Google Cuts Features That Might Impact Business Users |  |
- Google Cuts Features That Might Impact Business Users
- Succeeding in the Internet Age: A Website is No Longer Just an Option
- How to Get the Most Out of Your Facebook Advertising
- Should Small Businesses Care About Promoted Tweets and Accounts?
- Best Buy Founder Offers to Purchase Retailer
| Google Cuts Features That Might Impact Business Users Posted: 07 Aug 2012 01:00 PM PDT Google has announced plans to terminate several of its products and services, some of which might impact business users, in an effort to improve and create a better user experience for its most popular products and features.
Those on the chopping block this Fall include Google Video for Business, Apps for Teams, Google Listen, and many of Google's blogs. Google has already made changes to about 50 of its products, services and features within the past year. Google stated that it wants to carefully consider which products deserve focus, and spend more time and effort on making its remaining features better. Google Video for Business is a video hosting and sharing solution that allows business owners and professionals to use video for internal communication. Those who have videos stored can migrate those videos over to Google Drive, which offers similar storage and sharing capabilities, this Fall. Videos that migrate from Google Video for Business will be stored for free and won't count against users' storage quota on Google Drive. Google Apps for Teams allows business users to collaborate on non-email applications like Google Docs or Google Calendar using their verified business email account. Google says it is shutting down this feature because it was not as useful for people as Google had originally anticipated. On September 4, 2012, the Team accounts will be converted into personal Google accounts. Google Listen helped users discover new podcasts, a feature that Google says has been made irrelevant because of Google Play. As for its blogs, Google has said that it will cut an unspecified number of its more than 150 blogs, but it will not reduce the overall post quantity. Instead, it will consolidate some of its content into its more popular blogs. Google is constantly changing its offerings due to new technology and ideas, but some of its products and services simply don't take off like others. These consolidation efforts could prove to be beneficial for users of Google's remaining products and services, but others might miss the features that are being cut. From Small Business Trends |
| Succeeding in the Internet Age: A Website is No Longer Just an Option Posted: 07 Aug 2012 11:00 AM PDT As the Internet’s influence has grown exponentially, it has become virtually a requirement for all small businesses to own and operate a website. The simple fact of the matter is that there is no more universal, accessible, and wide-reaching marketing tools currently available. Especially when the relatively low costs of creating a website are considered, it’s usually true that a website represents the lowest investment and the biggest return for most smaller companies. Websites present a number of great promotional opportunities for small business owners, the biggest of which is likely the ability to reach potential customers via major Internet services like search engines and social media websites. The effects of these two services alone are pretty big: Search engines can be the deciding factor when someone judges whether or not to do business with any given company. If a search engine like Google cannot reveal the company’s address, mission, products, and a few reviews of its services, people are more likely to go with a larger, more trusted brand. And social media has an equally significant influence on purchasing decisions and a company’s reputation. Those small business owners who decide to get online and use a website to interact with users on services like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are almost always more well-received and able to generate more sales. That’s because social networks allow companies to highlight their products and engage directly with the people who have, or will, buy them. It’s like engaging in good customer service 24 hours per day, and reaping the rewards of that service during every business hour. Of course, websites present opportunities for e-commerce, spreading a company’s customers around the globe as they enjoy the ability to order from home and have products shipped anywhere. Those e-commerce websites can be backed up by informative blogs that communicate a company’s mission, talk about the quality of the company’s products or services, and engage users in regular interaction with company executives, representatives, and experts. The combination between interaction and presentation is one that wins sales and increases revenues for a company on a relatively consistent basis. When paired with an affordable and reliable web hosting company, the process will be as easy and painless as it is rewarding and profitable. Brain Host: The Best Way for Small Businesses to Get Online and Reach New Customers
The Internet is full of web hosts that vary in quality from excellent to sub-par; those hosts also vary in terms of price, supported technologies, and the ability to be easily learned by small business customers. The right combination of all of these things can be found at BrainHost.com, a leading supplier of web hosting services to businesses and consumers alike. When it comes to catering specifically to small businesses, Brain Host has a major edge on the competition. Using website builder tools and years of industry knowledge, the company offers a small business website build from the ground up using its own services after the company has purchased a plan and committed to Brain Host to power their online presence. That’s perfect for small business owners who are simply not knowledgeable in technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. With web hosting packages starting at only 7.95 per month, Brain Host can accommodate any budget. Unlike other web hosts, who limit the hard disk storage space, monthly bandwidth, domain names, and databases that a customer has access to, Brain Host employs a simple unlimited strategy. There is no limit to the bandwidth, disk space, email address accounts, databases, or add-on domains a customer can utilize. That increases the overall value of a plan, and it saves businesses from the hard choice of deciding whether to upgrade to a pricier plan for more features, or deal with a more budget-friendly and feature limited option. The value of these plans is further enhanced by the company’s instant setup and activation times when a new account is ordered. All too often, less-reputable hosts require their clients to wait for hours — or even days — before they fully initialize an account and get all of its services online. That can seriously slow down the deployment process, causing small business owners to miss out on crucial online revenues before they’ve even gotten the process started. Beyond its commitment to instant, high-value plans, Brain Host offers 24-hour customer service, seven days per week. They pair this commitment to customer service with a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee on all of their products, ensuring that small business owner won’t miss out on sales or marketing opportunities because their web hosting server is inaccessible for hours at a time. Simply put, small business owners need look no further than Brain Host when getting their company online. They’ll enjoy reliable service, top-notch support, and unlimited features, all as a part of their low hosting fee. On top of that, their business will enjoy access to millions of Internet and mobile device users. The business will benefit from online commerce, contact, and blogging tools, as well as social media, resulting in a win-win scenario for businesses. Follow BrainHost on Twitter and on Facebook. Find out more about Sponsored Posts From Small Business Trends |
| How to Get the Most Out of Your Facebook Advertising Posted: 07 Aug 2012 08:00 AM PDT We all know how effective content marketing can be when it comes to moving your products and sharing your services on the web. Part of carefully planning and executing your content strategy is knowing exactly what works on your different content outlets—your blog, website, social media, and so on.
Not all content is the same when it comes to publishing across different mediums. Just because you can publish all your blog posts to Facebook with one click, for example, doesn't mean that forwarding blog posts to Facebook should be your entire Facebook strategy. When it comes to Facebook, you can push your blog content onto it, but you need a special position to really make that work. You also need more than your own branded content, or it just won't sit well with your audience. Here's a quick look at these and other tips on how to position your content on Facebook to maximize those Likes, and encourage Facebook fans to click back to your website—instead of "unfriending" your business. It's Okay to Push Blog Content to Facebook…Most of the TimePublishing blog content to Facebook is a great way to invite new and regular readers to your blog content. Just pressing the "send" button and letting automatic formatting do the rest isn't enough, though—you have to pay close attention to how your blog post will show up on your Facebook page and ask yourself why your Facebook fans should click it. You need to make sure that both the title for your Facebook post and the "slug," the text box below the title, are engaging and invite your fans to click and read more. Automatic, one-click publishing tools that send your blog posts directly to Facebook won't be careful with the title or slug lines at all, since all they can do is blindly aggregate content straight from your blog post. When you post a link, if the title or the slug line is too long, shorten it for easier consumption. It's True: Size Really Does Matter When It Comes to Those Posts Even if you're posting directly to Facebook, you need to keep a close eye on just how much you're saying, and whether all of it is useful or not. The slug line in a Facebook post will let you copy and paste any size content into the box if you click it to edit the text, but that text box will be cut off at 170 characters. Just like a Twitter post, character count is essential. Virtue, a major corporate social media company, considers 240 characters per post the highest limit for "meaningful post size." That number comes from their study of over 11,000 Facebook posts from major brands around the world. Text posts allow many more characters as well as links, but Virtue's findings show that the fewer characters, the better. Engagement rates start from their highest point at 0 characters and scale down sharply as more characters are added. These findings suggest that you're more likely to attract likes, comments, and fans to your Facebook posts if you keep it incredibly short and easy to visually digest in a split-second. Reaching Beyond Your Own Business: Sharing StrategiesContent marketing isn't a closed loop. Feedback comes from all sorts of different sources, and so can your Facebook content. If you find something online that is relevant to your business or your audience's interests, even if you didn't produce that content yourself, you ought to share it with your fans. The text and title space for your post can be used to relate the post back to your business, or appeal directly to your fans' interests. Don't mistakenly think that posting somebody else's stuff to your business page online is stealing, or driving business away from you. Interacting with your fans through their interests, rather than your business's, is an excellent way to build loyalty and trust and appreciation with your fans. One of my favorite examples of this has to be news sites. Some of my favorite online news providers will "celebrate" each Friday by posting something cute, funny, or interesting to their Facebook fan page that has absolutely nothing to do with their business. An animated .GIF image of cute kittens isn't going to help me sell my services, but it opens the floor for candid, personal interaction with your Facebook fans. If they like it, they'll share it to their page, and you'll potentially earn new Facebook fans through those share opportunities. Most Importantly: Be PersonalSometimes business owners and marketers are blinded by Facebook's massive numbers and forget what the service really is about. Facebook has 900 million active users, which translates immediately to dollar signs to social media marketers. Those 900 million active users are using the site to post personal information and interact with their friends and acquaintances, though; those users definitely aren't looking for hard sells or endlessly repetitive pitches and offers. One of the fundamental first steps to using a social media service is learning how the average user uses it, and Facebook is no different. If you don't always keep in mind that Facebook users are there to have fun and share their personal lives, then you're going to inevitably be too sales-y, chase fans away and develop a bad reputation. The solution? Treat Facebook users as your friends, and don't hesitate to relax around them and share content casually. You can post content from your business, but instead of a hard sales pitch, share it as a suggestion. "Hey, check this cool thing out," instead of "Act now! Buy, buy, buy!" Your fans will appreciate your Facebook posts for it, and your likes and engagement rates will reflect that appreciation. Like Photo via Shutterstock From Small Business Trends |
| Should Small Businesses Care About Promoted Tweets and Accounts? Posted: 07 Aug 2012 05:00 AM PDT Anita Campbell, Founder of Small Business Trends, recently shared the news that Twitter had begun to debut Targeted Tweets, after teasing the SMB-focused self-serve ad system since earlier this year. But paid ads can be hit or miss for small business owners, especially when they're self-serve and there's no representative to help guide you through the process.
So how do you know if Twitter's Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts are right for your business or if it's just another thing that will distract you from your goals? First off, if you missed Anita's post or Twitter's official announcement, you may not be aware that there are two new advertising options available for business owners looking to grow their influence on Twitter. The new ad options come in the form of Promoted Accounts and Promoted Tweets:
The neat thing about Twitter ads for a small business owner is that it takes the impetus off you to do or create anything new. Unlike traditional ads, Twitter is simply highlighting your best content and putting it (and you) in front of more people. It lets you advertise AND get back to work at the same time. Even better, advertisers will only pay when someone follows their account or engages with their content that's been promoted. It sounds enticing, but how do you know if you're ready to make the jump to Twitter ads? Below are some things to consider: 1. Do you have an existing Twitter strategy? Before you spend money to promote your tweets or your Twitter account, you better be certain that there is something there worth following. Otherwise, you're sending out invites for people to come see your empty, dusty house. Before you start paying for Twitter followers and traffic, create a solid Twitter strategy and let it run for a month or two to build up a history of quality tweets and engagement. This is necessary not only to attract people but to help Twitter match you with the right kind of users. A sample SMB tweeting schedule may look something like this:
By putting a real Twitter strategy in place, and sticking to it, it ensures you have something worth promoting, while also giving Twitter something to match you with. 2. Have you been trying to grow your network without ads? I would never recommend someone start paying for Twitter ads unless they have first tried to grow their network without them. You want to get out all your early mistakes, find your posting style, and get comfortable with the site before you start paying to play. You also want to see if you even need to buy ads. If you find that you're seeing a lot of engagement and gaining followers easily, then buying ads or paying to promote your content may not be an expense you need. It's not that paid advertising should be a last resort for growing an account, but I think having a solid knowledge of the site and an existing follower base will help make your ads more successful. You also want to make sure Twitter is something you'll stick with before you pay for followers you won't convert. 3. Is your brand recognizable? If you've had a difficult time getting the word out about your Twitter presence, but you know your customers are out there and are looking for you, advertising is a great way to build that exposure. For example, I often browse Twitter's Promoted Accounts option to scan for people or businesses that I may be aware of but who I'm not already following. This helps connect me with local businesses I frequent, but also with thought leaders whose blogs I read. As a consultant or a known business in your area, getting your face or your logo in that box can be a big boon in helping to attract to followers. But for that to work, you need to have the reputation and the brand recognition to pull it off. If you're not there yet (and that's okay), then just seeing your face won't be enough to make someone want to click through and follow you. 4. Do you have a way to track your ads? Before you spend money toward any kind of advertising you need to understand how you're going to track it and put a system in place. For Twitter ads, this may mean using Google Analytics to see how much traffic is coming from Twitter or sticking with the analytics dashboard Twitter offers to advertisers to track followers and activity. However, it could also mean creating a special landing page where you drive Twitter users. Or creating Twitter-specific codes or coupons to track customers who find you through these funnels. Determine how you're going to track the ads that you're creating and stay on top of it. Otherwise, you're just spending money. For small- and medium-sized business owners looking to grow their Twitter followers, I think the new ads provide a lot of powerful options. But they're not going to work for everyone. If you're going to give them a try, making sure you're already producing valuable content, that you have a strategy in place, and that you have a way to track the ads you're putting out. From Small Business Trends |
| Best Buy Founder Offers to Purchase Retailer Posted: 07 Aug 2012 02:30 AM PDT Entrepreneurs are an unusual breed, wanting the control necessary to see their vision through to success. Today's roundup looks at entrepreneurs big and small, and some of the commonalities all of them share. Let us know about your own experiences as a business leader in the comment section below. Righting the ShipBack in the saddle. A few months after stepping down as the company's chairman, Best Buy founder Richard Schulze is trying to take the struggling retailer private, at between $24 and $26 per share. In a letter to the board, Schulze said bold changes were needed to rejuvenate the company. Bloomberg Surprise, surprise. Sometimes troubles facing an entrepreneur are very different than the challenges that existed when the business launched. For example, Facebook’s disappointing IPO has little to do with building cool social tools and awesome user experiences. Entrepreneurs must tackle all kinds of issues as they arise. Business Insider Learning from OthersHappy accidents. Anita Campbell, founder of Small Business Trends, claims she got into publishing by accident, but a happier accident cannot be imagined. Her flagship site is now a major resource for business owners and has also won several awards. Sometimes an entrepreneur’s best idea comes unexpectedly. The key is to know when to take action. Billion Success How not to market yourself. Kare Anderson has a perfect example of how not to become your target audience’s favorite—spend too much time on your story and avoid obvious opportunities to be compared favorably with your competitors. Here’s what Kare learned about marketing from a political campaign some years ago. Forbes Keeping It RealRoll up your sleeves. If your one of those entrepreneurs who thinks starting a business involves sitting in an ivory tower somewhere making decisions that others implement, well, think again! Successful entrepreneurs, especially in a startup, are always prepared to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty. Startup Professionals Musings Great expectations. Are we becoming unreasonable with our expectations for startups? In a post called “Ten Million Users Is The New One Million Users”, one angel investor explains the incredible expectations, especially for consumer Web companies since Facebook. But clever entrepreneurs know starting small is also an option. Chris Dixon Satisfaction guaranteed. If you want to know the real reason why people become entrepreneurs, says Tom Ewer, it may not be the money. In fact, Ewer sites a survey in which it’s argued that the most satisfied workers aren’t the best paid. The question is whether you can build a business that satisfies you and gives your life purpose. This, Ewer believes, is the real point of entrepreneurship. MyWifeQuitHerJob.com From Small Business Trends |
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