If you haven’t heard yet, Vine is now available on Android and is now surpassing Instagram in total Twitter shares, reports MarketingLand.

Vine  is an app that lets you creates 6-second videos. The app’s description invites you to “Create short, beautiful, looping videos in a simple and fun way for your friends and family to see.”  You then can load your Vine videos on to Twitter or other social accounts.

Vine was previously available only to Apple mobile device users (iPhone, iPad etc.), where it was downloaded by 13 million people and became so popular that Twitter acquired it in October 2012.

According to Twitter, 12 million Vine videos are posted to the microblogging site daily.

Some might doubt the marketing power of a video that lasts only seconds.  But the same doubts might have been raised about photo sharing app Instagram a year ago before Facebook paid a billion dollars for it.   Here are some tips from the community for marketing using Vine videos.

Marketing With Vine

Animate Your Images- Social Media Today

Vine provides an easy way to create animation on a mobile device. By stopping and starting the video while recording, you can make creative animated videos like Lowe’s video of ants invading a sandbox and Urban Outfitters’ dancing sneakers, writes blogger Julie Blakely.

Keep Your Story Short- YayaConnection

With the perceived short attention span of the younger generation, ages 18 to 24, and the busyness of the average Web surfer or mobile user, Vine is seen as an ideal way to tell your company’s story these days. Analytics specialist Bridget Kelly introduces us to the 6 second history of denim at The Gap or a six second love story between a pineapple and a bottle of Malibu Rum.

Get Your Customers Involved- Big Ideas Blog

There’s no reason to stop with just making your own Vine video clips either. In this post, Megan Totka, chief editor for ChamberofCommerce.com suggests the ease of use of the Vine app makes it perfect for encouraging fans of your business or brand to get creative too. For example, create a contest for your customers to send in a video using your product in imaginative ways and give prizes to the winners.

Start With a Plan- Smart Insights

Just because a Vine video is incredibly easy to make and is only six seconds long, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be planned out, says Mark Donington, Lead Designer of Higher Ground Creative. Donington suggests starting with a narrative and planning what you want to say before you start recording.

Think Elevator Pitch- Silicon Beach Training

It might sound strange to think about a video this way. But just as an elevator pitch forces you to share your business idea in less time than it takes to reach the executive suite, a short video requires focus. Think about what you could do to demonstrate the greatness of your product in 6 seconds or less.

Make a Lasting Impression- Hubspot

Six seconds may be too little time for a lengthy marketing message, but it’s enough time to create a lasting impression with a truly creative video. Think about a way you could use those six seconds to create a memorable impression of your brand with a story or series of images customers will never forget. Here are 15 real world examples from branding expert Hannah Fleishman.

Focus on Visual Elements- Reel SEO

Focus on the visual elements of your brand. This could be easier for some businesses than for others. For example, later this month 20th Century Fox released the highly anticipated film “The Wolverine” starring Hugh Jackman, and two months ago issued a Vine teaser of the new film, generating buzz. Your business may not be as visually stunning as a Hollywood blockbuster, but look for ways to tell your story in an exciting and visual way.

Remember Your Marketing Basics- Hyperbot

Vine may be a new marketing tool, but in the end, it’s not so different from other tools that have come before. Though blogger Clyde Smith is talking specifically about how musicians can use Vine to market their work online, the principles are the same. Consider what techniques have worked in previous online video platforms like YouTube and don’t forget to be creative.

Always Remember the Social Aspect- Social Media Examiner

Yes, Vine is an app allowing you to easily create six-second videos. But it is also one of a new breed of social media tools acquired by Twitter and similar to other social tools like Instagram. When shared via Twitter or on other sites, Vine can be a powerful way to engage with your customers. Kristi Hines gives you some ideas on how to do it.

Be Sure You Have a Strategy in Place- Mittcom

You can use Vine to market your brand or business in so many ways. From giving customers a look behind the scenes in your business to giving a preview of new products to heighten anticipation. Remember, though, that like any marketing campaign, you’ll want a strategy in place first to make your efforts more effective.

The post Marketing With Vine: Leveraging the Power of 6-Second Videos appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Unless you enjoy working by candlelight on a manual typewriter, the power bill is a necessary evil for your small business. It's also one of the last areas business owners consider when it comes to reducing expenses—but it should be at the top of the list.

There are plenty of ways you can save big on your energy costs, while helping the environment at the same time. From small changes in your habits to investments that pay for themselves, here are some great energy-saving tips for your business.

Your Green Office

Let There Be Light (Sometimes)

It's easy to overlook the lights in your business. You turn them on when it's dark, or simply out of habit at the beginning of the day and (hopefully) turn them off when you leave. But if you make a conscious effort to control excessive light use, you can save quite a bit on your energy bill. Here's how.

Inexpensive and Free:

• Turn off lights in any room that isn't in use—and remind employees to do the same.
• Use "free" light by opening curtains and blinds whenever the sun is shining, and turning off the bulbs.
• Be aware of over-lighting. Just as insufficient light causes problems, too much light can lead to glare, eye strain and headaches.
• Replace incandescent (standard) light bulbs with energy-saving compact florescent lamps (CFLs), which not only use less energy, but also last 10 times longer before burning out.

Energy-Saving Lighting Investments:

• Replace lighting fixtures with newer, energy-efficient models.
• If you have exit signs in your business, upgrade to Energy Star qualified LED signs.
• Install occupancy sensors in bathrooms, conference rooms, and other areas that aren't used continually to automatically turn lights on when people enter, and off when they leave.
• Use photocells or timers to control outdoor lighting.

Warm-Ups and Cool-Downs

When you're dealing with Mother Nature's mood swings all year, you need a way to control the temperature inside your business. Heating and air conditioning often represent the biggest chunk of money on your electric bill, but there are ways to reduce the burden and still keep things comfortable inside. Here's how.

Heating Tips:

• Keep curtains and blinds open at windows that face the sun when it's cold. This contributes solar heat to your interior, and reduces the operating burden on your heating system.
• In the winter, use fans to pull warmer air down from the ceilings.
• Lower the thermostat when you leave for the day. A drop of just 5 degrees for 8 hours or more can save up to 10 percent of your heating costs.
• Get a bi-annual "tune-up" for your HVAC (heating, ventilating and air-conditioning) system, at the beginning of heating and cooling season.

Cooling Tips:

• Close curtains and blinds, or use solar screens or solar film, to block direct sunlight from entering your building on warm days.
• Use fans to keep things cooler and reduce or delay the use of air conditioning.
• Keep external doors closed when your A/C is in use.

Things That Plug In

Computers, equipment, and appliances seem to run on money instead of power. Fortunately, this is also one of the biggest areas you can save energy costs in. Here's how.

Plug-In Tips:

• When computers are not in use, set them to kick over to sleep mode, or turn off the monitors manually. Screen savers do not actually reduce a monitor's energy use.
• Unplug computers, laptops, and other office equipment at the end of the day, or use power strips and turn them off. Electronics continue to draw power as long as they're plugged in, even when they're off.
• Battery chargers also continually draw power when they're plugged in, so unplug them when batteries are fully charged, or when they're not in use.
• Whenever possible, replace electronic equipment and office appliances with Energy Star qualified products for maximum energy efficiency.

How do you conserve energy in your small business?

Green Office Concept Photo via Shutterstock

The post Your Green Office: Energy-Saving Tips for Small Businesses appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Google is set to launch a new app to help advertisers create Web ads and engaging Web content assets, using a standard called HTML5.  The new tool is called Google Web Designer.

Neal Mohan, Google’s Vice President of Display Advertising, pre-announced it on the official DoubleClick Advertiser blog:

“To help advertisers and publishers more seamlessly unlock the potential of cross-device programs, we are investing in a new HTML5 creative development tool – Google Web Designer. Available in the coming months, Google Web Designer will empower creative professionals to create cutting-edge advertising as well as engaging web content like sites and applications – for free. Google Web Designer will be seamlessly integrated with DoubleClick Studio and AdMob, greatly simplifying the process of building HTML5 creative that can be served through Google platforms.”

Google Web Designer is not exactly what the names implies — and that has created some confusion on the Web.  Several sites reported it was  a tool to design websites.

However, its main purpose appears not to be about creating websites. Google already offers Google Sites. Rather, Google Web Designer was pitched by Mohan as a tool to create rich media advertisements at last week’s Think DoubleClick industry event.

This new product appears created to address the growth of mobile devices.  Currently the DoubleClick Studio contains Flash tools for building rich media ads.

According to Mohan in a video address to the audience at the Think DoubleClick event, rich media ads are hot.  There has been a “50% increase in engagement rating for rich media ads over the course of the past several months,” he says.

However, Flash-based creative has some limitations.  It’s not viewable on many mobile devices such as tablets (including Google’s own Android platform), without users  going through complicated work-arounds or installing special plugins.   HTML5 is important to enable rich media such as video-based creative to be readily viewable on mobile devices.

Google Web Designer will allow agencies and advertisers to build advertising creative that can run across all modern devices and modern browsers in HTML5 format.  It will be available within DoubleClick and as a stand alone tool.

Google Web Designer Not the Only DoubleClick Improvement

This new product is one more step in the growing range of advertising-related product offerings Google is building out under the DoubleClick brand.  They were previewed last week at the Think DoubleClick event, after a brief review of the online advertising industry.

As Mohan points out, people have been predicting — wrongly — the demise of display advertising almost since the beginning. “We’ve seen how all that’s turned out,” he notes humorously, adding that display advertising is a $200 billion industry opportunity.

Mohan walked through the online-advertising history, starting with DoubleClick for Publishers, an application that started 15 years ago and three years after the first display ad debuted on the Web.  Google acquired DoubleClick in 2008.

Google AdSense, the Google ads that publishers place on their websites and the product many think of when they think about Google advertising, is 10 years old.

If you’re not familiar with DoubleClick for Publishers, it is an ad serving program that intelligently delivers ads on a website, tracks performance metrics such as click-through rates, provides reports, and more. AdSense ads can be delivered through DoubleClick for Publishers, or publishers can deliver their own direct-sold ads or house ads.

There’s a main version of DoubleClick for Publishers.  And there’s also a free version called DFP for Small Business (Small Business Trends uses DFP for Small Business to serve ads on this site).

In other news last week, Mohan announced Campaign Manager, which is the renamed and upgraded advertiser tool platform.  Recognizing the importance of social, Google also has integrated Wildfire into DoubleClick, to get a better sense of how your social presence feeds into your advertising efforts. He says this is just the first step of the integration between Wildfire and DoubleClick — more to come.

Also announced was better integration between advertising using YouTube video and DoubleClick.

Image: video still from Think DoubleClick

Correction:  Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick was announced in 2007 but not completed until 2008 after regulatory approval was given.

The post Google Announces Web Designer, Enhancements to DoubleClick appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Visual Concept Photo via Shutterstock

It’s time to reevaluate your content marketing game-plan. If you’re still pumping out articles and blog posts that consist of no more than a catchy title, some bulleted lists and a few bold headlines, you’re going to need to step it up. It’s a visual world, and those that want to establish an effective online presence need to keep up with the latest in the online content arena. Consider visuals and visual content marketing your new content marketing frontier.

The fact is, there’s just too much text out there. People don’t have the time to read about all of the things they want (or need) to learn about over the Internet. Cutting corners by condensing lengthy text content and spacing out short paragraphs to maintain readers’ attention can only do so much. Online text can be extremely well-written and engaging, but users are still going to rapidly scan through content, quickly moving on to the next shiny article that catches their eye.

If you want your content to flourish, you’ve got to start incorporating a variety of visuals throughout your text. Of course, the quality of your textual content still remains important; however, search engines and the general public are after more than just words. Visuals rank highly. On top of that they’re also highly sharable: Think about it, it’s way easier to share an image, video or comic on social media and other venues than it is to share a standard 500-2500 word article.

Furthermore, if you do share the latter, people aren’t going to get the main idea simply by glancing at it. With visuals it’s a different story–subject matter can be absorbed through just a glance, unlike a slew of paragraphs.

Just Remember This About Your Visual Content

One rule that should be stated before we go any further is that it is extremely important that you supply original visual content. The same rules that apply to textual content marketing apply to visual content marketing: Don’t copy someone else’s idea or design. Be creative or your content won’t make it on the public’s radar (or Google’s for that matter).

If you find that someone else’s visual is just too perfect not to use in your content marketing, at least give credit to the source you got it from.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to some examples that will get your creative juices flowing. Below are some ideas for visual content marketing that will popularize your content.

Visual Content Marketing

Infographics

Data driven content is is key to pleasing both readers and search engines. Infographics are a great way to combine facts like stats and percentages with helpful visuals that drive the point home. They’re also a great way to teach a process or set of facts that is hard to conceptualize.

An infographic explains a popular topic in an engaging, visual way and is much more effective than an article on the content marketing process. Readers are more likely to give more of their time to something that’s visual in nature.

Graphic visual representations are worth many words, and they can convey things that would take way too much text to get the point across. What’s more: Like most other visuals, they’re easily sharable.

Memes

Memes are a tough racket, but they’re a hot ticket. Basically, a meme is a humorous visual that spreads rapidly through Internet-based sharing platforms like blogs, e-mail, video sharing sites and social media. If you don’t have the slightly awkward, effortlessly witty, ironic touch that meme generators tend to have, then you might not ever come up with a hilarious or genius meme that will get proliferated over the Web.

However, you’ll never know until you try.

Graphs and Charts

Charts and graphs are another way to drive a fact or a point home with data-purposed content. People love statistics, but they especially love looking at the numbers when they’re actually looking at the numbers.

Don’t just splat statistics out on the page, visualize them with a color-coded bar graph or an innovative piechart

Cartoon Photo via Shutterstock

Cartoons and Comics

There’s a reason people turn to the comics first in the newspaper: They’re way more fun to read than the text that they are sandwiched between.

Try using comics or cartoons to engage your readers and keep them interested in what you’re trying to say. As users are scrolling through your posts or articles, a comic can stop them in their tracks. The effect of cartoons and comics helps readers absorb a decent amount of what an article’s purpose is because those visual cues keep readers going.

Maps

Maps are great visuals for informational content, and if you can color-code your map and add more visuals to make it more interesting, that’s even better. Many times a map can be a great indicator of data driven content. A map is really just a type of infographic that conveys the purpose of a topic with very little text; however, they’re extremely effective.

For example, a map of Chicago detailing the high-risk crime areas can be color coded to get the point across with virtually no text. By just looking at the map for a moment users can see information in an instant that would take a few paragraphs to explain.

Videos

Of course, videos are also a great visual tool to use throughout your articles, and search engines love them. They’re also highly sharable. You just have to remember to keep it original and professional.

If you’re going to go to the trouble to produce a unique video, you might as well do it right. Hire a team of experts to plan, shoot and edit your video. Think about adding some original music, even. A well-done video will get you respect in your industry, and it will impress your customer base.

Conclusion

Again, as with any content marketing, what you produce should be original. If you don’t have the experienced personal to publish unique content of your own, like infographics, comics, charts, and maps; hire a graphic designer. It’s a small investment for what could be a big opportunity in your content marketing campaign.

Visual content marketing should now be your main objective if you’re out to better your online presence. Inputing visual aids into your content is also proven to get your site ranked higher in the nations top search engines. So if your content marketing objective is SEO, then visual content marketing should be number one on your to do list.

Know that if you really want make a point–or an impression–on the world wide Web, you’d better immediately start using a variety of visual techniques in your content marketing that capture an audience’s attention, inviting them to share your imagery with the click of a mouse.

If you play your cards right–you could even go viral.

The post Why You Should Be Focusing On Visual Content Marketing appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you’re looking for a large tablet that turns into a laptop, or vice versa, Sony introduces one that has it all — for a price.

The Vaio Duo 13 is a tablet with a 13-inch screen.  Set it on a flat surface and it transforms from a tablet into a laptop (or all-in-one PC) with a single sliding motion.

It’s an update to the company’s Duo 11 from last year, with a  larger screen.  It comes in just two colors — what the company calls Carbon Black and Carbon White finishes.

As tablets go, Dan Ackerman of CNET pronounces it a “little bulky.”   That is true.  But if you need a tablet to double as a laptop with a physical keyboard so that you get two types of devices in one package, this Vaio Duo 13 could offer a versatile solution.  At about three-quarters of an inch thick and weighing under 3 pounds, it still is portable.

Vaio Duo 13 – Features That Resonate With Business Users

The Vaio Duo 13 follows the hybrid tablet trend we’ve been watching avidly. Hybrids seem to resonate with business people.  Whether there’s enough interest for hybrids to catch on permanently as a device category remains to be seen, however.

With the Vaio Duo 13, there is no keyboard dock to attach. Instead the keyboard is concealed under the screen when in tablet configuration,  waiting to be slid in place when needed. Remembering your keyboard is one less thing to think about for entrepreneurs or other mobile professionals when carrying your tablet with you.

Business users will also appreciate that it runs Windows 8. It boasts a 10+ hour battery life.

Here’s another feature business users may appreciate: like other tablets, the Vaio Duo 13 has a rear camera for taking vivid photos. But IDG News also reports that the device’s image capture software can also double as a scanner for documents.

Take a photo of a document and then use the Vaio Duo 13′s imaging software to “straighten it out” like a scanned document. Optical character recognition software can even recognize the text from the scanned item.

You can also write on the screen with a stylus,  so you can take notes while using it as a tablet.

Another cool feature is a so-called “constant connection” which means that, like smartphones, the computer stays connected to the Internet downloading emails and updating applications even while in sleep mode.

In his review (video below), Ackerman also praises the easy-to-use keyboard and even the narrow but functional touchpad mouse (“it’s better than not having one”). However, he points out that the slant of the screen when the device is in laptop configuration, cannot be adjusted and may not be for everyone.

The Vaio Duo 13 just went on sale in the U.S. and it is pricey at $1,399.  However, the device features the new Intel Haswell-based microprocessor,  giving it considerable functionality, reports Venture Beat.

Image: Sony

The post Sony Introduces a 13 Inch Tablet That Slides Up Into A Laptop appeared first on Small Business Trends.

A few weeks ago, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) admitted that some of its employees improperly subjected to disproportionate scrutiny to conservative groups seeking to set up non-profit status.

While you might think that the scandal has little to do with small business, in the strange world of Washington — where everything influences everything else — the scandal has the potential to benefit small business owners in several ways.

The biggest potential gain for small business owners lies in the ammunition the scandal provides Republicans in their effort to challenge the Affordable Care Act (ACA). While the GOP has thus far failed to stop the new health care law, the scandal gives Republicans the opportunity to hinder the tax agency's efforts to enforce the law. By hammering away at the theme that the IRS cannot be trusted, the GOP may be able deny the tax authority the funds it needs to administer the new law.

That, it turns out, will benefit small business owners, who tend to oppose the ACA. A Gallup Survey of small business owners conducted in April revealed that 48 percent think the new law will be bad for business, while only 9 percent think it will be good, and 39 percent think it will have no impact.

The cost of the new law, and the benefits of any reduced enforceability, will fall largely on small businesses because almost all big companies provide employee health insurance. In 2012, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 98 percent of businesses with 200 or more employees offered employee health insurance, but only 61 percent of companies with fewer than 200 employees did.

The scandal also adds to the credibility of the Tea Party groups, who are major supporters of small business. Conservative organizations claimed months ago that they had been singled out for unfair treatment, but many were skeptical of their claims. Being the victim of the IRS has boosted the favorability of the Tea Party movement, a CNN/ORC International survey suggests. Between the March poll (before the news of the scandal broke) and the latest poll, the Tea Party's favorability increased nine percentage points, CNN reports.

If the Tea Party can capitalize on the scandal to garner support in the mid-term elections, their electoral success should work to the advantage of small business owners. Tea Party supporters are more likely than other voters to believe that cutting taxes on small business is a good approach to job creation, a 2010 Winston Group survey revealed. Moreover, nearly two-thirds of small business owners believe in the Tea Party idea that the government is too expansive, as compared to less than half of all Americans, A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll showed.

Then there's the effect of the scandal on IRS audits themselves. The tax agency might need to cut back on audits in the wake of the scandal, as it seeks to rebuild its trust with the American people. That would be a welcome respite for successful small business owners who have seen an increase in the rate of IRS examinations in recent years. According to the IRS's annual data book, the audit rate for business returns of between $200,000 and $1 million jumped from 2.8 percent in 2008 to 3.7 percent in 2012.

Perhaps a corollary of the proposition that "politics makes strange bedfellows" should be: "politics creates unexpected linkages."

The post How the IRS Scandal Might Benefit Small Business appeared first on Small Business Trends.

The constant evolution of entrepreneurship is one of the attributes that makes the career path so exciting: A fluid and flexible job description, expansive industry boundaries and technological innovations that repeatedly make business better. The unpredictability of the pendulum profession can be very detrimental, but equally rewarding as well.

Which is why it’s so important to keep up with all the countless changes. And education, like every other aspect of the entrepreneurship backend, needs to be effective in both time and cost.

We asked members of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invitation-only organization comprised of the country's most promising young entrepreneurs, the following question to find out what’s on their virtual curriculum:

“With so many great (and cost effective) eLearning programs available on the Web on sites like Udemy and Skillshare, what are some classes that you would recommend that new Internet entrepreneurs invest their money in?”

Here's what YEC community members had to say:

1. Steve Blank’s “How to Build a Startup”

“I encourage every entrepreneur to go through Steve Blank’s “How to Build a Startup” course on Udacity. It’s really the best tool out there to help you effectively learn how to use customer discovery, the business model canvas and lean principles in building your startup. So make sure to take (and complete) the course — and remember, do the homework!” ~ Eric Koester, Zaarly

2. Sales Courses

“It doesn’t matter if you’re advertising, raising VC or working sponsorships or direct sales — if you don’t know how to read people and situations and turn leads into sales, then your ventures are going to suffer. There are a ton of great mentors and courses out there; look for ones that emphasize practical steps and not just the theory of how to persuade and sell. Your revenues will thank you.” ~ Kelly Azevedo, She’s Got Systems

3. General Assembly Online Classes

“We like to stream various General Assembly online classes for the entire office to view. Developers, designers, strategists and account services can all benefit from learning about other roles, including UX, content creation, public speaking and general product classes. We value the variety and relevancy of classes offered.” ~ Bobby Emamian, Prolific Interactive

4. Free Courses

“Skillshare and Udemy are two great eLearning programs, but there are a wealth of others available for newbie entrepreneurs, and some are absolutely free. There are classes offered by Khan Academy (general learning), Code School (coding assistance), KelbyTraining.com (photography), JavaScript Playground (JavaScript help) and more.” ~ Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

5. Statistics Classes

“I know the statistics classes I took in college (at least those that I didn’t change majors to avoid) only gave an introduction to the topic. The more direction you can get out of the numbers you have, though, the easier it is to make business decisions. A few in-depth stats classes are always a good choice.” ~ Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

6. Inc.’s Course List

“As an entrepreneur, the courses recommended by Inc. are your best marketing tool. You need to be able to sell your ideas and yourself to not only clients, but recruits, investors and potential partners as well. You need to be confident, engaged and prepared. The Inc.-recommended courses can help you get there.” ~ Nicolas Gremion, Free-eBooks.net

7. Marie Forleo’s “B-School”

“I highly recommend B-School, founded by Marie Forleo, for entrepreneurs or budding business owners (especially women) who want to create online businesses and lives that honor their individualism, flexibility and passions. This modern take on marketing and selling online completely changed my business and tripled my bottom line. ” ~ Melissa Cassera, Cassera Communications

8. Free Conference Videos

“If you’re a new Internet entrepreneur, save your money. Many conferences for entrepreneurs charge hundreds of dollars to attend, but they routinely post their videos online for free after the conference. Check out free videos from conferences like Big Omaha, LessConf, MicroConf, Startup Lessons Learned and LeWeb. Also, check out Foundation, a great entrepreneur interview series from Kevin Rose.” ~ Clay Hebert, Spindows

9. Success Academy

“Success Academy is a solid learning platform for entrepreneurs. They are more about conveying the real advice that has led to many of their facilitators’ successes.” ~ John Hall, Influence & Co.

10. Ryan Porter’s “Talk Ain’t Cheap”

“Ryan is a bestselling author, TEDx speaker and platform guru. Many don’t realize how big an opportunity public speaking events can be for building a platform. When you have an audience listening to your ideas and you are able to capture their names and emails by directing them toward free content through a platform URL, the possibility for later ninja-nurturing campaigns is tremendous. ” ~ Michael Costigan, Youth Leadership Specialist

Electronic Learning Photo via Shutterstock

The post 10 Effective eLearning Options for Entrepreneurs appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Facebook says it is trying to make its advertising products easier to use and more understandable for customers.

In an announcement on the official Facebook Newsroom blog last week, Fidji Simo, product manager at Facebook, wrote the company would streamline its advertising products from 27 different choices to about half that in the next six months.

The company says it decided to simplify its advertising offerings because of customer preference. In her post, Simo wrote:

Over the past year, we have been gathering feedback from marketers about our ads products. One point we heard loud and clear is that we need to simplify our product offering. As the services we provide to marketers have grown, so have our new products; while each product may be good on its own, we realized that many of them accomplish the same goals.

Though Facebook was not specific about all the advertising products likely to be eliminated, Simo did mention some that would be disappearing. And some sponsored posts associated with Facebook business pages will be affected.

Questions

One of the sponsored products scheduled to disappear is a feature called Questions. The special post offers a multiple choice question about a product or service users can respond to if they wish. But in the post, Simo said business customers would prefer to just add a question in a post and get a response in the comment section.

Offer

Another kind of sponsored post set to disappear is the Offer, wrote Simo. The Offer post includes a simple product description and “get offer” button, allowing visitors to take advantage. Again, Simo said advertisers felt using an ad explaining the offer with a link to the company Web page was simpler and more effective.

Sponsored Stories

Another type of ad post that will not so much be eliminated as consolidated is the sponsored story post. Up until now, Facebook advertisers have had to buy a separate product for the best “social context” on their sponsored posts. Often this includes information on friends or fans who have “liked” or “commented” on a sponsored post.

The added product is called “sponsored story” and is a separate purchase in addition to the post. From now on, however, Simo says Facebook will be eliminating the extra steps and adding social context with each ad purchased.

It’s unclear from Facebook at this time whether this means advertisers will be paying less for the additional social context in their ads or whether the cost of a sponsored ad will simply be part of the new advertising package. However, Simo claims data from sources like Nielsen and comScore show social context increases return on advertising and brand awareness.

A New Look

Changes are expected to make ads more consistent in appearance and to make the advertising process on Facebook simpler by reducing the number of potential ad formats. Below is Facebook’s vision of a more consistent ad format.

Most of these changes will begin in July, Simo wrote. She was less specific about what other changes the company might be making in its advertising products and services or what cost changes, if any, might be associated with the consolidation.

Reaction from the Facebook marketing community has been fairly calm.

“It's going to be OK, don't panic,” wrote Laurie Cutts, Director of Marketing for Nanigans, on the company blog last week. Nanigans is a social marketing agency specializing in helping clients with Facebook advertising.

“Yes, Sponsored Stories have been a part of our lives as marketers for quite some time now,” Cutts added. “As we've come to learn, though, social ad units, especially on Facebook, have a shelf life. For Sponsored Stories that time has come.”

What do you think? Will these changes improve your efforts to market to customers on Facebook, make them more difficult, or have little or no effect?

The post Facebook is Trying to Make Advertising Simpler appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Keeping track of your products and assets manually is a chore. Why not barcode them? The technology to create them is accessible via the Web and there are tons of free apps for smartphone users that can serve as scanners.

For the business owner who needs to get inventory organized and barcoded, this list of barcode generators is for you. Below are eleven free and low-cost tools to create either barcodes or QR codes.

QR codes are more of a marketing tactic. You have probably seen these codes in direct mail packages, in emails or on storefront windows and doors.  A QR code can suffice for certain types of inventory control, but most companies prefer barcodes for inventory management.

All of these barcode generators are free unless otherwise noted. Plus there is a useful book listed at the end of the article.

11 Barcode Generators

Barcode Generator

One of the easiest online barcode creators that I found. As you can see above, you just select the style you need or want and the software creates it.

OnlineLabels.com

OnlineLabels has both a barcode and a QR code creator. They also have a nifty Nutrition Label creator. I’m thinking of making my own low-fat potato chip label so I won’t feel guilty anymore…

Monrovia

They have a simple online tool, but also sell the fonts in their downloadable software package.

Barcodes Inc

They sell a range of barcoding equipment and label makers, but also offer barcode and QR code generators online.

TEC-IT

TEC-IT lets you download its online tool code snippet to place on your own website. They also sell a full barcode software suite for Windows, Mac, and SAP.

Wasp Barcode Generator

Wasp Barcode (above) offers a free online barcode generator, in addition to a full arsenal of  barcode technology, to help you create codes. They even email them to you after you fill out the form.

Zint Barcode Generator

The generator is hosted at SourceForge and is highly rated and only available as downloaded software. No online tool.

Barcode Generator and Overprinter

Well-rated on CNET as a top download. They have a 15-day free trial, but it is $60 to purchase a one-time license.

Smartphone Ready QR Codes for Marketing

For those who want to create smartphone-ready QR codes for marketing and sales purposes, the three online generators below are solid.

Kaywa

Kaywa is a free online QR code generator. However, they also have a robust paid plan because it has deeper analytics that it can perform.

QR Code Generator from the ZXing Project

ZXing Project is one of my favorites because they let you put all sorts of custom data into the QR code.

QR Stuff

QR Stuff is a rich site with all sorts of options to make customizing your QR code painless. As you can see above, lots of options.

Bonus: A Book on Barcodes

Matt Kostanecki, marketing guy at inFlow Inventory software, wrote an excellent, detailed book on the topic of barcodes. If you need to create a barcode system, you’ll want to check out this affordable barcode book for small businesses.  For Amazon Prime members, it’s currently free on Amazon.

With all of these free and low-cost barcode generators, there is no reason to keep doing it manually. Even if you don’t use them at the point of sale, it will help you during annual and quarterly inventory counts.

If you are considering a barcode solution, are you planning to use a smartphone as the scanner or will you purchase a stand-alone scanner?

The post 11 Barcode Generators for Managing Inventory – And for Marketing appeared first on Small Business Trends.

The so-called Internet Sales Tax isn’t dead, despite what you may have heard. Here’s what happened:

Last week, a millennial advocacy group called Generation Opportunity planned a so-called “Facebook bomb” of Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.).

Rep. Goodlatte happens to be the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which is considering the Internet Sales Tax (known officially as the Marketplace Fairness Act.)

The group claims it inundated the Republican Congressman’s Facebook page with more than 3,000 comments urging him to stall the bill in his committee so it never reaches the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives for a vote.

Setting the Record Straight

While they may have gotten the response they wanted from Goodlatte, the group apparently inferred more than the Congressman intended to say. In a statement from Generation Opportunity, it said Goodlatte told the group that the Judiciary Committee would not take up the Marketplace Fairness Act. Generation Opportunity said Goodlatte’s comment to them “effectively kills the bill,” according to the group’s release last week.

After a local Virginia TV station picked up on that story and contacted Goodlatte, the Congressman clarified his message and gave the Internet Sales Tax bill some life, but not much. He issued a statement saying,

“If any action is taken, Congress must be involved in the process and I have repeatedly said that the House Judiciary Committee is looking at alternatives that could enable states to collect sales tax revenues without opening the door to aggressive state action against out-of-state companies. Furthermore, any alternative I am working on in the House would address fairness to all businesses and consumers.”

Whatever Goodlatte means by “alternatives,” it doesn’t seem to quite add up to the killing of the bill Generation Opportunity had claimed.

Small Business Owners Still Divided

Small business owners are still divided on the Internet sales tax proposed legislation anyway.

Though it recently passed the U.S. Senate, it will need to be approved by the House before it’s sent to President Barack Obama to be signed into law. If passed as is, the legislation would require most online merchants to collect sales tax from their customers, including those in states where the merchants have no established location.

That’s good news for affiliate marketers who claim the bill is a good alternative to “affiliate nexus taxes” requiring companies like Amazon to pay sales tax if sales to its site come through affiliates based in some states.

The nexus taxes have caused some companies to discontinue association with affiliates in states where they exist, advocates for the affiliate industry say.

On the other hand, Ebay, which advocates for thousands of small merchants using its services for online selling, says the law, if passed, will be a regulatory nightmare. It could make these merchants responsible for complying with 9,600 state and local tax jurisdictions across the country depending on the location of each customer.

Where Things Stand on the Internet Sales Tax

But even if the Internet Sales Tax bill isn’t dead yet, it may still have little chance of ever passing. As we reported earlier, there is much less support for the bill in the House than in the Senate, so the bill may stall in committee with or without activist efforts.

Internet tax Photo via Shutterstock

The post Internet Sales Tax Issue Still Lives Despite Activist Claims appeared first on Small Business Trends.

I remember the first time I saw the Twitter blue Bird “chirping” image after I launched my business in late 2007. I loved it from first sight and use.

The idea of short 140 character comments and microblogging was brilliant. I don’t think any of us could have seen  the impact Twitter would have, in it’s real time, immediate ability to distribute breaking news and information. But it has transformed how fast we see it – and get it.

Says Digital Expert, Brian Solis, about TNN, the Twitter News Network:

Once again, we were reminded that…news no longer breaks, it Tweets.

Not only do we Tweet, but we follow the Twedia, have our own Twitterverse, read Twitorials, think some people are Twitless and yes, there is a Twitionary.

Social media, especially Twitter, is changing the game of journalism and allowing anyone to potentially break a story and take on the role of journalist. I learned about Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Osama Bin Laden’s deaths from Twitter. Other breaking stories include the Hudson River plane crash, the royal wedding announcement, Hurricane Sandy and the Moore Oklahoma tornado.

Twitter wants you to know a few stats about how brands use it, as it continues it’s mission to be considered as a major media company, which it is already well on it’s way to becoming:

• 200 million people are active on a 30 day basis.
• 95% of conversations about TV happen on Twitter.
• Mobile users are 78% more likely to re-tweet a brand.
• 50% of  Americans see, read or hear a tweet daily.

Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched in July as an online social networking service and microblogging service that enabled its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as “tweets.”

Twitter got it’s name, from the word twittering, which is the sound birds make when they communicate with each other. This turns out to be an apt description of the conversations and activity that happens on Twitter.

Twitter provides people with real-time public information. Even more profound is how it also helps groups of people to mimic the effortless way a flock of birds move in unison.

As I work with small businesses, entrepreneurs and professional consultants on their social media plan and messaging, I recommend Twitter as an integral part of  that plan. Twitter is an integral tool, resource and community. Especially now that smart phones, mobile and texting are exploding.

As an early adopter on Twitter (2008), I have learned much about etiquette, useability, utility and results. Amazingly, the top 15% of Twitter users account for 85% of all Tweets.

Below are 5 Twitter do’s and don’ts that can highlight or hinder you in how you stand out, get noticed and are remembered on Twitter.

5 Twitter Do’s and Don’ts

5 Twitter Do’s That Highlight You

1) Consistency

Be consistently authentic and deliver daily value.

2) Thankfulness

Thank people and show gratitude.

3) Genuineness

Tweet like you think and speak.

4) Respect

Respect the etiquette of the community and space.

5) Positivity

Vibe positivity, optimism and brand your own style.

5 Twitter Don’ts That Hinder You

1) Over Sell

Don’t over sell, over automate and under serve.

2) Spam

Don’t spam people, be disrespectful or be rude.

3) Over Tweet

Don’t over Tweet, overwhelm and under engage.

4) Vague

Don’t have an unfinished bio, bad avatar and no legitimate contact information.

5) Steal

Don’t post, re-tweet or steal content without acknowledging the source.

Although I have had some unfortunate interruptions in error on Twitter lately, I remain a staunch advocate, dedicated user and fan of the platform. If you get suspended or have any problems with Twitter, don’t panic. Here’s everything you need to know to get reinstated.

You don’t have to be on Twitter to be successful, but having Twitter in your media mix and using it strategically can enhance your business brand, reach and social media fun.  Learn more about how and why to use Twitter in these infographics.

What are your top Twitiquette do’s and don’ts?

Blue Bird Photo via Shutterstock

The post 5 Twitter Do’s and Don’ts That Highlight or Hinder You appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Retailers looking to sell more merchandise may not need more physical space to do it. They may soon be able to extend the boundaries of their brick-and-mortar shops with large digital screens — if an eBay test proves viable.

Ebay is introducing “24-hour window shops” in certain areas of New York City. The “window shops” are actually touchscreens measuring 9 feet across and 2 feet high.

They allow customers to purchase products a physical retail store may not have in stock. They will also be used to allow purchases after store hours. And they can be used in vacant storefronts or other locations, to extend the physical boundaries of brick and mortar retailers.

In fact, the test run for the new windows includes four screens in front of closed stores located in busy parts of New York City’s Soho and lower east side.

That test run began last week and will continue through July 7, Reuters reports.

Ebay partnered with Fifth & Pacific Companies Inc. for the beta run of its new shoppable windows venture. The digital store windows will allow the clothing retailer to launch its new Kate Spade Saturday fashion brand without initially opening additional physical retail stores.

“This ability for consumers to shop not only online and offline, but also locally and globally, is why eBay Inc. is particularly excited about its latest shopping innovation. With our partners at Kate Spade Saturday, we are launching four 24-hour Window Shops in Manhattan,” announced the official eBay blog.

Ebay will sell 30 items from the new fashion line via this 24-hour shopping technology, during the test period. The experience is more like shopping at a physical location than shopping online in another way too: immediacy. Purchases are delivered to customers by courier within the hour with payment managed through PayPal Here, a mobile payment service developed by Ebay.

Opportunities may be available for other retailers to take part in Ebay’s new “shoppable windows” venture once it passes the testing phase.

Steve Yankovich, vice president of innovation and new ventures at eBay told Julie Strickland of Inc.com the best approach for businesses interested in trying the platform is to adopt PayPal technology since that’s the method “shoppable windows” will use to make sales.

Image: eBay

The post Ebay Tests Digital 24-Hour Shopping Windows in Brick and Mortar Storefronts appeared first on Small Business Trends.

In a square mile radius in Germantown, Maryland are about 6 Asian grocery stores. Yet I visited the one store whose location was way off the main road and was difficult to find. I saw a sign for the business in another Asian grocery store and knew that they stocked goat meat, which is a delicacy for meat eaters from the Indian sub-continent.

I can’t tell you how many countless times I have used a new business based on their business signs. Business signs work – and here’s why.

5 Reasons Why Business Signs Work

Location

For a brick and mortar small business your sign is important as it acts like a  guidepost to guide customers to your place of business and attract the attention of new customers. If you are a new business, people driving by will be attracted to stop in and try your business. People moving to the area look for local businesses that they can start visiting.

Brand Promise

A sign should always be neat and bright and should convey the promise of your brand, convey the high standards of your business, your differentiation. A sign board that is damaged or smudged may fail to convey your brand.

Special Occasions

In the photo above, SXSW is a large event in downtown Austin and this small business is attracting event attendees walking by. Find local events and community gatherings like parades to create awareness for your business

Competition

When Groupon rented ad space outside Living Social’s offices in downtown Washington, D.C. it created some buzz. You see these signs often on highways advertising restaurants or gas stations just a few miles ahead of an exit ramp. Signage is important in a high traffic location as overflow traffic from other places can find your business and make an impromptu decision to use your business.

Online-Offline Connection

Take a look at the picture at the very top of this post from an Irish pub in the Cleveland Park area of Washington, D.C. that advertises their Facebook page.

Adding your website url to your sign is a good idea for people who don’t have time to stop and can check you out later. Adding a QR code is a good idea if your sign can be scanned easily.

In photos of your business on your website, it may be a good idea to include pictures of your businesses physical location, signage and neighborhood. So that when people visit, they are already familiar with how the business and surroundings look.

More and more people are finding your business online, but that is only half the story. If you have a great location, you can also appeal to new people who are walking past your business every day.

Do you have a success story about using signs for your business?

The post 5 Reasons Why Signs Work For Your Small Business appeared first on Small Business Trends.

The rumors are true. Facebook is rolling out hashtags and now, a Facebook hashtag truly does exist as the social media giant officially announced the new feature after months of speculation.

Back in March, we reported on rumors already swirling that Facebook was considering adding Facebook hashtags, a feature often associated with social media rival Twitter, as a way to tie together social conversations on a particular topic.

In a post on the official Facebook Newsroom blog, Facebook Product Manager Greg Lindley wrote:

Starting today, hashtags will be clickable on Facebook. Similar to other services like Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, or Pinterest, hashtags on Facebook allow you to add context to a post or indicate that it is part of a larger discussion. When you click on a hashtag in Facebook, you’ll see a feed of what other people and Pages are saying about that event or topic.

Reactions to the news on the social site where hashtags are already king, Twitter, were mixed as news broke:

for obvious reasons Hashtag support on FB sounds like a horrible idea. /facepalm #hastags

— Brian Johnson (@therabbitshole) June 12, 2013

What do you think about #facebook adding #hastags? As a twitter user, I am excited about this addition. fb.me/LHGHVTsf

— ZPS (@aboutZPS) June 12, 2013

Lindley said users on the social media site can now:

• Search for specific hashtags from the Facebook search bar in order to surface conversations on trending topics.
• Click on hashtags originating on other services, for example Instagram.
• Write posts from the new Facebook hashtag feed and search results.

Lindley also hinted Facebook hashtags were only the first in a series of new features planned on Facebook in the next few weeks and months. Those new features will include “trending hashtags” and other insights to help users keep track of trending conversations on the social media networking giant.

More details on using the new Facebook hashtag feature are located on the Facebook Help Page.

Image: Facebook

The post The Rumors Are True, Facebook Gets Hashtags appeared first on Small Business Trends.

As a small business owner, you already keep close track of your company's resources, including capital, employees and facilities. But what about employees' time? Time is difficult to quantify and track, and as such, many small business owners mistakenly treat time as if it were a limitless resource. However, this couldn't be further from the truth.

A recent study by McKinsey found that only 9% of executives were "very satisfied" with how employees' time was currently allocated. In addition, almost half of executives said that their current time allocation didn't align with the company's objectives. And the average office worker can tell you that far too much company time is spent on trivial tasks, such as responding to emails and attending non-essential meetings.

Effective time management is critical to the productivity and profitability of your business. So, how can businesses improve time management? It isn't as easy as just telling employees to use their time more effectively. Instead, the leadership team needs to build a corporate culture that actively supports effective time management across the whole organization.

A Culture That Supports Effectively Managing Time

Employee Privacy

Multitasking is a major buzzword in the business world. Employees are expected to be able to effectively juggle multiple tasks at once.  So managers fill their work hours with various projects, meetings and corporate activities.

However, studies are increasingly proving that multitasking is ineffective. In fact, Stanford researchers proved that multitaskers have poor organizational skills, are easily distracted and often lack focus.

If multitasking isn't the key to effective time management, then what is?

The answer is flow. As defined by author and psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, flow occurs when you enter a state of intense and effortless concentration on the task at hand. It is often referred to as "being in the zone," and employees are far more productive while in this state than at any other time.

To improve productivity, employers should do everything they can to keep employees in flow mode. This means fostering a corporate environment of silence and privacy. Whenever possible, managers should avoid burdening their employees with multiple tasks or distracting them with unnecessary emails and phone calls.

Many employees also benefit from having private offices, rather than working in noisy cubicle farms.

Fewer, More Effective Meetings

One of the biggest scourges to effective time management is the corporate meeting. The average meeting takes up valuable time and interrupts the employee flow-mode, while generating very little in the way of meaningful results.

According to a Microsoft survey, ineffective meetings are among the top time wasters in the average work week. Additionally, employees spend almost six hours each week in meetings, and 69% of employees feel like these meetings are unproductive.

To better manage company time, executives should only schedule meetings that are absolutely necessary. Meetings should have a specific purpose: To make a decision or solve a problem. There should be a detailed agenda of issues to be discussed and in what order, and the amount of time allotted to each.

If a meeting is only designed to impart information, consider sending out an email instead. Many meetings can also be made optional, so if an employee is in that critical flow mode, he or she can opt out of the interruption.

Time Tracking

Every executive knows that in order for a company to move forward, there needs to be a clearly defined set of objectives and goals for the future. However, just laying out these objectives isn't enough. Too often, executives and their employees become mired in day-to-day tasks and never find the time to advance long-term goals. This is where integrated, electronic time tracking comes in.

Effective electronic time tracking systems should capture costs as well as the time spent for each individual employee and project, and then integrate this information into a comprehensive view of company time allocation. In this way, you can determine whether your company's current time allocation aligns with your company objectives. As with any resource, correctly allocating time will reduce waste and facilitate company growth.

Peter Druckers, the legendary management consultant, once said:

Time is the scarcest resource, and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed.

In the business world, time is precious. It is in every employer's best interest to promote a corporate culture that measures, manages and values it.

Unproductive Meeting Photo via Shutterstock

The post Time is Money: Are You and Your Employees Effectively Managing It? appeared first on Small Business Trends.

IBM is acquiring SoftLayer Technologies, a company specializing in hosting and cloud infrastructure. The deal is in the $2 billion range.

SoftLayer, based in Dallas, Texas, claims to be the world's largest privately held hosting company. It has 25,000 customers, many of them large customers like AT&T. GI Partners purchased the equity in partnership with the company's management in August 2010.

According to a Reuters report, IBM plans to "create a new division for clients interested in so-called cloud services, a move to better compete with larger rivals in the space."

Senior vice president of IBM Global Technology Services Erich Clementi says the acquisition is aimed at serving larger clients.  "As businesses add public cloud capabilities to their on-premise IT systems, they need enterprise-grade reliability, security and management. To address this opportunity, IBM has built a portfolio of high-value private, public and hybrid cloud offerings, as well as software-as-a-service business solutions," said Clementi in the official announcement. "With SoftLayer, IBM will accelerate the build-out of our public cloud infrastructure to give clients the broadest choice of cloud offerings to drive business innovation."

But What About Small Business Customers?

However, our own experience shows how small businesses needing to scale growth may benefit from the resources IBM and SoftLayer together bring to the table.

It all depends, though, on IBM’s approach to smaller customers post-acquisition. It remains to be seen whether IBM will value small business customers or move away from them.

SoftLayer is the hosting company for Small Business Trends (this publication) and certain of our cloud applications, such as BizSugar, and our proprietary Awards platforms.

"I have to believe we're among the smaller customers," says Anita Campbell, CEO of Small Business Trends. "So far that has suited us just fine. Over the years we've had a number of bad experiences with hosting companies whose target market is small businesses. Sure, they were inexpensive. But lack of responsive service and unreliability were key issues. We had one hosting company show us the door, because we needed service but the company was charging a cut rate and didn't want to spend any time on us. So for our larger sites we deliberately aimed up at a hosting provider used to serving larger customers, even though we paid a bit more.  Service has been reliable, and we’ve had access to sophisticated monitoring tools."

However, she notes, “We’re taking a ‘wait and see’ attitude as to the direction IBM takes the company in. Will they move away from standard hosting, especially for small businesses, to pursue their larger vision of  cloud services for big enterprises?  That’s an open question in my mind.”

Lance Crosby, founder of SoftLayer, sent an email notice to existing customers saying it would be business as usual.  We’ve embedded the text below – just remember that once the transaction is complete IBM will be calling the shots, not necessarily Crosby:

IBM Photo via Shutterstock

The post IBM Acquires SoftLayer: Will Small Biz Hosting Remain? appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you’re a CPA, you know how time consuming it can be requesting data files from your clients. Bryce Forney is a CPA who uses Intuit’s QuickBooks Online Accountant to better serve his small business owner clients during tax season and throughout the year. Since all the data is stored in the cloud, he can get the data he needs at any moment without having to inconvenience his clients.

Once you’ve gotten started using QuickBooks Online, what’s the first thing you need to do when looking for new clients? Get certified! Stacy Kildal, CPA, gives QuickBooks Online users some vital info on how to attract customers. Getting certified will get you listed at findaproadvisor.com, which ensures that potential clients will find you and feel secure that you know the product back to front.

Hear from more accounting professionals about the benefits of the cloud and learn about timely accounting trends at: http://www.youtube.com/user/IntuitAcademy

The post QuickBooks Online Tips from CPAs Who Know appeared first on Small Business Trends.

In this world of instant global communication and online forums that allow individuals to contribute to the wealth of knowledge that lies a mere finger tap away, it's no wonder companies have put two and two together and started crowd-sourcing aspects of their business.

But could this collaborative business phenomenon evolve into a world where there are no managers, and people could contribute when they wished because they were intrinsically motivated?

Software Testing with “99Tests”

That is the question Praveen Singh, CEO and Founder of 99tests, asked himself when he leaped into the crowd-sourcing fray in the winter of 2010 by starting a crowd-sourced software testing venture in the form of 99tests.

99tests offers crowd-sourced testing to software product companies around the globe.  These companies can hire twenty to sixty on-demand software testing professionals who will test their products in real world conditions over the course of a few days in order to catch critical bugs before customers do.

They test for various platforms such as mobile, Web and tablets and support a range of testing types such as functionality, security and performance testing.  With a workforce 4250 testers strong and over fifty global customers within two short years, 99tests has hit the software testing market floor running.

Many diverse companies from all over the globe have already enjoyed the effects of employing 99tests such as Intuit, Flipkart, and Cleartrip.

Whether you're an established firm or a fledgling start up, 99tests accommodates your testing needs through fixed price per unit packages, a pricing standard used among other crowd sourcing companies such as CrowdFlower.  Each package varies in size depending on the client's needs and 99tests communicates diligently with the client to make sure these needs are clearly presented and addressed.  99tests even provides a demo package for a steal to win you over.

And win you over they will when you consider that in just over two years, the 99tests community has logged 22,304 bugs.

Motivation Via Healthy Competition

Keeping the community dedicated to providing quality service is crucial to the success of crowd-sourcing firms, so what better way to motivate his testers than to turn each project into a healthy competition?

99tests makes each project a client sponsored competition amongst the assigned testers in which the top testers who find the most bugs receive a monetary prize.

But 99tests goes a step further and often these top testers will also win testing tools that help nourish and build their skill sets.  It is this perk that really sets 99tests apart from other crowd sourcing firms since it is not only their intention to deliver the best possible service to the clients, but also strive to strengthen each tester's abilities.  By offering these incentives, 99tests guarantees a network of passionate and exceptionally talented testers.

In fact, founder Praveen Singh sees 99tests as a professional networking site for testers that creates a unique image and reputation for excellence. He would like to fortify his 99tests brand by creating a crowd-sourcing platform that testers want to be associated with and feel compelled to be a contributing part.

Praveen found a trusted partner in his Co-Founder Naveen Kumar, who expressed interest in 99tests after shutting down his own venture. Naveen plays a crucial role in the operations of 99tests taking care of the technology, development, and marketing aspects of the business. This leaves Praveen free to continue being the software crowd-sourcing evangelist he is.

It is equally important to Praveen to give value to the lives of the people in his community, as it is to provide his clients with exceptional service.  By outsourcing work to independent freelancers through an internationally accessible platform, he has helped place testers from remote corners of India in established organizations, significantly improving their quality of life.

In just over two years 99tests has been able to log over 20,000 bugs from this 4,000+ work force. They have done so with only a fraction of the 37 million dollars in venture capital their American goliath counterpart, uTest, has.

Praveen and Naveen's goal for 2013 is to reach 10,000 testers and secure 200 customers by the year's end.  They also want to expand into automation services and help companies manage the risk of releasing "buggy" software.  Ambitious, of course, but with increasing demand for crowd-sourced services, certainly promising.

Testing Tablet Photo via Shutterstock

The post Startup Success With Crowd Sourced Software Testing and “99Tests” appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you have an old inactive Yahoo ID you haven’t used in a while, you may loose it…soon. The Internet giant plans to “free up” those IDs for the benefit of new or existing users who want them, if the old users don’t sign in to Yahoo before July 15, 2013.

It looks like Yahoo is doing this primarily to make room for potential new users of its services coming over from Tumblr. As we’ve reported, Yahoo announced plans to acquire the popular social blogging network for $1.1 billion last month.

The company said on its official Tumblr blog Wednesday that it will allow new users to stake their claims on inactive Yahoo IDs. Here’s what Yahoo Senior Vice President of Platforms Jay Rossiter wrote about the changes in a post called “yourname@yahoo.com Can Be Yours!”:

If you're like me, you want a Yahoo! ID that's short, sweet, and memorable like albert@yahoo.com instead of albert9330399@yahoo.com. A Yahoo! ID is not only your email address, it also gives you access to content tailored to your interests – like sports scores for your favorite teams, weather in your hometown, and news that matters to you.

Here’s how Yahoo plans to give new users a crack at the old inactive IDs. In mid-July, Rossiter said Yahoo will be “resetting” IDs inactive for 12 months or longer. At that time, Rossiter says anyone will have a chance to “score” one of these free IDs. No word yet on exactly how this will work.

They can then return to Yahoo in mid August to find out whether they got the ID of their choice. Yahoo IDs are used to access most Yahoo services including Yahoo Mail and Flickr photostreams.

If you’re like a lot of early Yahoo users, including online business owners, you probably have a Yahoo ID you haven’t used in a while, perhaps to access an old Yahoo email account or MyYahoo page you used for business purposes. If you’d like to keep that account for future use, no problem. But you’ll need to act soon.

Rossiter says existing users need only log onto any Yahoo product prior to July 15, 2013. So, if you want to keep that old Yahoo ID – take note.

The post Yahoo Will Free Up Inactive IDs, Possibly Including Yours appeared first on Small Business Trends.

For small-business owners, conducting a mid-year check-in is an essential part of staying on track for meeting annual revenue and growth goals. But a mid-year review can also be an effective risk-management tool to help keep your business safe from the various forces that can throw it off track.

Below are key questions to include in your business review to ensure that you're adequately managing the risks that affect your business.

Business Review: Risk Management Questions

As with any mid-year review, half the battle is setting aside time to analyze your business and develop an action plan for items you need to work on. Get serious about latter portion of 2013 by setting aside a half day in the coming weeks to spend analyzing the current state of your company. When you do, take the time to consider these questions that focus on risk management.

Are your taxes on track?

In mid June, your second installment of estimated quarterly taxes is due. But if your revenue has increased since your initial projections, your tax liability might have changed, too. To make sure you don't incur underpayment penalties, take time during your mid-year check-in to reexamine your calculations.

Dedicating a few minutes to crunching these numbers has the potential to save you time, energy, and unnecessary penalties when you're filing your taxes next year.

How safe are your business premises?

A quick safety audit of your business premises will alert you to any hazards that could lead to property damage, bodily injury, or lawsuits for the people you serve and employ. Check batteries in smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, verify that furniture and decorative items are secure and unlikely to cause accidents, and make sure that light fixtures provide adequate illumination.

A little preventative work now can save you from a customer injury that leads to a costly lawsuit down the road.

Are you inviting a data breach?

These days, it's almost impossible to run a business without handling client data of some kind. And if you have access to customer information, you're at risk for having it compromised in a data breach. Minimizing your chances of being victimized requires a multi-pronged approach: Encrypt data, use strong passwords, change your passwords regularly, limit employee access to sensitive data, install antivirus software on your machines, and invest in a Cyber Liability Insurance policy that will cover your costs if and when a data breach does happen.

Small businesses are big targets and if you've skipped one or more of these steps, there's no better time than the present to put protective measures in place.

Do you have policies in place for avoiding client lawsuits?

In many cases, client lawsuits are triggered not by sloppy or incomplete work but by clients who feel as if their needs haven't been met or their concerns haven't been addressed. One way to minimize the likelihood of dissatisfied clients is to institute a check-in strategy that includes communication during all phases of a project. Having a standard policy for touching base allows you to identify areas of concern and address problems when they're small. Without such a policy, you'll likely only hear about problems when they've escalated and are harder and more time-consuming to deal with.

Your communication system doesn't have to be complicated: Even pre-written emails sent at specific stages in your projects can work by demonstrating to your clients that you're thinking about them and available to address their concerns.

Do you know what your competitors are up to?

It's never fun to be blindsided by a disruptive innovation from one of your biggest rivals. A new, out-of-the-blue product or service launch by one of your rivals can hurt both your credibility and your revenue. During your mid-year review, set aside some time to research your competition (and develop a schedule for doing this on a regular basis if you aren't already).

At worst, you'll find out about an upcoming challenge sooner than you might have; at best, you'll get some great ideas you can adapt for your own business.

When did you last update your emergency or disaster plan?

Hurricane Sandy served as an unpleasant reminder about how serious weather events can affect small businesses. But now that the "Super Storm" has faded from headlines, the urgency behind disaster management plans has also sputtered. If you don't have a plan in place for what you'll do in the event of a tornado, hurricane, flood, earthquake, fire or power outage, take some time to sketch out the details.

Remember to include plans for contacting your employees, saving or preserving your inventory, and financing your ongoing business expenses if your revenue is disrupted. (Business Interruption Insurance might be able to help with the latter.)

Do your insurance policies protect you against the risks you currently face?

Finally, take a look at the limits and exclusions on your Business Liability Insurance policies. If you haven't updated them in six months or more and have experienced any business changes in that time (e.g., moving to a new building, increasing revenue, offering new services or products, hiring new employees, etc.), there's a good chance that your policies don't fully cover you. A brief phone call to your insurance agent should clarify whether you need an update to your insurance policies.

Risk Management as Part of Revenue Growth

It's all too easy to treat risk management as an afterthought while focusing primarily on more traditional revenue-boosting measures. In reality, though, a robust risk management plan is essential to maintaining steady revenue increases. After all, nothing drains a business's assets faster than an unexpected catastrophe or disaster that demands large-scale repairs or a lawsuit that requires extensive time and money to defend.

If you're having trouble finding time to update your risk management plan, think of it as one of the safeguards you put in place to shield the revenue you've worked so hard to earn. Take some advice from Ben Franklin, the owner of several small businesses:

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Management Photo via Shutterstock

The post Mid-Year Business Review: Risk Management Edition appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Growing businesses have at least one thing in common. They all need the ability to "scale", i.e., be able to grow without infrastructure and systems holding them back. Or as I often say, you have to be able to get out of your own way as you grow.

If you are held back from opportunities because your existing systems aren't flexible enough or it cost too much to expand, or you feel locked in to outdated technology that's cumbersome to manage – then your business will suffer.

The good news in one area, telecommunications, is that there are many more choices for small businesses today than even 5 years ago.

One of those choices is a cloud phone system.

A cloud phone system is where you use the power and benefits of the cloud for telecommunications. Cloud phone systems offer a number of advantages:

Avoid costly equipment

With a cloud-based business phone system, there's typically little hardware involved (other than the phones themselves). So you don't need to worry about buying, maintaining and upgrading equipment or even the software, such as for a PBX switchboard. It saves on capital expenditures and also cuts down your internal maintenance costs.

Convenient management

A cloud phone system gives you a Web-based management console to configure features and users. Look for a system whose dashboard is easy to understand and use — by a non-telecommunications professional.

Fast to set up

Some phone systems require a lot of lead time to set up. For example, a dedicated VOIP system on your premises may require multiple visits by an installation crew, and training sessions to learn a complex system. A cloud system is much closer to "plug and play."

Get more leverage with more features

For small and midsize businesses, you're able to get the kind of features that large enterprise phone systems take for granted, but without the enterprise cost. You can easily get features such as call logs, conference calling, and auto attendants to direct incoming calls.

And while you could piece together such features from a variety of providers, there’s less complexity when you get them through a single provider, management them with a single interface, and get a single consolidated billing.

Easy to understand, predictable billing

Back in my corporate days I remember meetings where we talked about nothing but our high telephone costs. Those costs were mainly driven by expensive hardware we had on site, such a bulky PBX switchboard box, and complex added charges and complicated discount formulas. On more than one occasion we hired a consultant to come in and audit our phone bills, and help us to reduce them.

That's when I learned the value of an easy to understand billing system. A system built on a flat monthly rate, with any add-on charges clearly identified, saves a lot of management time. It also helps control costs because it’s more predictable and you can budget more accurately.

911 emergency capabilities

One of the knocks against VOIP systems or a system like Skype, is that some don't offer emergency calling. You need this. Better cloud systems today recognize that businesses need emergency (as well as 411 directory assistance) capabilities, and offer them as standard features.

Unified communications

Unified communications is often an extra feature, and for organizations that do heavy phone work, it can lend considerable efficiency. Unified communications means that you can seamlessly use other devices such as computers for placing and taking calls, getting voicemails sent to email, and other integrated features. It saves users time, and lets them be more productive. For instance, if you're working on your computer and need to make a call, you can do so right then and there from your computer. If you need to check voicemails, you can go to your email inbox along with other messages.

Bottom line is this: consider these kinds of benefits when reviewing your phone system needs.  And if you haven’t reviewed your phone bills or business phone system in a while, do it soon.  A lot has changed in the last five years.  It pays to see what’s out there, and see how the right phone system can help your business scale, instead of getting in your way.

Cloud Systems Photo via Shutterstock

The post Scaling for Growth: The Benefits of a Business Phone System in the Cloud appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Every week, you can find thousands of boys and young men across the nation attending their local Boy Scout meeting, learning the values and skills every good American man should know. With former Boy Scouts everywhere in today's business world, it's no wonder that their twelve pillars of Scout Law (pictured above) are incorporated into the way they practice business.

Surveys show that over 70 percent of consumers in America and Europe distrust businesses as a whole. But for the brands that they do trust, consumer loyalty is fierce. I've personally found that one of the easiest ways to instill trust is to mirror the 12 values found in the Scout Law:

A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.

Whether you incorporate these values into the way you personally conduct business or into the way your brand operates as a whole, I think you'll find that consumers will be excited to work with you time and time again. So let's get down to business and analyze the Scout's Law.

Scout Law Business Leadership Lessons

Create a Trustworthy Profile

Did you know that consumers consider transparency more important that brand appeal?

A lack of transparency directly correlates to a distinct lack of trust and consumer enthusiasm. Whether it's being forthright with your stakeholders or honest about the sourcing of materials, there are many areas in which businesses can be transparent.

An excellent example of this is The Honest Company, which is transparent about materials used in their products for babies.

Loyalty Works Both Ways

When you truly focus on building a great customer experience, you'll find that brands have the responsibility to increase loyalty to their consumers.

In my own business experiences, the more I've loyally focused on fulfilling consumer needs and making them happy, no matter what, the better business becomes. If you take a look at the world's top companies, like Amazon and Apple, I think you'll find that they have a fierce loyalty to their consumers.

Forget Fluff and Get Helpful

When most brands think about content marketing, their focus is on SEO – and rightly so. However, keywords and content strategy will only get you so far. Your content has to offer value and insight to consumers or there is no point to reading it.

Without helpful content, you'll establish a reputation as a fluff-maker that consumers will avoid like the plague. Instead, show that you're willing to help even if there's no direct benefit for you.

Friendly, Courteous, and Kind Brands are Likeable Brands

As a southerner, Southern hospitality is basically my middle name. It's molded the way I've conducted business and established a trusted reputation.

No one wants to do business with "mean" folks.

Obey the Market Rules

The premise that the "customer is always right" isn't necessarily true. However, you must always behave as though it is.

Remember, without their business, you wouldn't have a paycheck. Businessmen and brands alike need to remember how to obey their customers and be subservient to market demands. Brands such as Whole Foods have even incorporated this into their Core Values and mission statement.

Spread the Cheer

Emotions drive the business world as much as anything else. Think about the major brands that you use on a daily basis, such as Google and Facebook, and you'll find that they're all generally "happy" brands.

Get Thrifty like Mackelmore

Becoming more efficient with your resources and time not only benefits your bottom line, but also makes the consumer happier when the savings are passed onto them.

Bravery Gets You Attention

SodaStream recently had their commercials banned across the UK.

Why?

Because supermarket retailers were afraid that people would no longer purchase sodas if they could make them at home. Despite the controversy, SodaStream is fighting back – and hard. This has only resulted in more coverage and higher sales.

Clean is Always Better Than Dirty

Just like you would never want to walk into a dirty store, people don't like shopping on unorganized and messy websites. Keep your Web presence clean by focusing on simplicity and content organization.

Reverent Brands are Supported Brands

Reverent brands give back to their communities whenever possible. You are doing good and building consumer goodwill when you take advantage of opportunities to give back.

Twelve Pillars of Scout Law Photo via Shutterstock

The post 12 Business Leadership Lessons From Scout Law appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you’re trying to learn more about the impact you have on Twitter, some basic Twitter analytics are now available for free from the site.

The new Twitter analytics feature was first spotted this week by at least two online marketers who posted about their findings. We’ve seen no official notice of the feature on the Twitter blog so far.

Christopher Penn, vice president of marketing technology at SHIFT Communications, and Danny Olson, a digital strategist at Weber Shandwick, both posted about it, but we couldn’t find any official announcement.

The Twitter analytics tool can be found with a few quick clicks from your main Twitter dashboard.

To get there, simply use the pull down menu on the right side of your task bar on your Twitter account page and look for the Twitter Ads link under Edit Profile. (We’ve heard that some users are having difficulty accessing the new feature because the proper buttons don’t yet appear on their task bar.)

Once you click through to the Twitter Ads section, look for the Analytics tab near the top of the page and choose “Timeline activity” on the pull down.

That’s it.

A timeline along the top of the page graphs out your mentions, follows, and unfollows in six hour increments over a several week period.

Below this, a history of recent tweets shows you a more detailed analysis with the number of Faves, Repeats and Replies each tweet has received. It also gives notifications of the number of times that links in your Tweets have been clicked.

Twitter also provides notification for tweets that have received above “normal reach” and how many times over your normal reach each tweet has gotten. (Though there’s little explanation of what this actually means.)

There’s also a button allowing you to download a customized history of your Twitter analytics over the past two days, 7 days, 30 days or 90 days as either a CSV or XLS file.

Pick the “followers” selection under analytics in the Google Ads section and you’ll get a brief overview of your Twitter history, wrote Penn. But be aware, some users may get a notification there is not enough data to display these analytics yet, perhaps because the feature is new.

Of the service, Penn comments:

That's all you get for now from Twitter. It's a good start, but it's not nearly enough if you want to go crunching serious numbers to find out Twitter's impact on your marketing efforts. For that you'll still need to heavily rely on third party tools.

What do you think? Will you find the new Twitter analytics helpful in measuring your impact on Twitter?

Twitter Photo via Shutterstock

The post Twitter Now Provides Free Analytics Feature appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If your business has an app or you are thinking of developing one, it’s time to take note.  We’ve reported that Google recently announced immense sales growth at it’s own Google Play app store.

Now, Apple CEO Tim Cook has gone a step further in clarifying the exact size of the market for apps from third party developers including small businesses.

During the opening of the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference this week, Cook told attendees that Apple has paid out $10 billion to third party developers over the first five years of its app store’s existence. And $5 billion of that was paid out in the last year, he said.

Nor are downloads limited only to the store’s most popular titles. Of the 900,000 apps the Apple Store currently has available, Cook estimates 93 percent are downloaded monthly.

We don’t know the distribution of the earnings among app developers who offer downloads from Apple’s store. But we can assume there is room in this market for apps offering value to a variety of niche audiences.

Not Just for Game Developers

Potential earnings aren’t limited to just game developers either. Though the biggest money makers in a recent report were gaming apps, at least one non-game download has made it into the top 10 in revenue.

Turbo Tax Snap Tax was one of the top 10 earners in the Apple app store in February, no doubt benefiting from the looming U.S. tax deadline.

There are probably apps you could develop based on your business’s products, service or expertise.  A useful app created for your primary customers or audience could generate extra revenue, even if it isn’t among the top income producers.

In App Purchases are the Biggest Sellers

Recent numbers also show most revenue isn’t generated from app downloads themselves. In fact, in the same survey cited above by analysis firm Distimo, 71 percent of revenue was generated from in-app purchases.

Those purchases were all made from apps that were originally downloaded for free. These “freemium” apps then require users to pay for additional features.

Is there an app you could develop for your business with added features available at a premium?

Apple Photo via Shutterstock

The post Apple Announces $10 Billion App Market and You Should Pay Attention appeared first on Small Business Trends.

When you think of marketing today, the first word that typically comes to mind is content – whether it be blog posts, images or video. But the one thing that may be keeping your marketing content from reaching its intended audience is context, or lack thereof.

Mike Volpe, chief marketing officer for inbound marketing platform provider HubSpot, talks about the importance of understanding context in order to create content that builds long-term relationships. Below is a portion of our conversation from the exhibition floor at Dreamforce 2012.

* * * * *

Small Business Trends: What does inbound marketing really mean to a small business person trying to make their mark building relationships with customers?

Mike Volpe: Inbound marketing is really the ability to attract more people into your business…. It is really about creating content with context, so it is connected with the right people at the right time, using those two concepts together to attract more people into your business.

I actually think for small businesses this is even more critical than larger ones because small businesses have smaller budgets and less time. Making small changes in their lead generation and their sales can make a huge, huge impact.

Small Business Trends: So you hit on that whole context thing. You hear the term content is king, but is it really now? Isn't context and content about the same today?

Mike Volpe: I think content and context need to work together. We are getting better at having personalized messages on email, and I think even to some degree on social. But why is your website home page the same for every single person visiting it, the same for your customers, the same for people who have already or already in your sales pipeline?

You should be able to display personalized context on your website and have personalized relationships there just like you do on email and just like you do on social. So it is really figuring out what ways you can bring all that stuff together and have those good contextually based conversations.

Small Business Trends: How has inbound marketing changed over the years with the entry of all of these social networks, mobile tools and the Cloud?

Mike Volpe: I feel like the theory of inbound marketing hasn't changed at all, but the actual tactics used have. I think in 2006 and 2007, a lot of inbound was really SEO and blogging and that was when we first connected. You were starting to blog and you were a big podcaster and doing all of those things. It has gone from that to Twitter and Facebook and mobile has become more important over time with tons of proliferation of smart phones.

All of those things have become more and more important. But I think that those are all tactics and channels that will continue to change over time.

I think what is not going away is that consumers don't want to consume advertising, they want to consume content that is useful and interesting to them. That needs to be the cornerstone of your marketing and that is why we talk so much about inbound.

Small Business Trends: Can you talk about the power of LinkedIn and what it can offer small businesses?

Mike Volpe: I think that for small businesses, especially if you are a B2B small business … selling to other businesses. The data we look at for Web traffic – LinkedIn vs. other social networks – if you are a B2B company the conversion rate can be three to four times higher of that traffic converting into leads and then the conversion rate of revenue is much higher.

We found with B2B companies, LinkedIn can be a fantastic community. There are some great ways for small businesses to get involved with LinkedIn. You have company pages and LinkedIn just launched functionality in companies for segmentation of your audience company pages. There … are groups you can form. So there a lot of ways to get involved there. I think that LinkedIn, especially if you are a  B2B company, should not to be overlooked.

Small Business Trends: How does Pinterest fit in to how a small business can actually leverage inbound marketing?

Mike Volpe: I think the key to Pinterest is visual context because it is such a visually based medium. So a lot of consumer B to C companies have made really, really good use of Pinterest by posting pictures of cool, innovative, interesting products and being active within those communities. There are a lot of consumer retailers that have done well branding products on Pinterest.

Even within B2B we have a Pinterest account because we do all of these things ourselves. We have found that photos, images, pictures of charts and graphs of data, are interesting to our audience and have performed well. Images of the covers of our ebooks and then linking out to where you can get the ebooks, things like that have performed well for us.

Small Business Trends: How important is video to a small business?

Mike Volpe: Video is one of the things that is both easy and hard. I say that video is easy to create but it is really hard to do well. You do a lot of podcasting and you do a bunch of videos as well and you have a huge background in radio, which helped you become good a doing those things.

For many small businesses, video is not the place that I would necessarily start first. You can do it and it can be effective, but I would start with many of these other things. Blogging, creating content, ebooks, webinars – all of these things I would do before I really worked my way up to video.

Small Business Trends: We talked a lot about inbound marketing, content and the top of the funnel? l know that you guys are really getting into the middle-of-the-funnel, or as you call it 'MOFU.' Can you talk about 'MOFU' and where automation fits in and how that can help a small business?

Mike Volpe: What is interesting about the middle-of-the-funnel, or further down in the sales marketing process is that, as you learn more about people, context becomes more important and brings us back to the beginning part of the conversation.

As you learn more, you need to really respect that. When you're communicating, show them that you still know a lot about them. It is annoying when you have interactions with the company and then someone else calls you and they don't even remember or recognize any of the things that they have been talking to you about.

With email communications you are sending out there are ways to automate that stuff. But make sure you are segmenting and personalizing those so that you're recognizing the context of the conversation. The same thing with social and the content of your website. Again someone is already talking with your sales rep and then maybe a meeting is setup for the next day. You should be showing something that is relevant to that type of conversation on the home page or other pages of your website.

The middle-of-the-funnel is really about context. Yes, you can do a bunch of automation, whether it is automating emails or other work flows or other content that is appearing on your site. So automation can help there. But make sure that you use the automation in a smart way to respect the context of what's happening within that portion of the conversation.

Small Business Trends: So we know that content is really important for marketing, branding and promotion, but what about customer service? Retaining customers, not just looking for new ones?

Mike Volpe: We all know companies drive a lot of ongoing value from their customers. More and more of the companies are moving to a subscription model, or keeping customers for a long time becomes more and more important; so continuous marketing to your customer base is a really smart thing to do because it helps to drive the top line and the bottom line.

One aspect of it is to continue to understand the context of the relationship of the customers. But there is also a lot of content. If you have a customer community or customer feedback, you can take that content and use it for marketing to your customers. You can also use it for marketing to your prospects.

Sales people can take customers stories and things like that from the customer community and use that and use social for marketing at the top of the funnel and getting new prospects in, as well as communicating with people at the middle-of-the-funnel. After that, your customers use all of the content from all of the stages to help you.

A lot of people know if you can get content from your customers in front of your prospects, then more than likely, you can convert. Because they're going to trust what your customers are saying more than your sales people. So those types of things can be really, really effective.

Small Business Trends: That's cool to see because we are used to seeing integration with services like HubSpot, with the front for marketing and promotion. So it is nice to see that integration is starting to carry through to the service side.

Mike Volpe: Absolutely. We talk about the notion of a funnel more because there is not another great model out there to really understand the process. But it is not something that ends. There are so many opportunities. I think there are a lot of synergies between what's happening between customer support and marketing, because social is what ties it all together.

* * * * *

Watch the video below of my interview with Mike Volpe of HubSpot.

Series Sponsor

This interview on the importance of context to the success of inbound marketing for small businesses is part of the One on One interview series with thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This transcript has been edited for publication.  

The post HubSpot's Mike Volpe on Why You Need Context AND Content In Marketing appeared first on Small Business Trends.

I’ll admit it, I’m a control freak.

When I used to print out and mail cartoon packets to publications I had a way I liked to do it: Letter on top, return envelope folded thusly, mailing label centered but up just a bit.

As I got more successful and was sending out more and more packets every week, my wife was kind enough to help stuff envelopes occasionally. I remember watching her work and offering suggestions (correcting her every move) and her eventually getting fed up.

“Oh for (blankety blank), I can fold something in half you know! Really! I can!” She growled, “Also, stamp placement? Maybe not as big a deal as you think.”

She was totally right. Now I email out my cartoons and I don’t have to hassle her anymore.

But I also like those emails just so…

The post Are You a Bit of a Control Freak? appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Welcome to our latest curated list of events, contests and awards for small businesses, solo entrepreneurs and growing companies. To see a full list or to submit your own event, contest or award listing, visit the Small Business Events Calendar.

Featured Events, Contests and Awards

WBENC National Conference & Business Fair
June 26, 2013, Minneapolis, MN

The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) will convene 3,500 decision makers from the nation’s leading corporations, government entities and women’s business enterprises (WBEs) to generate business together and stimulate economic growth at the 2013 WBENC National Conference & Business Fair in Minneapolis, MN, June 25-27, 2013.

Big Awards for Business
August 14, 2013, Online

The Big Awards started with a mission of recognizing real talent and performance. Real business people, those with experience and knowledge, judge the Big Awards. Request an entry kit today and submit your nomination by August 14, 2013.
Discount Code
SBT50 ($50.00 off)

More Events

• National Small Business Week
  June 17, 2013, Washington, DC
• Amplify Your Personal (and Business) Brand with Social Media
  June 17, 2013, Washington, DC
• Twitter Chat #SMBizEdge: Startup Tips That Make the Difference in Success
  June 18, 2013, Online  8pm Eastern time at Twitter.com
• Facebook Boot Camp
  June 19, 2013, Washington, DC
• Web.com Small Business Forum – Raleigh
  June 20, 2013, Raleigh, NC
• LinkedIn Boot Camp
  June 20, 2013, Washington, DC
• Financial Literacy: Are You Ready To Increase Your Capacity?
  June 20, 2013, Houston , TX
• Creative Freelancer conference
  June 22, 2013, San Francisco, CA
• Spark and Hustle Tour – Boston
  June 24, 2013, Boston, MA
• Learn about Backup and Recovery over Lunch
  June 26, 2013, Westlake Village, CA
• Selling to Why: Brain Based Selling
  June 26, 2013, New York City
• Financing and Sustaining Growth: When and How
  June 27, 2013, Online
• Tech Meet the Media
  June 27, 2013, New York City
• Digital Domination Summit
  June 28, 2013, Online
• Almost Free Teleseminar: When and How to Delegate
  June 28, 2013, Online
• DEN B2B Entrepreneur Showcase
  June 29, 2013, New Delhi, India
• Spark and Hustle Tour – New York
  July 08, 2013, New York, NY
• Web.com Small Business Forum – Salt Lake
  July 11, 2013, Salt Lake City, UT
• More Leads & Sales, Less Heavy Lifting
  July 23, 2013, Philadelphia, PA
• Web.com Small Business Forum – Pittsburgh
  August 01, 2013, Pittsburgh, PA
• Affiliate Summit East
  August 18, 2013, Philadelphia, PA

More Contests and Awards

• Adecco Small Business Big Dreams Contest
  June 16, 2013, Online
• Batchbook’s 6th Annual Small Business Superhero Contest
  June 21, 2013, Online
• 2013 Ernst & Young Entrepreneurial Winning Women
  June 28, 2013, Online
• DMACC Small Business Awards
  June 28, 2013, Des Moines, IA
• Alibaba.com Women Entrepreneurs Mentorship Contest
  June 29, 2013, Online
• eMinutes $2,500 Entrepreneurs Contest
  June 30, 2013, Online
• Crain’s NY Fast 50
  July 05, 2013, New York City
• Huggies MomInspired Grant Program
  July 31, 2013, Online
• 2013 Big Awards for Business
  August 14, 2013, Online
• The Citi Salutes: Realizing Your Dream Business Competition
  November 08, 2013, Online

This weekly listing of small business events, contests and awards is provided as a community service by Small Business Trends and SmallBizTechnology.

The post Check Out One of These Small Business Events or Contests appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Another popular social media network adopts hashtags and Vine surpasses Instagram for Twitter uploads. Those are two news stories that are trending popular in the small business community this week.

Entrepreneurs should also take note of the opportunities presented by a growing app market — via comments made by Apple CEO Tim Cook this week.  We also debunk one incorrect meme going around about the status of the Internet Sales Tax in Congress.

As always, the Small Business Trends editorial team puts these small business stories in context for you.

Social Media

Here come the hashtags. Sometimes rumors turn out to be ture.  For a while now, rumors have circulated about plans to introduce hashtags on Facebook .. .just like the ones so popular on rival Twitter. We learned this week the rumors were true. How will hashtags affect conversations on Facebook? Some say they don’t fit Facebook at all – other welcome them. We’ll have to wait and see. Meanwhile, we bring you the basics of Facebook hashtags.

Twitter offers free analytics to users. Now you can get a better understanding of the impact you are having on Twitter. Like Facebook, Twitter now offers a free analytics tool to measure select metrics. It’s not perfect, say marketers, but it’s a move in the right direction.

Vine surpasses Instagram for most Twitter uploads. Small businesses and online marketers use the 6-second Vine video app on Apple devices and now Android to market their brands. We offer tips from those who are already using vine for marketing.

Facebook is changing the look of advertising. The social network announced last week it is consolidating many of its advertising formats. These include “Questions,” “Offers” and “Sponsored Stories.”  Thank goodness, because it was unnecessarily confusing!

Apps

A $10 billion app market represents an opportunity for small business. We know, of course, that Google recently announced a growing market for apps in its Google Play Store. But Apple CEO Tim Cook put a monetary value to that market this week: $10 billion over the last five years.  Do you have an app for your business? Do you develop apps?  Maybe you should.

Google Announced it Will Introduces Google Web Designer. The new tool from Google will let users create Web ads using HTML5, instead of Flash, which isn’t easily viewable on mobile devices.  But despite its name, this tool is not primarily to be used for Web design — as first reports from many outlets suggested. It’s really a tool for advertisers, and will be available in the DoubleClick platform and also as a stand alone app.  So if you needed further proof that mobile devices like tablets and smartphones are an essential part of the advertising mix, you’ve got it.

Sales

Ebay is testing 24-hour window shops. The windows are actually 9 feet across and 2 feet high touchscreens allowing customers to buy merchandise. If brick and mortar retailers don’t carry it in their stores or it’s after hours and the shop is closed, or if they just want to expand their space without opening up another full service shop – this could be an answer in some metropolitan areas – like New York. The merchandise is then delivered by courier and paid for with PayPal.

The Internet Sales Tax is still alive. This despite a claim from an activist group this week. The organization calling itself Generation Opportunity claimed it “Facebook bombed” Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and succeeded in getting him to stall the bill in the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. Goodlatte denies this.  This just shows how contentious the bill is, and how divided people are on it — including small businesses.

Tech

Sony has a 13 inch tablet that slides into a laptop. The Vaio Duo 13 represents part of the tablet hybrid trend. But with a cost of $1,399, it’s on the pricey side. Created for mobile professionals, the device runs Windows 8 and boasts 10+ hours of battery life. For a tablet, the Vaio Duo 13 is a “little bulky,” says Dan Ackerman of CNET. You be the judge.

You could lose that old Yahoo ID. The company is “freeing up” some of those old inactive IDs to make room for new users who might want them. Yahoo Senior Vice President of Platforms Jay Rossiter broke the news on Yahoo’s official Tumblr blog. Yahoo recently announced plans to acquire the wildly popular social blog and may be clearing space for potential new Tumblr users.

IBM acquires SoftLayer raising questions among small business customers. The Dallas, Texas-based hosting company claims to be the largest privately held business of its kind. GI Partners purchased the equity in the firm, together with the company's management in August 2010. But will it’s focus on smaller customers, including Small Business Trends, remain after being acquired by the tech giant?

RSS Feed: Is it still important? Small Business Trends founder Anita Campbell gives us the low down on one of the most important features of content on the Internet. What is it? What is it used for? And is it still useful in this rapidly changing technological world? The short answer to that last question is yes.

Startup

Startup “99testers” explores a new way to test software. Suppose we lived in a world where business was totally collaborative with no managers. Crowdsourcing is certainly a step in this direction. In 2010, Praveen Singh, CEO and Founder of 99tests, brought the concept to software testing. The rest is startup history as Sramana Mitra explains.

Find influencers with “Little Bird” today. TJ McCue gives us an overview of a new search engine to help you find influencers. This is a review of a tool designed to help you find new leaders to follow, create a plan for influencer engagement, discover your “freshest” connections, and more.

Marketing

Learning content and context in marketing. Mike Volpe, chief marketing officer for HubSpot, talks with Brent Leary, Partner at CRM Essentials and organizer of the Social Business Atlanta conference. The subject is the one thing that may be keeping your marketing from reaching its intended audience.

Book Reviews

Present Shock: Taking A Moment to Review the Future. Has technology given you the lifestyle you wanted? Author Douglas Rushkoff asks questions about what technology has given us and what we should expect in return. Analytics expert Pierre Debois reviews the book for us.

Policy

Could the IRS scandal be a good thing? Well, it depends what you think of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Many small business owners don’t care for it. Scott Shane, professor of entrepreneurial studies at Case Western Reserve University, says while the IRS is under assault, the agency may be less likely to hassle small businesses on other enforcement issues like healthcare reform.  We can only hope.

Management

Checking your risk half-way through. You do annual mid-year checks on progress, meeting revenue and growth goals. So doing a mid-year risk-management assessment is also a good move. Looking at risks to your data, in your workplace and elsewhere in your business is a good way to be prepared, says Ted Devine, CEO of Insureon.

Shutterstock: reading news

The post Small Business News: Stories This Week Not to Miss appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Working in a business with your spouse or life partner can be tricky – but rewarding.  If you are looking for a story about family business to inspire, you may want to sit down and have a drink. In this case, make it a good shot of fine tequila.

The Patron Way, From Fantasy to Fortune – Lessons in Taking Any Business from Idea to Iconic Brand, is by Ilana Edelstein (with help from Samantha Marshall).   I discovered the book via NetGallery, and thought it would be worthwhile to marketers who work with premium brands as well as business owners associated with the distilled spirits industry.

Patron Means Godfather, So Here's the Godfather's Story (Without Al Pacino!)  

This is a passionate narrative about the personal travails of the author, Edelstein, and her business partner/lover Martin.  Martin was introduced to tequila on a business scouting trip.  He brought Edelstein home some samples of the version to be known as Patron to taste.

The rest became a history blending their passion for each other, the business and the drink itself.

"In a way Patron symbolized all that was best in our relationship. We each possessed a unique mixture of characteristics and ingredients that, put together, made magic…There was one key ingredient that made it magic: love."

The couple worked to raise the brand profile through serving Patron at the finest events attended by titans of industry and celebrities.  Their first event included A-list celebrities like Tom Cruise and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  A few other actors are mentioned, such as Robin Williams and James Coburn.  Edelstein even relates a discussion of hip-hop's adoption of Patron with Daymond John of Shark Tank and FUBU fame.

These experiences offered some business insights Edelstein sprinkles into the story progression:

"Know who the true tastemakers are and use them wisely. Think about how anyone in your orbit, whether they are friends, members of the media or product reviewers, can be best leveraged to promote your product. In the consumables business, word of mouth from fashionable and hip brand ambassadors speaks volume for…"

Much of the book details Edelstein's relationship with Martin, but it's not a tell-all. It also covers the marketing tactics to position Patron as a premium drink and the negotiations that would provide further investment.  Patron was one of the earliest alcohol names to be branded to sophisticated consumers. Its success grew from influential people who could speak passionately about the drink.

Edelstein does get into relating the Seagram deal to purchase Patron.  A later chapter explains decision details such as packaging.

Chapter 2 will educate the reader about the tequila business. Distilled in a specific region like whiskey and bourbon, tequila experienced bust and boom demand cycles that mirrors Mexico's history.  The agave, a plant whose juice is fermented to produce tequila, became more industrialized when the Mexican government decreed all tequila distilled must contain at least 51% of blue agave sourced from Mexico.

The couple's true guidance came from Francisco Alcaraz, a Mexican aristocrat who was "at the forefront of the modernization and standardization of Mexico's  Tequila industry."  Edelstein explained the couple's admiration for Alcaraz:

"Watching Francisco is like observing a true artist in action. He studies the contents of his glass, staring down the center to determine its color and gently turning the tequila around to see how it clings to the sides…Francisco stood out as a connoisseur with an acute appreciation for life's finest, just like Martin."

In addition to Alcaraz, there is a highlight on John Paul "JP" DeJoria. An "impoverished street kid" in his youth, JP becomes a trusted business partner who helped land the first Patron distributor. The Patron Way does not reveal much about other employees. It’s just as well, given the volumes of books written on large corporations with memorable leaders such as Apple (see Ivana Taylor’s review of “Inside Apple” and “The Apple Experience” for an example).

What Kind of Reader Will Enjoy The Patron Way?

This book is not filled with research about business couples. If that’s what you are looking for, read You and Your Partner Inc.

Rather — like Guitar Lessons and Beam Straight Up, The Patron Way tells mostly a personal story.

Yet the book's perspective can be valuable for couples starting to work together.  Those who are working with a partner or spouse will have an interest in how this couple face their business challenges.

There is an appendix section with short direct insights.  But outside of that you are reading a narrative, not a how-to guide.

There’s a pleasant aspect about the author's tone.  Edelstein conveys everything with a grounded while carefree spirit, all despite the celebrities she met and success attained along the way.  That keeps a good, never-dry tone that makes you want to invest in the couple:

"In many ways, I was still the girl from South Africa who grew up without a television. Often I found myself talking to celebrities without having a clue who they were until pointed out to me afterward. But I enjoyed being in those exclusive environments. It felt like we arrived."

No matter what industry your business is built upon, you'll appreciate the perspective in The Patron Way. Read it, or better yet, share it while enjoying your favorite drink. Cheers.

The post Becoming a Business Icon "The Patron Way" appeared first on Small Business Trends.

It’s Small Business Week in the United States, and in honor of that we invite you to participate in a live Twitter chat on Tuesday, June 18, 2013 at 8 p.m. EST, presented by FedEx Office.

The topic is:  Startup Tips That Make the Difference in Success. We’ll be discussing what it takes to be successful when starting a business and growing it.

We hope you’ll join in and pose any questions you may have.  Or if you have any tips to offer other small business owners about startup success, we invite you to share them.  Be sure to follow @FedExOffice too.

Join The Twitter Chat: Follow #SmBizEdge

Be sure to join us for this live Twitter chat event:

TOPIC: Startup Tips That Make the Difference in Success

DATE: Tuesday, June 18, 2013

TIME: 8 pm EST (New York time)

LOCATION: Twitter.com: Just follow the hashtag #SmBizEdge to participate.

Be sure to follow me, Anita Campbell, at @SmallBizTrends too. If you’ve never taken part in a Twitter chat before and you need some pointers, be sure to read “How to Participate in a Twitter Chat.”

Disclosure: FedEx Office compensated me to participate as a small business expert during the FedEx Office Tweet Chat program and write this post. The ideas in this blog post are mine and not ideas or advice from FedEx Office.

The post Twitter Chat #SmBizEdge: Startup Tips That Make the Difference in Success appeared first on Small Business Trends.

You've received plenty of emails that ended with "sent from my iPhone" or another mobile email signature.

Whatever your opinion of these generic signatures, they do serve a purpose. When communicating with clients and business contacts via mobile, you may end up sending emails with typos or formatting errors.  Your message may be brief and sound abrupt, versus friendly.

A mobile email signature lets people know why. You’re sending from a smartphone!  Ah … that explains it.

However, there are more creative ways to tell your contacts that you're using a mobile device to communicate with them. Some business people have figured out how to have a little fun with those mobile email taglines.

Blaming Technology

Certain smartphone features, such as autocorrect and voice recognition, are meant to make your life easier. But at times  they do just the opposite. Your colleagues and clients can likely relate to these issues, so making a note about them in your signature can be both helpful and funny.

Ivana Taylor of DIY Marketers has an email signature on her phone that reads, "Excuse any typos – darn autocomplete!"

And Mike Blumenthal of Local University, has a mobile signature that accomplishes a similar task, while placing the blame on a different smartphone feature.  It reads, "Sent from a typical smartphone. If this is illiterate, it's the voice recognition's fault."

Missy Ward, co-founder of Affiliate Summit and FeedFront magazine, also pokes fun at the potential for typos.  Hers reads, “Sent from my iPhone.  Random auto-corrects and typos are my special gift to you.”

Claiming Smartphone Ignorance

Sometimes it isn't the phone's fault. Sometimes it can just be more difficult to communicate on the go or with such a small device.

Matthew Goldfarb of Corporate Renegade has a signature that jokes, "sent from my almost always misspelling iPhone."

Becky McCray, co-author of Small Town Rules, contributes one used by Sheila Scarborough, of Sheila’s Guide. It says, “Sent from my phone;  if there are typos I will still be quite annoyed at myself.”

Even Small Business Trends' own Chief Operations Officer, Staci Wood, has joked about creating a mobile email signature to highlight her minimal smartphone knowledge.  She said if she could figure out how, she'd change hers to: “Apologies for any spelling errors – sent from my stupid 'smart' phone.”

Having Fun With Siri

Siri, in case you’re not aware, is the voice-enabled command prompt and answering feature that Apple calls “the intelligent personal assistant.”  It’s available on the latest iPhones and iPads. Some people like to have fun with Siri in their email signatures on their iPhones.

Deborah Shane, branding consultant, has an email footer that reads, “Sent from Siri, My Personal Assistant.”

Small business author and all-around funny guy, Barry Moltz, also has fun with Siri. His reads, “Sorry so short … the keys are small on the iPhone 4S.  Uh, oh..there are no keys. Maybe Siri can help.”

Random Acts of Email Taglines

Just because you have a smartphone with access to email doesn't necessarily mean you should have to respond to every single thing right away.  Ramon Ray of SmallBizTechnology.com has a mobile signature that says, "from my phone (hopefully not while I'm driving or with my family)."  It pokes fun at the over-reliance many Americans have on their mobile devices. But it also lets contacts know that there are times he may not be able to respond right away.

Joel Libava, who has created a trademarked brand around the moniker “The Franchise King” manages to continue the brand emphasis in his email tagline.  His reads, “The Franchise King®, Joel Libava, sent this from his Royal Droid.”

Brent Leary, technology analyst, conveys that he’s an equal-opportunity technology user. His tagline says,  ”Sent from my BlackBerry, … or iPhone.., or iPad… or… well you get the idea … .”

Making Jokes

But you don't necessarily need to be specific about which device you use, for people to get the point. You can simply make a joke that lets people know you're sending the email from your mobile device.

"Sent via carrier pigeon," or "Sent from my rotary phone," or "Sent from my payphone," let people know that you're communicating on your phone. But you’re making a joke about technology and isn’t misconstrued as snobby or exclusive.

On the other end of the spectrum, "Sent from my iPhone because I'm better than you," or "Sent from my $400 smartphone," poke fun at using certain mobile devices as status symbols. Just be aware that sarcastic email lines can be misinterpreted as gloating if others don’t “get” your humor.

What Mobile Email Signature Do YOU Use?

Have you come across any funny mobile signatures? Or do you use one yourself? Share it in the comments below – we want to hear!

Shutterstock: smartphone

The post Funnier Ways to Say “Sent From My Smartphone” appeared first on Small Business Trends.

In the context of business, “sunk costs” are when you’ve spent money already and will not recover it.  In other words, you’ve  ”sunk money into something.”

The problem comes in when you keep spending — even when whatever you’ve invested money in, is no longer a good idea.  Yet you keep throwing good money after bad.

This sunk costs situation happens much too often in business.  We insist on getting value out of the money we’ve already spent.  We become determined NOT to lose money.  We can’t — we won’t — let go.

However, by not letting go when something isn’t working, we can end up losing a lot more.  We keep pouring money, time and effort into something that has no chance of working or would lead to a poor result at best.  The project or initiative  keeps costing more and more.  Instead of cutting our losses, we compound them by hanging on.  We make our losses worse.

It goes against our nature to let go.

It’s called the sunk cost fallacy.

The BBC: An Example of Sunk Cost Fallacy

A perfect example of the sunk cost fallacy came to light just last month, in May of 2013.  The BBC revealed it was scrapping— finally – a £100 million technology project.  It had dragged on for 5 years.  The problem:  a stubborn desire on the part of the BBC’s Chief Technology Officer to continue building a custom system when commercial systems already on the market would have done the job at a fraction of the cost.  Add to that an overpaid, under-supervised enterprise consulting firm — and you have a sunk cost fallacy of epic proportions.

Instead of calling it quits, the project dragged on. Instead of admitting the money previously spent was sunk costs that would never be recovered, they poured more money into it.

Entrepreneurs and business owners can fall into the same trap. We get emotionally caught up a project, an employee, an initiative.  We want to make it work.  We think that somehow we’ll turn things around.  After all, it would be wasteful not to try to get benefits  out of money we’ve already spent, we think.

We keep pouring money into it in a misguided attempt not to lose our initial investment.  We continue long after logic and good sense suggest it’s time to pull the plug.

Pride sometimes is involved, too. Who wants to admit that something was a mistake? ‘Maybe if we keep working on it, we can salvage it,’ we think.

David Ariely, a behavioral economics professor and author of Predictably Irrational, points out that humans often think they will behave in one way (perhaps the way logic and reason suggest). But in reality we behave differently (perhaps  driven by emotion to keep throwing good money after bad).

We tend to focus on the money we will lose if we were to walk away.  Instead, if we were reasoning through the problem, we would be thinking about what we could gain by scrapping a wasteful situation — and finding a better solution.

How to Avoid a Sunk Costs Nightmare

As entrepreneurs and small business owners, what can we do?  Focus on your business goals and the end result you want. In other words, you need to look to the future, not money spent in the past.

Put out of your mind the idea of  recovering on sunk costs. The money is gone.  Cut your losses.  Sweep up the mess … and move on to something more productive.

It’s also important to learn to recognize when you might be in the midst of a sunk costs problem.  We may not even realize that we are in danger of succumbing to the sunk cost fallacy. When we’re smack in the middle of it, it’s hard to see that we are putting more money at risk.

Get a second opinion from someone not emotionally involved in the past expenditures.  This is where a good accountant or CFO is worth his or her weight in platinum.  He or she will be more likely to evaluate the situation logically.

A smart business owner knows when to seek advice — and take it.

Shutterstock: wasted money

The post What Are Sunk Costs? appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Ryan White was a haemophiliac who contracted HIV during a routine blood treatment. He was diagnosed as HIV positive in 1984 and died six years later in 1990. In that six years, he skyrocketed from a regular suburban boy to a national star.

Why?

Because when he tried to go back to middle school, teachers and parents of his schoolmates rallied against him – despite the fact that doctors said he posed no threat to other kids. The media picked up the story and an outpouring of support soon came from all over the country. He collaborated with celebrities like Michael Jackson and became the poster child of HIV. Shortly after his death, Congress passed the Ryan White Care Act, making what was done to him illegal.

This is the story of Ryan White. But there have been many similar stories over the years. Most recently, there was the case of Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide due to excessive pressure from his prosecutors. He inspired a bill called "Aaron's Law". There was also Phoebe Prince, whose suicide inspired "Phoebe's Law."

And the list goes on.

The question is "Why?"

Ryan wasn't the first victim of HIV; he wasn't the first victim of HIV discrimination either and he definitely wasn't the youngest person to die from the disease. People see the horrible statistics of various causes of deaths in the news every day…but they don't feel an urgent need to act.

Do you?

Psychologists have a term for our tendency to offer greater aid to an identifiable individual, compared to say, a large group of people. It's called the Identifiable Victim Effect.

Identifiable Victim Effect: Why You Can't Help Ignoring Millions But Save One

To use the identifiable victim effect in marketing, we first need to understand the psychological underpinnings of this quirk. Here are a few possible explanations:

Emotion

When you read statistics, you activate the part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. The prefontal cortex is responsible for high level thinking, like mathematics, but has no capacity for emotions. When you listen to a story about a person, however, you activate the limbic system, which is responsible for your emotions.

Certainty

If you take action when you read about the plight of one person, you feel like you're making a real difference. You feel like if you don't help, he/she is certain to suffer. Statistics, on the other hand, are probabilistic in nature. If you donate to a cause to save two million, it may or may not help. This quirk is related to our risk aversion– we are more likely to avoid certain suffering than we are uncertain suffering, even if the latter is potentially more painful.

Story

Humans are wired to gobble up stories and abstract statistics are not stories; they don't captivate us. Stories about a fellow human being's suffering, on the other hand, become the kind of thing we talked about back in the time we were living in caves. Stories were how we passed information around the tribe and ensured the species' survival.

Fairness

There's an innate need for justice in all of us. Psychologists have proven this by conducting an experiment called the ultimatum game. What they found was that people often sabotage their own welfare to see people who they view as their opponents suffer. This is despite the fact that they'd be better off if they had just let go.

How The Identifiable Victim Effect Affects Your Marketing

It is why charitable organizations use individuals instead of statistics in their campaigns. Like this one:

[Example Above]

So what does this have to do with your marketing?

Well, here are a couple of ideas:

People Want to Connect With Other People

I recently talked to a colleague who was in the process of launching her first start-up which was an online French bakery. She had asked me to review her site, so I did. She obviously invested a lot of time and resources into it, but there's just one thing missing from it – herself.

In her own words, she wanted to appear "big and professional." So her About page talked about her company, not her. Big mistake. If her patisseries are really good, her fans will want to know her. They will gobble up her baking tips. They will follow her like nothing any other company can hope to pull off.

Unless you have a couple of million bucks to "build your brand," this is the easiest way to go straight to people's hearts.

Emotions Are Stronger Than Logic

This one is common industry knowledge: People act because of emotions, and then they use logic to rationalize their behavior.

Just look at all high-end consumer products. Nothing in that area is sold based on its utility. A $500 pair of jeans is no different to a $50 pair (some surveys have found people can't even tell the difference). A brand-name school teaches the same curriculum other schools do (and there's no evidence they teach it better). And a $5000 DSLR camera isn't for everyone – most people who bought them don't need 20 megapixels, let alone know how to use the features they paid a premium for.

This also applies to what you might think are "rational purchases." For example, properties. You'd think with what would be their largest purchase, people would think logically, but that's not true. They buy based on emotions (you hear people say they "fell in love" with the property they viewed).

Even B2B purchasers aren't rational with their decisions. As a small business owner, I often pay a premium for a more reliable contractor, even if after taking into account delayed projects, his less reliable competitor is much cheaper.

People Care for More Than Themselves

You've often heard of our selfish nature. That we humans care only for ourselves. But we all know that's bull at times. Just turn on the TV. There, you'll see volunteers help others in need when a natural disaster strikes. You see environmentalists fight oil tycoons. You see activists fight for gay rights. The list goes on.

In fact, according to some estimates, we now volunteer at a rate never seen in history. As people become more educated (which we are), we tend to be more empathetic and therefore volunteer more.

How can you get your customers to care for your business? Well, check out Eco Store's example. Eco Store is a relatively small company in the household product industry – an industry notoriously difficult to break into because its consumers tend to buy on habit. (When was the last time you thought about which detergent to buy?)

Yet Eco Store, which aligned itself with the environmental movement before it was cool, was able to change people's habits and thrive. They didn't compete on price, which is the prevalent in the industry. Instead, they started with the "why."

The business started in the co-founders' basement but Eco Store is now exported internationally.

People Want to Make a Difference

Most people care about the environment, but they never do anything significant to help save it. Why? Because people generally don't feel like one single person can make a difference.

To bridge the gap between 'reality' and what we 'feel', certain organizations emphasize how the customer's money can make a difference. Grill'D, a national burger joint in Australia, gave out a bottle cap to every customer who graced their business. What for? So they can place that cap into one of three jars placed at the entrance of the restaurant – each jar representing a certain local charity:

The jar that gets the most caps at the end of each month gets the largest donation from Grill'D. Now think about it. Those amounts are tiny to a business like Grill'D. Yet its marketing effect is undeniably effective – Grill'D burgers are twice as expensive as some of its competitors, but since its founding in 2004, Grill'D now has 51 stores around Australia and was pulling in $67 million in revenue, up 68% from the previous year.

How would you adapt this for your company?

People Identify With Causes

It's a human paradox that we want to belong to a large group, yet we also have the need to feel that personally we are "making a difference."

The reason we help others in need isn't because it's fun to do. It's because we align our identity with a certain cause. People feel what psychologists call a "cognitive dissonance" if they stand by and watch their beloved causes being trashed.

If you don't think this works, just check out Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign (which, by the way, featured a small group of women, not abstract statistics). The campaign didn't "sell" Dove products, yet sales skyrocketed nonetheless. Dove doesn't officially comment on this, but by some estimates, the campaign drove up sales by 6 to 20%, adding a whopping $500 million to their bottom line.

Their target market identified with the cause – and they bought Dove products because of it.

Identifiable Victim Effect Photo via Shutterstock

The post The Identifiable Victim Effect and How It Affects Your Marketing appeared first on Small Business Trends.

From colors and shapes to layout and navigation, design can make or break the online experience. A well-designed Web presence can attract, hold and help convert your target customers while a poor design can drive away visitors like nothing else.

Like many of the Web folks my age, I’ve taken few formal graphic design classes – I’ve learned most of what I know about design from online observation, experience and books. That’s right, I’ve learned a ton about graphic design from books, the best of which also continue to provide inspiration for my own projects.

Below are four of the most useful and inspirational graphic design books in my library. I found each one on a bookstore shelf (both online and off) so head on out and pick one or more up for yourself – your creativity will forever thank you.

Graphic Design Books for Web Designers

100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design

By Steven Heller and Veronique Vienne

Some of the ideas that caught my eye included: Body type, white space, pictograms, botanical geometry, the grid, nostalgia, riddles and rebuses, asymmetric typography and visual puns.

It’s what I found inside the book however, that convinced me to add it to my library. Well-organized throughout the book, there are 2-3 pages devoted to each design idea. On each set of pages, you can find a history of how and when that particular idea came about as well as a look at the impact that the idea had on the graphic design world.

Best of all though are the tons of images included to illustrate each idea. Ranging from full-page spreads to smaller blocks scattered about the page, each image helps you understand the design visually while also providing inspiration for your own projects.

100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People

By Susan M. Weinschenk, Ph.D.

No, all four books do not have a “100″ theme, but this one certainly deserves to be included on this list.

Chock-full of useful and useable information, this book focuses on how design affects human beings. This is a key element to understanding when and where to use different design elements to make the biggest and best impact.

Some of the things discussed include: people scan screens based on past experience and expectations, people read faster with a longer line length but they prefer a shorter line length, unpredictability keeps people searching and people are motivated by progress mastery and control.

As with the previous book on this list, the concepts are well organized into groups of pages. The best part however, is that each group ends with specific points for you to take away.

This is incredibly helpful and adds tons of value.

Idea Index

By Jim Krause

The first half of the book is dedicated to images and includes concepts such as doodle, drop shadow, damage, mask, photo effects, overlap, out of register and translucent. Each design type is illustrated using a light bulb, a very effective approach that makes it easier to compare between the different effects.

The second half of the book is devoted to type and text and includes concepts such as expand, reverse type, link/interlock, extreme weight and mixed tone.

Also included are pages that explain overarching design concepts such as letter spacing, simplification, limitations and relationships.

Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated

By William Lidwell, Kritina Holden and Jill Butler

The subtitle of the book is, “125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions” and that’s just what you’ll find inside. Each 2-page set both explains and illustrates a fundamental design concept that can have a profound affect on the success of your work.

I truly love the way this book is written – it’s as if each and every word was considered and all extraneous words were taken away.

You can get an idea of what I’m saying in these three examples of concepts (including an introduction for each) from the book:

Layering: The process of organizing information into related groupings in order to manage complexity and reinforce relationships in the information.

Flexibility-Usability Tradeoff: As the flexibility of a system increases, the usability of the system decreases (this explains why most of the folks in my parent’s generation cannot use our universal remote).

Progressive Disclosure: A strategy for managing information complexity in which only necessary or requested information is displayed at any given time.

I learned a ton the first time I read through this book but you don't have to read it cover to cover to get something out of it. The way the book is organized enables you to dip in and out of its pages whenever the mood or need, hits you.

Just as reading a cookbook does not make you a great cook, reading these four books will not make you a great designer. What they will do is give you a much deeper insight into the elements of great design and a much broader view of how you can use design to attract, hold and convert your target customers.

The post 4 Inspirational Graphic Design Books for Web Designers appeared first on Small Business Trends.

I’d guess that most of you that are reading this have either given PowerPoint presentations at one time or another or at least viewed one. Did you know that statistics reveals that listeners only remember 50% of what was presented just 10 minutes after a presentation is given?

The following day, it drops to 25%. A week later, it whittles down to just 10%. And this is if your presentation is good.

With over 350 PowerPoint presentations given each second across the globe, how does one go about making theirs  stand out from all the others? This infographic by Slideshop provides ten valuable techniques on how you can make your presentation stand out from the crowd.

[Click here for full size version]

The post Presentations: How to Make Your Message Stick appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you’ve been curious about the new Twitter advertising platform, you may have a good reason to try it out soon. But you’ll have to be a small business customer using one of Chase Bank’s financial products first. Twitter announced a partnership with Chase Bank last week aimed at trying to encourage use of its little more than a year-old advertising service.

Twitter advertising was launched on an invitation-only basis to select users in March of 2012 and was opened to all U.S. users in April of this year. The new program would award $1 million worth of free Twitter advertising credits in $100 increments to “eligible” Chase small business customers.

As part of the partnership between Twitter and Chase, the bank’s estimated four million plus small business customers, including those using Chase’s Business Banking, Ink from Chase credit card and Chase Paymentech (a system for merchants to accept credit cards on mobile devices, will get other benefits too. Some of those will include access to research, best practices and workshops about using Twitter to grow a business. No word yet on how many of these customers will be eligible for the free small business advertising credits, but Twitter has promised more details early this fall.

The popular social site will also be sharing customized content through a new @ChaseSmallBiz Twitter account.

On the official Twitter blog, Russ Laraway, head of small business for Twitter, wrote:

Our goal is to help small businesses build better customer engagement, increase sales using direct response techniques, and engage more followers with compelling content. We'll be posting videos, infographics, white papers and a how-to guide developed by Chase and Twitter to help small businesses learn more about the value of Twitter.

This isn’t the first time that Twitter offered advertising credits underwritten by a sponsor.  Another program was rolled out in 2012.

Bottom line: the advertising credits from Chase won’t be available for several months yet. Stay tuned and we will update you when they are rolled out to small businesses.

Twitter Photo via Shutterstock

The post Twitter Announces $1 Million in Ad Credits for Chase Small Business Customers appeared first on Small Business Trends.

When you browse the Web on a cell phone, you want it to be fast. You may think that all you need is a faster connection to speed up browsing, but it could be something as simple as downloading a better Web browser built for mobile. This review of the Dolphin browser is for the increasingly-mobile business owner who wants to be more productive and is looking for lifehacks to get there.

I’ll start out by saying that I love the Dolphin browser on my Samsung S3 (courtesy of the fine folks at the no-contract cell phone team at Ting for Business who provided me with a long term loaner phone). I tried Chrome and other default browsers, but they were marginal at best. As a completely free browser, Dolphin delivers for Android, iPhone and iPad. You can even download extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Safari which will allow you to sync stuff with your mobile device.

It is hard to take a photo of your phone when that’s your only camera. So I’m using a press kit photo from the company’s website.

What I Really Like:

• Has gesture and voice control. For gesture, you click in the lower corner of the screen. You create your own custom scribbles or sketches or shapes to serve as shortcuts to specific websites. You click and draw that gesture to get to the site. For voice, called Sonar, you shake the handset and up pops a microphone icon. Start speaking and it takes you there. Sort of like Apple’s Siri or Google Now.
• Evernote add-on that lets me clip pages to my Evernote account.
• They have a battery saver app to help you conserve battery usage on your smartphone. I guess it is in their best interest to ensure you have plenty of battery for surfing the Web.

What I Would Like to See:

• Something that lets me know there is a history list to the left and an apps list to the right of the main browser window. Essentially, you have to grab the far side of your window and slide left or right to find these admin type areas. Useful to know, but I happened upon it.
• I honestly don’t have anything else. I think it is one of the best browsers on the market.

If you are on a mobile phone and find yourself waiting for websites to load, test out a different browser like Dolphin. Again, it is a free browser and you can get it for your Android-powered phone, the iPhone and iPad.

The post Speed Up Your Mobile Browsing with Dolphin appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you sell directly to U.S. customers or provide marketing services to clients who do, pay attention. A recent report says a growing mobile market is already generating billions in U.S. sales. And businesses are also spending billions to market to customers via mobile channels.

The Mobile Marketing Association, a global trade association for the mobile marketing industry, says those numbers are only going to increase.

Consider that last year mobile marketing generated an estimated $139 billion in U.S. sales. This figure takes into account both business to business and business to consumer sales.

The association claims the “MMA Mobile Marketing Economic Impact Study” released last month, is the first comprehensive study of U.S. economic performance across the mobile marketing industry.

Huge Growth Projected

Most impressive is that this amount is expected to grow by more than half during the next two years. The report says sales generated through mobile marketing will top $400 billion by 2015, an amazing 52 percent rise.

But it’s not just sales that are increasing. The MMA study suggests the amount U.S. companies are willing to spend on mobile marketing is increasing too.

For example, in 2012 the study estimates retailers and marketers spent $6.7 billion to reach customers via mobile channels. That’s considerably less than the amount generated by mobile sales, but still represents a huge opportunity for businesses providing mobile marketing services.

The study projected that amount would also increase, reaching $19.8 billion by 2015.

Mobile advertising, mobile direct response or enhanced traditional media and mobile customer relationship management were all considered in that expenditure.

What it Means to You

While the MMA study was aimed at demonstrating the economic stimulus and job creation potential of mobile marketing, there is a clear message here for small businesses and entrepreneurs as well.

USA Today reported recently on how small businesses are already putting mobile marketing to work to generate additional sales.

We’ve reported previously on the importance of mobile technology to small business operations.

But the MMA study demonstrates the importance of mobile technology for growing your business too.

For many small businesses, this could include focusing on making sure you have a mobile friendly presence. It could also include focusing more attention on social media marketing, much of which is accessed via mobile devices by your customers.

You could also focus on developing mobile apps for your business. And, of course, if you provide marketing services to other business clients, it also means you should consider including mobile marketing services among your other offerings.

How is your business using mobile marketing to reach customers?

Mobile Photo via Shutterstock

The post Mobile Marketing Will Generate $400 Billion in Sales by 2015 appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you are non-native-English-speaking man who runs a construction or real estate rental business, hires a tax preparer rather than doing his own taxes, and thinks that making money enhances social status, beware. Research by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) indicates that you are among the sole proprietors most likely to cheat on your personal income taxes.

Running your own business is one of the best ways to pay less in taxes than you owe, a recent New York Times article explained. The IRS knows this, of course, reporting that sole proprietors disclose only 43 percent of their income on their returns.

To figure out which taxpayers might be underpaying their taxes and be worthy of a second look from its auditors, the IRS's computers assign a Discriminant Function System score (DIF) to each tax return filed. These scores use information from the IRS's database of past tax filings to predict whether a taxpayer is likely to have under reported income.

Determining which sole proprietors might be underreporting income isn't easy. Most business pay all that they owe. Even if the IRS reassigned everyone currently responsible for evaluating non-profit status applications for all politically conservative organizations (a little topical humor here), the agency would still lack the resources needed to audit all sole proprietors. For returns filed in 2011, the tax authority "only" audited 1.6 percent of individual returns with business income.

That's why the IRS contracted with Russell Research to conduct a survey of sole proprietors in the first quarter of 2012. The investigators divided a representative sample of sole proprietors into the most and least "compliant" (IRS-speak for willing to pay all of the taxes they owe) on their DIF scores for their 2009 tax returns. They then compared the most and least compliant fifths on the basis of their answers to a range of survey questions.

The results, which were published in a study released earlier this year, provide insight into which sole proprietors are most likely to be tax cheats:

• Men were less likely than women to be "compliant." While males made up 59 percent of the more compliant taxpayers, they composed 65 percent of the less compliant ones.
• Twice the fraction of sole proprietors who speak a language other than English at home were less compliant in paying taxes (14 percent versus 7 percent).
• Owners of companies with more employees were less compliant (average employment of 6.6 versus 3.6).
• Owners of professional, scientific and technical service businesses, health care and social assistance, and arts, entertainment and recreation businesses were more likely to be compliant than owners of construction, and real estate and rental and leasing businesses.
• Owners of businesses with lower sales tended to be more compliant (average sales of $47,000 versus $87,000).
• Owners of businesses with lower expenses tended to be more compliant (average expenses of $12,000 versus $50,000).
• Owners who complete their own tax returns tended to be more compliant (32 percent of the more compliant sole proprietors do their own taxes versus only 21 percent of the less compliant ones).
• People who indicated that they were more willing to take financial risks, and those who reported that overall status depends on finances, tended to be less compliant.
• People who were more cynical about the tax system, those who had more negative attitudes about the IRS, and those who were more skeptical about the value of government activity, tended to be less compliant.

Note to those of you at the IRS who read my posts: I abhor risk; am very positive about the government and the tax system; and think you are doing a fine job, despite recent news reports.

Just thought you'd want to know.

taxes Photo via Shutterstock

The post Which Sole Proprietors Cheat on Their Taxes (According to the IRS)? appeared first on Small Business Trends.

We invite you to join us for a live Google Hangout with Vice President and General Manager of Yahoo Small Business, Tom Byun, as we discuss:

• How to run a small business with modern tools: Email marketing, directory listings, reputation management on review sites and more.
• Recession hangover tips: How to attract potential customers and engage current customers.
• Social media and small businesses: Reaching niche audiences on mobile and connected devices.
• New advertising methods that work for small businesses.
• How Yahoo’s recent acquisition’s of Tumblr and Rondee will help small businesses build relationships with customers.

And the best part is – you’ll also have a chance to ask Tom questions during this informative session.

As Vice President and General Manager for Yahoo Small Business, Tom oversees all aspects of Yahoo's small business organization, an organization that has helped millions of businesses grow their presence on the Internet for more than a decade.

Tom’s oversight includes marketing, product marketing, engineering, business development, sales and account management teams to ensure exceptional experiences to its business customers as Yahoo helps them grow online.

Take advantage of this opportunity to get up close and personal with Tom.  We encourage you to ask questions and gain insightful information during the discussion. The details are as follows.

Who, What, When, Where

Who:  Tom Byun, Vice President and General Manager for Yahoo Small Business

What: Google Hangout

When: Friday June 21, 2013  from 12:00 PM EST until 12:30 PM EST (New York Time)

Where: http://smallbiztrends.com/hangout (the video will appear there once the event is streaming live), hashtag #LunchHangout

In the meantime, if you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed, Tom has a solution for you.  He joined me last May for an interview, “Small Business: Solutions For The Overwhelmed.” He was also a 2012 Small Business Influencer Champion in the Small Business Influencer Awards (nominations begin again on June 25, 2013).

Be sure to join Tom and me this Friday for a lunchtime hangout – we hope to see you there!

The post Join Us for a Google Hangout With Tom Byun of Yahoo appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Running a successful marketing campaign is contingent upon several factors. This includes realistic goal setting, organization, communication, execution, and keeping track of metrics. In the past, there were limited tools and resources to aid in a marketing campaign. These tools were primitive and many lacked efficiency. Fortunately, cloud apps have changed the marketing landscape and are ideal for business owners looking to streamline their marketing campaigns and their progress.

Let's discuss the benefits of cloud apps and some of the best ones available for streamlining marketing campaigns.

Use Cloud Apps to Streamline Marketing Campaigns

Data Storage

Perhaps the most beneficial part of cloud apps is their ability to safely and securely store data. Whether you're using spreadsheets, documents or forms, information can be conveniently saved and accessed whenever necessary. Since this data is in the cloud and not saved onto a computer, disc or USB, there are no worries about it being lost or destroyed.

Even if your computer has a meltdown, all data from your marketing campaign could easily be retrieved online. In an uncertain world where there's always the potential for curveballs and human error, cloud apps offer marketers a peace of mind that critical data will never be lost.

It's also relatively secure because the cloud can only be accessed by authorized individuals with the username and password.

Convenience

If you're coordinating multiple people into your marketing campaigns, it's important that everyone can quickly access the information they need. For instance, one person may be in charge of SEO, another in charge of social media and another responsible for email marketing. Using a cloud app allows each person to log in and work on whichever aspect of the campaign they need to from any location that has Internet access.

This means that a small business can efficiently run its marketing campaign with employees across the country or even the world. Since many cloud apps are also available on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, this allows employees to complete tasks while they're on the road and increase productivity.

Low Cost

Although big companies may have the funds to pay for elaborate software to run marketing campaigns, many small to mid-sized businesses are on a limited budget. Since many cloud apps are inexpensive or even free, they're a great solution for staying on track without breaking the bank. Many cloud providers also operate on a pay-as-you-go basis, so there's no need for long contracts and obligations. Besides this, updates and upgrades are usually part of the package, so there's no need to pay additional fees.

Now that you understand what the inherent advantages of cloud apps are, let's discuss some of the more popular products on the market.

Google Drive

This is the preferred choice of many marketers and business owners because it's simple, effective and free. According to TechCrunch, Google Drive had over 10 million users as of mid 2012 and this number is likely to keep growing. It's easy to use and allows you to create documents, spreadsheets, folders, forms, drawings and presentations. The interface has a minimalist aesthetic with a clean, white background.

Projects can be stored according to title, the last date they were modified, opened or edited for efficient organization. Unlike some more complicated apps, this platform is also highly intuitive and the basics can be learned by most people very quickly. This makes it practical and minimizes the learner's curve. If you want to upload existing documents from your computer, it's easy to do. Due to the large volume of free storage, it's equipped to handle the data needs of most businesses.

My favorite part of Google Drive is the fact that it allows team members to collaborate simultaneously on the same document. This means the whole team can view and edit a spreadsheet together, improving collaboration and reducing headaches.

Many people also use Google Calendar, which is perfect for keeping track of deadlines and keeping things on schedule. It will also notify you via email when a project is due or of other important information.

HootSuite

When it comes to running a social media marketing campaign, this is one of the most popular and effective platforms. It allows you to manage profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, FourSquare, Mixi and even Myspace. In a nutshell, HootSuite makes it easy to monitor user engagement and track the progress of a social media campaign.

For Facebook, you can monitor feeds and coordinate posts with greater ease. On Twitter, it's simple to schedule tweets, track how many mentions a profile receives, favorite tweets, etc. Integrating HootSuite with Google+ makes it possible to monitor circles, comments and user activity. It also provides more control over publishing to maximize the impact of a campaign.

This platform incorporates a highly sophisticated analytics program to help marketers uncover information about their demographic. Data can be broken down by geographical location, language and posting source to gain insights. By integrating various social media profiles with this app, it will produce comprehensive analytics reports that can be broken down daily, weekly or bi-weekly. This makes it easy to spot trends and make the adjustments to better optimize a campaign.

Evernote

If you have a lot on your plate and are always coming up with ideas, this app can be very helpful. It can be accessed via computer, tablet or smartphone and allows you to store a variety of media. During a brainstorming session, you can conveniently make notes to view later. You can save images, important websites, files, snapshots and documents from one central location. Once data is saved, it can conveniently be retrieved on any compatible device regardless of where you're at.

Collaborating on projects and sharing notes with employees is simple, which helps capitalize on new ideas while they're still fresh. Evernote also has a feature that allows you to search for whatever you're looking for via tags. Consequently, it can hasten any project and eliminates having to manually search for information. Basically, this cloud app is ideal for small marketing teams that need to quickly share information and boost productivity.

Regardless of the location of team members, everyone can work alongside one another to accomplish the most tasks with the least amount of effort. Since everything is stored online, there's no need to worry about broken computers or losing valuable information.

Asana

When communication between employees is critical and there are tight deadlines, this app can come in handy. Asana is all about productivity and ensuring that each team member completes their tasks on time. Through Asana and email notifications, time sensitive information can be sent and received quickly. Individual employees can receive tasks, which can be prioritized according to importance.

Since you can view other team members' tasks and priorities, this can reduce wasted time spent at meetings and more time can be dedicated to actually getting marketing done. If you're behind on a certain project, you will know before it's too late and you can take the necessary steps to get back on track. Like many other apps, Asana can be used on a variety of mobile devices for streamlined access to information. Basically, this app is intended to improve communication and boost productivity.

Cloud Apps Photo via Shutterstock

The post How to Use Cloud Apps to Streamline Your Marketing Campaign appeared first on Small Business Trends.

[White iPhone 5]

Apple products, including the iconic iPhone, may not be the first choice for many small business owners and entrepreneurs because of the price tag. But that could change if the legendary tech company were to offer a line of new iPhones at what even some in the industry consider the unbelievably low price of $99 MSRP.

Actually, the speculation that Apple could release a cheaper version of the iPhone as early as this summer has circulated for months.

Budget iPhone Could be Coming

This week Reuters reported Apple is considering a budget iPhone in a plastic casing that might come in a variety of colors. The report says a cost as low as $99 has been discussed but not yet finalized.

The article quotes several sources including some in the tech giant’s supply chain in Asia, but Apple has yet to comment.

Back in April, website 9 to 5 Mac went a bit wild speculating about possible colors for a cheaper plastic iPhone line.

The site started with colors used for a line of iPods already on the market and asked 3D modeler Ferry Passchier to create a gallery of 10 possibilities.

Competition Tends to Drive Down Price

Apple is under pressure to offer lower price and greater variety in a smartphone and tablet market where it faces increased competition from many rivals.

Analysts say the company especially needs cheaper products to compete in emerging markets like China and India.

We’ve reported before about budget mobile products targeted specifically at emerging markets, some not even being offered in the U.S. But there is no indication whether a cheaper plastic iPhone would be limited to these markets.

Sources say the cheaper phone could be available later this year or as late as 2014.

Image: Apple

The post Apple Discusses $99 Plastic iPhone in 5 to 6 Colors appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Ten or 15 years ago, managing your information technology was simpler in one sense.  A company decided on its computing environment -– its designated operating system, devices and software –- and that's what employees used.  Period.

But then along came the BYOD trend.  BYOD, which stands for “Bring Your Own (computing) Device” to work, has swept America in the past five years.  Employees got used to using technology in their personal lives – so much so that that they didn't want to give it up when at work.

We all seem to want the flexibility to work from home and while on business travel, using devices we individually feel comfortable with.  And of course we all want to use the coolest new mobile devices rather than staid company-issued laptops or desktop computers.

If your business is like ours, you're now under pressure to allow employees to use their own smartphones, tablets and laptops for work.   A study last year found that 95% of large companies surveyed allow employees to use employee-owned devices for work.  It's now become ingrained in the workplace.

The BYOD trend has benefits, to be sure.  It makes for happier employees.  They can be more productive while working outside the office.

BYOD Trend Challenges for Small Businesses

But the BYOD trend also poses extra challenges for businesses:

Control - One obvious thing is that it is harder to control your IT environment.  With companies relying more on technology to conduct business, there's simply more to manage to make sure everything works as seamlessly as possible.  Top that off with employees using a variety of devices and operating systems … and complexity multiples.

Personal vs. Work - Then you have the morphing of personal activities with work activities when people use a single device for both.  The question becomes how to partition them. How do you keep personal email separate from work email in a way that employees don't resent, and that protects both the company and the employee?

Mobility - Your team may work from different locations, such as their homes, or they may simply do more work while out in the field or on business trips. They will be using mobile devices and that brings added challenges. Mobile security is one of them – and that can be as simple an issue as a tablet getting lost.  One honeypot study found that when mobile devices where intentionally lost, in almost all cases the data was accessed, either for illicit purposes or simply to discover the owner.  If a mobility-related incident resulted in losses, the average was almost $250,000.

Security - Small businesses in general face more IT security challenges than ever before.  According to one study, companies with fewer than 250 employees were the focus of 31 percent of all cyber attacks last year.  And with so many different devices, and so many of them being mobile devices, security concerns are multiplying.

So, What Can You Do?

A lot, actually.  The most important thing is:  do not turn a blind eye to BYOD devices.

Recognize that the IT environment is very different today.  It calls for new policies, employee education, adoption of up-to-date best practices, and last but not least, implementing device management tools and other technology solutions designed for a BYOD environment.

Here are 5 steps to take to operate in a BYOD environment:

1 .  Require Notification

The whole idea behind the BYOD trend is giving greater freedom to employees. However, there are ways to achieve a sense of freedom, without abdicating control altogether.   For one thing, make it a policy that all devices have to be “registered with” or brought to the attention of your  IT administrator or any outside firm that assists you with IT, so that device management solutions can be enabled.  Some employers exert more control by creating a list of  ”approved BYOD devices.”  While this poses some restrictions on employees, at least it meets them halfway.  You have to know who is using what.

2.  Adopt Best Practices

For instance, require mobile devices to be secured with a password-protected screen lock when not in use.  Also, require employees to notify the company immediately in the event a mobile device is lost or stolen.  These and other best practices will help protect your business.

3.  Create a Policy

With freedom comes responsibility.Create a written BYOD policy for employees. This could be in the form of a memo, incorporated into the employee handbook, and/or placed on the company intranet.  Make employees aware of what is acceptable, and what’s not.

4.  Educate Employees

Take the time to educate employees about the challenges and risks.  You'll get more cooperation if they understand the “why” behind rules.  A lunch and learn session or simply bringing up the topic in staff meetings can go a long way.

5.  Implement a mobile device management solution

This is probably one of the most crucial things you can do.  A mobility management solution gives you a way to manage multiple devices and applications, from a central dashboard.  It enables you to view the "big IT picture" and treat BYOD devices as integral points in your IT systems – not something separate or unrelated.

Look for one that offers robust security and that protects important company data.  Security certainly will be at the top of the list.  But you also want the ability to monitor and manage mobile devices.

Beyond that, some mobility management solutions can help you manage expenses, too, through consolidated reporting.  You can manage different devices and different plans through a single dashboard.

Advanced security specifically for mobile devices, such as capabilities for remote wipe of data in the event a mobile device is lost, and data encryption, can create peace of mind.

Data archiving solutions can also add to convenience. They help you meet disaster recovery and legal archiving requirements, and further secure your IT assets.

Bottom line:  there is a lot you can do to allow employees the freedom and flexibility to use devices they prefer.  You don't have to sacrifice protection of your business assets or create an unwieldy logistical situation in doing it.

Shutterstock: BYOD Message, Mobile, BYOD at Work

The post 5 Ways to Avoid BYOD Nightmares appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Is your small business ready to hire or does it have any immediate hiring plans? If not, you're in line with the majority of small and midsized companies in the U.S., according to the latest Sage SMB Hiring Outlook Survey from Sage North America.

According to Sage, 25 percent of SMBs overall say they either have hired or will hire in 2013, while 47 percent expect staffing to stay the same. Only 7 percent have cut or plan to cut staff this year. The rest still weren't sure of their hiring plans.

The survey polled businesses with 99 or fewer employees. Companies with more than 20 employees were significantly more likely to have already hired or have hiring plans. Thirty-four percent of companies of this size had hired or plan to hire, while 34 percent planned to keep staffing levels the same. In comparison, just 18 percent of companies with fewer than 20 employees had hired or plan to hire, while 55 percent plan to keep staffing levels the same.

However, size wasn't the biggest factor in whether a company has hired or will hire this year. Increased demand for its products or services was the primary influencer, cited by 81 percent of companies that are hiring. Larger companies (with 20 or more employees) were also more likely to be hiring because they felt optimistic about the economy—36 percent cited an improved economic outlook as a reason they were hiring.

The biggest reason companies aren't hiring?

Not surprisingly, it's lack of demand for their products or services (40 percent), followed closely by economic uncertainty (39 percent), non-healthcare-related costs of doing business (26 percent) and continued uncertainty in Washington (20 percent).

Prior Sage surveys reported taxes and regulations hampered SMB growth, but this survey shows that although both taxes and regulations are factors in hiring, they aren't top factors for not hiring. Small business owners are a sensible lot, and what's happening in their own companies—not factors outside their control—is the primary driver for their choices.

There's also some heartening news among the companies that have hired or plan to hire this year: A whopping 82 percent plan to bring on full-time employees, while 29 percent plan to hire part-timers, 19 percent plan to hire seasonal workers and 10 percent plan to hire contract workers.

As small business owners know, hiring full-time employees is a leap of faith since full-timers typically cost more than other types of employees in terms of training, benefits and wages. Plus, few entrepreneurs relish bringing on full-time workers only to lay them off again—so business owners are typically feeling pretty confident before they bring on new full-time staff.

The prevalence of business owners who are committed to full-time hiring means a significant percentage of entrepreneurs are feeling optimistic about their futures—and that's good news.

Hiring Photo via Shutterstock

The post How Do Your Business's Hiring Plans Stack Up? appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Last year we published a list of 20 Social Media Monitoring Tools. One of the more popular tools on that list is Hootsuite. Today we give you a deep dive into Hootsuite:  what it is and how it can make you more productive with social media.

If you are looking for a tool that lets you manage all of your social media accounts and presence in a single place, and collaborate as a team on them, then Hootsuite should be at the top of your list to investigate.

Hootsuite is a Web-based tool (although it also can be used on popular mobile devices- see screenshot above).

You take a few minutes to set up a Hootsuite account;  then connect your various social media profiles.  After this one-time setup, you will be able to use it.  Here are 4 essential functions that Hootsuite performs:

1. Manage Your Social Accounts in One Place

You do this from the Hootsuite dashboard, without visiting each site separately or using a multitude of different mobile apps.  This includes replying to others, retweeting, “liking,” sharing and responding to private messages, and otherwise carrying out activity on your social accounts.

The activities that you can perform vary by social media platform. You won’t be able to do every single thing for your Facebook Page, for instance. But we’ve found that we can do 90% of our day-to-day social activities from within Hootsuite.

You can manage Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Google Plus, MySpace, WordPress and Mixi — individual profiles and business pages.

2. Schedule Updates

The built-in calendar is one of the most important features. Use it to schedule posts to your social accounts.  In other words, you can keep your accounts active. More importantly, you can be efficient by scheduling all your social updates at one time for, say scheduling once a day or once a week. In other words, you can “batch” your work. Then you aren’t constantly interrupting other activities to update social accounts throughout the day or week.

There’s also an auto-schedule feature that will automatically schedule your tweets and updates to go out at optimal times.

Running a marketing campaign and have a lot of updates to make over a period of say, two weeks?  You can actually upload a CSV spreadsheet for all the messages.

If you prefer “set it and forget it” automation, you can add RSS feeds to automatically update social accounts every time a new article goes out from your company blog, for example.  You can set it to post one item at a time (recommended) or more.  You can direct it to check for new items in the feed and post them, once per hour or up to once per day.

3. Communicate and Collaborate as a Team

You can assign tasks, such as responding to a tweet or a private direct message, to a team member, as seen above.  No emails or separate instant message instructions needed. Assignments are right there within the Hootsuite dashboard.

Also, because multiple users can use Hootsuite, everyone can “see” what activity is completed or hasn’t been done yet.  Again, no communicating via email or messaging programs to find out if someone followed up on that Twitter customer complaint yet, or not.   How many users you can have depends on which product level and upgrades you have purchased.

4. Get Analytics and Reports

Fragmented results here and there don’t do much to help you analyze and understand how well social media is working — or not.  For that, you really need to see a bird’s eye view of activity over a period of time, and be able to compare it.

Many social media platforms now offer analytics.  But who has time to run and grab those analytics from Facebook Insights, or a multitude of other social sites?  Hootsuite’s built-in analytics and reports  give this kind ability to track your progress and understand what’s working best, in one place.

Best of all, you can get weekly reports emailed to you.  These are extremely helpful.  For instance, here at Small Business Trends we review the analytics reports in staff meetings from time to time.

What I Like About Hootsuite

The company keeps investing in enhancements to its platform.  Hootsuite just keeps getting better.  And that’s not always true with products.

Here are two aspects that are particularly impressive:

Integration / Interoperability With Other Marketing Applications

You’re not limited to managing just the 8 social media platforms Hootsuite currently covers. You can extend capabilities to other social media sites and even other programs, by adding “apps” from the Hootsuite Apps Directory.

For instance, you’ll find apps for social sites such as Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr, Scoop.it, YouTube and several more (see screenshot below).

Then there are apps that offer some level of integration or interoperability with popular marketing and CRM programs that businesses use.  There are apps for ConstantContact, Nimble, HubSpot, Salesforce, ZenDesk and more.  What exactly the apps allow you to do with Hootsuite varies by app.  For a description of one such app, see our write-up about the Batchbook and Hootsuite integration.

Most apps are free.  Some, like the app for Salesforce, require an additional monthly fee. But even the paid premium apps are relatively inexpensive. Apps usually cost less than $5 per month per premium app.

I like the fact that Hoosuite has been open to allowing these kinds of apps, through its developer program.  It makes Hootsuite more useful as a central dashboard and management tool.

Different Pricing Levels to Meet Different Needs

Another positive aspect of Hoosuite is that it offers different pricing and feature levels.

There’s a free level, for a single user to update 5 social profiles.  This is good for a really small startup or sole proprietor.  It’s also a risk-free way to try out Hoosuite.

The Pro version, currently $8.99  a month  – the price recently went up — can be used with a small team of two users.  Additional users can be added for a fee.  The added users can vary — anywhere from $10 to $15 for the third user, and $15 to $30 each additional after that.  It all depends on whether you are under the “new” pricing or old.

Note that some of the features in this review may only be available at the Pro level.

With Pro you can manage an unlimited number of social profiles.  You receive an enhanced analytics report, and can choose an unlimited number of apps.  There’s a 30-day free trial of this version, too.  The Pro version is what most small businesses likely will use.

The Enterprise version is for, well, large enterprises.  Pricing is not even available on the site for Enterprise.  The Enterprise version adds advanced features, such as advanced security, geo-targeting, advanced customer support. It also adds Hootsuite University, an online training program for social media and learning to use Hootsuite.

There’s a discount of 10% for annual billing instead of monthly, for some savings.

What I’d Like to See Hootsuite Do Differently

While I like the different levels of Hootsuite, some small businesses may consider it expensive to purchase certain add-ons ala carte.  The cost can really add up.

Hootsuite University is one such add-on I’ve heard people kvetch about.  Ala carte it’s $21 per month.  Small business teams really could benefit from training. But the pricing model poses a challenge.  Small business owners I’ve heard from are concerned that once you sign up for a monthly fee, if team members don’t use it, you could find your organization a year later paying for a service that’s rarely been used – just because somebody forgot to cancel it.  A one-time fee per user would solve that issue.

Another pricing issue is the limitations and expense of using vanity URL shorteners for brand enhancement of your links shared.  For instance, at Small Business Trends we’ve started using our own URL shortener of http://SBT.me.    Hootsuite allows custom URLs — but only if you sign up for Owly Pro.  That costs $49.99 per month.

Small businesses will be very cost sensitive about social media tools. Just 39% of small businesses say they get ROI from social media. Of those the majority isolate the dollar value to under $1,000 per year.

Still, at the base price of under ten bucks a month, Hootsuite Pro delivers excellent value. The base price should be affordable by most small businesses.  Just be careful about those add-ons!

At Small Business Trends we are paid customers of Hootsuite. We did not get any special consideration for this review.

More About Hootsuite

As mentioned, Hootsuite is a Web-based based app, and can be used from most modern browsers.  There are extensions (“hootlets” or “hootbars”) for Chrome and Firefox browsers.

Hootsuite offers mobile apps so that you can manage your social presence from an iPhone, Android devices and the iPad.

HootSuite Media, Inc. was founded in 2008 by Ryan Holmes, who is also the company CEO. Its headquarters is located in Vancouver, BC, Canada.  It has over 6 million users, who send 3 million messages a day through the dashboard.

Overall, Hootsuite is the gold standard today for managing your social media accounts.  It offers a strong affordable mix for small business users.

The post Review of Hootsuite: Manage Social Media From A Single Dashboard appeared first on Small Business Trends.

It’s National Small Business Week here in the U.S.  Companies and organizations are sharing products, tips and information with the small business community to help small companies perform better. From new cloud-based services and payroll apps … to tips on using productivity tools, here is some of what’s out there.

Since we can’t write about all of them, we’re sharing short updates:

Radiate Media helps local businesses get found. Radiate Media, a maker of software for local businesses, introduces Radiate360. The company says its platform helps simplify social media for hyper-local businesses. It claims Radiate360 allows local companies to create a mobile-optimized website and promote through mobile, digital and other channels.

Pex Card releases its small business survey. Pex Card, offering expense cards for small businesses, issued the results of its first mid-year small to medium sized businesses survey (PDF). The survey says 78 percent of respondents believe their businesses are doing as well or better than expected halfway through the year.

Intuit introduces Payroll for iPad. The new app from Intuit takes advantage of the larger screen of a tablet for calculations. The app lets you create paychecks for employees and contractors. The technology allows businesses to pay by direct deposit and comply with applicable state and federal regulations.

New troubleshooting introduced for your Web services. This week, IT solutions company Anturis unveiled an enhanced cloud-based monitoring and troubleshooting solution. The company says it helps with Web services and IT infrastructure. Anturis says its solution is created with small and medium sized businesses in mind.

Facebook dishes out details. The social media giant says it is giving page administrators more information via its Insights analytics tool. Among other things, Facebook says new editions to the tool will tell administrators more about the data that makes up the “People Talking About This” and “Virality” metrics.

Microsoft offers free workshops. In recognition of National Small Business Week, some Microsoft retail stores are offering free workshops and demos throughout the week. Microsoft says the services are in support of its Office 365 small business software.

Google offers productivity tools. The Google PR team offers some tips and product suggestions to help with your productivity. Google says using its Priority Inbox helps you separate your important e-mails. The company says Smart Rescheduler, a feature of Google Calendar, helps you book times to meet that work with friends family or colleagues.

The post Small Business Week Brings New Products, Tips, Information appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Is it a good idea to create a business startup right after college?

Before you ask this question to an entrepreneur or your mentor, you need to find certain answers yourself. Becoming self-employed is a tough task, wherever you are in life.

It is even more difficult to stay afloat once you start. Statistics say that 9 out of 10 new businesses fail within the first 5 years. Not an encouraging figure, but it is not impossible either. You need to possess the right mindset. Let's take a look at what you need to ask yourself before you start a business after college.

Determine If It’s Possible to Create a Business Startup

Ask Yourself: What Motivates You to Take Up the Challenge?

If the prospect of self-employment allures you because you think you just need to work for a few hours from a stunning beach sipping on a martini, you are better off being employed by someone else. Let's take this one step at a time.

Are you motivated by the easy way to get rich premise? If yes, you are in for serious disappointment. The majority of new businesses fail to recover any money invested within a year, let alone make profits. You can only succeed with years of hard work and patience.

Are you motivated by the idea that you need not work for endless hours at an office? Well, a new entrepreneur often needs to put in as much as 10 hours of work every day. True, you can work as per your schedule, but that does not take away the effort you need to put in.

The only way to succeed as a self-employed individual is to make sure that you are willing to solve a problem, need or want of a customer, and do it in a way that beats your competitors. To do this, you need to put in hours of hard work and take care of numerous responsibilities.

Ask Yourself: Do You Love the Idea that Forms the Core of the Business?

A new entrepreneur can attain success; but only when the driving force behind it is love and passion for the business. If you are enthused and excited about the central idea, the chances of your success increase.

Does this mean that anyone who loves haute couture can start off as a fashion designer? It is not that simple. Think about something – have you designed anything for anyone? How well was it received by them? Did it find appreciation among others?

You need to find the ONE thing that fills you with fervor and zeal. Only that idea can work as the core of your new endeavor. It is much easier to start a new business when you can identify your unique selling point.

Ask Yourself: How Do You Plan to Handle the Finances?

Many first-timers start off with the funds they manage to pool in from family and friends. The lack of real experience makes it difficult for them to impress the big investors who find interest only in 'real' businesses.

Don't be disheartened; the Internet gives you the best option to start up a new business right after college and that too at a negligible cost. It just needs to be a service-oriented online business, for the time being.

Another advantage of starting early is that you need not bother about things such as paying off a mortgage or supporting a family. If you are still living with your parents, you can save even more money to invest in the start-up.

If possible, continue to work part-time for someone else while you set up your business. This way you can rely on the amount you earn until your business begins to earn profits. A great thing to do is to work in the same niche in which you have your business.

Ask Yourself: Can You Be a Jack of All Trades and Master Them Too?

There is no secret to success for a new business. If you think that you can earn big and get rich without any effort, you are WRONG. It is possible to succeed only if you are capable of handling the numerous responsibilities that come with your own business.

Remember, it is YOUR business; you will have to be the manager, the marketer, the advertiser, the accountant, the vendor and every other thing, at least initially. There is no way to avoid these responsibilities.

You cannot take on employees, unless you have a huge budget, in a startup. The overhead would be too much for the fledgling endeavor. However, once you start off, you can outsource certain tasks to professionals.

Getting advice and assistance from others can help you focus on the things that matter.

You can create a business startup, not only after college, but wherever you are in life at present. Look at the brothers Shravan (12 years) and Sanjay Kumaran (10 years), the brothers who created mobile phone applications for their company Go Dimensions.

The tech-savvy brothers from India are not yet out of school and they are already making their mark on the business world. At the end, it is the zest and passion you have for the idea and the effort you put in to transform it into reality that matters.

The post Is it Possible to Create a Business Startup Right After College? appeared first on Small Business Trends.

When suffering a cyber attack, small businesses lack the resources of a larger company and face different challenges. In acknowledgement of this, global software security company McAfee has created a new senior vice president position to be in charge of the small and medium size business market.

On Monday, McAfee announced filling that position with former Apple executive Bill Rielly, pictured here.  ”McAfee is building upon its experience protecting larger enterprises and establishing a dedicated team focused on protecting SMBs,” wrote Carly Listman, McAfee PR Manager, in an e-mail response to Small Business Trends about the position.

We’ve reported before on how small businesses face an increasing threat from cyber criminals.

A disproportionately high number of small firms are already the focus of cyber attacks, McAfee explained in a prepared release announcing Rielly’s appointment. These companies are also the least able to recover from the resulting damages once a data breach has taken place.

For example, in 2011 more than 75 percent of data breaches targeted small to medium sized companies, says a 2012 report (PDF) from the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA).

While larger companies are generally better able to bounce back from such attacks, a 2011 report suggests (PDF) 60 percent of small businesses end up closing their doors within half a year of a breach occurring.

Rielly comes to McAfee from Apple where he served as leader of the SMB division for the Apple Online Store. He seems to have been chosen primarily for his experience with marketing to small and medium sized businesses and with managing global brands, rather than for any specific knowledge about online security issues.

Michael DeCesare, president of McAfee, pointed to Reilly’s results in marketing to SMBs as a key reason for his appointment, noting he has had, “phenomenal success in taking some of the most notable brands in the industry and expanding their share of the SMB market worldwide.”

McAfee is a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel Corporation, a multinational maker of semiconductor chips headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif.

Image: Businesswire

The post McAfee Hires Former Apple Executive to Oversee Small Business Market appeared first on Small Business Trends.

The Google Analytics Dashboard can be scary and confusing.  I am going to break down how to use Google Analytics to tell where your traffic is coming from, and how to isolate one source from another to understand whether traffic from certain sources is growing.

How to Use Google Analytics

How to Get to Your Traffic Report

When you log into Google Analytics, you see something like this.  Click "Traffic Sources" near the bottom on the left:

That will expand the "Traffic Sources" accordion.

Next Click "Overview" and you will get a screen that looks like this:

Different Types of Traffic

In the overview, you will see a pie chart that highlights 4 traffic sources: Search Traffic, Referral Traffic, Direct Traffic and Campaigns.

• Search Traffic: Traffic that comes from a Web search.
• Referral Traffic: Traffic that comes from someone clicking a link to your site from another site.
• Direct Traffic: Traffic where the "referrer is unknown," such as directly typing a URL into the navigation window or clicking on a link in an email newsletter.
• Campaigns: Traffic from an adwords campaign.

Diving Deeper Into the Sources

To dive deeper into a particular traffic source, click "Sources" just under "Overview:"

This will take you to another set of menus where you can take a closer look at a particular source.  You will see a chart that looks very much like the overview chart, except it will be a chart for only the traffic source you choose.

In this case, I am going to click "Search Traffic… Overview:"

This gives me a closer look into my search traffic, how it is trending.  In this case, my traffic is bumping along with no major trend up or down.  If I were embarking on an SEO project for this site, this is where I would go to see the fruit of my labor.  After all, if I am optimizing for search, then my traffic from search should increase.

Where to Look in Specific Scenarios

The first few paragraphs were a basic overview of the structure of Google Analytics and where to go to see traffic breakdowns.  Now I am going to talk about specific scenarios related to web traffic and where you would go to see the associated traffic trends.

Scenario 1:  I Just Guest Posted on a Popular Site

When you guest post on a popular site, provided your profile/bio at the bottom of the post contains a link to your site, the expected increase is in the "Referrals" category.

Scenario 2:  I Just Put Out a Press Release

A press release is a wonderful way to get publicity for your company, product, or service.  It is also one of the best-kept secrets (if not controversial) of SEO.  When you distribute a press release over the wire, you should see an increase in the "Referrals" category.

Scenario 3:  I just Spent $1M on Google Adwords

If you have your customer lifetime value calculation down to a science, that is a good time to embark on a paid search campaign.  You can track the results of this campaign in the "Paid Search" section of Google Analytics.

Scenario 4:  I Just Revamped my Content Strategy

You just finished a refresh of the copy on your website and put together a load of new, exciting and insightful content on your blog based on long-tail keyword search terms.

You should see an increase in the "Organic Search" section of Google Analytics.

Scenario 5:  I just Got Featured on Oprah

Congratulations – Oprah is about to melt your servers.  Its a nice problem to have.

When oprah says, "Go to www DOT yourwebsite DOT com" and 1 billion people hit your site at the same time, you will see an increase in the "Direct Traffic" section of your website.

Google Analytics is a powerful tool that has become more useful and more complicated over the years.  For a free tool its awesome, but don't expect Google to hold your hand and explain to you how to use Google Analytics.

Understanding, measuring and tracking your traffic sources should be a fundamental part of your SEO strategy and hopefully this guide on how to use Google Analytics gave you some help.

The post How to Use Google Analytics to Tell Where Your Website Traffic Comes From appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Social media is becoming a popular way for customers and businesses to interact. If you’re not using social media to its full potential, you’re missing out on a world of promotional possibilities.

Incorporate social media into your next trade show and you’ll find that it can boost trade show success in many ways.

5 Ways Social Media Can Lead To Trade Show Success

Social Media is Easily Integrated into Your Contests

Social Annoucement Photo via Shutterstock

Giveaways are standard at trade show booths, but you don’t have to stick with boring swag. Include a few big-ticket items that will draw more interest to your booth.

To snag these top prizes, visitors must interact with your social media sites.

There are lots of creative options. Tweet that the first person to come to the booth and share your code word will get the prize.

Allow prize entries for a brief period for each item. Post the schedule on Facebook.

You Can Continue Promotions Beyond the Trade Show

Special Offer Photo via Shutterstock

Encourage trade show visitors to follow your social media sites by letting them know that you’ll run a whole week of special promotions after the trade show. Each day offer a new deal such as 25% off certain services, free upgrades, BOGO offers, and more.

This strategy will keep your potential customers involved long after your booth’s dismantled.

Social Sites Offer a Powerful Destination for QR Codes

QR Code Photo via Shutterstock

If your trade show booth space gets swamped with visitors, passers-by may not want to stop and wait for personal attention or push through the crowd to peruse your giveaway pens and notepads (after all, the next table has similar stuff.) Include a large QR code on your booth that makes it easy for visitors to snap and move on.

Make sure the page you direct them to has easy links for following all your social media sites. In the days and weeks after the event, direct your posts to your new and hopefully curious followers who want to get to know who you are.

Include lots of features that will help them find out what you’re about.

Event Pages Hype the Event

Like Photo via Shutterstock

Set up an event page on Facebook that’s focused on the event alone. This is a great way to get attendees excited and promote the many activities that will be going on. Interacting with customers before the show will give you a better idea of what they want to see.

Don’t waste time lugging all your multimedia equipment along if a survey shows that they’re most interested in one-on-one conversations with sales reps. Use the funds to take more people along with you instead.

Blogs go In-Depth Where your Booth Can’t

Blog Megaphone Photo via Shutterstock

Trade show attendees want to hit a lot of stops in a limited amount of time. You can send them home with a pile of literature, but it’s likely to get lost in the cavernous swag bag. Instead, blog about common questions before and after the event and direct your leads to this resource as an informative way of getting to know you better.

Integrate your social media marketing strategy and your trade show event for a seamless promotion that will draw in lots of new customers. Never underestimate the power of a well-managed social site.

Did you create a social media campaign for your recent trade show event that brought the attendees to your booth? Or have you seen some great uses of social media at recent conference or convention? Would love to read it.

The post 5 Ways Social Media Can Make Your Trade Show A Success appeared first on Small Business Trends.