Jumpstart Your Business

Lisa Barone mentions is her column at Small Business Trends that small business owners and social media was one of the big topics of conversation at Search Engine Strategies New York last week. There were panels dedicated to why social media was vital for small business owners, how to listen better and how they could use social media to reach business goals.

And it all sounds good on the outside, but from the inside social media can be scary to those wary of dedicating time and resources to an area where they’re unsure. If you’re a small business owner that wants to get involved, where should you start? How does one become fluent in this whole “social media” thing?
Read the rest here at How Can SMBs Get Set Up In Social Media?

Are social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn being overhyped? Are all the social media pundits sending today’s business down a dark and dangerous alley?

If you are a large or medium enterprises you typically have the resource to devote to finding out the relevance of a social media focus on your overall marketing strategy. The million dollar questions for the small business are: “Is it really worth my time?” “Can I afford to be doing this now?”

The sale is not the only way for you to interact with your customers, says Mike Moran of Search Engine Guide. You need to remember about the rest of the buying cycle and not the last click that comes about from the search. Too many people have gotten the idea that search marketing is great for sales, but have forgotten everything else about search marketing, and maybe marketing in general.

To really benefit from your customer searches, your site must be search engine optimized with the right search terms in your content. This only happens if you truly understand the language your customer uses to describe your product and you can only discover this if you listen closely to your customer.

For the full story check out: Stop Selling Your Products!

Blair Pleasant posted last week at Unified Communications Strategies Community Blog and I couldn’t help but notice the integration of unified communications and social media. She makes the case that many people have misconceptions about social software, assuming that it’s just about telling people what you ate for lunch, when in reality, it’s an extremely useful business tool. It’s more than just chatting with friends or letting your “followers” know what you did over the weekend. Tools such as social bookmarking, content tagging, wikis, blogs, and microblogs let workers participate in communities where they can build expertise and share knowledge.

Social networking and unified communications each have inherent value, but are even more powerful when we can blend social software nonsynchronous communication tools (such as wikis and blogs) with UC’s synchronous communications capabilities (such as click to connect). Integrating unified communications with social software lets workers better network with peers within the organization, identify and connect with experts within the company, collaborate on projects, and help workers feel connected.

The fact that IBM is seriously playing in this space is great news since they’ll most likely focus on the enterprise market and the SME/SMB marketplace will naturally follow. For the full story read IBM Integrates Unified Communications with Social Software.

In these tough financial times, small businesses need to try out new ways of cutting back on their expenses. One new trend is to follow certain feeds on Twitter. This very popular social media site contains a wealth of information on using money wisely. Here are 4 helpful feeds for you to follow:
• USATODAYmoney — Keep track of the country’s financial picture and see how you’ll have to adjust to the changing times through USA Today Money’s tweets. Their items will let you learn how to be smart with your small business cash flow.

Social Email Marketing recently did an interview with Jim Sterne, Chairman of the Web Analytics Association and among other points made, here are some gems about social media marketing:

There are customers who are invisible in ‘real’ sales and other business contacts but indeed very visible if you know how to track their digital footprints. We can see them by following, listening, measuring, etc. We need to capture as much data as we can, and if we use it unwisely, customers will vote with their wallets and run away or vote with their legislation and shut us down. Yes, we should participate and set up dialogues and join the conversation. It is massively time consuming in comparison to dropping postcards in the mail or sending out mass emails. However, those who invest and do it well will enjoy a serious competitive advantage.

For the entire story watch: Jim Sterne on social media marketing; the customer is more visible now than ever!

Steve Strauss posted this in his column in USA Today and I couldn’t help but notice the emphasis on social media and its applicability to small business. He makes the case that small business needs to pay attention to using Twitter and the other social media sites. In his words, “Social media is busting out right now for a reason — it’s working. If you still think Twitter is hogwash and that it is nothing more than a tool for Ashton Kutcher to build buzz, you are wrong. Twitter has become a valuable business tool that is allowing small business owners to connect with people in ways they otherwise could not.”
See Ask an Expert: 5 powerful recession-busting ideas for the full article