by blogmistress on March 20, 2009
A couple of days I posted an article about identity theft and social media. As you may recall, I added that I would post the question on a LinkedIn group. Within minutes, I had a response from Fred Held, Former Marketing and Operations Executive Mattel, McDonald’s and Burger King.
This made a good point. Through LinkedIn, I had access to professional knowledge that otherwise I would never have. While I was there, I saw a discussions on “If I loose my job during the recession, what will I do?”, “How is your business using social media” and more. These are great discussions and anyone can join. Are you taking advantage of this networking opportunity?
photo by Stephen Poff
by blogmistress on March 18, 2009
You have probably learned to use a little caution by now. You look both ways before you cross the street, you lock your doors at night. You buckle your seat belt. We all do things to protect ourselves every day.
Our friend, Herb Lawrence, ASBTDC Director, recently did a seminar where the subject of identity theft with social networking came up. This poses an interesting question, “Is identity theft something I should worry about when using social networking?” The answer to this is that you should use caution, not just with social networking but when emailing, putting things in your mailbox, throwing away your trash, etc. Whatever you do, don’t miss the incredible opportunities offered by social networking out of fear. Identity thieves look for targets. Make yourself less of a target online by using your privacy settings and not giving out information that could be used against you. Here are a few tips:
- Never, ever give out your social security or driver’s license numbers
- Consider unique user names & passwords for each profile
- Vary your passwords and change them regularly
- Don’t give out your username & password to 3rd parties (even if it helps you connect to others and build your network
- Avoid listing the following information publicly: date of birth, home address, year of high school or college graduation, primary email address
- Assuming you plan to be active in social media, minimize the use of personal information on your profiles that may be used for password verification or phishing attacks
- For password security verification questions, use a password for all answers (rather than the answer to a specific question)
- Watch where you post and what you say, as it can be used against you later.
- Google yourself regularly and monitor your credit
You can also sign up with identity theft protection services as added protection. Just like everywhere else in life, use caution but don’t live in fear. Social Media is a great tool for business.
For LinkedIn members, I’ll start a discussion on this topic in the LinkedBusiness and the ProMarketers groups. If you are not on LinkedIn, check back here for updates.
by blogmistress on March 17, 2009
Social media groups are a great place to discuss new ideas with other people all around the world who are dealing with the same types of problems you face in your own business.
I am following a discussion on a LinkedIn group that I have joined called Linked Business. The question asked was this?
As small business owners, I just wanted to know if you are cutting costs and investing in marketing in this business environment. And if you do invest in marketing, what is important for you?
Industry leaders and business owners are joining the discussion with their own thoughts and insights. There are many such discussions going on within many groups. The groups I belong to are generally business and marketing oriented but there are groups for a wide variety of industries.
If your not already on LinkedIn, why don’t you sign up, join some groups and get involved in the conversation?
by blogmistress on March 10, 2009
I read a couple of articles just this morning that backup what I have seen myself with my blogs. More and more traffic is coming from social media instead of just from search. That is an interesting phenomenon for businesses that have been focused just on search engine optimization.
SEO is still very important. Social media has not replaced search and at this point is not even equal to search but it is coming closer and closer. This points out just how important social media has become to businesses in building a web presence.
Small Biz Trends tells us:
According to a Nielsen report (PDF) out just yesterday, “two-thirds of the world’s Internet population visit a social network or blogging site and the sector now accounts for almost 10% of all internet time.”
People are using large social sites such as Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn to share news and information. They are discussing brands at these sites. It is not an isolated phenomenon, but a growing trend.
Consequently, Twitter and Facebook are becoming sources for finding information — and driving traffic.
For businesses to succeed in this economy it is imperative that we take advantage of the opportunities available through social media and the internet.
by blogmistress on March 9, 2009
As I have mentioned before, I grew up in a family that owned small businesses. One thing that I learned from them is that, to be successful, you must be agile and learn to adjust. As an example, one of my families businesses in the ’70′s was selling RV’s, and campers. As you may recall (if your old enough) the late ’70′s were not friendly towards anything that used a lot of gas. With gas rationing and people standing in line on their appointed days to get gas, selling RV’s wasn’t working. The change? Sell motorcycles instead! They adjusted to the economic climate.
What does your business need to do. We definitely need to take advantage of the low cost opportunities provided by the internet. See what your competitors are doing online. Are they taking advantage of blogs and social media to connect with customers? Are you? Is there a niche opportunity for your business? Times are tough but let’s do everything we can to make our businesses succeed.
by blogmistress on March 5, 2009
I just read three articles in a row discussing the prediction in 2009 trending towards microbusinesses. What is a microbusiness? A microbusiness is typically defined an organization with less than five employees, small enough to require little capital ($35,000 or less) to get started. Microbusiness owners are the “…people who refer to themselves as soloists, independents, consultants, craftsmen, artists, musicians, freelancers, free agents, and self-employed people.
The majority of these companies are one-person enterprises …operate out of their homes; and many …have part-time help from a family member or friends.” (Courtesy of Lloyd Lemons in his Microbusiness Defined article).
The advantage of microbusinesses during a recession is the ability to be lean and flexible. The ability to quickly adapt to changing markets is a definite advantage that larger businesses and corporations do not have.
According to Dawn Rivers in her article on Small Business Trends, tells us that a Jupiter Research report last year found that 89% of online businesses are microbusinesses. That research also found that microbusinesses had been quick to sign up for social networking sites but slow to use them, probably because many of us thought we didn’t have the time.
Social Media such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter allow microbusinesses to build brand identity for very little money. Just an hour a day will go a long way to building brand – it is worth it to find the time.
by blogmistress on March 3, 2009
Got the following from Herb Lawrence, ASUBTDC Director:
The ASU Small Business and Technology Development Center just received an e-mail from our Small Business Development Center National Information Clearinghouse (SBDCNet) concerning a new scam that has hit the Internet promising small businesses and individuals Obama Stimulus Checks AND Grants as part of the Federal Stimulus Package.
For $95 for the first month and $73 per month thereafter you can purchase “FREE” GRANT SOFTWARE” to get your share of the action. If you follow the ads you find pages with questionable advertising practices like fake blogs with fake comments and a fake “ads by google” all of these are attempts to relieve you of your money but you will never see any grant money or stimulus check. The economy has been hard on many small businesses in our area without being taken advantage of through this scam.
I am attaching a link to our SBDCNet website that provides the details about the scam at Scam Alert! There are No Obama Stimulus Checks or Grants that will provide you with more information.
To date the new stimulus bill DOES NOT include any tax refunds like we saw last spring/summer. What the new stimulus bill WILL DO IS put more money into existing programs to build infrastructure. Yes there will be some new grant money in the package BUT most of it is going to existing programs and to state or local organizations that already have grants or grant programs. Bottom line is that there NO GRANTS for small business start up or bail out.
The Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center Network is in the process of developing seminars around the state for small businesses to learn about legitimate opportunities for small businesses under the stimulus package. We anticipate rolling these seminars out in the next four to six weeks once the details of how the stimulus package monies will be allocated has been determined. Unlike the SCAMS these informational seminars WILL BE free of charge.
If you would like more information about these seminars as they are developed send me an e-mail at [email protected] and we will make sure you are informed about these as they come out.
Please feel free to forward this to any other small businesses you may know and invite them to sign up to our newsletter to receive updates on assistance and other small business news at it comes out.
by blogmistress on February 27, 2009
During recessions, people generally cut down on spending which can really hurt small businesses. But, you may say, I have lower price alternatives that they may be interested in. Wonderful, that is great news. Now how do we tell them about it?
If your business is hurting, you probably do not want to spend a lot of money on newspaper ads and other, expensive traditional marketing. This is where a blog is a great answer. With your blog, you can tell your customers that you understand they need to cut back and how your business can help them. Not only do you get to offer alternative products and services, you get to connect with your customers by letting them know you understand their problems and you would like to help.
And . . . the best news is blogging is soooo much less expensive than traditional marketing.
by blogmistress on February 25, 2009
It seems that a lot of companies are taking advantage of the opportunities offered by blogging and social media. This is not so true for small businesses. Only about 41 percent have their own interactive websites, according to a 2008 survey by small-business advisory service Warrillow & Co. Most small businesses understand the necessity of having a website but don’t take advantage of the e-commerce and marketing opportunities offered by the internet.
Small business blogs are a great way to connect with customers and drive traffic to your business website. Here are a couple of ways to get started:
- Be a reader of blogs. Read blogs specific to your line of business, see what others are saying. This is a great way to find inspiration to write. Comment on other’s blogs. Start having conversations with others in your industry. This is also a great way to keep up with what is going on in your industry.
- Don’t worry about writing long articles full of several concepts. Brief articles are actually more likely to be read than long ones. If you have several concepts you want to cover, break them up into several articles.
- Don’t make you blog and ad about you. Self-promoting blogs are not popular in the blogosphere. Give your readers useful information that they can use in their own lives. You have expertise that is valuable. Give your readers a reason to come to your blog.
- Stay true to your businesses purpose. Don’t go on personal rants. If you are writing a blog about internet marketing, don’t start ranting about politics or traffic or, well . . . you get the picture. It is great to be human and show your own personality but don’t rant. Ranting may be fine for some blogs, but not, typically for a business blog.
- Learn to write reasonably well. Read copyblogger for great tips on writing for business blogs.
- Run spellcheck on all your posts.
- Be consistent. I tend to read blogs that have regular posts. I tend not to read blogs that post sporadically, even from bloggers that I like. If I can’t count on new material on a regular basis, even if it is only once a week (e. g. every Monday) I usually pass.
- And . . . be committed. It takes a while to get into a flow and build traffic. Stick with it and it will pay off in the end.
by blogmistress on February 24, 2009
I recently read a research report listing the top 10 business trends for 2009 by Emergent Research. Among other things, the report predicts that baby boomers will trend towards starting small businesses. This is because their retirement accounts are dwindling and traditional employment opportunities are less available to them. Interestingly enough, the report also predicts GenY trending towards starting small businesses as well. With the slumping economy, they also have limited traditional employment opportunities and their risk and opportunity costs are relatively low.
Also in the report is the prediction that in 2009, mobile computing will continue to be strong and have a major impact on small businesses. Small businesses can be connected by notebooks and smart phones in ways they have never had the ability to utilize before.
And, last but not least, the report predicts that small businesses will increase their use of online marketing tools. Online marketing is cheaper and often more effective than traditional approaches. And although online marketing can be complex, there are many resources available to small businesses.
Read the complete report at http://genylabs.typepad.com/emergent_research/2009-top-ten-small-business-trends.html
