketing, ROI is all anyone wants to know. What’s my ROI for Twitter, Facebook, video advertising. . . ?

Those statements (paraphrased a tad) came from David Sulute, the VP of Technology for 9 Threads. Sulute was one of the speakers at today’s Fashion140 Conference in New York and thanks to the miracle of live streaming, I got to listen in.

The conference was all about fashion and social media, but as you can imagine, much of what was discussed can be applied to any business. Sulute’s overall point was this, ROI is unknowable in social media, so you might as well do what you can do reasonably, then sit back and let it happen. Basically, if you build it right, they will come. . .

I Can’t Hear You When You’re Shouting

. . .but they won’t stay if you don’t treat them right. Andy Dunn, co-founder of online men’s clothier Bonobos, had the best quote of the afternoon. He said, “Social media is not a chance to shout at your customers.”

His company started off selling only their special cut of trousers, but at some point they got smart enough to ask their customers what else they wanted. They wanted shirts with the same great fit, so Bonobos started selling shirts, which led to sweaters, shoes, belts and the rest. And they offer free shipping, even on returns and you can return anything, anytime — forever. Customer service is what sets them apart. Talk to your customers, he says, don’t talk at them.

Another great quote: “Use social media to create brands that otherwise wouldn’t exist.” People told Dunn he was crazy trying to sell pants online, lucky for him, he didn’t listen.

The Tweens Shall Inherit the Earth

The last person I listened to was Nancy Ganz from FashionFantasyGame.com (full disclosure, I help with the social media for the site). Nancy brought a group of tween girls on stage to talk about internet buying habits.

All of the girls said they had their own computers and cell phones with the internet. They all shop online and half of them shop with their own credit cards. When asked how they decide what to buy, they said recommendations from friends and family and they all said they click on online ads. After they buy, or when deciding to buy, they contact friends by phone or text to talk about it.

The older girls had Facebook pages and they follow at least one brand. All of them said they liked email as a way of getting brand messaging because they could get it on the computer or their phone. Marketing messages sent as texts were frowned upon.

Savvy shoppers, the girls said they look for coupons for stores they frequent and they look for free shipping online. This fall, collectively they expected to buy between 25 and 50% of their back-to-school items online.

Fashion, beauty, games, toys — these girls are your customers and they have the smarts and the money to help make your business a success.

If you’re even remotely connected to the fashion business, check out the replay of this morning’s presentations at Fashion Lincoln Center. For everyone else, watch for the afternoon session replay for great speakers talking about humanizing brands, blogging for a living and ROI in social media.

ROI of Social Media is Unknowable and Other Wisdom from Fashion140

ROI of Social Media is Unknowable and Other Wisdom from Fashion140
KDB – More Post

Tags: afternoon, computer, customers, earth, fall, marketing, money, shopping, social
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Online Video Ads Expected to See Largest Increase in Spend

business, marketing, money | Posted by updateblog

Apr 19 2012

Advertising on television is far out of the reach of most small businesses, but advertising on online video is very dooable and may be just as effective in the near future. It’s become so accessible, that the respondents on “BrightRoll’s new survey chose it as the category likely to see the biggest spend increase in 2011.

65% of the respondents said they would be shifting money from TV advertising to online advertising. 30% said they felt that online video was equally as effective as TV and that’s likely to swing upward as more people move away from TV and on to some form of computer.

When asked about the factors that influenced their decision to buy online video ads, 91% said it was all about the targeting. When it comes to the type of targeting, there is no clear winner. The largest bite, with 27%, was for behavioral targeting. 24% chose contextual and demographics got 21% of the vote.

As for what’s stopping most people from buying video ads, it comes down to money, data and education. A clear system for gauging success was seen as an issue for a third of the respondents. A quarter felt that video ads were still too expensive, though it’s possible that they’d change their mind if they were presented with well-documented data.

96% said that research into areas such as TV vs Video, brand lift and impact on offline behavior were important, only 35% of companies said they did this kind of testing themselves.

What is clear from this mass of percentages and bar charts, is that slowly, but surely, online video advertising is taking hold. As more people come to understand the ROI and video companies are able to offer more precise targeting, it’s likely to become a common channel for marketers.

Online Video Ads Expected to See Largest Increase in Spend

Online Video Ads Expected to See Largest Increase in Spend
KDB – More Post

Tags: business, category, common-channel, companies-said, decision, display, for-marketers-, mind, money, presented-with, research, shifting-money, the-respondents, Video, were-important
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Business Blog Rankings From Wikio – Sneak Peek!

business, info, money | Posted by novel-notes.info

Apr 19 2012

On the 5th of every month, Wikio.com publishes its updated ranking of blogs, in various categories, including business blogs. This month they gave us a sneak peek at the new rankings for the Business Blog category.

For blog rankings, Wikio takes into account the number of tweets and the weight and number of other sites linking to the blogs, among other things. As a result, Wikio generates an up-to-date blog ranking and the Wikio Blog Ranking makes it a place to find blogs to scope out.

Thanks to you, dear readers, we were delighted to see that Small Business Trends experienced a nice leap forward in the Wikio Rankings for business blogs and now stands in the top 15 business blogs. It is an honor to be in the company of sites like GigaOm, Techdirt, Freakonomics, BusinessInsider War Room and others.

Below you will find an early ”sneak peek” preview of the very latest list of Wikio’s Top Business Blog Rankings, that is coming out officially tomorrow (May 5, 2011):

1	GigaOM
2	DealBook – New York Times blog
3	The Conscience of a Liberal
4	Techdirt
5	Clusterstock
6	zero hedge
7	The Wire
8	The Big Picture
9	Company Town – L.A. Times
10	felixsalmon.com
11	Freakonomics – New York Times Blog
12	Small Business Trends
13	naked capitalism
14	Calculated Risk
15	Grasping Reality with Both Hands: Brad DeLong’s Se
16	War Room
17	EconLog
18	Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis
19	Cafe Hayek
20	Economist’s View
21	The Money Game
22	Money & Company – L.A. Times
23	Crain’s New York Business
24	A VC
25	Triple Pundit
26	Greentech Media
27	Vox
28	CARPE DIEM
29	Rortybomb
30	24/7 Wall St.

Ranking from Wikio

One reason we like to share listings is that it’s a good place to discover other quality blogs, or remind yourself about ones you already know of. So please check out the entire Blog Ranking section at Wikio.

While you’re at it, you might also want to explore the rest of Wikio. From the name it sounds like it might have started out life as a wiki site — but it’s not really a wiki site. And it’s more than just a blog ranking service.

The main focus of the site is a news search engine that aggregates news articles and original interesting blog posts. In other words, Wikio is a place to find the latest news. Wikio gets its information from various sources such as news pages, blogs, consumer websites, merchant pages and Wikio members. So you’ll find more varied news sources at Wikio.com than you might find in something like Google News, which tends to focus on information culled from the major media outlets and press release services.

From Small Business Trends

Business Blog Rankings From Wikio – Sneak Peek!

Business Blog Rankings From Wikio – Sneak Peek!
AB User – KDY

Tags: a-news-search, a-wiki-site-, announcements, business, global-economic, Media, money, picture, small-business, sneak-peek, trend-analysis, wikio-rankings
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Consider the benefits of the company

business, financial, loan | Posted by novel-notes.info

Apr 18 2012

Be considered weak by the business rather than a cash discount rate in order to negotiate a sales invoice is a financial process. This cash will be the following project financial integration. Consider the company to cover the cost of the project is a good way. It is recommended that you apply to the lending banks. Procedures relating to the acquisition of a bank loan can take a long time.

The types of services – taking into consideration the company typically provides two types of services – means and measures to be considered without the service. Claiming to consider the company without any investigation, to process all the events of the claim. Consider other means of all accounts receivable for the company do some research and decided to take up the cause. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: business, company, Tips
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New Study Reveals the State of Small Business Computing

business, general, marketing, money | Posted by novel-notes.info

Apr 17 2012

How does your small business’s use of technology compare to other SMBs? A new study of small and midsized businesses’ use of IT has sought to find out. Here are some results from Cloud Computing and the Role of IT Professionals in Small- to Mid-Sized Businesses, a just-released survey of more than 500 SMB decision-makers by Zoomerang Online Surveys and Polls.

IT Workers Take on New Roles

Twenty-two percent of businesses outsource IT support to vendors, citing cost-effectiveness (52 percent) and access to better resources (26 percent) as the primary reasons for doing so.

The vast majority (78 percent) of SMBs report having in-house IT support. But, of those companies, 79 percent say their IT workers also hold other roles in the company. Sixty-seven percent are involved in daily operations; 6 percent in sales and business development; and 6 percent in customer support. Only 21 percent focus solely on IT.

The percentage of SMB IT workers who are involved in other aspects of the company is growing. Thirty percent of SMBs say their in-house IT staff’s role has evolved in the past year to include operations functions; 15 percent report their in-house IT staff has become more involved in business development; and 11 percent say the in-house IT staff has become more involved in customer support.

“More often than not, the IT role within a small or midsized business may be fulfilled by the most technology savvy employee, requiring them to juggle multiple responsibilities on top of keeping the company’s technology up and running,” says Alex Terry, General Manager of Zoomerang. “With limited resources, businesses are looking to every employee to contribute and as a result, the IT role is gradually shifting from one of support to one of support and revenue generation.”

SMB Technology Functions Well, But Not Cutting-Edge

The majority (58 percent) of respondents say their IT systems are “good” (“not the latest, but everything runs smoothly and with minimal maintenance”). Thirty-two percent describe their IT as “intermediate” (“it has its good and bad moments”). Just 4 percent call their systems “poor” to the point where it is hurting operations.

This is all good news, but on the downside, a mere 7 percent say their technology is “advanced” or ahead of the curve. With technology one area where small firms can gain competitive advantages, it’s a shame more entrepreneurs aren’t taking advantage of IT opportunities.

Are Upgrades in the Cards?

Perhaps because they’re mostly satisfied with their current technology, nearly half (44 percent) of survey respondents say they have no plans to upgrade their IT in the next 12 months.

Still, 14 percent do intend to upgrade in the next three months and 16 percent will upgrade in the next four to 12 months. Eleven percent would like to upgrade but will wait more than a year to do so, while 14 percent are uncertain when they will upgrade. Clearly, many entrepreneurs are still waiting out the uncertain economy before investing in new technology.

The key areas where those planning upgrades will invest are computers and hardware, cited by 57 percent of respondents. Next are peripherals such as phones and mobile devices (16 percent), and software (15 percent).

SMB Owners Heads Not in the Cloud

Terry notes that SMBs have traditionally been conservative when it comes to investment in technology, and today’s hot buzzword, “the cloud,” is no different. Zoomerang found that just 10 percent of SMBs have deployed cloud technologies and a whopping 72 percent of respondents don’t understand or are not familiar with the technology.

“These numbers are quite staggering given that cloud vendors are investing huge amounts of money in marketing to showcase the benefits of cloud computing,” Terry said. “This research points to the need for cloud vendors to instead educate business owners on what cloud computing means and how it is relevant to SMBs.”

Of the businesses currently not using cloud computing technologies, only 2 percent plan to deploy cloud-based solutions this year; another 20 percent are still assessing the cost and benefits of various solutions.

It’s Still a Windows World

When it comes to SMB operating systems, Windows continues to dominate. Only 5 percent of respondents use Mac OS X; just 1 percent use Linux. Overall, 91 percent use some form of Windows: 45 percent still use Windows XP, 30 percent use Windows 7 and 16 percent use Windows Vista.

From Small Business Trends

New Study Reveals the State of Small Business Computing

New Study Reveals the State of Small Business Computing
AB User – KDY

Tags: business, businesses, cards, cloud, cloud-computing, computing, functions-well, money, research, Small, small business technology, small-business, windows, windows-vista-
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Top 25 Online Marketers to Follow on Twitter

business, general, info, marketing, money, Tips | Posted by novel-notes.info

Apr 17 2012

If you’re looking to expand your Twitter universe, you’ve found the right post. While opinions will vary on any list of this sort, I’ve picked out and reviewed my choices for the top 25 online marketers you should be following on Twitter. They are not presented in any particular order so as to prevent any in-fighting with those listed .

I tried to dig in and give you a little more depth provided in most of these kinds of lists and I suspect these folks would love for you to follow them if you are not already.

I hope you enjoy and feel free to add your own favorite online marketers to follow in the comments!

@LisaBarone

Lisa Barone, co-founder, Branding Officer, and blogger at Outspoken Media, she maintains a highly informative Twitter feed where she addresses issues both important and not important. Talented and outspoken, she tweets about social media, SEO, and women’s issues alongside Twitpics of the tacos she had for lunch. A quick search of her name at OutspokenMedia.com brings up the wide range of topics that she covers in her blog posts, which are a fantastic resource for anyone involved with Internet marketing.

@JillWhalen

Jill Whalen, the CEO of High Rankings, a Boston-area professional SEO Consulting firm, has an engaging Twitter feed where she makes the most of interacting with other Twitter users. Jill has been a pioneer in SEO since the 1990s and is a staple at conferences like SES. With enough quips to make her feed personal and interesting, she maintains a mostly serious and professional Twitter persona.

@stuntdubl

Todd Malicoat has been lauded by such Internet Marketing heavy weights as Rand Fishkin and Avinash Kaushik as a great talent in the industry. Todd posts the kind of Tweets that makes you feel good you use Twitter. He engages with other users, links to great content, is entertaining and even plans happy hour meetups. Todd is an SEO teacher with Market Motive and runs his own blog covering the ins and outs of Internet Marketing, SEO, and social media.

@Sugarrae

Rae Hoffman-Dolan, self described “entrepreneur, white-collar redneck, proud born and raised jersey girl” may cuss like a sailor, but her Tweets are definitely entertaining and informative. When she is not lovingly telling her tweeples off, she points to some really valuable resources and articles about Internet marketing.

@graywolf

Michael Gray is a well-experienced SEO and web development expert, spanning nearly 13 years. Much of his Twitter feed is dedicated to interacting with his followers and good-naturedly taunting other online marketers (like @sugarrae). Web contractions (“srsly 4 rlz ZOMG”…ugh) notwithstanding, he updates his twitter feed regularly with informative posts and good advice.

@danzarella

“The original social media scientist” ,Dan Zarrella, certainly makes a good case for his title. His Twitter feed is full of links to great articles to keep his followers up to date on the bleeding edge of online marketing. He does a fair amount of engaging with his followers without tweeting too much and clogging up your feed. Dan’s Twitter feed is continually updated with well-written, concise tweets that will add a lot to your knowledge of what’s going on in the social media world.

@mattcutts

I originally started following Matt Cutts on Twitter hoping he would get drunk and post the end-all-be-all tip for ranking number one organically. While that hasn’t happened, Matt does post very analytical and informative Tweets about what’s going on with his web spam team and Google in general. Matt also likes to post links to his his question-and-answer videos. The videos are usually really well done and if you follow Matt on Twitter you’ll be more likely to watch them when they’re released.

@eprussakov

Geno Prussakov’s Twitter feed is like a compendium of pertinent articles from the web on social media and affiliate marketing. He tweets links to his Affiliate Marketing blog every time there’s a new post, and he links to several 3rd party online marketing articles every day. Geno is a staple in affiliate advertising and worth a quick follow.

@pearsonified

Chris Pearson gained all the notoriety he needs by creating WordPress’s much-touted Thesis Theme, a powerful, easy-to-implement theme that is streamlined for SEO. He makes the most from his Twitter community by providing a wealth of updates and information while taking the time to interact with his followers. The same charisma which lands Chris speaking gigs, panel spots, and interviews makes his feed an informative and entertaining resource for anyone involved in web development and SEO.

@bmassey

Brian Massey runs the ConversionScientist.com, where he helps people convert web traffic into leads and sales. Brian’s tweets are yet another great resource Brian provides to help you hone your skills at turning Facebook likes and web traffic into revenue. Keeping it light and interesting, Brian engages his followers through informative and entertaining tweets.

@MissyWard

Missy Ward, an “online marketing Swiss Army Knife” and budding oenologist, runs the kind of Twitter feed for which Twitter was invented: informative, communicative, a dash of personal information, even lightly philosophical. She much like her blog, Missy tweets about “affiliate marketing, social media, and other stuff [she] digs”.

@btabke

Brett Tabke is the founder of PubCon and Webmaster World, both long-standing staples in online marketing. His Twitter byline says “Celebrating 27 years of Social Media!” which, in contrast to other, older industries, is like saying you were around for Creation. He is an experienced hand at this, an online marketing legend in fact, and he shares all kinds of valuable news and tips interspersed with shoutouts to his favorite burger joint. Make sure to follow Brett if you plan on attending PubCon!

@affiliatetip

Shawn Collins is a cofounder of Affiliate Summit, a popular industry conference for affiliate marketing that is attended by the best and brightest in the industry. Shawn tweets a wide variety of 3rd party articles, videos and links to his own blog posts. He’s very engaged with people following him on Twitter and someone you should be following if you plan on attending Affiliate Summit!

@Rhea

Rhea Drysdale is a cofounder, with @LisaBarone, of OutspokenMedia.com, which provides their lucky clients with a wide range of expert Internet Marketing Services. Her Twitter feed is a mix of fantastic information and humorous Internet memes that make social media such a compelling medium (her profile pic is her face on She-Ra…enough said). She links to great content and industry events and is a must-follow for anyone serious about marketing online.

@GregBoser

Greg Boser is the SVP of Search Services at BlueGlass.com. BlueGlass.com is what happened when four leading consultancies and software companies joined forces in 2001. These formerly independent companies work together now to fulfill the Internet marketing needs of their clients. Greg’s Twitter feed is updated regularly and he often interacts with his followers. It is just the right mix of pertinent web marketing information and casual what-I-had-for-lunch tweets into his feed to make him appear like The Guy Next Door who just happens to be an Internet expert.

@randfish

Straight out of Seattle, Rand Fishkin, is the CEO and Co-Founder of SEOmoz.org. Rand is a very talented marketer with enough legend behind his name to capture +30k followers. Rand lives up to his reputation with his amazing tweets of insightful information about startups, SEO, and social media. Rand is good about interacting with his legion followers and tweets links to some really great articles.

@DaveNaylor

Dave Naylor (davidnaylor.co.uk) is the head of Search Marketing at Bronco.co.uk. Bronco.co.uk is a leading search marketing and web developing agency in the UK. His Twitter feed is an insightful look into SEO and covers quite a variety of subjects. Round out your followers with a little British SEO flair with Dave Naylor.

@dannysullivan

Danny is the founder of a whole host of popular search and online marketing properties including SearchEngineLand.com and the popular SMX conference. Danny’s tweets cover commentary about Google, SEO, PPC, and all other aspects of search engines and search marketing. Danny is pretty good at keeping up with interacting with his more than 135,000 followers on Twitter. His tweets are relevant and catchy and definitely worth reading.

@vanessafox

Author of the book “Marketing in the age of Google”, Vanessa Fox is a Seattle resident fascinated by online marketing. Her feed is personable, but refreshingly useful, as well. She answers questions , tweets, retweets, shares good stories, and seems to have a subtle sense of humor in it all as well.

@rustybrick

Barry Schwartz is the owner of rustybrick.com—a website that offers all kinds of compter-ish internet-ish services, from web design to SEO Marketing to web hosting.
Barry’s Twitter could use a little more interaction with fellow Twitter users, but his feed is good for videos, news, and other fun links.

@shoemoney

Jeremy Schoemaker is @shoemoney. He’s a self-described author, blogger, and managing partner of ShoeMoney.com. ShoeMoney.com is his blog and he has over 30,000 readers for a reason: he and his business partner, David Dellanave, launched AuctionAds—an eBay affiliate marketing service that won them several awards and, in the end, the sale of most of the company. His blog documents his “ups and downs in the world of online marketing”. He’s made millions and likes to give advice. His Twitter feed is comprised mostly of funny little Tweets, retweets, and direct communications with his followers. But be warned, his Twitter feed is iced with sporadic (hilarious) smack-talking, too.

@tamar

Tamar is a well known social media consultant and trainer whose tweets are full of interesting links to great articles on online marketing. Tamar is well engaged with other Twitter users and has a good dash of personal tweets.

@robsnell

Rob Snell was one of my favorite speakers at PubCon Austin and a great SEO mind. Rob is super engaged with other Twitter users even to the point where you think his @ key is stuck. Weaved within this maze of @ tweets are some good gems with links to SEO articles Rob has written or found laying around the Internet.

@aaronwall

Aaron Wall is the author of the ever famous SEO Book. Aaron posts links to a ton of good articles both associated with seobook.com and other online marketing information resources. Aaron is very engaged with other Twitter users.

@andybeal

Andy Beal’s ukulele playing and Taekwondo practicing (a black belt!) make him the kind of want to have the guy as a friend (and not just because he’s the founder of Marketing Pilgrim!). Andy is CEO of Trackur.com, author of Radically Transparent and a reputation management expert. His Twitter feed is filled with a good dose of retweets as well as direct communication with his followers. He tweets interesting links to online marketing articles and has a healthy level of tweets dedicated to travel.

Again, if you have your own favorite online marketer to follow on Twitter please post their Twitter ID in the comments!

I hope you enjoyed the list and I look forward to seeing you on Twitter! @David_Vogelpohl

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily those of Marketing Pilgrim.

Top 25 Online Marketers to Follow on Twitter

Top 25 Online Marketers to Follow on Twitter
KDB – More Post

Tags: article, clients, conversion, general, search, seo, Tips
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3 Benefits of Content Promotion for B2B Online Marketing

business, info, marketing, Tips | Posted by novel-notes.info

Apr 16 2012

“Build it and they will come”.

It’s a well-known and often over-used quote from the movie, “Field of Dreams”, used to describe the fallacy of great content as a marketing tool. In my opinion, great content isn’t great until someone shares it. And they share it with their friends, and so on and so on.

With content marketing, great content is the beginning not the end objective. An effective content marketing strategy includes information about target buyer personas, search keywords and social topics, an editorial plan and a plan for promoting all the high quality content being created. Today’s Internet and social web are full of information overload. Buyers can easily be distracted and so it’s important to stand out and stay connected.

Here are 3 basic reasons for B2B marketers to plan content promotion:

Many B2B buyers rely on information to be pushed to them because finding and trusting new sources on an ongoing basis isn’t practical.
Promoting content through social channels can lead to exposure, traffic and links. Links from social channels and web pages can influence search engine visibility, adding an additional source of relevant traffic.
Content promotion can inspire syndication and citations from other blogs and online media. Getting on the radar of other influential bloggers can lead to inclusion in future stories, blogroll links and engagement.

A particularly effective model for coordinated Social SEO and Content promotion is the Hub and Spoke. Depending on your content strategy and target audience, the hub might be a resource center, a blog, Facebook Fan Page, YouTube Channel or a Website. The spokes are distribution and promotion channels leading to off-site networks or communities. Each spoke has it’s own unique content and social network characteristics. When coordinated, relevant content promotion across the right mix of channels can amplify overall distribution, reach and engagement.

Understanding the communities of interest and involving them in both content development (crowdsourcing, social engagement, polls) and promotion (Retweets, shares, comments, links) keeps topics fresh and relevant as well as interesting for the community to promote to others.

If you’re a B2B online marketer, how are you including content promotion in your content marketing strategy? Do you plan targeted promotion or do you promote to the same channels every time? Do you plan on the repurposing of your content as well?

(Photo credit “arukasa” – Flickr)

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Tags: a-plan-for, communities, content promotion, content-as-well, friends, influential, info, marketing, online-marketing, opinion, repurposing, search-engine, your-content
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Are You Ready for Knowledge Engine Optimization?

business, info, marketing, money | Posted by novel-notes.info

Apr 15 2012

In what some may see as a matter of semantics, Google has made a shift in how they name positions internally with the word search being replaced by the term knowledge. When I first read this I wanted to dismiss it but on second thought that would be pretty hard to do since Google makes almost all its money from search.

So why this shift in terminology from the search engine giant? It could be that the Larry Page era is truly about taking Google beyond the current confines of being just a search company. They have been trying this for a while with various product introductions and little if any true success especially in the area of social. Maybe the shift in titles is about a sea change in the organization to not think search first?

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch reports

Leadership of Google search, like most other Google products, was previously split between Marissa Mayer as product lead and Udi Manber as engineering lead. Late last year Mayer moved over to run Local. Alan Eustace now runs the group, and Manber reports to him. There’s a single leader of the group, and he reports to Page.

Page, say our sources, has for a long while been thinking of search as much more than Google’s original mission to “organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” His goal is about more than organizing that information, though. It’s also about enhancing people’s understanding and facilitating the creation of knowledge.

Ok, that sounds reasonable. After all, search really is about knowledge acquisition no matter how silly that knowledge is. Helping people truly use and apply the newly acquired knowledge is an interesting take.

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I suspect that Google is seeing what is really happening in the world of the social web and they are working to minimize the impact on their business. Their attempts at social have been so widely criticized and lampooned that they may be seeing that they will never be a real social player. The truth is, they may not need to be.

The idea that search is being supplanted by social is ridiculous. Search is always going to be valuable. Search will be influenced in some part by social signals but the idea of pure search is not going anywhere any time soon.

One of things that is most powerful about search is its almost anti-social nature. Do you really want to ask all of your friends all the time about everything you have questions about? The appearance of anonymity and privacy in search (emphasis on appearance) is one of the most important aspects of it. A person can search without worrying what others might think or know.

Oh and what about those crazy souls that want to advance themselves beyond their existing social circle’s knowledge base? Search is the way for someone to expand beyond where they currently are and beyond the limitations of the existing group of contacts they have. Let’s face it, we give other people way too much credit in the social realm for knowing more than they do. We throw around terms like expert as if it were a common occurrence and in the process practically devalue to term. If anyone is directly equating being social with getting smarter then you are limiting growth potential in a huge way.

It will be interesting to see how this kind of seemingly subtle shift in terminology impacts how Google looks at itself and its world from here on out. Just think about what they are saying by removing their bread and butter term (search) from the title of the person overseeing that operation.

The winds are shifting a bit and it’s a good idea to pay close attention.

Are You Ready for Knowledge Engine Optimization?

Are You Ready for Knowledge Engine Optimization?
KDB – More Post

Tags: a-long-while, a-real-social, a-single-leader, business, friends, group, people, search, seo, shift, time, world
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Twitter’s Play for TweetDeck Looks Complete

business, general, marketing, money | Posted by novel-notes.info

Apr 13 2012

We reported a few weeks ago that there were rumblings about Twitter purchasing third party Twitter platform provider TweetDeck. Well those rumblings are now ‘confirmed’ as a deal and it could mean some changes for other third party Twitter platforms out there like Seesmic, HootSuite and Ubermedia.

TechCrunch reports

Twitter has acquired TweetDeck, we’ve heard from a source with knowledge of the deal, and the transaction will be announced in the next few days. The $40 million – $50 million purchase price includes both cash and Twitter stock, says our source.

In February we reported that an acquisition of TweetDeck by Bill Gross’ UberMedia was all but done, in the $25 – $30 million range. And that deal was in fact all but done. But Twitter quickly provided an unsolicited counter offer, and TweetDeck was in play again. TechCrunch EU has the full story on how that played out.

Couple this move with the general announcement by Twitter that told developers to consider other options for making money via Twitter other than these platforms and you can see that Twitter is starting to bring everything ‘in-house’. It may be necessary for them to do that in order to fully capitalize on the business opportunity they have. Also, investors are likely getting anxious to see if Twitter can generate the kind of revenue they thought it could.

Of course, having to watch Facebook fire up its money printing operation every day makes it even more difficult to sit and watch Twitter play the long slow road to revenue. One has to suspect that the heat is being turned up for Twitter to go from a great way to learn about news to a great way to make a ton of cash.

As for the UberMedia threat that many feel are the beginnings of a Twitter competitor, this may have stopped one part of their strategy but it’s not likely that they will go away. The longer that Twitter drags its feet on a revenue generating path the greater the chance of someone else coming in and offering another option.

Just think back as to how it seemed like MySpace was the king of the social media hill until Facebook built a better mousetrap. Could the same happen to Twitter as they make the mistakes that another could turn into the next generation of microblogging?

What do you think?