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Networking in Small Business

By: admin20.8.2010 Comments: 1

Anyone that has their own business knows the value of networking. It is through the connections that you have with clients, other business owners, and even competitors that will ultimately provide you with the leverage to increase the profitability of your business. What people need to learn now is that internet local marketing can give you the ability to network on the internet in ways that, until now, were only possible in real world settings.

In the past, networking was a function that had to involve meeting people face to face. It was in order to gain contacts that people would do things like attending meetings of local business owners, become members of industry associations, and attend conferences and workshops. While all of these are still worthwhile pursuits, and can be valuable networking sources, it can be much easier and quicker to network with like minded people online.

You may have heard about the most popular trend on the internet over the last couple of years, and this is that of social networking. Social networking is a type of website that connects its users in a variety of ways. They can chat with each other; keep each other posted about what’s going on in their lives or businesses, share content, and more. Social networking provides a huge opportunity for small businesses to network with other business owners, and with potential customers.

There are a lot of players in the social networking game that can be useful for a small business, and they’re all worth examining. Facebook is probably the most well known example, and having a small business page on Facebook is a must. You can have a page for your business which customers can ‘like’. This is a great place to update customers with specials and developments at your business. You can also have a personal profile page which you might use to connect yourself with other business owners and peers that you want to stay in communication with.

Twitter is another very popular site of this nature. Twitter is essentially a micro blogging platform, where you can offer short, to the point updates, or ‘tweets’ to those who are following you. Twitter is incredibly popular, and a great mobile social networking tool, so it’s good to have a consistently updated Twitter profile as well.

LinkedIn is another site that can be great for networking with other professionals. Typically, this is a site which is much more business oriented than the others, which tend to be more socially oriented. If you’re interested in networking mostly with other professionals in or around your industry, then you should build a complete LinkedIn profile immediately.

These are just a few of the networking opportunities which exist online. There are many more sites, and many industry specific sites which can be a great way to network with others. Blogs are a great place to meet contacts. If you read a blog post which you find interesting, or which you have feedback on, be sure to leave a comment. That can stir great discussion and get you in touch with like minded people.

Forums are another place where conversations can start and you can meet people that you should be networking with. A quick Google search will usually show results for many different message boards and forums in almost any industry. Posting there can be a great way to introduce yourself to others in your field.

The best part about all of these various types of networking is that they all can be done with very little time investment. A little time each day on your social profiles, blogs, and forums, can yield some great contacts over time.

How To Educate Small Business Owners about Internet Marketing

By: admin8.8.2010 Comments: 3

When a person runs a small business, they are usually either working with a very small team or even all on their own. Usually, the expertise of that team is going to be devoted to the area of business that they are in, not towards internet marketing. As a result of this, many small business owners don’t really understand what marketing small businesses online requires. It’s important for someone that is running an SEO business to keep this in mind, and to find ways to educate small business owners about internet marketing.

The first thing that small business owners need to understand about online marketing is what kind of results it can bring to them. Many people only have a sort of vague understanding about the potential that lies within the internet. What they need to understand is that a focused internet marketing campaign which is properly executed can greatly increase the profile of their business. Even small local businesses can benefit greatly from an online marketing campaign because so many people now use online methods (including using searches from mobile devices) to find businesses in their area. Business owners may not realize this, so they need to be taught about the various methods and how these methods of online marketing can directly impact their business.

Small business owners also often need to be educated about the effort that they need to put into an online marketing campaign. Showing them that there are simple things that they can do themselves, such as maintaining a blog or Facebook page for their business, serves several purposes. First, these are both important tools which should be used in an internet marketing campaign. It also helps to show small business owners that promoting a business online is easy, and something which is not as esoteric or complicated as they may have originally assumed.

You also need to show small business owners that success online is measurable. Many of them veer away from hiring internet marketing professionals because they feel that they are not going to be able to concretely measure the value that they are getting for their marketing money. Show them the analytics that can be run that will very specifically measure the impact that these marketing efforts have in order to reassure them that their money is being well spent.

Small business owners also need to be educated about how online marketing applies specifically to small local businesses. The more you can educate them about mobile technology for example, and how it is used to locate businesses when people are out shopping, the more likely they are going to be to embrace undergoing an internet marketing effort.

Another thing that is important to explain to small business owners is that internet marketing isn’t just about making sales through a website. It is also about actually getting people in the doors of a physical business. If a business doesn’t have a product that they can sell directly online, be sure to educate them about how an online presence, especially with local marketing efforts, can drive traffic through their doors as well. Taking advantage of local business listings with Google and other directories are good resources to show small business owners how this element of marketing their business online would work.

The reason many small business owners stay away from online marketing is simply because they don’t understand it. This also means that many of their competitors won’t understand it as well. Showing a business owner that, by understanding and employing online technology, they can surpass their competitors is a great way to convince them of the benefits of internet marketing. Be clear, be open, and be specific about how internet marketing can help their small business.

Social Media: How It Works for a Small Business

By: admin8.8.2010 Comments: 0

When you’re trying to create a marketing campaign for a small business, you need to think about the best ways to generate the maximum effect for the minimum effort. While this is surely a truism which applies to all types of marketing, for all types of businesses, it is especially important in the case of a small business trying to promote itself online. Small businesses usually have less time and money than their larger competitors to devote to marketing, so they need to make the most of what they do have in order to create sustainability and growth within their company. With this in mind, one area of online small business marketing which companies cannot afford to ignore is that of social media.

If you’ve been online viewing ways to market your business at any time in the past, then you’ve very likely heard the phrase that ‘content is king’. This has been true for some time, and remains true today. If you want to start creating some attention on your business and to start driving traffic to your site, then you’re going to need to start creating some great content, especially content that you can use as social media.

Social media is that which you can post online that your customers, viewers, followers etc. can interact with in some way. This means that they can rate it, share it, comment on it, or essentially DO anything to it other than simply view it on a static page. There are many types of media which fall into this category. Articles which can be shared and commented on, or posted on sites like Digg (one of the largest and most important social media sites) and blog postings are both good examples of text based social media. Videos such as those on YouTube, podcasts, and pictures are all good examples of the different types of social media which exist.

There are a few goals that you’re aiming for when you start creating social media for your business. The one thing that you want is for people to start sharing your content. This is how businesses get noticed on the internet. If you create great content, such as an informative video, you can be sure that someone that views it is going to think that other people they know online might be interested in it. They will then recommend it on YouTube, share it on Facebook, or post a link to it on their Twitter feed. When this happens, the effect repeats itself and grows, creating more awareness of your business, and a viral effect with your social media.

The other thing that you’re hoping to do with social media is to start a conversation. It’s important that small business owners realize that they shouldn’t just create media and post it and forget about it. What you want is for people to comment on your video, article, or blog posting, and then to engage in conversation with them about it. When you converse openly with your customers it helps to create both interest and trust in your company. Many customers start out as idle viewers of media online, but after some engaging conversation become actual customers.

If you’re looking for effective ways to promote a small business online, then you need to at least consider what social media can offer you. Creating this type of content generally requires a relatively small investment of time compared to the rewards that you can enjoy if a piece of content begins to spread online. If you’re not already engaged in a social media creation campaign, it may be time to consider one.

Is Google Really Calling Local Businesses?

By: admin5.8.2010 Comments: 1

You happen to receive a phone call from someone that identifies himself or herself as being a Google representative. Don’t jump to the conclusion that it’s a phone scam. It has been confirmed by Mike Blumenthal (of Google) that these phone calls are an element in Google’s venture to tidy up local business records and information. Certain facets are worth identifying.

I’m confident that everyone can appreciate Google’s attempt to tidy up the issues of spam in Google Places and Maps. The implementation of these phone calls originates from the verification policy which is meant to ensure that all community changes that are made to your business listing are, indeed, accurate. In other words, if someone attempts to edit your listing, Google may call you directly to ensure the accuracy of the changes. This is astonishing that Google is going to such great lengths as to provide business owners with this level of security. This is a good thing, right? Of course, but as with most other things…where good comes, bad will follow.

Once word spreads that Google is making phone calls to businesses, scammers will indeed capitalize on this scenario. As a bad guy scammer, it would be easy to simply pretend that they are calling on behalf of Google and easily obtain data from unsuspicious business owners. This could be really bad.

In fact, Google prohibits their reps of providing call back numbers and contact information to local business owners. Google reps and employees are not required to provide any identification! So much for a sense of trust in the authenticity of phone calls. It’s become common knowledge that certain business entities will never contact you with the purpose of obtaining certain (confidential) information. In fact, online banks provide clear warnings to their clients that as a client, you will never be asked to provide account details via email. PayPal follows the same model. Suspicious emails have become so widespread that business owners have learned to instinctually ignore them.

For years Google has instilled their reputation of remaining a silent body and that nobody will ever directly hear from them. This abrupt shift in Google’s behavior by phoning the public has potential to be a great thing. However, I would insist that Google implement a verification policy of some kind in order for business owners to substantiate the legitimacy of the phone call. Google hasn’t spoken too much about this new activity, but having read this, and in the event that you receive one of these calls from Google, I highly suggest that you take advantage of this extraordinary occasion. Solicit as much information as you can in regards to Google Maps and Google Places.

Obtaining Customer Reviews on the Internet

By: admin30.7.2010 Comments: 1

When you’re selling products, whether only online, or in the real world, reviews are important. If you’re trying to sell SEO services for example, before anyone buys your service, one of the first things they are going to do is try and Google reviews for your particular service. This allows them to get firsthand information regarding your services and is a strong incentive for a person to purchase, or not purchase, any particular service. The problem is, when you’re just starting out, there likely won’t be any reviews for your business online. So you need to know how to start generating some review activity on your products or services in order to have that resource available online for when potential customers want to learn more about your organization.

There are many different ways to get reviews. If you’re selling products, the first thing that you need to do is set up a review page as part of your shopping system. Amazon is perhaps the greatest example of just how effective a method this can be. When you give your customers an open forum to comment and review your products, many will take advantage of this. When you allow them to comment without censoring them, and are willing to take the good reviews with the bad, it also shows your potential upcoming customers that you’re confident in the strength of your products, even in the face of a few bad reviews.

Encourage customers to review your products. When you sell something online, you should always follow up with an email which asks customers to review your products. Sometimes, companies will even send a series of emails over a longer course of time after the initial product has been purchased in order to attempt to get a review. Others may incentivize it. Some companies will offer a small discount on a future purchase if a full review is made of a product.

There are other ways to get reviews outside of those that you get on your own website, and these can be among the most effective in getting customers to choose to purchase your products. When a website which focuses on reviews examines your product, you can be sure that it is a review that people will pay attention to. The problem is that you need to make websites and blogs that review products aware of your particular product in order to get them to actually review it.

In order to get bloggers and review sites to do a write up on your product, you’re going to need to send them review copies. This is a commonly established practice, and one that you’re going to have to engage in if you want to get the kind of coverage that you’re hoping for in regards to your product. Sending out free review copies to influential bloggers and review sites can cost you a bit of money in the short term, but if you have a great product and any of those sites which see massive amounts of traffic provide it with a positive review, you will more than pay yourself back for that cost.

Product reviews are an important part of showing people that they can trust your company. That is why you can’t censor reviews, and why you also don’t need to immediately go on the defensive if someone provides a negative review towards one of your products. Instead, you should genuinely think about their concerns. There may be an opportunity contained in their negative review for opening a dialogue about where you can improve your products. Nothing is ever perfect, and reviews can help us to see where we need to focus future energies.

Networking With Small Business Owners

By: admin30.7.2010 Comments: 1

For anyone running a small business, it is difficult to operate in a vacuum. The more you isolate yourself, the more you have to do everything alone. Instead, it is much more productive to network with other small business owners to see if there are ways that you can help each other. For instance, one small business owner in your area might be an expert on in store merchandising, while another might be savvy in the ways of small business search engine marketing. Small businesses are always at a disadvantage when competing with large, big box retail and national chains. However, by networking and combining their specialties, small businesses give themselves a much better chance to be competitive.

There are many ways that you can network with other small business owners in the area. There are networking opportunities both online and off that are well worth pursuing. Offline, most areas have a local business owners association of some description. These are excellent organizations that are well worth joining. They are a great opportunity to meet other people that are working against many of the same challenges that you are, as well as to see what they are doing to surpass those challenges.

There are also many trade shows and conventions for particular business niches. These are another opportunity for networking. This time though, those that you network with will be those in the same type of business, rather than those doing business in the same area. This type of networking is equally important, and for the same reasons. Anytime you have anything in common with another business, you can stand to learn something from them, and they from you. The more networking that you engage in, the better chances you have of learning the things that can benefit your business.

The internet is also going to provide you with many opportunities to network with other small business owners. The great thing about networking on the internet is that it doesn’t take nearly as much money or time as networking in the real world does. You don’t have to sit through long meetings, or travel to conventions, and instead can start forming relationships with a few short keystrokes.

Networking with small business owners on the internet is simple. There are directory pages which are dedicated to listing thousands of small business owners by niche or locality. There are many blogs which are dedicated to various types of small businesses, and simply by commenting on one you can start a conversation which can quickly make you a part of the greater online community in that area.

Of course, the best opportunity for networking with other small businesses online is probably within those sites that were created especially for that purpose. Social networking is a powerful tool, and these types of websites provide the best possible method for you to network with other, like minded small business owners on the internet.

Of all the social networking tools that are available to you online, Facebook has obviously become the most prevalent. This is an excellent tool, and by joining groups for small business owners, groups for people interested in your niche and, by friending those who are like minded, you can create a strong and vibrant network of similarly minded people that has the potential to generate a great deal of business. Don’t use Facebook to the exclusion of all other networking tools though, as these also have other things to offer. LinkedIn for example, is aimed at business professionals primarily, and Twitter provides a unique networking experience which many enjoy. Use them all to make the most of your online networking with other small business owners.