We bring you our latest hand-picked list of events and awards for small businesses and entrepreneurs.  If you want to grow your business, you must invest in yourself — and in your team. That means learning and building skills, and it also means networking with your peers.  Attend one of these events — or participate in an Award — to develop your business. 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

INBOUND 2013
August 19, 2013, Boston, MA

INBOUND is a 4 day marketing experience that brings together thousands of marketers from around the globe for an annual event held in downtown Boston, Massachusetts.

PayPal Cash for Registers Giveaway
August 21, 2013, On Twitter

Author and small business speaker Gene Marks is collaborating with PayPal on a giveaway of $2,500 in PayPal POS hardware. To enter the contest, go to Twitter.com, follow @GeneMarks, and tweet the following message:

I am entering the #CashRegisterRIP contest: http://Bit.ly/GeneC4R

Manta #SmallBizLove Photo Contest
August 31, 2013, Online

This contest highlights small businesses and helps them to show off their amazing products, services and happy customers all with a chance to win $10K. The contest is open this year to small business owners and their consumers.

At the end of the contest, one photo will be chosen as the $10K Grand Prize winner.

Hashtag: #SmallBizLove

WomanCon 2013
September 25, 2013, New York, NY

This conference brings together amazing women entrepreneurs, both on and off the stage. Hear real behind-the-scenes stories of success including JJ Ramberg, Sarah Endline, Janine Popick, and Pamela O’Hara. Expert keynotes and panel discussions include: Getting Funding for Growth with Kay Koplovitz & Peggy Wallace, Turning Ideas into Companies with Yao Huang, 5 Strategies for a Stronger Brand with Julie Cottineau, and a journalist panel on Pitching the Media. SEATING IS LIMITED.
Discount Code
SBTRENDS ($50 off)

More Events

• Affiliate Summit East
  August 18, 2013, Philadelphia, PA
• INBOUND 2013
  August 19, 2013, Boston, MA
• NYC August Business Networking Event
  August 19, 2013, New York City, New York
• REBUILD · SAFEGUARD · IMPROVE · THRIVE for Sandy Impacted Small Businesses
  August 19, 2013, Long Branch, NJ
• Gwinnett Business Expo & Job Fair
  August 22, 2013, Duluth, GA
• Practical Marketing “How To” Series for Small Biz
  August 22, 2013, Online
• Web.com Small Business Forum
  August 22, 2013, Jersey City, NJ
• Banner Conference 2013
  September 06, 2013, Las Vegas, NV
• Content Marketing World
  September 09, 2013, Cleveland, OH
• Small Business and Entrepreneur Leadership Conference
  September 09, 2013, Galveston , TX
• Servant-Leadership: A Better Way To Lead & Manage At Work Or Home
  September 10, 2013, Atlanta, GA
• Leading in Local: SMB Digital Marketing
  September 11, 2013, Austin, TX
• The Social Shake-Up
  September 15, 2013, Atlanta, GA
• 2013 Incite Marketing and Communications Summit
  September 18, 2013, Online
• How To Build & Lead An Effective Team
  September 19, 2013, Atlanta, GA
• Entrepreneurial Woman’s Conference – 27th Annual
  September 26, 2013, Chicago, Illinois
• The eMetrics Summit Boston
  September 29, 2013, Boston, MA
• Conversion Conference East 2013 Boston
  September 30, 2013, Online
• Demandcon Boston Sept 30-Oct 1st 2013
  September 30, 2013, Boston, MA/USA
• Context Conference
  September 30, 2013, Boston, MA

More Contests

• Women 2.0 PITCH Las Vegas 2013
  September 15, 2013, Las Vegas, NV
• 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 If You Want To Grow You Must Invest in Yourself – Attend One of These Events appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Here is news important to your business from the recent week. The Small Business Trends editorial team has you covered, always looking for the stories that will give you a competitive edge and better business insight. Check them out below.

Mobile

Phone with Firefox operating system coming to the U.S. Firefox is best known for its Web browser. But did you know the Mozilla Foundation has released a mobile operating system?  It’s new, it’s open source, and it’s coming to the United States. If your business could use a phone that works with the new Firefox operating system, is inexpensive and doesn’t lock you into a contract with a mobile carrier, here’s one to consider.

ZTE, a Chinese phone manufacturer, is planning to make the phone available online soon in a snazzy orange color. Goodbye locked-in contracts with your cell phone carrier.  Hello choice and flexibility.  But not so fast!  There are some downsides to consider — including an operating system that has not yet withstood the test of time, and a very small number of apps.

Meanwhile, Apple protects you from phones that could kill. Well, the faulty adapters could anyway. A new program from Apple lets you drop off suspicious adapters and replace them inexpensively.

And HTC unveils the HTC One in the economy size. It’s called the HTC One Mini. It’s got many of the features of HTC’s flagship phone, only smaller. And it’s cheaper.  We give you some of the basics to help you decide whether this could be the device for your business needs.

Put mobile in your marketing mix. Needless to say, small business owners aren’t the only ones with mobile technology out there. Your customers have it, too. Megan Totka explains how to make the best of that.

How mobile is changing e-commerce. The rise of mobile technology means appealing to only PC users is no longer sufficient. It’s time for a multi-screen ecommerce strategy, says William Johnson, an editor at Big Eye Deer. He shows you how to develop one.

Portable LED screens are another kind of mobile. TJ McCue, the Small Business Trends Products Editor, gives us an overview of this new portable monitor for your laptop, from AOC. Why settle for one screen while traveling with your laptop, when you could just as easily have two?  It’s a valuable device for holding in-person meetings when you’re on the road.  And affordable – we like to hear that, right?

Social Media

Twitter combats online abuse. The microblogging platform has had its ups and downs. But recent threats against members brought an outcry especially in the UK. Here’s what Twitter is doing in response.

Study says people like “likes.” It’s not quite that simple, of course. But the basic idea that came out of the study is that your social media content will fare better if you add a positive vote or “like” immediately after publishing.

LinkedIn adds Sponsored Updates. These are similar to sponsored content on both Facebook and Twitter. You can now target any segment of the site’s 225 million premium users. The service will be available to any LinkedIn user by the end of the month — as of the moment it is limited to large corporations (of course!).

Analytics are also new on LinkedIn. These are meant to be used with the new Sponsored Updates. The two together create a new marketing opportunity for small businesses to get your brand name out before LinkedIn’s unique professional community.

An explanation of the hashtag. Hashtags seem to be everywhere these days – even at the bottom of the screen on your favorite TV shows.  This is what a hashtag looks like: #SMBinfluencer.  Hashtags have become an important feature on Twitter, Facebook and other social media. If you don’t use hashtags in your marketing, you may be missing out.

Hashtags are pretty easy to understand, once someone explains them. Small Business Trends founder Anita Campbell does just that.  She also gives free or low cost ideas for using hashtags in your marketing.

Social media expands local business reach. Meet Calvin Virgilio, whose parents Robert and Suzanne opened a bed and breakfast and specialty granola company in a small town in Pennsylvania. This spotlight profile shows how a local small business is growing through social media.

Services

PayPal introduces bundled services. The online payment company has combined services from Bill.com, Constant Contact, Outright and Cloud Conversion. Does this look like a good deal for your business?  Or would PayPal provide more value by offering a broader marketplace, rather than bundling a few specific services?

Swiftly offers $15 design service. From the team that brought you 99Designs, this service offers something different. Logo alterations, business card changes, photo resizing and cropping completed same day.

Patch closings could hurt local business marketing. It’s true small businesses have many choices when it comes to promoting the business online. But few have the narrow local focus of the hyperlocal news sites called Patch. AOL, owner of Patch, is retrenching.  See what’s in store for hyperlocal publications, as roughly 500 out of 1000 will be shuttered.

Stay on top of business expenses. It’s not anyone’s favorite thing to do. But prepaid debit cards can make it easier to keep track of costs while you are traveling and while your employees are traveling too. Rieva Lesonsky has more.

Management

Small business no longer as nimble. It seems in recent years small businesses no longer lay off at higher rates during recession or hire more quickly during recovery than big businesses. Scott Shane, Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University has more.

Wellness programs can save money. Here’s a post that looks at wellness programs and the benefits they can bring to your organization. Michael W. Zuna, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Aflac U.S. shares suggestions for getting started.

Book Reviews

Write more seductively. Your Web copy serves a simple purpose. It brings you more online customers. Pierre DeBois reviews How to Write Seductive Web Copy: An Easy Guide To Pick Up Customers by Henneke Duistermaat.

Acquire new businesses. You don’t need to start a business from scratch. Here’s a look at a different approach. Another review from Pierre DeBois looks at Successful Acquisitions: A Proven Plan for Strategic Growth by David Braun.

Bubble sign image, Shutterstock

The post Your Guide to Small Business News the Week Ending August 17 appeared first on Small Business Trends.

The popular Internet meme Grumpy Cat is continuing to grow its brand. The cat is now the face of a new beverage, Grumpy Cat Grumpuccino. The line of bottled coffee from Grenade Beverage LLC is being marketed with the tagline, "It's awfully good." The drinks officially became available for purchase online earlier this month.

Grumpy Cat also recently received some recognition in the business world, gracing the cover of Direct Marketing News's July issue. A cat might not be the most traditional choice for the cover of a marketing publication, but Grumpy Cat has made an impact on the marketing world since being introduced on Reddit.com in 2012.

Within the past couple of years, brands like Wonderful Pistachios and Vitamin Water have begun to partner with memes and other Internet sensations for their marketing efforts. And some meme originators, such as the owners of Grumpy Cat, have even built successful brands around their memes.

But a meme needs more than just a few reposts on a website to reach the fame of Grumpy Cat. That's where Ben Lashes comes in.

Ben Lashes: Meme Manager for Grumpy Cat Brand

Lashes serves as Meme Manager for the Grumpy Cat brand, as well as for other online sensations like Nyan Cat and Keyboard Cat. Since this is fairly new territory for anyone, he has had to try to figure out exactly what it takes to manage a meme.

For Lashes, that starts with securing a name and all the digital property associated with it, including domains, copyrights and trademarks. Protecting a meme doesn't necessarily mean preventing others from creating fan art or putting their own spin on memes. It just means making sure that others don't make money on the meme at the expense of its original creator.

Promoting a meme isn't always a big part of a meme manager's job, since distribution on sites like Tumblr and Reddit can happen so quickly. Photos of Grumpy Cat, for instance, were shared on social media millions of times within weeks after the original post. It was only after the cat, whose real name is Tardar Sauce, became an Internet sensation that the owners began securing domains, building a brand and hiring a meme manager.

But Lashes can help meme originators get involved with larger scale projects such as Grumpy Cat's Grumpuccino or movie deal. Since memes are generally made popular by the masses, rather than by the attempts of a singular person or organization, the built-in notoriety can help secure such deals. But part of a meme manager's job in these situations is to help the owners avoid getting taken advantage of and sidestep bad deals.

For some, there's a fine line between a popular meme and one that has become too mainstream. Lashes and other managers have to find a way to keep their clients in the spotlight without overexposing them. Since Grumpy Cat has already secured a book deal, feature film, merchandise at stores like Hot Topic and now the Grumpuccino, it seems this cat really has become a marketing machine.

The post Grumpy Cat Grumpuccino Is Here, Proving This Cat’s a Marketing Machine appeared first on Small Business Trends.

While reading a National Public Radio (NPR) story about snails having teeth, I became astounded at how even nature shows the value of systematic behaviors.  When it comes to snails, a single snail can go through 30,000 teeth in its lifetime, replacing them as they wear out.

For many companies, an ad-hoc business development process can wear out over time. So moving at a snail's pace to establish a more systematic one will certainly mean a short life in the marketplace.

You need to move fast to develop more business. To accelerate your business development plans, consider reading The Professional's Guide to Business Development: How To Win Business In The Professional Services. It’s written by Stephen Newton and published by Kogan Page.

I learned about the book through NetGalley and asked for a review copy.  Newton, founder of DLO Associates, has worked as a business coach and strategy consultant since 2001.

I think he has written a great guide to align marketing, sales and operations. If you run or work in a professional services  firm, you will want to read this book.

Breaking Down The Basics: How Business, Like The West, Was Won

The book attempts to offer a comprehensive view of running a professional firm. A reader looking for ideas beyond social media and Cloud advice will be well satisfied with how Newton delivers his perspective. When noting CRMs, for example, Newton tempers the latest-and-greatest ideas with a balanced suggestion on how to organize.   Check out this quote to see how straightforward he is:

Keep the system and the process of using it simple, design your processes on paper first, and automate what you have designed step by step 'in little' before moving to a full fledged system.

The chapters progress into specifics in achieving a "hit rate" – the degree of winning new business while retaining existing ones. The suggestions are meant to be scalable to your resources.

Get The Most from a Business Referral

Sales professionals will enjoy the points about referrals. He offers 5 specific referral errors, elaborating on typical topics raised along the way. Check out Newton's comment about potentially misguiding a client's view about your firm. He raises a question in which the answer can limit the ability to offer other products or services:

‘Anyone else here you think I should talk to?’ It limits the question in the mind of the client to considering 'more of the same.' The result is to narrow your scope of activity, perhaps a field that is not in fact your core expertise now what you most enjoy doing.

I liked how actionable each suggestion and outlook is, and how the details lead to ideas that you can work into your business immediately.  Chapter 11 features a one-month plan, with its core details broken into three tenets – marketing, sales, and business systems.  It is meant to create "multiple streams of concurrent activity rather than doing things sequentially."

I felt many of the ideas work for small businesses that are using even the most basic features of a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solution. In fact, Newton touches on the value of CRM with respect to client delivery. He notes another way to support a client when project details are unexpectedly changed:

Strategic changes to the results that are delivered may give rise to a conversation with the client about additional cost, which can damage the relationship unless it is handles sensitively…This sort of conversation is easier to mange well if the roles of delivery, client ownership, and client relationship management are distinct and separate.…It helps to ensure that QA is visible to the client and provides opportunities to extend your firm's surface area with the client firm.

What Else You Should Read With This Book

Professional's Guide complements ideas such as No You Can't Pick My Brain, and can be a good lead in for deeper books on systems such as Service Innovationand Islands of Profit In A Sea of Red Ink.   A little irony – Newton mentions in Chapter 10 a book I reviewed, The Checklist Manifesto, as a great source for checklist.

A companion website is referenced.  It includes downloadable resources.

Get this book and quickly sink your teeth into the processes that set your business on the right path to success.

The post Read The Professional's Guide to Business Development to Win Business appeared first on Small Business Trends.

This week’s explainer article answers the question “What is hashtag hijacking?”

Let me say right up front:  if you do not understand what a hashtag is, this article will be confusing. A hashtag looks something like this:  #SMBinfluencer.   If you need more information about hashtags or how to use them in marketing, you might want to first read our earlier piece ”What is a hashtag?”  Then come back and this article will make much more sense.

But if you are a veteran of social media, then read on.  Because you may not be aware of how easily you can set your company up to be a target of hijackers.

We’ll focus this discussion on Twitter hashtags.  While hashtags are now being used on other social networks, the art of hijacking seems to have been perfected on Twitter.

What is Hashtag Hijacking?

As the word suggests, “hijacking” a hashtag is a negative thing.

Hijacking happens when a hashtag is used for a different purpose than the one originally intended.  There are two types of hashtag hijacking:  the attention seeking troll, and the PR campaign gone wrong.  Let’s look at them both.

1. The Attention Seeking Troll

The most common but not too harmful type of hashtag hijacking comes from the kind of person I call the “attention seeking troll.”

You may have seen them.  These are the Twitter jerks who use use a hashtag to promote their own “click my junk” offer that has nothing to do with the hashtag.  They use a popular hashtag because they know people are searching on that hashtag. Perhaps it’s a trending topic at the moment.  They figure they will get some attention by adding a popular hashtag to their tweets.

Businesses tend to run into the attention-seeking troll when they’ve set up a specific hashtag for a contest or an event.  For example, if you are holding a Twitter chat, a troll may throw in some unrelated tweets using the hashtag you’ve designated for the chat.

While annoying, attention trolls who abuse hashtags typically are not a major problem.  That’s because their MO (modus operandi) is the hit and run attack.  They lob unrelated tweets like grenades. Then they quickly move on to another hashtag.

The best thing to do with attention trolls is ignore them. Eventually they go away.  It’s usually not a good thing to get into a virtual shouting match with a troll.

If the troll persists and does the same activity repeatedly, you can report them to Twitter for spam.  Among the activities defined as spam by Twitter are:

• Posting repeatedly to trending topics to try to grab attention
• Posting links with unrelated tweets

That definition would seem to include tweeting using unrelated hashtags. To report a Twitter account for spam, you visit their profile page.  Click the little person icon to access the drop-down menu. Then choose “report for spam” as the following screenshot shows:

2. The PR Campaign Gone Wrong

The second type of hashtag hijacking is far more serious for businesses.

This is when a hashtag that a brand sets up to generate positive PR, is hijacked by detractors.  Instead of being used for positive sentiment, it is used for attacks on the business, or in a sarcastic or snarky way.

One of the most notorious business situations of hashtag hijacking happened to McDonald’s. In early 2012 the fast food giant started a hashtag campaign called #McDStories. Although they sent out just a few tweets using the hashtag #McDStories, the public soon started using the hashtag  – in ways McDonald’s never expected.  Customers started telling stories of their own — stories about quality issues they’d encountered. Or they used the hashtag to make snarky remarks about the hamburger purveyor.

The hashtag quickly trended – for all the wrong reasons.  Members of the public, either unhappy with McDonald’s or just seeing an opportunity to have fun at a big brand’s expense, quickly turned the hashtag’s sentiment negative.

Almost a year and a half later, you can still find the occasional #McDStories hashtag being used.  Every once in a while it is positive, but mostly it’s negative, like this one two days ago:

Found a small piece of feather in my McNugget. Anyone else? How has something ordered from Mcdonalds disappointed you? #McDStories

— HillsAngel (@the_hills78) August 17, 2013

Of course, McDonald’s is hardly the only brand to find itself the target of snarky hashtag hijacking.  It seems to happen with some frequency to large brands.

Celebrity brands are also targets.  The beleaguered Paula Deen bore the brunt of numerous hashtag attacks on Twitter and elsewhere. One of them used the hashtag #PaulasBestDishes, which is also the name of her former show on the Food TV Network.  The hashtag had been a sedate tag added to tweets about recipes by adoring fans. Once allegations of racism surfaced, the hashtag became a lightning rod for sarcastic outraged commentary.

Hijacking also happens almost daily in politics – as the recent hijack of #ObamacareIsWorking shows.

The bigger the business or the more well-known the person or organization, the bigger the target on its back.

And what typically happens is the hijacked hashtag becomes viral and far more visible, as a result of the sarcasm and negative uses of it.  Not only does hijacking have a negative effect, but the negative aspects are magnified.  It becomes a train wreck, where public relations are concerned.

How to Avoid Having Your Hashtag Hijacked

So how do you avoid finding your brand in this situation? And avoid having your PR campaign go horribly wrong?

• First, do not create vague, self-serving or “tell us how much you love us” type of hashtags.  Those are the ones that invite sarcastic remarks, as Sprout Social points out.  They are the most vulnerable to being hijacked and making your PR campaign go wrong. Trying to incite people to speak positively about your business or somehow spontaneously engage around a vague tagline-like phrase you’ve created, is a clumsy use of social media.
• Second, keep it specific and give users a hashtag with a “what’s in it for me.”  For instance, creating a hashtag for a contest where people tweet using the hashtag to enter the contest, is less likely to be open to snarky hijacking.  If people have a reason to tweet using it, they will. They are less likely to have fun with it at your expense.
• Third, some companies deliberately choose hashtags that do not include their Twitter handle or any variant of their brand name.  Hashtags without your brand contained in them are not as easy to turn against your brand.  The hashtag hijack depends on having a hashtag that can propagate through nearly instant recognition.
• Fourth, consider what is going on with your company at the time.  If you are going through a particularly difficult time in your business — with layoffs or some public screw-up on the recent horizon — it’s not the time to be creating hashtag campaigns.  It just gives detractors one more way to attack your company.

The good news in all of this is that small businesses tend to be much more authentic when it comes to social media, than many larger brands.  With fewer layers between employees and the customer, small businesses tend to converse pretty naturally with customers.   Still, it’s something to be aware of.

In an age where everyone with a computer or a smartphone can publish his or her thoughts to the world, businesses have to navigate more public relations minefields than ever before.

The post What is Hashtag Hijacking? appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Small businesses need public relations … PR. But when you’re busy running your business, it’s hard to get your story out to the world.  It can be challenging to write and distribute press releases while worrying about maintaining the quality of your products and services and keeping your customers happy. A new service offered by a group that calls itself the National Association of Local Advertisers aims to solve that.

The new NALA News Division has introduced a “turnkey” press release service for local businesses.

The cost per release is higher than what you could get by distributing a release directly through a service such as PRNewswire or PRWeb. But organizers say there’s more than just distribution involved.  They say they wrap in writing, publicist and marketing services, too.

“I think we have a few things going for us that distinguish us from other services,” said Jeff Velis, vice president of operations in an email interview. “Not only do we write the releases, but we work with the business on developing press campaigns, which can be anywhere from one release to several over 6 months or even one year, making sure that their news gets out to the media.”

What the Service Provides

“A lot of small businesses don’t think they have news, but everyone has news and we at the NALA help them find that news and develop their story,” Velis explained. “We also don’t stop once the release has been distributed, but we follow up with the media outlets targeted and then will work them on behalf of the client,” he said. “Sometimes this can be answering follow up questions, sending additional images or even setting up an interview or photo shoot.”

The NALA charges between $725 per release (if you buy six releases), up to $995 for a single release.

There is also a $195 “editorial fee” added to each campaign. Releases are delivered to online news outlets and social media. Clients receive a report on the number of independent news sites that picked up the release, the number of times it appeared in searches and the number of times it appeared on NALA affiliated sites.

Shutterstock: publicist

The post NALA Introduces Press Release Service for Small Businesses appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Twitter's video service, Vine, has been making waves lately as a new platform that businesses can use to make an impression on their target audience. And while Vine certainly works to any business's advantage on its own, it can also be used to enhance your written content as part of a larger campaign, or through linking and embedding Vine videos in your text.

Let's take a look at a few ways that small businesses can use Vine videos to add some zip to their written content.

Using Vine Videos for Small Business Marketing

Show Off What You've Got

Big businesses like Taco Bell have been using Vine to showcase new products, but thanks to Vine's 6-second limit, you don't need a huge budget to produce a mini commercial or demonstration of your product or service.

So, for example, you could use Vine videos to supplement a description with a view of the real thing, in action.

Taco Bell (@vTacoBell) February 13, 2013

Interact With Fans

Sure, you could tweet back and forth, but there's something extra personal about interacting with brand fans and customers through video.

You could respond to customer feedback via a Vine video, you could work it into a larger content strategy like Honda recently did in its call and response ad campaign or you can simply say “thank you” as Vine has done below.

Vine (@vineapp) June, 18 2013

Boost Your Transparency

Blogging about the day to day functioning of your business, or talking about a special event? Shoot a quick Vine video to give an inside look to your followers.

Going behind the scenes through writing is one thing, but a quick Vine video can really bring your business to life and show people exactly who you are and what you do.

Urban Outfitters (@UrbanOutfitters) July, 2 2013

Garner User-Created Content

I think that encouraging followers to submit their own content is one of the most dynamic ways to engage with people, and the best part is that it takes little to no effort for you.

You could run a contest with prizes for users submitting the best Vine videos like Urban Outfitters recently did, or simply use Vine as a fun way to get feedback.

Urban Outfitters (@UrbanOutfitters) April 15, 2013

Share Information

You can show that you're a thought leader without long-form posts and lengthy tutorials. In 6 seconds, you can share interesting and informative details about your field, about your product or service, or about anything else that your potential (and loyal) customers might find useful. Even the San Francisco Zoo has started using Vine to share information.

And while you might not have any tigers on staff, I'm sure you can come up with something almost as interesting to share.

San Francisco Zoo (@sfzoo) April 15, 2013

The post Using Vine Videos to Beef Up Your Written Content appeared first on Small Business Trends.

In a world of digital reading, you've got to love the visual and tactile experience of a gorgeous hardcover book printed on high-end glossy paper that feels like silk as you leaf through the pages.  As if that weren't enough, the beautiful vivid graphics pop off the page and literally draw you into the content.

And that was just the sensory experience of reading my review copy of Loveworks: How the World’s Top Marketers Make Emotional Connections to Win in the Marketplace.  And you better believe that this book is just as big on brains as it is on looks.

Love is Better the Second Time Around

Loveworks is an extension of Kevin Robert's 2004 book Lovemarks.  That book caused a bit of controversy because of its premise that emotional connections are at the root of all customer-product relationships.  Now that that idea is more fact than fiction, enter Loveworks, a book that takes that idea a step further and adds twenty case study examples of love-marketing in action with some of the best marketing companies on the planet; Proctor and Gamble, Toyota and Visa to name just a few.

Loveworks Romances the Reader with Visual and Intelligent Content

Don't get me wrong.  Loveworks is more than a pretty book.  The author, Brian Sheehan, has loaded it up with intelligent branding content that will not only entertain you, but educate you on how the best marketers build lasting, loving and loyal relationships with their customers.

You don't have to guess the purpose of the book, you'll find it squarely on page eight:

“This book has one purpose.  It is to provide tangible proof that when brands engage their consumers' deepest emotions – instead of just appealing to their intellects, or even their basest instincts – they will win in the marketplace.  These brands win because their customers don't just respect them, they love them.”

Brian Sheehan Carries the Torch with Grace and Ease

As I mentioned, Brian Sheehan's Loveworks is an evolution of a book written by Kevin Roberts. What I haven't told you yet is that both of these men come from one of the world's premier advertising agencies, Saatchi and Saatchi.  Kevin Roberts was the CEO and Brian Sheehan had a long and successful career there starting out of college, working his way through the agency as the CEO of Team One Advertising, and Saatchi and Saatchi Australia and Japan.

It's a Reference Book and an Art Book All In One

So let's take a deeper dive inside Loveworks.  The best way to read this book is to start from the context from which it's written:  connect to your customers through their emotions, and they will love you forever (or at least until you stop).

The majority of the book, 166 pages out of the 181 pages of content, are case studies grouped according to love lesson or theme such as:

• Xploring – See how Guiness takes it's brand to Africa.
• People Power – Stories about the Toyota Camry and SKOL.
• Tribes – How Pampers and Cheerios pulled together diverse teams to solve big challenges.
• Virality – T-Mobile and Reebok spread the love.

There are eleven case study lessons in all, each featuring two big brands.

How Case Studies About Big Brands Will Help Your Small Business

You probably fall into one of two camps — you either love a book that features big brands and big companies, or you hate it.  I can go either way.  But I will tell you one thing. There is powerful insight in each case study that you can adapt to your small business.

Here, let me give you an example.  Let's take the case study in chapter eight, which features Miller High Life and Toyota 4x4s. Sheehan uses these popular brand examples and campaigns to show the power of understanding your ideal customer and the core user of your product or service.  Both of these brands got deep inside their customers' heads and hearts and focused on what made them feel unique.

One of my favorite commercials for Miller beer was actually one of the case studies.  Remember Wendell, the Miller delivery guy?  I just love this ad series.  My favorite one is where he delivers beer to a baseball game luxury skybox.  The idea was that he was going to replace the expensive beer with Miller High Life.  But instead of replacing the beer, he got disgusted and left because the people in the skybox were pretentious and not paying attention to the game. Instead, he went into the stands and joined the real fans for a beer.

I know that you aren't going to create a million-dollar 30-second commercial.  But there's no reason you can't do what Miller did – they talked to their customers, they dug deep to understand what really mattered to them and they focused their brand and their brand message on exactly those characteristics.  They talked about what their brand was really about — and those attributes matched those of their customers.  This is what made Miller’s sales rise and their brand lovable.

So, don't just look at this book as some hoity-toity branding book. Look at it as a resource for helping your small business connect to your ideal customer in a very powerful emotional way.

As you can tell by this review, Loveworks has certainly tugged at my emotional triggers enough to say that this is certainly a book every marketer and small business owner should have as a resource of great ideas and strategies to make your brand irresistible to your customers.

The post Why You’ll Love Reading Loveworks appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Amazon stock investors took a deep breath this afternoon as online retail giant Amazon went down for a brief time without warning.

Media accounts differ on the exact duration. Reuters and several other news outlets put the downtime for users in the U.S. and Canada on both Web and mobile at around 15 minutes. However, some sources suggest downtime was longer with GeekWire putting it at about 40 minutes.

Amazon has offered no response to most media inquiries. (Small Business Trends also tried to contact the mega online retailer earlier today without success.)

However, in a brief tweet CNBC claimed Amazon told the cable news channel its site was down for “improvements” and would be open again for business soon.

ALERT: http://t.co/QJNXdQaAyE: “Website temporarily unavailable” while improvements being made, will be “open for business again soon” $AMZN

— CNBC (@CNBC) August 19, 2013

Less than one hour’s downtime may not sound like a lot in the overall scheme of things.  But when you’re as big as Amazon, minutes mean big losses. Forbes calculated that given Amazon’s most recent annual numbers, the company probably lost about $66,240 per minute in sales.  So that’s almost $1 million in lost sales if you buy the 15-minute explanation.  If the site was inaccessible for closer to 40 minutes, that’s over $2.5 million in lost sales.

Of course, Amazon can easily survive those kinds of lost sales.  With a market cap of $130 billion as of today, a few measly millions are a rounding error.

However, as a small business, if your site goes down, you may be hard-pressed to bounce back as quickly, especially if you use outside tech help.  By the time you contact your tech help, and they free up from other demands, several hours could have gone by.

And while your site is down, not only do you have to contend with potential losses — but your company could lose credibility, especially if the outage continues for hours or days.

Here Amazon did a smart thing. The company had a branded placeholder screen ready.  Within a few minutes, the placeholder page saying “Oops!” went up.  So instead of simply getting a screen with an alarming error message, such as “500 internal server error,” you saw a page that looked like an Amazon.com page of sorts (image above).  Even though the site was still down, it wasn’t quite as glaring an issue, because it looked like an Amazon page.

You, too, can minimize the loss of credibility and resulting fallout, by putting in place your own custom error page.

Watch the video below for a simple tutorial on how to install your own error page so you’re ready the next time your site goes down. If your server has CPanel installed, it’s not difficult. For most small businesses, the reality is, you’re likely to experience the occasional outage.  It’s better to be prepared.

The post Amazon Down 15 Minutes, Loses Over $66,000 Per Minute appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Upon launching a new business, you might be faced with the question of choosing a tax year for your business. Should your accounting period be aligned with the regular calendar year (as you've probably been accustomed to with your personal taxes) or should you define your own start and end dates for reporting your tax year?

Who Can Change Their Tax Year?

Before we wade into the nuances of choosing a tax year, it's important to realize that not every business has the flexibility to pick their tax year. For example, sole proprietors don't exist apart from their owner, and therefore they need to use the calendar tax year (like the owner's personal tax return). Likewise, partnerships and LLCs typically need to use the same tax year as the majority of the owners. And generally speaking, S Corporations need to follow a calendar tax year.

In the cases above, if you want your business to adopt a different fiscal year, you'll need to petition the IRS for special permission. In this case, the burden is on you to convince the IRS that you have a real business purpose for using a different tax year.

For this reason, the C Corporation offers the most flexibility in terms of choosing between calendar year and fiscal year. Many accountants will advise their clients to opt for a C Corp if using a fiscal tax year is critical.

What's the Advantage of Fiscal Year Reporting?

A fiscal tax year is basically a period of 12 consecutive months beginning on a date other than January 1. Calendar tax year reporting is very simple, and you get to follow the same schedule as your personal taxes. So, why would a business want to complicate things by using a different reporting schedule?

The key reason to switch from a calendar year is to better match your business' income and expenses for the reportable tax year. For example, maybe you have a seasonal business where the bulk of expenses are in October-November and your income is made in March-April. A regular tax calendar would split these times, so your expenses for the season wouldn't be matched up with the income.

Another example is with companies who seek crowdsourced funding from sites like Kickstarter. For example, let's say your business received its Kickstarter funds in November (and these funds are taxed as income), but you're not going to start the project and incur expenses until February. With calendar tax year reporting, you'd have unusually high income for the first year that wouldn't be offset by expenses. In this case, you might opt to form a C Corp and choose a fiscal year of Nov. 1 – Oct. 31.

How Do You Change Your Reporting Calendar?

If you've already filed a tax year for your business, but would like to change your schedule, you'll need to file IRS Form 1128, Application to Adopt, Change, or Retain a Tax Year.

Calendar Photo via Shutterstock

The post Calendar vs. Fiscal Year: What's Right for Your Business? appeared first on Small Business Trends.

You can cancel the ritual run to the coffee shop for everyone in the office. Forget about that intern screwing up an entire pot of coffee, too. Ok, maybe not just yet.

Briggo Inc. may have the perfect solution for your office coffee needs, though. The company’s robotic Coffee Haus machine actually aims to make the perfect cup of coffee every time … and you can order a cup from your smartphone.

Each “intelligent” Coffee Haus is split into a brewed coffee station and an espresso machine. The coffee is not made by a human barrista. Instead, Briggo’s robotics technology automates the whole process from order to finished cup. The robotic barrista takes less than 30 seconds to make a cup of brewed coffee after an order is placed and up to two minutes to create what Briggo calls a perfect espresso drink.

The robotic technology is designed to mimic the motions a barrista would use making you an espresso at a nearby cafe. Each order is ground and tamped individually.

Download a smartphone app from Briggo, and you’ll be able to place your order right from your phone. The app even remembers what drinks are your favorites and you can modify the order at any time, like changing a syrup flavor or some other special request.

The Briggo robot barista was recently introduced full-time at the University of Texas-Austin. VendingMarketWatch.com reports more of the machines will be placed at hospitals, university and corporate campuses soon. The new technology seems like a great business model. It could also be a great alternative for morning coffee in your office coming soon.

The post Briggo Will Change Your Morning Coffee appeared first on Small Business Trends.

I first wrote (here on Small Business Trends) about how franchisors were starting to use social media back in 2009. I shared some of the things that franchise industry executives were discussing about social media, including their concerns. Things like:

• The number of leads they would get from social media marketing.
• Lead quality.
• ROI (Return on Investment) on social media marketing programs.
• Dealing with negative comments on blogs and social media sites.

While some of those concerns still exist, the franchise industry as a whole has successfully traversed through the hills and valleys of what's still a pretty young phenomenon. There's a real  – and very hard to explain — energy present in social media. It's always changing and it continues to evolve through new tools and new platforms. And it's being used in ways that none of us, with the exceptions below, could have imagined a few short years ago.

None of us except for maybe these social media and marketing experts:

• Brian Sollis
• Seth Godin
• Gary Vaynerchuk
• Mari Smith
• Chris Brogan
• Ann Handley
• Shashi Bellamkonda
• Jay Baer
• Jeff Bullas

Franchising And Social Media

A year or so after I wrote the post, conversations I was having with franchisors had definitely changed. The things they were asking, as they related to social media, included questions like these:

• Should we set-up a blog?
• Should we set-up a Facebook Page?
• What about Twitter? Should we open up a Twitter account?

My answers were yes, yes and yes. And, they still are.

Since then, the franchise industry (as a whole) has really become more comfortable with social media and its myriad uses. According to Jason Daley, a columnist for Entrepreneur magazine:

“Franchisors have moved squarely away from wondering, 'Is social media even necessary?' to not only accepting the new technologies, but actually embracing them.”

Based on recent interactions with franchise executives and franchise marketing managers, Jason's observation is right on the mark. Now, instead of fielding questions that start with the word, "should," the questions that I've been answering during the past year or so include these:

• How can we measure conversions?
• How do we figure out our social media ROI?
• How can we get our blog posts in front of more readers?
• How can we get more followers on Twitter?
• How can we get more Facebook fans?

The Challenge

One of the challenges for franchisors using social media is actually related to business model itself. Each franchise location is individually owned and operated which makes it challenging for franchise marketing departments to monitor and control.

In her Mashable post, Taylor Hulyk of re:group writes:

“When considering social media within the bounds of franchising, the questions of how one designs, develops, executes and measures the program multiply tenfold. The franchisor, unlike other business owners, has to be concerned with the performance of several franchisees as the continuous extension of his or her brand.”

Franchisee performance is one issue, and franchisors are always trying to figure out ways to improve it. But, there's another issue that seems to be coming up more and more, and it's sometimes more challenging for franchisors to deal with. It's the issue of what I call, "franchisee megaphones."

A perfect example of a franchisee megaphone is when John Metz, a huge multiple-location franchisee, and an obvious opponent to Obamacare, decided to pass on his increased healthcare costs to his customers. That went well. Can you imagine what the Denny's Facebook Page looked like during that controversy?

The thing is, when a franchisee goes rogue, he or she can't just be fired; franchisees are not employees. That's why more and more franchisors are asking themselves if specific social media policies need to be implemented.

Prediction: All franchisors will have written social media policies in place within the next two years. Franchisees need know what they can and can't do when it comes to posting on social media networks. After all, they're representing their brands.

When it Works

LED Source, the only franchisor of LED lighting in North America, recently reached out to Facebook fans for a LED lighting challenge. The contest encouraged all staging, studio, installing and corporate theater professionals throughout the U.S. and Canada to submit a video via Facebook of their outdated, problematic lighting systems for a chance to win a LED lighting package worth over $20,000.

As video submissions flooded in, a panel of experts selected the top five finalists.  Facebook fans then voted on the grand prize winner. Cincinnati Shakespeare Company (CSC) of Ohio was named the winner for their creative and humorous video and received the coveted LED lighting makeover to replace their energy-draining stage lighting.

Rhonda Sanderson, CEO of Sanderson PR, who helped put this successful marketing campaign together, told me that their firm leveraged Facebook to hold the actual contest, but then tied all of their public relations efforts surrounding the contest into the social media campaign as well. "Twitter was used to share news surrounding the contest and direct followers to their Facebook page. Additionally, all press secured around the contest and its winners were shared via social media to gain further exposure and increase fans and followers," Sanderson told me.

But, the campaign was successful in one other way.

"Our current lights are basically the SUV's of the lighting world," said Brian Phillips, producing artistic director of the CSC, after being announced the winner. "We are so grateful for this opportunity, as it will change our lives and our art in a profound and meaningful way."

The franchise social media landscape has changed. It feels like everybody in franchising is on board now.

Franchisors, would you like to share some of your recent social media marketing successes?

Yesterday Tomorrow Photo via Shutterstock

The post Franchising Social Media: Then And Now appeared first on Small Business Trends.

[Click to see full size infographic]

Fiverr offers a huge variety of services or “gigs” starting as low as $5. There are potential opportunities here for small businesses seeking services or looking to market them.

Last week, the site celebrated a milestone saying it has facilitated two million gigs worldwide.

Services Available on Fiverr

You can find all kinds of services on Fiverr. Some offer you a professional business logo design or a short video presentation for just $5 and could be a great way to try out new talent.

Others, like an offer to get you 1000 Twitter followers in a day (Yup, we actually saw one like this) could easily land you in trouble with your social media platform.

In a recent email, the Fiverr team shared some basic tips for business owners both buying and selling services on the site.

Tips for Using Fiverr

First, when posting services, break down gigs into smaller tasks you can easily do for $5. You can then add additional services at a higher cost.

Second, be sure you set a reasonable delivery time. Repeat and new orders will depend very heavily upon on-time delivery.

For businesses seeking services on Fiverr, developers recommend paying close attention to the rating (a percentage based on other customers’ satisfaction) and the votes members have received. These could be indicators of how popular they are in the community and also their credibility among other users.

Also check comments and feedback from others who have experienced their work first hand.

The post Fiverr Celebrates 2 Million Gigs appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Few Americans finance new companies, particularly those founded by non-relatives, recent studies by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and Babson College reveal. That’s part of the reason why entrepreneurship advocates are frustrated by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) failure to write the rules for equity crowd funding in a timely fashion. Many in the entrepreneurship community hope that crowd funding will boost the fraction of Americans putting their money in start-ups.

Few Americans have invested in other people’s newly founded companies in recent years. The 2012 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), a representative survey of American adults directed by Babson College, finds that only 5.3 percent of Americans "personally provided funds for a new business started by someone else, excluding any purchases of stocks or mutual funds" during prior three years. Moreover, the typical amount invested by those providing funds was only $5,000.

Few American households hold equity investments in private businesses operated by someone else. The 2010 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances – a representative survey of the financial position of American households conducted every three years by Federal Reserve Board of Governors – shows that only 1.9 percent of American households holds equity in a business that no member of the household actively manages.

Many other assets are much more commonly held than equity in other people’s companies. According to the Survey of Consumer Finances, 68.6 of American households own their own homes; 17.9 percent hold stock in publicly held companies; 14.4 percent have equity in another residential property (rental real estate, a vacation home or time-share); 13.6 percent hold stock in a business they manage; and 8.1 percent have an ownership stake in a non-residential property.

The share of Americans who make informal investments — investments in private businesses belonging to friends, families and strangers — has changed little in recent years. In 2007, 4.5 percent of those surveyed as part of the GEM said they had invested in a new business started by someone else, a fraction little different from the 5.3 percent who reported doing this in 2012.

The majority of informal investments go to a relative of the investor — 50.2 percent according to the 2012 GEM study. The next biggest fraction goes to friends, neighbors, and coworkers, which the 2012 GEM indicates received 35.3 percent. In 2012, only 11.4 percent of the investments went to a "stranger with a good idea," the survey reveals.

Given that there are approximately 235 million American adults, the GEM survey percentages translate to about 470,000 Americans making an investment in a stranger's business every year.

The number of Americans who make angel investments is of similar magnitude. The Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire, which conducts quarterly surveys of angel investors, estimates that there were 268,160 active angels in this country in 2012.

Entrepreneurship advocates hope that equity crowd funding will help to boost these numbers. The Jump Start Our Businesses Startup (JOBS) Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in April 2012, allows non-accredited investors to buy equity stakes in private companies through online crowd funding portals, once the SEC writes the rules governing such transactions.

Whether the outcome will be as advocates hope remains to be seen, however. As of the date this column was written, the SEC has still not yet finished writing the crowd funding rules, despite a December 2012 deadline imposed by Congress.

Money Photo via Shutterstock

The post Few Americans Invest in Startups appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Searching for quality talent can prove to be difficult, especially in the face of rising health care costs and health care reform. In fact, a recent NFIB report (PDF) found that 41 percent of small business owners reported few or no qualified applicants for open positions and 19 percent reported having job openings they could not fill in the current period.

To maintain the best employees for your business, it's imperative for business owners to take necessary steps to keep current top-tier employees satisfied in today's economy. So what can small businesses do to make sure their key players stick around instead of window shopping for new opportunities? One way to retain current personnel and attract superior applicants is by offering strong benefits packages.

According to the 2013 Aflac WorkForces Report (AWR), nearly half (49 percent) of employees say that improving their benefits packages is one thing their employer could do to keep them in their job. And with 51 percent of small business professionals at least somewhat likely to look for new employment in the next 12 months, strong benefits packages are necessary to encourage top talent to stay.

Wellness Works

One way to keep workers satisfied is to add wellness programs to existing benefits offerings. These programs don't need to follow suit of large companies that pay monthly gym fees or provide daily healthy lunch substitutes.

An easy way to start off is to simply show employees the company cares about health and wellness. Organize after-hour fun runs or invite nutritionists to come into the office for lunch-and-learns. Place fruit bowls in office common areas, email wellness tips or provide information about free local exercise events.

These are effective ways to improve office health at little to no cost and demonstrate that your staff's well-being is important to you.

Put Voluntary Into Action

If you're afraid that strengthening benefits packages will put a burden on company finances, consider this: Voluntary insurance policies.

Many supplemental policies are offered at no additional benefits cost to the company. Companies can choose to contribute a portion of the premium or simply make the product available for employees to purchase. Some carriers even offer payroll deduction without added direct cost to businesses.

Be a Benefits Marketer

Offering strong benefits to your employees just isn't enough – you have to expand your benefits communication beyond the open enrollment season. Seventy-nine percent of small business employees agree that well-communicated benefits programs would make them less likely to leave their jobs, according to the AWR. Since benefits are generally deducted directly from paychecks, it's easy for workers to forget about the great aspects of their benefits package.

Plan creative ways to communicate about the total compensation, employee assistance programs and wellness incentives you offer on an ongoing basis.  Here are ways you can market your benefits options:

• Post benefits tips, reminders and employee testimonials on bulletin boards in high traffic areas.
• Print benefits communication on colored paper instead of white paper to quickly grab the attention of personnel.
• Mail benefits information directly to the homes of employees  to increase employee awareness and encourage conversation with family members.
• Plan benefits "office hours" when employees can drop by to discuss anything benefits related with a HR professional or a visiting agent or broker.
• Carve out time in a staff meeting or town hall to give an overview of the different benefits available for employees.

With an undeniable connection between benefits and employee loyalty, you need to make sure employees are not only armed with options suitable for their individual lifestyles, but also that they are fully aware of their choices.

Wellness Photo via Shutterstock/small>

The post Keep Your Best Employees With Better Benefits appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you purchased Apple iMacs for your business in the last few years, Apple has issued a notice that should grab your attention.

It seems the video cards in some iMacs may be faulty and could eventually cause display problems on your monitor. In an official announcement on the Apple support page, the company says it has identified the specific type of iMac that contains the potentially faulty card and the period during which it was sold.

Apple has determined that some AMD Radeon HD 6970M video cards used in 27-inch iMac computers with 3.1GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 or 3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processors may fail, causing the computer's display to appear distorted, white or blue with vertical lines, or to turn black. iMac computers with affected video cards were sold between May 2011 and October 2012.

If you have one of these iMacs, Apple suggests you first backup your data. Then contact an Apple retail store, Apple authorized service provider or Apple technical support for further assistance.

If it’s determined you have one of the affected iMacs, Apple says it will replace the defective video card at no charge for up to three years after the first retail sale of the computer. Even if you already paid for this repair prior to this announcement, Apple will discuss a full refund for that work.

The website 9to5mac.com notes that this is the second replacement program offered on the iMac recently. In October of last year, Apple said it would replace a 1TB Seagate hard drive on iMacs purchased between October 2009 and July 2011.

Image: Apple

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Small business owners all have one thing in common: They're all on a budget, trying to do the best they can to build their businesses with a limited amount of financial resources.

One of the ways business owners attempt to save money is to take on the job of editing and updating their websites themselves, after having the initial site built for them by a development team. It's a smart strategy, but it's not always a successful one.

Adding and managing the content on your website can be a challenging task – particularly if your web developer makes it harder than it needs to be.

Is WordPress Easy to Work With?

WordPress Doesn't Equal Easy

If you only know one thing about website development, it's likely to be WordPress. WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) in use on the Web today, controlling nearly 60% of the marketplace. That's 4 times more than the market share enjoyed by their nearest competitor, Joomla.

There's a reason for WordPress' popularity. When WordPress is used properly, it can result in wonderful websites. The key words here are "used properly."

WordPress is, in many ways, similar to a kit-car or a modular home. All of the pieces are there, but some assembly is definitely required. Building even a basic website using WordPress requires a certain level of expertise. To accomplish the job in a time effective manner, you have to know the nuances and tricks to putting the site together.

It's important to understand that a basic assembly approach generally isn't enough to make the small business owner happy with their website. To make it easy for the everyday user to update and edit it – customization is required.

What Is WordPress?

WordPress is a content management system (CMS). It is based on open source language of PHP and database foundation of MySQL. This platform is most well-known for blogging but you can do a lot more with it. WordPress provides much more functionality with plugins.

Plugins are extensions or enhancements to the basic WordPress platform. Plugins can be free or paid tools that can be integrated into your WordPress platform. Plugins can do things like protect your website from spam, add a contact form to your website or import the comments and posts from your social media sites. Plugins can also be custom written for your website by a WordPress developer.

The theme is the design of your website. It dictates what your website looks and feels like. Designers and web developers can customize the theme to control the front-end or user experience.

WordPress Out of the Box

When you install a clean version of WordPress it comes with a basic front-end white theme.  That looks like this:

[New blank site]

A WordPress front end designer will know how to create a custom look and feel for your website that meets the needs of your organization. This is known as a custom theme.

Something you should note is that creating a custom theme still means that the website should follow best practices of clean code, enhanced load time for the website and cross-browser compatibility.

WordPress Back-End

Every content management system has an administration area. This is where you go to update and manage the content on your website. Out of the box, the WordPress back-end or administration area looks like this:

[Dashboard]

[Page Draft]

The choices that your web developer makes here have a direct and profound impact on how easy it will be for you and your team to edit and update your website.

For example, a company may often want to update and edit content about their different types of projects. A savvy web developer will configure the back end with an easy-to-navigate system that makes it easy to add new projects, change project descriptions, change project classifications and more.

This functionality doesn't come standard with the default WordPress back-end. Your web developer needs to build that for you.

If you are going to be handling updating and managing the content on your website yourself, you want the process to be as simple as possible. Making sure your WordPress website is easy to work with is your web developer's job. Be sure to communicate clearly what you plan to do with your website, and ask them how they're going to make it easy for you to accomplish your business goals.

The Right Developer Makes the Difference

Out of the box WordPress, like any open source content management system, does not always make managing and editing a site simple and easy. It's up to your design and development team to customize the WordPress back-end to give you and your team what they need to manage the site with little knowledge about coding.

Making websites easy to use, edit and update is what separates one WordPress team from another. When you're deciding who you want to have work on your website, don't just look at the front of a website. You want to see samples – or even tour – the back-end of sites they've built for their clients. You want to know what kind of experience you can expect from your own website.

This information is critical to making a good decision. It's never just about WordPress, it's about making WordPress work for you.

Frustrated Photo via Shutterstock

The post Is WordPress Easy To Work With? That Depends on Your Web Developer appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Amazon was not the only service to see downtime in recent days. Microsoft has apologized for a recent outage on Outlook.com that took nearly three days to fully repair.

Microsoft says the outage lasted between Aug. 14 and Aug. 17 last week. On its service status page, the company blamed a system that interacts with a protocol used by most mobile devices.

This incident was a result of a failure in a caching service that interfaces with devices using Exchange ActiveSync, including most smart phones. The failure caused these devices to receive an error and continuously try to connect to our service. This resulted in a flood of traffic that our services did not handle properly, with the effect that some customers were unable to access their Outlook.com email and unable to share their SkyDrive files via email.

After Microsoft was able to restore Web access to Outlook email and sharing to SkyDrive, it began experiencing a backlog of requests from mobile accounts. While the company slowly restored mobile access, some users were unfortunately left without any services for a few days. The Microsoft services team reported all problems resolved with its services by early on Aug. 18.

The company says it has learned from the experience and has made changes in its system to compensate.

Was your business affected by the Outlook.com outage last week? What do you do when a service you rely upon for communications or other important business functions is out of commission?

Apology Concept Photo via Shutterstock

The post Microsoft Apologizes For Prolonged Outlook.com Outage appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Online video is exploding. It's now the most popular online advertising format, beating out Facebook and Google Adwords. If you have anything to sell, promote or explain, you'd better be using video to help do it.

One type of video that small business owners have been doing for years is a basic video of them speaking. If you run a small business that offers some type of personal service, this personal touch type of video can be very effective.

On the other hand, if you're not great on camera or your particular business doesn't lend itself to this type of video, you've got other great video options. These two below have become both popular and effective with every type of business, product, service and organization.

Use Video to Build Your Business

Concept Videos

Also known as “big idea” videos, these short, creative videos are designed to captivate the viewer, convey a compelling message and leave the viewer with a desire to buy.

In essence, a great concept video is a great commercial.

A well done concept video should not only resonate with your prospect on an intellectual level, it needs to connect on an emotional level. Because studies have shown that it's that emotional connection that makes the difference in a buying decision.

The goal of a concept video is to not only inform, but to convert your prospects into paying customers.

Explainer Videos

As the name suggests, “explainer” videos are designed to explain a product or service. They usually take the form of simple animated graphics that tell a story. It often involves a cartoon-like character and infographics. A "whiteboard" animation that simulates a hand quickly drawing on a whiteboard is another popular explainer video style.

Unlike a 30 or 15 second concept video, explainer videos usually average about 60 seconds.

Explainer videos have become very popular in the B2B arena because B2B products, in general, tend to be more esoteric. However, familiar products and services can also benefit from an explainer video. For example, while everyone knows what a dentist is, they may not know much about dental implants. An explainer video can explain what a dental implant is, why you might need one and how it's done.

Smart business owners realize that even if they have the best product in the world, they won't be successful if they don't effectively excite and convince prospects. If done right these types of videos will help you do that.

Video Photo via Shutterstock

The post 2 Types of Video to Build Your Business appeared first on Small Business Trends.

A good reputation is vital to the success of a small business. Today, with so many customers researching businesses online before they decide where to buy, a bad online review on sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Foursquare, Google Places, and even your own social media pages can do some serious damage to your reputation. In some cases, these bad online reviews can end up on the first page of results when people search for your business.

How should you respond if your reputation comes under fire and you receive a bad online review?

The tips below will help you perform damage control the right way, and even turn negative experiences into a positive influence for your small business. But first, let’s take a look at what you should not do because there are steps you can take in response to a bad online review that will only make things worse.

What Not To Do When You Receive a Bad Online Review

Deny the Problem Exists

When a customer has a complaint, insisting that they're wrong in a public forum is a big mistake. Even if you're convinced that the problem was on their end, you should acknowledge the issue.

Argue with the Reviewer

It's only natural to feel hurt or angry when someone posts negative criticism about your business. But responding in anger could cripple your reputation permanently because information stays on the Internet forever. In other words, never do this.

Game the System

Some business owners, faced with multiple negative reviews, have paid people to write positive reviews and counter the impact. This is not only a bad idea, but also comes with the very likely possibility that you'll get caught. Some consumer review sites, like Yelp, have systems in place to warn readers of suspected paid reviews.

Do Nothing

While a few negative comments are obviously the work of people who just like to say nasty things, for the most part, ignoring bad reviews in the hopes they'll go away is a poor strategy. It sends a message that your business doesn't care when people have negative experiences.

What To Do When You Receive a Bad Online Review

In order to take action against negative online reviews, you have to be aware of any that exist.

It's important to monitor your social media pages and respond to concerns there. But you should also check out major consumer review sites like Yelp to see what people are saying about your small business. The simplest way to do this is to set up a Google Alert for your business name. You can also use a free tracking tool like Social Mention to keep up with online reviews.

If you find any less-than-stellar reviews:

Take an Objective Look

If the review or comment is obviously not serious, or if the poster is using anger and abusive language, your best option is probably to ignore it. If possible, have it removed. Most consumer review sites offer a way to flag or report reviews that violate their terms of service.

Respond with Tact

 When addressing a negative review, keep it professional. Passive-aggressive or sarcastic comments will only fuel the flames. You can choose to respond privately (useful when you disagree with a reviewer's take on a situation) or publicly, which helps to demonstrate to other readers that you're addressing the problem.

Apologize and Ask for Input

Most often, the best response to an upset customer is to say you're sorry without qualifying the apology to redirect the blame toward the reviewer's feelings. Admit that a mistake was made, and ask what you can do to resolve the situation.

Most importantly, keep it consistent. When you actively respond to negative online feedback about your small business, other potential customers can see that you're engaged and that you care about your customers.

With a consistent response policy, you can turn a bad online review into a positive outlook for your business.

Dislike Photo via Shutterstock

The post How to Handle Bad Online Reviews for Your Small Business appeared first on Small Business Trends.

You can understand why small business owners and other email marketers get worried about email opens. After all, if a person never opens your email, they never see your great offer. No open, no sale.

And you can definitely see why these same people freaked out when Gmail introduced a new tab format to its inbox. Essentially, promotional emails were placed in a completely different tab or archived immediately, perhaps not to be read until much later.

So, it’s no surprise that conclusions could be drawn when an email analytics firm like Litmus says it has seen an 18 percent decrease in Gmail opens in the last three months.

No Rush to Judgement

But wait. There are a few things to remember before making any assumptions.

First, only about 7.75 percent of this decrease happened since May 29 when the new tabs were introduced.

Second, only about 19 percent of Gmails are actually opened in a Gmail account. Other users may open Gmail in Outlook, Apple Mail or mobile devices which may or may not support tabs, said Litmus marketing director Justine Jordan.

Add to that the fact that Gmail opens have fluctuated a bit in the past, from as low as 2.9 percent to as high as 5 percent. Though the trend has generally been upward, this could simply be another fluctuation.

As low as those numbers sound, opens can still be an excellent opportunity to build a customer relationship or make a sale.

The Size of Your Gmail Customer Base

In the end, Jordan observes, remember that Gmail opens only represent about 4 percent of total email opens and less than 41 percent of those occur in an account that supports tabs.

So, while there are certainly steps you can take in your email marketing strategy to compensate for the new tab fo, you may want to ask yourself how many Gmail customers you really have on your list.

For more analysis, see Jordan’s full video below.

The post Gmail Opens Decrease by 18 Percent, Jury Out on Tabs appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Forming and maintaining relationships with customers is one of the most important aspects of any business. Without positive relationships, it's hard to thrive in any industry and long-term success can be jeopardized. That's why it's so advantageous to implement a customer relationship management (CRM) system into your operations.

Let's discuss the basics of how this technology works, the benefits of CRM and some guidelines for choosing a CRM platform.

Function

The primary purpose of CRM software is to streamline all major areas of customer interactions. This can include managing contacts, setting appointments, monitoring a marketing campaign, handling customer service, and numerous other tasks.

CRM software makes use of a dashboard, analytics and reporting tools to provide business owners with an all-encompassing vantage point of operations. By spotting patterns and identifying trends, this puts you more in control of customer engagement so your business can run more efficiently.

With that being said, there are some major benefits of utilizing CRM software.

Task Tracking

Meeting deadlines is very important in today's business world. By inputting information like scheduled appointments and important tasks, it takes the guesswork out of project completion. Many platforms also allow this data to be synced with a calendar to keep you informed of upcoming tasks and deadlines.

For instance, if you have a sales call scheduled with a valuable lead, CRM software would send you an email in advance so you remember to make the call.  Whenever a customer has an upcoming birthday, you or a sales rep would be notified so you promptly send out birthday wishes. Consequently, you can make customers feel more valued and build deeper relationships.

This way you can juggle all of your tasks while ensuring that each customer gets the attention they need and nothing is forgotten.

Sales Rep Management

If you have assembled a team of sales reps, it's important to keep tabs on their progress and know just how effective they are at nurturing leads and closing sales. Using this type of software will provide a firsthand look into each team member's sales statistics, including information like average lead contact time, task completion time and conversion rate. This way you can reward the top performers and coach individuals who need some extra help.

Over time, your sales department should operate like a well oiled machine where sales are maximized.

Increased Organization

When dealing with hundreds or even thousands of customers, it's easy to become disorganized and overwhelmed. Fortunately, the right CRM software makes it simple and intuitive to keep customer information organized and retrievable. By maintaining a contact list, it gives you quick access to a wealth of information like customer email, telephone, buying history and birthday.

Performing a search will provide an overview of this information so you can extract what you need without the hassle of searching through paper folders or using other outdated techniques. Since many platforms incorporate metadata, you can search via broad terms instead of highly specific ones.

This is beneficial because you can find the customer you need by entering general keywords instead of a specified term.

More Selling Opportunities

As information on customers accumulates, it's common for more opportunities to present themselves. For example, keeping track of a particular customer's buying patterns would make it clear what they are most interested in.

When launching a new product that's similar, you could make it a point to contact that customer and let them know. Consequently, this makes it possible to increase sales without having to constantly advertise to new customers.

By capitalizing on an existing customer base, you can get more repeat sales while keeping customers happy.

Improved Social Media Marketing

Another feature that most platforms offer is the ability to integrate with social media networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest. This can have major advantages because it allows businesses to track all aspects of their social media campaign. For example, business owners can identify which networks are resulting in the most traffic, what followers are saying about their brand and the overall customer experience. As trends emerge, adjustments can be made so you get the most from your efforts and boost your brand's presence across the Web.

Now that we know the benefits of CRM software, let's talk about how to find the ideal product for your business.

Determine Individual Needs

Prior to checking out any products, it's important to have a clear idea of what you are trying to achieve. According to Michael Krigsman, CEO of Asuret:

You need to get a package that’s tailored to your company’s size. At the most basic level you have simple contact management. Then you have contact management with a shared database. You can have sales tracking or opportunity tracking or customer service functionality. Match the capabilities of the software with what your business goals are.

After identifying specific needs, it should be easier to choose a suitable software platform.

Scalability

Besides immediate needs, it's important to consider long-term needs and take future growth into account. That's why software that's adequately scalable is so critical. Ideally, a platform will be Cloud-based to accommodate increased data storage and more contacts as they are acquired. It will also have the option to conveniently purchase upgrades as needed.

Otherwise, getting locked into a lengthy contract with a vendor with limited scalability can be detrimental to your efforts.

Integration with Existing Platforms

One issue that businesses run into is when the CRM they choose isn't compatible with programs like Outlook, Microsoft Excel and Quickbooks. If you already have some form of an existing infrastructure for monitoring customer interactions, it's smart to find software that can be integrated with relative ease. This should reduce your learning curve and help you put the software to use quickly.

Otherwise, the integration process can be arduous.

Mobile Capabilities

In the modern business world, mobile devices like smartphones and tablets have become the norm for many businesses. They make it possible to complete tasks and stay up to date on projects regardless of location. If your business uses any type of mobile technology, it's necessary to look for CRM software that can be accessed on these devices.

This should help all team members boost their productivity and get things done on the road.

Support System

Even if you're tech savvy, it's not always easy to figure out all of the components and features of a CRM platform. Consequently, a comprehensive support system with easy access to technicians can save you from a lot of headaches during the transition and afterward. This might include phone support, online chat and email correspondence to resolve issues.

While 9 to 5 support is helpful during the regular hours of the workweek, it's best to have 24/7 support in case of an emergency at an odd time of day.

Stability

Finally, the vendor you choose should have a positive reputation for providing a quality product and professional service. This should reduce the possibility of having to jump ship and find another CRM software provider in the future. Generally speaking, the longer they have been in business, the better.

Reading some reviews and/or contacting a few references should give you a good idea of a vendor's reputability.

CRM Photo via Shutterstock

The post Benefits of CRM Software and How to Choose a Platform appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Small businesses seeking to establish and maintain a digital presence continue to face challenges. While customers expect to find you on both Web and mobile and on a variety of social sites, updating this information can be time consuming.

Hosting and registrar giant GoDaddy is attempting to offer one solution with announced acquisition of San Francisco-based Locu this week. Exact financial details of the deal have not been disclosed.

More About Locu

Locu says it helps more than 30,000 restaurants, spas, salons, accountants, photographers, home-remodeling companies and other small businesses to “get found” digitally.

Essentially the company offers its clients a digital shortcut to update information like menus and other details about their businesses across many sites. The company boasts partnerships with sites like Yelp, YP.com, Foursquare, TripAdvisor and Facebook.

Locu allows its clients to update their business information in a single place and then publishes those changes across multiple Web platforms. The company even lets you send out Twitter and Facebook updates right from its dashboard to let your customers know about the changes. Get a glimpse of Locu in action by watching the video below.

How Locu Fits In

GoDaddy has already integrated Locu into its Website Builder tool. And Locu allows clients to link their accounts to their main websites and mobile pages for updating. So the idea here seems to be for GoDaddy to provide a seamless way for small businesses to update their business information on Web, mobile and a variety of social and other sites all at once.

“Last year’s acquisition of Outright.com (accounting and bookkeeping application for SMB businesses) indicated that GoDaddy wants to provide more than domain registration and hosting to small businesses,” said Vedran Tomic, president of Local Ants LLC, a local Internet marketing company. “Acquisition of Locu confirms that GoDaddy has big plans for the small business market, spanning beyond accounting solutions,”

The post GoDaddy Acquires Locu, Boosts Small Biz Digital Presence appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you're like me, you appreciate it when employees go out of their way to help you. Whether you're shopping for clothes or looking for groceries, it's always nice to know that someone is there to help. But there's always that customer service representative that goes too far – you know, that floor person who's really nice but needs to leave you alone.

In today's hyper-competitive market, major retailers and small businesses alike are going out of their way to enhance the customer experience.

But how far is too far?

Nordstrom has recently come under fire after the revelation that the company was using wifi signals from smartphones to track customers' movements in the store. Sound creepy? That's not even the worst part. Although Nordstrom's experiment was only to keep track of customer volume (and stopped in May after customer complaints), other businesses have taken it much further.

Aside from simply tracking customers' movements within the store, some businesses are able to collect incredible amounts of data. For instance, the store could collect information from your phone that reveals your sex, where you are standing and for how long, and whether or not you eventually make a purchase.

While the use of technology was designed to enhance the consumer experience, it left some people asking, "Where are the boundaries?"

While all businesses can take advantage of the benefits technology has to offer, how do we balance that fine line between good business and going over the top?

By keeping these 5 lessons in mind, we will ensure that we're a big help to customers, not their Big Brother.

Retail Technology Lessons

Know Your Boundaries

Coupled with cameras already monitoring the store's perimeters, retail store's data gathering struck a minor chord with shoppers. Small business owners need to understand where that "invisible line" exists and avoid crossing or toeing over it.

Whether it's how often you send out email newsletters or your in-store policies, it's always important to respect your customers and their privacy.

Experiment First

Nordstrom's wifi method was an information gathering experiment. Instead of implementing a tested or proven method of improving customer service, a controversial method of gathering information was set in play.

Nordstrom did respond well though, halting the experiment when customer's complained.

Be Aware of the National Discussion

Even if your business stays away from political happenings, it's always important to be aware of the national dialogue. With so many news stories about NSA programs and wiretapping, the nationwide sentiment against information collection has been hostile.

By being aware of the larger conversation, you can avoid falling into potential pitfalls.

Be Transparent

One of the reasons customers were anxious about Nordstrom's wifi data collection is because they weren't sure what data was gathered and how the data was going to be used. Likewise, if your business collects email addresses or key pieces of information, let consumers know what they're signing up for.

Whether it's a newsletter or monthly coupons, you should always be as transparent as possible with your customers.

Be Prepared to Answer Questions

Having an answer prepared for the most frequently asked questions that customers have about your business will help dispel any anxiety or concern.

While your business might not be investing in research efforts as technical as Nordstrom's, or as creepy as other retailers, it's important to keep these tips in mind as you seek to improve your customer service.

Remember, you want to be a big help to consumers – not Big Brother.

Nordstrom Photo via Shutterstock

The post How Far Is Too Far: 5 Lessons From Retail Stores On Technology appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Smart retailers are already thinking ahead to Thanksgiving Day, the official kickoff of the holiday retail shopping season, and how to prepare for a successful year.

If you own a brick-and-mortar store, preparing early is more important than ever, in order to compete with online retailers and their 24/7 storefronts. Plus, this year there are only 26 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, six fewer than last year, cutting almost a week out of the core holiday shopping season.

Prepare for Holiday Retail Season of 2013

How can you get ready to squeeze the most possible sales out of holiday 2013?  You can start with the tips below.

Get the Skinny on Your Industry's Trends

Peruse your industry publications and websites to get experts' insights on what products are likely to be hot sellers this year so you can make sure you have an ample supply. Hit gift-oriented trade shows too. You can find relevant shows for your industry at TSNN.com.

Tap Into What Customers are Talking About

While holiday shopping probably isn't a hot topic on most consumers' minds just yet, keep an eye on social media to see what's bubbling up. In particular, Pinterest can be a great resource to see what customers are craving.

Track the Pinterest users that follow your business (or your competitors) on Pinterest. Watch what they're pinning and who else they follow. This can help you spot trends. You can also start holiday themed Pinterest boards and ask your followers to share what they hope to give and/or get this year.

This is a great way to localize the bigger trends you learn about in #1.

Focus on Your Loyal Customers

How will you make sure your best customers visit your store more than once? Reach out to them early in the season (or even before the season).

For example, invite your best customers to a special shopping night before Thanksgiving to offer a more stress-free shopping experience.

Perfect Your Local Presence

Customers went mobile-mad last year, using their smartphones like never before to research products, compare prices and find stores.

Make sure your business is listed on local search directories like Local.com or Google+ Local and that your listings are updated and optimized with things customers want to know. Things like driving directions, store hours and a phone number.

Watch Your Reviews

When customers find you on a search site, they might also see ratings of your store.  If you've got two stars while your competitor has four, guess who's going to get the business?

Pay special attention to online reviews of your store this time of year. If any negative feedback has driven your ratings down, deal with it now so your score rises before the holiday shopping season starts in earnest.

Review Last Year's Holiday Marketing Plan

What did you do last year? What worked and what didn't? Did certain marketing activities attract the type of customers you want more of this year?

Figure out what you should do more of and less of this time around.

Create a Calendar

One of the biggest mistakes small retailers make with marketing is planning at the last-minute.  Then they can't accomplish their goals.

Take some time to think ahead about all the marketing activities you want to carry out this holiday season. Whether it's an email campaign, special in-store events or some blowout sale days, mark the dates on your calendar and plan backward from there.

This ensures you aren't scrambling at the last minute to find a party rental company or caterer, merchandise the store for the big sale day or get adequate gift wrap supplies on hand.

Time it Right

For small retailers, the line between when customers like to shop and when they get offended at seeing holiday décor in the stores is a blurry one. The National Retail Federation reports that every year, about 40 percent of consumers begin their holiday shopping before Halloween, and more retailers are beginning to put decorations and greeting cards on the shelves in September.

If you'd rather wait until after Halloween to start decking the halls, consider offering a "secret" early holiday sale only to loyal customers, or advertising it via direct mail or email so customers who are interested can participate.

Holiday Photo via Shutterstock

The post 8 Steps to Get Ready for the Holiday Retail Season appeared first on Small Business Trends.

You’ve probably used Twitter as a professional networking and marketing tool. But you may wonder whether Twitter actually leads to more sales.

It turns out a recent survey by Market Probe International answers that question.

Conducted on behalf of Twitter, the research firm surveyed 500 people over the age of 18 in the US and the UK who regularly follow small to medium sized businesses on Twitter. 

Results were published on the official Twitter advertising blog today.

The upshot of the survey is that Twitter can have an impact on small businesses — and that getting Twitter followers matters.  And in fact, Twitter set up the hashtag #FollowersMatter, to emphasize those results.

Getting ROI From Twitter

If you're looking for ROI from your social media efforts, there are some impressive statistics coming out of this study (illustrated in the infographic below):

• The survey shows Twitter can influence purchase decisions. According to the survey, 72 percent of those who follow a business are more likely to make a purchase afterward from that business. If that holds true across the board, that means your followers are likely to turn into paying customers, if they are not already.
• Not only that, but 82 percent of  followers are more likely to recommend your product or service to friends and family.  That means, Twitter has a positive impact on and can amplify word of mouth.
• Twitter can lead more loyal customers. For instance, 85 percent say they feel a closer connection to the SMB after they follow them.

 Clues for Getting More Twitter Followers

If you’re trying to figure out how to get more followers for your business on Twitter, the survey has some clues.  Look at WHY people follow small businesses on Twitter.  If you know what they are looking for from you, you know what kind of information to give them through your Twitter feed:

• The majority of those responding, 73 percent, said they followed SMB brands on Twitter primarily to get updates on a company’s future products. Based on that,you should be tweeting about new product launches, executive presentations that are public and discuss the company's future direction, special offers to try new products, and similar information.
• 63 percent said they followed brands primarily to show their support.  When you think about that, it's important for small businesses to get support.  Small businesses don't have the same resources for market research are large corporations, and don't always know if they are hitting the mark with customers and potential customers — or what they may need to change.
• Customers want to interact and engage with small businesses.  61 percent of those surveyed said they followed businesses not to receive information but to give feedback and communicate.

Twitter has a small business handle at @TwitterSmallBiz  to follow. For more information about using Twitter for small business read more Twitter tips and advice from Small Business Trends.

[Click for the full infographic]

The post 72 Percent of Twitter Followers Are More Likely to Buy From You appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you regularly embed Twitter posts to your blog or website to highlight a customer comment or for any number of reason, now you can do the same with Facebook.

Introducing the continued roll out of Facebook embedded posts on the official Facebook developers blog, Facebook software engineer Dave Capra explained on Wednesday:

We introduced Embedded Posts in July to make it easy for publishers to add any public post from Facebook to their blog or web site. Today, we’re excited to make Embedded Posts available to everyone. We’ve also added several enhancements based on feedback from our launch partners.

Installing Facebook posts is easy. Simply hover your cursor over the arrow in the upper right hand corner of the post you want on Facebook. Then select the embed option.

Basic Features of Facebook Embedded Posts

It’s inevitable that the new feature will be compared to the embed tweet function on Twitter. However, there are some interesting differences.

First, video players in the Facebook posts will play on your site as well, once you’ve embedded the post. It’s a nifty option if you want to add things like customer testimonials shared on Facebook to your main site.

Second, you can access the embed code right from the post on your blog or website. Do this by using the pull down next to the “Like Page” or “Follow” button on the new embedded post. This could be a way of giving your posts more shelf-life, since readers would have another place to find and share them besides your Facebook feed.

Third, there’s a special size to accommodate the smaller screen of a mobile device, very important with increased smartphone and tablet use these days.

There’s even a special plugin to help WordPress publishers use the embed feature more easily.

The post Facebook Opens Embedded Posts to All Websites appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Infographics are a popular topic (and sometimes target) for discussion amongst anyone doing online marketing. A sharp uptick in the volume of infographics being created has made getting your graphic “heard above the noise” more difficult. But infographics can still be an extremely effective tactic for generating awareness, communicating a story and getting traffic and earned links.

One challenge some folks run into with infographics and data visualizations (not unlike most types of content) is that they view their industry or area of focus as “too boring” to generate relevant ideas for infographics that will also get traction socially and with bloggers. After all, to make it a success you need to generate that attention, traffic, and earned links. This is a particularly popular objection with companies considering developing and promoting infographics for B2B marketing.

There  are a lot of different ways to generate shareworthy content ideas for your niche.  Businesses are generating interesting data visualizations all the time. So we’ll talk specifically about some methods for developing ideas for B2B focused infographics, with examples.

Tie Your B2B Infographic to a Timely Industry Hook

One important thing to keep in mind in creating infographics (or other types of content as well, for that matter) is that if you think hard enough about your niche, you can likely come up with an angle that bloggers and press will be interested in.

Look at content that’s created in publications related to what you do. What types of events and news stories are they regularly focusing coverage on? What kind of interesting data visualization can you create that will add to that coverage and discussion?

Quarterly Earnings or Annual Holidays

WordStream (my former employer) created an infographic titled how Google makes its money.  They created another on the industries contributing to Google’s revenue, which performed very well. Both were launched right after Google released their quarterly earnings report. The tech and business press are always looking for information and additional angles to talk about earning reports from big companies. So the timing of the graphic’s release helped in both cases.

The nice thing about events like quarterly earnings is that they’re inevitable (they happen every quarter). So you can plan for them and have the graphic ready to launch as they come up.

Noteworthy News Events

These can be a little trickier because you have to time them specifically with a news event (and frequently you have to get a little lucky regarding when you get the graphic out, as you may be dependent on the shelf life of the story). But if you get it right, you can really have the graphic pop.

Veracode, a Web application security company, released this infographic on Twitter hacks the week of a prominent Twitter hack of USA Today’s account. As a result, the site received links and mentions from prominent sites like Mashable and ReadWrite.

"Explainer" Graphics & How-Tos

Like with any content, if you can cover the key points surrounding a central concept that many people in your niche may be interested in and/or confused by, or if you can explain how to execute on something, people will be willing to share what you’ve created. There are a number of tactics you can take in creating explainer and how-to infographics for B2B, including:

• Offer definitions to commonly used terms and outline the current configuration of your industry, including key players, etc.  Be careful not to be overly self-aggrandizing.
• Find a salacious related field / topic to yours and go into depth on it.
• Offer a simple, easy to understand statistical breakdown of an existing problem. Sometimes these are the easiest to share.
• You can also leverage expertise for an interesting graphic that explains a topic. If you’re a designer, creating a graphic on use of fonts and colors is a pretty obvious example. But if you’re a trade show company with some expertise on what catches people’s attention, that can make for an interesting graphic as well.

Graphics Aimed at a Specific Niche of Likely Sharers

Certain niches just share content more. With infographics, you’re typically looking for a topic that will be interesting to bloggers and social sharers.

So think about how you might relate your topic back to topics like tech, social media or just passionate folks who blog frequently. Example: parents or folks interested in green living.

Maybe you can look at the effects of a popular topic such as the overall impact of your industry in a way your readers, and bloggers and sharers, will find interesting.

You Can Create a Compelling Infographic – But Maybe You Shouldn’t

Regardless of how “boring” you think your B2B product or service may be, you can certainly come up with an idea for a compelling graphic. If you focus on coming up with a topic that bloggers are likely to want to write about and sharers are likely to share, you’ll even have a strong chance of creating a successful graphic.

That still doesn’t necessarily mean infographics are for you, though.

Good infographics are expensive. They have to be researched, designed and promoted. Even very well thought-out graphics can totally flop and fail to generate much in the way of conversation, links and shares. So if you own a small business and designing a single graphic eats up so much of your budget that you absolutely have to have them be a success, you should probably be leveraging other tactics.

With any content marketing activities where you’re creating something and then relying on others to link to it, you really need to take a “portfolio” approach to content creation and promotion. Some of your efforts will fail. Some will be better than you thought. In aggregate, they should provide the returns you’re expecting for the total cost you’re laying out.

If you can’t afford to do them more than once, there’s a strong chance you should be picking another tactic instead.

Infograph Photo via Shutterstock

The post How to Leverage Infographics for B2B Marketing appeared first on Small Business Trends.

A growing trend among mobile professionals is the smartwatch allowing you to check your smartphone for updates without ever taking it from your pocket.

Reports suggest both Samsung and Apple have sights set on developing new smartwatches by the end of the year. Samsung could release its Galaxy Gear as early as Sept. 4, according to Bloomberg, but some debate remains about just what this new device will be able to do.

For a look at the capabilities of smartwatches already on the market, see more on the Kickstarter funded Pebble or see an overview of the Sony Smartphone 2 expected in the U.S. in September.

What Smartwatches Can do for Small Businesses

Though they are not exactly like Dick Tracey’s gadget watch in the comics, smartwatches have some valuable uses.

They can’t yet be used as phones, but let you keep up with things happening on your smartphone while it’s still safely tucked away.

You can keep track of social media updates relative to your business, monitor incoming email from clients or partners, or even be notified of text messages coming in with questions about your products or services.

But you can also set alarms and updates for yourself and check incoming caller IDs to figure out whether you need to take your phone out and take this call or not.

Best of all, with more of these devices coming on the market, you will have more choices than ever when picking the wearable technology to compliment your phone.

Image: Video Still

The post Samsung and Apple Set to Unveil Smartwatches appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Ever heard the phrase "good artists copy; great artists steal?"

A similar mode of thinking can do wonders for your content marketing. Of course, you should never out and out plagiarize, which is bad for your business from an SEO (search engine optimization) standpoint, not to mention a tad unethical.

That being said, there's nothing wrong with expanding on and being inspired by your competitors' great ideas. Just look at pop art, for example. Where would Andy Warhol be without Campbell’s' marketing team?

But before I digress further, let's get to it and take a look at how to use competitors' marketing strategies and materials to come up with your own ideas.

Repurpose Awesome Content From Your Own Perspective

If you're not already repurposing your own content, you'd best go get started. I'll wait. Got it? Good.

Anyway, one of the first steps to drawing inspiration from your competitors should be to read their content. When you hit on something where you think, "Wow, I wish I'd written that," don't stop there. Instead, read it again and think about how you could write a similar article in your voice, from your perspective. Maybe you reached a slightly different conclusion, or maybe there's a spot where your expertise can bring something totally new to the table.

Whatever the case may be, try rewriting your competitors' article from a different angle and see where it takes you.

Hop on the Bandwagon

When there's a trending topic taking off, get on that bandwagon. While most of us like to think we're so unique that we can come up with something totally unique that will go viral all on its own, the reality is that it doesn't quite work like that. No one can know in advance what's going to garner tons of share, but if there's already a topic that's whirling around the internet full steam ahead, use it to your advantage.

It's a good idea to stay on top of what your competitors are writing about. If there's a topic that seems to be doing particularly well with fans and followers, make a space in your editorial calendar and add your voice to the conversation.

Take What You Can

And give nothing back, as the pirates liked to say. You don't need a parrot and an eye patch for this one, but you do need to be able to figure out those little, obvious things that are working well for your competitors.

Has a rival company hit the jackpot with keywords, bumping them up to the top of the search rankings? Find out what keywords they use, and use them yourself. Does a competitor have a website design that's simply more user friendly than yours? Learn from their example and integrate some of those structures into your own.

Inspiration, Not Plagiarism

Again, I just want to reiterate that the key here is to draw inspiration, not copy and paste. If you find yourself wholesale stealing paragraphs from your competitors' blogs, it's time to put down the keyboard and come back to it later.

The difference between copying and stealing is, after all, the difference between a good artist and a great one.

Inspirational Quote Photo via Shutterstock

The post When Stealing Is Good: Drawing Inspiration From Competitors appeared first on Small Business Trends.

As small business owners we’re great at many things, but strategy is usually not our strong suit.

Early on in my marketing career, I was struggling with a strategic issue and my supervisor told me I needed to “think more deeply.”  That didn’t help one bit.

In the small business world, we tend to operate in a “ready, fire, aim” way. And that’s ok, that’s what gets stuff done. That’s where a lot of innovation comes from. That’s why small businesses can be nimble and solve real-life problems faster than big businesses and that’s what moves our economy forward.

But, the transition from small business to sustainable company requires strategy.

As I’ve worked with many different small business owners, I’ve developed a few processes to make this “deep thinking” process a bit more tangible and more importantly, more doable.

First, An Analogy

Let’s say we were going to build a 10 story building. We first need an architect to draft the blueprint. Then we have a project plan. Prep the ground. Bring in utilities. Lay the foundation. Put up a frame and then plumbing and electricity. Lastly, we finish with sheetrock, paint, etc. That’s the rough idea (clearly, I’m not a builder).

But, what would happen if we tried to install the electricity before the frame was up?

We’d end up with a tangled pile of wires. That’s also what happens when entrepreneurs fly at 100 mph “getting stuff done.” It works. But only to a point.

So, how do we replicate that logical process in our business? How do we get from point A to point B?

That’s a little to vague for most people. So, a slight alteration of the question does the trick:

• How do we turn a site visitor into a newsletter subscriber?
• How do we turn a newsletter subscriber into a happy customer?
• How do we turn a happy customer into a raving fan that refers us?
• How do we get happy customers to buy more?

How to Think Strategically

Its all about moving a person from where they’re at to where they need to be. Particularly in the marketing world, this has a lot to do with what’s going on in your customers mind and emotions. What emotions does my prospect need to feel in order to justify purchasing my product? Once you’ve identified the pre-purchase state, you can work backwards to create it.

Let’s look at an example. Suppose we sell hiking boots. Here’s how we attack it.

How do we get an average person to purchase hiking boots? In order words, what is the mental state of someone who makes a purchase of hiking boots?

• First: They must have a need (we need to get them to plan a hike or a camping trip).
• Second: They must agree that their existing solutions are not adequate for their upcoming trip.
• Third: They must be able to justify the cost of new boots.
• Fourth: They must agree that our boots are better than the competition.

Ok, now that we’ve outlined the purchasing state, we must put a plan in place to create that state:

Depending on your business, you may use different media to do this. Some may use one video that walks prospects down this path. Others may use an email series. Others may use a webinar or hangout. That’s another strategic question for you. In order to get prospects from point A to point B, which medium will most easily get them there?

In this example we’ll use an email series:

• Email 1: Tell about a local hike. Show pictures. Include testimonials from local people talking about how amazing the hike was, how refreshed they felt afterwards, and how much it helped them “clear their head.” Use whatever benefits your prospects need – the goal is to get them to desire and plan that hike.
• Email 2: Write a review of “hiking shoes.” Include tennis shoes for neighborhood hikes on a sidewalk, cross-trainers for mild dirt roads and hiking boots for strenuous, yet rewarding hikes like the one mentioned in email 1.
• Email 3: Write about the “cost” of using the wrong equipment. Tennis shoes will wear out 3 times as fast (costing you more) and they don’t support the ankles (therefore costing you more if you get a sprain). Show how a good pair of boots will last years and protect the wearer.
• Email 4: Write a review of different hiking boots, highlighting the benefits of your boots. Include an offer.
• Email 5: Stronger offer. Include an expiration date. Remind the prospects of how wonderful it is to go hiking (revive the feelings from email 1). Give a discount or offer bonuses to get people to act now. They just need to justify the purchase now.

Ask Yourself

This is a very simple example. But you can see how asking the right questions in the beginning helps us to frame out the email sequence in a logical way that is both educational and gets the sales job done. It sure beats writing a bunch of emails and hoping they work (just like wiring the building prematurely and then hoping the lights turn on).

In every situation, ask yourself how to get from point A to point B. Here are a few strategic questions every business owner should be asking:

• How do I get my prospects to choose me over my competitors?
• How do I turn purchasers into raving fans?
• How do I turn raving fans into referral machines?

If you can answer those questions with well thought-out plans, you’ll be strategically moving your company from where you are to where you want to be.

Camping Photo via Shutterstock

The post How to Think Strategically, By Asking Yourself Questions appeared first on Small Business Trends.

I remember starting a new job and being given the tour by an employee. Not only did I get introduced to pretty much everyone, but my guide also gave me the skinny and her opinion on them all.

“He’s kind of a jerk, and don’t ask about his wife. She likes to drink and made a fool of herself at the last office party.” Then there was the one guy who, I swear, was a Robert Redford lookalike. “That’s Tom. He’s like a legend around here.”

Immediatley, I began to think about this Tom person as a barbarian, Robin Hood, a knight on horseback and finally – as a unicorn.

As it turned out, the guy really was great at his job and a genuinely nice guy. But everytime I saw him after that first day, I couldn’t help but imagine him with a horn sticking out of his forehead.

He’s a legend after all.

The post He’s a Legend Around Here appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Welcome to our latest curated list of events, contests and awards for small businesses.  These events are perfect for small business owners, managers and entrepreneurs to continue their education, network with peers and industry players, and more.  This is a partial list – see the full list visit the Small Business Events Calendar.

Featured Events, Contests and Awards

Manta #SmallBizLove Photo Contest
August 31, 2013, Online

This contest highlights small businesses and helps them to show off their amazing products, services and happy customers all with a chance to win $10K. The contest is open this year to small business owners and their consumers.

At the end of the contest, one photo will be chosen as the $10K Grand Prize winner.

Hashtag: #SmallBizLove

Small Business Influencer Awards 2013
Online

The 2013 Small Business Influencer Awards recognize the apps, organizations and people who have a strong impact on small businesses in North America. Now its 3rd year, the Awards are a coveted recognition for those who serve small businesses.  Check to see who’s already been nominated, and nominate yourself, or someone or some organization or app you admire.   No fee to enter.

Twitter hashtag: #SMBinfluencer.

NOMINATE

WomanCon 2013
September 25, 2013, New York, NY

This conference brings together amazing women entrepreneurs, both on and off the stage. Hear real behind-the-scenes stories of success including JJ Ramberg, Sarah Endline, Janine Popick, and Pamela O’Hara. Expert keynotes and panel discussions include: Getting Funding for Growth with Kay Koplovitz & Peggy Wallace, Turning Ideas into Companies with Yao Huang, 5 Strategies for a Stronger Brand with Julie Cottineau, and a journalist panel on Pitching the Media. SEATING IS LIMITED.
Discount Code
SBTRENDS ($50 off)

More Events

• Banner Conference 2013
  September 06, 2013, Las Vegas, NV
• Content Marketing World
  September 09, 2013, Cleveland, OH
• Small Business and Entrepreneur Leadership Conference
  September 09, 2013, Galveston , TX
• Servant-Leadership: A Better Way To Lead & Manage At Work Or Home
  September 10, 2013, Atlanta, GA
• Leading in Local: SMB Digital Marketing
  September 11, 2013, Austin, TX
• The Social Shake-Up
  September 15, 2013, Atlanta, GA
• QS MBA Tour
  September 15, 2013, New York City, NY
• 2013 Incite Marketing and Communications Summit
  September 18, 2013, Online
• Human Potential Forum 2013
  September 18, 2013, New York, New York
• How To Build & Lead An Effective Team
  September 19, 2013, Atlanta, GA
• Entrepreneurial Woman’s Conference – 27th Annual
  September 26, 2013, Chicago, Illinois
• The eMetrics Summit Boston
  September 29, 2013, Boston, MA
• Conversion Conference East 2013 Boston
  September 30, 2013, Online
• Demandcon Boston Sept 30-Oct 1st 2013
  September 30, 2013, Boston, MA/USA
• Context Conference
  September 30, 2013, Boston, MA
• SMX East
  October 01, 2013, New York, NY
• ONTRApalooza: Start, Systemize and Scale Your Business
  October 02, 2013, Santa Barbara, CA
• MiniTrends 2013: The Integration of Profit & Social Responsibility
  October 02, 2013, Austin, TX
• How to Build a Compensation Program & Solving Compensation Program Problems
  October 03, 2013, Orlando, FL
• MACsWomen’s Entrepreneur Summit and Business Expo
  October 04, 2013, Eastchester, NY

More Contests

• Turnstone’s Best Young Companies to Work For
  August 30, 2013, Online
• Women 2.0 PITCH Las Vegas 2013
  September 15, 2013, Las Vegas, NV
• 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 Our Latest Events and Awards Listings For Small Businesses appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Didn’t have time to read everything this week?  The Small Business Trends editorial team keeps you informed with our easy-to-scan recaps.

Let’s jump right in with the most popular and important small business news stories on the site this week.

Outages, Outages … Toil and Trouble

Amazon downtime may have cost the company. More than $66,000 a minute, one source reckons. Of course, with a household name like Amazon, those visitors probably returned later. But for a lesser-known and smaller business, can you count on visitors remembering and coming back?  Or will they just go to your online competitor?  We have a practical tip for dealing with downtime on your website. (Besides pulling your hair out, that is.)

Microsoft outage rivals Amazon’s. In length, that is — not necessarily in actual sales dollars it cost the company. Of course, it may have cost YOU money if you were one of those Outlook.com users. It may have taken three days to get your service fully restored. Ouch.

If you own an iMac, your video card could be faulty. No worries though. Apple has recently announced a program that not only helps you figure out whether you need a new card. The company will replace it free.

People may be opening fewer of your marketing emails. That is, if the people you are emailing happen to have GMail accounts. There are worriers out there who have been antsy about the new GMail tabs, and one study suggests 18% fewer opens.  Still, it may be too early to blame Google for this.

Services

GoDaddy acquires Locu. The deal could be big news for small businesses in need of Web services. GoDaddy already offers a website building tool. And the new addition of Locu will help businesses extend their local-marketing reach.

Fiverr reaches 2 million “gigs.”  Fiverr has its share of questionable services offered (such as those spammy “I’ll get you 10,000 Twitter followers in 1 day” offers). However, as long as you stay away from that kind of stuff, Fiverr can be a source of inexpensive and quick virtual labor. Small services start at $5.  Here are some tips on how to use the site.

New service offers small biz PR. A group calling itself the National Association of Local Advertisers has a new service that goes beyond distributing press releases. They will write them and help you develop a press campaign, too.

Social Media

72 percent of your Twitter followers are likely to buy from you. And that’s only the beginning of the helpful ROI and other information you’ll find in a new survey commissioned by Twitter, and released this week. Also learn why people follow your business on Twitter.  Hey – give them what they are looking for!

Facebook has new embedded posts. They may remind you of embedded tweets. But trust us, there are some differences. And if you’re worried about the shelf-life of your Facebook posts, this is one way to address it.

Franchises are embracing social media. But as this new approach to marketing and PR evolves, challenges remain. Franchise correspondent Joel Libava gives us a look at how things have changed.

Tech

Smartwatches coming from Samsung and Apple. Wearable tech is getting more popular.  These kinds of watches are already available from companies like Pebble and Sony. Though they can’t yet be used as a phone or even to, say, update your Facebook page, they are great accessories that work along with  smartphones.

New intelligent coffee kiosk coming. It could be an interesting business model. It could also be another alternative to supplying your staff with their morning cup of joe.

Startups

Americans aren’t investing in startups. In fact, only about 5.3 percent of Americans invested in startups in the three years leading up to 2012, recent data suggests. That’s despite all the focus on venture and angel funding.  Unless the startup entrepreneur is a relative, it’s not likely the average American will be investing in a startup anytime soon.  Scott Shane, Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University, has more.

Choosing a fiscal year explained. Not every business can choose a fiscal year for income tax reporting purposes. For those that can, Nellie Akalp, CEO of CorpNet, reviews the options. See whether your business can choose.

Operations

Better benefits could lure better talent. A recent report suggests small businesses are competing for a limited pool of interested and qualified applicants. That means leaving some positions unfilled. One possible incentive is a great benefits package, says Michael W. Zuna, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Aflac U.S.

WordPress explained for the entrepreneur. Few content management systems worth the time are simple or easy. But Jennifer Shaheen, CEO and President of The Technology Therapy Group, gives an overview of the benefits the WordPress platform has to offer.

Marketing

Grumpy Cat is a marketing machine. We’ve written before about this photogenic feline with the unforgettable face. The cat, named Tardar Sauce but known as Grumpy Cat, can teach us all a few lessons about branding in the digital age.

Don’t get your hashtags hijacked. Ever see a brand’s Twitter hashtag being used for snark and sarcasm? Don’t let that happen to your marketing campaign.   Small Business Trends CEO Anita Campbell gives some pointers of the types of hashtags susceptible to hijacking — and how to avoid it.

Book Reviews

How to develop more business. Moving too slowly on business development can kill your business, or make it stagnate. Pierre DeBois reviews The Professional's Guide to Business Development: How To Win Business In The Professional Services.

Feel the love with Loveworks. Great marketing of your brand isn’t just about the facts. It’s about emotion, too. Ivana Taylor reviews Loveworks: How the World's Top Marketers Make Emotional Connections to Win in the Marketplace.

News image, Shutterstock.

The post Small Business News Roundup For Week Ending August 24 appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you haven’t seen Vine’s Top 100 Vine Videos, then you’re missing out – on a few laughs.  Vine, if you’re not familiar with it, is the 6-second video service for Twitter that has become wildly popular.

We’ve picked 10 of our favorites and shared them with you below. Interestingly enough, it’s not Justin Bieber that tops the charts on the Vine video list. Rather, it’s Harry Styles of the band One Direction.

Vine is easy and brings out the creativity in people.  As Mashable points out, 31 of the most shared Vine videos are from the 19 year old heart throb who signed with Simon Cowell’s record label after finishing third on The X Factor, a British singing competition. Harry also happens to have the number one most shared Vine video, as seen below, that is quickly climbing towards 161,000 shares.

As a small business owner, you don’t always have to be “talking shop” on social media. Sometimes, just sharing yourself with others and the world in a humorous way can build the bridge to long lasting relationships of all types.

After all, being human is a condition – and humor is part of the human condition.

* * * * *

Watch Harry Styles embrace a multitude of fans in Verona in the number one most shared Vine video.

Harry Styles (@Harry_Styles) May 19, 2013

Eric Stonestreet, an actor who plays Cameron on ABC’s “Modern Family,” finds himself giddy over a Justin Bieber sighting.

Eric Stonestreet (@ericstonestreet) May 28, 2013

Twerking is a form of dancing that involves shaking your hips in an up and down motion. These two have just found the mystical “Twerk Tree.”

Austin Miles Geter (@Austingeter) May 28, 2013

Being towed behind a moving vehicle is a popular tactic used in many music videos. This young man takes advantage of it – that is – until his dad taps the brakes.

Marcus Johns (@marcusjohns) May 7, 2013

KC James wants to enjoy a beautiful day by firing up his magic banana for a ride – only to find himself unable to handle its power.

KC James (@iamkcjames) May 12, 2013

Sometimes it’s hard to picture your parents as cool.  But Marcus Johns finds out that his dad is truly “rad” – really awesome dude.

Marcus Johns (@marcusjohns) May 12, 2013

This guy just can’t figure out why everyone is so afraid of love.

Jerome Jarre (@jeromejarre) April 16, 2013

Lance considers himself quite the pick-up artist and approaches it with gusto – only to find it proves more difficult than imagined. It ends in an epic fail.

Lance (@lance210) June 8, 2013

A finely tuned, coordinated dunk that comes off without a hitch – from a bunch of amateurs at the pool.  This is amazing!

Dom Marrero (@ThisKidDom) July 18, 2013

Do you enjoy singing in your car alone? Ever get caught at it?  Then you’ll appreciate this one.

Jordan Burt (@imfauxreal) March 12, 2013

The post Plenty of Laughs Abound From The Top 100 Vine Video List appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Citizens of ancient Japan appreciated the samurai practice Bushido – "the way of the warrior" – and its tenets of loyalty, martial arts skill and honor. Citizen cooperation and the samurai adherence to Bushido ways inspired peace in Japan that lasted until a formal military ushered the end of the samurai era in the late 1800s.

Analytic practitioners in business, unfortunately, lack a uniform "bushido" that can inform business leaders how to make better usage of data. This can lead to conflicts that can make all involved reach for a kitana sword.

But enough of the samurai metaphors….

Fortunately, more advanced books are becoming available to business managers seeking analytics to keep up on business intelligence.

Two master practitioners among business intelligence are Thomas Davenport, whom we reviewed with Analytics At Workand business and statistics professor Jinho Kim. They are authors of Keeping Up with the Quants: Your Guide to Understanding and Using Analytics .

The book delves into the strategic significance of how people and ideas are deployed before choosing any analytical solution.  Meant for managers, the book makes for great reading for leaders trying to corral data in their organization.

Your Data is Your Business

Keeping Up With The Quants has the capacity to extend the discussion about the usefulness of data. We increasingly read or hear the term “Big Data,” but many writers never get to the business intelligence end of the topic – in other words, how does analytics work beyond the numbers?  Davenport has revealed his analytical perspective in previous works, such as Judgment Calls. In Quants he and Kim waste no time digging beyond why big data is the new way to build a business, noting:

“Big data and analytics don't just improve internal decision making. Many Internet-based organizations—Google, Facebook, Amazon, eBay, and others—are using so-called big data from online transactions not only to support decisions but to create new product offerings and features for customers.”

Perspectives That Give a Small Business Team “Big Smarts”

Small businesses that grow employees have to manage head count and how those resources are being used.  Because analytics beyond basic metrics can lead to a dedicated head for measurement, the book offers ideas as to how to grow your organization into the need rather than randomly select a resource.   The chapter "Framing the Problem" shows how to organize analytical challenges:

“The decision to forge ahead may be driven by a hunch or intuition. The standard of evidence at this point is low. Of course, the whole point of a qualitative analysis is to eventually apply some data and test your hunch. That's the difference between analytical thinkers and others: They test their hunches with data and analysis. The most important thing in the problem recognition stage is fully understanding the problem and why it matters.”

The authors reveal stages and steps on how to assess and present information, all with straightforward reminders such as the following:

“Since analytical people are comfortable with technical terms … they often assume their audience would be too. But this is a tragic mistake.”

Conveniently, the segment "Solving the Problem" follows with probably the most actionable ideas for small businesses.  Within this segment and others, fun aspects abound to keep analysis points interesting. There's a historical bit about Florence Nightingale's work with mortality rates that ties into data visualization.  I liked the "Fido equation", a fun version to explain what a model is and should do.  The imagined concept comes right before an aside on assigning variables within a model:

“As with the process of selecting variables, even quite subjective things can be measured in systematic ways…. No matter what data you have, there is always the possibility of getting more data, or different data from what you have originally employed in thinking about your problem.”

The authors' take on models, variables and data visualization, makes the book a great choice to read prior to other specific analytic topics. You can read it before picking up PredictiveAnalytics and Big Data without programming language details examined in books like Yahoo Web Analytics.

If you find yourself going into a battle over data-based decisions, you'll find Keeping Up With Quants as a suitable weapon to win the day.

The post "Keeping Up With The Quants" Helps You Keep Up on Business Intelligence appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you work in a marketing agency, or are a marketer in-house in a larger company, you probably know the answer to “what is owned, earned and paid media?”.

But we small business owners wear many hats. Marketing may be one of 6 or 7 responsibilities you have.  In fact, you may have so many responsibilities that you’ve run out of hats (see cartoon above).

That being the case you may not be as familiar with certain marketing concepts, such as owned, earned and paid media.

So let’s dive in and see what it’s all about.  We’ll also look at how to employ owned, earned and paid media as part of your marketing strategy in a small business.

Definition: Owned Earned Paid Media

This phrase is simply a framework for how to organize and execute your marketing:

Owned media is when you leverage a channel you create and control.  This could be your company blog, YouTube channel, your website, or even your Facebook page.  Even though you don’t strictly “own’ your YouTube channel or your Facebook page, you do control them and don’t have to pay for basic usage.

Earned media is when customers, the press and the public share your content, speak about your brand via word of mouth, and otherwise discuss your  brand.  In other words, the mentions are “earned,” meaning they are voluntarily given by others.

Paid media is when you pay to leverage a third-party channel, such as sponsorships and advertising on third-party sites.

Forrester Research created a chart that lays it out pretty well, including the advantages and disadvantages:

Discussions about owned, earned and paid media tend to be in the enterprise context.  Case studies and advice focus on Fortune 1000 companies with boo-koo bucks for their marketing.

But the concept is just as relevant to small businesses.

The concept of owned, earned and paid media has content at the center.  Luckily, small businesses are getting savvier at creating and curating content.

Avoid These 2 Myths

The key to understanding the “owned, earned, paid media” concept is not to buy into these two myths:

Myth #1: All you need is owned media.  

It’s important to have channels and content you own – for sure. But they alone are not enough.

What many small businesses lack with their owned channels is reach and scale.  You have a website with excellent case studies and resources on it, but could use more traffic.  You have a Google+ page, but don’t have a lot of followers and shares of your content through it yet.  You have a company blog, but don’t have time to regularly create content. And when you do, with so much content floating around online today, it’s hard to get eyeballs to your blog to read it.

That’s where earned and paid media come in.   They extend your reach.  To be successful, you need to amplify and scale your owned media channels.

Myth #2: Paid media is more expensive than any other kind of media.  

Recognize that there’s a cost to every channel — time, money or both.

Let’s take owned media.  Whether it’s the time your people spend in improving your website, writing blog posts for your blog, commissioning expensive infographics to get people talking, editing videos to share on YouTube — or paying for SEO services to get more traffic to your website — you still have to invest time, money or both.

It’s the same when it comes to earned media.  Earned media takes effort to develop and leverage at any scale.  If you want to your content to spread through social media and for social discussions to spring up around your products, it means you have to put effort into developing your social media channels. You must build your social media profiles, engage with customers, curate content. You must also do it consistently, week in and week out.  You must stick with it.  Paying attention to the your Twitter account once every 5 months won’t do much.

If you want to earn blogger mentions, you may have to reach out to bloggers via email to share that new infographic. Or you may need to engage in guest blogging on third party blogs to get more people to pay attention to you and your brand.  Here again, you have to do it consistently over time.  One guest blog post may help.  But it’s hardly enough to move the needle.

So before assuming that advertising is more expensive than the other two forms of media, consider ALL the expenses. Consider the value of your time and your team’s time, too.

Most small business owners underestimate the cost of marketing, especially when they do it in-house and invest precious time.

Combine Two or More Types

The best practice today is to use a combination of “owned earned paid media.”  Use one media channel to amplify or extend another type.  They need to work hand in hand.

Jeremiah Owyang and Rebecca Lieb, analysts with the Altimeter Group, use the phrase “Converged Media”  (see image above) to describe the combination.

They write, “Advertising, or ‘paid’ media has traditionally led marketing initiatives, both online and off, but advertising no longer works as effectively as it did unless bolstered by additional marketing channels.  Owned and earned media are vital to campaigns, helping to amplify and spread brand messages across a myriad of complex paths that consumers follow across devices, screens, and media.  Earned and owned media have become so integral to successful marketing initiatives that they are now commingling with paid to create new media hybrids.  Paid + Earned;  Earned + Owned;  Owned + Paid;  and even Paid + Owned + Earned media models are now emerging.”

There is one difference in that description as it applies to small businesses.  Smaller entities have always relied on owned and earned media to a large degree. Compared with their larger enterprise counterparts, they have had less of a single-minded focus on paid advertising traditionally.

And that’s a good thing.

It means that convergence comes naturally.  We small business types never got over-reliant on advertising. We are used to doing more with owned and earned media.

Here are four examples of ways to combine owned, earned and paid media, in a small business context — and make for more powerful marketing:

1.) Create content on your blog [owned]. Share it on Facebook [to generate earned]. However, you only reach about 10% of your fan base, according to statistics.  To extend your reach,  make it a sponsored Post for $40 or $80 [paid] to get wider visibility for it.

2.) Crowdsource some advice and tips from your customers or loyal community members, for an ebook on your website [owned]. Then share it on your company channel on Slideshare.  And reach out individually by email to send a copy of the ebook, to each community member who submitted a tip.  Most will share the ebook with their social networks, as they will be proud of their contribution [to generate more earned mentions].

3.) Pay some influencers [paid] to create interesting and shareable content for your company blog [owned]. Then amplify it heavily through social media [to generate earned mentions].

4.) Create special Facebook-only discounts [paid]. To take advantage of them, people must Like your page.  Studies show that discounts are a primary reason people follow and interact with brands on social media.  When they Like your page, you have their attention. That also means you now have a relationship with them [leading potentially to earned media].

When you combine owned, earned and paid media it expands your reach — more than from a single channel alone.

So don’t think about a single marketing technique in isolation, such as blogging. Or being active on Twitter.  Think instead about how you can combine techniques.

The post What Is “Owned, Earned and Paid Media”? appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Facebook has been actively courting small businesses for some time now. And three new features in particular should appeal to smaller companies with limited resources.

First, Facebook and Shutterstock have announced a deal that will give advertisers free access to Shutterstock’s huge library of images for use in their Facebook ads. This feature will be introduced over the next few weeks.

On the official Shutterstock Blog, Vice President David Fraga explained how the free images for Facebook ads feature will work:

“Shutterstock will be integrated directly into the Facebook ad creation tool, where advertisers will be able to test multiple images — including their own photos, visuals from their previous ads, and professional stock images from Shutterstock — across Facebook's mobile and desktop advertising products.”

The screenshot shows how you chose images for ads, right from within Facebook.

How Images for Facebook Ads Helps Small Businesses

The new arrangement will mean the most to smaller companies without the budget to hire big marketing firms.

• You get access to over 25 million professional photos.
• All images are licensed. You don’t have the copyright risk you would have by grabbing images off the Web without permission (something we strongly advise against).
• Creating ads will be faster and easier now that you will have access to images for Facebook ads right within the ad creation tool.
• Small businesses get a better look for their advertising campaigns at no greater cost.
• And though advertisers pay nothing additional for the images, under the arrangement, Shutterstock artists will still get paid. Many of these are freelancers and small business owners themselves. This means that every time you use a Shutterstock image for your Facebook ads, you could be supporting another small business person just like you.

Of course, you can still choose your own images for Facebook ads. It’s just now you will have an additional option built right in.

Two Other Small Business Features on Facebook

In a post on the official Facebook for Business blog, the company introduced two other feature improvements.

• Advertisers will be able to create multiple ads at once. The new feature on the Facebook ad creation tool will allow advertisers to upload multiple images from Shutterstock or previous advertisements for these ads. The feature also makes it easier to tweak ads over time to test their effectiveness, according to the post. For small businesses, it means the ability to easily create and test a more sophisticated advertising campaign without needing to hire an expensive outside agency.
• Updates to the Pages Manager App are available for Android and iOS. They allow you to manage your business pages on Facebook more easily from a mobile device. For example, you can now upload multiple photos for a single post. The new app also lets you edit your administration sections. It even lets you add administrators to any page you manage. For small business owners, who may be managing one or more pages, this can help you stay on top of your Facebook presence while traveling or on your way to a meeting. It means you don’t have to hire someone else to do it in your absence.

Image credits: Shutterstock and Facebook announcements

The post Shutterstock Deal Gives You Free Images for Facebook Ads appeared first on Small Business Trends.

There's no better time to create or update your LinkedIn company page.  With the July 31, 2013 launch of LinkedIn company page analytics, and new company page functionality launched in late 2012, you now have better tools.

Below I give you a step-by-step guide to creating a LinkedIn company page that rocks — and drives sales.

Before You Get Started

Before you consider adding a new company page, make sure that you can meet all of LinkedIn's requirements:

• You’re a current company employee.
• Your position is listed in the Experience section on your profile.
• You have a company email address (e.g., james@yourcompanyname.com) added and confirmed on your LinkedIn account.
• Your company’s email domain is unique to the company. (Note: A domain cannot be used more than once to create a company page. Because domains like gmail.com or yahoo.com or similar generic email services are not unique to one company, those email domains cannot be used to create a company page.)
• Your profile strength must be listed as intermediate or all star.
• You must have several connections on your personal profile.

Create a Sales-Driving LinkedIn Company Page

As recommended for your personal profile in “5 Essential Elements of an Optimized and Useful LinkedIn Profile,” make sure that you complete all areas in your LinkedIn company page.  The more attention you pay to detail, the better and more powerful your company page will be.

Start by filling out the company overview section.

Company Overview

• Step 1:  Choose "Companies" Under the "Interests" section on the main page.
• Step 2:  On the next page, choose "Add a Company" from the right-hand side of the page button.
• Step 3:  On the next page, fill in your company information (company name and your email address) and check the confirmation box.
• Step 4:  After receiving an email from LinkedIn confirming your page, you can go to your company page and start inputting your information.

The information you need to fill in includes company language, name, type, size, website, industry, operating status, year founded and locations. When putting your description together, make sure you include appropriate keywords.  You'll be able to describe products and services in detail in another section. The company description is critical.

According to Lana Khavinson of LinkedIn, “Google indexes company pages, which means your page becomes a tool for strengthening your company's rank in organic search results. The results will also display the first 156 characters of your company description, so be sure to lead with the most important information.”

• Step 5: Add a banner image and logos. The banner image is what people will see first when they visit your Company Page, so make sure it's consistent with the Company image you want to portray. Here are the image requirements, which must be either jpg, png or gif formats:  Image – Minimum 646 x 220 pixels, maximum 2 MB. Logo – 100 x 60 pixels, maximum 2 MB.

After you've filled everything out, click “publish.”  Your page will now be live.

Add Products and Services

Next, you'll want to include information on your Products page.  These can be products or services you offer.

• Step 1:  Go to your Main Company page and choose "products."
• Step 2:  After clicking on "edit page" on the right-hand side, choose "add product or service" from the drop-down menu, and you'll get to this page:

This seems pretty daunting, which is why many people don't fill out this part.

However, you'd be missing out on incredible opportunities if you don't.  So spend a few minutes and input the information.  Don't forget to include keywords in the description, images and video if you have any.

And remember:  since many people don’t bother to fill out this section, by being thorough you may gain an advantage over competitors.

• Step 3: After you've filled everything out, click “publish” and the page will go live on LinkedIn.

Add Product and Service Overview

• Step 1:  Go to your main company page and choose "products."
• Step 2:  After clicking on "edit page" on the right-hand side, choose "edit page" in the drop-down menu, and you'll get to a page with the following: Step 1:  Create multiple variations of this page (we'll skip this for now). Step 2:  Describe what your company offers.

Call to Action

In addition to the title, you can include a summary description of your products and services. I also like to use this area to include a call to action.

If someone is spending the time to review your products and services, you don't want him or her to leave without (hopefully) providing contact information. That way you will be able to continue to market to your prospect. In exchange for your prospect’s contact information, you should provide something in return  – a free report, ebook, etc.

There are several ways to include calls to action on your products page. One is to build a link into your product banner image, similar to the "free demo" offered by Hubspot:

InSegment, a full service digital marketing agency based in Newton, MA,  gained a 200% traffic increase from LinkedIn to their website. How? They added banners with a clickable “Learn More” and website URL to the top of their LinkedIn company pages:

Another way is to include a call to action in the description section of the products page. On the overview page, you can also add a YouTube video and 3 banner images.

• Step 3: Next, you can change the order of the products you show.  The first one is the most important, as it will also appear on your LinkedIn company home page:

After you've filled everything out, click “publish” and the page will go live on LinkedIn.

Request Product and Service Recommendations

Once you've added your products and services, you can get recommendations for them. Recommendations are very powerful sales tools.  You'll just need to go to your product page and click on "request recommendations.” You'll get a pre-filled out request form that you can modify — or use as is.

Careers

Is hiring and promoting job opportunities important to your company? If so, you may be interested in upgrading your company pages to be able to add the "careers" button on your company page.

Final Thoughts

For more inspiration, check out LinkedIn's top company pages of 2012 in this Shideshare presentation:

The post How to Create a LinkedIn Company Page That Drives Sales appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you're a fan of the "…for Dummies" books, then you will want to grab this one.

Social Media Engagement for Dummies is by Aliza Sherman and Danielle Elliott Smith. It was published by John Wiley & Sons  in June.  Social media isn't new any more.  If you've been finding yourself spending lots of time on social media, but not reaping the benefits, then hunker down for this review.

Dig Into Social Media Engagement for Your Marketing Plan

With summer heading into its dog days, you know that it's almost time for planning your marketing strategies for next year.  This is the ideal time to take a look at Social Media Engagement for Dummies.

I love these Dummies books for their pure simplicity and practicality. If you aren't sure what to do or when to do it – just grab one of these puppies. You will be in action in under thirty minutes.

This is a hefty book with over 300 pages of powerful content to dig through.  That's why I recommend starting with the table of contents.  Highlight the chapters you feel you want to focus on in your business.

There are six parts or sections to this book:

1. The Basics of Social Media Engagement– if you still feel like you know about social media, but aren't sure how to use it to get and keep customers, this is an important section to focus on.
2. Exploring the Elements of Social Media Engagement– In this section, you'll start with setting realistic goals and structuring your social media strategy.  I especially love the practical advice about how to tap into trending topics to start conversations and how to offer freebies and discounts.
3. Examining the Basic Engagement Tools– This is a must-read section because it covers affordable time-saving tools that will help you leverage your time spent on social media.
4. Engaging through Additional Social Channels– If you've heard about the power of Pinterest and Google+, but weren't sure how it might help your business – this is where you want to put your attention.
5. Leveraging Audio and Video for Engagement– You can no longer afford to ignore video or audio channels just because it seems complicated or you don't like how you look or sound.  Get over it and get into this section.
6. The Part of Tens– The book ends with ten social media mistakes to avoid. You also find 10 businesses that actually might look like yours – including how they are using social media to grow sales.

About the Authors

I have to say that one of the big reasons this book is so powerful is because it was written by small business owners. Aliza Sherman (@alizasherman) launched the first full-service Internet company, Cybergrrl. She also launched the first global Internet networking organization for women, Webgrrls International.  Danielle Elliott Smith (@DanielleSmithTV) is a digital correspondent, speaker, brand spokesperson and Founder of ExtraordinaryMommy.com.

While the authors have built successful businesses, you won't find their head in the clouds or any really big thinking here.  It's all practical advice that you can read in one minute and implement the next. And many times, that’s exactly what you need.

Why Get Another Social Media Book

When was the last time you purchased a social media strategy book?  If it's been a year or two, you'll want to get this update.

Here’s why.  Each of the major social media platforms have undergone massive updates.  Things have changed so much that your business will be behind the curve if you haven't kept up.

Another reason to get this book is to help you choose and focus on the social media platforms that will work best for your business.

If you've been playing in every social media space, but not fully committing to one or two – you will want to read this book.  You might be missing out on opportunities by spreading yourself too thin.  Read this book from the context of choosing a platform or two where you can really get the most bang for the time and money spent and then focus on it.

Social Media Engagement for Dummies isn't a book for beginners (although the name might make you think so).  It's a book for smart business owners who are ready to put the social media marketing machine to work in getting and keeping profitable loyal customers.

The post “Social Media Engagement for Dummies” is a Smart Book appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Ecommerce in India is a growing phenomenon. With successful Indian eCommerce companies like Flipkart selling products across categories, other Indian online retailers have also found niche markets to capitalize on, such as Nirogam, an ayurvedic product eTailer.

One such niche eTailer is Kobster, an online "one stop shop" for the office supply needs of Indian corporates.  By focusing on a specialty market that has seen, and is guaranteed to see, increasing demand in the upcoming years, Kobster has become one of India's hot eCommerce startups. Customers include Freshdesk, inLogic, ArrayShield and many more. Chennai businesses constitute their first major focus.

With product categories ranging from quintessential office supplies to cleaning supplies, vending machines, furniture and customizable printed products, Kobster has positioned itself as the Staples of India.

Offering flexible payment options such as cash on delivery, net banking and 21 days of credit for corporations, Kobster accommodates all levels of customer needs. They even offer free shipping on certain purchases.

Behind Kobster

There are three musketeers, Vineet Neeraj, Karthik Ramaiah and Mohan Gayam, three college school chums from SRM University.

After knowing each other for over seven years and having worked together on college projects, Vineet, Karthik and Mohan Gayam launched Kobster. Each founder manages a different aspect of the business: Vineet watches over marketing and sales, Karthik manages the technical aspects along with customer support and Mohan strengthens their product catalogue, ensuring the best deals from suppliers.

Before launching in September of 2012, Karthik worked at Cognizant and Mohan at HCL Technologies. Vineet, on the other hand, is no stranger to the startup world. He launched his first startup, Yippie, providing event services, before switching to a product startup, ArrayShield, based out of Chennai.

Runway to Success

Barely nine months old, the company has been selected as one of the 27 companies for "Runway to Success," an event sponsored by Luftansa and ET NOW, a reality TV program that recognizes startups with promising business plans.

With an annual growth rate of 15-20%, the Indian market for office supplies and services is an appealing niche. Vineet says:

A Google India Survey states that 71% of SMEs use the Internet to search for vendors and suppliers.  So far India has witnessed the rise of B2C eCommerce.  Now, we believe that the next boom will happen in B2B eCommerce and we are excited to be in this space.

In the next five years, the company plans on expanding from Chennai, where they are headquartered, to ten different cities in India. They also plan to strengthen their product categories by extending their offerings to different customer marketplaces such as hospitals and hotels.

The American office supplies behemoths are not present India. There are other startups in the market though, and the category is becoming quite popular among entrepreneurs.

Also, now that foreign retailers are coming to India, the future of foreign eCommerce investment in the Indian marketplace is poised for change.

Meanwhile, Kobster has an opportunity to build upon its early entry, create compelling technology with which to develop customer stickiness. Also, in a business that is inherently low-margin, commercially viable supplier relationships are critical. In India, logistics are still rather messy. Small startups have to handle complex supply chain and delivery issues, without the support of robust logistics companies.

By 2020, I suspect many of these issues will get sorted out and a set of successful eCommerce brands will establish themselves and Kobster is working hard to be one of those.

The post Kobster Brings Office Supplies Online For Indian Corporates appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you’re looking for a budget friendly smartphone but are more comfortable with one of the leading brands in the industry, a solution could be coming as early as September 10.

That’s the date scheduled for a big announcement by smartphone and tablet industry leader Apple Inc. Certainly Apple has not been known for affordable technology in the past.

After all, currently the Apple iPhone 5 without contract or subsidies retails for more than $600.00 on sites like Amazon.

However, rumors have been swirling for some time about a new low-cost iPhone retailing as low as $99 or as high as $300, the iPhone 5C. Photos were leaked recently on SonnyDickenson.com, an industry website. They show what appear to be the plastic casings of the new phones in white, red, green, blue, and yellow.

Media sources like AllThingsD are speculating Apple will use the September 10 event to announce the iPhone 5C.

Reasons Your Business May Want a Budget iPhone 5C

Budget conscious small business owners and entrepreneurs may choose the new budget iPhone for many reasons:

• Despite the price and the plastic casing, this is still an iPhone, of course, and so will likely have some of the same features.
• If the phone is truly priced as low as $99, it blows away even Samsung’s budget devices. If in the $300 range, it is still quite competitive.
• While less expensive, a new smartphone with a Firefox operating system from Chinese manufacturer ZTE could increase the risk of malware. Experts say this is because the Firefox operating system will make it easier to download apps directly from the Web instead of from more secure sources like the Apple Store.
• Apple’s customer service is legendary with replacement programs for defective products and service at your nearest Apple retailer. It’s uncertain if ZTE, which plans to sell the Firefox phone over the Internet, will have the same service in place.
• If your company already uses other Apple products like the iMac or MacBook Pro, another tool using the same operating system might be preferable. And the low price may make the option irresistible.

Apple Photo via Shutterstock

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Traveling for business today is a bit different than it used to be. In addition to making sure you have all your power supplies for laptop, tablet, cell phone, you need to make sure you can get connected to the Internet. That is not always easy, or affordable, but if you travel a lot (or even a little), this review of the Globalgig mobile Wifi hotspot is for you.

This little mobile WiFi hotspot is a gem.

As most readers know, I test a fair number of devices. So at any one point in time, I probably have four cell phones in my shop. I can tell you that in my travels even I get stuck with no cell phone signal, unable to make a call. But I have used this Globalgig mobile WiFi hotspot to connect my laptop or Nexus 10 tablet and fire off an email or hook into Google Voice and send a text message.

It has worked when all other devices failed. Now, connectivity by cell phone and wireless devices in one place is never the same, but I have been impressed with this handheld gadget.

On a 12-month contract, you can get up to 1 gigabyte of data for $30/month. The device is free when you commit to that plan. If you want the device for only 30 days, for example, if  you are heading to Europe for a two week vacation, you can buy the device for $79 and the plan is $60. You can play with their plan calculator to work out what’s best for you.

Without evaluating various wireless carriers, I am pretty sure you can’t touch the rates, in all the different countries, that Globalgig offers. $30/month and it works in 40 countries, for that same price. You can connect up to 5 devices at one time. It is a 3G signal, which is pretty fast.

The company sent me a media loaner and I have appreciated it immensely. Depending on my upcoming travel schedule, I may just sign up for the paid option.

What I Really Like:

• Small– As you see in the photo, it fits in my hand. It is small enough not to take up much space, but big enough that I won't lose it.
• Battery life– On standby, it lasts for days, but fully on I think I had at least three to four hours of intense downloading and uploading on one charge.
• You can get a SIM-only version– Plug it into your iPad or Android tablet. Unfortunately for US users, the SIM is not available here yet, it’s only in the UK.

What I'd Like to See:

• I have a model that may be one generation old and it sometimes won't turn off without repeated efforts. Having a lot of hardware pass through my hands, this sort of thing happens so if it was my unit, I would have returned it for a new unit.
• Online access to how much data has been used for the month. Since the device doesn't have any sort of display, you don't know. The website says this is coming soon.

Overall, if you travel a lot or need a mobile WiFi hotspot so you are not stuck paying extra fees at hotels, airports or cafes, then this mobile broadband device is for you. I would encourage anyone who wants affordable and secure wireless access at a low cost to try Globalgig.

Yes, it is one more device you have to account for. But I have found it worthwhile and when compared to my other data plan options, the price is right.

The post Roam the Planet with a WiFi Hotspot from GlobalGig appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Small business owners are always in need of resources. Maybe you’re looking for a sample operating or nondisclosure agreement you can use as a guide on how to craft your own. Or maybe you are hunting for recommendations on the latest Cloud-based software to improve your company’s efficiency.

Document subscription service Docstoc seeks to be a leading resource for all these needs with announcement today of its acquisition of software recommendation site BestVendor.

Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

"We specifically sought out BestVendor because it's a great platform and community for recommending the best cloud products, and this is a growing need among small businesses. We're actively pursuing additional acquisitions of products and teams helping small businesses," said Jason Nazar, co-founder and CEO of Docstoc.

Docstoc Expands Small Business Resources

Today’s acquisition marks the first for the 16 year old company. But Docstoc continues to build its offerings with new sites. They include:

• Launch last year of License123, a database of licenses and permits needed to start businesses, and
• Launch in May of ExpertCircle, a place for business experts to share recommendations on best online and offline services and vendors.

More About Docstoc and BestVendor

The acquisition of BestVendor helps extend Docstoc’s existing services. BestVendor provides a platform for professionals to share their recommendations of the best SaaS and other software services for use in business.

Docstoc boasts having more than 20 million documents and resources available for users including expert videos, articles and productivity tools for business. The company says it operates one of the 500 most visited sites in the world according to Quantcast and has 35 million registered users. See more about Docstoc and its services from Small Business Trends.

Image: BestVendor

The post Docstoc Acquires BestVendor, Builds Small Biz Resource appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Below are six charts I created from Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data that show patterns in American business over time.

From 1945 to 2005, the number of American businesses grew faster than the population. From the end of World War II until 1980, average revenues and net income at American corporations declined significantly, but have since remained largely constant. Since 1980, net income as a percentage of revenues at American businesses has increased. From 1990 to 2011, business income has declined as a fraction of total income of individual taxpayers.

Over the Past 60 Years, the Number of American Corporations has Risen Substantially

As Figure 1 indicates, from 1945 to 2005 the number of corporation tax returns per capita rose steadily. But then, the period from 2005 to 2010 marked the first five-year decline in the per capita number of corporations since the end of World War II.

Source: Created from Internal Revenue Service data

Over the Past 30 Years, the Number of Businesses has Risen Dramatically

As Figure 2 shows, the per capita number of all business tax returns – which combine sole proprietorships and partnerships with corporations – grew substantially over the 1980 to 2006 period. Then between 2006 and 2010 the number of business tax returns per thousand people declined slightly for the first time since data have been collected (1980).

Source: Created from Internal Revenue Service data

Over the Past 60 Years, Revenues of the Average Business First Fell and then Flattened Out

As Figure 3 shows, average revenue of corporations fell steadily between 1945 and 1980, when measured in inflation adjusted terms. Between 1980 and 2010, however, the average revenue per corporation has remained largely constant in real terms.

Source: Created from Internal Revenue Service data

Over the Past 60 Years, Net Income of the Average Business First Fell and then Flattened Out

As Figure 4 shows, net income of the average corporation largely declined between 1945 and 1980 when measured in 2010 dollars. However, between 1980 and 2010, it has been mostly steady.

Source: Created from Internal Revenue Service data

Over the Past 30 Years, Margins Have Risen Significantly

As Figure 5 shows, net income as a fraction of revenues was substantially higher in 2010 (9.5 percent) than in 1980 (6 percent). While the rise is far from linear, and the 2010 numbers are off their 2005 peak, the pattern does appear to be one of rising margins. (The thin black line in the figure indicates the linear trend and the r-squared indicates how well a straight line fits the data.)

Source: Created from Internal Revenue Service data

The Business Share of Income has Fallen Significantly Over the Past Two Decades

As Figure 6 shows, business income has declined gradually, and linearly, from 4.1 percent of total income in 1990 to 3.2 percent in 2011. (The narrow black line in the chart shows the trend and the r-squared shows the accuracy of a straight line as a representation of the data pattern.)

Source: Created from Internal Revenue Service data

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