Facebook Tips. HOW TO: Use Social Media to Connect with Other Entrepreneurs. This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. Starting a company is often a lonely and nerve wracking process. One day, you’re working at a big company with tens of thousands of people and health benefits, and then the next day it’s just you, maybe a co-founder, and a lack of steady income. Yet you’re really not alone. There are thousands of others making similar journeys around the world, and even more who have not only gone down the entrepreneurial path, but succeeded.
These people are more than happy to share their advice, insight, and stories — if you know how to find them. That’s where social media tools come into play. If you’re looking to enrich your entrepreneurial journey by sharing with others, I have a few social media suggestions that will help: Follow Entrepreneur Twitter Lists Connect With Amazing Entrepreneurship Communities Just Reach Out. How to Maximize Your Chances for a Small Business Loan : Money :
Social Media Marketing ~ Visioni e Strategie. The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration. Brian Solis is a principal at new media agency FutureWorks. You can connect with him on Twitter or Facebook. An overnight success ten years in the making, social media is as transformative as it is evolutionary. At last, 2010 is expected to be the year that social media goes mainstream for business. In speaking with many executives and entrepreneurs, I've noticed that the path towards new media enlightenment often hinges on corporate culture and specific marketplace conditions.
Full social media integration often happens in stages — it's an evolutionary process for companies and consumers alike. Here are the ten most common stages that businesses experience as they travel the road to full social media integration. Stage 1: Observe and Report This is the entry point for businesses to better understand the behavior of an interactive marketplace. Reporting: Distill existing social media conversations into an executive report. Stage 2: Setting the Stage + Dress Rehearsal Stage 7: Community. 7 Secrets to Tweeting Your Corporate Culture. Sharlyn Lauby is the president of Internal Talent Management (ITM) which specializes in employee training and human resources consulting. She authors a blog at hrbartender.com. I admit I’m a Twitter addict. I enjoy the flurry of tweets and the variety of information my followers share with me.
But even though I like the variety, it’s still important for me to feel some sort of connection to the people and companies I follow. On the people side, the way I connect is by getting to know someone’s personality. It’s the same if I’m following a company. But if all you’re doing is sending out auto-tweets, I’m not sure either of us is getting the full benefit of your presence on Twitter. 1. I’m not talking about chronicling the 42 year history of your firm 140 characters at a time. Another historic moment is when an organization grows and expands, especially in the current economic climate. 2. His point is well taken. 3. Another company setting the standard in this area is Pandora Radio. 4. 5.
10 Small Business Social Media Marketing Tips. Ross Kimbarovsky is the co-founder of crowdSPRING, a community of 43,000+ graphic designers that helps small businesses from around the world with graphic design needs. You can follow Ross on Twitter @rosskimbarovsky and @crowdSPRING. Capacity - especially to plan and execute effective marketing strategies - is a big challenge for every small business. In this post, I'll offer 10 suggestions for how small businesses can supercharge their marketing efforts by leveraging social media. For each suggestion, I will discuss a basic strategy - for those who simply want to get their toes wet, as well as an advanced strategy - for those who want to spend a bit more time and go a bit deeper in their social media marketing efforts. I suggest you begin by outlining clear goals for your social media marketing efforts and figuring out how you'll measure success. 1.
Facebook offers exceptional, low cost marketing opportunities for small business. 2. Twitter has grown tremendously over the past year. How Web Video SEO is Finally Coming of Age. Though publishing videos on the web has been child's play for years now, the process of getting them to rank high in search remains enigmatic at best, frustrating at worst.
The pace of video publication is accelerating faster than ever, and though video SEO seems to have been left behind the rest of the industry, it's finally starting to catch up through some exciting developments that will hopefully provide more incentives for publishers to produce great video content. As we start a new year and a new decade, here's a look at the state of web video SEO right now. The State of Web Video When you produce a video now, there's no dearth of places to publish it. Though YouTube remains the dominant player in the industry, Vimeo, Blip.tv, Viddler, Metacafe, and a host of other sites (most of them free) have fragmented the market. There's no need to build or host your own video player, and you can leave the heavy bandwidth duties to them rather than your own server. New Developments The Future.
18 Online Productivity Tools for Your Business. This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. Small business owners may have more of a need than most to be able to access their chosen suite of productivity tools from more than one computer or platform. As a business or startup owner you may have occasion to bring your work home with you, or require frequent access to your to-do lists, notes and documents on the go.
Choosing primarily online tools for your productivity workflow is a great way to address the issue of source agnostic accessibility. It's also a convenient method to ensure you have a backup of your important day-to-day items and files in case a particular computer or device fails. With the tools on this list, you should be able to check in on your current workflow stack regardless of which machine you happen to be in front of, what operating system it uses, and what browser it's running. 6 Tips for Improving Your Cash Flow : Money :: American Express. 5 Ways to Make Your Business More Transparent. Sharlyn Lauby is the president of Internal Talent Management (ITM) which specializes in employee training and human resources consulting. She authors a blog at hrbartender.com. You can hardly have a conversation about social media today without discussing the concept of transparency.
More and more, companies are incorporating transparency into their marketing efforts. Why? The reason, according to Debbie Weil, a corporate social media consultant and author of The Corporate Blogging Book, is because customers and stakeholders increasingly expect it. “It (transparency) is the new operating standard,” she said. Transparency is about being open, honest, and accountable. For those looking to refine their social media messaging, here are five ways to become more transparent. 1. Web designer Jeffrey Zeldman talks about web design. Zeldman's example teaches us that transparency is about being who you are. 2. This also applies to offering your opinion. 3. 4. 5. Sharlyn Lauby. OPEN Forum. How to Promote Your Business When Your Website Stinks : Marketin. Twitter. 5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Businesse.
Samir Balwani is an emerging technology strategist at Morpheus Media, a firm specializing in Social Marketing, SEM, and SEO. You can follow him on Twitter @samirbalwani and get his newsletter. Social media marketing and the businesses that utilize it have become more sophisticated. More small businesses are beginning to understand how to best leverage online tools to build a community and recognize that engagement and interaction are the foundations of social marketing, but most don't know what's next. What follows are five advanced strategies for small businesses that may already have small online communities and understand how to create an online presence, but don't know what to do next.
What Is An Advanced Strategy? The definition of an advanced social strategy is a technique that goes beyond the normal social media presence. Strategy 1: Multimedia Usage The term "A picture is worth a thousand words" has never been truer. Videos are useful for explaining complex how-tos or concepts. Efficient Billing: A Big Key to Solving Cash Flow Problems : Mon. When Your Business Slows, Speed Up Your Marketing (But Not Your. Big List of Tools to Help Local Businesses Use Social Media : Ma. The Little Known Secret to Getting Page 1 Google Rankings : Mark. Teaching Your Business to Market Itself : Marketing :: American.